Champaklal Speaks

Flexible

You know the photograph of Sri Aurobindo in profile. It was taken. the Danish artist [Johannes Hohlenberg] when came here [in 1915] to make a portrait of Sri Aurobindo. As Sri Aurobindo could not be expected to sit for as long a time as required, the artist this photograph to help him do the portrait. The original photo—passport-sized one—was placed in a small frame. For long it was kept on a side-table on the first floor. When I saw that it hi started fading and there was no copy of it, I humbly requested Mother to have it copied by the local photographer Latour. But she did not agree. Each year the fading was more and each time I asked her, she would refuse. Ultimately, when I saw that it had not only faded but some cracks too had appeared, I showed the photo to the Mother and told her that we would soon lose the photograph completely and left it to her to decide. I assured her that the original, the copy and the negative, all would be handed back to her. She consented on condition that the photographer must not touch up the photo.

I instructed Latour through Bansidhar to prepare a negative and print a copy and prepare another negative after touching up that copy of the original photo. When prints from both negatives were ready, I showed them to Mother. Seeing the touched up print, she exclaimed: “He is very clever, very clever” and asked for more, copies. “Which one?” I asked. “The one touched up,” she replied. Later, with a loving smile, she gave me also one copy of this touched up photo.

I have seen this happen so many times. She would ask men prepare a folder or something else in a particular way. I would follow all her instructions faithfully, but if I felt that something better could be achieved by some alterations, I would prepare one in that way also and place both things before her. And often it happened that she chose what was prepared differently. She never declared that she will select only what she had originally asked for. The truth is that she chose from what was made and offered to her. If something better than what had been planned or expected came up, she had no hesitation in changing her decision.