Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary

ON AMRITA*

ONE of Amrita's nieces informed me that 1995 would mark his birth-centenary. This piece of news has prodded my memory. Here are some reminiscences of him, a little rambling, I am afraid, but as true to fact as I can make them. They are not selective with an eye to presenting him solely in a rosy light. He was a frank unpretentious friend and what I am writing is faithful to his own temper. Most of this sketch is based on his own report of things. Here and there that report has entailed some digressive but relevant passages on others.

I am starting with the day I reached Pondicherry: December 16, 1927—in my twenty-third year. When the metre-gauge train from Egmore touched its destination in the early morning, I and my wife Daulat (later renamed by Sri Aurobindo "Lalita", signifying, in his words, "beauty of harmony and refinement" and also pointing to "the name of one of Radha's companions") were not quite ready to get down from it. She was still in her night-gown. As we did not wish to keep waiting the member of the Ashram (named Pujalal, as I learnt later) who had come to receive us, we alighted just as we were attired. The news of my wife's informal dress reached Amrita's ears and he said to the Mother in a somewhat ironical vein: "The Parsi lady who has come to do Yoga here is in a European dress." The Mother replied:

"What has any dress got to do with Yoga?" There was never any other superficial remark by Amrita to reach me. He always kept himself in tune with the Mother's judgments.

After Lalita and I had voluntarily separated in the interests of Yoga, and I had been shifted, from the house where now the Embroidery Department functions, to the rooms in the then-called "Guest House"—rooms which Sri Aurobindo had once occupied for nearly six years and were later Purani's for about two and a half and went on being mine for over fourteen (1928-1942)—Amrita was a frequent visitor to them. It was on my typewriter that, day after day, he tried to master the touch-system with the help of Pitman's exercise-manual. He arrived with a silent smile but left with a stock-formula, seeming to be a translation from the Tamil: "And then I go."

* Reproduced from Mother India, Vol. 48, No., 1, January 1995.

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Amrita was one of those with whom I came into close contact right from my early days in the Ashram. Once, when he was typing, a funeral passed in the street. In a low voice he said: "I feel that such a thing won't happen to me." These words did not strike me as either vacuous or vainglorious. For, in the whole period of the allotment of those rooms to me, the general conviction in the Ashram was that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother would completely transform and divinise their bodies with their "Integral Yoga" and that those who had joined them whole-heartedly would do the same. Even after the fracture Sri Aurobindo sustained of his right thigh because of a fall in late 1938 the conviction did not seem to change, for his comment was reported to have been simply: "It's one more problem to be solved." Only at the beginning of 1950 is Sri Aurobindo said to have remarked to the Mother: "Our work may demand that one of us should leave and act from behind the scene." The Mother's response was: "I will leave." Sri Aurobindo decided: "No, you have to fulfil our Yoga of Supra- mental Descent and Transformation."

Only during Amrita's later days did I once hear him say apropos of some sadhak dying: "We all have to do the same one day." When his own death took place, the Mother remarked that in the ordinary course of things he would have died fairly earlier but she had prolonged his life-span. Some time after the departure of Pavitra (Philippe Barbier St.-Hilaire) the Mother said to a sadhak: "Amrita and Pavitra are both within me, but time and again Amrita comes out in his subtle body and sits in front of me along with whoever is having an interview with me whereas Pavitra remains inside and keeps looking out half- amusedly."

Right up to the time of his death, Amrita was a close companion of Nolini and they always had their meals together in Nolini's room. However, the comrades differed much in temperament. Nolini, unlike Amrita, was far from being a good mixer, though quite genial with his few chosen associates. There was also an element of shyness in his nature plus the scholar's distant air. I have heard the Mother say of him that he never spoke ill of anybody. At a certain period he appeared to be not close enough even to Amrita. Once I quoted to the latter my designation of Nolini after a phrase of Yeats' with a punning play on the first half of his name: "A green knoll apart." Amrita said: "Yes, and it is partly because of some aloofness by him even from me that I am pressing closer to you. Nolini has a psychic knack to get over his problems and doesn't need much company." I

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told Amrita that he was always welcome to be my friend. I had observed that he had considerable reliance on my judgment in several matters. He valued especially my so-called artistic sense. Thus, in rearranging his office-room's furniture, he made it a point to consult me. He also trusted me to pluck out grey hairs skilfully from his moustache with a tweezer.

I was frequently in his room, often exchanging jokes. He was a witty chap. I recollect a quip of his when a woman, who often came to the Ashram in the company of a man, arrived accompanied by a child as well. Amrita said: "Formerly there were two of you. Now the two have become three!" He had a half joke about the word "nectar": "Is it a drink that tars the neck?" He was witty with the Mother too. I have heard that once the Mother gave him a small slap. He smiled and said: "Luckily I shaved before coming to you. Other- wise your palm might have got hurt by my bristles!"

