The letters reveal Nirod's unique relationship with his guru. The exchanges are suffused with a special humour.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Nirodbaran's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began in February 1933 and continued till November 1938, when Sri Aurobindo injured his leg and Nirod became one of his attendants. The entire correspondence, which was carried on in three separate notebooks according to topics - private, medical, and literary - is presented in chronological order, revealing the unique relationship Nirod enjoyed with his guru, replete with free and frank exchanges and liberal doses of humour. Covering a wide range of topics, both serious and light-hearted, these letters reveal the infinite care Sri Aurobindo devoted to the spiritual development of his disciple.
THEME/S
"Sitting alone under the shade of the tree Wrapt in a hushed profundity of night..."
A tree gives shade in the day—here it is night when all is shade Please change.
I was struck by R's sonnet! By Jove, looks like a sheer genii—I mean genius, what?
Perhaps both—genii producing genius.
[The following question was put by J:]
What is the best way to get to the source of epic poetry and have it securely established?
One has to grow into it—there is no other way. Once the epic inspiration has opened, this growth is possible and, if the inspiration is sustained, fairly certain.
Arjava has fever again. He thinks it is due to indigestion. I hear that he takes some syrup cocoa sanctioned and sent by Mother. When I asked him about his diet, he didn't mention it. Too much sugar won't do, I think, as already he can't even digest D.R. vegetables.
There is no sugar put in—the sweetness is that of concentrated cocoa. Mother told him he could take it thrice a day; but it is possible he takes too much of the syrup at a time. The usual rule is to take a little syrup with much water. He is exhausting a bottle in 4 days which is immensely rapid. Certainly too much sweet syrup may not be good for the damaged liver.
June 1, 1937
Yesterday I had a dream of a very beautiful plump boy—Amal's golden child155—who came with tenderness and affection to my side. But he was a lost child whose mother was searching for him, then she found him. I had a very pleasant feeling. Anything in this?
Your higher being, I suppose. Glad you have found him, if only as yet in a dream.
Why don't you give me some experience, Sir? Afraid of breaking my head?
All in good time, I hope.
June 2, 1937
How is it, Sir, you had no remarks at all for my poor poem? No lines156 either!
Probably was too much in a hurry for remarks or linings.
What about today's poem?
Quite up to the mark.
I am surprised to hear that the beautiful child in my dream, was my higher being. Why did he go away with his mother if he is my being?
He has no other mother than the Mother, so if the Mother accepts him, what is there to lament over?
... Could you be a little more generous in your explanation so that I may put in some more vigour to find him in reality? And why does it make you glad simply because I have found him in my dream?
What is once found in the inner being is likely to be found in the outer consciousness—that is why.
June 3, 1937
[Question by J:] P says that he is going to write an article on "the only vernacular epic", Tulsi Ramayan in Hindi. But Meghnadbodh is an epic too in a vernacular. How can he say then that Tulsi Ramayan is the only one? Won't it be wrong to write like that publicly?
Of course, it is a wrong idea. There is not only Meghnadbodh but Kamban's Ramayan in Tamil—But I suppose P knows neither Bengali nor Tamil.
I don't know the cause of Y's sudden diarrhoea. He took something at Mrs. S's place, or D.R. mango?
Perhaps. I don't know. He speaks only of oranges as diet after attack, but he wrote some days ago about [...]157 things. He is asking for green cocoanuts two a day. Mother says green cocoanuts can have a laxative, even a purgative effect. What do you say?
This morning, at 4.30 a.m., while returning after urination, K fell down unconscious with froth at the corner of the mouth. At 6.30, he was complaining of terrible frontal headache... He says he concentrated in bed for 20 minutes, before going for urination, quite conscious throughout. He remembers nothing about the fall nor my visit to him, but he answered all my questions quite well.
There is nothing wrong in the system. We must eliminate the possibility of the Force as a cause, since he was consciously meditating, he says, before getting up. I have heard of A falling down once while meditating in standing position.
No previous history of epilepsy.
[No reply.]
June 4, 1937
Strange that you didn't write a word on K! I wanted you to clear out the possibility of the Force as a cause...
Bunkum about Force. Obviously if a man goes into trance while standing or walking, he may fall down,—Ramakrishna had often to be held up when he went off suddenly while standing. But it doesn't produce results like that. I don't believe he is such a mighty sadhak as to go off into nirvikalpa samadhi158 for several hours. Moreover it does not give froth at the lips.
Since I've got no instruction, I suppose he has to get the stools and physical examination done independently?
