Poor get poorer
As always, given the inequities built into the global economic system, the poorest people in the world have been the…
Never before what was then known as Calcutta await the arrival of a prodigal son than on 19 February, 1897. It was not a royalty or a litterateur or an industrialist but a man in saffron returning in triumph from the West. Swami Vivekananda disembarked from a steamer at Budge Budge and then took a train to reach Sealdah station. Thousands of people mostly youths waited anxiously at the flower bedecked station to see Swamiji. When he arrived men replaced the horses from the carriage and drew it all the way to the house of Pasupati Bose in north Kolkata along Harrison Road yet to be named after the Father of the Nation and College Street. Swamiji&’s success at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 opened a new chapter in Indian history. People began developing interest in India particularly in Vedanta philosophy. Swamiji&’s speech at the World Parliament of Religions galvanised the mind set of his countrymen. Aurobindo Ghose then teaching at Baroda College and preparing himself for greater things remarked “The going forth of Vivekananda marked out by the Master as the heroic soul destined to take the universe in his two hands and change it was the first visible sign that India is awake not only to survive but to conquer.” Swamiji was indeed the hero of the parliament. He came in contact with scholars like William James in USA and Max Muller in UK, John D Rockefeller. The lectures he delivered on Vedanta were flooded with people eager to know more about the scriptures of the East. He urged youths to give up weakness as “ weakness is sin, weakness is death.” Jamshedji Tata who met Swamiji during his maiden voyage wrote a letter and requested him to write a pamphlet to inspire youths to study science and spirituality and urged him to head his proposed educational institute. To commemorate his return Eastern Railway ran a pair of special trains from Budge Budge to Sealdah last week and programmes were held in the city of his birth where relevance of his messages were discussed.
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