On one of his visits to me we talked of subtle bodies. He said: "The Mother has a huge vital body. Anything even distantly approaching it is the vital body of Purani." Purani was another sadhak with whom I was in close touch. Indeed, with the exception of Pujalal, he was the first Ashramite I met. Pujalal had taken us to his room which, as I have said, had been Sri Aurobindo's earlier. Purani was out. He was in the main Ashram-complex where—as I soon learned—his job at the time was to prepare hot water for the Mother's early bath as well as to massage one of her legs which was not functioning in a fully normal way. I may mention in passing that for a long time Purani was to my wife and me the most impressive figure among the Ashram-members. In comparison to his energetic personality, both physically and psychologically, all the other Ashramites we met seemed rather colourless. I remember Nolini remarking after Purani's death many years later that his personality had such force that he could have caught hold of anybody on the road and turned him to carry out what he willed. Nolini also used at that time the term "mahapurusha" ("great being") for him. Purani had some occult powers and could go out in his super-forceful subtle body and act effectively. Once Vaun McPheeters, who with his wife Janet (renamed "Shantimayi" by the Mother) was the first American to settle in the Ashram, spoke a trifle lightly of India during a somewhat heated discussion with Purani. Purani, an arch-nationalist, could not stomach it. He told me that during the ensuing night he had found Vaun's subtle form worrying him during sleep and he had gone out in his

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own subtle form and given Vaun a thrashing. Almost immediately there was a notable change in Vaun's outer life. He went into retirement and was spiritually in a disturbed state. The Mother found her inner work on him getting difficult and did not know why until Purani narrated to her his encounter.

I may note here that though Purani's relationship with Sri Aurobindo was very deep and intimate it was not always steady and secure with the Mother. After Sri Aurobindo's departure he was often uneasy in the Ashram and once, when I happened to be in Bombay, wrote to me about feeling like leaving it. I earnestly advised him not to decide anything before having an interview with the Mother. He asked for an interview. During it, amidst other matters, the Mother said: "I am here only to do Sri Aurobindo's work. Won't you help me in it?" Purani burst into tears and pledged unfailing co-operation.

In the early days there was a good deal of talk about past births. The being who had been behind Jesus, Chaitanya and, most recently, Ramakrishna was said to be behind Pavitra now. St. Paul and Vivekananda were seen in the background of Anilbaran. In connection with Nolini we heard of Roman Virgil and the late-renaissance French poet Ronsard as well as the French-revolution poet Andre Chenier. As for Amrita himself, the forces in his past were Moses, Michelangelo and Victor Hugo, powerful personalities quite in contrast to his gentle, amiable present disposition. To help me in my historical researches I made sure from Amrita that the Egyptian princess mentioned in the Old Testament as getting her attendants to pick up baby Moses who had been left in a basket on the bank of the Nile was Hatshepsut before she became queen—Hatshepsut who was believed to be a past incarnation of the Mother. The only certainty announced about myself by both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was that I had been an ancient Athenian. It is curious that I never inquired who the fellow had been. If, as reported, Sri Aurobindo had been Pericles and a little later Socrates (as declared by Nolini), I guess I must have belonged to the period of the one or the other. The two certainties about Sri Aurobindo's past, as deducible from his correspondence with me, were Augustus Caesar and Leonardo da Vinci. To Amrita he said he still felt the edge of the guillotine on his neck. This would indicate that his birth immediately before the present one was associated with the French Revolution. If he was a guillotined front-liner, we can think only of Danton and Robespierre. But the Mother has

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seen Debu, Pranab's brother, as having been the latter. So Danton has to be our choice. To me Sri Aurobindo wrote that he had "a psychic memory" of Dilip Kumar Roy as Horace, evidently a carry-over from the time he had been Augustus. The Mother, on one Pranam-occasion, saw two figures behind Dilip. When she described them to Sri Aurobindo he identified them as Horace and Hector. In the age of the siege of Troy Sri Aurobindo is taken to have been Paris, the Mother Helen and Nolini the husband of Helen, King Menelaus of Sparta from whom Trojan Paris seduced away Helen. On one occasion when I remarked to the Mother that the way she had poised her arm and hand a moment earlier reminded me of the depiction of Mona Lisa's in Leonardo's famous painting, she said that at times even physical characteristics were carried over from one life to another. I think Amrita told me that Doraiswamy, the well-known Madras advocate who was a staunch devotee of the Mother in those days, had been Francis I of France in whose arms Leonardo is said to have died.

Doraiswamy was as humorous and witty as Amrita. Once, soon after he had arrived from Madras in early morning, Amrita visited him in his room, saying he had hurried there before his own bath. Doraiswamy struck an attitude of awe and exclaimed: "What a privilege for us to see you in your unbathed grandeur!"

In the early days Amrita and Nolini served as emissaries from Sri Aurobindo to a prominent Indian political leader in the town, named David, who often asked for Sri Aurobindo's advice. At 7.30 or 8 p.m. they would cycle to his house with the message and had the pleasure of a non-vegetarian dinner with him. It was to this person that in the first years of Sri Aurobindo's stay in Pondicherry when British political agents were still at work against him, the manuscript of his English translation of Kalidasa's Meghaduta ("The Cloud-Messenger") was given for safe-keeping. The work was kept at the bottom of a trunk. Unfortunately, white ants got interested in it and finished it off before any human could start relishing it. It was Amrita who first told me that Sri Aurobindo had a private pamphlet prepared on simplified Sanskrit-learning but nobody has been able to trace it. Amrita told me also of Sri Aurobindo reading out to him portions of his play Eric which its author felt to be not at all badly created.

