May U be enlightened!

The year was 1884. It was a sultry summer evening in Calcutta, the Capital of British India . In a small North Calcutta locality called Simla, Navin, a young  man was dead drunk and rolling in the gutter. He had earned a fine reputation in this predominantly upwardly mobile middle class area  as a habitual drinker and offender. Those were the heydays of the British Raj. Being firm believers of Give and take policy, the Brits were taking  away India's national assets to England, and giving back  English education and value systems to India. Part of the value system was to inculcate among the Young Indians, utmost contempt for everything that was "Indian". Thus was born a young breed, called "Young India". Skeptical, Neither here-nor-there, these young college passouts , had taken to every conceivable Western ill like a fish takes to water. And some of them like Navin, had developed a special fascination for the Western Bottle. While they worked throughout the week, Saturday brought in festivities for them. They would start drinking from the late hours of Friday night, and frolic all through Saturday and Sunday. The fun and frolicking would usually end with the frolickers rolling all over in  muck of open sewers.Thus Saturday used to be called as "Oh What Great Fun is Saturday".

Navin had always been a sweet and sensitive  boy, extremely compassionate  and helpful. Son of wealthy parents, he would go out of his way to help his friends in financial distress. However his compassionate nature soon proved to be his undoing. A group of  hemp smokers and drunkards formed a  coterie around him.Slowly Navin was sucked into the whirlpool of addiction.His mother cried piteously, his father used the stick , but to no avail. Navin went from bad to worse, and then from worse to horrible. Those were the days of child marriages. Boys would be married off by 16, and girls by 12. Thinking that their wayward son might be reformed by marriage, Navin's parents quickly married him off to a pretty little girl.Unfortunately no marriage could help him out, the poor girl suffered a lot, eventually she returned to her father's house.  Navin kept rolling in the muck . He lost his job, his father threw him out of the house.

It was one of those Sunday's  when he was mildly drunk,   that he was accosted by one of his neighbor's. Ram Datta, a professor of Chemistry at the Calcutta University and a highly   respected gentleman  of the area, had always had a soft corner for Navin. He wanted to help out  Navin ,  but didnt quite understand how. Seeing Navin's condition, he asked him,"How’s it going with you my boy? Do you keep drinking all day? Don't you get something to eat with your drink?" Navin innocently replied, "Ram Dada(Elder Brother),  I just 

get a few salted grams with my drink, how can I afford something else?" Ram's eyes moistened a bit hearing this unpretentious answer. "Look Navin, do one thing. Today night we are having a great feast in our house in honour of a very respected guest. Why dont you come along too? I will serve you  Luchi(deep  fried bread) and Spicy Potato curry." "Really Ram Dada, is that true?", Navin was like a little boy in a toy museum, "Really. No one even talks to me now a days. Not even my parents. And you are inviting me to a feast of Luchi and Spicy Potato curry. Ram dada, I see you have not forgotten your little brother?"

As the day drew to an end ,  and the sun set, Navin felt a sense of restlessness. Through his drunken stupor, he felt as if another sunset had snatched away one more day of his life. While he lolled around the squalor in a semi-swine like state, the purposelessness of his life seemed to haunt him.He felt a deep void within him, a world weariness crept in out of nowhere. Slowly the last tinge of the day disappeared into the  dark bosom of the night. The little stars above , and the  street lights below lit up. Ram Datta's house was quite visible in the distance. It had an aura of festivities written all around it. Hackney carriages had started arriving there. High pitched kirtanas could be heard from the distance. Navin was woken  up from his drunken stupor by the sights and sound coming from Ram Dada's house.Ah, Luchi and Aloor Dum!! How I love it, Navin thought. He slowly got out from the gutter and trudged along to Ram Datta's house in an inebriated state. He smelled of muck, and people hurriedly ran away from him. Ram Dada stood at the gate of his house, and was welcoming one and all. From a distance he saw Navin, he quickly took him aside and pushed him in for a nice bath . Navin was a bit sober now.  He was quite hungry. Like a child he started pestering Ram for Luchi and Aloor Dum. 

