One morning early in September 1893, a lady named Mrs George W. Hale looked out through a window of her handsome home on Chicago's Dearborn Avenue and saw, seated on the opposite side of the street, a young man of original appearance who was dressed in a turbon and the ochre robe of a Hindu monk.
Mrs Hale was, fortunately, not a conventional woman. She did not call the police to tell the stranger to move on; she did not even ring for the servants to go and ask him what he wanted. She noticed that he was unshaven and that his clothes were crumpled and dirty, but she was aware, also, that there was a kind of royal air about him. There he sat, perfectly composed, meditative, serene. He did not look as if he had lost his way. (And, indeed, he was quite the opposite of lost, for he had just resigned himself to the will of God.) Mrs Hale suddenly made a most intelligent guess; coming out of her house and crossing the street, she asked him politely, 'Sir, are you a delegate to the Parliament of Religions?'
She was answered with equal politeness, in fluent educated English. The stranger introduced himself as Swami Vivekanand and told her that he had indeed come to Chicago to attend the meetings of the Parliament, although he was not officially a delegate. As a matter of fact, he had first arrived in Chicago from India in the middle of July, only to find that the Parliament's opening had been postphoned till September. His money was running short and someone had advised him that he would be able to live more cheaply in Boston, so he had taken the train there. On the train, he had met a lady who had invited him to stay at her home, which was called 'Breezy Meadows '. Since then, he had given talks to various churches and social groups, been asked a lot of silly questions about his country, been laughed at by children because of his funny clothes. The day before yesterday, Professor J. H. Wright, who taught Greek at Harvard University, had bought him a ticket back to Chicago, assuring him that he would be welcome at the Parliament, even though he had no invitation: 'To ask you, Swami, for credentials is like asking the sun if it has permission to shine.' The Professor had also given him the address of the committee which was in charge of the delegates to the Parliament, but this address Vivekananda somehow lost on his way to Chicago. He tried to get information from passers-by on the street but, as ill luck would have it, the station was situated in the midst of a district where German was chiefly spoken, and the Swami could not make himself understood. Meanwhile, night was coming on. The Swami did not know how to obtain or use a city directory and so was at a loss how to find a suitable hotel. It seemed to him simpler to sleep in a big empty boxcar in the freight yard of the railroad. Next morning, hungry and rumpled, he woke, as he put it, 'smelling fresh water', and had begun to walk in a direction which brought him, sure enough, to the edge of Lake Michigan. But the wealthy homes of Lake Shore Drive proved inhospitable; he had knocked at the doors of several and had been rudely turned away. At length, after further wandering, he had found himself here, and had decided to go no farther but to sit down and await whatever event God might send. And now, Vivekananda concluded, 'What a romantic deliverance! How strange are the ways of the Lord!'
Mrs Hale must have laughed as she listened to this; for Vivekananda always related his adventures and misadventures with humour, and his own deep chuckles were most infectious. They went back together into the house, where the Swami was invited to wash and shave and eat breakfast. Mrs Hale then accompanied him to the headquarters of the committee, which arranged for his accommodation with the other oriental delegates to the Parliament.
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JAI SIYARAM!
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