ANGLE OF VISION

Radhu was now of marriageable age; and so to perform her wedding ceremony the Mother left for Jayrambati on the 3rd of Jyeshtha (the 18th of May), 1911, and reached Koalpara on the 5th. Koalpara had now come to occupy an important place in the life-history of the Holy Mother. Between the years 1909 and 1919, the Mother rested here for some hours during all her travels between Jayrambati and Calcutta. She used to say, ‘This is my parlour.’ The inmates of the monastery were wholeheartedly devoted to her and felt blessed if they could do the least service to her. This time, when the news of her coming reached them, they constructed a temporary enclosure for her with palm leaves round the bathing place of the Badujye-pukur. They also tastefully decorated the new shrine-room, enclosed its verandah with screens, cleaned the road and covered it with cloth with flowers spread over. But the Mother had no time to spare. She hurriedly bathed and finished her midday meal, and then after a little rest started for Jayrambati with Radhu in the same palanquin. Before she bade farewell, she said tenderly to the inmates of the monastery, ‘Now in these parts you are my mainstay. I see that the Master has in fact made a seat for himself here. And for us all, too, a resting place has come into existence.’ When they all bowed down to her one by one, she touched their heads in benediction, and said, ‘You all should go to Jayrambati now and then; and, in particular, you have all to go during Radhu’s marriage. You will have to attend to all details of the arrangement there. ’

In a few days Swami Saradananda, Golap-Ma, Yogin-Ma, and one or two Brahmacharis, reached Jayrambati via Koalpara. The marriage was fixed for the 27th of Jyeshtha (middle of June), 1911. The bridegroom was Manmathanath Chatterji who belonged to the landlord family of Tajpur. The Chatterjis were richer than the Mukherjis of Jayrambati. But Swami Saradananda, who placed the Mother’s happiness above everything else, spent money unquestioningly for adorning Radhu in a way befitting a bride entering a landlord’s family; and other arrangements for the celebration were on a similar scale. The bridegroom’s party took full advantage of their stronger position to extract from the Swami a considerable amount of dowry. But Kedarnath Datta of Koalpara, unable to restrain himself when unreasonable demands were being made, intervened off and on in the talk between the Swami and the bridegroom’s party; and the Mother, disliking this kind of wrangling and ruffled temper just on the eve of a happy union, called away Kedar Babu. Radhu entered the marriage pandal adorned with gold and silver from head to foot. Uncle Prasanna performed the ceremonial handing over of his niece to Manmatha. She was then past her eleventh year and Manmatha was in his fifteenth.

There was a feast on the next day. When the guests were returning home, the Mother stood at the backdoor and inquired if they had had enough. And they heartily replied, ‘May the bride and the bridegroom live happily, Mother. ’

At the time of Radhu’s going to her father-in-law’s house, the Mother gave her a big black box. At night the Master appeared to the Mother to say, ‘So you have given away one thousand rupees that was in Radhu’s box!’ The Mother then remembered that she had that amount of cash in the box, but it had not been removed when the box was being handed over. Next day she sent her devotee Bibhutibhushan Ghosh and a monk and got back the money.

The Mother spared no pains to see that the minutest detail of that auspicious ceremony was duly performed. And yet, in spite of all these domestic engagements, we get from the above incident an inkling of the level of detachment in which her mind soared for ever. But lest the reader should interpret this as a case of ordinary forgetfulness, we adduce another event which more aptly illustrates our point of view. It was well known that the Mother deeply loved Radhu. And hence it was as desirable for the devotees to see the girl enter a good family as it was for the Mother. Accordingly, one well-wisher once suggested to the Mother that since Master Mahashaya had in his classes many boys of well-to-do families, he could be asked to choose a suitable bridegroom. At this the Mother remarked, ‘Let a groom be hit upon, as he may, in the ordinary course of things.

I will never ask any one to fall into bondage (of wedlock).’ Such was her life of non-attachment, notwithstanding her being outwardly involved in all sorts of household duties, that it was comparable to a lotus leaf untouched by the water on which it floats. Yet none could accuse her of ever neglecting any task.

