The Story
of Swamiji's Orange Clothes from the Early Years
Written by Asha Praver
In November 2003 when Swamiji embarked for India, he pulled
out his India clothes, the very old gerua [orange] garments
that, he says now, he wore during his early years in India.
I recognized them as the clothes he had in the 1970s at
Ananda Village.
He went to India for SRF in 1958 and lived there till 1962.
…
He kept those clothes all those years. He returned to India
a decade later, 1972, and then again in 1978 (I believe
it was 1978, after he finished The Path), and then, of course,
went from time to time after that as well. I don't know
how many times more.
Probably on some of those trips he had other clothes made,
but still, among the orange clothes in his closet now are
those that date back to 1958. Probably it is obvious which
those are.
In 2003, I believe it was many of those original "swami
clothes" that he pulled out and asked us to dye with
the actual gerua [natural dye to obtain orange color], which
he also had a lump of in a plastic bag. I remember the lump
of gerua also from Ananda Village.
You [Cecilia] were there in Laura's laundry room, as I recall,
when she and I were dying those original garments again.
What I remember so touchingly is that we hung the still
wet, newly dyed garments out to dry in the air. Swamiji
was taking a walk along his driveway and he saw them hanging
there. He then remarked -- it was a very emotional time
for all of us, his plan to go back to India -- that seeing
those clothes hanging there, newly dyed, made the return
to India real for him. It was a "return" not because
he had never visited since 1962 but because he was returning
to finish the work in India.
Many of those clothes were old and worn and stained, which
further confirms that he wore them in India in those early
years.
