Compiler’s Note and Acknowledgements

This book, in memory of Rev. Swami Rudrananda Maharaj, has its genesis in Mr Bala Ganapathi’s (affectionately known as BG to his friends and admirers) reverence for the Swami. Without his zeal, this publication would not have come to fruition.

BG knew intimately both Swami Avinashananda and Swami Rudrananda, in Tamil Nadu, before either one of them set out to Fiji in the late thirties. Readers would be interested to note that when Sangam first sought the services of a graduate teacher as Head Master of Nadi Sangam School, it was BG, not Ramakrishnan, who was the selection committee’s first choice. But owing to unforseen family circumstances, BG was constrained to decline the offer and the position was then offered to Ramakrishnan, who came to Fiji, together with Swami Rudrananda, to take up the appointment in 1939. It would be interesting to speculate the direction in which BG would have taken Nadi Sangam School, or helped Swamiji shape the destiny of Sangam and Ramakrishna Mission, if he had accepted the appointment in the first instance. BG himself embarked for Fiji in 1956 to join the staff of Shri Vivekananda High School.

Outside school hours, BG was wont to channel his inexhaustible energies into assisting Swamiji in his myriad activities until the latter’s demise in 1985. BG has known Swamiji for some five decades altogether and during the last twenty nine years of the Swami’s life, as his fidus Achates, he may well have been the first among equals.

When BG asked me to write an article on Swami Rudrananda for inclusion in this book, given my intimate association with the Swami, I acceded to it without much persuasion. However, I was taken by surprise when he subsequently enjoined me to edit the book, inasmuch as it was more than I had bargained for! But in view of a threefold reason I could not decline: his special relationship with my late father - who was Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Fiji until his demise in 1974 - whom he regarded as his ‘annaachi’ (a respectful term for an elder brother, in Tamil); my affection for him in my own right; his frailty, not an uncommon concomitant of being a nonagenarian.

I have been given specific instructions by BG to include the material he sent me in toto; indeed, he kept me on a tight rein. This is just as well, because ‘editing’ such material has the potential for distortion, for the articles are reminiscences of an individual’s association with Swamiji, which are unique to him. As a consequence, I have restricted my ‘editorial’ responsibilities not so much to ‘compiling’ as to ‘collating’ sensu stricto. Notwithstanding this, making sense of such disparate material, though on one and the same person, presents many pitfalls for the compiler, not least of which is repetitiveness; I sincerely hope that the reader will take an indulgent view of this. Furthermore, as no book written ad hominem for Swamiji exists, contributors had to write without recourse to reference material and as a result, the veracity of a few dates could not be ascertained.

Articles written ad hoc for this volume are constitutive of the main body of the text and miscellaneous material, connected directly or indirectly with Swamiji’s work, collected by BG, have been subsumed under Appendices.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Swami Sridharananda of the Vedanta Centre Sydney, for graciously offering, of his own volition, to publish this book, without which this book may not have seen the light of day. Thanks are also due to Swami Atmeshananda, my contact at the Centre, who took an engaging interest in the venture throughout its gestation. I am grateful to Bal Govinda for his article, “Then India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam”, Sangam Golden Jubilee Commemoration Volume 1976, from which I have gleaned relevant names and dates for my own contribution in this book entitled, ‘My Beloved Swamiji’. Readers will note that I have taken the rather unusual step of explaining the meaning of several theological terms (all of which, needless to say, made no sense to me when I first heard them in my childhood), in parenthesis, instead of explaining them under a separate glossary section. I trust readers will not judge my idiosyncrasy uncharitably.

I would like to record my thanks to the contributors all of whom are either devotees or admirers of Swamiji, for making time to write - some at short notice, for example, Vijendra Kumar and Dr Shaukat Ali Sahib - and let the reader share their experiences with and perceptions of, Swami Rudrananda; their accounts, all within living memory, bring out, often poignantly, the person behind the persona. Even so, one is left with the inescapable feeling that the whole somehow seems to be larger than the sum of its parts. 27 years have elapsed since Swami Rudrananda’s demise, but our sense of loss is still palpable.

Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my wife, Goindamma, our daughters - Gyatri, Shobhana and Nandini - and grand daughter, Shanice, for taking turns in assisting me type the manuscripts, format and emend typos.

Sydney, November 2007 Gunasagaran Pillai

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