Radhu’s marriage at Tajpur was settled by her relatives before the Mother left for the South. But on seeing the horoscopes of the pair an astrologer expressed the fear that the girl might become a widow. Yet the Mother did not override a decision taken by Radhu’s well-wishers. Long after the marriage, when Manmatha sought initiation, she at first declined saying that she would not give any mantra to any of her relations. But she yielded at last to his importunities. After making him a disciple, she remarked that though one should not interfere with divine dispensation, Radhu might, after all, escape her widowhood by the force of that initiation.1

A little over two months after Radhu’s marriage, the Ramakrishna Mission lost one of its chief luminaries; Swami Ramakrishnananda passed away at the ‘Udbodhan’ in Calcutta, on the 21st of August, 1911. When he felt that the end was near, he wanted to see the Mother. But after full deliberation, the Mother decided not to go. The tireless service that the Swami rendered to her in the South was still fresh in her mind How could the Mother bear the sight of the passing away of such a devoted son? And if she came to such a small house as the ‘Udbodhan’ with all her retinue, it would only add to the discomfort of the patient. Therefore, she sent back the messenger who had gone to Jayrambati for escorting her to Calcutta. Yet Swami Ramakrishnananda saw the Mother near his sick-bed and cried out, ‘Mother has come!’ Afterwards the poet Girish Babu composed a song about the Mother, taking the cue from the Swami, and the latter was highly delighted to hear it sung. Not long after, he entered the final beatitude. When the news reached

Jayrambati, the Mother said sorrowfully, ‘My Sashi.’ is gone; my backbone is broken. ’

When the devotees of Koalpara arrived at the Mother’s house with vegetables on the occasion of the Jagad-dhatri worship that year, the Mother said joyfully, ‘Greens and vegetables are not always available here, and hence one is put to great trouble at times. But, methinks, the Master will now provide everything through you.’ When the devotees started to return after the worship, the Mother gave them a bundle of fried-rice and other eatables that had been offered to the deity. From that time on, the devotees sent vegetables twice or thrice every week whenever she happened to be at Jayrambati. The economic condition of the Koalpara Ashrama being bad, they could not engage anyone for carrying such loads; and hence after finishing the daily duties, they procured the necessary vegetables from the Ashrama garden or from the market and then carried the load on their own shoulders. At Jayrambati, again, if they found the Mother in need of any daily necessities, such as salt, oil, spices, wheat, etc., which could be had from villages some miles away, they volunteered with alacrity to obtain those things and carry them on their heads to her. When the devotees arrived, the Mother would direct them to leave the things in their proper places. At last they became so familiar with the arrangements there that they could do everything by themselves. When at last they took leave of her by touching her feet, she blessed them saying, ‘May you acquire knowledge; may you get faith and devotion,’ and tied to their clothes some fried-rice for a light repast on the way. In fact, the Koalpara Ashrama became, as it were, a part and parcel of her own household for these few years. It had not even then been incorporated with the Ramakrishna Math at Belur.

As it had been settled that the Mother would go to Calcutta after the Jagad-dhatri worship, Brahmachari Prakash had been sent by Swami Saradananda to take her there. The 8th of

Agrahayana (about November 23), 1911, was fixed as the date for the journey. A couple of days earlier, Kedar Babu (later Swami Keshavananda), the head of the Koalpara Ashrama, came to Jayrambati to make arrangements for the Mother’s stay at that place. The Mother talked as she made betel rolls. When that part of the conversation was over, she said, ‘Listen, my boy, as you have built a house for the Master and set up a resting place for us, I shall install the Master there when I pass through the Ashrama this time. Keep everything ready. You will have to carry on worship, offering of cooked food, vesper service, and all such functions regularly? What will you gain by the Swadesi movement- alone.

The Master is the spring of all that we do or have; he is the ideal. Whatever you do, if you hold on to him, you will never go wrong. ’ The Ashrama was then a hotbed of Swadesi agitation; looms, spinning wheels and political talks being more in evidence than meditation, japa, worship, and study. As a result, the police had a sharp eye on the inmates. Nothing daunted, the head of the centre carried on with his bold programme. And hence he could not accept without question all that the Mother said. And yet he could not gather sufficient courage to contradict her openly. Therefore, he argued indirectly: ‘But, of a truth,

Swamiji (Vivekananda) wanted us very much to work for the country, and he laid the foundation of selfless work by inspiring the youth of the country. What a lot of work would be done if he were alive now!’ Carried away by the trend of his own thought, Kedar Babu unknowingly touched more than one chord in the Mother’s heart. The symphony that he aroused thereby was equally sweet and full, and yet replete with deep spiritual meaning. Hardly had he finished when the Mother intervened, ‘O my dear! If Naren (Vivekananda) were there today, would the Company1 let him alone? They would lock him up in a jail. I couldn’t have borne the sight. Naren was like an unsheathed sword. After his return from foreign countries, he said, “By your grace, Mother, I did not have to cross the ocean by jumping

in this age2, but went to those parts in their own ships; and there, too, I noticed, how great is the glory of the Master; what a number of good people have heard about him and accepted this idea from me with astonished eagerness!” They, too, are my children—don’t you agree?’ Kedar found no answer and kept silent. His first mistake was to support his own course of action by suggesting a false analogy with Swami Vivekananda, and his second error consisted in tending to convert his patriotism into a kind of dislike for foreigners. By the Mother’s words he stood corrected, and it also dawned on him that selfless work cannot be properly carried on unless religion is accepted as its basis.

