APPRECIATION OF SHARMISTHA CHATTERJEE'S PROSE WORK ON RAMAKRISHNA AND GIRISH
Tuesday, 29 June 2021
VANDE MATARAM ... 6
VANDE MATARAM ... 6
My countrymen, read more. In it lies the country's resurrection. A greater degree of activation of the national mind will conduce to our faster progress and along the right lines. Right now ignorance abounds everywhere and it is pulling us down as a civilisation. Study more, extensively as well as intensively.
The national mind must be deepened. Right now shallowness and superficiality masquerade as culture and depth is an alien entity. This is ever the seed of the eventual destruction of a civilisation.
'Men, men, these are wanted. Everything else will be ready.' -- these were the words of Swamiji. What did he mean by them? He meant that man is at the centre of human civilisation. It is the civilisation of man, it is built by man, is nourished by man and it is geared towards the best and the fastest evolution of man as well, his evolutionary end lying in his attainment of freedom from the shackles of the senses, from the transmigratory cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, seemingly endlessly.
There are problems galore in the world. Our nation is no exception to this general state of things. There are a myriad problems besetting our country and we need to find solutions to them.
It is in the nature of things that there will be problems but it is also true that every problem carries in its womb its solution. The solution arrived at, one finds another problem arising out of it. This is the dialectical development, Hegel's triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis in an unending progressive cyclical pattern leading to higher and higher development of human society. Of course, this does not mean that there will be a seamless, continuous movement towards higher evolution. No, not so at all. There will be periods of retrogression as well when humanity will seem to be utterly lost but such periodic phases will merely be interludes punctuating the overall general progression, much like an ascent along a mountainous detour. However, even appreciation of such abstruse philosophy needs a strong academic culture in the country in whose absence it will sink into crude errors whence recovery may well-nigh be impossible. That it has happened already to us several times in the past, history bears ample testimony to. Therefore, we must avert such a future fate all over again. Our independence has been hard-won and we must preserve it with all our might. Hence, the spread of knowledge is important but the depth-cultivation of culture is vital.
Why I stress this element of upgrading education in every sense in our country and also proliferating it is because there has of late been its terrible downgradation. The cultural scenario is bleak as crony capitalism has joined hands with religious revivalism of ignoramuses which is spreading its vermin through and through the body politic of India, corrupting the minds of the youth with fantastic ideas of a pseudoglorious cultural revival in line with our age-old spiritual civilisation. But ignoramuses are ignoramuses and they fail to achieve any worthwhile national goals of progress or prosperity or the welfare of the masses. Politics and business have as usual formed an unholy alliance and both practised commerce and propagated culture have become corrosive for the country with impending peril staring stark at us. This has to be averted and how best to do it but build up a resistive force in the polity through massive education and quality education at that.
The problem has been diagnosed, its solution determined but how will the execution take place? Will the government help? Will it be an active participant in the process of arresting this decadent trend? Will it be true to the promises it made to the people who elected it to power? None whatsoever. Governments in today's democracies are hands-in-glove with the capitalists who fund them to power during elections and the latter do not forget to extract their pound of flesh when laws are passed and policies made. As Einstein in a lecture in 1949 had said rightly that the capitalist class in a democracy comes in between the legislature and the polity and controls governmental policy. How insightful was the scientist's statement for this is exactly what happens in reality everywhere and is rampant today with the development of capitalism round the world.
So, crony capitalism has to countered and that means bringing about such a revolutionary change in the socioeconomic system as only enlightened socialism can. But can it? And the very attempt to bring it into being would mean a second independence movement that we must fight as Bhagat Singh had rightly conjectured following his Marxist study should our freedom movement against the British be a bourgeois revolution. Here (in the instance of a socialist revolution) Einstein does seem troubled by the thought of power passing into the hands of a handful of leaders forming an oligarchy in the name of socialism and a bureaucratic machinery aiding them to crush the aspirations of the people. The enlightenment that is needed in men to bring about a just order of social existence is a far cry at the present state of human evolution, Einstein reckoned, when barbarism yet rules humanity in the main with competition, fraud, vice and violence ruling the roost, taking the cue from mankind's savage past for several millions of years before the light of civilisation broke in a few millenia ago, and, to supplement his words with mine, in much of Europe only a few centuries ago.
