Ooty: A special prayer was held on January 12 at St Thomas Church in Ooty to mark the 150th birth anniversary of John Josaiah Goodwin, the stenographer of Swami Vivekananda.

The British man, who followed Vivekananda across the globe taking down notes and typing his lectures for newspapers, had made Ooty his home.

Goodwin’s 150th birth anniversary fell on September 20, 2020, but the celebration was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, said V Sivadass, secretary of MANAS, a social service organization, that arranged the event in association with the local unit of Ramakrishna Mission.

“We chose the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, January 12, to observe” Godwin’s anniversary, Sivadass added.

Goodwin was 25 when he saw an ad in two New York newspapers — the Herald and the World — taken out by the New York Vedanta Society, calling for a stenographer to record Vivekananda’s lectures.

Goodwin, whose father Josiah Goodwin was also a stenographer, had been working as a journalist for 11 years before going to Australia in 1893 and then to America.

After getting into Vivekananda’s orbit, Goodwin’s role was to record the messages, spoken at a rapid clip. He travelled along with the young Swamiji, taking down the lectures, typing them and handing them over to newspapers and Brahmavadin, a magazine published from Calcutta (now Kolkata).

In 1897, Vivekananda and Goodwin along with other disciples reached Madras (now Chennai) in 1897. After a brief tour with Vivekananda in northern India, Goodwin returned to Madras in January 1898.

He would never see Vivekananda again. Not long after this, Goodwin moved to Ooty, probably to escape the appalling heat of Madras.

He remained seriously ill for a month but refused to take medicines. He was moved to a hospital where on June 2, 1898, he died at the age of 27. Vivekananda, who was in Almora, was appalled over the death of ‘my faithful Goodwin.’

In August 1898, Swami Vivekananda wrote the poem Requiescat in pace in memory of Goodwin. The poem began:

Speed forth, O soul! upon thy star-strewn path,
Speed, blissful one, where thought is ever free,
Where time and sense no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be on thee!

On January 12, Ragavendrananda, head of the Ooty branch of Ramakrishna Mutt, said, “As Vivekananda was a fast and eloquent speaker, it was difficult to get a stenographer who could cope, both because of his fluency and the vedantic thoughts he used to mix in his lectures.” But, Goodwin managed very well, he said.

Sivadass said Goodwin was responsible for the reports of all those inspiring lectures of Swamiji. “Today’s event is a humble tribute to this unknown soul. The world owes a great debt to him,” he added.

Source: The Times of India