Dada Mukerjee: The Allahabad Professor Who Shared His Home with Neem Karoli Baba

If you want to understand Neem Karoli Baba through Indian eyes — not through a Western seeker’s journey, but through a householder who lived with him year after year — start with Dada Mukerjee. An economics professor at Allahabad University, a writer, and one of Maharajji’s closest Indian devotees, Dada opened his home to Baba every winter for fifteen years. The books he wrote afterwards are among the most trusted first-hand accounts of what life around Maharajji was actually like.

Dada means elder brother, in Hindi and Bengali both. Devotees called him Dada because that is what he was to them: a steady elder brother in the faith, who had sat beside Maharajji longer than almost anyone, and who wrote it all down simply, without showmanship.

Dada Mukerjee at a Glance

Name	Sri Sudhir Mukerjee, fondly called Dada Mukerjee
Born – passed away	16 November 1913 – 10 September 1997
Profession	Professor of Economics, Allahabad University
Wife	Kamala Mukerji, lovingly called Didi (elder sister)
Home	The Red House, No. 4 Church Lane, Allahabad
Winters with Maharajji	From 14 July 1958 until Mahasamadhi in 1973
Books	By His Grace: A Devotee’s Story (1990); The Near and the Dear (1996)
Also remembered for	Mentioned in Ram Dass’s Miracle of Love; college classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru

The professor from Allahabad

Sudhir Mukerjee taught economics at Allahabad University in Uttar Pradesh. He was, by every account, a serious, educated man — a professor, a writer, and, in a detail devotees love to repeat, a college classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru. A photograph of the two together is published in his own book, a small reminder that Dada’s life touched India’s public history long before it touched Maharajji’s world.

But it is not the professorship that devotees remember. It is what happened when that professor met a saint in a blanket — and how completely, and how quietly, his life changed direction.

The Red House winters

On 14 July 1958, Dada and his wife Kamala moved into the Red House at No. 4 Church Lane, Allahabad. From that winter onwards, Maharajji resided with them during the winters, year after year, until his Mahasamadhi in 1973.

One correction matters here, because other websites often get it wrong: 1958 was not the year Dada first met Maharajji. It was the year Maharajji began residing with Dada and Didi at the Red House. By Dada’s own account, his bond with Baba reached back much earlier, into the 1930s–1950s, and only deepened over time. The Red House winters were not the beginning of the relationship — they were its flowering.

What were those winters like? Devotee accounts describe a house that became an ashram in all but name: visitors coming and going, food always being served, conversations that could turn, in a moment, from ordinary talk to something that changed a life. Dada and Didi ran the house; Maharajji filled it. The professor’s home became a place where a saint lived, laughed, scolded, fed people, and loved them — and Dada watched it all from the closest possible distance: his own living room.

The books: grace, written down

After Maharajji left his body in 1973, Dada did what few others could: he wrote it down. His two books are published by the Hanuman Foundation, and both are partly autobiographical — Dada is not a distant narrator, he is inside the stories.

By His Grace: A Devotee’s Story (1990) — read this first

This is Dada’s own story: how a sceptical, logic-minded professor became one of Maharajji’s closest devotees. Ram Dass wrote its introduction, calling Dada the elder brother in Maharajji’s spiritual family.

The book opens with the idea that became the thread of Dada’s life: we do not follow the guru — the guru himself comes to his devotee, unsought and unrecognised. Dada tells how, as a young man, a sadhu in a Shiva temple at Dakshineshwar forcibly gave him a mantra. More than twenty years later, it became clear to him that the sadhu had been none other than Maharajji himself. This is the “recognition that came decades later” mentioned in softer wording earlier in this blog.

Then, one day, a casual family visit to Maharajji at a neighbour’s house changed everything. Maharajji came into their home — and, in Dada’s telling, never really left, taking over the whole house and the whole life. Dada recounts how Maharajji would laughingly say that the house was his, and Dada was the guest there.

The chapter list alone shows what the book holds: ‘I Shall Give You a Mantra’, Winter Camp, Chamatkari Baba, ‘I Am Always Here’, Kainchi, Hanuman Darshan, ‘Whoever Comes Is Your Guest’, ‘If You Do Not Make It Empty…’, Abuses, Jokes, and Caresses, Illness and Healing, Last Days, and an Epilogue at the end. Mantra, winter camps, Kainchi, Hanuman darshan, hospitality, scoldings and jokes and affection — all of it, together.

