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I HAVE said that this
cemetery that was In fact, all of
us on our first arrival here had to come under false names, the only exception
being Moni (Suresh Chakravarti). He did not have to, for he had not been one of
the marked men like the rest of us and his name had not been associated with
any political trouble, as he was too young for that at the time. And in any
case it would not have been wise to give him a false name, to save him from the
clutches of the law, for it was decided to rent our houses in his name
Page – 409 and
it was he again who was to act on our behalf in all official matters. Sri
Aurobindo called himself Jatindranath Mitra, though only for a short while. It
was under this pseudonym that he sailed from The
British Indian police set up a regular station here, with a rented house and
several permanent men. They were of course plain-clothes men, for they had no
right to wear uniform within French territory. They kept watch, as I have said,
both on our visitors and guests as well as on ourselves.
Soon they got into a habit of sitting on the pavement round the corner next to
our house in groups of three or four. They chatted away the whole day
and only now and again took down something in their note-books. What kind of notes
they took we found out later on, when, after Nevertheless, something rather awesome did
happen once.
Page –
410 We had by then shifted to
the present Guest House. There were two new arrivals. One was a relative of Bejoy's, Nagen Nag, who had managed to get away from his family and had come to
stay here on the pretext of a change of air for his illness. The other was a
friend and acquaintance of his who had come with him as a companion and help;
his name was Birendra Roy. One
day, this Birendra suddenly shaved his head. Moni said he too would have his
head shaved, just because Birendra had done it. That very day,
or it was perhaps the day after, there occurred a regular scene. We had as
usual taken: our seats around Sri Aurobindo in the afternoon. Suddenly, Biren
stood up and shouted, "Do you know who I am? You may not believe it, but I
am a spy, a spy of the British police. I can't keep it to myself any longer. I
must speak out, I must make the confession before
you." With this he fell at Sri Aurobindo's feet. We were stunned, almost
dumbfounded. As we kept wondering if this could be true, or was all false,
perhaps a hallucination or some other illusion – maya nu
matibhramo nu – Biren started again, "Oh, you do not believe me? Then
let me show you." He entered the next room, opened his trunk, drew out a
hundred rupee note and showed it to us. "See, here is the proof. Where
could I have got all this money? This is the reward of my evil deed. Never, I shall never do this work again. I give my word to you, I ask your forgiveness..." No words came to our
lips, all of us kept silent and still. This
is how it came about. Biren had shaved his head in order that the police spies
might spot him out as their man from the rest of us by the sign of the shaven
head. But they were nonplussed when they found Moni too with a shaven head. And
Biren began to suspect that Moni, or perhaps the whole lot of us, had found out
his secret and that Moni had shaved on purpose. So, partly out of fear and
partly from true repentance, for the most part no doubt by the pressure of some
other Force, he was compelled to make his confession.
Page – 411 After
this incident, the whole atmosphere of the house got a little disturbed. We
were serious and worried. How was it possible for such a thing to happen? An
enemy could find his entry into our apartments, an enemy who was one of ourselves? What should be done? Bejoy was furious, and it
was a job to keep him from doing something drastic. However, within a few
days, Biren left of his own accord and we were left in peace. I hear he
afterwards joined the Great War and was sent to During
the Great War, Bejoy had his spell of bad luck. That makes another story. I
have said the British Indian police had set up a post here. It was placed in
charge of a senior official, no less a person than a Superintendent of Police.
He was a Muslim, named Abdul Karim if I remember aright, a very efficient and
clever man, like our old friend Shamsul Alam of the Calcutta Police. We used to
go to a friend's house very often, particularly myself. This gentleman too, we
found, was a visitor there and we used to meet him as if by accident. He was
very nice and polite in his manners. He even expressed a desire once to have
Sri Aurobindo's darsan so that he might pay his respects. Sri
Aurobindo did not refuse, he was given the permission. The gentleman arrived
with a huge bouquet by way of a present and had the darsan. The
three of us, namely, Moni, Saurin and myself, who had returned to Bengal after
an interval of four years, had to hasten back here almost immediately owing to
the outbreak of War, for there was a chance that old 'criminals' like us would
again be shut up in jail. As we had come back, Bejoy said he wished to go, for
he too wanted to have a change. He would return after paying a short visit to
his people. He said he had been away for so long. But the question was: would
it be all right for him to go? What did the French Government think? What would
they advise? It was in formally ascertained from the Governor that he did not
consider it advisable to leave here, for the intentions of the
Page –
412 British authorities were
not above suspicion. Abdul Karim too was sounded as to their intentions. He
said the British Government meant us no harm, for he was well aware that we
were saintly people engaged in sadhana alone, and so on. But
Sri Aurobindo had serious doubts. Bejoy however was a head-strong man. He got
eager to go and set foot on British territory, that is, offer his neck to the
scaffold. And that is what happened. The moment he crossed the border and
entered British Indian territory, he found the police waiting. They put him in
handcuffs, and for the next five years, that is, till after the War was over,
he was held in detention. Once he had managed to get away earlier with only a
year's custody in jail; this time it was not so easy. But
why dwell on this dark tale of the lawless wilds and the demons and beasts.