I think so.
About epilepsy, I am not quite sure, for it usually doesn't occur at his age.
Quite so. If he is sure that nothing happened like this before, it can't be epilepsy.
June 5, 1937
"Bury these quivering clay's repeated cries In the dumb earth's eternal grave of sighs."
Shall I make it "clay's repeated wave" and bring "grave" at the end of the last line?
Eh! how can there be a wave of clay? I have put pit instead of grave—I am damned if I know what it means, but it sounds awfully fine.
K is all right today. Another examination tomorrow.
It turns out that his statement is a lie as I thought—he has had these fits before.
J has eczema on fingers and legs. Oil and sunbath not very effective. She finds that ice application gives much relief when there is itching. But I don't know really if ice can cure eczema.
Sahana cured her skin with ice, but it was perhaps not eczema.
I thought for eczema the less the water the better it is.
I cured mine with force + very hot water, but I don't recommend it to others.
Will you kindly ask Mother? Last time J was cured by constant and persistent sunbath + oil. This time?
Mother says she knows only sunbath.
We think A's illness is chronic mucous colitis... What do you say to screen-examination, and X-ray, if necessary?
If you like.
June 6, 1937
"This gentle breeze free from all petty cares And fragrant peace of the blue-hearted noon ..." It is rather funny, no? Breeze free from all cares!
Care worried breezes are gentlemen we don't know—on earth at least.
And breeze rather than the peace should be fragrant, no?
Why the devil should any fragrance of the breeze prevent peace from being fragrant too?
"With a tranced petal of the pale-white moon Are a vast breath of God that with us shares."
What does the breath of God share with us? our meals?
Instead of saying "... that with us he shares", I have dropped "he" in order to be more English.
How does the absence of a personal pronoun make something more English?
The couplet seems flat. What do you say?
Flat! the rhythm is like that of a carriage jolting on a road full of ruts.
I hear Mother kept silent about blood-exam for K?
Why should Mother object? They can do what they think necessary.
June 7, 1937
Can there be fear and anger at the same time?
Fear and anger very often go together. Evidently you have not studied cats fighting ...
Do you think I have a lyrical hand in English poetry or does my gift seem to be more in grave things?
You have acquired the latter better up to now because you have put more practice into it and found your way.
June 9, 1937
I will try lyrics, whatever may happen, what?
All right.
Why do I find your "Songs to Myrtilla" so difficult?
It is a mystery.
I don't understand a single poem there. The English there seems awfully difficult.
Nonsense. There is nothing difficult about it—it is plain ordinary English.
June 10, 1937
I forward X's letter. He supports in this letter, very strongly, his belief in human affections. Y came to me just now and recounted her discussion with X on the subject, and her having lost all faith in human love and affections, as a result of her past experiences. Is Y far wrong?
Obviously not. On X's own argument, if his experience justifies him in believing in human affection, Y's justifies her in not believing in it.
... One can't say that there is no truth at all in human feelings and sentiments.
There is a "truth" in everything, the question is what kind of truth and how much of it.
I don't know what you have written to X about it; he says that he has your support.
I don't think I wrote anything about that. It was about his power to persuade others and also about his helping a certain person in her illness by prayer.
... The fact is that wherever he has gone, the Goddess of Love has, as if, enjoined all to pour love upon him; so he is a confirmed believer in these things.
What is the fact is that he has vital attractiveness of a magnetic character and naturally159 it works in people when he wants it to do so.
By his charm and personality, atheists seem to have become theists, materialists inclined to Yoga, favourable towards Pondicherry, etc., etc.
It is to be seen how far that goes.
Well then, there is an element of truth in affection...
I don't believe it was the affection that did it. It is the dominating vital force in X. People who were not affectionate by nature, have attached people to them and dominated their minds and lives—e.g. Napoleon.
He also says that he has been betrayed often by friends and suffered much. Is it then his robust optimism that upholds him?
It is a difference of temperament and vital expansiveness.
My questions are: why doesn't he remain content with these affections? Why does he intend to come here for Yoga?
That is another X.
... If human affections were everything or occupy such a big place in life, why did Buddha and Ramakrishna leave the world? How does Sri Aurobindo leave everything? How do patriots die unknown, unnamed, for their country?
Because they can look beyond their small self to a bigger self or to the Self of All...
Please give a satisfactory reply to all these questions.
I am not going to perorate on this problem but I shall write something brief if you send the book again.
June 11, 1937
Guru, why won't you perorate? Fear of publicity?
No, Sir. Subject too old and thin.
