HE SAW ME THE LAST TIME AND I COULD NOT FATHOM
This afternoon I received the message of the death of a dear devotee of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji, one who was not a conventional person but rather a whirlwind soul, completely free of the elemental worries and cares of life, a la Bohemian in spirit, yet, carrying deep reserves of devotion for the Lord within the sanctum of his storm-tossed being. He was just 44.
The other day the door bell rang and he was there, right there with his beautiful smile welcoming me as if he was the host of a wonderful house he inhabited and I, the guest awaiting to enter the inner chambers of his habitation. He came in and stayed for less than an hour and it seemed as if a breeze had blown in that carried his leafy existence for the while into our presence before, airborne, it departed from the horizons of my being without bidding a final farewell.
He was a brother to me, not by blood but by bond of love that had held us together through the tribulations of life, lost and ever lost more till the triumph of the soul drew him close to the peerless Paramahamsa and filled him with an inner surrender to the Master's divine touch that slowly transformed his life.
Rarely do we come across a soul who is neither a householder, bound to family with all its fetters, nor is a mendicant monk, wandering the face of this earth, but is a carefree soul shorn of the cumbersome impositions of life, a mind that is stripped of the observances of ritualistic living, a body, battered and bruised by 13 accidents of the scooter that bore him company, a man drawn many times from the jaws of death into the arms of life once more till death, his faithful friend, accepted him in a final embrace that bore him away, never to return. Who knows what happens after life but, for sure, I know more that had happened while he was yet with us.
He lived for a long time in the same apartment complex where I live before he shifted location with his mother who he adored. As a youth he was my student for a while as well. Strange are the fraternal relations of life for, despite no blood-bond being there, he and his elder brother and their parents have been very close to our family. He was 15 when his father suddenly died and he grew up to manhood right before our eyes, battling with life's vicissitudes and the near-fatal injuries suffered frequently that knocked him off almost on many an occasion right from the stage of this world.
I often cautioned him against riding his scooter but he brushed it aside saying that he had survived more than the fabled nine times allowed to a cat for him to worry about dying that way. And, indeed, he was right, for he died in his sleep at night, a peaceful person in union with the Lord he had come to love so much in the final lap of his life's race that had ever hastened him on to its inscrutable inevitable end.
I am not much of an animal lover as such but he was. He adored his pet dog and almost worshipped it, especially, after it had passed away. He used to regularly visit its burial place and be in union with its spirit, so to say. The dog, indeed, was very cute and its memory a lasting legacy in the family to which it belonged as yet another member and a very integral one at that. Later, towards the end of his life, he took up employment with an agency of animal care where he looked after the pet dogs like his bosom buddies and felt happy at such close communion with Nature and God's creation.
Tall and frail with eyes gleaming with delight despite the trials and tribulations he had had to endure lifelong, he lived on the very edge of earthly existence where societal norms mattered not much but the pulsations of the heart that resonated to his Bohemian being did. As a child understands the language of love, so did he, and made it a point in his uncharted life to visit us still, to see my ailing mother who was elder aunt (jethi) to him. The sheer informality and innocence that he breathed into our association then is a treasure of the spirit that defies the limiting bonds of love and careers human relation into the realm of the divine.
The last time we met was in our house, as I have said earlier. He was in an uplifted mood and talked about Thakur-Ma-Swamiji mainly. He asked me for a book on Swamiji as he said that he had already gone through 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita' (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna) which he had found fascinating reading and a life-transformer in his case. When I asked him to receive spiritual initiation at Belur Math, he suddenly blurted out, ''You are my Guru. You tell me what I should do by way of spiritual practice.'' Thereafter, I gave him some spiritual tips and a book that carried biographical sketches of Swamiji, and he was gone.
Today, I see that he is gone forever. His memories linger and it makes me happy to tell you that towards the end when he was too weak to read the Kathamrita, his mother says that he would urge her to read it out to him. He would then quiz her thus, "Tell me, Ma, what is the biggest truth on earth?" And the mother would say, "Why? Death, for sure, is the biggest truth." And the boy smiled and said, "Ah! You have said it right. I knew you would get it straightaway."
And so he slept in his last sleep and there was no one save his Lord to keep him company as he passed away in his sleep even as the house slept in the depth of night while another dawn whisked him away to a higher realm.
Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Ma! Jai Swamiji! Keep him well and near you all.
P.S. : He was a breath of fresh air. He was Shiladitya Roy, Chhoton.
