Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master

Chapter 11

Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Situation and Character

The question arises again and again: How is humour produced? What gives rise to a successful comic effect? Over the last so many chapters of our book we have sought to provide the answer to this question. We have noted that in all the examples we have cited so far, in spite of the wide diversity in their outer setting, there has been a constant fundamental factor linking all the instances together. This factor may be summed up as a "sense of unexpected exultation" arising out of the simultaneous presence of the three following elements:

( i) sudden juxtaposition of oddities, incongruities or contrasts;

(ii)innocent exultation over the discomfiture or disaster (!) involving someone;

(iii)a relieving sense that the disaster or discomfiture does not really hurt the person concerned beyond a tolerable limit.

This third element is very important, for in its absence a contrary feeling like sorrow or sympathy will arise to occupy our psychological field and the sense of humour will for the moment completely evaporate.

We have seen too that the said sense of sudden exultation or its polar opposite, - a sense of unexpected frustration, - may be induced in the reader or the listener by an artful play upon the words ("verbal humour") or by the clever manipulation of the ideas ("ideational humour"). But these are not the only two devices available with the humorist. He can produce the same comic effect through other media such as (a) the narration of an anecdote or an incident, (b) the description of a situation, or (c) the portrayal of a character. It goes without saying that any and every narration or description or portrayal will not lead to the production of humour. To be humorous these must have to

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exhibit in an artistic way the proper and judicious combination of the three elements mentioned above. Let us cite a few examples to substantiate the point. (The first two examples are from the inimitable pen of Amal Kiran, a celebrated poet-disciple of Sri Aurobindo, whom we have already met in our chapter "The Disciples' Humour".)

(1) A rain-storm after a thunder-cloud\

"Socrates was perhaps the most tested, though the least testy, of all philosophers. For he was married to a woman who has become as famous for her nagging ways as he for his equanimity. Her name was Xanthippe. I'll tell you of one incident in their eventful married life.

"Once Xanthippe, ior some reason or perhaps no reason, started shouting at her husband. She made such a noise that Socrates went downstairs and out of the house and sat exhausted at his own door-step. Just then Xanthippe emptied a bucket of dirty water over his head from the first-floor window. Socrates took the compulsory shower-bath quietly. A passer-by who witnessed the ablution asked him: "Don't you feel annoyed?" Socrates replied: "Friend, we must accept Nature's phenomena with composure. After a lot of thunder such as I heard upstairs, what can one expect but a rain-storm?"¹

Please note that in the above instance character-traits (Xanthippe's irritability and Socrates's composure) and an incident (Xanthippe pouring dirty water over the head of the philosopher) have no doubt contributed to the production of humour. But by themselves these two elements would have produced a humour surely not of a high quality. But the significant words of Socrates have elevated the tone of humour to a sublime height. And in the present instance, the "verbal" and the "ideational" devices play the dominant roles.

Here is a second example - again from the pen of Amal Kiran:

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(2) Coleridge discoursing to Charles Lamb:

"S.T.C., Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was intoxicated with philosophical ideas and made of philosophical talk a poetic feast which Wordsworth and others enjoyed... But occasionally he was difficult to endure because of his interminableness. Especially difficult was he when he insisted on discussing philosophy even when suffering from a roaring cold. He would keep chattering of 'omjective' and 'sumjective' — which are, of course, 'objective' and 'subjective' spoken when the nose is completely blocked with mucous matter. He would also be somewhat of an embarrassment when you were in a hurry.

"Charles Lamb was once on his way to his office when Coleridge caught him and drew him to a quiet corner in the street. He started a brilliant discourse. Lamb was charmed for five minutes, tolerant at ten, impatient at fifteen, thoroughly fidgetty after twenty and absolutely bewildered and desperate at the end of twenty-five. The biggest trouble was that Coleridge had caught him by one of his coat-buttons and was holding forth on his interminable theme. Lamb was a Government servant and couldn't afford to be late. Already he was behind time. And there was no prospect of interrupting Coleridge and getting away. To attempt it was like trying to get a word in with the Niagara Falls in order to persuade them not to fall so much. So Lamb thought of a novel means of effecting his escape. He whisked out a pen-knife and cut off the button chaining him to Coleridge. Quietly he slipped away, leaving S.T.C. lecturing. An hour and a half later he left his office and was going home for lunch. There, at the quiet corner in the street, Coleridge was still standing, his eye rolling at the sky, his hand grasping the button, his lips spouting his poetic philosophy. Lamb went up to him and stood where he had been ninety minutes earlier and gently tapped his friend on the shoulder. Somehow the trick worked. Coleridge came out of his splendid soliloquy, smiled, looked at the button in his hand, apologised for unintentionally pulling it off Lamb's coat and assured him that he would have it restitched by his efficient wife Sarah. Lamb set his mind at ease,

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turned him round to face the opposite direction and ran off to his lunch."²

What do we find in this narration? The self-oblivious simplicity of the scholar that was Coleridge charms us no doubt and brings an amused smile to our lips. But what gives an exquisite humorous turn to the whole of the narration is the element of deliberate exaggeration introduced in the delineation of S.T.C.'s character. And we have noted in one of our earlier chapters ("Humour: Its devices and technique") that exaggeration often becomes very effective in reinforcing the oddity and the incongruity involved in the humorous situation.

