‘Swami, you look like a Rishi!’ exclaimed somebody, an obviously demonstrative devotee, to
our Swami Mukhyananda, to which he replied with a majestic drawl ‘Like a Rishi? Rishi indeed (am I) (‘Rishir Mothom? Rishi ye’). We
made over-abundant use of this exchange to make good-natured but nevertheless
malice-tinged gossip about him. I suppose it is but natural for the likes of us
to make some fun of our teachers, especially such scholarly and intimidating
ones like Swami Mukhyananda. We did it behind his back, of course. Once we
laughed at the start of a class. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience for
some of us, especially those frontbenchers who were caught on the wrong foot at
first. It was a cold day and the Swami had come wearing a woolen cap which made
him look like a lovable clown. I have a vague notion that he had some cream
smeared on his nose. I think I just smiled (and no, it did not shine bright
enough to be visible all the way from my back bench), but some innocent
frontbenchers could not hold their laugh and to begin with, the Swami too
laughed with them but then when he continued to laugh louder and longer, we
understood something was amiss. Abruptly stopping his laughter the Swami
thundered unto us a masterly admonition for our unseemly conduct.
He was indeed a teacher not to be
trifled with. Be it a novice brother or a highly tagged monk of the order, if
you trifle with him, you get it full in your neck.
Before he was asked to teach, he had
been successively, the head of our Chandigarh
He lived just next to my room in T.C.
When I sometimes used to talk in my noon siesta or have sleep paralysis, he
would boomingly call out, ‘O Brahmachari’ and promptly yank me out of it with a
strong pull. Year after year, many, many times he would be enquiring how I am,
how so-and-so, our mutual acquaintance, is and then proceed to give me with much affection, the Prasad or eatables he had been keeping for many days to give to his
loved ones. I used to go out of his sight and after taking the smallest portion
of it, give it to any other person willing or other living beings.
He was very often dramatic while he
taught. He would squat on his chair and his upper body sometimes swayed
remarkably. One particular session is always in my memory when he taught what
Samsara is. He was always looking out for a typist to type his articles and I
was more than willing to oblige him. I sometimes used to bunk his classes in
order to type and he had to keep mum. I suppose you call it nepotism. Perhaps
it is so.
Google Search doesn’t show up much
about Swami Mukhyananda while it throws up a lot about worthies like yours truly.
I have not read any of his books fully because his writing style has kept me
off so far. But from what little I read I can sense the great worth of the
contents. I suppose I must start reading them in their entirety soon.
I dared not write it before, but that
he is no more, I can put it here, that it was a young boy Lakshman, who came to
steal mangoes at the Ramakrishna Mission at Bangalore (and was so attracted by
Swami Tyagishananda who instead of telling him off, offered ripe mangoes and
advised him to leave the unripe ones in the trees so that they too might ripen)
who metamorphosed into our ripe, wizened ‘Rishi indeed’, Swami Mukhyananda.
He cared much for the traditions and
the non-formalities that contribute to the homely atmosphere of our Order. Once
when some of us were unctuously fussy in paying our obeisance to a senior
monk just because the latter had some officious tag attached to his name, Swami
Mukhyananda blew his fuse off. His seeing red rag at the least of acts which
might take us away from a loving and homely clime to bossy and stifling
bureaucratic hot winds impressed me.
It is such Mukhyanandas that make
Ramakrishna Mission what it is and keep us steadily at it.
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Swami
Mukhyananda ji (Lakshman Maharaj)
passed away on 4 October 2013 at about 9.05 pm at Seva Pratishthan.
He was 94. He had worked at our Karachi Centre, once facing single
handedly a hostile mob, who not liking the friendly local Muslims, took
'direct action' to force the Ramakrishna Mission there to close down. He had
the good fortune to have had the Darshan twice, of Swami Nirmalananda, a
Revered Pioneer monk of the Ramakrishna Mission who walked shoulder-to-shoulder
with Swami Saradananda and others under Swami Vivekananda and Swami
Brahmananda.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sugata Bose (my FaceBook friend) says : I had met Revered Swami
Mukhyanandaji many times at the Arogya Bhavan in Belur Math whenever I paid a
visit to Swami Tattwasthanandaji ( Bibhuti Maharaj ) there. We exchanged
pleasantries. I have seen him counseling devotees with great force of
conviction as if they were his very own. The earnestness was very evident from
the way he addressed them, somewhat like ' the Uttam Vaidya ' of The Gospel Of
Sri Ramakrishna. I feel saddened by this news of his demise, if may use the
term with apologies, because of my acquaintance with him which brings back
memories far earlier when I had wondered why he sported a beard, as also for
the fact that these venerable souls were associated with so many luminous
beings of the Order under whose radiance they attained to luminosity themselves
and that they are departing, one by one, impoverishing us for good unless we
learn to live by the precepts they lived and taught. My humble prostrations at
Maharajji's hallowed feet.
