V.Subramanian

A Tribute^[1]

by Geeta Bhatt^[2]

My father, Shri Maganlal Bhatt (M.L.Bhatt) surrendered at Sri Bhagavan’s feet and had visited the Ashram over the years, but had never taken his family to the Ashram. It wasn’t until the summer of 1981, that we went to the Ashram as a family – I along with my parents, my sister and her sons, and my brother and his wife, went by train from Delhi to Madras.

We arrived at the Ashram around 12:30pm, several hours after our expected arrival. V.S.Mani was outside the office building, on his way to go home for the afternoon. But, when he saw me and my sister, he stopped as he realized that we were the devotee family that was expected in the morning. The reason for our late arrival was that I had left my American passport in New Delhi, which made cashing the traveler’s cheques a big challenge. But, the bank manager at a Citibank in Madras, upon hearing that we were going to Sri Ramanasramam, immediately agreed to cash my cheques without my physical passport – all I had to do was provide my passport number and other details. This was Sri Bhagavan’s first miracle.

Neither I nor Mani ever forgot that first encounter.

When he heard of the reason for our late arrival, Mani told us to proceed to the kitchen using the backdoor and that he would make sure we were taken care of. My response was “No, no, food is not important; please direct us to the Old Hall.” He laughed and said, “Yes, you may go to the Old Hall, but I am sure the kids are hungry.” Over the years, he always fondly recalled this interaction, as did I.

From that day forward, Mani anna always welcomed me as a younger sister and a close member of the Ramana family.

Ramani, Mani

click to see a large image

My next visit and a long stay at the Ashram happened in August of 1986. V.S.Mani had joined the Ashram recently and shifted his family from Mumbai to Tiruvannamalai.

I had come with Dennis Hartel for a month-long visit, but the pull of Sri Bhagavan was such that I decided not to return to New York and asked Mani anna if I could extend my stay. In the same breath I asked to be given some work to do.

Mani anna is a man of few words and in all these years I have learned to wait patiently for his reply. After a long silence, he said, yes to the stay and then said, “Come to the kitchen at 4 am – Balu will show you the work.”

The next morning, I showed up at the kitchen. The kitchen in 1986 was an old kitchen with no more than half a dozen people working, but at 4am, it was just me and Balu. He was boiling milk on the open fire, and he pointed to a place for me to sit, next to a very large heap of beans. He placed a wooden cutting board and a blunt knife with some rags covering the other end where once was a handle. The cutting board was concave and dark, testimonial to the fact that it had served for many years. Balu asked me to chop the beans and went back to his work.

I started to cut the beans and after a while he came and looked and laughed, took the knife from my hand and showed me how minuscule the beans had to be cut. Well, I struggled, but survived and was rewarded with a single idli and a small measure of coffee.

I was in the kitchen for a few days, if I recall right, and after that Mani shifted me to work in the library. I passed the first test.

After I started to work in the library (it used to be in the Morvi compound), at 5pm when the library closed, I rushed across the street and ran through the Ashram compound to go to sit on the Hill to watch the setting sun and then gaze at the peak.

There used to be a very large boulder on the right side of the path just 20 feet after the stairs. That was my seat. If I looked west, I saw the setting sun, and slightly to my right and north, the peak. I would sit and meditate. On the third day, when I opened my eyes, Mani anna was standing in front of me. To my puzzled look, he responded, “I see you running past my office, but then don’t see you at the evening āratī ,and wondered where you were rushing to.” I couldn’t tell him that I was not even aware of the evening prayers, the Old Hall and the Hill were the magnet that had me in its grip.

I think he knew that, and since 1986 once the Palakottu rooms were built inside the Ashram compound, I always had a room closest to the Old Hall that could be assigned to a female sādhaka.

Since then, all these years whenever I have gone for long stays at the Ashram, Mani anna gave me some new assignments. One year I was there for a shorter stay, and he asked me to gather the flowers from the garden for the first morning pūjā at Matrubhuteshwar shrine. Oh! An easy assignment I thought, till I stepped into the flower garden early next morning. The assigned workers were calm and quick with filling their baskets, but I could neither stand still nor gather flowers. The reason – an army of mosquitos were attacking the entire body and enjoying the feast.

If Mani anna was a tough guru who works to bring your ego under Sri Bhagavan’s Grace, then I will also endure and accept the apprenticeship. For two days, he must have observed or got some report from the workers and the priest, because on the third day he came to me, smiling and gave me the task of taking a Russian devotee to Pondicherry.

Sri Cakra

click to see a large image

While I was at the Ashram in 1997, Dennis had written to Mani anna that the New York Ashrama would like to install a Sri Chakra at the new site on Clyde Street. Dennis asked me to remind Mani of his request when I arrived at the Ashram. I did that, days passed quickly, and my day of departure was approaching. But Mani anna had not said a word to me. On the very last evening, I was called to the President’s office. The doors were closed, and Dr. Murthi solemnly opened the almirah in the President’s office and brought out an object and placed it with due reverence in the President’s hand. He unwrapped it, and showed me a beautiful Sri Yantra, and said this had just arrived with a courier from Madras. It is for the New York Ashram.

Sri Yantras are made to order, but the jeweler didn’t have enough time to meet with Sri Mani’s request. Thankfully, this Yantra, which was meant for someone else, became available this morning when for some reason the buyer was unable to meet his obligations. I requested that the Yantra be handed over to the Matrubhuteshwar priest and given to me next morning at the time of my departure. Sridhar was summoned and instructed to put it in the garbhagṛha for the night and give it to me after the morning pūjā. The small 10 inch by 12 inch Sri Yantra of five metals is installed in the New York Ashram.

V.S.Mani supported the activities of Arunachala Ashrama, New York, whole heartedly. Every time any one of us visited, Mani anna sent with us a few dozens of Sri Aurobindo Ashram agarabattī for New York. Once, after I told him that with the donation receipts from New York Ashram, I’d like to enclose Sri Ramanasramam’s vibhūti and kumkum packets, he never failed to keep our stocks full. That kind thoughtful gesture of his made New York Ashrama a true extension of Sri Bhagavan’s abode in Tiruvannamalai.

We read accounts of how during Sri Bhagavan’s physical presence, he chose a human instrument to guide a sādhaka on the path, and for me it was Mani anna. Anna watched and groomed me with love and tender care. Ramanasramam is my home and Sri Bhagavan the Sadguru.

A few years back when many devotees were buying land in the new Ramana Nagar, he forbade me to get entangled in that. He said, “The Ashram is your home.”

My last memory is from 2018. I was at the Ashram. It was Matru Pongal day. Anna asked me to come to the office after breakfast. We were all going to the old age home for Ashram cows for a ‘gō pūjā’. When we came back, I was summoned by him to come by the well. He placed a five-rupee silver coin in my open palm and said, “On Pongal day, brothers gift their sisters with a silver coin. My eyes welled up and I silently did my most sincere loving praṇām to him. I didn’t know that would be my last praṇām to him.

My limited ability doesn’t help in expressing how the void that the physical demise of Sundaram Anna and Mani anna envelops me. I came to the Ashram when the torch was being passed from Sri T.N.Venkatraman to the younger generation, and now a curtain closes for me and many of us who started to come to the Ashram in the 70’s and 80’s.

With Mani I had the longest relationship, but Sundaram and Ganesan anna both have given me the same love and affection. In hindsight I know that when I came to the Ashram as a young single woman, it was the support and care of these three brothers that was the outer expression of Sri Bhagavan’s guidance and acceptance of this soul as HIS, in HIS Ashram, at HIS Feet.