Their ranks are still powerful and I do not wish to add to their strength by
talking about them. Now let me say a few nice things, about some good people,
for such people too had their abode here. At the very outset I should speak of
the Five Good Men. It is quite possible that there was a law in French India
that applied to foreigners. But now the law was made stringently applicable to
refugees from our own country. It was laid down that all foreigners, that is,
anyone who was not a French citizen, wanting to come and stay here for some
time must be in possession of a certificate from a high Government official of the
place from where he came, such as a Magistrate in British India, to the effect
that he was a well-known person and that there was nothing against him; in
other words, he must be in possession of a "good conduct" certificate.
Or else he must produce a letter to the same effect signed by five gentlemen of
standing belonging to
Page – 413 Chettiar (in whose house
Sri Aurobindo had put up on first arrival) and (5) Murugesh Chettiar. The names
of these five should be engraved in letters of gold. They had shown on that
occasion truly remarkable courage and magnanimity. It was on the strength of
their signatures that we could continue to stay here without too much trouble. The
story of these local leaders reminds me of another incident. When I came here
first, I had to adopt a subterfuge in order to ward off all suspicion. I posed
as if I had come from Chandernagore, that is, from one part of French India to
another, as a messenger carrying a letter from one political leader to another.
I had a letter from the leader of a political party in Chandernagore to be
delivered by hand to his opposite number in Among
our first acquaintances in
Page – 414 group of Sri Aurobindo's devotees. The strange thing about
it was that they were all Christians. We did not have much of a response from
the local Hindus; perhaps they were far too orthodox and old-fashioned. The
Cercle Sportif was our rendezvous. There we had games, we arranged picnics, as
you do today, we staged plays, and also held study
circles. Only students took part. Afterwards,
when the Mother came in 1914, it was with a few men chosen from out of this
group that she laid the first foundation of her work here; they formed the
Society called "L'Idée Nouvelle". Already, in her Let
me speak now of a strange incident lest you should miss the element of variety
in our life of those days. We stayed at the Guest House then. The Mother had
finally arrived. The Great War was over, I mean the first one. And with the
declaration of Peace, nearly all the political prisoners in One day, something rather extraordinary happened. Into our compound there came a Sannyasin. He had a striking appearance, tall and fair, a huge turban wrapped round his head, a few locks of hair hanging down upon his shoulders. There were three or four disciples too. He begged for Sri Aurobindo's darsan. But the darsan turned out to be somewhat spectacular. There he disclosed his identity. Concealed behind the thick cloak of Sannyasa was our old comrade Amarendra, Amarendranath Chatterji, the noted terrorist
Page – 415
leader for whose capture the British
Government had been moving heaven and earth, that is, the worlds of the dead
and the living, and also raising hell in the world of the underground. Perhaps
they had set a price on his head too. And here he was in person! There was a
wave of joy and excitement, mingled with some apprehension as well, for no one
knew what the British or the French would do in case the news got abroad. Amarendra
had suddenly disappeared one day. He lived the life of a primitive savage in
the jungles of The
Swamiji, our Amarendra, came here to obtain Sri Aurobindo's instructions as to
what to do next. This, as I have said, was after the end of the War, when
practically all the political prisoners had been set free and even those deported
to the Andamans had been allowed to come back. He wished to know if he could
now disclose himself and also what he was to do afterwards. He was advised to
go back to That
was the end of Swami Kaivalyananda. He had had his nirvana and his place was
taken by Amarendra Chatterji. The disciples had in the meantime gone back to
their Ashram. There they kept waiting, but the months passed without any news
of Guruji. They came here at last to find out where their Guruji was. Where
indeed?
