The month of August of the year 1947 brought joy to hundreds of millions of people of the subcontinent as it ended a long dark period of slavery to the aliens. But the independence had arrived with a tragedy. Two states of the country namely Bengal and Punjab were each divided in two parts to create a new nation ‘Pakistan’. This division had dislocated and disrupted tens of millions of human lives. The holy places of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim faiths also got geographically mislocated. Now they would require passports and visas to pay a visit to their sacred places of worship and pilgrimages. It was a cruel price the people had to pay for freedom.
Arrival
The story of Swami Ramtirtha begins in a village named Murariwala situated in Gujranwala district of present day Pakistan which suffered the above cited mislocation. In that village, used to live one Ramchandra Goswami with his family. He was an astrologer by profession, a man bound by traditions and orthodox mindset.
He had a son called Hirananda. He opted to be a traditional Brahmin priest to make a living. In Hindu society, a priest is an astrologer as well. Hirananda family lived on what he earned by performing religious rites or the ceremonies in the homes of the client families.
The money so earned was never enough. The family suffered shortages of every kind. It made Hirananda a short tempered person. For his own failures and inadequacies he targetted his ire on his mute and timid wife. Her name was Nihaldeyee. She was a quiet and tolerant wife. She suffered but did not complain.
She had already born a son and a daughter to Hirananda. The son was christened Gurudas. The daughter named Tirthadeyee was seven and a half year junior to Gurudas. Nihaldeyee was again in the family way.
On 22nd October, 1873 Nihaldeyee gave birth to a son. The new arrival gladdened the heart of the mother. Like every mother she saw new hopes in the new born. The child was cute. She began to call him Tirthram. As a child Tirthram mostly suffered from one disease or the other. There was some malfunctioning of his immune system. After some time the child became healthy. The immune systems had got corrected naturally. When Tirthram was born Tirthdeyee was one and a half years old.
The time passed by. The new born was growing up normally and was keeping in good health which made him lovable and cuddly. It gave great joy to the tormented mother. The children gave her the sole consolation and enabled her to carry on with the life.
Her husband kept up his old ways of ill-treatment. It was affecting her internally and wounding her soul. It reflected on her physical well being. Nihaldeyee showed signs of sickness which aggravated fast. At last she died after a brief illness. The medication proved ineffective.
One year old Tirthram had become an orphan.
Then his sister Tirthdeyee was two and a half years old. The elder brother Gurudas was a ten year old lad. Thus, Hiranand was saddled with two infants and ten years old son. The responsibility of bringing them up had fallen on his shoulders. Now he missed his wife and realised how much burden she had been shouldering.
Hiranand mulled over the problem. After a lot of thinking and hesitating he wrote a letter to his sister, Dharamkaur detailing his problem. He requested her to help him out if it was possible. The letter worried his sister.
She arrived at Murariwala to see the situation herself. She was accompanied by her husband, Thakurdas Goswami. Thakurdas was very considerate and compassionate person. Hiranand’s predicament saddened him too. He was shocked at the helpless state of his brother-in-law who was financially broke as well.
To help Hiranand and his kids Thakurdas decided to stay back at Murariwala with his wife. He was a resourceful and enterprising person. He managed to start a small business there that earned enough money for the whole clan to live on.
It completely eased the pressure off Hiranand. His brother-in-law had became the provider. His sister had taken charge of his motherless kids and was mothering them admirably.
Dharamkaur was a very religious woman. She had full faith in almighty God. Going to the temple after bath to offer prayers to the deity was her daily routine which she never broke. Little Tirthram always accompanied her on such trips. The temple environment incredibly excited the boy. He would look flushed with a mysterious joy.
It sometimes surprised Dharamkaur. The other two kids also developed same kinds of behaviour. It was a delight to see the kids dance in the temple. Sometimes the kids would cry for going to the temple and no appeasement worked. They had to be taken to the temple to make them stop crying. The kids’ attachment to the temple often amused the family members and the others. Some people thought that the temple gave some sort of solace to the kids who had lost their mother. No one could exactly say what attracted the kids to the temple.
Young Tirthram had a very sharp memory. He would remember correctly whatever was told or narrated to him. Dharamkaur often told him stories from religious epics, related to the biographies of the great heroes. Tirthram could recount all those stories correctly without any mix-up or omission.
Often it amazed Dharamkaur. For her the young nephew Tirthram was a bundle of wonder.
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