Dada’s central message is that Maharajji did not teach by lectures; he taught through leela. For one person he would be a child, for another a son, a friend, a father, an elder brother, a guru. A scolding, a joke, even a slap each had a purpose — to open a heart, to teach a lesson, or to strengthen commitment to selfless seva. And Dada writes that while the miracles were certainly there, what stayed in the heart forever was Maharajji’s soft, sweet, innocent, human aspect.

The Near and the Dear (1996) — the whole family

The second book is even larger (around 294 pages, with an introduction by Krishna Das), and in it Dada brings, alongside his own story, the stories of all the devotees who came to Maharajji. It has three parts:

Part 1: The Saint At Work — the people who saw Maharajji through different eyes. In a single chapter, four devotees: Ram Narayan Sinha said “He is Hanuman”, Ayodhya Nath and Jaidev Singh said “He is Bhagwan”, and Akbar Ali Khan said he was neither pir nor prophet — he was Khuda himself. Then come the stories of Brij Mohan and Bhagwan Singh (Bhabania) / Haridas Baba.

Part 2: Life with the Saint — the people who travelled with Maharajji: Tularam (owner of Nainital’s India Hotel, a lawyer, who first kept his distance from Maharajji and later became his travelling companion), Jivan Baba (whose travels with Maharajji were the longest), Hubbaji, and K.C. Tewari (from a Brahmin family in Nainital, whose education differed from most of the other educated devotees).

Part 3: The Guru Makes a Disciple — the story of Umadutta Shukla, in two chapters: how a guru makes a disciple.

Even the book’s title comes from a lesson: those who are dear to the one who is dear to you, become dear to you also. Dada writes that in Baba’s family everyone had a share — no one was shut out as a stranger. That, he says, was the secret of happiness. The book also carries rare photographs of Maharajji and his devotees.

Dada’s wife Kamala — Didi to everyone — also wrote down her memories, in a small book called “Bunch of Memories”. Together, the husband’s and wife’s books give the fullest picture of a household that hosted a saint: not only the famous moments, but the cooking, the serving, the waiting, and the laughter.

What Dada’s stories teach

Read Dada’s books slowly, and three things stand out. First, grace in this tradition is ordinary: it arrives as food, as a word, as a scolding, as a joke — not as spectacle. Second, the guru meets each person differently; there is no single formula, only attention to the person in front of him. Third, devotion here is a householder’s path. Dada did not leave his job, his home, or his wife to follow Maharajji. He brought Maharajji into his job, his home, and his marriage — and that, devotees say, is why his account matters so much to ordinary readers.

Dada lived until 10 September 1997, more than two decades after Maharajji’s passing. He spent those years preserving what he had seen, so that readers who never sat in the Red House could still sit, through his pages, in Maharajji’s presence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Dada Mukerjee?

Sri Sudhir Mukerjee (1913–1997), fondly called Dada, was a professor of Economics at Allahabad University and one of Neem Karoli Baba’s closest Indian devotees. Maharajji resided with him and his wife Kamala (Didi) at their Red House in Allahabad during the winters from 1958 to 1973.

What was the Red House?

The Red House at No. 4 Church Lane, Allahabad, was Dada and Didi’s home. From 14 July 1958, Maharajji lived with them there during the winters, and the house became a gathering place for devotees.

Did Dada first meet Maharajji in 1958?

No — 1958 is when Maharajji began residing at the Red House, not the year of their first meeting. By Dada’s own account, his bond with Baba reached back much earlier.

Which Dada Mukerjee book should I read first?

Start with “By His Grace: A Devotee’s Story” (1990) for Dada’s own story of grace, then read “The Near and the Dear” (1996) for the wider circle of devotees around Maharajji.

Which devotees’ stories are in The Near and the Dear?

In three parts: the first holds Ram Narayan Sinha, Ayodhya Nath, Akbar Ali Khan, Jaidev Singh, Brij Mohan and Bhagwan Singh (Bhabania); the second holds travelling companions Tularam, Jivan Baba, Hubbaji and K.C. Tewari; the third holds Umadutta Shukla — how a guru makes a disciple.

Who was Didi?

Kamala Mukerji, Dada’s wife, lovingly called Didi (elder sister) by devotees. She shared the Red House winters with Maharajji and wrote her own memories in “Bunch of Memories”.

Disclaimer

This article is a devotee-run guide, not an official publication of any ashram or trust. Accounts here are presented as devotee accounts, as told by Dada Mukerjee himself and by writers close to him, not as verified history. Where sources differ, this guide says so rather than choosing one version silently. For the fullest account, read Dada’s own books listed above.

Table of Contents