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DurgaPuja 2020

Swami Vivekananda –

Interesting Anecdotes

Dr. Amitava Sanyal

Cricket
About 136 years ago, when the famous Eden Gardens in Calcutta was barely 20 years old, a young
man with the cricket ball created a sensation while playing against a British team. A decade later this
young man became renowned for propagating the Vedanta philosophy to the World and his
exemplary speech on Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, USA. Many of you may
know that the British established Calcutta Cricket Club in 1792. This was the first cricket club
established outside the British Isles.

It took almost 90 years to establish the city’s second Cricket Club. In 1884, under the stewardship of
great mathematician and father of Indian cricket Principal Saradaranjan Ray, this club was created
known as Town Club. With the goal of defeating the British team at their own imported game, a
cricket match was arranged between the Calcutta Cricket Club and Town Club at Eden Gardens.
Principal Saradaranjan Ray (Grandfather of my dear friend Shivaji Ray) was the Captain of the Town
Club team. At the request of Revolutionary Hemchandra Ghosh, a young all-rounder came to play
for Town Club. Hemchandra advised him to avoid emotion and concentrate on bowling maintaining
proper line and length, which will result in success. That was exactly what Narendranath Dutta did.
His outstanding performance with the bowling changed the course of the match and he took 7
wickets for only 20 runs. The British team was all out with the same score. He did not play much
cricket after this game and choose to dedicate himself in the service of our nation and humanity. He
later became our beloved Swami Vivekananda, whose message inspired the whole world.
Gunshot

Swami Vivekananda had endeared himself to cowboys in the American West by continuing placidly
with his lecture, standing on an upturned tub in the street, while they fired gunshots around his
head to see if his teachings about calmness and self-control were rooted in experience. Finding
them, on another occasion, practicing their aim by trying to hit a nutshell floating down the river, he
borrowed a gun and hit the shell with the first shot, explaining that he had never handled a gun
before, but he had learned to concentrate, and that this was the secret of success in any project: to
learn true concentration, and then apply the concentration to whatever action was needed.

Central Ohio Bengali Cultural Association