My Savitri work with the Mother

24 July 1959

On 24th July 1959 my College closed for two months. During that time I was planning to join several classes of my choice. Sudha was already off on a continental tour with her people, who came from South Africa.

One Saturday morning I asked Ramesh Panikar—an engineering student whom Sudha and I met at East Africa House—to join me to see the Tate Gallery, which had been opened in 1897. It is a branch of the National Gallery, and houses the most representative collection of modern paintings in Europe. The Gallery owes its existence to Sir Henry Tate, who not only presented his collection of pictures, valued at £75,000, to the nation, but also contributed £80,000 towards the cost of the building.

We were delighted to see masterpieces—especially the paintings of Joshua Reynolds, William Blake, William Turner, Auguste Renoir, Constable, Wilson, Sargent and Sickert. I was impressed by the painting Heads of Angels by Reynolds. As a matter of fact, he had painted his daughter in different poses. I told Ramesh, pointing to that painting: "The Mother sent me a reproduction of this painting when I was in Pondicherry. I have got a huge collection of various reproductions of paintings given to me by the Mother. Now I am seeing the original paintings. I am really happy."

The pictures of William Blake were mystically ethereal. He was a great well-known artist as well as a renowned poet in the English language. Not content to see his poems only in a written or printed form, he clothed them in design and colour so that each poem-picture formed an artistic whole.

Also there were rooms which displayed modern English paintings, and we saw a section on sculpture which included Rodin's work.

There was an exhibition of abstract and modern painting in one of the halls. After we had paid four shillings, we entered it and started looking around in sheer bewilderment, for we were left to our own devices to derive the meaning of what we saw. We racked our brains desperately—the more we tried to make out the significance, the more we got muddled. Finally we gave up for fear of a headache and left the room in total disappointment. The following jokes are to the point:

"And this, I suppose, is one of those hideous caricatures you call modern art."

"Nope, that's just a mirror."

Critic: "Ah! And what is this? It is superb! What soul, what charm, what expression!"

Artist: "Yeah! That's where I clean the paint off my brushes!"

In July 1959 I joined the evening classes at the Constance Spry School of Flower Arrangement. There were quite a number of young women and girls. Miss Simmons was our teacher, a nice person. After all the lessons, we had to do practicals. So we practiced in numberless ways. Each composition emphasised its proper place by its elegance and enchantment.

One fine evening Miss Simmons gave us different kinds of vases, masses of flowers and asked us to arrange them. This was our test and competition. We had to finish the decoration in record time.

I was given an urn with a crumpled mesh, which I filled with water. Then I started arranging. I kept in my mind the need, of good line, good colour-blending and satisfying balance. I felt that the right effect was achieved with comparatively few flowers and helped by the use of dark-coloured leaves.

Miss Simmons went to each of us and examined our compositions with keen eyes. Then she turned to the ladies, pointing to my vase and said: "Look at this arrangement. It is perfect." Then with a smile she congratulated me. I thanked her. All the ladies clustered round my arrangement and asked many questions. What was I to do except smile?

As a matter of fact, I did not realise how the whole thing had been done. But I knew how the Mother had taught me painting and led me to acquire colour-sense and made me understand the sensitivities of colour-combinations. Praise to Her...

One of the members in Mercury House was Mr. King, who was studying the History of Art in one of the best colleges. He talked about music and art. He also showed me beautiful rare books about the Great Masters and their lives, containing also reproductions of their paintings which entranced me. Occasionally he made me listen to the music of famous composers. I heard it absorbedly. My mind winged back to those days when I had listened to the music during the Mother's distribution of eatables at the Playground. I enjoyed music and art exceedingly. They were and are my favourite subjects. Music reminds me of a real-life joke in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram:

An English lady asked a foreigner to look at the Ashram notice board for her and tell her which music would be played that night in the Library Hall. He came and told her: "Hungarian Raspberry!" The lady gave a shout of laughter and corrected him: "Oh, no, it must be Hungarian Rhapsody."