Now let us pass on to the study of two other cases which illustrate in a pure and simple way what is technically called "humour of situation". The interesting point to note in these and similar cases is that the humour arises entirely out of the oddity of the situation itself; it does not depend in any appreciable way either on any verbal devices or on the subtle manipulation of the ideas or even on the character of the persons concerned.

Here are the two illustrations culled from Prof. Stephen Leacock's book Humour and Humanity.

(3) "At a ball one night a lady came to her husband and beckoned him aside and said, 'John, you've managed somehow to rip your trousers at the back of the leg. Come with me and we'll find a quiet room. I've a needle and thread and I can mend them in no time.' They found a quiet room and the husband removed his trousers and stood patiently in his shirt-tail while his wife was mending the trousers. Just then they heard people coming. 'Good Heavens!' said the lady, 'get in behind that cupboard door and I'll stand in front and see that nobody can get by.'

The man dived through the door and his wife held it. A moment later she heard his frantic voice on the other side, 'Let me back, let me back! I'm in the ballroom.' "'

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What we observe here is that the humour in this case does not depend in any way on any special choice of words nor on the peculiar character-trait of any person; it is implicit in the situation itself. And hence it will allow of its narration in a hundred and one ways without for that matter suffering any diminution of the humour involved in it. And this is because the elements constitutive of this humour are woven in the fabric of the situation itself: a sudden juxtaposition of incongruities - the bright publicity of a ballroom and the entire privacy of being in one's shirt-tail; our exultation over the terrible discomfiture of the gentleman concerned. A mistaken notion that the door would offer him access to the secure privacy of a spacious cupboard when in reality it led to the crowded gaze of the ballroom — this is what creates the explosive humorous situation. But the humour is saved only by the fact that the act of diving through the open door did not involve the gentleman in any serious physical hurt although it exposed him to a great amount of discomfiture. Professor Leacock's comments in this connection are worth quoting: "If he opened what he thought was a cupboard door and fell downstairs and broke his neck, that would be very funny to a Pottawattomie Indian, but not to us."⁴

The second example of an unadulterated "humour of situation" centres round what once befell Canon Ainger, a 'reverend gentleman'. The story is as follows - as told.by Prof. Leacock:

(4) "The canon, very fond of children, was invited to a children's party. On his arrival, the servant was about to show him into a room where the buzz of voices indicated company. 'Don't announce me,' said the reverend gentleman. Then, to get the full fun out of his entry, he put himself on all fours, threw his coat tails over his head, pushed the door open and came crawling into the room making a noise like a horse. But hearing no children's laughter, he looked up. Oh ho ho! he had come to the wrong hall. This was a dinner-party!"'

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Here again the humour is not dependent on any special form of wording nor on character; it is embedded in the situation itself. As Prof. Leacock has so aptly described:

"The humour of situation arises out of any set of circumstances that involve discomfiture or disaster of some odd incongruous kind, not connected with the ordinary run of things and not involving sufficient pain or disaster to overweigh the pleasure of contemplating this incongruous distress; or it may arise without any great amount of personal discomfiture when the circumstances themselves are so incongruous as to involve a sort of paradox."⁶

We may now briefly deal with what has been termed "humour of character". We call a particular character "humorous" when he shows some oddity, incongruity or contradiction in his bearing which are not of a very serious nature but, on the contrary, strike us with a sense of pleasantness. Even a man who has the odd habit of keeping on repeating in an immoderate measure some phrase or form of words - 'yes, yes, yes', or 'what's that, what's that?' - becomes for that mannerism somewhat 'funny'.

If we go through the history of literatures of different countries, we come across a procession of remarkable humorous characters created by the great masters of fiction. Some of the more well-known names in this field are: Cervantes's Don Quixote with Sancho Panza beside him, Shakespeare's Falstaff, Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme', Dickens's Mr. Picwick, Daudet's Tartarin of Tarascon, Wode-house's Jeeves, Harry Leon Wilson's Mr. Ruggles, etc.

