Original German Baker sees Devastation
Transcend Terror argues the founder of the German Bakery
Klaus Gutzeit started the original German Bakery many years ago in Pune, at the suggestion and request of some of his sannyasin friends, who sure knew he could bake from previous times in Goa! The news of the blast on Feb 14th in Pune reached Klaus in the calm of the hills of Himachal Pradesh. Despite now being 64-years-old he immediately packed his bags and set off for Pune.
“I was shocked and it was important for me to be there,” said the nomadic German. “On the first day we opened the German bakery years ago in Pune when Osho was alive, there was a mad rush. After that we have never looked back,” he recalled.
“I thought it would help them a little on seeing me, being with them in their moment of grief…also I thought I should give them my support,” said Gutzeit, who is now in Goa, the place where he learnt he had it in him to be a successful baker. He was shocked by the devastation he saw but says terrorism can’t be allowed to win. “When I think about it, I’m filled with anger and sorrow. But we have to live with it and look forward with optimism. We can’t let terrorism win, the human will is much stronger than that,” he said.
The Bakery is now run by a local family, the Kharoses, but Gutzeit got to meet his old Nepalese friend Gopal, who has been in the bakery for 20 years. “I gave him my moral support. I am too old now to be of any real help to him,” said Gutzeit, lovingly called Woody by his friends. “I hope there will be a new German Bakery soon. There is so much moral support and demand for it.”
Woody, a school drop-out, who describes himself as a “simple traveller, doing writing, painting, and photography”, arrived in India in 1970 at the end of a road trip that took him one and half years. He never left.