Chapter (অধ্যায়): DAKSHINESWAR DAYSPage: 37 of 89
never have we seen her. She would get up very
early in the morning, at about three or four, attend
to her ablutions, including a bath in the Ganga,
and enter her tiny room from where she would
come out, if there was any necessity, only at night
when people were away. This went on day after
day. The door of the room was so low that she
had to bend far down to enter. In the beginning
she had hard knocks on her head while going in,
but afterwards, she said, she got accustomed to
the height and avoided injury. This small room
was her bedroom, kitchen, storeroom, and everything
else. Even on slings she would hang part of
her store. Sometimes she had to accommodate
other companions here too, mainly the women
disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Ladies from Calcutta
who came to visit Sri Ramakrishna would take
pity on the Holy Mother and say: See, our good
girl has to live in such a small room. She is, as it
were, in exile like Sita. In the beginning, she had
to cook only for two or three persons, her motherin-
law, the Master, and the like. But as the number
of devotees of Sri Ramakrishna began to swell
she had to cook for more and more persons. On a
birthday of the Master, she had to cook for forty
or fifty persons in that room. Sometimes she had
to cook to suit different tastes. Naren (afterwards
Swami Vivekananda) would like thick gram soup,
Ramchandra would ask for chapatis, Rakhal