Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

listened to their endlessly repeated satsangs (‘we are bery
lucky souls’) and saw my diarrhea patients.
That is, until I myself got sick. No diarrhea, but a
headache like the scratching of a woman’s nails in my
forehead and a fever that put a layer of down between
me and the world. Andy by that time had gotten the help
of a local doctor who treated anything that wasn’t diarrhea
with capsules of red pepper. Same for my fever, that
reacted by jumping up with leaps till the world was reduced
to my sleeping bag twisted in the dust and getting
up only existed in my dreams. Nobody had taken my job,
which resulted in very scarce memories of those last days
in India.
When at the end of our stay the buses were ready
to leave, the housemother of the Amsterdam ashram
ignored the commandment of a true follower to not be
‘attached’: she went looking for me and got me to the
airport. Of the flight I remember a KLM-blanket and lots
of sleep. And healthcare officials that rapidly picked me
out of the line at the Schiphol gate. Alarmed, I guess, and
wary that I imported something ugly for public health.
When that turned out not to be the case, but just a solid
sinusitis, I got antibiotics and a ride to the ashram at the
Sarphatistraat.
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