Departure of Ananta Rupini dasi Part 1

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The departure of Ananta Rupini devi dasi (part 1)

 

Gaurangi dasi

 

( This article is based on the testimonies of many devotees whose names

could not all be mentioned)

 

Last pilgrimage to Jagannath Puri

 

Ananta Rupini dasi, a french disciple of Srila Prabhupada, recently left

her body in India. She was the wife of Nitai Gaurasundara das, who had been

the president of the Paris temple for a few years. She had told Visesa

dasi that she didn't want to leave her body in the West, but in a holy

place. Lord Caitanya fulfilled her desire in a wonderful way, since she

breathed her last in Bhubaneswar, near Jagannath Puri, the holy city in

which the Lord spent the last eighteen years of His life tasting the

highest ecstasy of Srimati Radharani's love in separation from Lord Krishna.

 

At the end of her life Ananta Rupini received another blessing, to be

surrounded by very sincere devotees, her husband, her former sankirtan

leader Adishekar das, and other devotees, Devananda das, Prahlad das and

Maniya das. Residing in the same lodge, they would meet in the evening to

read the Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, perform bhajans, tell sankirtan stories

or Prabhupada's memories. It was pure nectar and Ananta Rupini's face was

glowing with pleasure. Alas she could hardly taste Lord Jagannath's maha

prasadam because she couldn't take solid food; her health was quickly

deteriorating and she didn't sleep much. She had many oedemas in the belly

and the legs and couldn't walk any longer. Twenty years before she had

begun to suffer from asthma, then caught chronic bronchitis, which had

degenerated into a lung infection, thus weakening her heart. Even though

the alternative medicines she was taking and the natural treatments she was

following were not effective any longer, Ananta Rupini refused adamantly

to see a regular doctor. Seeing her condition getting worse, Nitai

Gaurasundara finally called one, and he recommended to take her to the

hospital in Puri for weakness of heart.

 

 

The horrors of an indian public hospital

 

The public hospital in Puri : around forty beds arranged in two rows ; the

family of the patient has to bring themselves the food and the medicine, or

else…Let's not even talk about cleanliness! And worse of all: the packs of

dogs hauling all night in the courtyard fighting to obtain a tasty piece

of…you guess what …. Ananta Rupini started to argue with the doctors and

nurses, refusing the shots they wanted to administer. While Nitai went to

buy the medicine for her, Adishekar remained near her bed, constantly

chanting the holy names in her ear, while she was also trying to utter the

holy names despite her breathing difficulties. After having done and

encephalogram, the doctors decided to send her right away to a more modern

hospital in Bhubaneswar. But at the time of leaving in the ambulance, a

little before midnight, she has to answer the call of nature. Nitai brought

her the bedpan that he had bought at the store, and one more time a group of

curious Indians approached her bed to see the end of the movie, a western

woman ready to service her body; but this time they were repelled forcefully

by Devananda and Adishekar, whose presence was a great solace, both from

the spiritual and material points of view. Unable to use the bed screen -

which was filthy beyond all description - as a last resort the devotees

grabbed a reasonably clean bed sheet to hide Ananta Rupini. What a

frustration for her, because all this commotion had resulted in blocking her

natural bowel movements! Finally they left in the ambulance, singing bhajans

all the way. Each time the car went over a hole or a bump on the road,

Ananta Rupini was startled and started to chant again the holy names,

despite her suffering condition.

 

 

"Let me die peacefully !"

 

When they arrived at the fancy Bhubaneswar's hospital, she was taken to the

intensive care unit. When she saw the nurses sticking tubes in all parts of

her body, she rebelled again and commented bitterly that people can no

longer die peacefully. She even pulled out the catheter that was helping

regulate her blood pressure, which left her in a pool of blood.

During this battle with the doctors and nurses, Nitai had been forbidden to

enter the room. She was complaining to him that they were inflicting all

kinds of tortures on her body, and he was trying to play the role of the

mediator. When the doctors informed him that she was going to quit her body

very soon, they agreed to take out the oxygen mask and the tubes in her

throat. That was one advantage of being in India. After that she became very

calm and serene, simply waiting for the moment of the great departure. Nitai

was chanting and she was listening to the maha-mantra very intently, trying

to pronounce the holy names despite her extremely weak condition. Ananta

Rupini gave up her body at one o'clock in the morning on February 26th2005.