Page – 416 I
met Amarendra for the last time just before I came away to It
will not be out of place here to say something about the sort of education and
training we received in those early days of our life in
Page – 417 out
on to the terrace for a little air, assuming, that is, that there was any. Only
for Sri Aurobindo we had somehow managed a chair and a table and a camp cot. We
lived a real camp life. I should add that there were a few rickety chairs too,
for the use of visitors and guests. And lights? Today you see such a profusion
of electric lighting in every room and courtyard; we have mercury lights and
flash lights and spotlights and torch lights; we are even getting well into the
limelight! There is light everywhere, "all here is shining with
light", sarvamidam vibhati. In those days, on the other hand, we did not even have a
decent kerosene lamp or lantern. All I can recall is a single candlestick, for
the personal use of Sri Aurobindo. Whatever conversations or discussions we had
after nightfall had to be in the dark; for the most part we practised silence.
The first time there was an electric connection, what a joy it gave us! It came like a revelation almost. We
were in the Guest House at the time, had shifted there only a, little while
ago. We were out one afternoon for our games (that is, football), and it was
already dark by the time we returned. As we opened the door and entered the
compound, what a surprise it was! The place was full of light,
there were lights everywhere, a real illumination. The electricians had come
and fitted the connections whilst we had been away. They had fitted as many as
four points for the entire building, the Guest House that you see, two for the
first floor and two downstairs! We
were able to purchase some French books at a very cheap rate, not more than two anna; for each volume in a series. We had
about a hundred of them, all classics of French literature. I find a few of
them are still there in our Library. Afterwards, I also bought from the
second-hand bookshops in the Gujli Kadai area several books in Greek, Latin and
French. Once I chanced on a big Greek lexicon which I still use. Gradually, a few books in Sanskrit and Bengali too were added to our stock, through purchase and gifts. As the number
Page – 418
of books reached a few hundred, the problem was
how to keep them. We used some bamboo strips to make a rack or book-stand along
the walls of our rooms; the "almirahs" came later. I do not think
there were any "almirahs" at all so long as we were in the Guest
House. They came after the Mother's arrival, when we shifted with our books to
the Library House. That is why it came to be called the Library House. This
account would be incomplete without a few details as to our housekeeping. As to
the furniture, I have already said the mat alone did duty for everything. Of
servants we had only one; he did the shopping. But as we did not know his
language, we had just memorised a few words connected with shopping and we
somehow managed to make him understand with the help of these words and a good
deal of gestures. Bejoy had his standing instructions: "meen moon
anna" (fish three annas) – it was lucky meen in Tamil is the
same as in Bengali - "if ille, then nal anna" (if not,
then four annas), the Tamil equivalents of "if" or "then"
were beyond the range of our knowledge. Today we have practically one servant
per head, thanks to the boundless grace of the Mother. Sri Aurobindo used to
smile and make the comment, "We have as many servants as there are
sadhaks here." We
did the cooking ourselves and each of us developed a speciality: I did the rice,
perhaps because that was the easiest. Moni took charge of dal (pulses),
and Bejoy being the expert had the vegetables and the curry. What fell to the lot
of Saurin I do not now remember – Saurin was a brother-in-law of Sri Aurobindo,
a cousin of Mrinalini's. Perhaps he was not in our Home Affairs at all; his was
the Foreign Ministry, that is, he had to deal with outsiders. We had our first
real cook only after the Mother's arrival, by which time our numbers had grown
to ten or twelve. There was a cook who had something rather special about her:
she had been to
Page – 419 occult
vision which she possessed. The Mother had these powers tested in the presence
of some of us. She was asked to take a bath and put on clean clothes and then
made to sit with us. The Mother took her seat in a chair. We did a little
concentration in silence and then the Mother asked her, "What do you see? Do you see anything about anybody present here?" and so on.
