Sideliner's personal space
Oh, hello. Make yourself at home.
Baked Beans on Toast as a SacramentOscar Wilde - Playwright and Wit
Here's my story.
My life began in a religious cult. The Chosen One was a young Indian boy, whose name became Guru Maharaji upon his inauguration, and whose life is now forfeit to his followers, the Premies.
Maharaji travelled the world, holding festivals and giving holy talks at venues such as Spanish 
bull-rings
and the Albert Hall in London. We, his followers, drove our convoys of clapped out cars and chartered
buses to see him as often as we could. Maharaji would be dressed in robes and a gigantic crown,
and would stand dwarfed on stages painstakingly carpeted with tightly-packed carnation heads.
Sometimes, he would be placed on a chair on a dais, with his bare feet on a cushion, and tens of thousands
of us would file past in silence to kiss his feet and feel suffused with his divinity. Sometimes, the young
Maharaji would stand on a water-tank in a meadow, with an industrial water-pistol in front of him: he'd
soak the Premies with streams of rainbow-coloured water until everyone's clothes were brown. We kept
these brown clothes as holy relics.
Maharaji was our deity, whose love encompassed the world. I was confident that he was constantly there for me, small though I was.
When I was eight, my family moved from our hippie commune into a Volkswagen camper-van and we set
off across Europe. After many adventures, we settled on a Mediterranean island, covered in woodland and
surrounded by reefs. I took to roaming the countryside with a pack of feral dogs, and snorkelled many days
away among the reefs. My love of animals flourished. Like a New-age Gerald Durrell, I'd run home with
tortoises, emerald lizards, chocolate-coloured scorpions and many other specimens to show to my family
or to hide in my bedroom.
We moved house every few months: my father worked in return for lodging in tourist villas, peasant
cottages and millionaires' summer houses.
I adopted a kestrel with a broken wing. One day, she was struck down by a mystery illness. I prayed to Maharaji to save her life, but still she died. This was the moment when I began to question my faith. As an atheist, my admiration for Maharaji has not diminished: I am inspired by the success he has made of his unusual life.
The strain of constantly moving house took its toll on my parents, and they parted. I was brought back to Britain, where I started school. I learned, swiftly and harshly, that being top of the class does not win you friends, so I became a semi-popular also-ran. But people never stopped saying to me, 'you're... well, different.'
When a stalker destroyed what was left of our family unity, I left home to take my 'A' levels in a
new town. A potter, who lived in a beautiful cottage near my school, had told me not to listen to those who
insisted I study science to get a good job.
'Study what you enjoy,' he said. 'I chose to do art, and now I'm fulfilling my dream.'
I went on to do a degree in Old English literature, and here I am today, living in a cottage as beautiful as that of the potter who gave me such timely advice. But I haven't fulfilled my dream... yet.
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Sideliner
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