Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master

Chapter 3

On the Disciples' Humour

Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit poet, once addressed this plea to Saraswati, the goddess of learning: "Arasikesu rasasya nivedanam, sirasi ma likha, ma likha, ma likhaV - "To offer rasa to one who is devoid of humour, let this not be my fate, never, never!"

Yes, it is not so easy to appreciate wit and humour; to be able to do so requires a special bent of mind and a rare genre of capacity. One may be an erudite scholar, even a reputed lexicographer, but he may very well miss a subtle witty point. Did not the poet Pope remark: "A dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but not of two put together!"

Humour to be humour should not be spelt out in too explicit a way; much of it has to be conveyed by subtle suggestion. A little is said and much more left unsaid, and this deliberate reserve speaks volumes to one who knows how to look behind the surface and retrieve the jewels hidden there. The appreciation of the thing said, also of the thing not said, is absolutely necessary for the production of humour's successors. Without this appreciation the source of humour will soon die away. This fact is variously expressed as "Wit can occur only in company" or "Wit is essentially the product of gregariousness".

That wit and humour needs society for its production was also indicated by Shakespeare when he wrote that a jest's prosperity lies in the ears of those who hear it. Unfortunately, just as there are colour-blind people, so are there listeners and readers who prove themselves incapable of appreciating the deeper nuances of humour. This is what Samuel Johnson said in his familiar lexicographical way:

"Wit like every other power has its boundaries. Its success depends on the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and just as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of

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fancy may be pointed without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt."

And such was the situation with Sri Aurobindo till the third decade of this century. He was generally looked upon as a grave and austere person having perhaps the sublime grandeur of the Mount Everest but not the mellow sweetness of someone with whom one could smile and laugh and joke.

But such an impression was far from being correct. Sri Aurobindo wrote to one of his disciples: "Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence. Without it the world would have got utterly out of balance — it is unbalanced enough already — and rushed to blazes long ago." Now, as Nirodbaran has remarked, one who wrote the above lines could not be himself devoid of any sense of laughter. "Only, it needed, I suppose, the suitable time and occasion for the Delight to come out and manifest."¹

It so happened that a few disciples in the thirties, especially Nirodbaran, Dilip Kumar and Amal Kiran, provided Sri Aurobindo with this needed occasion. And the result was that they became fortunate enough to be the recipients of the Master's 'divine levity' in profusion and thus be able to share with the world at large the joy of knowing that Sri Aurobindo was Raso vai sab, "Verily he is the Delight".²

Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran were themselves persons of deep sense of humour, each with his characteristic style and flavour. AK with his sparkling intellectual humour, DK with his restrained but sublime humour and NB with his simple-hearted bantering jollity drew Sri Aurobindo out of his habitual reserve and he amply rewarded them with a heavenly feast through his sustained correspondence with these disciples. Sri Aurobindo's relationship with these three disciples was so sweet and so informal! He had never any weakness for lording it over the weak whom he actually invited to "discuss things" familiarly with him.'

Sri Aurobindo approached them "not only with the power of a Guru's wisdom but with the sweet persuasiveness of a father's superior experience and at times with the confiding

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appeal of a friend who stands on one's own level..."⁴

To Dilip Kumar Sri Aurobindo once wrote: "It is a strong and lasting personal relation that I have felt with you ever since we met and even before and it is only that that has been the base of all the outward support, consideration, care and constant helping endeavour which I have always extended towards you and which could not have arisen from any tepid impersonal feeling. On my side that relation is not likely to change ever."⁵ And it did not change till Sri Aurobindo left his body in 1950.

On another occasion Sri Aurobindo wrote to DK: "There is no day on which I do not devote some time to thinking of you and concentrating for you."⁶

And what about Nirodbaran? For some inscrutable reason Sri Aurobindo treated him like a close and intimate comrade. In his correspondence with NB there was always found an interplay of wit. Sri Aurobindo chose to meet NB's banter with banter and would at times go on browbeating this "charming pessimist" (to quote Dilip Kumar's felicitous phrase).

It is worth recording here what the Mother once saw in her vision when she entered Sri Aurobindo's room and found there Nirodbaran attending on his Guru. She saw that Sri Aurobindo and NB were playing with each other like two babies on a bed!⁷

Here is an interesting piece of dialogue (through correspondence) between Sri Aurobindo and Nirodbaran on the subject of their personal relationship:

NB: You refuse to be a Guru and decline to be a father, though ladies especially think of you as father and call you so. If they come to know of your refusal, I'll have to run with smelling salts from one lady to another!

