Raised In An Ashram

Part 2.

The Very Patient Pharmacist

Emotional Rating: 2/10 (easy read. Implied danger/abduction. Potentially a bit deathy.)

Note: For a bit of context, I recommend reading the post ‘Heidi’ first.

The following funny but terrifying story occurred in india.

1986.

The first time my mother told me ‘no one owns you and you are totally responsible for yourself’ was when I was around 6 years old. I was frequently handed a 3 months working man’s wage from a large stack of money. To be exact the my mother’s bedroom was filled with neatly arranged piles which seemed to have collected several millions of Indian rupees. My mother was always was up to something and the hundred thousand german marks we’d travelled with had been exchanged. Growing up my environment changed so often that I am surprised at how succinctly I am able to remember the details of our fleeting ‘homes’.

The ‘flat’ we lived in when this story took place and which we only really used to rest our sleepy heads at night was rather minimalist in nature. The shower consisted of a large bucket with a small pot to wet our heads.

The flat was in a quickly erected building. Built exactly in the same fashion as the flats that were being constructed opposite. Laboured by the wives of the often lazy paan spitting men, who barely glanced up towards the sky where there loved ones were dangerously balancing on bamboo sticks. I remember these incredible women had children clinging to them and then also carried huge baskets filled with bricks on their heads. The scenario could easily have been described as a ‘bamboo class action’ waiting to happen. The craggy yellow eyed men would be drinking tea and having a good ol’ gossiping session. Probably scheming in which other ways they could do the least to uphold the patriarchy.

There was always this familiar smell of the smoke (created by the burning bodies of funerals which were held along by the local river)

The sound of rickshaws, the adorable ‘beeping’ mopeds, the yelling were not drowned out by the height of our abode, but instead the fizz and rumble just hung to the humid air, much like the lice to my hair. The smell of neem tree to vanquish the beasts, became a frequent nasal accompaniment too. We tried the ‘cancer’ giving kind but it was hard to get hold of in 1986 and to be honest did nothing much as those sneaky suckers loved my baby blood. Other things that loved baby blood will be mentioned here later. The other aromas were of sweetness, rotting old food, delightful jasmine flowers, incense and diesel. I still love that smell (not in that order).

We had a new found routine and much loved tradition. Our days were always different but our mornings started the same. We’d go to the local german bakery. There we’d bump into other families with kids and my mum would chat and hug. Lots of hugging. Swaying and breathing and laughing. Reflective eyed and shiny haired people in orange, red or pink coloured clothes would speak and fling their arms ( europeans) and in contrast to then a week later not saying a single word for a very long time because they were in silent retreat. The craziness that is India would pretty much glide past us. It’s a phenomenon that one could stand still and feel like you were moving and vice versa. India can mess with ones concept of reality.

After breaky we’d go to the ashram. If we went to meditate then we would be either wearing maroon coloured robes or get changed there. Usually my mama would meet friends (there seemed to be thousands of them there too). One would give their time for free and everyone loved working. They were all smiling a lot so work I think was a good thing.

I want to acknowledge my mother. Her wild, headstrong and disorganised seeming manner came from a clear decision. She wasn’t just going with the flow. There were still undertones of full on boss lady. I guess that’s why, growing up with a whirling Dervisha like her I still somehow believed that I was safe and that all would be ok. She seemed perfectly happy, so why wouldn’t I be?

In retrospective I have now come to the conclusion that children have great resilience. They view the world like anything is possible and that magic is real. They truly are a marvel.

Here the front gate of the Ashram

Everything was available and it was up to me what I would explore. There was a lot of danger too. But my mother made it sound like an afterthought. She trusted me. Despite having had the meetings about making sure that kids looked out for rickshaws that like to kidnap girls by grabbing them straight off the street. I was not worried and I promised that I’d look out for them and make sure no one grabbed me from moving vehicles.

One of my favorite things to do was going on mopeds driven by my friends who were little. Maybe 10 years old. Often a taller kid had to be the back seat driver so they could use their legs to keep the balance and the kid in the front would be the steerer. Sometimes we’d have three kids on a moped.

Another thing I had all my friends do, was fill our parents condoms with soap, paper and water and hurl them at unsuspecting people. We did this from roof tops and did not discriminate. Everyone was game! Thus my mum had me insured for breaking things (haft-pflicht versicherung) for several millions due to my active pursuit of danger, mayhem and fun.

I had plenty of friends whom I still know now, whose parents were obviously also ‘stupid-smart’.The term ‘stupid-smart’ is a term I made up because seemingly the grown-ups managed to get so much right and also so many things wrong. The fantastic but also sad thing about living in a commune is that everyone is very self absorbed. They were keeping busy with finding god & enlightenment. Which meant we were left to our own devices. What was puzzling is that the ‘adults’ were ‘looking for themselves’. How could they look for themselves? I thought that they must be stupid? I know where I am and I am only 6. How can they not know who they are?

The lack of rules often meant that nothing was ever hidden from the kids. We saw it all. Our parents had a lot of ‘looking’ to do and we basically tried to help them. They would often say thank you to us for teaching them a lesson about themselves. Sometimes they would feel grateful when I would show them my middle finger.

Here a photo of me eating a fruit and showing them my middle finger

( This is how you did it if you were cool in 1986).

Children were seen as teachers and grown ups as the ones who had lots to learn. The parents were to not ‘intervene’ with the beauty of the child’s uncorrupted innocence. Adults had to unlearn so much and kids well, we came from creativity, love and pure self-expression.

