That is how he comes to me. Not first as the saint, guide or spiritual presence that so many people knew, but simply as our Taatu.
Even the name Taatu came from an ordinary family moment. When my sister Sunanda was learning to speak, she could not pronounce Tauji properly and began calling him Taatu. I followed her, and the name remained.
When Sunanda and I were small, we sometimes spent our summer holidays with Mausi and Taatu. I used to think that Mummy looked like Mausi and Papa looked like Taatu, so it was really the same thing. That simple childhood belief made me feel safe, and I did not cry for Mummy and Papa.
I was still young enough to sleep between Mausi and Taatu. Mausi would keep her hand on my stomach so that she would know if I woke up crying because I missed home. Taatu used to snore, and I had worked out a way to shake him while making it look as though I had done it in my sleep. It is such a small memory, but today it feels incredibly precious.
The centre of our family
There was a natural authority about Taatu. If I sat with him at the dining table, I would finish everything on my plate, even when there was something I did not like. It was never fear. It was admiration and respect. His presence itself made you want to behave properly.
He could be firm and would not take nonsense from anyone, but we children always knew how affectionate he was. He enjoyed different kinds of food and was always bringing us something to eat. You could ask him for what you wanted, or you could say nothing at all. Either way, something nice would appear.
He treated people in exactly the same way, regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Money, position or status never changed the respect someone received from him.
Even while my grandfather, Dadaji, was alive, Taatu carried many responsibilities and helped people throughout the family. After Dadaji passed away, Taatu became the eldest person in our family, the one everyone looked towards.
For my father, Papa, Taatu was much more than an elder brother. He was a father figure. When Papa lived with him while studying and preparing for the civil services, Taatu supported him in every possible way. Papa’s respect for him was so deep that he never answered him back. Seeing your own father look up to someone tells you the place that person holds within a family.
Maharajji chose Rekha Joshi, our Mausi, for Taatu. Maharajji also told Papa, “Bhabhi is like your mother.” That is what Mausi and Taatu became for him. Together, they gave him a home and stood by him in every way.
A life of work and devotion
Taatu was well travelled and had experienced many different parts of the world. He remained on top of his professional work, carried his family responsibilities and still gave himself completely to Ma and Maharajji. His worldly and spiritual lives were never separate. They moved together naturally.
To me, Taatu was a modern-day saint who was born to do Maharajji’s work. He was not a saint removed from ordinary life. He travelled, worked, enjoyed food, fulfilled his responsibilities and experienced the world fully, while remaining inwardly dedicated to Ma and Maharajji.
Ma, Sri Siddhi Ma, and Maharajji had been integral to our lives from the moment we opened our eyes. Taatu never needed to sit us down and give us spiritual advice. We only had to look at him. His dedication was visible in the way he lived, and that was enough to inspire us. His life itself was the teaching.
He shared his journey with Maharajji through his book, I and My Father Are One: The Grand Unification. He poured his heart into those pages, and that journey belongs in his own words. What I can share is what it meant to have someone like him within our family.
Seva and joy
After his retirement, all his time went into Maharajji’s work. Wherever something was happening and support was needed, he was there. He guided people and shared his stories of Maharajji with them.
Two photographs hold this part of him beautifully. In one, he is carrying malpua prasad on his head on 15 June at home in Delhi. In another, he is dancing freely at Maharajji’s temple in Vrindavan. Together, they hold his seva, his devotion and the joy with which he lived.
Young at heart
As the years passed, I would often tell Taatu that he was still young. He would simply smile and accept the compliment. And he truly was young in his heart.
Sab mil kar rehna
The last time I spoke to him was during a family video call. He was emotional. His voice was shaky and his eyes were teary when he said, “Sab mil kar rehna.”
My heart sank. I immediately asked him, “Why are you saying all this?”
Sometimes I feel he already knew what was coming. Perhaps he knew that he was going to merge into Maharajji and Ma, returning to where he truly belonged. Even in that moment, he was thinking about the family and asking us to remain together.
The final ten days
I still find myself wondering why Taatu had to remain in the hospital for ten days. Why did such a great devotee have to suffer? But suffering is part of human life, and devotion does not necessarily place someone beyond it.
Vairagya is often understood as non-attachment. It does not mean indifference or loving someone less. It means loving deeply while being able to surrender one’s hold on the people, roles and responsibilities one has known.
Taatu had spent his life carrying the responsibilities of his family and Maharajji’s work. Perhaps those final ten days became a brief period of vairagya for him, away from his family, the people he loved and everything he had carried for so long.
We cannot know what was passing through his mind during those days. Perhaps nothing was. Perhaps Maharajji was having a conversation with him, and together they were deciding what was to come next. We will never know.
Moksha and the soul
Someone said that Taatu was such a saint that he must have attained moksha in this lifetime. But I believe Taatu attained moksha the moment he met Maharajji.
As Krishna teaches in the Gita, the soul does not die with the body. It moves from one body to another. To me, liberation does not mean that Taatu’s seva must end. Until Maharajji’s work on this earth is complete, I believe Taatu can return freely, by Maharajji’s will, in whatever form is needed to play his part again.
His devotion to Ma and Maharajji was at a level I do not think any of us could ever reach. We were simply blessed to witness what such devotion looks like when it becomes an entire life.
Searching for his photograph
The most difficult thing I had to do after Taatu passed was prepare the announcement of his passing. I was not in India, and the distance made me feel completely helpless.
I opened his Facebook page, where he had been very active, posting almost every other day. I began going through his photographs and reading his posts, trying to find the right photograph of him wearing the black hat he loved.
It crushed me. His page was so full of him, while I was trying to create a message saying that he was no longer here. Tears kept falling.
Among those memories, I found an old post from 14 July 2017. He described Rekha Mausi as “my adorable wife of 46 years” and called Anu, Mini and me “my three daughters.” He ended with the words, “Love you my children and God bless. Yours adoringly, Pop.”
I had gone there searching for one photograph, but I found his voice everywhere.
He will know him through us
Another sadness I carry is that my son was nine months old when Taatu passed and never had the chance to meet him. But he will know Taatu. He will grow up hearing our stories, seeing his photographs and understanding what Taatu meant to our family. They may not have met, but Taatu will remain part of his life through all of us.
With Taatu’s passing, our family has not only lost someone we loved. We have lost our centre and our eldest, the person everyone could look towards.
To those who met him, even briefly, he was a saint, a guide and a spiritual being. He was all of those things to us too. But he was also the man sitting in his room in his T-shirt and pyjamas, the one who brought us food, whose snoring I secretly stopped and whose black-hat photograph I searched for through my tears.
He was our Taatu. He was family.
Even now, when I close my eyes, he is still sitting in his room, calm, familiar and close. I cannot believe he has truly left us. We will miss him dearly, cherish every memory and try to honour the final thing he asked of us:
“Sab mil kar rehna.”