Here is a small piece illustrating humour of character: it concerns one Mr. Hallam who was inordinately fond of contradicting whatever was reported to him. Sydney Smith, the great humorist, describes Hallam's character-trait in this way (as reported by Prof. Walter Jerrold in his book A Book of Famous Wits):

(5) Someone having begun, 'I think I may assert without fear

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of contradiction,' Sydney Smith broke in with: 'Stop, sir; are you acquainted with Mr. Hallam? ... if Euclid were to enter the room and were to say, "Gentlemen, I suppose no one present doubts the truth of the Forty-fifth proposition of my First Book of Elements," Hallam would immediately say, "Yes, I have my doubts...."

Sydney Smith continued: 'You know, during an influenza epidemic poor Hallam was tossing and tumbling in his bed when the watchman came by and called, "Twelve o'clock and a starlight night." Here was an opportunity for controversy when it seemed most out of the question! Up Hallam jumped, "I question that! Starlight! I see a star, I admit; but I doubt whether that constitutes starlight." Hours more of tossing and tumbling and then comes the watchman again: "Past two o'clock, and a cloudy morning." "I question that, - I question that," says Hallam, and he rushes to the window and throws up the sash - influenza notwithstanding. "Watchman! do you want to call this a cloudy morning? I see a star. And I question it's being past two o'clock - I question it - I question it."⁷

We have spoken of the humour of character as well as of the humour of situation. But for the happiest effects of humorous creation another elusive element is called for, which may be called the 'comic atmosphere'. This sort of atmosphere is produced when the writer places a 'humorous character' in an odd mixed-up 'humorous situation' and looks at the whole thing as if "through an air coloured to a slight rosiness as from the setting of the sun or the veil of ashes of a forest fire."⁸

We conclude: a properly modulated humorous situation involving a humorous character caught in a humorous atmosphere and the whole thing described with all the art of words and verbal technique, produces a work of humour in its fully developed form. And this is no easy task. As Prof. Leacock would put it, "Writing sermons is play beside it."⁹

Sri Aurobindo has been a master in all the fields of humour. Here, too, in this particular domain of humour of narration,

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situation and character-portrayal, his creations are most delectable to a refined taste. We give below a few illustrative examples.

I.Anandrao's character-trait:

(Written by Sri Aurobindo in 1902 when he was thirty years old.)

"... I suppose you have got Anandrao's letter; you ought to value it, for the time he took to write it is, I believe, unequalled in the history of epistolary creation. The writing of it occupied three weeks, fair-copying it another fortnight, writing the address seven days and posting it three days more. You will see from it that there is no need to be anxious about his stomach: it righted itself the moment he got into the train at Deoghur Station. In fact he was quite lively and warlike on the way home. At Jabalpur we were unwise enough not to spread out our bedding on the seats and when we got in again, some upcountry scoundrels had boned Anandrao's berth. After some heated discussion I occupied half of it and put Anandrao on mine. Some Mahomedans, quite inoffensive people, sat at the edge of this, but Anandrao chose to confound them with the intruders and declared war on them. The style of war he adopted was a most characteristically Maratha style. He pretended to go to sleep and began kicking the Mahomedans, in his "sleep" of course, having specially gone to bed with his boots on for the purpose. I had at last to call him off and put him on my half-berth. Here, his legs being the other way, he could not kick; so he spent the night butting the upcountryman with his head; next day he boasted triumphantly to me that he had conquered a foot and half of territory from the intruder by his brilliant plan of campaign. When the Boers rise once more against England, I think we have to send them Anandrao as an useful assistant to Generals Botha and Delarcy."¹⁰

II.Maharaja's character-trait:

(Written as a postscript to the same letter)

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"There is a wonderful story travelling about Baroda, a story straight out of Fairyland, that I have received Rs. 90 promotion. Everybody seems to know all about it except myself. The story goes that a certain officer rejoicing in the name of Damn-you-bhai wanted promotion, so the Maharajah gave him Rs. 50. He then proceeded to remark that as this would give Damn-you-bhai an undue seniority over Mr. Would-you-ah! and Mr. Manoeu(vre) bhai, the said Would-you-ah and Manoeu(vre) bhai must also get Rs. 50 each, and 'as Mr. Ghose has done good work for me, I give him Rs. 90.' The beautiful logical connection of the last bit with what goes before, dragging Mr. Ghose in from nowhere and everywhere, is so like the Maharajah that the story may possibly be true..."¹¹

III. Maulvi Sams-ul-Alam's character-trait:

"Benodebabu was entrusted with taking us to the police station.... It was there that I first came to know the sly detective Maulvi Sams-ul-Alam and had the pleasure of entering with him into a cordial relation. Till then the great Maulvi had not acquired either enough influence or energy, he was not yet the chief researcher in the bomb outrage or functioning as [the Prosecutor] Mr. Norton's prompter and unfailing aide me-moire.... The Maulvi made me listen to a most entertaining sermon on religion. That Hinduism and Islam had the same basic principles: in the Omkara of the Hindus we have the three syllables, A,U,M; the first three letters of the Holy Koran are A,L,M. According to philological laws, U is used for L; ergo, Hindus and Musulmans have the same mantra or sacred syllables.... To be truthful is part of the religious life. The Sahibs say Aurobindo Ghose is the leader of the terrorist party, this is a matter of such shame and sorrow for India. But by keeping to the path of rectitude the situation could yet be saved. The Maulvi was fully convinced that distinguished persons, men of high character, like Bipin Pal and Aurobindo Ghose, whatever they might have done, they would openly confess these.... I [Sri Aurobindo] was charmed and delighted with his knowledge, intelligence and religious fervour. Thinking that it would be

