Musings on the Life & Times of Swami Vivekanand Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan Prologue

Musings on the Life & Times of Swami Vivekanand
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

Prologue

For one who chose not to miss the crisis of a Pandemic, by reading and more reading and writing and more and more writing and getting published too, in a big way, it has become a viral habit to continue musing on all things that compel. We have had the Covid19, then Delta,Omicron and hope was on the way with multiple Vaccines and Boosters coming along. India, as the Vaccine Manufacturing hub, has inoculated over 150 crores of us We the People.

Notwithstanding the breakthrough infections, India and the world appear to be turning the pathogen corner. Touch wood. Pandemic may be morphing into an Endemic and to be with us like a comvariant of it.The scientists and epidemiologists are notaking any chances,to as yet declare that the fat lady has sung. They are vary that Nature was unfathomable and we can only plan with fingers’ crossed. Nature is supreme and shall always have the last word.

But, my itchy fingers are still in keying mode on my IPhone, which has turned into my constant companion in the Carl Jung Bolingen Tower that my favourite chair and haunt at home has turned into. To begin with, the making and working of our Constitution kept me company. ( Constitution and its Making ( Musings, Anecdotes, Episodes ), OakBridge, 2020), ( Constitution and its Working (Musings, Anecdotes,Episodes), OakBridge,2021). Then, it was time to march with Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw ( Sam Manekshaw’s Beloved Armed Forces, Kalaimagal Publications, 2021). Go legal to keep track of insurance precepts and practice ( MN Srinivasan and K Kannan’s- Principles of Insurance Law, LexisNexis Butterworths, 2021- as co-author with Sharath Chandran) and onto Stephen’s Evidentiary jurisprudence. ( Rattanlal & Dhirajlal on Law of Evidence, LexisNexis Butterworths,2021 as Co-author with Sharath Chandran). Tucked into Courtroom Humour, Sitaraman & Co, 2021. And then went the true and anecdotal route with Courtroom Drama, OakBridge, 2022).

Even as Life and Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi and Constitutional Czars in the Hall of Fame ( as Co author with V Lakshminarayanan) pulled me in and await publication. A seamless assembly line writing spree it has been and continues to be . Sounds bizarre and weird. No, it is one helluva lovely ride during or in spite of the Pandemic times. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “Words are my breath. I love them. And the sweetness and smoothness in them are too overpowering to let go. You live in those words. And the words live in you”. And immodestly, each musing train has had a traction, so much so that effort at publication, has not seen any rejection slips.

Who and what next? Why not Narendranath Datta a.k.a.Swami Vivekanand? Why not?

‘Musings on the Life and Times of Swami Vivekanand’. A perfect harbour and parking place, a befitting antidote for the winding up, now and not now, Viral Pandemic times. It is once again on the anecdotal and episodal plane. Dancing around the edges. With what confidence and connect? No more than being an obedient student of Vivekananda College, Mylapore, Chennai, run by the famed Ramakrishna Mission. For four years since 1976. That was a long time ago.

In 2023, Narendranath Datta would be 160 years of age. Time therefore to visit him. He was a magnetic personality. His works are a mountain. Still being researched. Most importantly, he lived life full, even if for less than 40 years. Much like Subramania Bharathi. And they were contemporaries who never met. Despite when Bharathi was in Varanasi in 1898-1993, Naren too was there, for 40 long days, in an adjoining Ghat.

Narendranath’s life and times offer humongous scope to enthuse, entertain and illuminate. Commencing with his birth and Namakaran or naming, his life is full of anecdotes. And there are nuggets and vignettes strewn all across and all over the place. Borrowing heavily, what else, the musings go hunting. The catches are plenty. To capture and dazzle. And in these Attention Span deficit disorder days (The recent NYT best seller list topper of Johann Hari’s ‘Stolen Focus’ talks of a measly 65 second focus for students, 3 minutes for employees and 7.5 minutes for professionals). Can these musings allure and retain attention? Don’t know.,Not lme. The subject matter is attractive and promising enough. We shall see.

Where to begin? Where else than Naren’s legendary meeting with his master Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. There are instances where we are left deeply impressed when we meet someone. The meeting may be only for a few minutes, but we are left with the feeling that we want to stay and know more about the person we met. Such people exude an indescribable charm and influence, so much so that we do not want to part from them. These are situations that each one of us cherish and remember and feel that something within us changed after the meeting.

The meeting between Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Narendranath Datta was something that not only changed young Narendra’s life forever, but also gave the world an extraordinary messenger to spread the thoughts and philosophy of this great saint of Dakshineshwar.

Naren was born in a typical middle class Bengali household. He did not have a noteworthy or sparkling scholastic record to boast. If we look at the numbers he got in school and college, we can all feel good that we were not in the Yuval Noah Harari ‘useless category’. If Vivekananda barely ‘managed to pull through his exams, we too have hope’ wrote a commentator cheekily.

But, there was a characteristic that set Naren apart. He was no overly religious or philosophical being to begin with. He had his usual quota of boyish playfulness. In fact, he was such a prankster that his mother wondered whether her prayers for a child were ‘misunderstood by the good lord’. ‘His energy levels were insatiable’ wrote a biographer.,

It was a household where religion was ‘practised with discipline’. Naren was however, in a quest of his own. He continuously and consistently expressed an intent, curiosity and eagerness to know “Whether any one had seen God”. This poser was part of his very DNA. He kept asking of elders this question. None came forward with a satisfactory response.

It was this everlasting and unquenchable thirst and quest that took him to Dakshineshwar.To have the esoteric experience of his life!

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)