On the Shelf

MY LIFE IN ORANGE
By Tim Guest
Granta Books
Price: £12

A sad modern document of growing up as a child in an Osho commune, this book is a new testament to kids needing a monitored life and plenty of hugs. Tim Guest grew up with 200 mothers and fathers since the age of six, dressed in red or orange always, watched his mother chant and meditate while he was left unsupervised, longing, always longing, for her attention. But Guest doesn’t blame his mother any longer. He accepts and understands that her generation was in revolt and swept away by the need to find an alternative to the straightjacket of conservative life patterns in the West. Instead, Guest documents all that he witnessed and experienced in a matter-of-fact style, while being upfront about his own loneliness and confusion. The movement blew up in 1985, ‘Bhagwan’ was deported and his 93 Rolls Royces sold, his communes mostly disbanded. Guest went back to the ‘normal’ world. It took him a while to sort out his feelings and write a book. The wonder is that he did, given that people turn psycho with even a little neglect.