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impertinent to speak much, I listened politely to his priceless sermon and cherished it in my heart. But in spite of so much religious enthusiasm the Maulvi did not give up his profession of a 'tec'. Once he said: 'You made a great mistake in handing over the garden to your younger brother to manufacture bombs. It was not very intelligent on your part.' Understanding the nature of the innuendo I smiled a little, and said: 'Sir, the garden is as much mine as my brother's. Where did you learn that I had given it over to him, or given it to him for the purpose of manufacturing bombs?' A little abashed, the Maulvi answered: "No, no, I was saying in case you have done it.' Then the great-souled Maulvi opened an autobiographical chapter before me, and said, 'All the moral or economic progress I have made in life can be traced back to a sole sufficing moral adage of my father. He would always say, "Never give up an immediate gain." This great word of his is the sacred formula of my life. All this advancement is owing to the fact that I have always remembered that sage advice.' At the time of this pronuncia-mento the Maulvi stared at me so closely that it seemed as though I was his meat and food, which, following the excellent parental advice, he would be loth to give up."¹²

IV. Mr. Norton, the government Counsel:

"The nature of the case was a little strange. Magistrate, counsel, witnesses-, evidence, exhibits, accused, all appeared a little outre. Watching, day after day, the endless stream of witnesses and exhibits, and the counsel's unvaried dramatic performance, the boyish frivolity and the light-heartedness of the youthful magistrate, looking at the amazing spectacle I often thought that instead of sitting in a British Court of Justice we were inside a stage in some world of fiction. Let me describe some of the odd inhabitants of that kingdom.

"The star performer of the show was the government counsel, Mr. Norton. Not only the star performer, but he was also its composer, stage manager and prompter - a versatile genius like him must be rare in the world. Mr. Norton hailed from Madras... I cannot say whether Mr. Norton had been the

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lion of the Madras Corporation, but certainly he was the king among beasts at the Alipore court. It was hard to admire his depth of legal acumen - which was as rare as winter in summer. But in the ceaseless flow of words, and through verbal quips, in the strange ability to transmute inconsequential witness into something serious, in the brashness of making wild statements with little or no ground, in riding roughshod over witnesses and junior barristers and in the charming ability to turn white into black, to see his incomparable genius in action was but to admire him.

"Among the great counsels there are three kinds — those who, through their legal acumen, satisfactory exposition and subtle analysis, can create a favourable impression on the judge; those who can skilfully draw out the truth from the witnesses and by presenting the facts of the case and the subject under discussion draw the mind of the judge and the jury towards themselves; and those who, through their loud speech, by threats and oratorical flow can dumbfound the witness and splendidly confuse the entire issue, and win the case by distracting the intelligence of the judge or the jury. Mr. Norton is foremost in this third category.... If God has not endowed one with other qualities, then one must fight with such qualities as one possesses, and win the case with their help. Thus Mr. Norton was but following the law of his being (svadharma). The government paid him a thousand rupees a day. In case this turned out to be a useless expenditure, the government would be a loser. Mr. Norton was trying heart and soul to prevent such a loss to the government....

"Just as Holinshed and Plutarch had collected the material for Shakespeare's historical plays, in the same manner the police had collected the material for this drama of a case. And Mr. Norton happened to be the Shakespeare of this play. I, however, noticed a difference between Shakespeare and Mr. Norton: Shakespeare would now and then leave out some of the available material, but Mr. Norton never allowed any material, true or false, cogent or irrelevant, from the smallest to the largest, to go unused; on top ,of it he could weave such a

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wonderful plot by his self-created and abundant suggestion, inference and hypothesis that the great poets and writers of fiction like Shakespeare and Defoe would have to acknowledge defeat before this grand master of the art. The critic might say that just as Falstaff's tavern bill showed a pennyworth of bread and countless gallons of wine, similarly in Norton's plot an ounce of proof was mixed with tons of inference and suggestion. But even detractors are bound to praise the elegance and construction of the plot.