Do you think X's affection for me is genuine? I hear that he has spoken very highly of me to others.
Perhaps he feels like that when he writes or when he gets a letter from you; perhaps something in him has got that feeling there always, expressed or latent in a corner. At the same time he used to write to me long lamentations in the desert saying he couldn't stay here because he had no friends in the Asram.
Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much based upon selfishness and desire; it is a flame of the ego sometimes turbid and murky, sometimes more clear and brightly coloured—sometimes tamasic based on instinct and habit, sometimes rajasic and fed by passion or the cry for vital interchange, sometimes more sattwic and trying to be or look to itself distinterested. But fundamentally it depends on a personal need or a return of some kind inward or outward and when the need is not satisfied or the return ceases or is not given, it most often diminishes or dies or exists only as a tepid or troubled remnant of habit from the past or else turns for satisfaction elsewhere. The more intense it is, the more it is apt to be troubled by tumults, clashes, quarrels, egoistic disturbances of all kinds, selfishness, exactions, lapses even to rage and hatred, ruptures. It is not that these affections cannot last—tamasic instinctive affections last because of habit in spite of everything dividing the persons, e.g. certain family affections; rajasic affections can last sometimes in spite of all disturbances and incompatibilities and furious ruptures because one has a vital need of the other and clings because of that or because both have that need and are constantly separating to return and returning to separate or proceeding from quarrel to reconciliation and from reconciliation to quarrel; sattwic affections last very often from duty to the ideal or with some other support though they may lose their keenness, spontaneity or brightness. But the true reliability is there only when the psychic element in human affection becomes strong enough to colour or dominate the rest. For that reason friendship is usually or rather can oftenest be the most durable of the human affections because there there is less interference of the vital and, even though a flame of the ego, it can be a quiet and pure fire giving always its warmth and light. Nevertheless reliable friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving, unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely taken as an illusion—the enthusiasm of a triumphant return and his own habit of exaggeration, for he seems to take easily social kindness for friendship, is probably responsible for X's; probably if he remained three years in Calcutta, he might change his tone in spite of his immense capacity for attracting people. In any case human affection whatever its value has its place, because through it the psychic being gets the emotional experiences it needs until it is ready to prefer the true to the apparent, the perfect to the imperfect, the divine to the human. As the consciousness has to rise to the higher level, so the activities of the heart also have to rise to that higher level and change their basis and character. Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation—to seek the Divine first leaving other things aside or to seek the Divine alone is the straight road towards that change. That means no attachment—it need not mean turning affection into disaffection or chill indifference. But X seems to want to take his vital emotions just as they are—tels quels—into the Divine—let him try and don't bother him with criticisms and lectures; if it can't be done, he will have to find it out himself. Or perhaps he wants to clap on the Divine to the rest as a crowning ornament—shikhara160—to his pyramid of loves and affections. In that case—
Good Lord! I have perorated after all.
I wrote these three funny stanzas last night in a somnolent consciousness. I don't find any head or tail anywhere.
There is not any head distinguishable, about tail I don't know.
If the stars are of melody, why the deuce should one weep?
Stars of melody means opera singers, who can I suppose weep. Melodies can also be sorrowful. But if it is real stars you mean, I don't see why they should weep.
Should it be stars of misery?
Certainly not, the phrase has no meaning.
The last stanza seems too surrealistic. What?
Well, well—there is a rather mystifying and alluring incoherence—Still—
Why the devil am I having so much difficulty in writing? And so much sleep too? The English stream is drying up or the lyrical attempt bringing the pain of labour?
Probably. It is besides I think the melancholy JaCques in your imagination who is interfering. Perhaps the higher Inspiration wants to find a lyrical form and he cuts in with the sorrowful strains of the past—wrinkles on a smooth face, you know. So the stars can't manage their melody.
June 12, 1937
Guru, do you find anything in this poem?
Very fine lyric—This time you have hit the bull's eye. I have altered only a few phrases that were weak.
"Wandering on the wild seas of thought" won't do perhaps?
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, is a piece of highway robbery—you might just as well write "To be or not to be that is the question" and call it yours.
Please read Surawardy's poems and give your opinion on the one about the "old man's" tears. Amal says that he is under Yeats' influence.
Am obliged to postpone these tears—mine as well as the old man's.
At places his poetry is very fine. If only he had left out the melancholic old man's tears it would have perhaps sounded better, what?
Evidently—the old man's tears and the young woman's tennis.
[Regarding J's narrative:] This whole part seems very poetic, but can poetry come in narrative poems?