Sri Aurobindo: Father is too domestic and Semitic - Abba Father! I feel as if I had suddenly become a twin-brother of the Lord Jehovah. Besides, there are suggestions of a paternal smile and a hand uplifted to smite which do not suit me.

Let the ladies "father" me if smelling salts are the only alternative, but let it not be generalised.

NB: They are saying that a "sweet relation" has been

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established between you and me. I only hope and pray that it will be sweeter and sweetest.

Sri Aurobindo: The sweet relation is all right, but let it be nameless.⁸

Dilip Kumar used to remark to NB: "In your correspondence Sri Aurobindo has revealed himself in a totally new aspect." NB himself once asked Sri Aurobindo about the reason behind their exceptional relationship. Sri Aurobindo's cryptic reply was: "Cast your plummet into the deep and perhaps you shall find it — or perhaps you will hit something that has nothing at all to do with it." NB said, "But the 'deep' is too deep for my plummet." His answer was, "For any mental plummet. It is not the mind that can discover these things."⁹

So they went on, Sri Aurobindo and Nirodbaran, with their daily literary duels, Sri Aurobindo often encouraging and allowing himself to be attacked on all fronts but ultimately throwing the puny adversary down with a benign laughter. But the disciple would shake off the dust, get prepared for another tussle and "though vanquished, would argue still."¹⁰

NB writes in this connection: "Friends wondered how I dared to take such an extraordinary liberty with Sri Aurobindo; to some it even appeared sacrilegious. They often asked me, 'Don't you tremble with fear when you face him during Dar-shan?' Fear? where was the question of fear when his face, his eyes would say ma bhaih, ['Have no fear'], his lips parted in a sweet smile and his whole body bending in love and sweetness to bless the head lying at his feet?"¹¹

When NB started corresponding with Sri Aurobindo in February 1933, he could not imagine that very soon their relationship would take an intimate personal turn. Yet it did, and in a surprisingly sudden manner. Let NB narrate how it happened:

"One day, when my note-book came back from Sri Aurobindo, I began to read what he had written, when to my utter bewilderment I came across the sentence, 'Well, sir, do

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you understand now?' I was so taken aback that I could not believe my eyes. 'Is this a joke or a slip of the pen?' I asked myself, for I did not remember his having addressed anybody as 'sir!' Neither could I ask him about this strange phenomenon. But he did not keep me long in doubt, for, from that day the whole correspondence changed its character and bore to me the rasa of Heaven's delight which Sri Aurobindo's pen alone could give and his many-faceted personality alone could create ..."¹²

Dilip Kumar's first direct personal contact with Sri Aurobindo's humour is also worth recounting here. This happened in 1932. When Sri Aurobindo came to know that DK had accidentally hurt his head badly, he wrote to him:

"You struck your head against the upper sill of the door our engineer Chandulal fixed in your room? A pity, no doubt. But remember that Chandulal's dealings with the door qua door were scientifically impeccable; the only thing he forgot was that people - of various sizes - should pass through it. If you regard the door from the Russellian objective point of view as an external thing in which you must take pleasure for its own sake, then this will be brought home to you and you will see that it was quite all right. It is only when you bring in irrelevant subjective considerations like people's demands on a door and the pain of a stunned head, that objections can be made. However, in spite of philosophy, the Mother will speak to Chandulal in the morning and get him to do what has (practically, not philosophically) to be done. May I suggest, however, if it is any consolation to you, that our Lilliputian engineer perhaps measured things by his own head, forgetting that there were in the Ashram higher heads and broader shoulders?..."¹⁵

We have so far talked about Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran: now about the third disciple, Amal Kiran. By the way, 'Amal Kiran' or the 'Clear Ray' was the name given by Sri Aurobindo to K.D. Sethna who, as a youngman of great promise, joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1927. In course of time he has become

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famous as a poet of renown, a scholar specialising in many fields, a literary critic of a very high order and a priest of high journalism.