"It gave me great happiness that Mr. Norton had chosen me as the protagonist of this play. Like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, in Mr. Norton's plot at the centre of the mighty rebellion stood I, an extraordinarily sharp, intelligent and powerful, bold, bad man! Of the National Movement I was the alpha and the omega, its creator and saviour, indomitably engaged in undermining the British empire. As soon as he came across any piece of excellent or vigorous writing in English he would jump and loudly proclaim, Aurobindo Ghose! All the legal and illegal, the organised activities or unexpected consequences of the movement were the doings of Aurobindo Ghose! And when they are the doings of Aurobindo Ghose then, even when lawfully admissible, they must contain hidden illegal intentions and potentialities.... If my name ever appeared on any torn sheet of paper, Mr. Norton's joy knew no bounds; with great cordiality he would present it at the holy feet of the presiding magistrate. It is a pity I was not born as an Avatar; otherwise, thanks to his intense devotion and ceaseless contemplation of me for the nonce, he would surely have earned his release, mukti, then and there, and both the period of our detention and the government's expenses would have been curtailed. Since the Sessions Court declared me innocent of the charges, Norton's plot was sadly shorn of its glory and elegance. By leaving the Prince of Denmark out of Hamlet the humourless judge, Beachcroft, damaged the greatest poem of the twentieth century.... Norton's other agony was that some of * the witnesses too seemed so cussed that they had wholly refused to bear evidence in keeping with his fabricated plot. At this Norton would grow red with

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fury and, roaring like a lion, he would strike terror in the heart of the witness and cower him down. Like the legitimate and irrepressible anger of a poet when his words are altered, or of a stage manager when the actor's declamation, tone or postures go against his directions, Norton felt a comparable loss of temper...."¹³

V. Mr. Birley, the magistrate:

"If Mr. Norton [the government counsel] was the author of the play, its protagonist and stage manager, Mr. Birley may well be described as its patron. A credit to his Scotch origin, his figure was a symbol or reminder of Scotland. Very fair, quite tall, extremely spare, the little head on the long body seemed like the Ochterlony monument, or as if a ripe cocoanut had been put on the crest of Cleopatra's obelisk! Sandy-haired, all the cold and ice of Scotland seemed to lie frozen on his face. So tall a person needed an intelligence to match, else one had to be sceptical about the economy of nature. But in this matter of the creation of Birley, probably the Creatrix had been slightly unmindful and inattentive. The English poet Marlowe has described this as 'infinite riches in a little room' but encountering Mr. Birley one had an opposite feeling, of little riches in an infinite room. Finding so little intelligence in such a tallish body one indeed felt pity....

Mr. Birley's knowledge of law came a cropper during the cross-examination by the barrister Shrijut Byomkesh Chakra-varty. Asked to declare when he had taken charge of the case in his own benign hands and how to complete the process of taking over charge of a case, after years of magistracy Mr. Birley's head reeled to find these out. Unable to solve the problem he finally tried to save his skin by leaving it to Mr. Chakravarty to decide.

"... From the start, charmed by Mr. Norton's learning and rhetoric, he had been completely under his spell. He would follow, ever so humbly, the road pointed out by the counsel Norton. Agreeing with his views, he laughed when Norton laughed, grew angry as Norton would be angry. Looking at this

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daft, childlike conduct one sometimes felt tenderly and paternally towards him. Birley was exceedingly childlike. I could never think of him as a magistrate, it seemed as if a schoolboy suddenly turned teacher was sitting at the teacher's high desk. That was the manner in which he conducted the affairs of the court. In case someone did not behave pleasantly towards him, he would scold him like a schoolmaster. If any one of us, bored with the farce of a case, started to talk among ourselves, Mr. Birley would snap like a schoolmaster; in case people did not obey he would order everybody to keep standing and if this was not done at once, he would tell the sentry to see to it. We had grown so accustomed to the schoolmasterish manner that when Birley and Chatterjee had started to quarrel we were expecting every moment that the barrister would soon be served with the stand up order.... Just as when a student asks questions or demands further explanation, an irritated teacher threatens him, so whenever the advocate representing the accused raised objections, Mr. Birley would threaten him."¹⁴

VI. About Mr. Norton's cross-examination procedure:

"Some witnesses gave Norton a hell of a time. Norton wanted to prove that a particular piece of writing was in the handwriting of such-and-such accused. If the witness said: 'No, sir, this is not exactly like that handwriting but may be, one cannot be sure' - many witnesses answered like that - Norton would become quite agitated. Scolding, shouting, threatening, he would try somehow to get the desired answer. And his last question would be, 'What is your belief? Do you think it is so or not?' To this the witness could say neither 'yes' nor 'no' every time; again and again, he would repeat the same answer and try to make Norton understand that he had no 'belief in the matter and was swayed by doubt. But Norton did not care for such an answer. Every time he would hurl back the same question, like thunder, at the witness: 'Come, sir, what is your belief?'

"Mr. Birley, the magistrate, in his turn, would catch fire from the embers of Norton's anger, and thunder from his high seat above: ^lTomar biswas ki achhay?'. ['What is your belief?

