MEMORIES OF MURALI MAHARAJ

MEMORIES OF MURALI MAHARAJ

We have not forgotten you, Maharaj. Swami Sampurnananda Puri (Murali Maharaj) who left us a year ago. A simple, childlike sannyasi, affable, easy to get along with, a delightful writer, egoless, a trotting sadhu who was ever on the move, wandering from place to place till he reached his earthly destination in end of March at Kempti, Mussoorie when he contracted Covid-19 which claimed him weeks later in April.

Even today memories flood the mind of Maharaj holding mobile conversations with me while he was on train, holding discussions over Messenger and delightfully long arguments over Netaji and Gandhiji on Facebook comment section, one such once lasting 3 days of continuous verbal contest till a conclusion could be reached. When he came over to Kolkata along with Swami Advaitananda of another Ashrama, I met him at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark where he presented me with a rare Xerox copy of a book on the freedom struggle. He then accompanied me to our residence  residence, saw my ailing mother and packed off thereafter for Belur Math along with Swami Advaitananda with a soft tear-layer in his eyes.

But my first acquaintance with Murali Maharaj was at Nilambar Babu's Garden House in the year 2009. I had just met the Adhyaksha of the Math who was Swami Madhavanandaji's disciple and held a brief but intimate conversation with him. It was close to the twilight hour and the Adhyaksha Maharaj retired to his room, it seemed to me,  to meditate. I was coming away from the verandah of his room when I beheld a godlike personage in a middle-aged monk coming towards the Math house from the Ganga after a bath. His moonlike visage held my attention and I introduced myself to him. He was Swami Sampurnanda or Murali Maharaj by common calling. He gave me his mobile number and thereafter our long association till his earthly end last year continued unabated.

Not many monks of the Ramakrishna Order, perhaps, know that Swami Sampurnanandaji was a gifted writer. He maintained a blog in which he chronicled the lives of deceased monks. It is a delightful read, so unique was his literary style with its incisive and original perspective on almost every issue. No one in the Order could truly appreciate his innate genius and, thus, he lay in the periphery of the organisation's affections. He was sharp and pointed in his criticisms where they needed to be but his language, like his personality, was ever moonlike, soft and sweet, even as it drove home the point headlong. One thing for certain he was -- Swami Sampurnananda was utterly original.

Written by Sugata Bose