HH Sridhar Swami - a personal reminisence

[Guest guest]

"We are pals" – a personal reminiscence of a dear friend

 

A day or two after the departure of our beloved Godbrother Srila

Sridhar Swami, I was asked if I might write something about him for the

Mayapur website. I was happy to have been asked, and happy to have the

chance to glorify a dear friend and servant of Srila Prabhupada. But I

couldn't get to it immediately. I mulled it over for a few days, thinking

what I might say. Then I got a message from our Godbrother Brahmananda

prabhu in Vrindavana:

 

<I very much miss Sridhar Maharaj. Why is it that I only appreciate someone

when I can never again be with them? I understand you were attending him in

Mayapur. I think you must have benefited from that.>

 

It seems like a good starting point and so I am glad now to be able

to add a little something to the tributes and praises of a wonderful

Vaisnava who was universally liked among the community of devotees.

 

I guess most of us take our associations too much for granted, at

least I have that disease. Its only after they have gone that we realize

what opportunities we have missed.

 

I first met Sridhar Maharaja in Vrindavana in October 1975 when he

was still a brahmacari. He had come from Bombay with another brahmacari,

Lokanath prabhu, to visit the Krsna Balarama temple for the first time since

its opening the previous April. I was a new face in India, and temple

commander. I had heard these two were to be awarded sannyasa by Srila

Prabhupada when he returned from his current tour of Africa. I had expected

perhaps some fellows of stern countenance and imposing stature. Instead, I

was happily surprised to met two of the nicest fellows one could hope for.

The two of them were friendly and full of smiles, and Sridhar had a engaging

manner and countenance that made it impossible not to like him. He was an

"informalist", a man who didn't stand on formality or ceremony and who liked

a good joke and we immediately got on well together. Over the next 29 years

that never changed.

 

He took sannyasa with Lokanath and a French Godbrother, Prthu Putra

prabhu, on December 3rd, 1975 in Vrindavana and I was fortunate to be

present as Srila Prabhupada's new personal servant. Sridhar Maharaja

acquired a danda, a saffron lungi and the sannyasi utoria, or top piece, but

no superior airs and graces. He remained the same unassuming, accessible,

friendly fellow and he encouraged me in my new found fortune and service.

 

In the 29 years since, I never got to do any service with him

although we would see each other in Mayapur and occasionally in other

countries too. So in that respect we weren't able to deepen our friendship;

but we did maintain it. Especially after the news of his Hep. C diagnosis, I

tried to keep in touch, not about some job or service to be done but simply

out of concern for his health. Occasionally we e-mailed and I once sent him

a little contribution to help him visit a health facility in Thailand. He

was always upbeat and positive and when he showed signs of improvement he

always put it down to Krsna's mercy on him rather than the actions of a

particular doctor or healer. Reports of remissions made it seem like he

would go on to enjoy a full term of human life and be one of the brothers we

would grow old with.

 

With the disease came new realizations and what I really liked was

his increasing emphasis on loving and friendly dealings within the

membership of our Society. His health crisis seemed to percolate his natural

feelings of affection and he wanted all of us to share them, both with him

and between ourselves. What was important, he stressed, was not simply that

we do service, but it was the way we do that service and the way we develop

our relationships in the course of doing that service. After all, what is

service for except to afford us the opportunity to associate with each

other? Sridhar Maharaja had clear realizations about that – the product of

service is love and affection. We do our service together so that we can get

to know each other and in mutual love move closer to our Supreme Lover,

Krsna.

 

But for 28 years I wasn't fortunate enough to do much service with

Sridhar Maharaja. Somehow our paths rarely crossed and our dharma's were a

little different. Yet by Krsna's kind arrangement, I was finally given that

opportunity in his final weeks in Mayapur.

 

At the beginning of the year, with great surprise and consternation

I heard, along with everyone else, about Maharaja's inoperable cancer. I had

thought he was still in remission and now we were told he had only a short

time left to live. Coming to Mayapur on Feb. 12 I was very happy to

discover he was also on his way. And so, on February 14 I was able to

announce to the assembled devotees that Maharaja was arriving that morning

in Kolkata. Initially we were told he would stay in Kolkata, rest and

perhaps see a doctor before coming to the holy dhama. But in typically

robust fashion he decided not to waste a single minute and he came straight

out, accompanied by Indradyumna Maharaja and his band of servants, headed up

by Mayapur prabhu. Thus it was that at about 8 am his van arrived at the

front gates to be welcomed by a huge kirtana party and a thousand devotees

all eager for his association, all eager to assist him in his final quest.

