Buddha At The Gas Pump

Geneviève De Coux was born in 1947 in Namur, Belgium during her parents’ holidays. The family lived in the Belgian Congo. Geneviève and her brother enjoyed an idyllic childhood until 1960, the year of the Congo’s independence. The family emigrated to Belgium. Their paradise was lost. Geneviève found herself in Brussels, this radical change of scenery stoked the fire of her ontological search and she found refuge in art. In 1968 during her second year at the university while studying her philosophy paper, she stumbled upon a saying of Socrates which hit her straight in the heart: “Know thyself”! Realising that this was precisely what she had always been looking for, she instantly dropped her studies and set out for India by road in search of a living Socrates or Buddha. On reaching the Himalayan foot-hills, she led a meditative and ascetic life by the Ganges in Rishikesh, waiting to meet her master. The locals called her Mira because of her devoted renunciation. At the end of 1968, in circumstances well wort