Swami Krishnananda Shashtyabdapurti Mahotsava Commemoration Volume

A Souvenir released on Swami Krishnananda's 60th Birthday

He was My Classmate at School!

by Raghunanadan Savoor

I am perhaps among those very few who have had the good fortune and privilege to be associated with Swami Krishnananda during his childhood days. My contact with him, though, was for a brief period of only six years during which we were together at school. It is perhaps only appropriate that I should have got an opportunity to lift the curtain for a little for others to have a glimpse of the early life, and the formative years, of this great spiritual leader.

I recollection what not, however, be perfect because of the passage of nearly 4 decades now. Puttur, a taluk headquarters in theSouth Kanara district of the old Madras Presidency, was a small town with a population of about 12,000 in the Thirties. Those were the good old days when life was progressing at a slow pace in British India. Even the few buses which applied between Puttur and Mangalore used to take over two hours to traverse the distance which one covers inside of an hour today. Situated as it is between the Western coast and the Western ghats, Puttur has a particularly abundant gift of rainfall which could shut out the sun for days on end. The season coincides with the reopening of the schools after vacation.

The Board High School in Puttur stood on the Kombet Hill, near a mile away on the western outskirts of the town. There were a few hamlets beyond the school, before the fields and the countryside began. I house used to be located in the heart of the town on what was regarded, in those days, as the only main road, called the “Court Road”as it led to the Munsif Court. Swami Krishnanandaji, or Subbaraya as he was known in his Purvashram, hailed from Kemminje village, two and a half miles to the east of the town. He belonged to the house of Kombrinje. South Kanara presented a fairly cosmopolitan society where the undertones of caste, while not wholly absent, were not predominant. Swamiji belonged to the Shivalli sect of Brahmins, which was considered to be among the higher echelons of the Brahmin caste. He was born to Shri Shankaranarayana Putturaya and Shrimati Kaveryamma. I had the good fortune of meeting his father, a person of simple habits. He was an agriculturist, and a Vaidik well-versed in the performance of religious rites. He himself had lost his father when he was four years old and had been brought up by his maternal uncle. He was slim, tall and was the very personification of religious fervour and humility. Such was his devotion that he would not take even a sip of water before the completion of the daily Puja. The mother, Kaveryamma, was also very religious; and even today, at the ripe old age of 81 years, she would take bath in cold water before starting the daily chores.

The eldest son, among five brothers and a sister, was named after his grandfather as Subbaraya. His early schooling was at St. Francis Xavier's School at Darbe. In those days, the first four "classes" were followed by six "forms". Subbaraya joined the Board High School at Kombet in 1934 in the first form and continued his studies till he passed the sixth form, which secured him the Secondary School Leaving Certificate, equivalent to Matriculation. He was short in stature and used to be clad in the simplest of clothes, with his hair cut short, except for a tuft of long hair, which was common among Brahmins belonging to orthodox families; but one could never miss those sharp, glistening eyes which at once betrayed utter sincerity and keenness of intellect, and at the same time, one had the feeling that he was looking deep into you, almost reading your innermost thoughts. He used to walk the distance from home to school and back every day. During the lunch break, he ate his meal with a Brahmin family in the precincts of the Sri Mahalingesvar Temple. Except for this meal, he would not partake of anything else during the day. On the Ekadasi days which occurred twice a month, he abjured even water, what to talk of the midday meal.

Even though we studied together for six years under the same teachers who in those days, despite their stern external appearances, were exceedingly considerate and compassionate, my association with him was closer during the last three years of our companionship. We were close friends even though, perhaps, our dispositions were different. I was the outgoing type, taking part in games and outdoor activities, but Subbaraya was fond of solitude, had comparatively few friends, was always contemplative and very widely read. Even in those days he had committed to memory the Bhagavad Gita which was his most favourite book. He had determined even at that tender age that he would never marry. He was a very devout Vaishnavite, with Sri Krishna as his ideal. In the later years, when I drew close to him, perhaps closer than any other among his schoolmates, he used to advise me continually about good conduct and the right way of life. He considered it his mission to reform me and would tell me repeatedly with persuasion, and sometimes rebuke, about the need to avoid evil ways and to observe good habits, especially spending time on meditation and prayer. He was exceedingly proficient in his studies. I myself was considered to be a very good student and there was always very keen competition between me and another boy for sharing the honours – but only for the second place. Subbaraya was way ahead of us. So the years passed on till we successfully completed secondary school education in 1940.

That was the year in which we parted company. Little did I know then that we would not meet each other for over a decade. I continued my studies by joining the Government Victoria College at Palghat. Subbaraya appeared in the clerical service examination of the Madras Public Service Commission, and as was to be expected, came out with distinction and he joined the clerical service of the Madras Government at Hospet. Still, we used to correspond with each other during 1940-41. He was a gifted writer with complete mastery over the English language. He was versatile in Sanskrit also and used to compose verses, some of which he used to send me, although I did not have the depth of knowledge to thoroughly understand and appreciate them, because of my inadequate familiarity with the language. This continued for nearly a year and toll, all of a sudden, I stopped getting letters from Subbaraya. My letters to him also remained and replied. Inquiries input tour drew a blank, since his family did not know about his whereabouts.

The next occasion when I heard of him was in 1953 when I was serving the Posts and Telegraph Department in Calcutta. My elder brother who was in Delhi had taken my parents to Rishikesh, and it was there that Swami Krishnanandaji recognized my parents, paid due respects to them, and secured my address. Immediately he sent me a letter along with a copy of one of his early works, “The Realisation of the Absolute”. It was no wonder that the boy Subbaraya had in him the seeds which could grow into a huge banyan tree of knowledge, providing relief in its cool shade to thousands of tired and thirsty souls. The sudden receipt of the letter and the book, however, took me by complete surprise. Thereafter I have had many occasions to meet and pay my obeisance to the Swamiji. I would like to take this opportunity to join his devotees and admirers and praying to God that he be among us for long years and continue to be the beacon in lighting the dark alleys of our lives.