While on this topic, we shall be excused if we digress a little to give a fuller idea of the Mother’s angle of vision. After the completion of her new house at Jayrambati in 1917, the Mother was living in it at the time of the Durga worship. On that occasion she sent a Brahmachari to purchase some clothes to be presented to her nephews and nieces. He belonged to the Koalpara Ashrama and had imbibed a liking for country-made things. And so he purchased clothes made by the Indian mills, which were coarse and had no attractive borders. Naturally, the girls did not like them; they wanted finer clothes in exchange. The Brahmachari protested in disgust: ‘Well, those are foreign clothes. To think that one can purchase them!’ The Mother was there sitting in a corner. She heard everything and said with a smile, ‘My boy, they (the foreigners), too, are my children. I have to carry on with all; can I afford to be one-sided? Bring for them the clothes just as they want. ’ And yet it was against her nature to do violence to anybody’s feelings; and hence she never again sent this Brahmachari for purchasing foreign clothes; if the need arose, she asked somebody else to do so.

But liberal outlook and connivance at violence are as poles asunder. At the news of police ill-treatment towards Sindhubala and others, the Mother, though noted for her natural suavity, could hardly restrain her indignation. The wife and a sister of Deven Babu of the village Juthabihara in Bankura, had the same name Sindhubala. The sister was then in the family way. Under suspicion of complicity in subversive activity, the police wanted to arrest one of the Sindhubalas; but owing to identity of names they first took into custody the sister who was in her husband’s village Sabajpur. And then they arrested the wife also. The news of these two arrests travelled from mouth to mouth till uncle Kali came in a very agitated mood and reported to the Mother that the police had treated the women inhumanly and made them walk the whole way; and that even when the villagers had protested and suggested that some transport should be arranged, the police had turned a deaf ear. At this cruel news the Mother cried in surprise, ‘What do you say?’ and her whole frame shook. Then red with indignation she said, ‘Is this an order of Company (Government) or an overzealous act on the part of the police? We never heard of such inhuman treatment towards innocent women in the reign of Queen Victoria. If this is an order from the Company, then it will be doomed soon. Was there no man there who could give them some slaps and snatch away the girls?’ A little while after, when uncle Kali communicated to her the news of their release, she was somewhat pacified and said, ‘If I had not heard this news, I would have no sleep tonight. ’ 1

On another occasion the Mother was at Koalpara. The first World War (1914-18) was raging. The devotee Prabodhchandra Chatterji came and made his obeisance to the Mother, who inquired about his health and general welfare, and then asked, ‘Well, my dear, what’s the news of the war? What a tremendous sacrifice of lives has there been—what a machine for killing have they invented! What a lot of instruments there are nowadays—telegraph etc. See, for instance, how Rashbehari (Swami Arupananda) started from Calcutta yesterday and arrived here today. How we toiled and trudged on to reach Dakshineswar (in those days)!’ Encouraged by this, Prabodh Babu enthusiastically eulogized the achievements of science and said, ‘The British Government has increased the general welfare in our country.’ The Mother heard the whole speech and then remarked, ‘But, my son, there is now in our country a greater want of food and clothing. Formerly there was no such paucity of food.’

Let us now pass on to another occasion. There was a great scarcity of cloth all round. The women could not come out of their houses for want of clothes to cover their bodies with; and news of suicides for this reason was being frequently published in the daily papers. One day, as somebody mentioned to the Mother about some of these sad events, she was so much moved that at first tears trickled down her cheeks; and at last no longer able to check her emotion, she cried out in agony, ‘When, indeed, will they (the English) go? When will they?’ When she cooled down a little, she said with regret, ‘In those days there were spinning wheels in every house, cotton was cultivated in the fields, all span and wove their own clothes, there was no dearth of cloth. But the Company came and destroyed it all. The Company promised ease—one could have four pieces of cloth for a rupee and one more in the bargain. All became babus (ease-loving); the spinning wheel went out of vogue. And now have all the babus become kabu (in a tight corner).’ We have to remember that the noncooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi with its concomitant, the revival of the spinning wheel, was yet to come.