She gave truly remarkable answers on several occasions. And yet she had had no
sort of formal education, she was absolutely illiterate, had only picked up
some French by ear. Another cook who came later has become, as you know, quite
a celebrity thanks to his spiritist performance. The story has become well-known, it is now almost a classic. Sri Aurobindo has referred
to it, the Mother has spoken and written about it, the well-known French poet
and mystic Maurice Magre who had been here and lived in the Ashram for some
time has recorded it in one of his books. You must have heard or read what Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother have said on the subject. I do not wish to add anything
of my own, for I was not an eye-witness; I had been away in Now
that we are on this topic of cooks and cooking, let me add a few words about
myself in this connection. I had, as I said, some practice in the work of the
kitchen and I took it up again later on. For some time – we were about fifty in
all by then – I did some serving in addition to cooking once a week. What kind
of cooking was that? In those
days, we used to have pudding, payas, for dinner three times a
week, ordinary rice pudding, fried rice pudding, and tapioca pudding. I did the
tapioca. It was rather in
the fitness of things that the hands that had once been used to making bombs
should now do some sweets. At
one time, one of our main subjects of study was the Veda. This went on for
several months, for about an hour every evening, at the Guest House. Sri
Aurobindo came and took his seat at the table and we sat around. Subramanya
Bharati the Tamil poet and myself were the two who
Page – 420 showed the
keenest interest. Sri Aurobindo would take up a hymn from the Rigveda, read it
aloud once, explain the meaning of every line and phrase and finally give a
full translation. I used to take notes. There are many words in the Rigveda
whose derivation is doubtful and open to differences of opinion. In such cases,
Sri Aurobindo used to say that the particular meaning he gave was only
provisional and that the matter could be finally decided only after considering
it in all the contexts in which the word occurred. His own method of
interpreting the Rigveda was this: on reading the text he found its true
meaning by direct intuitive vision through an inner concentration in the first
instance, and then he would give it an external verification in the light of
reason, making the necessary changes accordingly. Sri
Aurobindo has taught me a number of languages. Here again his method has often
evoked surprise. I should therefore like to say something on this point. He
never asked me to begin the study of a new language with primary readers or
children's books. He started at once with one of the classics, that is, a
standard work in the language. He used to say that the education of children
must begin with books written for children, but for adults, for those, that is,
who had already had some education, the reading material must be adapted to
their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began
straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone.
I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo
offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he
said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the state.
Whether I did complete the translation I cannot now recollect. I began my Latin
with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante. I have already told you
about my French, there I started with Molière. I
should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my
personal experience. One feels as if one took a plunge into the inmost core of
the language, into that
Page – 421 secret
heart where it is vibrant with life, with the quintessence of beauty, the
fullness of strength. Perhaps it was this that has prompted me to write
prose-poems and verse in French, for one feels as if identified with the very
genius of the language. This is the method which Western critics describe as
being in medias res, getting
right into the heart of things. One may begin a story in two ways. One way is
to begin at the beginning, from the adikada and Genesis, and
then develop the theme gradually, as is done in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata,
the Bible. The other method is to start suddenly, from
the middle of the story, a method largely preferred by Western artists, like
Homer and Shakespeare for instance. But
it was not found possible for Sri Aurobindo to continue with his own studies or
even to help us in ours. For, as I have already hinted, our mode of living, our
life itself took a different turn with the arrival of the Mother. How and in
what direction? It was like this. The Mother came and installed Sri Aurobindo
on his high pedestal of Master and Lord of Yoga. We had hitherto known him as a
dear friend and close companion, and although in our mind and heart be had the
position of a Guru, in our outward relations we seemed to behave as if he were
just like one of ourselves. He too had been averse to the use of the words
"Guru" and "Ashram" in relation to himself, for there was
hardly a place 'in his work of new creation for the old traditional
associations these words conveyed. Nevertheless, the Mother taught by her
manner and speech, and showed us in actual practice, what was the meaning of
disciple and master; she has always practised what she preached. She showed us,
by not taking her seat in front of or on the same level as Sri Aurobindo, but
by sitting on the ground, what it meant to be respectful to one's Master, what
was real courtesy. Sri Aurobindo once said to us, perhaps
with a tinge of regret, "I have tried to stoop as low as I can, and yet
you do not reach me."
Page – 422 It was the Mother who opened
our eyes and gave us that vision which made us say, even as Arjuna had been
made to say: sakheti
matva prasabham yaduktam he
Krsna he yadava he sakheti ajanata
mahimanam tavedam maya
pramadat pranayena vapi. yaccavahasartham
asatkrto'si viharasayyasanabhojanesu eko'thavapyacyuta
tatsamaksam tatksamaye
tvamahamaprameyam "By
whatever name I have called you, O Krishna, O Yadava, O Friend, thinking in my
rashness that you were only a friend, and out of ignorance and from affection,
not knowing this thy greatness; whatever disrespect I have shown you out of
frivolity, whether sitting or lying down or eating, when I was alone or when
you were present before me, – may I be pardoned for all that, O thou Infinite One."
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