When Dilip Kumar came to join the Ashram in 1928, he was deeply impressed by Amal Kiran both by the latter's intellectual prowess coupled with robust common sense and his appealing outer appearance. As DK himself has written: "I can clearly recapture with my mind's eye his delicate sensitive face which first attracted me with its fine crop of Christ-like whiskers ... And then his eyes: how they radiated a keen though not unkind glint of intelligence!"¹⁴

Amal Kiran's deep relationship with Sri Aurobindo was on a different plane. This can be testified by the fact that at a very critical moment of his life when he was almost on the point of dying, he spontaneously, almost instinctively, turned to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for necessary help and received it in full measure. This is how he has narrated the incident:

"I seemed to drip ice from my face and be forcibly bent and broken. So, there was nothing else I could do except creep to bed and lie flat. The feeling of a hollow in my chest was growing deeper and deeper. So sucked in and dragged down I felt that I thought I would soon die. Various medicines were given me to keep me up. Yet the terrible sinking increased. It struck me that the only decisive help could be drawn by inwardly appealing to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ... With all my power of faith and aspiration I kept outstretching invisible hands to them, calling and calling. I pulled at the saving and healing light that is their Yogic consciousness and when I thought a blue sheen and a gold glow enveloped my heart I sensed a subtle supporting strength gradually taking outward effect. A doctor had been summoned. By the time he came I had emerged to a considerable extent from the vacuity in the heart-region."¹⁵

Amal Kiran's heart started improving day by day and every phase of its history he communicated by letter to the Mother. She wrote back in one of her replies to AK:

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"My dear child, I quite agree with you that there is a power other and much more powerful than that of the doctors and the medicines and I am glad to see that you put your trust in it. Surely it will lead you throughout all difficulties and in spite of all catastrophic warnings. Keep your faith intact and all will be all right."¹⁶

Such then were the three intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo -Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran - who became instrumental in their own characteristic ways in opening the floodgates of Sri Aurobindo's humour. Sri Aurobindo responded to them in styles and contents suited to their own individual temperament. The written records of these literary exchanges between the Guru and his disciples provide us with a richly variegated delectable fare. Before we come to taste the rasa of Sri Aurobindo's own humour as delineated in the coming chapters, let us first examine and enjoy how humorous these three disciples were, each in his own way. The remaining pages of the present chapter will be devoted to the exemplification of this topic.

I. Amal Kiran's humour - literary and intellectual

1. When Milton went blind he taught his daughters to read Greek and Latin to him without understanding what these languages said. He did not teach them the meanings of Greek and Latin words nor their syntactical structure but only how to pronounce them. The poor girls were bored with long hours of gibberish recitation to their papa. They must have frequently protested, but Milton was adamant. When one of his friends asked him why he had not taught them Greek and Latin properly, he tartly replied: "One tongue is sufficient for any woman."¹⁷

2. The mispronouncing or mishearing of words in other languages has sometimes a farcical effect. The first Indian baronet was a Parsi, a man named Jamshedjee Cursetjee

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Jeejeebhoy, When he went to England he was invited by Queen Victoria to a party. A grandly attired butler stood at the door of the reception hall and announced the names of the visitors as they came. When the Parsi baronet arrived, the butler inquired his name. He got the answer: "Jamshedjee Cursetjee Jeejeebhoy." The butler was a little puzzled but he kept his aplomb and, looking at the Queen, announced in a loud voice: "Damn says he, Curse says he. She's a boy."¹⁸

3.Certain mannerisms are to be avoided. We get into the nervous habit of inserting "You see" or "You know" into our sentences every now and then. A lecturer could very well waste ten minutes out of his fifty by "you see"-ing and "you know"-ing. Another mannerism is "what's called". I have heard a great Bengali scholar in philosophy, now dead, use it with outrageous results. He once visited the Ashram and lectured on the progress of Indian thought in the world. And this is one of the sentences with which he developed his subject: "Then what's called Vivekananda sailed away and after many what's called hardships reached Chicago and there at the Parliament of the Religions he at last what's called appeared." I simply had to get up and what's called run away in order to avoid an explosion of laughter.¹⁹

4.We have to guard against certain peculiarities in the saying of names in a foreign language. Some English proper names are a devil of a problem. Thus what is written as Marjoriebanks is pronounced Marshbanks, What is written as Cholmondeley is pronounced Chumly. Once the well-known journalist Horatio Bottomley went to interview Lord Cholmondeley. Not being intimate with aristocratic nomenclature he asked the butler whether Lord Chol-mon-de-ley would be good enough to given him a few minutes. The butler politely but with a superior air said: "I shall ask Lord Chumly about it. What name shall I give him as yours, Sir?" Horatio Bottomley handed his visiting card to the butler, and when the latter was looking at the word "Bottomley", the journalist said with great hauteur.

