When people speak about Sri Neem Karoli Baba, Maharaj-ji, certain names naturally appear again and again :
- Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) — Psychologist and former Harvard professor. He earned an undergraduate degree from Tufts University, an M.A. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University, and later a professor of psychology at Harvard.
- Krishna Das (Jeffrey Kagel) — American kirtan singer and musician, later becoming one of the best-known Western performers of Indian devotional music.
- Jai Uttal (Douglas Uttal) : Musician, composer and longtime student of Indian classical music who studied under sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan.
- Dr. Larry Brilliant : Physician and Epidemiologist. He earned his M.D. from Wayne State University and an M.P.H. from the University of Michigan, and later taught epidemiology at the University of Michigan. He played an important role in the World Health Organization’s smallpox eradication programme in India. He later became one of the prominent figures associated with the global campaign that ultimately eradicated smallpox.
- Raghu Markus : Media producer and broadcaster who later founded Triloka Records and became Executive Director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation.
- Dada Mukerjee (Sudhir Mukerjee) : Professor of economics at Allahabad University and editor of an economics journal before becoming one of Maharaj-ji’s close devotees.
- K.K. Sah (Krishna Kumar Sah) : One of Maharaj-ji’s close devotees and a lifelong friend of Ram Dass. He often translated between Ram Dass and Maharaj-ji and introduced many Western devotees to Indian family life. His extended Sah family was closely associated with the Evelyn Hotel in Nainital, which became a home base, almost a mini ashram, for Ram Dass and other Western devotees during their stays in Nainital.
But there is another name that has increasingly drawn my attention:
K.C. Tewari.
The more I read about him, the more curious I become.
K.C. Tewari, also remembered as Kishan or simply Tewari , belonged to Nainital and became one of Maharaj-ji’s close devotees.
What fascinates me immediately is that his outward life did not resemble our conventional image of a spiritual seeker who had renounced the world.
He was a family man.
- A husband.
- A father.
- A teacher and headmaster.
And yet, behind that apparently ordinary life was a man whom those around him remembered as possessing an extraordinary inner life.
The “Brilliant Disguise”
Years later, a documentary about him would be given a remarkably appropriate title:
Brilliant Disguise: The Samadhi of K.C. Tewari.
The disguise was perhaps the ordinariness of his life.
The mystery was what existed underneath it.
Those who knew K.C. remembered him entering profound states of spiritual absorption , samadhi , sometimes seemingly without warning.
Yet afterwards, ordinary life continued.
There were responsibilities.
- Family.
- School.
- Students.
- Friends.
Devotees arriving from distant countries.
This contrast is what I find so compelling.
Spirituality was apparently not something he needed to separate from everyday existence.
The sacred and the ordinary somehow occupied the same life.
Maharaj-ji and the Western Devotees
There is another part of K.C. Tewari’s story that deserves particular attention.
In the final days before Maharaj-ji left his body in September 1973, accounts preserved by the Love Serve Remember Foundation say that Maharaj-ji instructed K.C. Tewari to look after the Western devotees.
And K.C. did exactly that.
Many of these seekers had originally arrived in India through Ram Dass and had found themselves drawn into Maharaj-ji’s extraordinary world.
After Maharaj-ji was no longer physically present, people such as Krishna Das, Raghu Markus, Jai Uttal and others remained deeply connected with K.C.
It seems that K.C. became, in his own quiet way, another bridge between Maharaj-ji and this group of young Western seekers.
Their relationship continued for years.
The Indian Devotees
While Western devotees such as Ram Dass and Krishna Das understandably became very well known internationally, Maharaj-ji’s world also contained remarkable Indian devotees whose stories deserve equal attention.
Dada Mukerjee was one of them.
K.K. Sah was another.
And K.C. Tewari belonged to this intimate world surrounding Maharaj-ji.
Dada Mukerjee’s writings are particularly valuable because they preserve memories of Maharaj-ji and the people around him from someone who actually lived through that period.
In The Near and the Dear, Dada devoted an entire chapter to K.C. Tewari.
For someone like me who never had the privilege of meeting any of these people personally, such first-hand recollections are precious.
They allow us to move, however imperfectly, beyond legends and towards the human beings themselves.
The Man Behind the Stories
And that is where my curiosity really begins.
I do not simply want to collect extraordinary stories about K.C.
I want to know the man.
- What was K.C. Tewari like before Maharaj-ji entered his life?
- What was he like in the classroom?
- What did his students think of him?
- What was he like as a husband and father?
- How did his family experience the extraordinary spiritual states described by others?
- How did his relationship with Maharaj-ji develop?
- What did Maharaj-ji see in him?
- How did K.C. himself understand what was happening during his states of samadhi?
- What did he speak about when there were no visitors around?
- What made him laugh?
- What worried him?
- What did an ordinary day in his life actually look like?
These questions interest me almost as much as the spiritual stories.
Perhaps even more.
I Would Like to Learn More
The more I discover about K.C. Tewari, the more I feel there is still much of his life that deserves to be understood and preserved.
I would especially like to hear from people who knew him personally — family members, former students, devotees, friends, or anyone who may have photographs, letters, memories or stories that have not been widely recorded.
My interest is not simply in extraordinary spiritual accounts, but in understanding the person behind them: the teacher, father, husband, devotee and human being.
If anyone reading this has memories of K.C. Tewari, or knows someone I should speak with, I would be very grateful to hear from you.
A Wonderful Starting Point
For anyone interested in K.C. Tewari, I strongly recommend the documentary:
Brilliant Disguise: The Samadhi of K.C. Tewari
Directed by David Silver and released by Love Serve Remember Films in 2022, the documentary contains rare archival footage of K.C., recollections from Krishna Das, Raghu Markus, Jai Uttal and others, and appearances by K.C. Tewari’s two sons.
Watching the documentary was one of the things that made me realise just how much more there might be to understand about this quietly remarkable man.
A Small Acknowledgement
This short post would not have been possible without the people who preserved these memories.
I am particularly grateful for the work of Dada Mukerjee, whose The Near and the Dear: Stories of Neem Karoli Baba and His Devotees contains an invaluable chapter on K.C. Tewari.
I am also grateful to the Love Serve Remember Foundation, director David Silver, producer Raghu Markus, the Tewari family, and everyone involved in Brilliant Disguise: The Samadhi of K.C. Tewari for preserving archival footage, memories and stories that might otherwise have disappeared with time.
And ultimately, gratitude to all those devotees — Indian and Western — who continued telling these stories after Maharaj-ji left his body.
Without them, people from later generations like myself would have very little chance of entering this extraordinary world.
Perhaps that is one of the beautiful things about remembering someone.
A life ends.
But a story can keep travelling.
And somewhere along that journey, another person may stop and say:
I want to know more about this man.
That is exactly where I find myself with K.C. Tewari.
Further Reading
- K.C. Tewari — Maharajji.love: https://maharajji.love/kc-tewari/
- Brilliant Disguise: The Samadhi of K.C. Tewari — official Love Serve Remember / Ram Dass film page
- Dada Mukerjee — The Near and the Dear — K.C. Tewari chapter
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