The ethical question has to be solved both in theoretical terms and in its practical connotation. It is after all a biological question, a genetic one that has to tackled through progressive education but the path is difficult even as the razor's edge is, to quote the Kathopanishad, and difficult of access. But the sunlit summit beckons even as humanity suffers in its trudge through the dark night of ignorance along the rough-hewn path of progress and the ascent, however arduous, must be made. The rope of the climb is education.
Written by Sugata Bose
Monday, 28 June 2021
THE EARLY DEWDROP THAT DIFFUSES BEFORE THE LUSTROUS BREAK OF DAWN
THE EARLY DEWDROP THAT DIFFUSES BEFORE THE LUSTROUS BREAK OF DAWN
The greatest geniuses of the world live silently and pass into oblivion leaving their seeds behind for secondary souls to receive them and give expression in real life. These earlier men of the Mind, these sages in safe harbour across the sea of delusion, they live the Life, they think deep, as deep as depth can be, right to the very bed and beyond this phenomenal dream of chaotic shapes and forms, beauteous names clothed in ephemeral attire. These perishing dreams they behold like shimmering flames, like moving mirage, shining and shifting. They have seen through it all and now pass on their knowledge through currents of thought potent enough to penetrate human consciousness wherever the recipient is ready. There they grip minds like impersonal beings, holding forms to transform thought and the consciousness behind. These secondary souls then rise in force to spread the Divine Word. These are the Pauls and the Vivekanandas of the Christs and the Ramakrishnas behind. Or, perhaps, there are deeper ones of which history keeps no record for one to be able to speak of by way of ample illustration. It is these that Swamiji speaks of, the unseen sages, the unobserved savants of the Soul who breathe in seclusion, live in obscurity and die in peace, leaving hardly a ripple behind on the lake of the Cosmic Mind. But they leave behind traces that in course of time raise bubbles, then bubbles joining to cruise as currents of rising thought, pure and simple, till in harmonic streams they touch the surface and raise giant waves that sweep all before them. It is then that ideas embody and seek sanctuary in able bodies fit to receive and hold them and to give expression to them in definite derivatives. The abstract becomes real, the causal transforms progressively to the subtle and the concrete. Secondary souls hold and transform and pass on the fruits of their actions unto lesser individuals who pass thereon the fresh derivatives to the masses. Thus the message is made, thus the spirit spreads, thus is the idea translated into concrete culture. From the fine mist and beyond thus is forged the form of civilisation.
These then are the men who gave zeroed in to Truth and have remained ever in oblivion as benediction unto humanity, their fragrant souls diffusing into human consciousness the sublimity of a superior space, the silence of the Self. The seeking therefrom of dynamic force is the work of lesser souls in a plane where manifestation can make its mark. But the old ones are gone, taking nothing in turn, seeking no return, nor name nor fame nor wealth nor the slightest trace of individual identity. They rather give away their last graces as they rise to limpid spaces. Om Tat Sat !
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday, 27 June 2021
VANDE MATARAM ... 5
VANDE MATARAM ... 5
British civilisation is not only to be understood in terms of Shakespeare and Shelley, Newton and Stephenson but also in terms of Jallianwala and Nilgunje, Cellular Jail and Kohinoor, and above all in its dastardly depredation of colonial wealth, induction of famine (ref. the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, one of an jnending series if man-made disasters) and reducing other flourishing civilisations to destitution and ruin. Napoleon called Britain 'a nation of shopkeepers' but he was only euphemistically correct in his characterisation. The British, I say, have been a race of rogues who have caused so much suffering to mankind that 'the vengeance of history' will surely visit them as Swamiji has prophesied and with interest compounded to the corrupt principal sum. This shall come to pass and those kings and nobles, ministers and councillors, officers and administrators who had carried out diabolical torture of innocents across the globe, they shall pay for their sins. There is no escape from this inexorable karmic law. So, hang on Great Britain and await your punishment post the sentence passed on you from the tormented souls you treated as beasts. And yet you rejoice in your erstwhile colonial-imperial glory? Indeed, when destruction is at hand, opposite intelligence prevails. So be it. Who can prevent the boomerang of evil action perpetrated?
