Chennai :

As the nation celebrates the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, his faithful stenographer who took the speeches of the celebrated monk to the world, remains unhonoured and unsung.

Josiah Goodwin, an Englishman, followed Swami Vivekananada  from London and documented his speeches in UK, Sri Lanka and India before he died in 1898 in Ooty following illness. He was buried near a church in Ooty.

“In his death I have lost a friend as true as steel, a disciple of never-failing devotion,” said Swami Vivekananda from Almora (UP) on receiving word about Goodwin’s demise.

Born to an English couple at Yorkshire in 1870, Goodwin came in contact with Swami Vivekananda during his second visit to the United States in 1895. “Followers of Swami Vivekananda placed an advertisement for a stenographer and Goodwin, who had come to the US in search of job, was chosen. From then, Goodwin travelled with Swamiji recording his speeches,” said a senior monk at the Ramakrishna Mutt, Chennai.

Vivekananda had such immense faith in Goodwin’s work that he started calling him ‘My faithful Goodwin’. “Though Goodwin was chosen to record Swamiji’s speeches for a salary, he refused to take money after a while,” said the monk. Goodwin travelled along with Vivekananda to the UK and India. “In 1897 when Swamiji reached Colombo, apart from the speeches delivered by him, Goodwin also recorded the reception given to the spiritual master at various places including the mammoth rally from Egmore to Vivekananda House in Madras,” said the monk.

After accompanying Vivekananda through his tour to Almora, Goodwin was sent back to Madras by the Swamiji with a plan to start a newspaper in English with Goodwin as its editor. But the newspaper plan did not materialise and Goodwin was involved in bringing out an English monthly journal of the ‘Mutt’ called Brahmavadin, which is now called the Vedanta Kesari.

“The Englishman could not withstand the heat of Madras and migrated to the cooler climes of Ooty but hardly took care of his health and finally died in 1898,” the monk narrated.

On hearing about Goodwin’s death, Vivekananda wrote a small poem to his mother called ‘Requiescat in Pace’ (Rest in peace). This poem is inscribed in Goodwin’s grave at the cemetery at St Thomas Church, Ooty.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai> Swami Vivekananada / by B  SivaKumar, TNN / October 21st, 2013