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Introduction

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‘I have no message for mankind.’ ‘Why a biography of me?’ asked U.G. when I first expressed my desire to write the story of his life. ‘Tell me, how would you go about writing the biography of a person who says he has no story to be told? If my life story is never told, the world would be none the worse for it. For those who delight in reading biographies my story would be disappointing indeed. If they are looking for something in my life to change their lives for the better, they haven't got a chance. You can fit my life neatly into that rhyme for children “Solomon Grundy”. That, in a nutshell, is yours, mine and everybody's story. There's no more to it than that.’ ‘What are you, U.G.?’ asked the eighty-four-year-old Swiss lady, Valentine de Kerven, ten years ago over lunch. She had been with U.G. for over twenty years. Most of us at the table stared blankly at her. Her question is the same question asked by all those who have come in contact with U.G. The friend who was in
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The Encounter

‘If you are searching for someone who will enlighten you, you have come to the wrong man.’   27th August, 1991. My flight from Bombay to London is on schedule. Leaving home and your near and dear ones even for a while is tough. I wonder how U.G. has turned his back to the entire experience. As I take off for forty days and forty nights to join U.G. in London and thereafter journey with him to California to write his biography, I am overcome by a feeling of dread. Will I be able to do justice to this self-imposed task of presenting U.G. to the world? I wonder. The legend of Icarus from Greek mythology leaps out of a page of the magazine of New Writing . The legend: Daedalus secretly made two sets of wings – one pair for himself and one for his son Icarus. The wings were cleverly fashioned with feathers set in beeswax. The father showed his son how to use them and warned him not to fly too high as the heat of the sun would melt the wax. Then he led him up to the highest tower, and, fla
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Early Years

‘A real guru, if there is one, frees you from himself.’ Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti was born on 9 July 1918 in the small town of Masulipatam in South India and was brought up in the nearby town of Gudivada. Those were the days of the First World War. ‘This boy is born to a destiny immeasurably high,’ predicted U.G.'s mother just before she died, seven days after she gave birth to him. His maternal grandfather, Tummalapalli Gopala Krishnamurti, a wealthy Brahmin lawyer, took his dying daughter's prediction seriously. He gave up his flourishing law practice to devote himself to his grandson's upbringing and education. The grandparents and their friends were convinced that this child that was born in their family was a yogabhrashta , one who had come within inches of enlightenment in his past life. U.G.'s father played no role in his life except the ‘hereditary role,’ as U.G. puts it. Although they lived in the same town, they never lived under the same roof for any leng
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Life Among Theosophists

‘When you know nothing you say a lot; when you know something there is nothing to say.’ 28th of August, 1991, 5:50 a.m. I am in London. The landing was smooth. I get out of the aircraft with my handbag. That's the only luggage I carry. I hurry through the Immigration and Customs and head toward the taxi stand. As I get into a taxi I see a big orange sun climbing up in the sky, ushering in a perfect summer day. It's unusually warm here in London. As I drive into the sleepy city a voice on the radio predicts the end of the Soviet Union. My mind flashes back to what U.G. had said about Mikhail Gorbachev two years ago when the entire world was applauding him as the man of the decade. ‘Gorby has opened a can of worms, Mahesh. This is the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.’ The streets of London are littered with memories of half-lived yesterdays. Nostalgia is pain. I am reminded of Parveen Babi. Her memory doesn't seem to have faded with time. It was with her that I first
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