Vivekananda Polyclinic School of Nursing

by Swami Achyutananda (as published in the Souvenir on the occasion of Platinum Jubilee of the Sevashrama) With the end of the Sepoy Mutiny the Nawabi era also came to a halt. English took over the reins of several regions in Northern India. To help them in their work, several educated people and senior officials from Bengal travelled out to various regions wherever they were required, some came and settled in Lucknow. Around this time the Great Indian Sage, Swami Vivekananda, took upon himself the task of spreading the message of his teacher-Sri Ramakrishna: That God lives in each human being, so service to man is service to God. With this a new school of thought began to evolve in the late nineteenth century in India. In no time he had a great following especially from amongst the youth of the country. The first set-ups in Northern India took shape in the religiously historical towns of Kankhal, Varanasi, Vrindaban and Allahabad. Soon Lucknow was touched by the tide of time, a centre sprung up under the leadership of Sarat Chandra Bandhopadhaya. He had a large following of devoted youths who would gather every evening to discuss the paths laid out by Swamiji to relieve his country of misery and pain. What inspired these torchbearers most was that Swamiji had himself travelled through their city on different occasions, on one such occasion, he had reached Lucknow with some of his brother disciples.