Acharya Sri Sri Gour Ganguly Maharaj was the epitome of fearlessness. His inspiration as a child and as a young man was Swami Vivekananda, the man who himself as a child had shown no fear, either of natural or of supernatural things.I remember when he told us how at the tender age of ten he drove his father’s Morris car around the city. At an even younger age (in primary school), he had led a band of children to throw stones at the British jailors under whom the revolutionary leader Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had been imprisoned. He was so small then that the jail superintendent had to pick him up and carry him to hand over to Bipin Behari Ganguly!
He had no fear as a child – he would often sit alone in the terrible deathly silence of the cremation ground at Keoratala to think about life, death and the human condition. Later in life, when he penned his immortal tract ‘Jeevan Sameeksha,’ he said that the moment the individual became free of fear and unfulfilled desires, he realized that there was no such thing as death, and thus became truly free.
The time of the Indian freedom struggle saw the new trend of Indians, for the first time, engaging in physical culture, building up their bodies to be strong and battle-ready for revolution. Every neighbourhood had a place where young men, inspired by the ideal of Swami Vivekananda, practiced laatthi-khela (fighting with sticks), wrestling, and other martial arts. As a young man, Acharyadev shone even in this martial culture. After his return from Oxford and Sandhurst, he would demonstrate his skills in stick-fighting to inspire other young men. The whole street would be filled with a hundred skilled stick fighters, and he would fight his way from one end of the street to the other.
The stories of Acharyadev’s fearlessness are thrilling to hear. Once, when he was a high-security political prisoner of the British Raj, he received the news that his mother had passed away. As the eldest son, he had to perform the last rites. But the British allowed him to go to the cremation ground only under heavy police escort. Near the ghat, the Adi Ganga still flowed at that time. He performed his mother’s last rites, and then had a quiet word with his brother Nripen, about his future plan. Then, as if he was going to take a dip in the holy Ganges, he stepped into the water. Before the British police escorts knew it, he was gone, swimming underwater. He had the ability to hold his breath for phenomenally long periods because of his pracctice of pranayama, and he surfaced far away from the ghat, having stunned the British police once again.
When Rashbehari Bose was in Burma consolidating the INA ( the revolutionary Indian National Army) along with Netaji, he had sent out a call to all able-bodied men to join the armed struggle. Acharyadev was in Calcutta at that time, on the run from the British. He could not go to Burma by ship or by the known land routes as he was wanted by the police, and would be caught if identified. So he decided to attempt the impossible – to walk from Calcutta to Mandalay in Burma. Without any luggage or even weapons for self-defence, he entered into the dangerous jungles of Burma. He had no food supplies with him. During the day, as he moved south-east, he would watch which fruits the birds ate. This meant that these were not poisonous, and he ate them, and drank the water of forest streams. At night, he would climb a tree and tie himself to the branch with his gamchha (handspun towel) so that he was relatively safe from wild animals as he rested. Thus, after a long and dangerous trek, he reached Mandalay and went to meet Rashbehari Bose. Such was his desire to join Netaji’s INA that not even the deadliest of jungles could curb his enthusiasm.
Often Acharyaji would narrate the stories of his courage laughingly, as if they were part of a game. Yet, the events indicate a courage beyond the ordinary. For example, once, he told us the story of 'bhalluker jor’ or ‘bear’s fever.’ Apparently, according to folklore, a bear often gets a sudden fever suddenly, and a hair plucked from a bear while it has fever is a cure for human fever. After mentioning this folklore, Gour Baba went on to narrate how a huge bear had once chased him. Using his presence of mind, he began to run around a tree. The bear too began chasing him round and round the tree. After a long time, the bear became dizzy and fell down. It was shivering with fever. Acharyaji noticed this and stopped running but unlike ordinary people, did not use the chance to run away. Instead, he remembered what the locals had told him about the medicinal value of the hair of a feverish bear. He walked up to the bear, bent down, and plucked two or three hairs from it before walking away.
In another episode, in the jungles near Ranchi, he was cycling down a forest path when he found a leopard sitting in the middle of the road. Instead of trying to flee, which would have been futile given the speed of the leopard, he cycled straight at the leopard. Caught off-guard at being charged at, the surprised leopard ran away. Thus, rather than becoming afraid, he made fear itself run away!
According to Gour Baba, one needs to be fearless and greedless in order to be fit to do social service or janaseva. Fearless, because one should have to stand up for what one believes is right in the face of resistance or threat from others. Greedless, because one has to carry the trust of many people when one is engaged in public service, and one cannot abuse the power that one has. Many times in his life, when he tried to reform the social situation in different parts of India, including Tripura, people threatened to kill him. But he carried on. His fearlessness in turn inspired many others.In Tripura he inspired ordinary women to fight against eve-teasing and atrocities on women, a movement that is unique in the history of the region.But that is a story for another blog post.
Today, we need the same indomitable courage to set things right in our lives and our surroundings. As Swamiji and Gour Baba have demonstrated, weakness is death, strength is life. Let us choose life, not the in-between existence of weaklings.
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