day. My elder sister Uma and I were seated in the early morning under a NEEM tree in our Gorakhpur compound. She was helping me with a Bengali primer, what time I could spare my gaze from the near-by parrots eating ripe margosa fruit. Uma complained of a boil on her leg, and fetched a jar of ointment. I smeared a bit of the salve on my forearm.
“Why do you use medicine on a healthy arm?”
“Well, Sis, I feel I am going to have a boil tomorrow. I am testing your ointment on the spot where the boil
by material profit?” Father replied. “The one who pursues a goal of evenmindedness is neither jubilant with gain nor depressed by loss. He knows that man arrives penniless in this world, and departs without a single rupee.”
[Illustration: MY FATHER, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh, A Disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya—see