Sixty-eight years and six months ago,on a certain Tuesday in the Bengali month of Falgoon, there was born in the village of Purulia, Katwa, in the District of Burdwan, in the ancestral family house of the Mukherjis an heir to the late Nil Madhab Mukherje, a boy who was destined to create a name and a fame in Bengal society. The father of our future hero was s Subordinate Judge who died when the boy was attending the Krishnagur College. When he was seven years old, the boy was holding Junior Scholarship, and the Principal of the College, an Englishmen of sterling character, was his friend and guardian, who impressed on his tender mind lessons of truthfulness and honesty which became the foundation of his future commercial career. The boy was named Neel Comal blue lotus – a symbol of purity, and if any man adorned him. self with the garland of purity, it was my dear, devoted friend and brother, Babu Neel Comul Mukherji.
As a perfect stranger, I came to his house on a Saturday in March in 1891 from Buddha- Gaya on my way to Burma. He was holding the office of Secretary of the Bengal Theosophical Society, and I had been acquainted with his name in Ceylon since 1887. In those days, the Society was strong in faith as the nucleus of a Universal I visited Buddha-Gaya in January and having witnessed the abandoned and neglected condition of the central shrine of Buddhist Dom resolved to restore it to the Buddhists of Asia. I knew the name of one Bengali to whom I wrote from Buddha-Gaya that I was proceeding to Burma, and that I should have to stay for a day in Calcutta, and requested and hoped that they would give me shelter when I called on him. When I arrived, he greeted me cordially and introduced me to his only son, Neerode Nath Mukherji, to whose care I was entrusted.
It was a case of “love at first sight,” and I who came expecting Babu Neel Comul’s hospitality for a couple of days, found in the son and father the acme of human kindness; and they treated me with so much love that I was compelled to prolong my stay for one full week, and in that brief period he introduced me to several of his friends, among whom was the Editor of the Indian Mirror. Since then, both have remained true and loyal to me, encouraging me and protecting me at all crises in the subsequent history of the Maha-Bodhi Society. Such sweet sympathy and so much human love I was shown that the utopian idea of the resuscitation of Buddhism in the land of its birth came into objectivity. Four months after I returned to Calcutta, I found Neel Comul Babu as cordial as ever. Since then, “Holy House,” the name of his residence at Beniapukur Road, has become permanent home to me, and for full 16 years 1 enjoyed the confidence of his loving companion ship; and his sterling honesty and unflinching devotion to duty and his loyalty to Truth endeared him to me. I too have persevered in my mission with a dauntless spirit so far, in the cradle-land of Buddhism, single-handed, for in my late lamented friend, I found all those sublime qualities that go to ennoble human character. Now that my excel- lent friend has left the earthly tabernacle, no more shall I see him in a re-embodied form, but the body of fame and glory that he has left behind shall live long in my memory, never to fade so long as I have consciousness. The story of his life from his seventh year upwards was full of romantic interest, and to listen to him when he was relating the trials and tribulation of his youthful career, struggling alone. having been left an orphan at the age of fifteen. was an inspiring lesson to me. Cheerful, joyous, full of optimistic hope, always forgiving, never envying others, silently helping the needy, willing and ever ready to sacrifice all to uphold truth, full of humane tenderness, remarkably sociable, with the instincts of a child, physically clean, observing minutely the law of scientific hygiene, very regular in his habits, he was an ideal householder. Fifty years ago, aristocratic Bengalis of Calcutta were in full swing of European materialism, and he then belonged to what we would call to-day the smart set. Married when he was yet in his teens to a noble young lady of the aristocratic family of the Tagores of Jorasanko, he had heretically undertaken to rise in the world depending of his own self and on truth, and he was remarkably successful. Whoever had helped him, he always spoke gratefully of him; and among his intimate friends, one who he had always loved, was Babu Narendra Nath Sen.
In his 15th year as a boy, he was given a post in the Hindustan Bank, on a salary of Rupees 50, and from this pittance he had to maintain a family of four brothers and two sisters, besides paying for his palki and tiffin. As an Accountant in the Bank, he had many a tilt with several Englishmen, who in a spirit of hauteur would come to dictate to him. As a young man, he was an athlete, and physically very strong, and always prepared for an encounter with bully. As Manager of the Tagore Estate, before he had joined the firm of Graham & Co. of Calcutta, he lived the active life of a pucca English planter, and was a sportsman to the backbone, and Bohemian in his habits, and his friends were European planters, and in his full planting costume, no one but a friend could recognise him as a Bengali. In complexion very fair, he could easily pass as a Neapolitan gentleman. For more than 30 years, he was the trusted assistant of the firm of Messrs. Graham & Co.
