A Centenary Tribute

Thinking of Amal - As He Wheels

 His Way Towards A Century

A HUNDRED years is like a moment in eternity and yet it is a long span of time in human life. Not many reach a century. The few who do, often get into a dilapidated state or begin to appear like ruins of a once grand monument.

Here in the Ashram we have two most marvellous disciples of Sri Aurobindo: the much loved and universally ad-mired Nirod-da who is 101, and the quintessential poet Amal Kiran alias K.D. Sethna who will be 100 this year.

Lines of Robert Browning come to my mind:

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made...

(Rabbi Ben Ezra)

Growing they are; but old, I am not sure.

At hundred it is quite amazing how well Amal looks. With not a wrinkle on his face, he glows today as ever be-fore. His skin is fresh, taut and incredibly young. Last November during my annual visit to Pondicherry I met Amal for a few moments in the Ashram Nursing Home. He was sitting in the hall which has windows opening towards the sea. Amal sits there in his wheelchair in the mornings after breakfast with a book, either reading or gazing at the silvery ocean. Impressed as always by his finely chiseled features, I could not help saying - "Amal you look so wonderfully well! What is the secret?" He smiled, "Is that so?... There is no secret."And then after a pause he said softly: "I live in Sri Aurobindo."

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Amal is generous and tolerant. In a tête-à-tête with him you can take liberties and ask him any question or say any-thing, provided you are sincere. "Your nose is so shapely, Amal!" I exclaimed almost like a child. He slowly raised his eyes from the book he was reading and from behind his thick spectacles he looked at me and counter-questioned me very seriously - "Is it of good shape or in good shape?" This is Amal who loves to play with words never losing sight of the comic or the cosmic in any situation, however grand or apparently trivial... Amal always finds a turn or a twist, a sweet and sour flavour in everything and makes us chuckle with delight!

I have often felt that Amal lives in an infinity within. In his own words:

My heart unto me an ocean is

Where time rolls inward to eternal shores.

To converse with Amal is always a great pleasure. As one listens to him, to his distilled thoughts, to his perfect language with the 'mot juste', to his spontaneously poetic rhythm in speech, one is gradually lifted up in consciousness and one begins to respond from a higher level of one's own being. In his company, no matter how short or long, I become a better me. The mind stretches its limits, the expressions heighten and the inner being revels. In retrospect, I realise that Amal, by his mere being, helps raise the consciousness of those around him, of those who are fond of him and who cherish him. For in true admiration, somewhere deep within, lies a secret wish to be like the one we admire. Hasn't Douce Mere said, "We grow into the likeness of that which we adore!" That explains the importance of Satsang. Amal has a beautifully benign influence on all. Just before leaving Pondicherry, I ran up to say au revoir to him. Hesitatingly I said to him: "Please tell me something wonderful that I may take back with me..." He paused. I love these pauses before he speaks, because I become aware of some-thing exquisite happening inside his creative mind. After a

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pause he said gently, yet clearly, "The most Wonderful is unspeakable. The Ineffable - it will always remain a mystery..." He seemed to be feeling "The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone..."

Amal never complains of the heat. In fact I have never seen him grumble about anything. During the scorching summer heat of Pondicherry, when I once asked him on the phone -"How is the weather? How is everybody?" Amal said laughing "... with the mounting heat, everyone's tongue seems to be hanging out. I am the only one with the tongue in cheek..."

After his fall and fracture in 1991, it was he who made the visiting doctors laugh. When his leg was in traction and he was asked by the doctor how he felt - Amal quipped: "Uncomfortably comfortable."

I had not visited Pondicherry for a long time. The telephone to me was a great support. I often spoke to Amal to gain strength from him and from his words of wisdom. Once I told him how I longed to see him. He comforted me with a long sentence instead - "You hold me, but cannot behold me. This is the triumph and the tragedy of the situation..." Only from Amal can you receive such an unusual answer! Speaking of the importance of telephoning he said: "Thanks to Graham Bell - today all the bells of heaven are ringing!"