Written by Sugata Bose
বন্দে মাতরম ... ১
বন্দে মাতরম ... ১
নেতা হয়ে অন্যেকে ফাঁসিকাঠে ঝোলার অনুপ্রেরণা দেওয়া ঢেড় সহজ কিন্তু নিজে ফাঁসিকাঠে ঝোলার অবস্থা এলে মনোভাব পালটে যায় | তখন ভয়ে 'আধ্যাত্মিক' অনুপ্রেরণা আসে ও পলায়নই শ্রেয় বলে বোধ হয় | এ আমাদের দেশের দুর্ভাগ্য যে নেতা স্বয়ং অনুগামীদের মাতৃভূমির শৃঙ্খলমোচনে বলিদান দিয়ে নিজ শরীরে আঁচটি লাগতে দেননি | অবশ্য সৌভাগ্য এই যে আমরা তাঁর মণীষাকে হারালাম না তাই তাঁর অঘটিত সম্ভাব্য অকালমৃত্যুর মধ্যে যদি তিনি বিপ্লবের পথ না ছেড়ে দেশেই থেকে যেতেন, কারণ তাঁর ভবিষ্যৎ ফাঁসি কিম্বা দীপান্তরের ব্যবস্থা করতে বৃটিশ কোনমতেই নিশ্চেষ্ট থাকতেন না | কিন্তু বিরত্ব ? আদর্শ ? সতীর্থের প্রতি, দেশের প্রতি কর্তব্য ? ভবিষ্যৎ কি চোখে দেখবে এই রণে ভঙ্গ দেওয়া ? রাসবিহারী বসুও তো দেশছাড়া হয়েছিলেন কিন্তু তিনি বিপ্লবছাড়া হননি | তিনি আজীবন বিপ্লব পরিচালনার স্বার্থেই জাপানে কাটিয়েছেন ও পরাধীন দেশের রাজনৈতিক স্বাধীনতালাভের নিমিত্তই কাজ করেছেন |
যিনি সত্যই ঋষি তিনি কি এতগুলো ছেলেকে এহেন বিপদের মুখে ফেলে দিয়ে নিজে গা বাঁচান ? ফাঁসি, পুলিশের গুলিতে মৃত্যু, দীপান্তরের অকথ্য অত্যাচারে আত্মহনন -- এ সবের মধ্যে এতগুলো যুবককে ঠেলে দিয়ে নিজে রণে ভঙ্গ দেওয়া ? এ কেমন ঋষিসুলভ আচরণ ? স্বামীজী হলে কি এ কাজ করতেন ? নেতাজী প্রথমে আশায় ভর করে তাঁর বিপ্লবীরূপের প্রতি মুগ্ধ হলেও পরে আশাহত হন ও তাঁর এই পণ্ডিচেরীতে বসে কংগ্রেসের কার্যকলাপ সম্বন্ধে টিপ্পুনি দেওয়াকে দ্যর্থহীন ভাষায় কটাক্ষ করেন |
সুভাষচন্দ্র ছিলেন যথার্থ বিপ্লবী | তিনিও আধ্যাত্মিক পথের পথিক ছিলেন কৈশোর থেকে | কিন্তু তিনি ছিলেন সাচ্চা মানুষ স্বামীজীর মত, রাসবিহারী বসুর মত, বাঘা যতীনের মত | তাঁর এ হেন 'আধ্যাত্মিকতার' আড়ালে কাপুরুষোচিত আচরণ ভাল লাগবে কেন ? যে নিবেদিতার পরামর্শে ও তাঁরই প্রদত্ত বৃটিশ গোয়েন্দা বিভাগের পরিকল্পনার সূচনাতে অরবিন্দ ঘোষ চন্দননগর হয়ে পণ্ডিচেরী পলায়ন করেন, সেই নিবেদিতা তো স্বপ্নেও কল্পনা করেননি এই আশু বিপ্লববিমুখতা | তিনি বেঁচে থাকলে কি বলতেন ? অধিমানস ও অতিমানস শক্তির অবতরণ নিয়ে আচার্য্য জগদীশচন্দ্র বসু ও রোঁমা রোঁলা নিজেদের মধ্যে রহস্যালাপ (অর্থাৎ, হাসাহাসি) করেছিলেন এর অবৈজ্ঞানিকতা ও অসম্ভবতা নিয়ে | নিবেদিতা বীরাঙ্গনা ছিলেন যথার্থ | তিনি এই কাপুরুষতা কি চোখে দেখতেন ? সবশেষে একজনের কথা না বলে পারলাম না | বালক ক্ষুদিরাম যদি বেঁচে থাকত, সে কিভাবে দেখত তার নেতার এই ত্রস্ত 'ঋষিত্ব' ?