Written by Sugata Bose
This afternoon I received the message of the death of a dear devotee of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji, one who was not a conventional person but rather a whirlwind soul, completely free of the elemental worries and cares of life, a la Bohemian in spirit, yet, carrying deep reserves of devotion for the Lord within the sanctum of his storm-tossed being. He was just 44.
The other day the door bell rang and he was there, right there with his beautiful smile welcoming me as if he was the host of a wonderful house he inhabited and I, the guest awaiting to enter the inner chambers of his habitation. He came in and stayed for less than an hour and it seemed as if a breeze had blown in that carried his leafy existence for the while into our presence before, airborne, it departed from the horizons of my being without bidding a final farewell.
He was a brother to me, not by blood but by bond of love that had held us together through the tribulations of life, lost and ever lost more till the triumph of the soul drew him close to the peerless Paramahamsa and filled him with an inner surrender to the Master's divine touch that slowly transformed his life.
Rarely do we come across a soul who is neither a householder, bound to family with all its fetters, nor is a mendicant monk, wandering the face of this earth, but is a carefree soul shorn of the cumbersome impositions of life, a mind that is stripped of the observances of ritualistic living, a body, battered and bruised by 13 accidents of the scooter that bore him company, a man drawn many times from the jaws of death into the arms of life once more till death, his faithful friend, accepted him in a final embrace that bore him away, never to return. Who knows what happens after life but, for sure, I know more that had happened while he was yet with us.
He lived for a long time in the same apartment complex where I live before he shifted location with his mother who he adored. As a youth he was my student for a while as well. Strange are the fraternal relations of life for, despite no blood-bond being there, he and his elder brother and their parents have been very close to our family. He was 15 when his father suddenly died and he grew up to manhood right before our eyes, battling with life's vicissitudes and the near-fatal injuries suffered frequently that knocked him off almost on many an occasion right from the stage of this world.
I often cautioned him against riding his scooter but he brushed it aside saying that he had survived more than the fabled nine times allowed to a cat for him to worry about dying that way. And, indeed, he was right, for he died in his sleep at night, a peaceful person in union with the Lord he had come to love so much in the final lap of his life's race that had ever hastened him on to its inscrutable inevitable end.
I am not much of an animal lover as such but he was. He adored his pet dog and almost worshipped it, especially, after it had passed away. He used to regularly visit its burial place and be in union with its spirit, so to say. The dog, indeed, was very cute and its memory a lasting legacy in the family to which it belonged as yet another member and a very integral one at that. Later, towards the end of his life, he took up employment with an agency of animal care where he looked after the pet dogs like his bosom buddies and felt happy at such close communion with Nature and God's creation.
Tall and frail with eyes gleaming with delight despite the trials and tribulations he had had to endure lifelong, he lived on the very edge of earthly existence where societal norms mattered not much but the pulsations of the heart that resonated to his Bohemian being did. As a child understands the language of love, so did he, and made it a point in his uncharted life to visit us still, to see my ailing mother who was elder aunt (jethi) to him. The sheer informality and innocence that he breathed into our association then is a treasure of the spirit that defies the limiting bonds of love and careers human relation into the realm of the divine.
The last time we met was in our house, as I have said earlier. He was in an uplifted mood and talked about Thakur-Ma-Swamiji mainly. He asked me for a book on Swamiji as he said that he had already gone through 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita' (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna) which he had found fascinating reading and a life-transformer in his case. When I asked him to receive spiritual initiation at Belur Math, he suddenly blurted out, ''You are my Guru. You tell me what I should do by way of spiritual practice.'' Thereafter, I gave him some spiritual tips and a book that carried biographical sketches of Swamiji, and he was gone.
Today, I see that he is gone forever. His memories linger and it makes me happy to tell you that towards the end when he was too weak to read the Kathamrita, his mother says that he would urge her to read it out to him. He would then quiz her thus, "Tell me, Ma, what is the biggest truth on earth?" And the mother would say, "Why? Death, for sure, is the biggest truth." And the boy smiled and said, "Ah! You have said it right. I knew you would get it straightaway."
And so he slept in his last sleep and there was no one save his Lord to keep him company as he passed away in his sleep even as the house slept in the depth of night while another dawn whisked him away to a higher realm.
Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Ma! Jai Swamiji! Keep him well and near you all.
P.S. : He was a breath of fresh air. He was Shiladitya Roy, Chhoton.
Written by Sugata Bose
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