English Translation of the Article entitled “Life is a Fortress” written by Bharathi Thambi appearing on Page No. 44 and 45 in The Tamil Weekly “ANANDA VIKATAN” DATED 28.01.09

The drawings/ pictures / paintings of Pratiksha are on display at Lalit Kala Academy, Chennai.  They pierce through the various layers of our mind.  On majority of the paintings we find Buddha smiling.

Pratiksha is a resident of Delhi.  She is the daughter of one of the brother of Osho.  Osho has five brothers.  Her father, Vijay is the third brother of Osho.  Pratiksha had her early education at Pune and even as a small girl she was conquered by the love of Osho.  Everybody loved Osho and he was fond of telling stories to children and makes them laugh.  The long beard of Osho was the favorite play thing for Pratiksha.

Pratiksha intones softly the words of Osho who had created new waves in the Indian spiritual tradition.  “ Osho says that he is not teaching any moral code or discipline.  His concern is only to beautify the present moment, because the present moment is the only purpose of life.  My paintings also reflect only this.  You can feel the present moment when you are alone and in the long silence when air seems to feel the silence.”

Pratiksha has spent her youth with Osho.  She picked up an interest in garment designing.  She has spent about 15 years as the Personal Fashion Designer for such celebrities as Zakir Hussain, Vinod Khanna and Kapil Dev.  She had designed the dress of Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he was the Prime Minister and also earlier.  When the Pakistan President Parvez Mussharaff visited India for the second time she had acted as Fashion Designer for him.  But she was fed up with this kind of life at a certain point of time.  She felt that this kind of Designer’s job was not going to help her to move close to her inner being.  When this awareness dawned on her in 2003 she gave up Fashion Designing completely.

Afterwards her interest naturally turned towards drawing paintings.  But till then she had no training in painting.  Nor had she ever painted anything.  As soon as she took the brush her inner being directed her to paint.  Whatever thought she had in her mind came out as colors.

Pratiksha says “ The life that we lead outwardly is totally unreal.  You sit in solitude and put these questions to yourself: Who am I?  What Kind of thoughts drives me to act? Why am I living?  When did I laugh last time?”  Then only you will become aware of the time that had been wasted.”

She continues: “for example when you look at river the water that that you are looking at is changing each moment.  Life s a flux and it flows from one cup to another filling everything.  The time taken in the middle for the journey is alone called life.  My paintings are an invitation to understand this and to celebrate life.  After seeing my paintings many of the leading artists of our country consider it a miracle that someone is painting like this without training.  But there is nothing to wonder in this, because I have not drawn them.  Osho who is guiding my Atman is drawing them.

“Osho is not only my uncle.  He is my Guru.  He is my Atman.  I grew up with him till I was 27.  He is filled with love, compassion and humour.  There are many controversies about him during his life time and even now.  It is true that he had 98 Rolls Royce Cars when he was in America.  But he never purchased even a single one; his disciples presented them all to him.  He had no pockets in his dress.  He also never had the habit of keeping money.  He created a new city called Rajneeshpuram in America.  Some people became jealous and they raised the issue of citizenship.  The Government of Ronald Reagan arrested him.  In fact Osho never followed any religion including Jainism in which he was borne.  He never advocated any religion.  He criticized continuously all the religions of the world.  Osho changed the idea that mystics and philosophers are long-faced and unapproachable.  He emphasized celebration throughout his life.  To those who superficially understood Osho as a sex Guru he replied that he was hare not for them to understand him but he was here for them to understand themselves.

“ Osho accepted with his outstretched arms only Buddha.  Along with the simple life advocated by Buddha Osho emphasized celebration also.  Nowadays when Religions have become like Multinational companies someone like Buddha is absolutely needed for us.”

Let Buddha come!
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