আবার একটি কথা মনে পড়ে গেল | অরবিন্দশিষ্য, দ্বিজেন্দ্রতনয়, সুৃভাষসুহৃদ দিলীপ কুমার রায়ের প্রভূত প্রচেষ্টা সুভাষকে অরবিন্দ পাদপদ্মে প্রণত করার, প্রচণ্ডভাবে প্রতিহত হয় ওই পবিত্রাত্মার দ্বারা যিনি স্বামীজীর চরণে মস্তক অগ্রিম সমর্পণ করেছেন | দিলীপের প্রবল প্রয়াস ব্যর্থ সাব্যস্ত হয় কারণ সুভাষ অরবিন্দসত্তার সংবাদ এতদিনে পেয়ে গেছেন ও তার তাৎপর্য অনুধাবন করতে সমর্থ হয়েছেন | তাই দলভারী করা আর গেল না | সুভাষ স্বামীজীরই রইলেন | এতে অরবিন্দ অবশ্যই প্রসন্ন হননি, সে তাঁর তৎকালীন ও ভবিষ্যতের সুভাষসম্বন্ধীয় বক্রবক্তব্যেই প্রতীত | সুভাষের ভারতমুক্তিহেতু অক্ষশক্তির সাহায্য প্রার্থনাকে, বিশেষত জাপানী বাহিনীর সাহায্যে বৃটিশশাসিত ভারত আক্রমণকে শ্রীঅরবিন্দ দেশের প্রতি বিশ্বাসঘাতকতার আক্ষা দিয়েছিলেন | এ তথ্য অরবিন্দ আশ্রম থেকেই প্রকাশিত ও তাঁর দিলীপ রায়কে লেখা চিঠিপত্রে সংকলিত | অরবিন্দ জানতেন যে সুভাষের তীক্ষ্ণ ধীশক্তিতে সম্পূর্ণ পরিষ্কার হয়ে গেছে তাঁর (অরবিন্দের) বিপ্লববাদ ও আধ্যাত্মিকতার অছিলায় তাঁর বিপ্লবকে বাদ দেওয়া | তিনি এও জানতেন দিলীপমারফৎ যে তাঁর তথাকথিত অবতারত্ব, ঈশ্বরত্ব, অধিমানস শক্তির অবতরণ সুভাষ মানতেন না এবং এইটি ছিল তাঁর সুভাষের কাছে বড় হার | তাই হয়ত তাঁর সুৃভাষ সম্বন্ধে নানা কটুক্তি | সুভাষও তাঁর সম্বন্ধে সত্যভাষণ করতে পিছপা হননি, সে বক্রবাকেই হোক না কেন |
অতএব, এই হল হক কথা -- বাপু, কবিতা লেখা, গান রচনা করা, গল্প-উপন্যাস লেখা, ছবি আঁকা, আশ্রম করা, বিদ্যালয় -বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় করা, নাইট উপাধি প্রথমে বিপ্লবীদের রক্তে রাঙা বর্বরহস্ত হতে গ্রহণ করা ও পরে উথলিত স্বদেশপ্রেমে বর্জন করা এবং যোগবিয়োগগুণভাগসাধনা করা অপেক্ষাকৃত অনেক সহজ কিন্তু ফাঁসিকাঠে হাসতে হাসতে প্রাণ দেওয়া বিস্তর কঠিন | তাই কে যে নেতা আর কে অনুগামী বিপ্লবে, তা যথার্থ নির্ণয়ের সময় এসেছে এবার | বীরের জয় হোক ! বন্দে মাতরম !