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"Please tell Lord Chumly that Mr. Bumly has come to see him."²⁰

5.I have wondered whether "veranda" is an Indian word. My dictionary gives it a Portuguese origin. But it is common across the length and breadth of India. Mentioning it, I am reminded of some provincial peculiarities here in pronouncing English. In Gujarat sh seems difficult: it lapses into s. 'English' is called 'Inglis' and 'ocean' becomes 'osun'. Bengalis get all twisted up in differentiating between b and v. The Bengali language has, in fact, no i>-sound. And that brings me to my "veranda".

You know at one time I was in charge of the Ashram furniture. Once I had to get a cot removed from the house of an Ashramite called Barinda. On my way I met an inmate of the house and asked where the cot exactly was. He said: "The cot is on Barinda." I was rather shocked. Barinda was a fairly old man and the idea of the cot lying on him was disquieting. I protested: "Surely, Barinda must be on the cot and not the other way round?" I got the reply: "No, the cot is on Barinda." I made haste to the house - only to find the cot on the veranda!²¹

6.You know what "lumbago" means? The dictionary gives it as "rheumatic pain in the lower back and loins". The loins are the region between the false ribs and the hips. Get the words "loins" correctly: don't be like a friend of mine who always referred to his "lions" when he meant his "loins" - just as some people speak of quotations from Sri Aurobindo published in the Ashram Dairy when they mean Diary.

To return to "lumbago". Well, this morning I knew its meaning not quietly from any dictionary but growled out from my own lower back by my "lions". Yes, I have a touch of this rheumatic pain. I shall tell you how I am going to make history by my battle with this hellish visitor whose sound entitles it to be almost a compeer of Satan. Satan is also known as Lucifer. Lucifer and Lumbago could very well be twin Archangels fallen from on high.

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The history I shall make in dealing with this fiend will be in three dramatic stages. First, there will be a realisation of the full presence of the dread torturer — full presence summed up by my thundering out the name as it is: "Lumbago!" Next, you will see me tackling the demon and sending him away by a mantric strategy of the resisting will. I shall shout: "Lumba, go!" The last stage will find me quite relieved, a conqueror wearing a reminiscent smile and whispering with a sense of far-away unhappiness the almost fairy-tale expression: "Lumb, ago!"²²

7.It is after three weeks that we meet again. You must have been wondering what could have put so long a stop to this endlessly wagging professorial tongue. One of you was curious or kind or bold enough to ask me. My reply was: "A sprain in the brain." A friendly visitor to the Ashram got the same reply. He became goggle-eyed with surprise and exclaimed: "Oh, I didn't know that such things could happen. Does one sprain the brain also?" I had no explanation to give. My phrase was not quite meant to be explained. It was a piece of mystic poetry, or at least of mystic verse, since it had rhyme but no reason. I wore a serene and far-away smile on my face instead of answering. Unfortunately the silent smile served as an answer which I had not intended. My questioner looked serious - very knowingly serious — and slightly shook his head. I knew what he was thinking: "Really, something has gone wrong with this poor chap's top floor."²³

8.Anatole France can be summed up in his literary quality by the rule he has laid down for writers: "D'abord la clarte, puis encore la clarte, enfin la clarte" - "Clarity first, clarity again, clarity at the end."

The English genius differs here from the French, perhaps because England has more mist and fog than the other side of the Channel. The English poet William Watson has said: "They see not the clearliest,/Who see all things clear." And Havelock Ellis, looking at Anatole France's advice, has added his own comment of both agreement and disagreement: "Be clear. Be

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clear. Be not too clear."²''

9. During my school days I wrote an essay in verse on a Library and wanted to speak of the heaps and heaps of books there on diverse subjects. But I looked out for somewhat uncommon words for my idea. My dictionary gave me "mound" for a heap and I went from "mound" to other words and produced the couplet:

O there were mounds of metaphysical mystery

And poetry-piles and haemorrhoids of history!