 

For me it was moving and I had a brief but wonderful exchange with

him. As the van slowly proceeded towards the temple I squeezed up to the

side window along with many sannyasis and godbrothers. The devotees were

propping up Maharaja so that he could see through the window who was there

to greet him. Lokanatha, Jayadvaita and many other sannyasis. By complexion

he looked ill, his face thin and his skin the color of parchment. But by his

demeanor he seemed strong, his happiness in being with the devotees in the

dhama very evident. Then suddenly our eyes met and he gave a little start of

surprise and happiness and we touched hands before I fell back before the

crush.

 

He took an emotional darshana of Sri Sri Radha Madhava and Lord

Nrsimhadeva and exchanged many a tearful yet joyful embrace with his

godbrothers before finally going up to his room on the first floor of the

Conch building.

 

On the way up to his room I ran into Kalasamvara prabhu, our

Godbrother from New Zealand who was in the same Tato Sumo that carried

Tamal Krishna Goswami to his nitya-lila two years before. He asked me if I

had seen Sridhar Maharaja and how did I think he looked. I replied, "He's

never looked better." In surprise he asked how so. And I told him that

although Maharaja physically looked very sick, spiritually he appeared

stronger than ever, a diagnosis that was confirmed to me when I entered his

room and he held me in a prolonged and warm embrace. There were a few tears

shed and we greeted each other as old friends, a procedure he went through

with others many times in the coming days.

 

Finally after 28 years I was presented with an opportunity to render

some service with and to him. Now we were in the same place at the same time

I volunteered my services in the way I knew best. I offered to come to him

every day and read to him about the transcendental pastimes of our beloved

Srila Prabhupada. I thought this might assist him in his remembrances of his

spiritual master and help make him firm in his attainment of samadhi.

 

So, from more or less the time of his arrival up until the day he

departed I was fortunate to be able to go to his room each evening (with the

week spent on Navadvip-mandal parikrama the exception) and read for an hour

from the unpublished section of my Diary about Srila Prabhupada's lilas here

in India. He liked it very much. I would arrive just after 6 PM, sit for a

few minutes chatting while Maharaja finished his ‘meal' – if muri (puffed

rice) and bitter medicine could be so called – and then he would go to lay

down on his bed while I sat by his side and narrated Srila Prabhupada's

pastimes, starting off with his own sannyasa initiation and going on to 1976

visits to Aligarh, Dehli, Chandigarh and Vrindavana.

 

He listened intently, relishing every word, occasionally commenting

or correcting, smiling and deeply attentive, until it was time for Sivarama,

Niranjana and others to come and engage him in kirtana. Others also gathered

for the readings, eager to hear, but I was reading for him, and my pleasure

was great in his appreciation – he was the best audience I ever had; it was

down to the core of our devotional lives, me chanting and him hearing, a

shared service centered on our Gurudeva.

 

It seemed to me to be a minimal offering on my behalf considering

the enormity of the event. I was thinking perhaps I should have done more,

so I was deeply touched when his servant Mayapur thanked me afterwards and

told me that he took it that it was Srila Prabhupada coming to be personally

present with Maharaja for his last days.

 

When Maharaja first arrived he told me that all he wanted was to be

able to survive the 7 days until the installation of the Deities, and Krsna

granted his wish, and more. On the evening of Feb. 21, the day of the first

darshana of the Deities when They had their eyes opened (scheduled for 7 PM)

I couldn't read to Sridhar Maharaja. I had been on stage at the main pandal

with other Godbrothers, sharing Prabhupada Katha to a packed audience. It

went late and there was no time for our reading. So instead of going off

into the temple room for the great event, I decided to go up to his room and

just chat for a while. Then about 6.45 pm we decided to go down and see what

was happening.

 

We came in through the back of the Panca-tattva temple and the place

was absolutely jammed packed. There was no way we were going to get in front

of the altar from the main floor. So we went around the back and came up to

the side steps leading onto the raised darshan mandap just in front of the

doors. It was also jammed solid. But I suggested we try to get up there. As

soon as the devotees saw Maharaja they squeezed aside to give him access and

I slipped in behind him. Within a minute we were right in the middle, right

in front of the doors. Ambarish prabhu was up there too and greeted him

warmly. And then immediately the doors opened (Krsna's perfect timing!),

the conchs were blown and the curtains were drawn aside to reveal for the

first time the lifesize transcendental forms of the most fabulous Deities

you have ever seen.