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What do you think?'] Poor witness! he would be in a dilemma. He had no 'biswas' (belief) at all, yet on one side of him was ranged the magistrate, and, on the other, like a hungry tiger, Norton, the Counsel, was raging in a circle to disembowel him and get at the priceless never-to-be-had ' biswas'\ Often the 'biswas' might not materialise, and, his brain in a whirl, the sweating witness would escape with his life from the torture chamber. Some, who held their life dearer than their 'biswas', would make good their escape by offering an artificial 'biswas' at the feet of Mr. Norton, who, now of course highly pleased, would conduct the rest of the cross-examination with unusual affability.

"Because such a counsel had been matched with a magistrate of the same calibre, the case had all the more taken on the proportions of a play.

"Though a few of the witnesses went against Mr. Norton, the majority provided answers in support of his leading questions. Among these there were few familiar faces. One or two we of course knew; of these Devdas Karan [the editor] helped to dispel our boredom and made us hold our sides with laughter, for which we shall remain eternally grateful to him. In course of giving evidence he said that, at the time of the Midnapore Conference when [the Nationalist leader] Surendra-babu had asked from his students devotion to the teacher, gurubhakti, Aurobindo-babu had spoken out: 'What did Drona do?' Hearing this Mr. Norton's eagerness and curiosity knew no bounds, he must have thought 'Drona' to be a devotee of the bomb or a political killer or someone associated with the Maniktola Garden or the Students' Store. Mr. Norton may have thought that the phrase meant that Aurobindo Ghose was advising the giving of bombs to Surendrababu as a reward instead of gurubhakti. Such an interpretation would have helped the case considerably. Hence he was asking eargerly: 'What did Drona do? What did Drona do?'* At first the witness

* In the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata Drona or Dronacharya is a preceptor of the royal princes. Norton and others, ignorant of the reference, took him to be a contemporary character, in fact a conspirator.

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was unable to make out the nature of the silly question. And for full five minutes a debate went on. In the end throwing up his hands high, Sri Karan told Norton: 'Drona performed many a miracle.' This did not satisfy Mr. Norton. How could he be content without knowing the whereabouts of Drona's bomb? So he asked again: 'What do you mean by that? Tell me what exactly he did.' The witness gave many answers, but in none was Dronacharya's life's secret unravelled as Norton would have liked it.

"He now lost his temper and started to shout. The witness too joined the game. An advocate smilingly expressed the doubt that perhaps the witness did not know what Drona had done. At this Sri Karan went wild with anger and wounded pride. 'What,' he shouted, 'I, I do not know what Drona had done? Bah! Have I read the Mahabharata from cover to cover in vain?'

"For half an hour a battle royal was waged between Norton and Karan over Drona's ghost. Every five minutes, shaking the Alipore judge's court, Norton hurled his question: 'Out with it, Mr. Editor. What did Drona do?' In answer the editor began a cock-and-bull story, but there was no reliable news about what Drona had done. The entire court reverberated with peals of laughter. At last, during tiffin time, Sri Karan came back after a little reflection with a cool head, and he suggested this solution of the problem, that poor Drona had done nothing and that the half-hour long tug of war over his departed soul had been in vain, it was Arjuna who had killed his guru, Drona.

"Thanks to this false accusation, Dronacharya, relieved, must have offered his thanks at Kailasha to Sadashiva, that because of Sri Karan's evidence he did not have to stand in the dock in the Alipore Bomb Conspiracy Case. A word from the editor would have easily established his relationship with Aurobindo Ghose. But the all-merciful Sadashiva had saved him from such a calamity."¹⁵

VII. Identification parade and police witnesses:

"The method for indentification was equally mysterious. First, the witness was told, Would you be able to recognise any

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one of these persons? If the witness answered, Yes, I can, the happy Mr. Norton would arrange for the identification parade in the witness box itself and order him to demonstrate the powers of his memory. In case the man said, I am not sure, maybe I can recognise, Mr. Norton would grow a little sad and say, All right, go and try. When someone said, No, I can't, I haven't seen them or I did not mark carefully, Mr. Norton would not let him go even then. Looking at so many faces some memory of the past life might come back, in that hope he would send him to the experiment to find out. The witness however lacked such a yogic power. Perhaps the fellow had no faith in the past life, and gravely marching, under the sergeant's supervision, between two long rows of accuse*! persons, he would say, without even looking at us, 'No, I don't know any one of them.' Crestfallen, Norton would take back his human net without any catch.

