AkhandanandaBholanath DidimaGurupriya Didi Paramananda
HaribabaBhaijiGopinath KavirajAtmananda
Swami SwarupanandaSwami ChinmayanandaSwami VirajanandaSwami Vijayananda
Swami BhaskaranandaSwami SivanandaSwami BhajananandaSwami Omkarananda
Br KamalakantaBr YogeshdaBr AtuldaBr Hari Harda
Sri AbhaydaBr TanmayanandaBr PanudaSwami KeshavanandaNarayan-Swami
Swami Nirvanananda

pushpadi

Swami Bhajanananda

She took refuge at Mother’s lotus feet. She was a chosen devotee of Ma. She is Swami Bhajanananda. It was the evening of the 15th February 2003, when at the age of 80 Swami Bhajanananda shed her earthly frame and set forth for the Deathless Abode.

Swami Bhajananada on YouTube

She was popularly called “Pushpadi” in the ashrams. since Ma gave her the name of “Pushpa” when She accepted her into the ashram as a Brahmacharini. Before this she was “Savitri”, since she was born on the Savitri Chaturdashi Tithi. And after a very long time when she emerged into an ascetic life, initiated by His Holiness Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj, she became Swami Bhajanananda.

She was born on 14th May 1923 in an eminent Vaidya family of Mymensingh, presently in Bangladesh. Her father, Umesh Chandra Sen, was a legend himself as a Headmaster on the both sides of Bengal. At 90 he embraced Sanyas, became Swami Krishnananda Giri, and lived up to 99 years, teaching English to the girls of Kanyapeeth at Varanasi Ashram. Pushpadis’ mother, Kshirode Basini Devi, the eldest child in the family, was born to the great Dastidar family of Sylhet. Herself an all rounder by any standard, she was highly educated at home, since in those days women of aristocratic families used to be educated only at home. She was a prolific writer of poems, texts on pujas and folk vratas and history of the Rajputs.

Bhajanananda had her schooling in Kolkata, at Mymensingh and Dhaka. It was just when preparations for University education were underway, after her education at Kamarunnessa Girls’ College was over, when the communal riot at Dhaka assumed serious dimension. The second world war was knocking at the Eastern Front and the curse of the ‘Great Famine of Bengal’ shattered the hopes of many. But from the early childhood she was a singer, having taken lessons from her mother and from her illustrious grandfather. when she was just a student of Class VIII she became a regular performer on the All India Radio station at Dhaka. Later in the forties in Calcutta she became a student of the famous Kanak Das in Rabindra Sangeet at “Geeta Bitan” and of Sri Sukhendu Goswami in classical Hindustani music at “Sangeet Bhavan.” For sometime she was a teacher in her own school in Dhaka when she came in touch with Lila Ray. a close associate of Netaji and played in the role of “Saudagar-Putra” in Tagore’s “Tasher Desh”. She also learnt violin from Jamini Kanta Rai Dastidar, one of the eminent Dastidars.

Endowed with all the great virtues, Swami Bhajanananda, a close follower of Ma, left the marks of her contribution at most of the ashrams of Ma, namely, Agartala, Agarpara, Baroda, Vindyachal. Tarapeeth, Delhi, Pune, Varanasi, Ranchi, Dehra Dun and Kankhal to name some. She was Mother’s constant companion from wherever to wherever She moved.

The end came on the evening of 15th February at Pune, when she was returning to the Pune ashram by car, lying in the back seat, and anxiously attended by Brahmacharini Kirti. Pushpadi, with a heavenly glow on her face, uttered “Ma. Ma, Ma,” and breathed her last.

Then the herculean task of arranging to transport the body to Kankhal in accordance with the wishes of Bhajanananda, was upon her admirers. On the morning of 17th February, amidst the spontaneous assembly of sadhus. brahmacharis and brahmacharinis, the body was lowered to rest in the depths of the Holy Ganga at Hardwar.

 

From Amrita Varta April 2003.