I felt I had achieved the grand style, especially with the last phrase. I showed my work to my father who happened to be a doctor. He burst into devastating laughter and made me sink into the ground for shame by informing me that haemorrhoids were small bleeding boils so placed in the body that it would be difficult for one to sit down comfortably. It was the word "pile" with a sense other than the "mound" that had made an utter fool of me. When I found "haemorrhoid" for "pile" I should have looked up that impressive polysyllable in my dictionary.²⁵

II. Dilip Kumar's humour — sublime and restrained

1. "I could now see clearly that whenever I toyed with a wrong suggestion, some part of me was glad while another part was unhappy resenting it as an intrusion. What made me unhappier still was that I became more and more conscious, as days passed, of a wilful encouragement somewhere. But as this made me feel disloyal to my Guru, I tried in my clever (!) way to rationalise it into legitimacy. 'Oh, keep an open mind, don't you know', a part of me said to myself coaxingly. 'Don't you invite blindness, my boy! Why must you accept everything you are told as gospel truth! Watch well and sift all the time: never surrender your native inviolable right to be a judge of your own reactions. If an idea is burgeoning within you, do not show it the door in this off-hand manner because somebody commands

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you to. Remember that you have an inalienable right to your own ideas, you cannot possibly grow to ultimate stature without their friendly help. Everything that happens to you can give you a leg up, you know, provided you accept its aid in the right spirit. And, dash it all, your individuality is the most precious part of your integral self, isn't it? How can you then - you, a born lover of freedom — will yourself into blind slavery and have it liquidated? How can you possibly forget that the Divine has fashioned your individual ego to be harmonised into a distinctive flower - not to be squeezed out into an amorphous jelly.' Ugh! - and so on - endless variations on one theme: do not surrender your self-will."²⁶

How restrained the passage is! The humour is not loud at all. Yet it is there throughout the passage as an under-current of subdued irony. And that is the style of DK.

Here is a second passage, this time addressed to Sri Aurobindo himself:

2. "You write calmly, Guru, that we have only to withdraw from all egoistic movements — whereupon I can but smile sadly. For you seem to assure us placidly that we can't get rid of the tyranny of pain because we won't - being in love, congenitally, with the drama which the tyrant brings in its wake. Such statements do baffle me! For if what you say was true, it would follow (would it not?) that all suffering must be a make-believe, a mdya, since we like it so much? — ergo, why not welcome it sportingly, taking it all as a joke? That is why I often wonder whether the Supramental consciousness of your ideal stratospheres can ever truly enter into the world of fact of us, mental humans! For I can tell you that we - common mortals, constituted as we are - resist nothing as stubbornly as suffering and agony, self-pity and despair. How can I then help wondering whether your ascending peak of Yogic consciousness has not made you somewhat aloof, perforce, from what really happens down in our plains of blood and sweat and tears? ... It is only because I find your prescription too outlandish that I

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have to bandy words with you even when I know, alas, that I cannot possibly cope with your intellectual arguments. But, Guru, what do you come to gain by winning in the lists of wordy arguments? ... There is a saying in English that you can catch a swallow if you put salt on its tail. You seem to prescribe similarly: 'Detach yourself, don't lend your ears to hostile suggestions, open yourself and go on doing it all the time sleeplessly till, one fine morning, you will find your ships simply haled into the harbour of bliss beyond the dark storms!'... Well, Guru, there you have in a nutshell my difficulty, or rather the typical impasse of an average aspirant. But you seem very much like those great doctors who go to a pauper and prescribe remedies for him which only a prince can procure. No wonder we do not recover from our ailments — have little progress to show, alas!"²⁷

Let it be noted that even after having received such a scathing letter biting with sarcasm, Sri Aurobindo remained totally unperturbed and came out with his balm of sympathy towards "one who had failed him utterly and deliberately." This last quoted clause is from Dilip Kumar's own pen. He further adds: "Then with regard to Sri Aurobindo's diagnoses and prescriptions about human pain and suffering he went on to argue with me for the hundredth time." We need not dwell on Sri Aurobindo's reply here, for that will take us out of the purview of our present book which is concerned only with the humorous writings of the Master-Yogi.

