Shi Nathji's Portrait by Vandita Sharma

This is the story of Shri Nathji capturing the heart of a young girl. Vandita Sharma is a young devotee of Shri Nathji from Panchkula (Haryana). She is the youngest member of her family who is intimately associated with HH Priya Nathji. Her parents and specially her mother Raj Sharma and her two elder sisters, Preeti Sharma and Shilpa Sharma are devoted to Shri Nathji. Her mother Raj Sharma is the younger cousin sister of Shri Nathji’s great devotee Shri Gopal Swamiji. Shri Gopal Swamiji initiated the family in devotion to Shri Nathji.

   She was attracted to Shri Nathji when she was very young. When her sisters and mother where leaving for Mussoorie, for the birthday celebration of Shri Nathji, they had decided not to take her along. But some power inside her created an intensive desire in her to also go to Mussoorie. She didn't want to be left out and so she said that if she was not taken by her mother and sisters to Mussoorie, then she will run away from home. She displayed such profound emotions that her family was convinced that she will indeed ended up running away, if left out. Thus she came to Mussoorie and attended the function. When HH Priya Nathji came to know of this incident travelled to HH Priya Nathji, he mentioned it in his lecture and said that this was her Bhakti that made her say so. At that moment everything changed for Vandita. She became a Nath bhakta. 

When she came back from Mussoorie, she had the motivation to draw prabhuji's portrait. Also under the portrait, she also wrote one of her favourite urdu verse of  Shri Nathji - "Jab kabhi chalati he baade intezare rehbari.. sinaye dariaye haq krta he ik surat aya" I don't know Urdu, nor understood the exact meaning of this verse, in her young age. So she just wrote the Urdu alphabets in the proper sequence., as she saw in Shri Nathji’s book. She says that it may be possibility that what she may have made a spelling error as she has no Idea of Urdu. But she wanted that verse exactly to be there under the image of Shri Nathji. She was never good in drawing and attempted to make this photograph using crayons. This large portrait she framed and kept in her temple room of her house. Were it is still placed and worshipped.  As she felt that she is not an artist and her drawing is not good, she never had the strength to take it to take this portrait to Mussoorie, to show HH Priya Nathji. The sight of this portrait filled her with intense happiness. She and all her family members, feel the presence of Shri Nathji in that portrait.

Vandita who was born in August 5, 1991 in now a grown up lady whose heart is filled with love of Shri Nathji ever since she had this sudden intense desire to attend the fiction in Mussoorie. She has completed her engendering from Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology and is now going to USA to do her master.