Michael Althen

When I think of Michael, I think of him sitting in front of a school or what it exactly was, I don*t know, he has his dark blue down jacket on and jeans and brown desert boots and he has this book by Einar Schleef in his hand and a very shaky chair that he has to sit on, there is a donkey walking by or a monkey jumping overhead, this is India, after all, Rishikesh, the place of healers, yogi, death, but we did not know that at the time. Michael was supposed to read from the Schleef text, it might have been Gertrud, I cannot remember. He tried to sit here and there and over there, the people walking by looked at him with a certain amusement that he picked up and liked, it was ridiculous and he knew it and it was fine – he had this aura of doubt and curiosity, this sense of being sceptical and non judgemental at the same time that was so very much like him. We filmed him there and then walked on to the Ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, we had to bribe the men guarding the place, they had leprosy we were told, and Michael walked the whole time with a certain swagger, he was amused to be doing this, amused to be here on the river Ganges, looking, taking it all in. The Ashram was like a castle drowned, underwater, just all the water was gone and the plants had stayed, had taken back what was their*s. We climbed to the highest roof, there were towers like eggs on it, the forest was lost in mist, the monkeys came and listened to us, they watched us. Who are they? What do they want? Michael could not have told them. But he knew. He sat down as he read again. We were there forever. We are still there. Today would have been Michael*s birthday.