He began from the lowest rung of the ladder of a salary of Rs. 30, and by his sterling business qualities he rose gradually, and became a Banian, and the Grahams, merchant-princes, treated him with unvarying kindness and consideration and appreciated his remarkable business talents. If a householder deserved protection at the hands of the goddess of good luck, Neel Comul Babu deserved it, and the goddess was kind to him. There was never an exhibition of pettiness in him and in everything” he did, he was manly and honourable, and he was absolutely loyal to the firm who employed him. Now that he has passed away. I am delighted that I was given the opportunity to associate with so upright and pure-minded a man. Since the last twelve months. I was in daily association with him, and he treated me as one of his nearest and dearest ones. No secret he withheld from me, and the stories of his busy commercial life were all locked up in the recesses of his heart. Pity that there was no Bengali Smiles to write a work on “self-help”.
Babu Neel Comul Mukherji’s life of heroic and persevering struggles from his 15th year upwards deserves to be immortalized as an ideal of commercial morality. At Graham he refused to betray a friend, and one word from him would have saved Neel Comul Babu from paying from his own pocket Rs. 20,000. He upheld truth, and he was willing to lose Rupees 20,000 unwilling to lose a good name. Without murmur, he paid the loss. He was an early riser, and the first thing he did before taking his cup of cocoa was to feed the sparrows, crows and the pet birds that he reared. The cow that was being offered at an auction which may have been sold to the butcher at Rs. 50 was saved from the butcher’s hand by his offer of Rs. 150. It was by an accident that he happened to pass by and seeing the crowd he went to the spot, when lo and behold, the cow as if by instinct unloosening herself came running to him, and dropped down near his feet, and the eyes of the cow were full of tears. And this cow that he saved gave him milk for nearly 12 years. The little fawn that was sent to him by a friend to be made into a dish and eaten up, is alive to-day and is the recipient of his loving care. In the afternoon the peacocks and the cranes would daily come to him when he was taking his tiffin, and they would be fed with sweets and bread.
As a thorough business man, he foresaw the potentialities of his country, and in an address that he delivered on the 16th Pous 1794 of the Saka Era before the National Association, he anticipated the present-day economic developments, and called upon his brother- Zamindars to work for the amelioration of their tenants. The subject of the thesis was Landlord and Tenant, and it was written in Bengalee and printed and published 27 years ago. Some of the high offices in the world of commerce in Bengal he held for several years. He was Vice-chairman of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce. a Port Commissioner, an active member of the District Charitable Society, a member of the British Indian Association, a life-member of the Zoological Garden of Calcutta and in 1896 started a firm under the name and style of N. Mukherji & Sons. He was a member of the Theosophical Society, and held the office of Honorary Treasurer of the Maha Bodhi Society. He had no sympathy with those who were running after the “occult” and he warned the late Madame Blavatsky not to go on with her occult displays. The robust optimism that he had was due to his chaste life, and from his forty-second year he led a life of strict continence. He was deeply attached to his grandson Naranath Mukherji, who is now managing the business which his grandfather did in the firm of Messrs. Graham & Co., and on whom the mantle of his grandfather has fallen.
The head of the Calcutta firm of Messrs. Graham & Co. on the receipt of the intelligence of the death of the late Babu Neel Comul Mukherji, sent a letter of condolence to Babu Naranath, a few lines from which are quoted below:-
“I was very sorry indeed to hear last night of the death of an old and valued assistant and friend, Neel Comul Mukherji. You and the members of your family have all my sympathy in your great loss, which is shared only in a less degree by all of us with whom your grandfather worked. I have communicated the sad news to the seniors at home who, I know will be also deeply grieved when they hear it. For myself I feel I have lost a personal friend, and I know that all the partners who have been in charge here will have the same feeling”.
The greatest must someday die, and no god or man can prevent the three things that everyone born has some day to face, viz. old age. disease and death. The body dies, but the good deeds lovingly accomplished only help us to attain in realms of immortality. The glorified body of good deeds lives. Blessed are they who live for the sake of uplifting others, sunk in the mire of ignorance and misery.
(M.B.J.-1907) Anagarika Dharmapala.
