The boat is sinking but I shall see the sunrise.

The dawn of 13th October, 1911, arrived and Nivedita kept her promise. Despite the best efforts of Dr. Nilratan Sarkar and the devoted care of Jagadish Chandra Bose and his wife Abala, Nivedita passed away to eternity. The hills of Darjeeling became mute witnesses to the end of a brief but most illustrious life of one who had arrived from across the seven seas and made India her home.

Rabindranath called her ‘Lok Mata’ or the mother of masses and Abanindranath had said that among all the foreigners who had loved India and made it their home, the name of Nivedita shall shine the brightest. Swami Vivekananda of course was the first to realise it. He had predicted, “India shall ring with her.” Yet, surprisingly, the period of her stay in India was only a brief thirteen years. She set foot on Indian soil on 28 January, 1898. Waiting for her impatiently at the Calcutta port was Swami Vivekananda himself. Then she was Margaret Elizabeth Noble of Scottish-Irish descent and one of Swamiji’s favourite overseas disciples, whom he referred to as ‘Margot’. The first meeting of Margaret and Vivekananda had occurred in London in November 1895. At that moment Margaret was an atheist, who was doubtful about traditional religious practices. However, she was mightily impressed by this Indian monk and began to attend his classes on religious discourses regularly. In one such class, Swamiji had declared, “The world needs twenty such men and women who are ready to renounce everything in the name of God. Who among you are ready to walk the path?” Margaret was ready – she had found her calling.

The life-path of Margaret was as if predestined – even from before her birth. She was born to pastor Samuel Richmond Noble and Mary Isabel in the town of Dungannon in North Ireland on 28 October, 1867. It is said that her mother had promised to deliver unto God her unborn child. That promise was fulfilled thirty-one years later, when Swami Vivekananda baptized her into a monk and named her ‘Nivedita’ or the devoted one. For Sister Nivedita, her Guru was her God incarnate and she was here to fulfill his wishes of emancipating the backward women-folk of India. When Nivedita arrived in India, the Bengal Renaissance was at its peak and soon she became an important part of it. On 13 November, 1898, in the presence of Swami Vivekananda and monks of his order, the foundation of her school was laid at 16 Bosepara Lane, Bagbazar, Calcutta, by Sarada Devi, the wife of the long deceased Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who was hailed as ‘Sangha Janani’ or the mother of the order of monks which Vivekananda had founded. The school attained success within a very short period and exists till today. She involved herself in various other activities as well – she was often invited for giving lectures and her self-less nursing of people during the Calcutta Plague of 1898-99 has attained legendary status. She often travelled abroad for obtaining sponsors for the construction of Belur Math or even later for the construction of the Bose Institute of Jagadish Chandra Bose (whom she affectionately called ‘Khoka’ in Bengali and sometimes ‘Bairn’ in Scottish, both meaning ‘the little one’). To keep her school afloat, she relentlessly wrote in newspapers and also wrote various books, often to the detriment of her health. She was actively involved in the process of translation of Tagore’s and Jagadish Chandra’s books into English. It is recorded that Nivedita actively helped Bose write four books – Living and Non-Living, Plant Response, Comparative Electro-Physiology and Irritability of Plants. She revised his papers published in journals and constantly wrote about him in newspapers to attract publicity. She dreamt of Tagore winning the Nobel and Bose’s statue being installed at Christ’s College Cambridge. Both of her dreams were achieved in due time – only she was no longer there to witness it. Many of her efforts bore fruit after her short life had ended. She was a constant source of inspiration to stalwarts like Abanindra Nath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, historian Ramesh Chunder Dutt, revolutionaries Aurobindo Ghosh and Bipin Chandra Pal. Like Vivekananda, Nivedita too believed that a country cannot prosper unless it attains full independence. So, she gave active support to the revolutionaries and became a headache for the British police, who could not arrest her because she was technically a British. Nivedita was fully aware of the situation and took full advantage of it and all efforts to deport her proved futile. No wonder though, for Nivedita belonged to a family of Irish revolutionaries, who had fought for Irish freedom against the British for generations. She meanwhile continued to write – The Master As I Saw Him, Kali the Mother, The Web of Indian Life, Footfalls of Indian History are some of her most noted works. She was also a prolific letter writer and her volumes of letters give a graphic view of her life and times.

Swami Vivekananda passed away on 4 July, 1902. Devastated though she was, the rest of Nivedita’s life was a tale of continuous struggle against odds to keep the dream of Swamiji alive. Henceforth, she would often sign off her letters as ‘Ramakrishna Vivekananda’s Nivedita’. She wanted to bear the burden of her Guru and she voluntarily did just that till her last breath. Her dedication to India and its causes was often a source of great wonder to all those who saw her.

During her stay in India, Sister Nivedita had grown particularly fond of the Himalayas and loved visiting them. In the summer of 1911, she went to Mayavati and in October she went to Darjeeling with Jagadish Chandra and his wife Abala. Her health was already failing and after some days she became critically ill. She never recovered and breathed her last at dawn on 11 October, 1911, while uttering the famous sloka from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, ‘Asato Ma Sadgamaya’. It was as if she was sure of the end – she made a Will and donated all her worldly possessions and the rights of her books to the Trustee Board of Belur Math. Her wish to be cremated according to Hindu rites was acted upon accordingly and her ashes rest in Darjeeling, amidst her beloved Himalayas and bears the plaque – Here reposes Sister Nivedita who gave her all to India. A little bit of it was brought back to Calcutta by Jagadish Chandra and the urn finds a pride of place at Bose Institute and the Vajra (weapon) she designed as a possible national emblem and flag in 1909 has become the institute’s symbol. At the Bose Institute also stands the bas-relief of a woman with prayer beads and a lamp in her hand, modelled on a famous painting of Nandalal Bose called, ‘The Lady with the lamp’. At the inauguration of the Bose Institute in 1917, Bose had paid her his heartfelt tribute, “In all my struggling efforts, I have not been altogether solitary. While the world doubted, there have been a few, now in the city of silence, who never wavered in their trust”.