Do you mean to say that the rest of the poem is prose or mere verse? Poetry does not consist only in images or fine phrases. When Homer writes simply "Sing, Goddess, the baleful wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which laid a thousand woes on the Achaeans and hurled many strong souls of heroes down to Hades and made their bodies a prey for dogs and all the birds; and the will of Zeus was accomplished", he is writing in the highest style of poetry.
June 13, 1937
Guru, here is the tail of the poem I had begun. I am afraid the typing is as pale as the moon's eye and the tail as mistily mystifying as the head! What?
Agree.
I hope you get the link throughout. Is it poetic?
Very. Don't know what it all means, but meaning is superfluous in such poems. The more mystifying the better.
"Voyaging through strange seas of Thought"—highway robbery? Shakespeare's or Sri Aurobindo's?
Wordsworth—one of his best known lines.
Medical report—nothing—all old cases.
A wants a tonic for his debility, Kaviraji if possible. Duraiswam has suggested to him "Chyavanpras". Well?
June 14, 1937
Are some of the lines in today's poem too long for a lyric?
It does not depend on the length of lines but on whether the rhythm sings or not. If it talks instead of singing, then the rhythm is not lyrical.
Had any time for the old man's tears and the young woman's tennis?
No.
[A's case.] For debility, I know little about Chyavanprash. Rajangam, Dr. Becharlal and books say that it is a marvellous remedy for debility etc. So, I suppose, we can get some from Madras when Doraiswamy goes.
Very well.
Is he still consuming the same amount of syrup cocoa?...
He says he has reduced the quantity.
June 15, 1937
You are surely surprised, staggered at the long ethereal lyric I've sent you!
Staggered is not the word for it. What on earth have you done?
See, Sir, I sat down to write and it came. I feel it is a good fish.
Fish or fishy?
I have caught, though I'm not sure whether it is a sprat, trout or a salmon, which?
A sprat, sir, a sprat and a weird one at that.
"Hush, tread softly like a bride, See, the night is dreaming."
Good! God!
"Between the shadows of her curved lips A white smile is brimming."
Christ! Woogh!
"Oh, what angels have come to kiss Her virgin face. What rapture thrills her soul With diamond rays!"
Holy Virgin!
"Do not wake her, let her sleep Through the desert-day."
Who? Night? Where on earth is she sleeping?
A bit of philosophy and metaphysics has spoilt the poem intended to be a fine piece of poetry, no?
My dear sir, what possessed you to write in this vein of the most tender and infantile Victorian sentimentalism in this year of the Lord 1937? And who or what on earth are you writing about? Night sleeping? What's the idea? It sounds as if it were the sleep of Little Nell (Dickens).
"Between the crescent tender lips..." [Sri Aurobindo underlined "tender".]
Woogh! Night's lips are tender?
Please try to restore it to its deserving beauty.
I am afraid I can do nothing unless you shed some light on what you can possibly mean. At present I am at sea.
A rather funny idea, no?
Very funny.
Can Night sleep through desert-day?
Never heard of her behaving in this way before.
It will take 3 or 4 days to get Chyavanprash from Madras. Meanwhile A can take Kola, if he wants.
June 16, 1937
Sir, I have shoved the poem back to its own century! But that's what comes of hooking! Where does your theory of hooking go?
It depends on what you hook on to.
I suppose you will put in a corollary now: How the devil am I to shed any light when I don't know myself what I'm writing?
I always did. I never said that whatever you hook on to, the result will be the same. You have hooked on to two things at a time—one which is Victorian, sentimental, melancholy, tragic-pessimistic and thin in its language, images, emotional tone—the other which is from above, full, coloured, packed with suggestion and significance. The first was in you already, I think—the other has come with the upward opening. In today's poem both are there, but neither at its best or worst. In stanzas 4, 5, 6 the second comes out strongly, in the last two the first comes out. I have had therefore to reconstruct these last two which were out of harmony with what went before in their tone.
I took the night as a lady who after long travails and seeking arrives at the peace of the Infinite and enjoys the fruit. Is it impossible to symbolise the night or day like that?
The figure of the lady was terribly small and sentimental, much too domestically human for a power like Night.
[Question put by J:]
I chose this story for trying out the epic style:
Krishna-Gautami whose only son died, prayed to Buddha to give his life back. Later she became a disciple of Buddha ... I feel almost no impulse to write ... I doubt if the subject is a fit one for trying the epic style.