"In course of this trial there was a marvellous illustration of how sharp and correct human memory could be! Thirty to forty people would be kept standing, one didn't know their name, hadn't known them at all in this or any other life, yet whether one had seen or not seen someone two months back, or seen such a person at three places and not seen in the other two; maybe one had seen him brush his teeth once, and so his figure remains imprinted in the brain for all time. When did one see this person, what was he doing, was there anyone else with him, or was he alone? One remembers nothing of these, yet his figure is fixed in one's mind for all times; one has met Hari ten times, so there is no possibility of forgetting him, but even if one has seen Shyam only for half a minute, one would not be able to forget him till one's last breath, and with no possibility of mistake, — such a prodigious power of memory is not to be found frequently in this imperfect human nature, this earth wrapped up in matter and its unconsciousness.

"But not one, not two, every police chap seemed to be the owner of such uncanny, error-proof, accurate memory! Because of which our devotion and respect for the C.I.D. grew more profound day by day. It is not that in the magistrate's court we

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did not have, once or twice, occasions for scepticism. When I found in the written evidence that Sisir Ghose had been in Bombay in the month of April, yet a few police chaps had seen him precisely during that period in Scott's Lane and Harrison Road, one could not but feel a little uneasy. And when Birendrachandra Sen, of Sylhet, while he was physically present at Baniachung, at his father's place, became visible in his subtle body to the occult vision of the C.I.D. at the Garden and Scott's Lane - of which Scott's Lane Birendra knew nothing, as was proved conclusively in the written evidence - the doubts could not but deepen, especially when those who had never set their foot in Scott's Lane were informed that the police had often found them trfcre, in the circumstances a little suspicion seemed not unnatural. A witness from Midnapore - whom the accused persons from Midnapore however described as a secret service agent — said that he had seen Hemchandra Sen of Sylhet, lecturing at Tamluk. Now Hemchandra had never seen Tamluk with his mortal eyes, yet his shadow-self had rushed from Sylhet to Midnapore and, with his powerful and seditionary nationalist speech he had delighted the eyes and ears of our detective monsieur. But the causal body of Charuchandra Roy of Chandernagore, materialising at Maniktola, had perpetrated even greater mysteries. Two police officers declared on oath that on such and such date at such and such time they had seen Charubabu at Shyambazar, from where he had walked, in the company of a conspirator, to the Maniktola Gardens. They had followed him up to that place and watched him from close quarters, and there could be no ground for error. Both witnesses did not budge when cross-examined. The words of Vyasa are true indeed, Vyasasya vacanam satyaml The evidence of the police also cannot be otherwise!... But the surprising thing was that on that day and at that hour on the Howrah station platform he was found talking with the Mayor of Chandernagore, M. Tardivel, his wife, the Governor of Chandernagore and a few other distinguished European gentlemen. Remembering the occasion, they had, all of them, agreed to stand witness in favour of Charubabu. Since the police had to

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release Charubabu at the instance of the French government, the mystery has remained unsolved. But I would advise Charubabu to send all the proofs to the Psychical Research Society and help in the advancement of knowledge. Police evidence, especially the C.I.D.'s, can never be false, hence there is no way out except to seek refuge in Theosophy!"¹⁶

VIII.Manmohan's way of writing poetry:

"I liked Manmohan's poetry well enough but I never thought it to be great. He was a conscientious artist of word and rhyme, almost painfully careful about technique.

"Virgil wrote nine lines every day and spent the whole morning rewriting and rerewriting them out of all recognition. Manmohan did better. He would write five or six half lines and quarter lines and spend the week filling them up. I remember the sacred wonder with which I regarded this process -something like this:

The morn....red.... sleepless eyes

......lilac.................rest

Perhaps I exaggerate but it was very much like that!"¹⁷

IX.Young Sri Aurobindo's picnic adventurel

[This was written by Sri Aurobindo in 1902, when he was thirty years old.]

"... During this time I have been to Ahmedabad with our cricket eleven and watched them get a jolly good beating; which happy result we celebrated by a gorgeous dinner at the refreshment room. I believe the waiters must have thought us a party of famine-stricken labourers, dressed up in stolen clothes, perhaps the spoils of massacred famine officers. There were six of us and they brought us a dozen plentiful courses; we ate them all and asked for more. As for the bread we consumed — well, they brought us at first a huge toast-rack with about 20 large pieces of toast. After three minutes there was nothing left

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except the rack itself; they repeated the allowance with a similar result. Then they gave up the toast as a bad job, and brought in two great plates each with a mountain of bread on it as large as Nandanpahad [the Nandan Hill]. After a short while we were howling for more. This time there was a wild-eyed consultation of waiters and after some minutes they reappeared with large trays of bread carried in both hands. This time they conquered. They do charge high prices at the refreshment rooms but I don't think they got much profit out of us that time.

"Since then I have been once on a picnic to Ajwa with the District Magistrate and Collector of Baroda, the second Judge of the High Court and a still more important and solemn personage...

