It was the early nineties. The month was May, and the annual summer holidays for the students were coming to a quiet end. This period brought me the same emotions, year upon year. Perhaps a testimony to time having a way of looping on itself. I felt homesick at having to leave my family and return to the hostel at Prasanthi Nilayam for another academic year in residence. I also felt excited by the times that lay ahead in Swami’s physical presence. 

May was the month when Swami’s yearly calendar kept him in Brindavan. So, for those students that arrived in Brindavan with their families several weeks before the new academic year began, this period was one of gradual transition. We had the best of both worlds. Staying with our parents, as well as having time in Swami’s presence.

Swami was regular at giving darshan to the tune of soft music each morning. Each evening, a session at his residence, the Trayee Brindavan, followed an hour of bhajans. In those days, the students sat in rows directly in front of the Trayee Brindavan, rather than in the Sai Ramesh Hall, which became common in the later years. 

One May morning, a few days before I was to return to Prasanthi Nilayam for another year in the primary school, Swami called my mother in for an interview. 

In the interview room, he casually asked her what she was doing to get me prepared for another year in the hostel. To this, my mother said that we needed to go into Bangalore city for a day to purchase stationery items for the new term. 

“Why do you want to go all the way into Bangalore city?” Swami asked. 

“It will take long. The traffic is heavy, and you will unnecessarily spend so much money,” he observed. 

Swami then looked at me smilingly and said, “I will give Deepak the stationery he requires.”

We went back to our little room in the Brindavan ashram and decided to wait without making a trip into the city. It was a decision made by my mother out of respect and unconditional faith in Swami’s words. I did nevertheless have the occasional thought, “time is thin… and what if Swami forgets about the stationery?”

That evening, right after the bhajans concluded, Swami called the students into the Trayee Brindavan for what was fondly called a Trayee session. As a puny little school child, I could barely muscle my way anywhere close to the jhoola where Swami sat. In fact, I barely made it into the building. 

I ended up sitting at the entrance to the Trayee Brindavan, with a consolatory view of the deer that lived on site, but barely in sight of Swami’s seat.

I thought to myself, “Well then… that’s the end of the stationery. I’m not in Swami’s view to remind him of his word”.

Just then the students began to sit upright and look ahead as Swami walked into the room. He went and sat down on the jhoola, and asked, “where’s Deepak, that small primary school boy?”

Someone that knew whom Swami was referring to immediately called me from outside the building. I went running in, jostling my way through rows and rows of students crammed against each other until I reached Swami at the jhoola. 

In his hands he held a little green and pink pencil box. He playfully opened it, showed me its contents, and asked “will this be okay for your school?” I looked back up at Swami and said, “Thank you, Swami”. 

He handed me the stationery box, and the evening progressed like any Trayee session; a few speakers, some interaction between Swami and his students, and finally the Arathi. 

After Swami retired for the evening, I remember running home to my mother with my new pencil box full of attractive pens and pencils. They were more than sufficient for my needs in the coming school year. My mother and I began to take out the pens and pencils from the box one by one to see what Swami had put in there. Hiding behind all the box’s contents at the bottom, sat a brand new one rupee note. 

Just as I was about to ask why Swami had not put any more than just a rupee in my box, my mother stopped me short. She said, “See… in Indian tradition, we always gift money in rupees either as 1, 101, 1001 and so on”. She explained the relevance to me, saying that gifting amounts that end in denominations of one rupee is a blessing, for this one rupee will multiply and manifest itself into larger amounts. It symbolized a blessing of wealth in abundance.

My mind’s eye never fails at vividly reconstructing this fond memory several decades later. I always knew that Swami’s personality spoke through action. Here, besides kindness and care, he had also championed the cause of Indian tradition.

Dr Deepak Venkateshvaran Grade 4 to M.Sc Physics (Gold Medal) in Bhagawan’s institutions at Prasanthi Nilayam, 1992 – 2006. Currently Fellow and Director of Studies in Physics at Selwyn College of the University of Cambridge. In 2020, he was awarded a prestigious University Research Fellowship of the Royal Society in recognition of his research accomplishments in experimental physics.