At times, Dilip Kumar used to feel the qualms of conscience because of the tone of irony he mingled in the letters to Sri Aurobindo. Here are his own words:

"No wonder my brief glow of questioning and challenging left me only a legacy of brooding sadness if not an aftermath of despondent depression. Could it be right to take such liberties with one's Guru (and what a Guru!) because he tolerated them? And was it seemly to assume such a tone of banter if not irreverence, treating him as though he were something like an

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honourable colleague in the Parliament of Words — a fellow-member in opposition whom one could address with polite reverence only to show up the more effectively his deficiency in acumen? So I apologised in a postscript: wouldn't he pardon my unpardonable temerity? For if he got displeased with me, where would I be?"

To this letter of Dilip Kumar Sri Aurobindo wrote, indulgent as ever:

"I do not understand why you should assume that I am displeased with the Karma question. I castigated or fustigated Nirod not from displeasure nor even 'more in sorrow than in anger', but for fun and also from a high sense of duty: for that erring mortal was bold enough to generalise from his very limited experience and impose it as a definite law in Yoga, discrediting in the process my own immortal philosophy! What then could I do but to jump on him in a spirit of genial massacre?"²⁸

Such was Sri Aurobindo and such was his tender and affectionate compassion flowing out towards his disciple. Let us now enjoy some of the sparkling laughter that used to issue forth from their mutual exchanges.

III. Sri Aurobindo and Dilip Kumar: Wisdom and Laughter

1. In 1934, Dilip Kumar composed a Bengali poem purporting to be a parable of the ass and the flood and in due course sent it up to Sri Aurobindo with this introductory note:

"Once upon a time, Guru, there was a foolish ass who lived in the neighbourhood of a wise Yogi. One day a sudden flood burst the banks of a river nearby and flooded the countryside. The wise Yogi, being wise, ran up till he reached the safe top of a hill at the foot of which he used to meditate day and night in a cave. But the ass - being foolish, not to say unmeditative - was

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swept away by the rushing tides. 'Alas!' he brayed, 'the world is being drowned!' 'Don't be an ass,' reprimanded the Yogi in high scorn from up the hill-top. 'It's only you who are being drowned - not this great big world.' 'But, sir,' argued the idiot, 'if I myself am drowned how can I be sure that the world will survive?' And the Yogi was struck dumb and wondered, for the first time, which was the deeper wisdom - the human or the asinine! And I too have started wondering on my own, Guru! So I appeal to you to adjudicate: tell me whose is the more pitiable plight: the Yogi's or the ass's? And incidentally, tell me also if my mind is going off the handle because I find the foolish ass's argument nearly as rational as the wise Yogi's?"

To this humour-laden letter Sri Aurobindo replied with a greater dose of humour:

"Your wise but not overwise ass has put a question that cannot be answered in two lines. Let me say, however, in defence of the much-maligned ass that he is a very clever and practical animal and the malignant imputation of stupidity to him shows only human stupidity at its worst. It is because the ass does not do what man wants him to do even under blows, that he is taxed with stupidity.

"But really, the ass behaves like that first because he has a sense of humour and likes to provoke the two-legged beast into irrational antics; and secondly, because he finds that what man wants of him is quite a ridiculous and bothersome nuisance which ought not to be demanded of any self-respecting donkey. Also note that the ass is a philosopher. When he hee-haws, it is out of a supreme contempt for the world in general and for the human imbecile in particular. I have no doubt that in the asinine language man has the same significance as ass in ours. These deep and original considerations are, however, by the way - merely meant to hint to you that your balancing between a wise man and a wise ass is not so alarming a symptom after all."²⁹

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2.Once Dilip Kumar wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "Guru, Lady Indignant told me today that she had reported of late to you that she was being forced by me and Saurin to accept our invitation to tea. A word in self-defence. We never suspected that she had disliked our - shall I say - 'chivalry'. In fact when we invited her she complied after a few no's which we had, naturally, interpreted as yes because when she came to tea, she, with her face wreathed in smiles, did not at all toy with the tea, far less with the cakes! 'Caprice!' I philosophised ruefully, 'thy name is woman!' But henceforth - now that the iron has entered my soul - she comes to tea to us at her own peril, let her beware!"

