Swami Vivekananda was fond of dal, American ice-cream: New biography By Madhusree Chatterjee IANS Mon, Apr 4, 2011

8:38 AM IST

Email Print New Delhi, April 4 (IANS) Swami Vivekananda, the 20th century visionary and foun der of the Ramakrishna Mission, loved lentils, especially the 'kalai', a traditi onal Bengali variety cooked with fennel, salt, slit green chillies and a pinch o f turmeric. Many a time, he appealed to those who were close to him to cook 'kalaier dal' fo r him, says one of West Bengal's top contemporary writers Sankar, or Manisankar Mukherjee, in his new non-fiction 'The Monk as Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vi vekananda'. However, the monk advised 'his followers to eat the watery part of t he 'dal' like the way South Indians do'. The lentils were difficult to digest, V ivekananda observed. Sankar, who researched the book for years in libraries and pored through faded n ewspaper and magazine writings of the time, says 'it appears that Swamiji was fo nd of cream too'. Once when he was eating with his companions in the US and they enquired whether he liked strawberries. Swami Vivekananda answered that 'he had never seen one'. 'At this, his companions were surprised and amused. They pointed out that the mo nk had been eating strawberries every day. Vivekananda explained that the strawb erries were covered with cream; even stones covered with cream would taste good! ' His American host, the Legget family with whom the seer was boarding in the US d iscovered that the easiest way to keep him at the dinner table was to announce: 'There will be ice-cream for dessert'. 'Then Vivekananda would wait patiently fo r his ice-cream like a little boy and consume it with great satisfaction,' Sanka r says in his book. Another humorous story was presented by Ida Ansell. 'One evening, Swamiji was talking about the different interpretations of heaven and hell in Indian scriptures. Usually after a lecture, his devotees took him to a restaurant... On this particular occasion, it was a very cold night and Swami ji shivered in his raincoat. 'But in spite of the hellishly cold weather, he chose ice-cream and liked it ver y much,' the writer says. There are comedies of errors with ice-cream too, Sankar comments. Once after a lecture, Vivekananda invited 'eight of his friends for ice-cream.' They walked along Powell Road in San Francisco and came to a cafe. 'Vivekananda ordered ice-cream for everyone. Perhaps the waitress was inexperien ced or misunderstood his accent. She brought them ice-cream soda. Vivekananda di d not like ice-cream soda and asked if the bottles could be returned,' the write r says. The manager was annoyed and scolded the waitress. The monk called the manager and said, 'If you scold the girl, I will drink up al l the ice-cream at once.' According to Sankar, Vivekananda was once heard to hav e enthused over an ice cream: 'Ah, food for the gods'. The 20th century visionary from Bengal, who inspired millions of young people ac ross the world with his secular views on religion and progressive philosophy was intuitive about food. The intuition often verged on an obsession with purity. In his writings on Bhakti-yoga, Swami Vivekananda refers to the commentary on Bh agwan Ramanuja on impure and pure food. He says three things make food impure: j aati dosha - the impurity in the nature of the food itself like onions and garli c which excite nerves and addle brains; ashraya dosha - impurity arising out of contact with an impure person, and nimitta dosha - impure food because of impuri ties like worms, hair or dirt in them. Sankar brings interesting observations made by the seer in his book. Vivekananda once told his disciple Sarat Chandra that 'one who cannot cook cannot be a grea t monk'. His disciple, native of East Bengal, had once cooked the monk a 'Bangal

' platter of 'rice, munger dal (lentils), koi macher jhol (koi fish curry), macc her tak (tangy fish) and maccher shuktuni (bitter fish with vegetables)'. Vivekananda said he had never tasted anything like it before, Sankar says. A few days before his premature death at the age of 39 from ill health, Vivekana nda was found 'gleefully eating chanachur (a hot and spicy mix of chickpeas and nuts) from a saal leaf at Ahiritola in north Kolkata on the bank of Ganges'. It was around the same time, he expressed his desire to eat 'phuluri' or munchie s. His disciples brought out the pot, lit the stove, poured the oil and the monk 'b ecame the munchie (phuluri) seller frying chick pea paste in the oil as he calle d out to his customers (disciples) to eat'. On July 4, 1902, Vivekananda lunched on 'hilsa' fish curry, rice, fried vegetabl es and a tangy dip (ambol). At 9.30 p.m., after a day of prayer, banter and medi tation, he died of a heart attack. The book, which probes the simple childlike man behind Narendranath Dutta alias Swami Vivekananda, has been published by Penguin-India. It is priced Rs.299. (Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)