Raju

Raju (Andreas Stuedle)

by Shreyas

A few weeks after Osho left the Ranch, I moved to Seattle for three months to live in a houseboat. There, at a sannyas festival, I met Raju.

There is really such a thing as ‘love at first sight’. To fall in love with a woman at first sight is probably more of a biological thing. I don’t know. But it happened to me a few times with men. And that’s how it was with Raju. We met, and it felt as if we had been best friends for years.

We also had in common that his girlfriend and mine danced in the same topless bar…

We had so much fun together, many serious conversations, and we played chess together.

We even started a so-called chain letter. After two weeks, we found out that we were the only ones to earn anything and that whoever was down the chain came away empty-handed. We immediately agreed that this was not right, and we stopped the game. It just shows what a very sensitive, yet still masculine man he was.

This instant affection has always remained in our hearts.

It wasn’t until 25 years later that we met again in an Italian restaurant in Freiburg, and from then on, we remained in touch through Facebook.

He was living back in Freiburg (he had grown up on a vineyard in Baden near Freiburg), was married and divorced again, and had a daughter. He worked for the Red Cross in youth welfare. Yes, he had the qualities of a soft, warm father, just the way you wanted a father to be. Perhaps it was also this love that I had immediately felt in him.

For the last 10 years, my contact with him was via the comments he wrote on almost each one of my Facebook posts. Always respectful, funny, clever, and creative.

He died on 10 March 2024 from a fall in his flat. He was found the next day.

I miss him, although we never met in recent years, except in our hearts.

Shreyas

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