I worked in the newspaper industry for fifty years.
In the beginning, at the age of fifteen, I worked as a boy distributing paper. I had failed in the seventh standard and left school. A friend in the industry told me to go on reading whatever came in my hand. He gave me some books. I got books from the village library.
As my friend had contacts with a printer, he gave me a job as type setter. A number of letters of the alphabet is arranged systematically in compartments of a board. The required letters are arranged in reverse order and fixed to the printing board. TIGER is arranged as REGIT. Then printing ink is smeared and pressed on the paper, which will be printed with the word TIGER.
It is a tedious and messy work, but better wages with less manual work is the attraction.
Soon I rose in my establishment as MY KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED FROM BOOKS HELPED ME, TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM DOING.
My friend got involved in revolutionary activities and they wanted to print books explaining their ideology. Here my experience became handy. I was asked to do things in secrecy.
Then I started writing. I came in contact with leaders of the movement and became a functionary in the party. When the ban on our party was lifted, we all came out and moved openly among the people, arranging meetings, selling books in festivals, staging drama for propagating our thinking. Soon I came into contact with ladies too, but marriage was discouraged by the Party. I remained a bachelor.
When I was sixty, my friend died suddenly and I became an orphan, intellectually speaking. The failure of our movement also was a disappointment. I decided to seek sanyas (become a saint) and wandered in the Himalayas.
I had not seen the South and wished to tour the land on foot.
One day I reached an unknown village by the side of the river Shipra. It was a charming place with few dwellings, all very poor and hardly any government building, even the post office being far away. I took bath and ate something from my bag, which contained few cloths and no money. I slept under a neem tree.
When I woke up in the morning, a mall girl of some nine years or so, was standing by my side.
She smiled and said Namaste.
May God bless you, my child.
Ma told me to come home and have your break fast.
As I was hungry, I followed her. Presently we reached her home.
They gave me tooth powder made of some herbs and water in a bucket to take bath. After that I was given pooris and potato curry to eat.
Maji did not come out until I had finished eating. She now came and bowed at my feet: Swamiji, bless me for a boy. I am expecting delivery in a month.
She was fair and had thick flock of hair, brown in colour. I placed my hands on her bowed head and chanted a Samskrutham verse from the veda . When that was over, she placed hundred rupees at my feet and got up. She said:
I know that sanyasis do not stay at one place; but it is my humble request that you stay, at least till my delivery.
I did not have the heart to refuse.
The next Sunday, her husband, who worked in a government office, came. He was very jolly and talkative. He too repeated his wife’s plea and insisted that I stay, as their honoured guest.
Next day, I went around, accompanied by the bright lively girl, who told me all she knew about the place and the people who lived there. She was curious to know about the outside world of which she knew nothing. One day I took her to a temple, some three miles away. There I chanted sahasranama (thousand names of Lord Vishnu), sitting in front of the deity. People placed coins and some notes in my lap and sought my blessings. During the Himalayan tour, which lasted a dozen years, I read a lot of books in the ancient language of our land. And learned many passages by heart.
When we reached home, I handed over the money to Maji.
They made saffron cloths for me, to make me a Swamiji. A number of people, especially women, began coming to visit me. I patiently heard them and they, in turn, gave me money or fruits. My reputation reached far and wide, after a boy was born to Maji. They even started work for constructing an ashram for me. I insisted that it should be a humble hermitage, built with bamboo and thatched with grass roof. The mud floor was to be plastered with cow dung. Food was still brought from Maji’s home, until a very young girl joined the ashram as my disciple. She served me and cooked food for the inmates of the ashram.
I surveyed the area and found a depression in the river bed, where dirty, stagnant water collected even in summer. I suggested making an earthen dam at this point. The river bed here was widened and deepened to store a large quantity of water in the rainy season
At that time a man gifted one crore rupees to the ashram. He believed that his business increased hundred times after I blessed him. With this money the construction of roads also was done along with the dam.
Achary Vinoba Bhave, who stayed in my Ashram for one month, gave me all the land which he got from bhoodan movement during his stay.
I decided to have a goshala (cow shed) and a farm. All workers got food in addition to wages. The gas from the cow dung was used for making biogas. Electrification of the village was done by solar power.
The number of inmates also increased as the ashram expanded.
Maji’s daughter was married off to a wealthy businessman. Her son became an engineer. He took keen interest in the affairs of the ashram.
I missed the company of Maji. The quiet old days of my stay at her house was something of a dream now. But I realized that a lot of good things can be done in my new role.
Already, there are demands from the South, for a branch of the ashram to be set up near Chidambaram. One day, I set out to the South, for surveying a suitable place, accompanied by Maji, her son and daughter, who was very eager to accompany us.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: ASHRAM, CHIDAMBARAM, DAM, DAUGHTER, GOVERNMENT OFFICER, HIMALAYAS, HUSBAND, NEWSPAPER, RIVER SHIPRA, SAMSKRUTHAM, SOLAR POWER, SON | Leave a comment »
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