 

Her body was burned in Puri in the presence of about a dozen devotees from

the ISKCON temple of Bhubaneshwar, all chanting the holy names. Her ashes

were then put in the Ganges in Mayapur during a ceremony led by Jananivas

das, the pujari of the murtis of the Chandrodaya Mandir. Among the

French devotees present there, Prasanta dasi chanted very melodiously some

very beautiful vaisnava songs. In Vrindavan, Nitai Gaurasundara planted a

tamal tree in her memory on the parikrama path near the Kaliya Gath, in a

beautiful place that has been renovated by " Food for Life ". This place

will soon be called "the Tamal Krishna Goswami Memorial Garden ".

 

 

Her staunch devotion for Srila Prabhupada, her spiritual master

 

 

During the ceremony held in her memory in Paris, her godbrother

Aristanasana das was choked with emotion while speaking about her, "It is

very difficult to find someone like her, always absorbed in the service of

Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada has given us an extraordinary gift, and

she fully accepted it in her own hands." Indeed Ananta Rupini dasi possessed

one of the most important qualities to be successful in devotional life, an

iron determination to always want to please her spiritual master. Despite

her disease and the many trials and tribulations she had to face, she never

left the ISKCON boat or deviated from the instructions of her eminent

spiritual master. She never gave up, no matter what.

 

 

She was initiated by mail in September 1977. She was offering everything to

Srila Prabhupada, even a tape recorder she had once received as a birthday

present, to listen to his lecture and bhajan tapes. She had put the tape

recorder at the feet of the small murti of Prabhupada, then absorbed herself

in a meditation on his lotus feet. During the meeting of the French National

Council she would regularly quote from the book, " Prabhupada and

management " and from the " Siksamrita ", which contained all his

instructions. It was an indirect way to give lessons to the devotees and the

GBCs . Sometimes devotees got disturbed by it, but many of them appreciated

her candid interventions, as she was reminding everyone of the instructions

of the founder-acarya, and of the fact that preaching is the essence of our

movement. She was interested to follow all the instructions of Srila

Prabhupada, and to that effect, she and her husband had compiled an essay on

Varnasrama in the nineties. Because of her exclusive meditation on

Prabhupada, she had developed a certain mimicry: while looking at her face,

several devotees had the strong impression of seeing Prabhupada's features.

She had the same mouth and the same nose as him, whereas she had very

different features in her youth.

 

 

Her many devotional qualities : very sincere, loyal, faithful and courageous

 

Ananta Rupini dasi was born on January 1st, 1951, in Algeria in a very

devoted muslim family. Her parents gave her the name of Amale, which in

Sanskrit means "pure, without dirt". Even though nobody born during the age

of Kali can be spotlessly pure, it is certain that she did all she could

during her devotional life to get purified. She was very detached from

material pleasures and attractions and she lived in a camping car with her

husband for more than twelve years, because she simply refused that he

rented an apartment for them, even though it would have been much more

comfortable for her sick body. As a very faithful wife, she stood by the

side of her husband for 23 years; we can note that he took very good care of

her during all the years of her illness. Despite her small voice and her

respiratory problems, she could lead very vigorous kirtans and bhajans,

saturated with bhakti. Before her disease she was a very jubilant person,

and when she had fits of laughter, she would open her mouth very widely.

 

We could almost touch and feel the devotion and faithfulness of Ananta

Rupini dasi. None of the French devotees ever saw her in regular clothes;

she was always wearing a sari and decorating hr forehead with tilak,

wherever she went. This is very special in a country where the anti-cults

groups have been very ferocious and the medias saturated with attacks and

lies on "cults" since almost two decades. Most devotees preferred to put on

their regular clothes or a wig to go buy a bottle of milk at the local

grocery store, but Ananta Rupini was very proud to be a devotee of Krishna,

and never afraid to show it. Monseigneur Schaffner, bishop of the Anglican

Church in Cannes underwent a trip of more than one thousand kilometers to

come to Paris to witness her many qualities, " Ananta was a great and

beautiful soul who was blossoming while she manifested the qualities of

kindness, service attitude, goodness, faithfulness, charity and discretion.

Her innate tolerance was mixed with a very appropriate sense of humour. I

was very impressed by her force of character and her kindness."