It was very difficult to take Ramakrishna from one place to another place, because anywhere on the road, in the middle of the road…. And Calcutta is a very overpopulated city, with more than ten million people in one city. The traffic is the worst in the world. It is bound to be because thousands of people are walking; there are all kinds of vehicles – cars, trams, buses. He would start dancing in the middle of the road because something reminded him of God. And anything could remind him of God – a beautiful child, and he would start dancing and singing. His followers would feel very embarrassed – they had to protect him from all sides – that in this traffic…. The police were bound to come, and that man was creating a traffic jam.

But outside India he would have been in a mad asylum, because in the West madness is madness; there are not two categories. In India he became almost a divine being, a god, because people realized, slowly, slowly, that he looks irrational, but there is something divine in his irrationality.

He had been doing things from his very childhood. His family was worried – what is going to happen to this child? People suggested – as it is customary in India and in other countries too – that it will be good to marry him so he will forget all about God and all about meditation and will become engaged in worldly affairs. But they thought that he would refuse – and that would have been the ordinary expectation. But he was a madman; he does not follow your expectations.

When his father asked, fearing that he is going to say no, Ramakrishna said with great joy, “Yes! But where is the girl?”

They said, “This boy is mad! This is not the right way. He is so ready immediately! And he is asking, ‘Where is the girl? To whom am I going to be married? Do it soon!’”

Just in a nearby village, another village, he was taken on a particular day to see the girl. In India this is the way: the girl will come with some sweets to put on your plate, and that’s the only moment you can see her – just for a moment – and decide.

When he was going to see his future wife, his mother had given him three rupees, just in case he needs them. When the girl came with the sweets, he looked at the girl, took out his three rupees and put them at her feet, touched her feet and said, “Mother, you are the right girl. I am going to marry you.”

His father said, “You idiot, you don’t understand that nobody calls his wife mother.”

Everybody knew that he was a little eccentric, first putting those three rupees at the feet of the girl – everybody was shocked. And then touching her feet and telling the girl then and there, “Mother, you are really beautiful. I am going to marry you, it is settled.”

Just by a very strange coincidence the whole family of the girl wanted to deny this marriage, because they said, “This boy is mad, and if he is starting this way what will happen in their married life nobody knows.” But the girl insisted that if she will marry anybody, she will marry this man.

He was a beautiful man. So the family had to decide for the marriage. The marriage happened; they lived together their whole life. Ramakrishna continued to call her mother. There was never any wife-husband relationship between them. On the contrary….