A lady from the Ashram

There was another lady who came to see me after the concert. When I was in the Ashram, I was close to her brothers and her sister. But she was only four or five years old at that time, and during my 20 years at the Ashram I never had any occasion to speak to her.

Her sister had been the Ashram athletics champion. She had even learned how to box. She used to study with me. One of her brothers had been a wrestler. Once he injured his neck while wrestling and for three weeks was in the hospital. Her youngest brother once climbed up a tall coconut tree when he was three or four years old. Then he got frightened and couldn’t climb down. He was crying and screaming because he was afraid.

The lady’s name is Purnima. She started talking to me in Bengali. Then she introduced her husband to me. But she had forgotten the Bengali word for husband, so she said it in Hindi and added, “I have forgotten the word.”

Then I was able to tell her the word in Bengali.

— 24 March 1985