Sri Aurobindo wrote back, applauding: "Well, that is all right. If Lady Indignant is a devotee of the Great Chd Devi (chd, in Bengali, means tea.] - she will fly and throw herself on the altar without need of urging: if not, she will sit in tealess meditation, invitation free. As for chivalry, however, it is more than a century ago that Burke lamented: 'The days of chivalry are gone'! And in the year of grace, 1932, with feminism triumphant everywhere - except in France and Bokhara - how do you propose to keep the cult going any longer?"³⁰

3."O Guru", Dilip Kumar communicated, "Mr. Effusive, who is an admirer of yours has just sent me a Bengali poem which he implores me to sing to you 'without fail'. But I wonder how you would react to it if I complied, for he has in effect sounded the death-knell of Rishihood, calling you virtually the last of the Romans. I will translate into English only the opening couplet so that Mother may also know, just to be forewarned:

'Glory to thee, O wistful India's last and lingering seer!

Let me expire with thee, my Lord, who never more

shalt appear.'

One hardly knows, Guru, whether one should be laughing or whether weeping here is de rigueur? What do you say? And he wants your blessings, too, remember!"

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Sri Aurobindo humorously admonished: "Dilip, you don't understand! What he means is that my shishyagan [disciples] will all become supermen; ergo, there can be no possible chance of any such small thing as a Rishi [seer] appearing again - I am positively the last of the crowd! All the same, you may send him my blessings — he deserves it richly for giving us such a gorgeous prospect."³¹

Leaving Amal Kiran and Dilip Kumar behind, let us now peep into the Treasure House of the third disciple, Nirodbaran. What do we find here? - a sumptuous storehouse of unbridled fun and rollicking laughter. And Sri Aurobindo responded to NB in equal measure. Here are a few samples of their give and take.

IV. Nirodian jollity!

1. NB: "O Guru, I observe that whenever I communicate an experience to you, the next moment it stops. I hope the Guru is not responsible for this?

I recall an incident of my childhood days. I was dining with my father when I was called out. 'Papa', I said to him warningly, 'take care, you mustn't eat my fish.' Well, fathers may not, but Gurus?"

Sri Aurobindo: "No, sir, I don't eat your fish. I have oceans of fish at my disposal and have no need to consume your little sprats. It is Messrs. Hostile Forces who do that - the dasyus, robbers."³²

2. NB: To think that five or six years more of barren desert stretch between me and the Divine Grace, coagulates my blood!

Sri Aurobindo: Coagulate! coagulate! coagulate!

NB: Very well, Sir, whip the cats and dogs, bulls and hogs, to your heart's content. Only the whipping has been rather severe in my case, but no help since I have surrendered my life and death at your feet. O cruel one, I shall accept all whipping as a gift of your compassion.

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Sri Aurobindo: Righto.

NB: The fellow is still dreaming of Sup. M. Tail! [the Supramental Tail!] He doesn't realise yet that many of us will see it after our souls have departed into the subtle planes and will have taken birth again in proper circumstances and conditions - and now one after another, so many are dropping, dropping after so many years of stay - viz. M-lal! Next X-lal, Y-lal, then Nirodlal!

Sri Aurobindo: Excuse me. M-lal and Company are not running away from the Sm. Tail - they are only running after the paternal tail - as soon as they have stroked it sufficiently, they will return. All the Lais have gone like Japhet in search of their fathers and will return in June... Two others asked for filial leave - one is perhaps still thinking of running after P.T. But we are beginning to kick. One 'leave' has been refused.

NB: N-lal - a fellow who has been here for 7 or 8 years and doing Yoga, runs after such a thing as a paternal tail!

Sri Aurobindo: He says he has been attached to the paternal tail ever since he came here and he felt quite outraged when Mother hinted rather sharply that it was absurd to run after it.

NB: K-lal, after 3 years' stay, goes out for the marriage of a niece. Ridiculous! Absolutely unthinkable! Who are these paters and maters and what's their place in your Yoga of surrender?

Sri Aurobindo: Quite agree with you. Hear! hear!³³

3. NB: My cold has given me the quick realisation that everything in this world - including the Divine - is Maya [illusion]. What Shankara and Buddha realised by sadhana, I realise by a simple cold!

Sri Aurobindo: No need of sadhana for that - anybody with a fit of the blues can manage that. It is to get out of the Maya that sadhana is needed.

NB: Please ask blessed Time to stand still behind you till your pen has run a 50-mile gallop on this sheet.

