In the small upstairs room at Khetwadi in Bombay (Mumbai), Nisargadatta Maharaj spoke mostly in Marathi. He was a 20th-century Indian spiritual teacher in the Advaita tradition, best known internationally through the book I Am That. By the 1970s, seekers from around the world were arriving to hear him, and his words had to pass through translators before reaching many of them.
Two of those translators were Saumitra Mullarpattan and Ramesh Balsekar.
They were very different men.
Mullarpattan, born in 1916, was a civil engineer by profession. He met Nisargadatta Maharaj in 1974 and soon became one of his regular translators. His style was known for being literal and restrained. David Godman recalled that Mullarpattan would translate exactly what Maharaj said, even when the answer sounded puzzling. He did not try to improve, polish or reinterpret it.
Balsekar, born in 1917, came from the world of banking and eventually became President of the Bank of India. After retiring, he met Nisargadatta in the late 1970s and began translating for foreign visitors. He was exceptionally fluent in English, intellectually sharp and very comfortable handling long philosophical questions. Godman considered him one of Maharaj’s most skilful translators, and many Western visitors preferred his sessions because he could communicate Maharaj’s ideas so smoothly.
And this is where the contrast becomes fascinating.
Mullarpattan seemed to believe that a translator should almost disappear behind the teacher’s words.
Balsekar seemed more willing to carry the meaning across the cultural and linguistic gap, even if that required greater interpretation.
One preserved the rough edges.
The other made the teaching more accessible.
After Maharaj died in 1981, their paths diverged even further.
Balsekar became a well-known Advaita teacher in his own right. He wrote books, held satsangs and developed a strong emphasis on the idea of non-doership.
Mullarpattan remained comparatively quiet. He continued helping seekers understand Nisargadatta, answered questions, preserved memories and wrote about Maharaj’s final days. He never developed the same public spiritual identity.
There is something symbolic in their two lives.
- One translator gradually became a voice of his own.
- The other seems to have spent his life trying not to become one.
That does not necessarily make one right and the other wrong.
Balsekar’s fluency helped Maharaj reach people across the world.
Mullarpattan’s restraint preserved something equally valuable: the possibility of hearing Maharaj without too much explanation added around him.
This is not an attempt to decide who was the “better” translator, but to notice how differently two sincere individuals can carry the same teacher’s words.
Their story reminds us of something important.
Whenever a teacher’s words pass through another person, the intermediary never disappears completely.
A translation may be a window, But every window has glass.
An Extraordinary Conversation
There is also a particularly fascinating moment in the linked interview with Saumitra Mullarpattan. At around 10:56, he recalls an extraordinary conversation with Nisargadatta Maharaj involving the idea of a black hole - everything collapsing and becoming concentrated into a point where the gravitational force becomes immense.
What makes the passage especially interesting is hearing Mullarpattan himself describe the conversation and Maharaj’s way of approaching such an idea.
I would rather not over-explain it here.
Just listen to Mullarpattan telling the story in his own words.
Saumitra K. Mullarpattan
1916 – September 2012
Ramesh S. Balsekar
1917 – 27 September 2009
Sources and Acknowledgements:
This article was put together from a number of published sources, recollections and interviews relating to Nisargadatta Maharaj, Saumitra Mullarpattan and Ramesh Balsekar.
I am especially grateful for the recorded interview with Saumitra Mullarpattan, which preserves his own memories of Maharaj and includes the remarkable discussion, around 10:56, concerning black holes, gravitational collapse and the concentration of everything into a point.
My thanks also to the writers, archivists and devotees who have preserved these conversations, photographs and biographical details over the years.
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