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Just in case anyone wonders, I know the reviewer via e-mail (she wrote to me to ask for a review copy) and I am not at all offended by the first sentence. (I gather from the many, many times I've heard variations on it that it was a widely shared sentiment, alas.) Rather, I am torn between which is funnier, that or the last sentence. Or this one: The rumour among the Australian kids was that the Californian Baba-lovers stowed crystals up their bums; certainly they walked as though they did.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost
Sharing a common childhood experience with the author makes Shakira Hussein wonder if there is anyone more irritating than a Californian Baba-lover
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 15, 2006
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost
By Rachel Manija Brown
Sceptre, 324pp, $22
THIS is a childhood memoir by someone whom I remember from when we were both children, although at the time I regarded her as the most insufferable brat ever to walk the face of the earth.
Mani Brown (as she was then) lived for much of her childhood at an Indian ashram devoted to Meher Baba, who was the guru of her parents and my stepfather.
In the aftermath of scandals over literary fakes such as James Frey and Norma Khouri, the question of authenticity hangs over any remotely exotic memoir. So I'm happy to settle one issue: Brown isn't making it up.
I remember her and most of the characters in her book from family trips to India, and her memories are broadly consistent with my own. The only notable exception is that I had her down as a nauseating Baba conformist when apparently she was a nasty little cynic all along.
Neither Brown nor I met Baba, who "dropped his body" (to use the Baba terminology) before either of us were on the scene. We did, however, get a close-up view of some of his more flaky disciples, an experience that drove Brown to atheism and catapulted me gratefully back into the embrace of my paternal family's Islamic faith. Baba followers refer to themselves as Baba-lovers, a term that illustrates a certain Baba tendency to saccharine. Like Brown, I remain very fond of some Baba-lovers; but, also like Brown, I've spent much of my adult life dining out on tales of their deep weirdness.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost tells the story of how Brown, aged seven, was uprooted from her home in Los Angeles by her parents' decision to live in India and devote their lives to Baba. Baba did not engage in the financial or sexual shenanigans of some other high-profile gurus. He is best remembered for coining the maxim "Don't worry, be happy", for being the guru of the Who's Pete Townshend, and for having refrained from speaking for the last 44 years of his life, communicating instead through sign language and an alphabet board. Brown's memoir is not an expose of a dangerous cult but an absurdist comedy whose characters are mad rather than bad.
Religion of any kind attracts the mildly unhinged, but obscure and off-beat religions attract more than their share. In the case of Baba-lovers, as with other Indian faiths, this is complicated by the belief in holy madmen, masts who have become intoxicated with love of God.
The ashram had its own resident mast, a revered figure from whom pilgrims were nevertheless warned to keep a safe distance.
Western pilgrims also went crazy on a regular basis, wandering naked on to the volleyball court, or scandalising the locals by announcing their divinity.
However much these Westerners may have believed that their craziness was divinely inspired, the senior Indian disciples were having none of it. Reverence for holy madmen was juxtaposed with a total lack of sentimentality towards those who were just plain mad. Crazed pilgrims were briskly sedated, hospitalised and shipped home.
The line between earthly and divine madness, so clear-cut to believers, can seem a fine one to outsiders. Brown asks the Indian disciples "how one might tell the difference between a madman who thought he was God and a genuine incarnation. They responded that it was obvious when you met them. Madmen seemed mad; gods seemed godly."
Even those American Baba-lovers who weren't clinically insane could reach heights of peculiarity never quite attained by their Australian counterparts (never mind the Indians, who tended to be bracingly practical). The rumour among the Australian kids was that the Californian Baba-lovers stowed crystals up their bums; certainly they walked as though they did. Their religious fervour was untempered by any redeeming touch of irony. Western Baba-lovers were also discouraged from venturing far beyond the ashram, the Indian disciples having decided, sensibly enough, that they lacked the commonsense to stay out of trouble. But this meant that the resident Westerners were isolated in a very small and eccentric community, a situation that was trying for the adults and utterly miserable for Brown. Her writing is at its strongest when she is describing this claustrophobic and demented world. Her descriptions of the India beyond the ashram are less compelling, perhaps because this territory has already been so well explored by legions of Indian and foreign writers.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost is a thoughtful and funny account of how even the most laid-back religion can produce total insanity if a tiny community of believers is isolated from the rest of the world.
As a Muslim, I'm highly conscious of the fact that there are, as yet, no Baba-inspired suicide bombers. There are complex theological reasons why I chose Islam over Baba, and one practical one: with more than one billion Muslims in the world, it's pretty easy to avoid mixing with the ones I don't like. Islamic extremism may be a whole lot more dangerous than Baba extremism, but as Brown's book illustrates, if it were possible to irritate someone to death, there are Californian Baba-lovers who would manage it.
