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"Holy Mother" painted by Swami Tadatmananda
Used courtesy of the Vedanta Society of Southern California
04-March-2012 (Sunday)
Reminiscences of The Holy Mother!!!
SWAMI APURVANANDA - 20
In the evening when I went to her again, I found her on the veranda of her mud hut cutting vegetables, with her legs stretched out. She said that the medicines of Vaikuntha Maharaj of Bankura had been effective in controlling her utricaria to some extent. We chatted for some time and then she wanted to know how famine relief work was carried out. From her words it was evident that she was much distressed by the plight of the famine-stricken. I described how we went from door to door distributing coupons among the poor, how we gathered information about their needs and miserable circumstances, how they collected rice in exchange of coupons, adding that women were also given saris sometimes. In this context, I narrated an incident which moved Mother deeply. I described how one morning, when out on a tour of the villages where relief operations were being carried out, I discovered that none of those receiving rice from us was at home. Obviously, they had gone out to work. Those who worked were not eligible for the dole of rice. So I proceeded to investigate and found most of them sowing paddy in knee-deep slush in a paddy field outside the village. On advancing in that direction, I noticed from a distance a woman labourer leaving the field and hiding herself behind a pile of paddy saplings. On enquiring from others, I learnt that she had delivered a baby the previous night, and it was with that baby she had come to the field to work. Driven by hunger she was sowing paddy, leaving the infant wrapped in a rag in a corner of the field. If it was known that she was working in the field, she would not get rice from us. So having seen me from a distance, she was trying to hide from me. I was much disturbed thinking of the dire distress that could compel a woman, who has given birth to a child just the night before, to come to work in the field with the newborn. It was a terrible shock. I approached the woman, and in a choked voice, just said, “Do not worry, Mother, I shall not stop your quota of rice.” This helped her muster enough courage to fold her hands and say, “Sir, I’m going through unbearable hardship. That’s why I’ve come to work.” For one day’s work in the field she would get two seers of paddy.
Mother shuddered with horror on hearing the story. Almost in tears, she exclaimed, “What are you saying! So fresh from childbirth she had come to work in the field! It is not right to stop the dole of rice in such circumstances. Son, you did the right thing. Master will bless you.” Then she prayed to Master, as if hurt, “Master! Can’t you see all this? Such suffering of people! How can people carry on in such miserable conditions! You have to do something for their deliverance!” Her anguished words still seem to ring in my ear. Mother was compassion personified – a fervent prayer incarnate.
(REMINISCENCES OF Sri Sarada Devi by Monastics, Devotees, and others - Compiled and Edited in Bengali by SWAMI PURNATMANANDA - Translated by MALOTI SEN GUPTA : P 60-61)
Location: Bangalore, India