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
YOUR SWAMIJI
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 1
Have you heard of Swami Vivekananda? Yes? But have you heard of Narendranath Datta? I am sure most of you have not but some of you may have. Well, this little boy is the subject of our story which I shall begin narrating to you, children, from today.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 2
The Dattas were an affluent family who lived in North Kolkata at a place called Simla or Simulia. Rammohan Datta was the grand patriarch who had thrived in the legal profession and amassed a fortune. His sons, Durgaprasad and Kaliprasad, grandson, Vishwanath, were the immediate ancestors of Narendranath who grew up to become the world renowned monk, Swami Vivekananda. Durgaprasad excelled like his father at law but renounced life to become a monk at age between 20 and 22 after fathering a son. So, Kaliprasad became the head of the Datta family and as he was not upto earning a living, the Dattas' fortunes started declining steadily.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 3
Durgaprasad renounced between age 20 and 22. Shyamasundari, his wife of valorous virtue, took up to rearing baby Vishwanath amidst great difficulties as Kaliprasad was not sympathetic to their lot. When Vishwanath was three years old, Shyamasundari went on pilgrimage to Varanasi by boat. En route the playful baby fell into the Ganga. Instantly the mother, forgetting the fact that she knew not how to swim, dived into the surging waters and gripped the baby, so hard that it bore the mark for several years. A fellow pilgrim and a resident of the Datta household, indigenous physician Umapada Gupta, diving suit, rescued them and hauled them overboard. The pilgrimage carried on and holy Varanasi was reached in the fullness of time.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 4
Varanasi. The Ganga flowing by since time immemorial, sanctifying this city of Shiva. Thousands of temples of all kinds of deities thronging to get the worship of devotees who flock by the millions. The most ancient city of the world, dating 5000 years, now welcomed Shyamasundari and her little boy, Vishwanath.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 5
Shyamasundari went on her daily rounds of the temples in Varanasi. One day on her way to the seat of Lord Vishwanath, she slipped on the way and fell unconscious. A monk passing by picked her up, laid her on the temple steps and brought her back to her senses. When she came to her own she was astonished to behold her own husband as her rescuer. Overwhelmed by sudden emotion, the couple, now renounced to the world, went their way.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 6
Durgaprasad visited his hometown Kolkata once, probably en route to the Gangasagar, and put up with a friend. He requested confidentiality but the message leaked and he was accosted home by his family members where he was confined to a room with food and refreshments for three days. The monk, locked up thus, touched neither food nor drink for the said period and his relatives, fearing the worst, unlocked the door. The monk quietly slipped away thereafter and was never seen again. Later it was rumoured that he had become the head of a monastery in Varanasi but nothing could be ascertained with any degree of certitude. Vishwanath in his youth visited Varanasi in search of his father but failed to trace him. Thus disappeared the monk of sterling spiritual strength from the horizons of the Datta household till his gene reappeared in his redoubtable grandson, Narendranath, whose monastic future bore unmistakable marks of his predecessor, Durgaprasad.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 7
Vishwanath, deprived of paternal care and patrimony, grew up under the loving care of his mother, though amidst straightened circumstances. But a worse fate was awaiting him. At the age of ten he lost his mother. Now, orphaned and ill-treated by uncle Kaliprasad, Vishwanath took to the hard way of labouring through to life's success. He became proficient in several languages - Bengali, English, Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi, and also learnt a smattering of Sanskrit in a classical Sanskrit Tol. He studied history in-depth, astrology enough to be able to cast the horoscopes of his children, and studied music under an Ustad. After completing secondary education he attempted business, failed and apprenticed himself under Mr. Temple, a British attorney. In 1866 he qualified as an attorney and set up shop with one Ashutosh Dhar under the name 'Dhar and Datta'. Soon his legal proficiency earned him independent status as attorney-at-law in the Calcutta High Court where his practice took off.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 8