Shakira Hussein is editor of Shalom Pax Salam.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost
Sharing a common childhood experience with the author makes Shakira Hussein wonder if there is anyone more irritating than a Californian Baba-lover
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 15, 2006
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost
By Rachel Manija Brown
Sceptre, 324pp, $22
THIS is a childhood memoir by someone whom I remember from when we were both children, although at the time I regarded her as the most insufferable brat ever to walk the face of the earth.
Mani Brown (as she was then) lived for much of her childhood at an Indian ashram devoted to Meher Baba, who was the guru of her parents and my stepfather.
In the aftermath of scandals over literary fakes such as James Frey and Norma Khouri, the question of authenticity hangs over any remotely exotic memoir. So I'm happy to settle one issue: Brown isn't making it up.
I remember her and most of the characters in her book from family trips to India, and her memories are broadly consistent with my own. The only notable exception is that I had her down as a nauseating Baba conformist when apparently she was a nasty little cynic all along.
Neither Brown nor I met Baba, who "dropped his body" (to use the Baba terminology) before either of us were on the scene. We did, however, get a close-up view of some of his more flaky disciples, an experience that drove Brown to atheism and catapulted me gratefully back into the embrace of my paternal family's Islamic faith. Baba followers refer to themselves as Baba-lovers, a term that illustrates a certain Baba tendency to saccharine. Like Brown, I remain very fond of some Baba-lovers; but, also like Brown, I've spent much of my adult life dining out on tales of their deep weirdness.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost tells the story of how Brown, aged seven, was uprooted from her home in Los Angeles by her parents' decision to live in India and devote their lives to Baba. Baba did not engage in the financial or sexual shenanigans of some other high-profile gurus. He is best remembered for coining the maxim "Don't worry, be happy", for being the guru of the Who's Pete Townshend, and for having refrained from speaking for the last 44 years of his life, communicating instead through sign language and an alphabet board. Brown's memoir is not an expose of a dangerous cult but an absurdist comedy whose characters are mad rather than bad.
Religion of any kind attracts the mildly unhinged, but obscure and off-beat religions attract more than their share. In the case of Baba-lovers, as with other Indian faiths, this is complicated by the belief in holy madmen, masts who have become intoxicated with love of God.
The ashram had its own resident mast, a revered figure from whom pilgrims were nevertheless warned to keep a safe distance.
Western pilgrims also went crazy on a regular basis, wandering naked on to the volleyball court, or scandalising the locals by announcing their divinity.
However much these Westerners may have believed that their craziness was divinely inspired, the senior Indian disciples were having none of it. Reverence for holy madmen was juxtaposed with a total lack of sentimentality towards those who were just plain mad. Crazed pilgrims were briskly sedated, hospitalised and shipped home.
The line between earthly and divine madness, so clear-cut to believers, can seem a fine one to outsiders. Brown asks the Indian disciples "how one might tell the difference between a madman who thought he was God and a genuine incarnation. They responded that it was obvious when you met them. Madmen seemed mad; gods seemed godly."
Even those American Baba-lovers who weren't clinically insane could reach heights of peculiarity never quite attained by their Australian counterparts (never mind the Indians, who tended to be bracingly practical). The rumour among the Australian kids was that the Californian Baba-lovers stowed crystals up their bums; certainly they walked as though they did. Their religious fervour was untempered by any redeeming touch of irony. Western Baba-lovers were also discouraged from venturing far beyond the ashram, the Indian disciples having decided, sensibly enough, that they lacked the commonsense to stay out of trouble. But this meant that the resident Westerners were isolated in a very small and eccentric community, a situation that was trying for the adults and utterly miserable for Brown. Her writing is at its strongest when she is describing this claustrophobic and demented world. Her descriptions of the India beyond the ashram are less compelling, perhaps because this territory has already been so well explored by legions of Indian and foreign writers.
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost is a thoughtful and funny account of how even the most laid-back religion can produce total insanity if a tiny community of believers is isolated from the rest of the world.
As a Muslim, I'm highly conscious of the fact that there are, as yet, no Baba-inspired suicide bombers. There are complex theological reasons why I chose Islam over Baba, and one practical one: with more than one billion Muslims in the world, it's pretty easy to avoid mixing with the ones I don't like. Islamic extremism may be a whole lot more dangerous than Baba extremism, but as Brown's book illustrates, if it were possible to irritate someone to death, there are Californian Baba-lovers who would manage it.
Shakira Hussein is editor of Shalom Pax Salam.