Referring to his earliest contact with Sri Aurobindo, Amrita mentioned how he used to come from school to Sri Aurobindo and at times lie on a mat, with Sri Aurobindo sitting by him and gently

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caressing his body with his hand. Amrita recollected a special odour coming from Sri Aurobindo's body. In later years the Mother has mentioned a faint lotus-like scent emanating from it.

More serious lessons too were taught. Once Amrita was watching a spider's web in which some insects had been caught. He started amusing himself by throwing some ants into the web. Sri Aurobindo saw him and very forcefully forbade him to go on with the game. It was a warning against thoughtlessness and wanton cruelty towards lower creatures that Amrita never forgot. From him as well as other early Ashramites I have heard of Sri Aurobindo's fast for about three weeks, during which he continued his daily routine of literary work and of walking across his rooms for six or seven hours. At the end of the fast he took a full normal meal instead of the usual orange juice and liquid food. Connected with Amrita is a special eating experiment by Sri Aurobindo—one with opium. Sri Aurobindo asked him to fetch from the bazaar a substantial lump of this stuff. Opium is usually eaten in small quantities as either a stimulant, intoxicant or narcotic. Sri Aurobindo ate the whole lump brought to him—with no perceptible harmful effect. I am reminded of a story by de Quincy, the author of the famous Confessions of an Opium-eater. He tells of a Malay who suddenly appeared at his quarters. As an act of hospitality de Quincy put before the Oriental a quantity of opium. The visitor ate up at one stroke the entire big piece and took his leave. De Quincy was horrified. Day after day he looked into the local newspapers to see if any foreigner had been found lying dead anywhere in the country. No trace of a laudanum-poisoned Malay was reported. Amrita saw Sri Aurobindo going merrily on in spite of the abnormal amount of the poppy-product consumed. No wonder the Mother, knowing of such feats, told me during an interview soon after Sri Aurobindo had passed away in the early hours of 5 December 1950: "Sri Aurobindo did not leave his body because of physical causes. He was not compelled to do it. He had complete control over his body." On my asking her what had made him go, she said: "It is quite clear to me, but I won't tell you anything. You have to find out the reason yourself." I requested: "Please give me the power to do it." She put her hand on my head to bless it. What lingered most in my memory was that, while countering the possible general impression that Sri Aurobindo had departed because of an illness, she had made the clear-cut assertion: "There was nothing mortal about Sri Aurobindo"—words uttered when I had read out the short note for

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the next issue of Mother India, in which I had employed the conventionally turned phrase: "the mortal remains of Sri Aurobindo." In this mind-boggling denial, which would apply just as well to Sri Aurobindo's partner in spiritual world-work—the Mother herself—lies the ultimate Avataric secret of the birth no less than the death of both of them.

In spite of the little romance Sri Aurobindo had jocularly encouraged in Amrita's early days, Amrita was not considered by the Mother to have an experienced and seasoned "vital being" where sensual matters were concerned. Thus, while admiring Jules Romain's psychological acumen along with his style in his famous series of novels, Les Hommes de la bonne volonté, she asked Udar to go through the books but did not advise Amrita to read them. Evidently he was considered as being still a bit of an "innocent".

Once he proved to be an "innocent" in social contacts too. He sent a letter to Madame Vigie in a folded form without an envelope. She expressed her surprise to the Mother about this impoliteness on his part. The Mother put him wise about social niceties.

During several years of the Ashram's early career the Mother put together as chums Amrita and the chief engineer of the Ashram at that time—Chandulal. Chandulal was quite a character both in physical appearance, which was a little deformed, and in working capacity:

he could give himself to non-stop work almost the whole of the working day. He often called Amrita his brother and sometimes hugged him. Amrita always took the relationship with a twinkle of humour.

What on the whole struck everybody about Amrita was not only his extreme devotion to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo but also his sweet nature. He was ever ready with sympathy for whoever brought him a tale of woe. And he would be glad to convey to the Mother her children's needs or grievances.

When he died, all of us felt the loss. I believe his niece Kumuda, of whom he was very fond, felt it most acutely. I was told she had fainted on hearing the news. He had spent a good amount of time with her, part of it in tutoring her in French. It is fitting that she should be prominent, together with her sister Saroja, in celebrating the centenary of his entry into this world to serve Sri Aurobindo and the Mother faithfully.

The Mother's own words are: "He was a good servant of the Divine." She has revealed that his "natural" life was only 50 years long. The rest of his span of 73 was due to the Divine's intervention.

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Connected with his death is tribute paid him by the Ashram's employed workers. Along with Padmasini, he had been in charge of the department dealing with them. On hearing that he was to be cremated, they made the plea to the Trustees that they would like him to be buried so that they might be able to visit his grave and offer flowers to it. Hence his body lies in'the Ashram's cemetery. His nearest neighbour there is Nolini who, before he passed away, expressed his wish to be laid to rest near his old-time friend.

Amal Kiran (K. D. Sethna)

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