In 1995 when my father passed away I was shattered. As always I reached out to Amal for that rare human comfort which you get from the Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo's children alone. The other greatest comfort I found in my saddest moments was from The Life Divine, Savitri and Prayers and Meditations. These are 'life-saving' books which bring deep peace, inner poise and sweet calm to a mind dumb, dead and drowning in a sea of sorrow! Amal Kiran's first advice to me was, "Now you must find the Self-Existent Happiness" - and later "Learn to be happy under all circum-stances." This has since been my motto and I share it with my friends and pupils. Amal continued: "You ought to distil perfume from each rose bud of a moment. The distillation goes on in the heart. Learn to keep the Eternal in your each

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heart throb..." I did learn that remembering intensely Sri Aurobindo and the Divine Mother has the most soothing effect on pained emotions. The heart heals and we learn to laugh again, laugh silently with our whole being.

In his rooms at Rue Francois Martin, Amal enjoyed reaching out to Nature through his window above his desk. "The tree outside my window is twinkling green and gold - A limpid beauty of new-born leaves! The sun is shining in all its glory" - he once said over the telephone. Amal paints with words as well as with a brush. His paintings too are beautiful.

With poetic insight he once said, "When I look at a per-son or a thing, I look into its soul, its deepest depth." Amal's words, even the seemingly casual expressions, always carry within them a deep truth which becomes a continuous subtle education for the listeners.

As a poet Amal loves words. Talking of words he said: "Words, while they have a beauty of their own, are some-times transparent and reveal hidden depths of great poetic value. They give the feel of that which is beyond linguistic expression. Words then become not an end in themselves, but lead to further subtle beauties."

Reflecting on time he mused: "Time is composed of two things - extension of time and depth of time. The next step is to be above the moment. All this comes by reflecting on the Above. If one is like a steady lake or a clear mirror one can receive the flow of the Timeless. It can be felt by bringing into every activity of life a certain peace and equanimity. We then catch what is above." Sri Aurobindo writes:

And heavens the sea of motionless Nature.

It is receiving thoughts of this kind that makes a conversation with Amal a rich reward.

I was very fond of and looked up to three wonderful human beings destiny brought to me: My beloved father Dr. Santoshananda, who had the singular fortune of being

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accepted by Sri Aurobindo in 1942; my revered guide and friend Dr. Svetoslav Roerich who in Bangalore provided me with a beautiful atmosphere like that of the Ashram and opened my eyes to the world of art; and Amal Kiran from whom I learnt to read Sri Aurobindo with the deepest happiness and to celebrate poetry in life. All aged men. Amal laughingly cautioned me: "You have put all your eggs in three old baskets!" I had done so because these were baskets of solid gold!

I remember Saurav the brave, who always thought of new ways of making Amal happy. He arranged to have Amal lifted in his wheelchair to Sri Auorbindo's room on one of Amal's birthdays. Mohan Mistry shares his birthday with Amal, while Jhumur-di and I follow him. The morning after his birthday I asked Amal how he felt. He began on a jolly note -

Remember, remember, children of November,

We are Sri Aurobindo's for ever and ever.

and then speaking of his visit Upstairs in the Ashram he said slowly: "Sri Aurobindo's Room - I went there after so many years." "What did you feel?" - I was pleading for a response. "ADORATION, SIMPLICITY and DIVINE SMILE" - was his answer.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Amal on 26th May, Wednesday, at the Ashram Nursing Home around 9.30 a.m. I narrated this article to him. He laughed every now and then, enjoyed being taken back in time, was amused at listening to things he had said and remarks'he had made long ago. He was happy and almost whispered, "...you have taken a lot of me!" A little later at the Ashram entrance under the flow-ery bower when I told this to Montu-da he beamed, "That means Amal-da has understood everything you have told him." That was true. Soon after Saurav dropped in to return an old book with Amal's extensive markings, holding it like a treasure in his hands. "Amal, you are a treasure!" I said.

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He smiled. "What kind of a treasure are you?" I prodded for a response. After a moment he replied: "Unstealable." That is Amal precise, clear and to the point. And always original. Just as knowledge and wisdom become a part of us and are established in us beyond the reach of robbers, so is Amal a treasure to all who know and love him - a dear treasure that cannot ever be taken away from us.

Amal is one of the dearest persons in the Ashram. We may quote William Butler Yeats to describe him:

And sweetness flows from head to foot.

By his contact, may we too grow in divine sweetness!

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