Many brothers of mine have gone away and I was sorry I
had not been able to pay my due homage
to them, for I was busy bobbing up and down hilly regions of Trivandrum,
talking, singing, and organizing classes, and coming back to Nettayam Ashrama for the nights.
Let me try to catch up with their going, though
I have this
convenient excuse of being busy with more official duties. But no, no excuses. Perhaps I should make this resolution
this coming New Year, that I would
show due diligence to my writing instincts. So here I begin right away:
Of course, we should consider that 'all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away' but we may also choose to 'consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet ... even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven'.
Swami Vinayananda, our dear Bhuddhadev Maharaj
did choose to consider some flowers, especially Dahlias and Roses and he did it very well. He
had also managed to play God, so to say, and
produced new varieties of Dahlias
and discovered some new methods in horticulture. I am 'too lay' a person to get into details about these but even
for a layman like me his
dedication to horticulture was palpable. Once
sometime
in 1988-89 I was assigned to escort him to some places in Kodaikanal, of course, in pursuance of mutual sharing or
gaining some knowledge of flowers,
chiefly of Roses. I spent some two to three days
with
him and was amazed to find that there was so much to talk about flowers. It rained flowers for three days.
For
some months, in 2008, while in Aroghya Bhavan, I came across him daily. By now he had withered and his sight had gone
dim, but still he talked flowers.
Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi came a few times, at the behest of his flower expert wife, to talk flowers with
him. So did a few others too.
If memory serves me right, I had heard him say that
all his interest
and indulging in horticulture began only after he joined Ramakrishna Mission. Swami Lokeswarananda did well to
encourage him in his pursuits. He
went into it with full gusto and with all patience required of a flower farmer, and discovered newer
methods and produced new varieties
of Dahlia flowers. The international Dahlia Registry mentions his name and his creations, named after the
Holy Mother, Thakur, Swami
Vivekananda, Swami Madhavananda, Swami Lokeswarananda and one named Bhikku's Mother. He wrote under the name
'Bhikku Buddhadev' and produced
some definitive books. He was sought after as a judge in flower shows.
Now-a-days
a Ramakrishna Mission Monk going abroad
is not a big deal, but for good or bad, back in the 1980s, we thought
differently and forbade him to
accept several invitations from prestigious international forums.
I think the loss is more to us than to him.
The Ramakrishna Mission has arranged it acts better
now after Vivekananda University came into being.
See for official obituary :
http://www.belurmath.org/news_archives/2015/01/02/obituaries-01-january-2015/
Swami Vinayananda (Buddhadev / Pramod Ranjan) passed away at Arogya Bhavan, Belur Math, on 7 December at about 4.20 am owing to a sudden cardiac arrest. He was 77. Initiated by Swami Madhavanandaji Maharaj, he joined the Order in 1962 at Narendrapur centre and had Sannyasa from Swami Vireshwaranandaji Maharaj in 1974. Besides his joining centre, he served at Mayavati, Deoghar, Mumbai, Malda and Delhi centres as an assistant and Asansol centre as head. Towards the end of 1989 he withdrew himself from active life owing to ill health and had been living a retired life at Belur Math since then. An expert floriculturist, especially in growing roses and dahlias, he was often invited by several floriculture societies to act as a judge in their shows. He also authored a few books and a number of articles on floriculture in several national and international journals. The Swami was quiet and austere by nature.
See for official obituary :
http://www.belurmath.org/news_archives/2015/01/02/obituaries-01-january-2015/
Swami Vinayananda (Buddhadev / Pramod Ranjan) passed away at Arogya Bhavan, Belur Math, on 7 December at about 4.20 am owing to a sudden cardiac arrest. He was 77. Initiated by Swami Madhavanandaji Maharaj, he joined the Order in 1962 at Narendrapur centre and had Sannyasa from Swami Vireshwaranandaji Maharaj in 1974. Besides his joining centre, he served at Mayavati, Deoghar, Mumbai, Malda and Delhi centres as an assistant and Asansol centre as head. Towards the end of 1989 he withdrew himself from active life owing to ill health and had been living a retired life at Belur Math since then. An expert floriculturist, especially in growing roses and dahlias, he was often invited by several floriculture societies to act as a judge in their shows. He also authored a few books and a number of articles on floriculture in several national and international journals. The Swami was quiet and austere by nature.