Sri Aurobindo: Time can't stand still, but I have tried to

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make the fellow trot slower instead of cantering - with no great result.'⁴

4. NB: Have you written anywhere what would be the nature of the physical transformation [to be brought about by the Descent of the Supramental] ? What would it be like? Change of pigment? Mongolian features into Aryo-Greco? Bald head into luxuriant growth? Old men into gods of eternal youth?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not seven tails with an eighth on the head - everybody different colours, blue, magenta, indigo, green, scarlet, etc.; hair luxuriant but vermilion and flying erect skywards; other details to match? Amen.

NB: My disgust is becoming more and more acute as regards poetry. I suppose the slightly lit-up channel has closed again. Things are pushing me towards medicine - an absolutely opposite pole! Where is your alchemist, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: Has taken opium probably and is seeing visions somewhere. Perhaps they will come out some day from your suddenly galvanised pen.

NB: No Goddesses for poor folks like us; they can only cut jokes, play pranks or tease our tails, that's all.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, if they tease your tail sufficiently, might not a poem be the result?

NB: Couldn't touch K without making her burst into tears. These ladies think what heartless brutes, animals, these doctors are!

Sri Aurobindo: Much safer than if they think "What dear these doctors are, darlings, angels!"

NB: People say I am getting absolutely bald, Sir. Two things I feared - one a big tummy and another a smooth baldness. Couldn't be saved from one. If you can't grow new hair, please help to preserve the little I have, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: What one fears, is usually what happens.... If you had not feared, you might have had the waist of a race-runner and the hair of Samson.

NB: What most upsets me at present is that there is no

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current of aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo: Low current of electricity? Well, well, let us see to the dynamo.

NB: I am sending you a few snaps - some samples of your supramental yogis! Isn't Dilipda splendid in a standing posture?

Sri Aurobindo: Superb!

NB: And my noble self seems to be coming out of the grave or going there probably?

Sri Aurobindo: Asking where will be the end of this Pra-nanta-Lild [life-finishing play],

NB: My supramental forehead is merging with the Infinite, what?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, dominating scornfully from there the pigmy universe.

NB: I give you a rare occasion for laughter. Please do laugh loud and share it with us!

Sri Aurobindo: No time to laugh! Can only smile.³⁵

5.NB: What have you kept in store for us, Sir? Not sandesh and rasagollal Will the sadhaks tumble one by one in this way as your Supramental comes nearer and nearer? Then with whom you will enjoy your Supramental? Night and day you are soaring and soaring.

Sri Aurobindo: Romantic one! I am not soaring and soaring - I am digging and digging. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard" sort of affair.

NB: You don't even look to see what fires your wings are throwing on our mortal frames!

Sri Aurobindo: My wings are throwing no fire. If anything happens to your mortal frames, it is your own kerosene stoves that are responsible.³⁶

6.NB: "From the grapes of sleep", "God's vineyard" sound funnily delightful, Sir! You seem to be trying to be modernistic!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I'm blowed! What is there modern about "vineyard"? Vineyards are as old as Adam or almost, at any rate they existed before the Flood.

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NB: [I have composed a poem with the lines] "

... As if I had become infinity

And God his mystery to me confides ..."

Is the link missing?

Sri Aurobindo: No, If God confides his mystery to you, the rest follows as a natural consequence of that portentous act of His.

NB: I have become a Father Confessor to God, what?

Sri Aurobindo: That's not a father confessor but only a confidant. A father confessor would be one to whom God confesses His sins, but perhaps you think the creation is a big enough sin in itself?

NB: [A stanza of my new poem]:

"The silent spheres of thought have opened now

Their hidden gates; I enter like a god In

triumphal majesty; upon my brow

Is crowned an eagle-sun, infinity-shod."

Sri Aurobindo: Look here now! neither eagles nor suns are in the habit of wearing shoes. Besides this idea of somebody's shoes on your head is extremely awkward and takes away entirely from the triumphal and godlike majesty of your entrance.

NB: Please don't give a start when you see me entering like a god! Too much to bear even in poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: Sorry! couldn't help starting. But the start was worse when I got the vision of somebody's shoes on your godlike head.³⁷

So, such were the disciples - Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar, Nirodbaran et al. — who with their radiantly charming personalities provided Sri Aurobindo with the occasion for shedding his exterior reserve and showering his smiles and laughter on all around. And the succession of fourteen chapters that are now going to follow will show to us beyond any pale of doubt how variegated as well as opulent Sri Aurobindo's humour was.

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On the Disciples' Humour

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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