Today I will talk about a mentally ill person named Swapan khyapa. (Khyapa means an insane person.) Swapan came from Shibpur area of Howrah accompanied by his wife and son. Swapan annoyed Murari Maharaj very much. Guru Maharaj Said to us that man or woman has the tendency to become sufferer of mental illness, the two times in a year – the month of ‘Bhadra’ and ‘Chaitra’ in a Bengali calendar. Man or woman becomes victim of ‘primitive passion’ too much in this time. That’s why man or woman’s body is affected this time. It is a saying in the villages of Bengal. It is ‘Chot Pagla’. (‘Chot Pagla’ i.e Chaitra Pagla’ – it means to become mentally ill in the Bengali month ‘Chaitra’.) This happens due to this reason. When Swapan became victim of insanity, his wife came to ashram taking him. Swapan made various gestures, behaved crazily. Maharajs of the ashram made him do Jalneti, Sutraneti. That time the maharajs bullied him also. But Swapan’s wife tolerated all these matters in silence only for the welfare of her husband. I seemed this noble woman as if is doing austere aesthetic practice in tolerating all these. The inhabitants of the ashram and the devotees, present there, laughed at him noticing his behaviours and they had also a lot of fun. These matters surely inflicted her but she never protested against it. Swapan came to the ashram at least two times in a year being ill – again he returned home within 10/12 days recovering from his illness.
It happened many incidents centering him. I am telling one or two incidents of them. Then the large sized room of the first floor of the office of Banagram Paramananda Mission (the office building in which Murari Maharaj resides now) was alloted for the outsider woman devotees for staying at night. The bathrooms were beside the right side of the office. That’s why, the women came down for toilet at night. Usually, the mentally ill people do not sleep at night. Though the wife of Swapan Khyapa was very much conscious of her husband, she also needed rest at night. As usual, she felt asleep. Meanwhile, he came downstairs and he stood in front of the office in the dark. Murari Maharaj lay in the verandah of the ground floor of the office. If he noticed that Swapan was standing in front of the office in the dark, he forced him to enter his room. But if he missed to notice, the women became frightened noticing him standing in front of the office in the dark or it happened that Swapan himself frightened them.
The woman devotees complained to Guru Maharaj against him and He summoned him in the sitting.
Then He asked him, “Swapan, why do you stand beside the bathroom in the dark at midnight?”
Swapan casually replied, ” I protect women as if they do not fall prey to any danger – no one becomes frightened. So, I stand there.” All the devotees, present in the sitting, as well as Guruji burst into laughter – hearing his reply in such a way of serious voice.
[Translated by Ramprasad, a former student of Banagram Ashram.]
BANAGRAM MEMORIES – (66)