Vishwanath's fame as a legal practitioner spread far and wide and he had to travel extensively all over India to meet up with his clients' cases. His income soared and so did his expenditure as he lived lavishly and gave liberally to seekers in need. His charity earned him the sobriquet 'Daataa Vishwanath' or 'Philanthropist Vishwanath'. He refused none and gave to all who were in need and even to some indolent relatives who abused his magnanimity by indulging in intoxicants with his money. Vishwanath lived for the day and saved nothing for the morrow, steered by the conviction that his sons, if well fed and well educated, would be able to make their way in life but that the hapless ones he helped were too weak to help themselves and, hence, needed help. The large heart of Vishwanath bled for all, perhaps so conditioned by his own stressful childhood in financial and psychological distress under an unsympathetic uncle. Anyhow, this was how he was and this liberal largeheartedness he bequeathed to his beloved sons, Naren in particular who even imbibed sterling virtues of head and heart from his mother Bhuvaneshwari.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 9
Well-versed in the Holy Bible and the Dewan-i-Hafiz and well acquainted with Hindu, Islamic and European culture and customs, Vishwanath had a universal outlook on life and living. Progressive in thinking but guarded in giving into new-fangled socioreligious movements of the day, Vishwanath was a precursor in some sense to the modern Hindu man as yet germinating in the womb of time. His illustratious son would set the seal on the mould that was thus being cast on the dawn of this new awakening of the ancient spirit whose crest bore the personality of Ramakrishna. But we are fast-forwarding the narrative thus which we must desist from. As of now we must remember that here was Vishwanath, caught in the cross-current of the three aforementioned cultures out of which he was fashioning his own perspective, his world-view, and setting them to print in the form of three books which he authored, namely, 'Shishtaachaar Paddhati' ('Canons of Good Conduct') in two volumes and a novel in his vernacular Bengali, titled 'Sulochanaa'. Vishwanath supported Vidyasagar's crusade for the remarriage of widows but refrained from participating directly in such social movements, busy as he was with his intensive legal practice. One more pointer about Vishwanath - he was an agnostic of sorts, irreverent of superstitious religious practices that kept people down but was never irreverent towards sublime principles of spiritual and moral thought which he tried to put into practice in his own life by way of alleviating the misery of the hapless ones he came across in his life's thoroughfare. This was then the father of the future Vivekananda.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 10
Hardly anybody recalls the name of Swami Vivekananda's maternal grandfather or the maiden surname of Swamiji's mother. That she was Basu and bore in her bloodstream the kshatriya valour of this clan from erstwhile Kannakubja (Kanauj) is forgotten in the name Narendranath Datta. But the great prophet bore in his arteries that strong blood which made him revolutionise India into rebellion against the British and break the citadel of global colonialism. Narendranath's grandfather on his mother's side was Nandalal Basu of Simla, North Kolkata, and his only daughter Bhuvaneshwari Basu, married to Vishwanath Datta, was his mother. Bhuvaneshwari, born to wealth and high culture, was aristocratic in temperament devoid of its vices and it was from her that the boy Bileh absorbed in his mother's milk that nobility of character that set him out as unique in the world of men, so much so that in later years in Paris he was mistaken to be a prince by a hotel boy who could not be convinced otherwise. Well, Bhuvaneshwari, wedded to Vishwanath at ten, mothered Narendranath as her seventh child and her first surviving son. But more of that later for here we are in the midst of the maturing of a modern Madonna for who else could hold in her womb the one whose eagle eye holds countless universes in harmonic play ? Let us dwell on this girl, Bhuvaneshwari.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 11
Bhuvaneshwari was wedded to conjugal life at the early age of 10 as was the custom in those days prior to the passing of the Age of Consent Bill. She bore fruit several times of which three died in infancy and she remained without a son yet. The pious girl prayed and fasted and exhorted an aunt living in Varanasi to offer prayers at the seat of Vireshwar Shiva in Kashi. Accordingly, every Monday special offerings were made there and they were reinforced by Bhuvaneshwari keeping her vigils and fasts here in Kolkata. The channel was thus being set up for the golden road that was to connect the ancient city and this modern metropolis, and when the pathway had been fully laid, Bhuvaneshwari dreamt of the meditative Shiva awaking from his seat of concentration and announcing His resolve to be born as her son. In ecstatic joy Bhuvaneshwari awoke from her divine slumber and fell prostrate at her chosen deity's feet, the adorable Umanath, who she had so ardently worshipped all these years. Bathed in tears of bliss Bhuvaneshwari felt saturated with the Lord's grace. Soon she felt that she had conceived.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 12
