To The Editor
India Today
New Delhi
Dear Friend
In 1997, when Independent India became 50, we published a book by Osho, entitled India My Love. Dr. Manmohan Singh who was the Union Finance Minister that time, released this book during a glittering ceremony in Delhi. Mr. Pritish Nandy, the former editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, had given a beautiful comment to be published on the back cover of this wonderful book. I admired his statement. He wrote: “Few people have understood India like Osho. It was an understanding at many levels. The philosophical, the historic, the purely emotional – and even the political and the literary, the wanton and the spiritual. His was a holistic understanding. An understanding that went beyond words, into the uncharted terrain of true love. For love was at the core of everything that Osho believed in. It was the ultimate message he left for us. To discover, experience, savour life through love.”
20 years have passed and recently, India Today brought out a celebratory issue (September 25, 2017: 70 movers and shapers who changed how we think, behave and do business) to celebrate 70 years of India’s Independence by publishing articles about 70 remarkable people. I was happy to see that there was one article about Osho also.
And it was by Pristish Nandy. I was expecting that by now Pritish must have become a bit more mature and wiser. But I was totally disappointed to see such an idiotic article. His writing ( Rockstar gone wrong: Rajneesh was a godman for all those who were too human) lacks depth and maturity. It seems it has been written by a juvenile journalist (some chhokra) who wanted to create some sensation by harping on sex, sex and more sex and 300 Rolls-Royces. (A quick Google search could have given him the exact number of cars, yet it seems he did not have any patience to check the facts.)
Pritish Nandy seems to be obsessed with sex only, without any knowledge about the total number of books by Osho. By now the whole world knows and millions of book-lovers know as well that Osho is the author of 650 books, besides the one book From Sex to Super Consciousness, that throws light on the transformation and sublimation of sex energy. These books have been made available in about a hundred languages all over the world. Besides millions of common people, so many eminent people, such as artists, writers , psychologists, scientists and therapists are reading them. The list of such people is endless. Here I can provide the web-links for the readers to see for themselves.
http://www.osho.com/read/osho/
http://www.osho.com/read/osho/
Now I wonder what has really happened to Pritish Nandy that he wrote such trash. And what happened to India Today Magazine that it could not find anybody who is worthy to do a real in-depth article on this mystic. It was certainly a worthless piece on Osho. I expect India Today Magazine editors feel sorry and show better understanding next time.
To conclude, I am providing two comments on Osho by two other senior journalists who preceded Pritish Nandy as the editors of Illustrated Weekly of India:
“He was the most original thinker that India has produced: the most erudite, the most clear-headed and the most innovative. And in addition he had an inborn gift of words, spoken and written. The like of him we will not see for decades to come…”
“It is a religion for the irreligious, for the agnostic, for the unbeliever, for the rationalist.”
– Khushwant Singh
“With Osho, words flow endlessly. Provocatively. Challengingly. In a hundred years more copies of Osho’s works will have been printed than the Bible itself, till now the outstanding best-seller.”
– M. V. Kamath
And I feel it appropriate to mention what Dr. Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India said about Osho on the occasion of the launch of India My Love:
“Osho will long be remembered as a great philosopher – saint and mystic of the twentieth century. His life and work will continue to inspire future generations of humankind and his powerful message of essential unity of mankind will help us to evolve a new global code of ethics for the improvement of the human condition.”
– Dr. Manmohan Singh
Swami Chaitanya Keerti
Editor: Osho World Magazine
Osho World Foundation
New Delhi
( India Today article by now has got 64 responses including my response…Here’s the link: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/…