Hi Turey,
I've told this story before, but the very talented woman (I'll refer to her a S) who sculpted the statue of Shri Hans is the very same woman I worked closely with at DECA. We grew to be good friends. She didn't drive so I was also her sort-of chaufeur around Miami. She is a fine artist and also painted many portraits of Shri Maharaji at Maharaji's request. Her job at DECA was to draw and color renderings of the B707, and any other thing that was ever designed there.
I also shared a room with her at the Broadripple and we were gopis together. We embroidered M's Krishna pants for some 1979 programs and also made some malas that he wore at the HJ fests. I loved her a lot because she is such a good person, so talented, so down to earth, and I loved being her friend. During my difficult spots when I was sick, she was a great comfort to me.
Because she had worked at DLM in Denver, then later lived in the Malibu area, and had done so much artwork for Maharaji over the years, she had lots and lots of darshan stories. So, while we were holed up in our room very late at night (after DECA duties) at the Broadripple ashram, she'd tell me her darshan stories while we did the embroidery of the gold thread onto the Krishna pants, and my gopi ears were glued to her every word. This was during a time when both of us were seeing M every day, and were always in that unnatural state of darsan bliss.. I can't explain it, but we were out of our minds on the foot-worship, gopism during this time at DECA and the Broadripple.
Btw, we didn't sew the pants themselves -- they had already been sewn by a seamstress and fitted to M, then given to S for us to embroider.
Anyway, her story is that M asked her to make a scupture of Shri Maharaji, and he gave her a photo to work from. She'd never done a scuplture before. Nervous as S always was about doing anything for him, (despite her extraordinary artistic talent) she did the first clay sculpture by hand and then it had to be cast. It's not easy to work from a photo when making a full sculpture of someone and in Rawat's usual way, her deadline was non-existent. He never gave her enough time to do any job right. He never gave anyone enough time to do things well. Always a rush, needed yesterday.
So, under great pressure and extreme nervousness, she had the figure cast, while parts were falling apart here and there, while she worried and worried so much about it being done for the big unveiling at the residence. She knew it wasn't right, but there was no time to fix it, so it was delivered to the Malibu residence for it's big, eventful unveiling.
S stood by while Maharaji took the shroud off of the statue of Shri Maharaji and said flatly to her, "It doesn't look like him." No emotion, no thanks, just those words, in front of everyone there.
Her words to me when retelling this story were, "I felt like the earth should open up and swallow me. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed, so humiliated, but by his grace...whatever..he's the Lord, everything happens for a reason." She told me she knew it wasn't life-like and even kind of scary, but she had put everything of herself into making it.
There's no limit to how big of a bastard, a total nasty prick that Prem Rawat can be to the people who love him the most. This was how Rawat treated the woman who was one of the most innocent, lovely, devoted premies I have ever known.
