Living in The Presence

The Mother had instructed me clearly to always accede to any request for help that came from JIPMER (Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research). This incident happened while the Mother was still in Her body. In those days, JIPMER had a lot of Bengali doctors on its staff. A few of them were very close to Motakaka. One day, he told me that the JIPMER doctors wished to organise Saraswati Puja. On that occasion, they wanted to organise a programme of music at night. He asked me if I would be willing to organise this with the help of Ashram artists and

go and present it in the evening at the venue of the Saraswati Puja-celebrations. This proposal had come to me from Motakaka quite some time before the actual Puja. I told him that I would first inform the Mother. My collaboration would depend on Her.

    Accordingly then, I informed the Mother. The Mother obviously gave Her consent and that was the time when She told me that I was to always provide assistance to the JIPMER doctors, whenever they asked for it. After informing Motakaka, I began working on the programme. That year, their Puja-celebrations took place on the ground-floor of the dentist Dr Coroth's house which was very close to the Playground. I had conceived the programme to be an hour-long and it was composed of Bengali songs. This was my first contact with doctors from JIPMER On the day of the programme, I was introduced to the doctors and their wives. That day, by the time the programme got over and we had had dinner with them, it got quite late. At that late hour, we could not get any transport to bring back our musical instruments, etc. So some of the singers and a couple of doctors helped me to transport these instruments home. The two doctors told me then that the following year too, they would organise Saraswati Puja and requested me to prepare a similar programme for the occasion.

    The following year, they asked the Mother through Motakaka if they could organise this celebration at the Ashram Theater. The Mother gave Her permission. Now this time, my work and participation became far greater. The doctors decided that they would organise also a Bengali play. The doctors took part in the Bengali play and I organised the musical part of the evening's fixture. The Mother had given the doctors Her permission to utilise our stage for the rehearsals too. On the first day, I went to the Theater to show them all the facilities for using the stage in our Theater. After that, they started going on their own to conduct the rehearsals. I did not have to be present then. As the final day approached, the dress- rehearsal for both the play and our music programme took place in a happy, harmonious way with the help of our Ashram