HERITAGE
Serene heights
INDRANI DUTTA
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There is so much to see, sense and hear in the mountains of Mayavati, including a quaint old cottage used by Jagadish Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda.
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At Mayavati, the crickets too sing a different tune. A tune that rings out like a thousand ghungroos from every crevice of the mountains.
PHOTOS: INRANI DUTTA
IDYLLIC: The 100-year-old cottage at Mayavati.
IT had been my long cherished dream to be at Mayavati one day. I had spent months planning this trip, and years looking forward to it. The Himalayas never disappoint but this trip was different for me.
Long before I reached there, my mind was programmed for a journey within myself in the sylvan surroundings that the Himalayas abound in. What I was not prepared for was my stay in a quaint little lodge, some 100 years old and one in which Jagadish Chandra Bose and his wife, Chittaranjan Das, Sister Nivedita and Josephine Mcleod, Swamiji's disciple and Gandhiji's disciple Sarala Ben and Indira Gandhi had sat and sipped tea.
Unchanged
Much of the structure remains the way it was, although renovations have been carried out to make it fit for guests to stay in basic comfort. But the cane-lattice work on the sprawling balcony of the bungalow and the fireplace still remain although no embers collect there as the cottage is shut down during the winter months when snow falls. Temperatures at Mayavati dip to sub-zero levels in December.
Captain John Henry Sevier and his wife Charlotte had followed Swami Vivekananda from the United Kingdom to set up an ashram at Mayavati way back in 1897. The spot, 50 miles east of Almora in Uttaranchal, set amid dense forests of deodar, pine and oak, caught Swami Vivekananda's fancy for setting up an Advaita Ashram. Two years later, the Seviers bought up what was then a tea estate to set up the ashram and also a residing place for themselves and the monks. An adjacent building houses the editorial office of one of the oldest running periodicals of the country — the Prabuddha Bharat — which is being published almost without a break since May 1896. Going towards its 111th year of publication, the magazine is devoted to the propagation of Indian culture, religion and philosophy.
The three-roomed cottage is flanked on one side by a deep chasm. On its eastern side are spread out fruit orchards and the alluring greens of vegetable gardens and patches of mushroom cultivation. A canopied bench at not too distant a spot provides a seat for meditation. Who knows, Mrs. Charlotte Sevier, who stayed back at Mayavati long after her husband's demise a few years after their arrival, might also have sat here looking at the faraway mountains and the brushwork of the clouds against an azure sky.
The Ashram
Although Swamiji came here only once, to be with Mrs. Sevier after her husband's death (of which he had a foreboding while abroad), his involvement as well as that of the two Britishers and the Advaita philosophy which discourages any sort of idol worship or any rituals, has attracted many a people over the passage of time and they have all converged at the Mother's cottage as Mrs. Sevier came to be known here. Acharya Jagadish Bose also gave a lecture on plant life in this lap of nature while Indira Gandhi visited Mayavati with her mother Kamla Nehru.
Situated 6,400 m above sea level, Mayavati is encircled by the Himalayan ranges on three sides — unfolding a panorama of a 340-km long stretch of snow-capped peaks. And long before today's hype and hoopla about afforestation drives, the monks here have, over the years, launched tree plantation drives to replant the firewood that is taken by the locals as also to check denudation in general. Since inception, the ashram has had its own apple, apricot, pea, walnut and cherry orchard and very often the guests who get very tasty vegetarian meals are served these fruits with breakfast. There is also a dairy from where milk is often given with the meals. All for free!
Serving the needy
However, apart from taking care of guests in the best traditions of athiti devo bhava, the Advaita Ashram also runs a charitable hospital at this remote village where adequate healthcare facility is not available. For the mostly BPL people in the hinterland, the free medicines and medical facilities given by the monks come as a boon.
Just like the Advaita Ashram above, the Mayavati hospital, set in a valley of flowers some 500 meters below the ashram, serves some 1,400 villages within a 64-km radius. Starting with a humble dispensary in 1903, it has today become a well-equipped rural hospital which caters to the needy, some of whom travel for five days to come here on horseback, doli (carried by men) or on foot even from Nepal! The patients' relatives too can stay on free during their period of treatment.
At Mayavati, the crickets too sing a different tune. A tune that rings out all day through like a thousand ghungroos from every crevice of the mountains, from every tree in the forests around. There is not only so much to see and sense, but also so much to listen to in the forests and the mountains at Mayavati.
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