"Wait , wait my boy.I will serve you. Now, let me receive the guests. You just rest a bit. Look , do one thing. There's religious singing and dancing going on in the central courtyard. Go and enjoy it" Though he was least inclined to do it, Navin couldnt disobey his host. He went to the courtyard. Though it was quite big, there was a huge crowd. A kirtan party was singing devotional songs, while a group of people was dancing to the tune of the song in a frenzied manner. At the centre of this circle  was a ordinary looking middle-aged man who was standing still. The crowd was looking at him with rapt attention, not even a breath seemed to be flowing in or out. Navin was perplexed. In order to gain a closer look at the man, he waded in through the crowd.  As soon as he took a closer look at the man, he was stupefied. There seemed to be a column of light emanating from his body.What effulgence. What divinity!! And what a serene and lovely face the man had .Navin had never seen a more beautiful face before. The man was standing dead still, like a painting. There was a bewitching smile on his lips, a smile which would capture the roughest of hearts. People around Navin started murmuring that the man was in Samadhi , the highest state of superconscious existence, where the border line between Man and God stands erased. Navin could  see that the bodily functions of the man had stopped. Someone went near him and tried putting his palms under the nostrils, but not a trace of breath could be found. There was a doctor in the group, the person checked for heartbeat, turned back to the amazed crowd and indicated that he couldnt find even a single beat. Navin's inebiration suddenly left him. He was shellshocked.How is this even remotely possible?  Is this man dead? But it cant be, all signs of life exist in him. How can a dead man emanate such majesty, such glory. Navin felt strangely drawn to this strange man. Who was he? Was he the honoured guest about whom Ram had been telling him. Navin asked the man standing next to him, "Who's this person?".The man looked at him as if he had asked a very silly question. "You have come here to see the Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar, and you dont know who he is", the man replied. "Sorry, I am a drunkard and just came for the food. Not for any Paramahamsa". The man sneered at him and then replied, "His name is Shri Ramakrishna, popularly called as the Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar(Dakshineshwar was then a small village near Calcutta). Some call him a great saint, some a devotee of Mother Kali, some call him the mad priest of Dakshineshwar, and a few, like Ram Babu call him as God come on earth. I guess you came for food, but the food arrangements are in honor of his visit."

There was something about the man, which made Navin forget his food. It was a strange attraction that seemed to draw him to this Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar. The more he saw him, the more it seemed Navin would lose his heart to him. There was a strange palpable joy emanating from him and covering the whole place. Such joy, he seemed to become intoxicated without wine. Navin was overwhelmed. Slowly the Paramahamsa showed signs of return to external consciousness.There was a deep breath,  signs of life appeared as if a householder had come back to his house post a long vacation.He was murmuring something to himself, and looking at them all as if he was not sure how he came here. People started rushing to seek his blessings, it seemed there would be a stampede. A few of the devotees formed a protective human chain around him to stop this madness. Navin yearned to touch this childlike person, so radiant and  so divine. Like a man not in control of himself, Navin joined the crowd clamoring to touch his feet.He had to touch him, as if his redemption depended on it. He was repulsed by the human chain, but he was obstinate. He spotted a small gap and he barged in through that human wall.He barged in and the he was standing in front of this strange man. With a smile on his face, like a long lost friend, Ramakrishna beckoned him close.And like one mesmerized he went near him. Ramakrishna suddenly touched him on the crown of his head and said in a voice, that oozed sweetness, "May  you be enlightened".The touch of the strange man caused  an upheaval  within  Navin. It seemed as if he was drowning, drowning in an infinite ocean of effulgence. The world around him was being devoured by  waves of radiance,  the radiant form of Ramakrishna emerged out of this effulgence. Navin was now intoxicated again, but this intoxication was divine intoxication- far far stronger than the cheap ones he had tried before. In that intoxicated state, he started weeping profusely taking the name of God, he danced and sang in a strange spiritual mood.There were quite a few in that crowd  who had known him , and used to sneer at him. Seeing this sudden transformation, their eyes nearly popped out. Somebody brought this news to Ram, Ram came running to witness it first hand. "Hari Bol", "Hari Bol"."Take the name of the Lord" echoed throughout the world like the roar of waves crashing on the shore.Everyone was drowned in ineffable bliss. Ah, the worldly pleasures seemed so insipid before this. And in the centre of all this, stood the mad priest of Dakshineshwar, effulgent, radiant , his hands transformed in a shape which seemed to bless the  assembled devotees with boon and fearlessness.

Henceforth Navin's life became surreal. A sure change started coming over  him . He started detesting his old lifestyle, he would take the bottle to drink, but the luminous face of Ramakrishna would come before him,  the memory of that evening would overwhelm him. In disgust he gave up the bottle. Not that it was easy. He started frequenting Dakshineshwar , to the temple of Mother Kali, where lived this strange man , in a small room within the temple premises.He came  to have just one look at that divine form. Ah, how sweet it was. He dared not enter Ramakrishna's room and approach him, but looked and heard him from far and on the sly. But then oneday, as he was tiptoeing in and trying to hide behind a few others, Ramakrishna looked at him, and with a sweet smile called him out like one known through ages, "Why stand so far, come close my boy. Dont worry Navin Chandra, it will all be great with you. Your transformation will be a wonder to  men now and in the future, your story will be read and told in far off places. Now come and sit near me.May my Divine Mother always keep you in bliss".