Ananthan Nair and his brother Manoharan Nair are old devotees from Pune. While Manoharan ji continues to run the family tyre business in Pune, Ananthan ji has retired to Tallicheri, Kerala.

1966 – Deccan Gymkhana, Pune. Ananthan Nair was a businessman in Pune when Gurudev held a Geeta Gnyana Yagna there. Ananthan and two of his colleagues – Unni Nair president of Pune CM, PVA Nair, one of the functionary of Pune Mission – invited Gurudev for lunch at Ananthan ji’s residence at Kumud Kuteer, Deccan Gymkhana.

Ananthan ji had already attended a few gnyana yagnas of Gurudev’s in Pune. Unni Nair and Ananthan were very close friends. “And Gurudev being a Malayalee we thought we were privileged to have him at our home!” And Manoharanji, Ananthan ji’s brother, laughs both mirthfully and embarrassedly. ” Out of our ignorance, out of WHEN THE GURU REMEMBERS YOU our ignorance!” he adds again and again. So they invited Gurudev and he accepted the invitation! The Nairs could not believe their luck.

Other devotees were also present on that occasion. “Gurudev enjoyed our food and thanked us for giving him Kerala delicacies,” says Manoharan. “We maintained the Kerala style and served him on a banana leaf!” says Manoharan Nair. How Gurudev gives to each one the joy he seeks.

Ananthan Nair remembers in particular a quote that Gurudev dropped upon them, that afternoon, “Work properly, with integrity and give back to society. Vedanta will always help you during your testing times.” The business folk who formed a significant part of the invitees that day, felt greatly assured, when Gurudev added, ” We are all just like frogs in a pond. When the water dries up, we will all jump out of the pond.”

Was Gurudev alluding to the Nairs doing business ? Or doing business away from home town? Or was Gurudev saying, business itself is finite in being able to bring security? Ananthan and Manoharan can only hazard a guess. ” I think he meant, when the situation is favorable, you remain in that area. When the situation is unfavorable, you migrate to different parts in search of living. But whatever it was that one sentence remained in my mind!

The Nair family was extremely inspired by Gurudev’s presence, noting in particular, his profound knowledge of the Gita and his tremendous fluency with English Literature and Gurudev’s simple explanations to confounding verses of the Gita.

After reaching Powai, Gurudev wrote to the Nairs and thanked them for the lunch. This gesture was overwhelming for them, who had invited a Malyalee so that he may taste home cooking in a strange city, but who left behind for them a road upon which to walk and find their way to Vedanta.

Manoharan Nair recalls that Ananthan ji drove Gurudev around the city during a couple of visits to Pune, during one of which Gurudev presented Ananthan ji with a copy of Kindle Life. He says, “We were very fortunate to have him… just to have his footprints in our house… later when he reached Uttarkasi , on Guru Poornima day he again wrote to us from there, and again after a couple of years…!

The Nair brothers remain grateful for this one event in their life. “I don’t know the reason why he remembered us all those times,” he says very simply, “but he might have understood us,…but that he remembered us on Guru Poornima to write to us again was very startling and touching at the same time..

Often great men come into our lives and open the skies a bit for us to see what lies beyond. Or to open doors for the next generation. Ananthan Nair’s grandson today studies at CIRS…