The Mother’s heart was moved by the country’s miseries; at times her eyes were blood-red at the iniquities of the foreign exploiters, or shed profuse tears at their heartless oppression. But as an ultimate remedy to all the sorrows she clung to the Master and asked others also to do so. In fact, all her thoughts and deeds centred on Sri Ramakrishna. Those were the days of the Swadesi movement; so, when one patriot asked her, ‘Mother, will not the trials and tribulations of this country ever end?’ the Mother replied that the Master had come for that very purpose. Accordingly, though she was attracted by the practical enthusiasm of the devotees of Koalpara, she decided that the Master should be installed in the Ashrama as its presiding deity, for otherwise the workers would soon be swept off their moorings. That was why she wanted to initiate the Master’s worship there on her way to Calcutta.

That was the middle of November when it is cold in the morning. But as the Mother had to perform the Master’s worship at Koalpara, she started early by a palanquin; and Lakshmi Devi, Maku, and Radhu, and Radhu’s husband Manmatha followed her in separate palanquins, while the mad aunt, Nalini Devi, Bhudev and others travelled by bullock-carts. And there was Brahmachari Prakash as the manager of the party.

The Koalpara devotees made adequate arrangements for the Master’s worship. The Mother bathed after arriving there, and then placing on the altar the Master’s photograph, and by its side her own, she worshipped them duly. Brahmachari Kishori (afterwards Swami Parameshwarananda) performed the homa at her bidding. When the installation of the Master was over, all took prasada. After this and before the midday meal the Mother walked with her nieces Lakshmi and Nalini to Kedar’s house at a little distance. When Brahmachari Prakash came to know of this, he became annoyed and said to the local devotees, ‘You know nothing of the Mother’s position and prestige. Why did you make her walk without my knowledge? Anyway, you should bring her back in a palanquin. ’ But not waiting for his order to be executed, he went with a palanquin and two Ashrama inmates to bring her. They met the Mother on the way and Brahmachari Prakash requested her to get into the palanquin, which she did without a murmur. But on arriving at the Ashrama she reproached him saying, ‘This is our rural resort. Koalpara is my parlour. These are all my own boys. I want to be a little free in my movements so long as I am here. When I come from Calcutta, I heave a sigh of relief. There you keep me shut up in a cage—I am always under restraint. If here, too, I have to toe the line, well, I shan’t be able to do so—you may inform Sarat (Saradananda) accordingly. ’ Then the Brahmachari begged her pardon explaining that in his enthusiasm to see that there was no lack of attention on his part, he had been guilty of unwittingly curtailing her liberty.

It was planned that the journey should be resumed after six o’clock in the evening, and the food to be taken on the way should be made ready by then. But in spite of their best efforts, the Ashrama people could not finish their work in time. As this irritated the Brahmachari, they suggested that the Calcutta party might start according to schedule, and that they would somehow overtake them with the food on the way. The Mother, who heard it all, reprehended the Brahmachari thus: ‘What makes you lose your balance and take them to task like that? This is village atmosphere; can everything be got ready by the clock as in Calcutta? Don’t you notice how diligently the boys have been working from the morning? Whatever you may say, there will be no moving out of here before finishing our meals.’ Accordingly, all had to wait and start for Vishnupur after food at eight o’clock in eight bullock-carts.

1. Radhu did not actually lose her husband; but we shall see that her later life was as bad as widowhood, she being forced to live separated from her husband.

1. This political movement, set on foot on October 14, 1905, consisted in the boycotting of foreign, specially British, articles and encouraging homemade ones, even though the latter lacked beauty and fineness. It was a reaction against the autocracy of Lord Curzon, which

manifested itself in its worst form in the partition of Bengal.

1. Though the East India Company was succeeded by the British Government after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the old people continued for long to refer to the Government as the Company.

2. In search of Sita who was abducted by Ravana, King of Sri Lanka, Sri Rama’s messenger Hanuman crossed the strait between India and Sri Lanka jumping over it.

1. We do not narrate the Sindhubala incident as a historian does, but just as it was communicated to the Mother. Basically it was true and took place in 1917-18. Newspapers, then, were not so much in vogue in the villages, and as news travelled by word of mouth, there were chances of distortion so far as details were concerned. We are here primarily concerned not with authentic history but with the Mother’s reactions to the reports presented to her.