The world’s oldest living person, Swami Sivananda, who was raised by a beggar’s family in 1896 and was awarded the Padma Shri 126 years later in March, picked Woodlands Hospital for a thorough health examination during the past two days.

Swami Sivananda traveled a long way from his ashram in Varanasi to the 76-year-old Woodlands, a private hospital in Kolkata most suited to his age. To evaluate his health, a medical board made up of a gastroenterologist, ophthalmologist, neurologist, cardiologist, urologist, pulmonologist, and pulmonologist was established. In addition to consulting with doctors from several super specialties, he had a variety of testing, including pathology tests, ECG, ECHO, CT scans of the chest and brain, USG, eyesight, and audiometry exams. Every aspect of the service was complimentary.

The organs showed certain physiological alterations, which are a natural component of aging. Critical care expert Dr. Soutik Panda, under whose care Sivananda Ji was admitted, indicated that no significant health conditions of immediate concern were found throughout the testing.

Sivananda Ji, who was born on August 8, 1896, in a village in Sylhet (Bangladesh), came from a family that depended on charity to make ends meet for the four of them, including a sister who was two years older than him. When Sibu’s parents agreed to let him go with an understanding sadhu from Nabadwip, Nadia who was in Sylhet, the boy was just four years old. Two years later, he would learn on a trip to Sylhet that his sister had passed away from famine and starvation. Soon after, he would witness both of his parents passed away on the same day before returning to the Nadia ashram. For the following 20 years or so Sivananda remained in the ashram.

He didn’t have a formal education, but in the ashram, he got a “practical education.” Before coming back to India in 1959, he traveled to Europe and spent 35 years living abroad as a “counselor” in several nations. Since then, he has committed his life to serve others in several eastern and north-eastern Indian states, including by performing some outstanding work in the leper colony in Puri.

Swami’s speeches are straightforward, like his life, but also profound.

Priyanka Dutta