12 January, 1863. Makar San°kraanti Day. Millions of pilgrims were assembled at the estuary of the Bay of Bengal to offer oblation to the Highest when heaven itself descended to earth in the form of the infant who was to steer humanity onto a new course, setting the stamp of his divine personality on the unfolding age of light that was now waiting in the wings to emerge in full flight. The forest of this world was ready for this fresh efflorescence and the bud blossomed from the womb of Bhuvaneshwari six minutes before sunrise to send a thrill of joy through the Datta household. A son had been born, Bhuvaneshwari's long-cherished dream, the parched earth's long longing, humanity's hope of redemption from its decadent state. Vishwanath grew so blissfully excited that his charity broke all bounds this hour as he started giving away to whosoever came his way anything he could lay his hands on. Finally, he had given away the very clothes he was wearing, a la Emperor Harshavardhana of old, and had to borrow his wife's saree to cover himself. The boy was named by the mother Vireshwar after the deity who had fulfilled His promise to be born as the pious supplicant's son. Soon lingustic aberration changed it to Bileh and so was how the future Vivekananda used to be called by his loving mother even in his twilight years in Belur Math when the old lady proudly strutted about the precincts of the monastery in search of her son, calling loudly, "Bileh ! Bileh !" and the son would emerge from his room and descend the stairs to fall prostrate at his beloved mother's feet. But we have much advanced in our narrative in our flight of fancy and must revert to its fresh beginnings, for we have a full lifetime to cover. Right now the baby cries in its mother's arms. Or, does it blink in wonder at the strange world around ?
YOUR SWAMIJI ...13
The boy was Bileh at home, to the world Narendranath, a name that was, as if by divine sanction, to set its stamp upon the very world. An exceeding force seemed to well up within him making him irrepressibly naughty, playful, self-willed and at times given to fits of violent temper when he would even rampage his way through whatever he could lay his hands on, furniture et al. Mother Bhuvaneshwari, driven to her wit's end, would then in exasperation exclaim, "Alas ! I had prayed to Shiva for a son but He has sent me one of His demons instead." No amount of censure, threat or even inducement would work with the turbulent child and he had to be manned by two nurses constantly to keep him in a semblance of check. Finally, Bhuvaneshwari discovered a unique way of tackling the situation. When Bileh was in one of those moods, she would pour water over his head profusely while chanting the name 'Shiva'. She would further induce fear in him saying, "If you are naughty thus, Shiva will refuse you entry into His abode, Kailash, again." Like magic this would work and calm the boy and he would be his bonny self again.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 14
Now two very important features of the baby Bileh's personality were (a) his easy acceptance of all and sundry as his own and his consequent easing into anyone's arms who extended them to hold him, and (b) his submission to gentleness shown to him by any and equal revulsion of harshness by any in interaction with him. These traits manifest in the baby are worth meditating on as we attempt to unravel not only the secrets of the child-mind universally but also as we seek to plumb the divine depths of the future Swami Vivekananda, now, though, right in bud.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 15
Grandfather Durgaprasad's gene was very much manifest in Narendranath from early boyhood. He had a liking for mendicant monks and would give away alms freely to them. But he was just a small boy. What did he have that he could give? Well, he gave away his first piece of dhoti from round his waist to a sadhu. Likewise he gave away whatever he could lay his hands on to these pilgrims of the Spirit so much so that when any such appeared at their door he had to be kept confined in an upper storey room to keep him in bounds. But such ploys failed when Naren flung through the open window whatever was available to him in his cell to monks passing by on the road below. Such affinity for the renunciates was early signal of things brewing up in the heart of the Divine Mother orchestrating things from behind that was to fashion Narendranath's fate. A vast force was accumulating in the child that was to inundate the world in the days to come. And in this prophetic mission of his he was to bear not only the blessings of his divine Master but those of each and every monk who he gave and who in their turn blessed him silently from the depths of their hearts.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 16
