MANGALURU: Jack Hebner,73, popular as Swami Narasingha aka ‘Surfing Swami’, died on January 2 at his ashram in Mysuru after a battle with cancer. The American, who became a monk in the 60s, is seen as a pioneer of surfing in India: He established the country’s first surf club in Mulki, about 25km from Mangaluru, and inspired scores of his disciples and locals to take up surfing.

Swami was being treated for cancer in Mexico for the past two years, said Kishore Kumar, his disciple of over two decades. “On his wish, we brought him back to Mysuru and he died 10 days later,” said Kishore. Swami died at 1.31pm on January 2 and was placed in samadhi on the ashram premises the next day.

As Hebner, Swami was one of the early members of North Florida’s first surf club, Oceanside, in 1963 and was among the pioneers of surfing on the East Coast. He established Sri Narasingha Chaitanya Ashram in Srirangapatna in 1994.

Kishore Kumar, who is president of the Surfing Federation of India, met Swami in 1999. “He was keen on developing a surfing destination for the state. When we reached Mulki, he loved the place and decided to buy land and build an ashram that gradually became Mantra Surf Club,” said Kishore.

His club drew many visitors over the years and led to a mushrooming of surfing clubs along the coast. One student, Murthy Megavan of Covelong, a fishing village in Chennai, is now a champion surfboarder and runs a surfing school.

