Nolini Sen’s Passing

The name of this teacher’s husband was Nolini Sen. Her husband was quite fond of me. Once her husband was in the hospital. One day around 10:00 in the morning, my boss Nolini said, “Mother wants to know how Nolini Sen is doing in the hospital.” His name was Nolini Sen and my boss’s name was Nolini Gupta.

When my boss asked me to do something, I did not walk. I would run or walk quite fast. When I approached the main building, alas, a very kind-hearted, very honest man asked me, “Chinmoy, have you heard?”

I asked, “What?”

“Five minutes ago Nolini Sen passed away,” he told me.

I came back hurriedly to my boss and said, “I was ready to go to the hospital. Now this man is saying that five minutes earlier Nolini Sen passed away.”

My boss Nolini said, “No, no, you do not have to go,” because he trusted this man. Nolini went upstairs to inform the Mother that Nolini Sen had passed away.

Alas, this is how rumours spread. My friend was not a liar; he heard it from somebody else. Alas, Nolini Sen was not dead. Eleven hours more he lasted.

This is how my life went. But then, many years later, during one of my visits to the Ashram, his wife talked to me, saying she knew all along that I would be a great writer.

14 April 2007, Aspiration-Ground, New York