The Final Hours - Baba

Ram Krishna Ganguly

On 25/02/2011, my father, Sri Ram Krishna Ganguly, passed away. He was 86 years, 7 months and 25 days old. He had been showing signs of central nervous system disorder for the last 4 months or so. For about two months he had been slowly unable to take care of himself and needed help with eating and cleaning himself. On the 23rd of February Swamiji Bishendu Maharaj, from the Dehra Dun math suddenly visited us, around 9 in the morning. He had visited us once before, when we were staying at Transport House: he had never come to Prasashan Nagar before. He said that he had come to Hyderabad and wanted to meet Dad and so had persuaded the lay sanyasi at the Math to bring him over, without a formal appointment. Shiv was giving Dad a wash at the time, so he waited. When Dad was wheeled into the room, he saw Swamiji and gave him a big smile. No words were exchanged, just namaskars and the look on Dads face showed how delighted he was to see him. Swamiji was clearly moved, and did not say a word. In hind sight, I feel he might have known that Dad was not going to be in this world very much longer. The next evening, we realised that Dad's feet were very cold. Called the doctor and started giving him high glucose drinks. He responded immediately, so we kept up the same treatment during the night. Next morning he was fine, and had a big bowl of oats, from Shiv. We were quite exhausted ourselves, so after lunch, decided to nap. I wasn't comfortable, though, despite the fact that both Kiran and Purushottam were with him. Around 4 that afternoon, I went down to check on Dad and found that his hands were very cold; called Shiv.....we made him lie on his bed. He was not speaking but was alert and conscious. He spoke a few words to Shiv..." I wish..." I had called Karthik  and he was on his way back from the factory. We gave him orange juice. It was sour and he made a face. “is it sour" I asked. He nodded yes. I added honey and gave him some more. He smiled, nodded and took the remaining juice. Karthik walked in, with his usual hi Dadu....dad's face lit up, the smile was one of the biggest I have ever seen on his face. Karthik came and stood near his head, pulled him up a little, so he could drink the juice more easily. By now, he was getting steadily colder. I put Ma's jap mala in his hands. Asked for the Ganga
Jal from the puja room. Someone went and brought the can. Put a spoonful in his mouth. He drank it. I asked Shiv, Karthik, Sunita, Kiran and Purushottam to give him some jal. Veda had just come in. I could make out that Dad wanted to see Shiv, so I moved to his feet and asked to Shiv to stand next to him. Karthik was at the head. Krishna came. A little fluid came out of his mouth, so Karthik wiped his mouth and told his granddad to just bring it out. Suddenly I saw two or three twirls of what looked like smoke come out of his mouth. They were very beautiful. Pearl grey in colour and perfect twirls....can't describe how beautiful they were. Tara barked sharply, looking towards the door. When I looked back, the twirls were gone. And so was Dad. It was 6pm.