SWAMI VIVEKANANDA -- 1

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA -- 1

Swami Vivekananda was born to Vishwanath Datta and Bhuvaneshwari Dattta on 12 January, 1863 at Simla (Simulia) in Calcutta (Kolkata), Bengal Presidency, India. The father, an attorney at Calcutta High Court of some repute, was a man of extraordinary breadth of vision, a liberal thinker who had assimilated diverse cultures within his being and interacted closely with crosscultural clients across India. The mother, piety personified, of regal bearing, generous, progressive in outlook and of firm character, was the bedrock of the boy Bileh's life who was so hyper-energetic that two nannies had to be appointed to maintain him in his early years.

The Dattas traced their ancestry to Rammohan Datta who had amassed a fortune in the legal profession, built a mansion at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Lane of Simulia and passed it on to posterity. His son, Durgaprasad, brilliant in law and literature alike, nonetheless gave in to his spiritual inclinations, renounced the world at age 25 and embraced the monastic life, leaving behind wife, Shyamasundari, and infant son, Vishwanath, to fend for themselves in a frightfully difficult world. Kaliprasad, the other son of Rammohan, idled away to reduce the family's fortunes till the Dattas gradually fell on evil days.

Shyamasundari passed away when Vishwanath was ten and the orphaned boy had to traverse hard times before he rose to eminence and fortune by dint of diligence, merit and a resolute character.

Bhuvaneshwari was the only child of Nandalal Basu, a renowned resident of Simulia. Her deep sense of dignity, forbearance, prodigious intelligence and extraordinary memory coupled with her purity, progressive outlook and overall strength of character, she passed on to her beloved eldest son, Narendranath, nicknamed Bileh. She had mothered ten children of which three sons achieved maturity of age, the other two being Mohendranath and Bhupendranath, both of whom rose to eminence in life in their respective fields. But the subject of our story is her eldest son, Narendranath who under the loving care of Ramakrishna blossomed into the Sage of the Age, Vivekananda.

End of Part 1

Written by Sugata Bose