A GLOWING LIFE, GAHANANANDA ... 2

A singular event that took place early on in Nareshranjan's life was his meeting Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on the occasion of the opening of his brother's shop 'Swadeshi Shipa Bhandar'. Those were turbulent times when the country rose en masse in support of the freedom movement and in the boycott of British goods. Swadeshi was the call of the hour and the inauguration of even a swadeshi shop was a significant affair. That Nareshranjan handed over the first cash memo to Subhas Bose was of momentous significance for the youth and must have cast an indelible impression on his sensitive mind surcharged as it was with the fiery ideals of renunciation and service.

In the centenary celebrations of Sri Ramakrishna in 1937 Naresh was privileged to hear Miss Josephine McLeod speak at the Albert Hall. Miss McLeod, hallowed in the annals of the Ramakrishna Movement, Swami Vivekananda's American associate and helper in his great cause, there she was delivering her oration before the enthralled young Naresh who soaked in every word to relive the glorious past of the Order that now beckoned him on to freshen up its charge and so fashion the future along with so many other young men, idealistic, pure and aspiring to live the holy life. The meeting with Swami Abhedananda, the venerable disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, at Mechhuabazar and his subsequent visit to Dakshineshwar and Belur Math in 1938 at a time when the Main Temple of the Master was still under construction, was the coup de grace which evicted him from his familial life and landed him in the precincts of the Bhuvaneshwar Math.

Led by the inspirational guidance of Swami Vamadevananda and taking only his sister-in-law into confidence, Nareshranjan left home and hearth to join the Order at the Bhuvaneshwar Math where Swami Nirvanananda, illustrious disciple of Swami Brahmananda, was the President. When the Madras Mail eased into Bhuvaneshwar railway station, it was the dead of night, 2:30 a.m. All around was a dense dark with the faint flicker of a kerosene lamp alone feebly trying to dispel the darkness that engulfed all.