Adieu, Motherland

If one major watermark in his vastly eventful life was the passing away of his mother who had been his one singular point of deepest sentiment and whose one word was enough for him to forego his own wish; to secure whose happiness and obtain whose praise was his sole objective even when he was no more than a little boy; deep steady attachment towards whom was ingrained normally in his nature from his childhood, then the other was leaving the land of his birth and first 58 years of his life—with which so much of his existence, memories, activities was so closely linked—for Deoghar located in the Santhal Parganas in the then Bihar, now part of Jharkhand, owing to unsound health. For such a keenly sensitive nature so much in love with his own land and its people, to mitigate whose suffering he toiled and suffered so much, the jolt of the uprooting was emotional and severe and had he not been a man of great strength and control over himself, it could have been traumatic. But being a man with no attachment towards earthly objects he could leave the sprawling ashram worth crores in those days, forever. Only a very few things, mainly of domestic importance, could be taken along. But a huge train of followers, leaving virtually everything behind, preferred to follow him towards an uncertain future and an entirely new habitat. There Sree Sree Thakur began again from the scratch and laid foundations of the huge institution that one can see there today. Those who left their hearth and home and embarked upon a voyage of uncertainty were confident that they would not at least die in following their lord, come whatever else may. For him they could leave everything else, but for nothing could they forsake him! And indeed, whoever losing and leaving everything took recourse to him as a destitute, during the partition of India, was not turned away by Sree Sree Thakur. Rather he stood as a colossal sheet anchor, safe and secure shelter for them. For the thousands of refugees who came to him losing everything in East Pakistan after India’s independence, he took not a single penny as aid or assistance from the government but became their shelter and stood those hapless in their own steed.

Though Sree Sree Thakur’s desire to return one day to that riverine village where he was born and grew up never turned into reality, he always nurtured in his heart of hearts the craving to go back to that lush green beautiful Bengal village. Fond memories of Himaitpur, Pabna and its associations returned time and again to Sree Sree Thakur, in his remembrances and reminiscences.