Finding Radha
Bhaskar Raman worked at the Powai Ashram as editor of Bal Vihar until 3 years ago before moving to Delhi. As a toddler, he has played on Gurudev’s lap and continues to be wrapped in Gurudev’s devotion and love.
Siddhabari… 1984-85. Bhaskar was two and a half years old. He lived those days at the Sidhabari ashram with his mother Parvathy Raman (now editor of Tapovan Prasad), Dr Akhilam (now Swamini Nishtananda) and his older brother. At the time, Bhaskar had just started speaking, and he only spoke in Tamizh.
Bhaskar’s memories of those days are vivid.
One day seeing Gurudev walking in a leisurely manner, Bhaskar ran across to him and must have, as little children do, stood on his path as a prelude to beginning a conversation. So there he was looking up, very far up from his two feet height up at a towering Gurudev and Gurudev peered down at Bhaskar.
As grown ups many of us must identify with moments like this when a little fellow looks up at you and you look down at him and mostly we are unsure what the fellow wants. But Gurudev knew what the struggle was, maybe. He simply said, “If you want to talk to me you must learn English. Swami does not know Tamizh.”
It seems (as others later told him) after that “exchange”, he started picking up English effortlessly! (Bhaskar would later go on to build a career in journalism, and even served as editor of Balvihar magazine.) Gurudev has given little pushes to so many people to send them on their path!
The toddler’s life at Sidhabari was thus dotted with little meaningful encounters. Bhaskar’s favorite story goes even earlier to when he had just begun to walk, a time when he barely spoke. One morning he woke up much earlier than usual. Everyone had gone for Gurudev’s meditation class.
When he found there was no one around, he jumped out of the room’s ground- floor window (the ashram was still being built back then and the windows had no grills)
He looked all over the ashram, the Temple, the kitchen where his mother worked, near Hanumanji. She was not to be found. He kept wandering. Disturbed and disoriented, looking for mom, Bhaskar began to cry.
A brahmacharini found him, picked him up and told him that everyone was in the meditation hall. Little Bhaskar knew the Sidhabari campus well. Reaching the satsang hall, where Gurudev had just about got everyone nicely tuned and focused, in pin-drop silence. Bhaskar burst in crying at the top of his lungs.
But please visualise the scenario. Six am, a whole host of grown ups all in intense meditation process… Gurudev had gotten everyone into silence, within and without…everyone in focus … and enter the little child bawling loudly.
Parvathy amma, naturally was terrified. She ran to the little child, she picked him up and headed for the door…
But Gurudev had no annoyance and none of the expected anger. He simply said, “The way this child is crying for his mother should be the way you should cry for God, without caring for anything else.”
And in a moment the situation was defused. A disturbance became a lesson, not only in devotion, but in the art of handling aggravating situations with skill, understanding and love.
Gurudev had unconditional love for children and his manner of communing with them was heart warming. When Bhaskar was about a year old, his mother had taken him to Prarthna Saran’s home for bhiksha with Gurudev. This was before they left for Sidhabari.
After lunch, Gurudev went to wash his hands, and he did not return to the hall. Everyone was waiting. The host finally went to see if everything was ok, and found him in the passage way, squatting on the ground, holding little Bhaskar’s hands and looking into his eyes, and mumbling, “You are my Krishna, I am your Radha…” over and over.
In later years, Bhaskar would find that juxtaposition very interesting. He says, “Why didn’t he say I am your Krishna? Why Radha?
“Krishna went here and there, was with so many people, involved in so many tasks and was likely to forget Radha, but Radha never forgot Krishna. I have been through so many phases. Sometimes with the Mission, sometimes not, sometimes with Gurudev, sometimes not. But his care has been a constant”.
In the left side picture three generations with the Guru – Uttarkasi Ashram (To Gurudev’s left: Bhaskar’s paternal grandmother; to right: Prarthna Saran standing and little Bhaskar; seated: Bhaskar’s father and paternal grandfather.
-Excerpt of an article from Celebrating Gurudev
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