Champaklal Speaks

Calcutta Photo

1944-09-13

It was 12.28 p.m. Sri Aurobindo was sitting in his chair near the window. I showed him a photograph of his in which he is seated on the dais in a public meeting—the one without the garland. He looked at it for a while, smiling, then asked: “From where? Whose?”

C: “Yours.”

Sri Aurobindo: “Yes, but to whom does it belong?”

C: “It is mine.”

Sri Aurobindo: “It must have been taken at Calcutta. From where did you get it?”

C: “In your room in Library House. When you moved to this house it was lying in a drawer of your table. I showed it to Mother; even she had not seen it. She gave it to me. But as it was only a print I gave it to Bansidhar to get a photographic copy made and he had it done by Latour. This is the copy.”

Sri Aurobindo smiled and kept looking at it.

C: “Would you sign it?”

Sri Aurobindo: “Oh, you want me to sign?” And he smiled and signed it.