THE MONK WHO LOST HIS FAMILY

I met him during a meditation course at the Bangalore ashram of Art of Living Foundation. The intimacy between us grew as we shared the same room. A slender physique, an innocent expressive face and pleasant radiant eyes - he was quite a likable person full of laughter and sunshine. But the dolphin smile always dangling on his lips sometimes irritated me. He looked much younger than his age which he claimed to be around forty five.

 Working as a computer professional with IBM in USA for the last three years, he had suddenly resigned his job and returned to India. “It all seemed useless somehow. I just sold my car and came back,” he said while introducing himself to all the participants in the inaugural session and added with a mischievous smile, “Oh, an ordinary Toyota, not a Ferrari!”  The obvious allusion was to Robin Sharma’s famous book, 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. Since that day he came to be known as Monk in the ashram.

He never mentioned his family during our long conversations which touched a variety of topics, from politics and religion to poverty and corruption. He did tell me about his mother living in Pune to whom he seemed to be much attached. But, nothing more than that.

His fixation on Sri Sri Ravishankar, the acclaimed spiritual guru and founder of the ashram, was complete and unwavering. Most of his observations on life in general usually ended with, “Do you know what Guruji says in this context?” And a quotation from Sri Sri’s sermon followed verbatim. The unflinching faith of this USA based computer engineer on an Indian guru seemed astonishing and, sometimes, quite exasperating to me. 

Our course consisted of rigorous breathing exercises, observation of silence and austere meditation routines. Sitting cross legged for hours together made my back and calf muscles ache. But still I was enjoying this interlude of spiritual retreat. And the no-holds-barred discussions with Monk at bed-time were more stimulating than anything else. But, somehow, I could not be comfortable with the omniscient all-forgiving smile perched on his lips.

     Then the festival of Shivratri came and thousands of devotees swooped down on the ashram. There were huge crowds everywhere. The main hub of activity was the open-air auditorium where whole-night Puja and Bhajans were being performed. I was negotiating my way through a crowd at one of the gates there when my kurta pocket was picked and my i-phone was gone. Next morning, Monk took me to the ‘Lost and Found’ section of the Ashram. We reported the matter to Police also. But of no avail.

            I felt very disconcerted at the loss of mobile and was a bit uncommunicative during my bed-time chat with Monk. He tried to console me with the thought that I might get my phone back as the police had nabbed some pickpockets and some stolen articles have been recovered. In the end, he added in a comforting tone, “And moreover, you need not get yourself upset over loss of small things!”

                        “Small things?” I burst out, “Do you know how much an I-phone costs? If you had lost yours I would have seen how you could smile so peacefully.”

My voice had turned slightly acerbic but Monk was unprovoked, his cherubic smile intact. After a while, he said, “I have lost many things in life, Parmar, perhaps more important than an Apple mobile!”  Then, a bit hesitantly, on my repeated insistence, he told me how he lost his family less than a year ago. His 15-year old son died of meningitis and his wife followed the son within two months. I gaped at his face wondering how a person can smile all the time after suffering so much. We really fret too much about loss of things which are not very significant in life, I thought.

        On my return, I realised that I had learned more from my maverick room-mate than all the painstaking workouts during my ashram sojourn.