 

There was an incredibly intense kirtan going on led by BB Govinda

Maharaja and responded to by at least 2,000 dancing, chanting, excited,

expectant devotees and when the Deities were revealed the roar that came up

transported us all into the spiritual dimension. It was simply deafening.

Sridhar Maharaja was ecstatic and we sat down for a while to gaze at Their

Lorships while dozens of devotees streamed past holding auspicious objects

like tulasi, Bhagavatams etc. for the Deities to see. Then, wonderfully, the

pujaris invited Sridhar Maharaja to come up and offer something personally

to the Deities. When he did so, the entire assembly of devotees gave their

second loudest roar of the night. So it was really great, Lord Caitanya

giving his devotee some special mercy and acknowledgement for all his years

of sacrifice and service.

 

At the end of it I was happy to help Maharaja back up to his room,

his arm tightly wrapped around my shoulders for support and completely

blissed out by the whole event. He cried tears of appreciation then, and

again the next day when he came to the Puspa Samadhi to bath Srila

Prabhupada, and again the next day when he stood upon the scaffold behind

Panca-tattva to bathe Lord Nityananda; and many devotees cried for him and

with him. It was all mercy from the All-Merciful Lord.

 

We had some nice exchanges, lots of brotherly hugs and embraces of

appreciation. Some chats, some laughs, some frank talks of dying and living.

Even in this circumstance he was still preaching, insisting that his two

brothers, Stuart and Malcolm, who had flown in from Canada to be with him

when he died, instead travel to Vrindavan and Bombay so that they got the

maximum exposure to Krsna consciousness while they were here.

 

He was a preacher through and through, still making plans to the

last to travel and spread Krsna consciousness. And humourous to the last. I

especially remember going into his room one night, just a day or two before

his departure. He was sitting on his couch laughing. He had just gotten off

the phone with our Godsister Urmila prabhu who had rung him from America.

She had told him that if he still wanted to preach some more she has a nice

Krsna conscious son and daughter-in-law. If he wanted he could become

Urmila's next grandson. She promised him a full Krsna conscious upbringing

with a guarantee to take sannyasa when he was eight and their full support.

He thought that was great.

 

He had arrived with the intention of leaving his body in the dhama,

went through the sometimes confusing last minute promises of reprise by a

variety of doctors ("Give up all other medicine except mine and I promise to

cure you within three weeks!"), made a sincere effort to reverse the trend

and fight to survive to preach on some more (he had a poem by Dylan Thomas

stuck up on the wall above his bed "rail, rail against the dying of the

light" – but in the end it was his time and Krsna called him back. It was

mission accomplished, both in life and in death.

 

After an exceptional life of 28 years as a strict sannyasi (who

could imagine thus, a boy from the tough streets of North Van? What power

Srila Prabhupada has!) Krsna gave him an exceptional send off – arriving in

the dhama to be greeted and feted by over 5,000 devotees, surrounded by his

loving godbrothers and sisters, tended 24/7 by his devoted disciples,

bathing Panca-tattva on Their Advent, staying through one last Gaura

Purnima, and finally departing on the next most auspicious day after that,

Srivas Thakur's, the incarnation of the consummate preacher and emblem of

sannyas life, Narada Muni. What more can one ask than that? And what more

tribute and evidence may be paid to his sincerity and pure hearted devotion

than that?

 

For me personally, one small incident made my day. One evening I was

walking back to my apartment with Stuart, Sridhar Maharaja's brother. He is

a journalist and wanted to interview me about my relationship with Maharaja.

He was keen to speak to all his godbrothers and compile some kind of history

about his brother. So as we walked, Stuart mentioned that he had asked

Maharaja what connection he had had with me, what service had we done

together? Maharaja told him that we hadn't actually done much service

together but "We are pals." I liked that enormously. It warmed my heart.

Somehow it was more than just "we are Godbrothers" – "We are pals."

 

And I think that sums up in a lot of ways the experience we all had

with Sridhar Maharaja. He was everybody's pal, and if I got anything at all

from being with him in the last four weeks of his earthly sojourn, it was

that – just being his pal.

 

We are all a lot poorer for his absence and yes, Brahmananda prabhu,

as you have so succinctly said, we all very much miss him.

 

Your humble servant,

Hari-sauri dasa