35. A moving experience

A moving experience

Contributed By: Rohini Abhyankar

Sushila Joshi age 81 years lives in Girgaon with her 86 year old husband.

She was born in Nasik and came from a well off family and had five siblings.

Now she has a son and a daughter who are both well settled in life with their respective families.

She was a college graduate before she was married and continued her education after marriage.

She did a comparative study of Tukaram and Kabir to earn her doctorate. She has studied the ‘Dasbodh’ and has organized ‘Dasbodh’ study groups for over 25 years.

One day Sushila attended a discourse delivered by a renowned and well respected spiritual leader/‘shastriji’ (a person who is an authority on religion). After his discourse was over, Sushila went to meet Shastriji and as is customary in India paid her respects by bowing at Shastriji’s feet. Since Sushila and her family had high social standing and had conferred an award on Shastriji through the family Trust, he recognized her but before she could say anything he was overcome by emotion and broke down crying like a baby. Sushila was puzzled and shocked and did not know how to react. All she could say was,

“Dada, please don’t cry. If you break down like this what are we to do?”

After some time Shastriji was able to regain his composure and all he could say to her was,

“How are we going to transfer our heritage to the next generation?”

This conveyed to her his worry about the future and the wellbeing of the generations to come.

She was moved by the incidence and remembers it till today.