Ebullient as he was, Naren was given to pranks galore. One of these was to tease his sisters and, when chased, to seek refuge in the open drain and makes faces and remarks such as 'Catch new! Catch me !' from there, knowing full well that they would not dare follow suit into the dirt where he lay. The future Vivekananda was worshipped in Kashi Kedarnath Temple as Shiva, was reverenced by a passing monk in the Himalayas as Shiva and venerated by many including his brother disciples like Swami Brahmananda as the same Lord Ascetic. In that sense he was Pashupati, the Lord of all animals, and to this effect he showed early signs by way of his affinity towards his pet animals. Lifelong this relation remained, even in his advanced years in Belur Math where he had quite a number of pets. The boy Bileh had a monkey, a goat, a peacock, pigeons, guinea-pigs, the family cow and his father's horse to keep him company. He with his sisters would bedeck the cow with garlands, mark her forehead with vermillion and reverence her on festive occasions. This easy relation with the dumb animals must have been a formative influence in the making of his future deep sympathy with the muted millions of his benighted motherland.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 17
Naren's bosom buddy was his father's coachman. He spent hours in the company of the syce at the stable and nursed ambitions of one day becoming a syce himself. His intimacy with the syce drew the twain into close communication and imperceptibly lay open Naren's mind to whatever the former had to say to him. At noon every day the little boy was privy to the women folk's rendition of the Ramayana reading and with rapt attention he absorbed the epic tales which gradually endeared him to Sita and Rama. Soon he had bought from the market idols of the divine couple and with the help of a friend installed them in the attic and with floral offerings worshipped them to his child heart's content. This went on till the syce, himself victim to an unhappy marital life, criticised the very institution of marriage vehemently before Naren, thereby making the boy brood on its futility. He could no more now accept the fact that his divine ideals, Sita and Rama, were also one such married couple and in tears confided his predicament to his mother. Bhuvaneshwari instantly assuaged his grief by asking him from then on to worship the ascetic of ascetics, Shiva, instead. Naren was pacified but could not reconcile himself anymore to being in the proximity of Sita and Rama. Accordingly, he rushed to the attic, picked up his beloved idols and in the dark enveloping evening walked to the edge of the terrace railing and hurled down the images onto the road below. His ideal had been shattered, now he smashed the idols representing them. Next day he bought from the market a clay image of Shiva and began afresh his meditation on the Lord. However, Sita-Rama remained forever etched in his memory as his boyhood's first divine love and became a significant formative influence in his life and a perennial presence in his monastic life as well. Many years later he called every Indian the child of Seeta, that holy woman who unmurmering bore all her suffering in her all-encompassing love for her beloved husband, the divine Rama.
VANDE MATARAM ... 4
VANDE MATARAM ... 4
Durga Puja ought to call out the valour in Bengalees to destroy the demon within and without and not just to indulge in annual frivolous merrymaking. Here was a living Durga who even today stands as the exemplar of manly valour much like Joan of Arc was to medieval Frenchmen. Swamiji could hardly restrain his tears when mentioning her, calling her a goddess as he did so. Netaji, following his spiritual mentor's footsteps, made his women's regiment in the Rani's name and called each female member of the regiment 'Rani'. Such is the significance of the Durga Puja in the vision of our highest minds and such should be our attitude as well. Bankimchandra composed the Vande Mataram in Mother Durga's name. Swamiji instituted the annual Durga Puja in Belur Math. Subhas Chandra Bose fought for the right to worship Mother Durga in jail and in the Rammohan Student's Hostel of City College. All this was done to instil patriotic fervour, arouse virility and valour in a subject race struggling for freedom from foreign occupation. But that spirit has been lost as Bengalees have somewhere down the line lost that spiritual idealism, no doubt a consequence of the decadent materialistic influence of the Age. But the decadence has to be countered and the spirit revived. Let us from now on once more start worshipping Devi Durga in the real spirit then. Let us be manly in our aspirations, in our attitudes, in our actions and in our adoration of the Divine Mother. As Swamiji said, "Mother wants the sacrifice of a thousand heroes." I offered myself at the sacrificial altar in my youth decades ago and have been awaiting Mother's sickle to sever my head ever since. That has been my lifelong Durga Puja. You too offer yours, my friends, and attain through death at Her hands to immortality. Jai Durge !
Written by Sugata Bose
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