"A second picnic was afterwards organized in which some dozen rowdies, not to say Hooligans, of our club - the worst among them, I regret to say, was the father of a large family and a trusted officer of H.H. the Maharajah Gaekwar, - went down to Ajwa and behaved in such a manner that it is a wonder we were not arrested and locked up. On the way my horse broke down and so four of us had to get down and walk three miles in the heat. At the first village we met a cart coming back from Ajwa and in spite of the carters' protests, seized it, turned the bullocks round and started them back — of course with ourselves in the cart. The bullocks at first thought they were going to do the journey at their usual comfortable two miles an hour, but we convinced them of their error with the ends of our umbrellas and they ran. I don't believe bullocks have ever run as fast since the world began. The way the cart jolted, was a wonder; I know the internal arrangements of my stomach were turned upside down at least 300 times a minute. When we got to Ajwa we had to wait an hour for dinner; as a result I was again able to eat ten times my usual allowance. As for the behaviour of those trusted pillars of the Baroda Raj at Ajwa, a veil had better be drawn over it; I believe I was the only quiet and decent person in the company. On the way home the carriage in which my part of the company installed itself, was the scene of a remarkable tussle in which three of the occupants and an

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attendant cavalier attempted to bind the driver (the father of the large family aforesaid) with a horse-rope. As we had been ordered to do this by the Collector of Baroda, I thought I might join in the attempt with a safe conscience. Paterfamilias threw the reins to Providence and fought — I will say it to his credit — like a Trojan. He scratched me, he bit one of my coadjutors, in both cases drawing blood, he whipped furiously the horse of the assistant cavalier, and when Madhavrao came to his assitance, he rewarded the benevolent intention by whipping at Madhav-rao's camel! It was not till we reached the village, after a six-miles conflict, and got him out of the carriage that he submitted to the operation. The wonder was that our carriage did not get upset; indeed the mare stopped several times in order to express her entire disgust at the improper and turbulent character of these proceedings. For the greater part of the way home she was brooding indignantly over the memory of it and once her feelings so much overcame her that she tried to upset us over the edge of the road, which would have given us a comfortable little fall of three feet. Fortunately she was relieved by this little demonstration and her temper improved wonderfully after it. Finally last night I helped to kidnap Dr. Cooper, the Health Officer of the State, and make him give us a big dinner at the station with a bottle and a half of sherry to wash it down. The doctor got so merry over the sherry of which he drank at least two thirds himself, that he ordered a special-class dinner for the whole company next Saturday. I don't know what Mrs. Cooper said to him when he got home. All this has had a most beneficial effect upon my health, as the writing of so long a letter shows."¹⁸

The above highly humorous narration was from the pen of a young government officer that Sri Aurobindo was at that time. Now another narration equally humorous though with a profounder ring, from the pen of the Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo who wrote it in 1933 as a reply to his disciple Dilip Kumar in order to assuage the sorrowful feelings of the latter. The story behind this is as follows, as given by Dilip Kumar himself.¹⁹

In those days (in 1933) a musical programme used to be

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held in the Ashram, about once in two months. On one such occasion, as DK was singing a song on Krishna, with Mother sitting before him in samadhi,' a sudden commotion started behind him where the other sadhaks were sitting. It so happened that a senior sadhak of considerable girth, Purushottam by name, got up on a sudden to dance when Ambu, a rather thin but strong youngman, leapt up to restrain the other's indomitable ecstasy, as a result of which there was necessarily a tussle. The musical soiree was thus partially spoiled. This naturally saddened Dilip Kumar who asked Sri Aurobindo in a letter if he (DK) had been responsible in any way for the undesirable happening, for, who knows, perhaps he had simulated a bhakti towards Krishna, which was not really there in his heart! Sri Aurobindo, in reply, sent to Dilip the following letter of consolation:

X. Sri Aurobindo's humour on Ambu-Purushottam row.

"There was no misdirection of your appeal to Krishna; if there was anybody responsible it was Anilkumar with his Tabla [Indian drum]. But there was nothing wrong and no possession in the evil sense of the word - nothing hostile. The beat of the Tabla - more than anything else - created a vibration which was caught hold of by some rhythmic material energy and that in turn was caught hold of by Purushottam's body which considered itself under a compulsion to execute the rhythm by a dance. There is the whole (occult) science and genesis of the affair.

"Purushottam thought he was inspired and in a trance; Ambu thought Purushottam was going to break his own head and other people's legs; a number of others thought Purushottam was going cracked or already cracked; some thought Purushottam was killing Ambu which Ambu contemptuously rejects, saying he was able to hold Purushottam all alone, and out of these conflicting mental judgments - if they can be called so - arose the whole row. A greater quietude in people's minds would have allowed the incident to be 'liquidated' in a less uproarious fashion... That is all."²⁰

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Here ends the chapter on Sri Aurobindo's humour of situation and character.

REFERENCES

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

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