Hence if you did something that didn’t work on a group level everyone would discuss it with you and you soon learned that stealing, lying and being untruthful would be ok as long as you could take responsibility for your actions. Hiding things was not cool. The worst thing one could be called was a ‘phony’. Speak your mind and deal with what there is to deal with. As kids we spoke to grown ups about pretty much anything. Nothing was off the table. If a grown up projected their ‘stuff’ onto you then you could say stop projecting your neurosis onto me. A lot of people had neurosises.

There was a place for us children to go. It was called ‘The kids house’. A building with art stuff and surrounded by little huts. A little further along was the white house where there would be wild Goa style parties that we would go to as well. This is where they had wild trance parties with a sort of chic 80’s yuppie vibe. There we would smoke many things and watch age-inappropriate movies often written by the master that is Stephen King. We would however also paint, dance and play.

To keep ourselves busy we would steal the local indian farmers sugar cane (classic white entitlement. But don’t worry it wasn’t much as we had small bellies and teeny tiny teeth). We enjoyed running through their fields being chased by weirdly inbred dogs and there was lots of yelling. I remember the fear was very real but no one ever got caught.

I loved hanging out by the local well that was 10 meters deep and a minutes stroll from ‘the kids house’. I would swim to the bottom of it and try to grab the deities that local indian towns people put in the well. These were their yearly offerings. Usually they were little temples or gods like Ganesha, made from clay.

The perfect combination of any well is the following: Snakes and a naked swiss family.

Here me swimming in the well


One of my favourite past times was to go off on adventures and come back with crazy things.

Here some of the livestock/items I purchased with my wads of cash:

  • I purchased a huge parrot! It lived on a T-bar by my favourite well. The parrots feathers grew back and he once again became the majestic and beautiful bird he was meant to be. Not one depressive sweaty feather insight. We took the ring off his foot to encourage him to leave the T-bar. Well one fine day he just wasn’t there anymore! I like to think he flew to see his girlfriend.

  • I also bought opals and rubies.

  • Of-course a 6 year old needs humans remains. So my acquisitions included shin bones. There was man, sitting on the side of the road with some hand carved ‘sticks’. He’d use his terrifying smile to lure me in and informed me they were made from human bones. He had me at ‘hello’.

  • Also, there were, Scorpions.

  • Baby chicks that had been died all sorts of colors. Ok I didn’t buy those but my friend did and I thought that made him ’weird’.

  • Bidis (tiny unhygienically rolled, super sweet leaf cigarettes). I smoked those.

  • And ‘Snoopy’ the Puppy.


Snoopy was my compadré. An accomplice. He had one of those sweet labrador snuggle-faces. He was blonde in colour. Our combined enthusiasm meant we were unstoppable. All my adopted friends were licky and sticky, but so was I, so we got on just fine. I shared this dog with my friend Ruho. Her mama was (and still is) a therapist at the ashram and we basically ended up spending our whole childhoods together.

Sadly though our little puppy Snoopy seemed to have had developed some issues. I knew all about issues. Solving things makes things better.

‘My Diagnosis’

It wasn’t lice. That much I knew! I clearly remember proclaiming that Snoopy had the ‘worms’. I had had them in the past. Not the ‘dreaded’ ones but the ‘itchy bum’ones. You see a few weeks earlier I had had an interaction with a grown up. A caring indian house owner from a place we later on lived in called the Dutch palace. She ushered me to talk to her and vehemently asked me to put on some shoes. She tried to warn me that ‘the worms can enter through your feet, work their way up into your brain and then they come out of one’s eyes’. She was so nice. As I recall this memory I was still barefoot when the following situation unfolded. But not all of the information the kind woman had passed on to me, was lost on me! I had learned that worms are bad.

Ruho and I hailed our ride and demanded to be taken to Mg road.

A wild-wild west sort of place where the elephant man actually resided. Leprosy was rife, poverty stricken children would hold little babies as their parents were off finding work the air was smoggy. The shops sold fabrics and it always smelled of mothballs.

We got out of the rickshaw and presented ourselves to the pharmacist. He had an outdoor kiosk style pharmacy. The counter was much taller than us. The kind pharmacist was a good man. Gentle. Professional. Educated. Possibly a little burdened but hopeful.

We explained that snoopy had trouble walking and that it was probably his butt. The man said we need to take him to a vet. We said no he has ‘the worms’. He said ‘human medicine is different to puppy medicine’. Go to animal expert’. We said ‘no’. Who are we kidding. I said ‘no’. He smiled. Nodded his head sideways. Which meant that I was correct. He gave us the worm medicine which we later on forced down the frothing puppy’s mouth. The worms had gotten so bad that by now Snoopy couldn’t lift his lower body off the ground. He was also cranky and bit Ruhos finger … this is where the baby blood as fore-mentioned comes into play. She was very brave and of-course, proud as we did what had to be done. Snoopy was saved and everyone is now ok.

A few days later and my mum and I had just packed our bags to go to Goa on holiday (I know can you friggin believe it…another holiday what is this anyway?). But had according to my mama, whilst smoking one of her 40 a day cigarettes (thank god), randomly overheard a conversation about the some of the ‘kids’ dog. The cute one. The one that had just been put down for rabies.

It turned out that my beloved snoopy had a deadly disease that would mean Ruho and I would need to get the vaccine quick-sticks. We now had lice, ‘the’ worms and ’the’ rabies.

So back to the very patient pharmacist. Sadly though the only type of vaccine he had available was the one that gets injected with very large needles.

14 Neeeeddddlllees into youuuuurrrrr stomach.

We went to many different pharmacies and eventually our friend found medicine that had literally just been invented and are now wonderfully alive.

The packaging of the vaccine looked ‘something like this Image below’. It had ‘Cujo’ fletching his teeth while jumping through a burning ring of fire ( this was a very popular 80’s horror film about a rabid dog that attacks children) I had actually watched ‘Cujo’ a few weeks earlier but had obviously not learned a thing.