Champaklal Speaks

Touching Sight

It was during the period when Sri Aurobindo was attending to correspondence with the sadhaks. Nolini used to receive letters for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the inmates, arrange them on a tray which he then brought up and left in a fixed place at the top of the staircase to the first floor. (It was also his work to distribute Sri Aurobindo's replies to the sadhaks.) In those days the door was always kept locked. The Mother had given me a key so that I could open the door in the evening and go in for my work. I would take the tray inside, Mother would receive it from me and take it to the 'salon where she and Sri Aurobindo would discuss the letters and reply to them.

The Mother used this fortunate salon until her second-floor apartment was built in 1953. Here her bed used to be in the southeast corner near a big almirah. In the southwest corner, near the window, Sri Aurobindo would sit in a chair covered with a deer-skin and Mother on a small couch for this correspondence work; sometimes he would read out to her his replies. The chair and the couch are still kept in the same place. This work grew so much in the first five years of the 1930s that Sri Aurobindo often. had to spend the whole night in replying. After his accident in 1938, correspondence had to be restricted to a handful of sadhaks.

Those fortunate enough to be near Dyuman's room at that time must have heard Sri Aurobindo's melodious voice.

While they replied to the letters, I waited outside in the vestibule (where nowadays a life-size photo of the Mother is kept on Darshan days) with a flask of soup and a cup and saucer placed on a tray on a small cupboard. (I used to prepare the soup in the way Mother had taught me and bring it when I came in the evening.)

After their work was over, Sri Aurobindo would come to where I was standing and wait till I poured the soup in the cup and put the cup on the saucer. Holding the saucer in both hands, he then carried it slowly and carefully inside to the Mother. It was a magnificent sight to see him doing this.

Now, before Sri Aurobindo came and took the cup, the Mother would always come out to where I waited and ask me if any more letters had been sent up. Sometimes there would be a few. After she went back, Sri Aurobindo would come for the soup. I used to wonder why he had to come for the soup when Mother herself could have taken it when she came out. It was only much later that I realised the deeper significance of these actions.

Incidentally, something similar used to take place when they were in Library House. In the beginning I used to join the other inmates in the evening talks with Sri Aurobindo in the verandah outside the Prosperity hall (where Prosperity is distributed). But later when I started working with the Mother, I stopped attending the talks as that was the hour for my work. When my work was over I would step out of Mother's room and wait near the bathroom. After the talks were over Sri Aurobindo would come to where I was standing and call me in and I would follow him inside. Inside the room he would stand beside Mother while she sat on the bed and received my pranams.

Why did he himself have to walk up to where I was standing to call me in? Here too the answer dawned on me gradually.