... As for the fitness of the subject, it depends on how you treat it. The epic tone can be used very well for it, but it must not be pitched too high, as if one were speaking of Gods and Rishis and great heroes as in Homer and Virgil or in Meghnadbodh or similar poems, so the river swelling in echo161 of the lamentation of one who is an ordinary woman is out of place. The possibility of epic treatment lies in the subject, the universality of death and grief, the calm high wisdom of Buddha etc.
A called me up in the afternoon. Fever! said no liver trouble...
Mother thinks he would like to have his blood examined at the hospital and on the occasion, a consultation with Valle. She sounded him and he seemed to smile at the suggestion. Anyhow you can speak about it to him.
June 17, 1937
I sounded A. He says he could wait and see how the new drug is going to act. But what's this blood-examination for? One examines blood for malaria, anaemia and syphilis...
The blood examination is A's own suggestion. He says his uncle died of pernicious anaemia and how can we know that he is not suffering from pernicious anaemia without a blood examination? It is no use discussing the matter scientifically. If you don't want him to die of pernicious anaemia like his uncle or of the imagination of it, the safest course is to have his blood examined and satisfy him that he has not got it—then he may consent to live. Our own idea is the consultation with Valle, for which we have a yet unspoken reason—we will see. If not anaemia pernicious or otherwise, he has got hypercholericitis.162 Nothing to do with cholera, by the way.
I was rather surprised to hear that Amal has given Dover's powder capsule to L. It contains, as you know, opium, and to give opium without knowing much about it is rather risky.
L had told Mother Amal wanted to give her something which was not a medicine! Dover's powder is not a medicine?
I would like to have two short-sleeved shirts for operation purpose.
Yes. Ask Romen to do them.
The word "bright" has been repeated. I suppose I could have improved the poem.
Bright, birds, clouds and now the infinite (by my fault) are repeated. Hang it all, sir, let them repeat to their heart's content.
Do you think this recent sentimentality could be due to Harin's influence?
I am reading his lyrics at present, so an unconscious imitation of his style?
I don't know. Harin's sentimentality is of a different kind.
June 18, 1937
A has again pain in the joints, and fever. Shall we then call Valle without waiting for the effect of the new drug? There is no harm in calling him, I suppose.
A attributes the whole thing to climate and spoke also of his increasing irascibility (which is a fact). You might discreetly find out from Valle if he thinks it is due to climate.
June 19, 1937
No answer to the last portion? ["There is no harm in calling Valle, I suppose."]
Forgot.
There is no harm. Of course you will ask A first.
No news of A today. What's that word plese—"spoke also of his increasing—"?
"irascibility"—due to liver, he says.
June 20, 1937
In this poem a pale moonlit night appears mist-laden, and leaves seem to smile...
Well you have sharp eyes to see the leaves smile through a mist-laden night.
I have made the leaves quiver, if you won't quiver at it.
I read it without a quiver.
Don't see the link of the first line with what follows... Instead of "weary traveller" it could as well be "weary sheep", I suppose! "I wait and wait like a weary tramp."
Sheep!!! why not "cat" at once? "I wait and wait like a weary cat" would be very fine and original.
As it is, the poem doesn't seem to say much, does it? God knows what to write next.
If God knows it is all right. Evidently he knows what he is doing.
It's a dream which is nothing extraordinary.
Evidently you don't know when you are inspired.
What kind of poetry am I writing now? Very funny surrealism!
There is nothing surrealist nor funny.
And funnier still that I should write these poems—a logical, medical, practical man, what?
That is your idea of yourself? Queer.
June 21, 1937
How did you enjoy the mangoes, Sir?
Can't say, as I don't get them till tomorrow.
Mother didn't take them, I suppose.
No; she only tastes sometimes.
I hear Mother doesn't like mangoes at all.
It is not a question of liking.
Yesterday I thought K had T.B. or pneumonia. But where are they now? In one night everything over!
Shobhanallah! With your diagnosis one would have expected him to be already in Paradise.
He had sudden severe pain in the chest, cough, and blood in sputum, with a rise of temperature. On the previous day he had cold and exhausted himself in a long sea-bath. So all this gone overnight. Was it just overexhaustion or Force did it?
Of course, I put a Force.
June 22, 1937
As for K, no, Sir, not in Paradise but in hell of agony, suffering, fever, brown [red] hepatisation, grey hepatisation etc., etc. (nothing to do with liver, though).
What on earth is this hepatisation? Where? Lungs? pneumonic? What etc.? Kindly be less cryptic.
We have got "Chyavanprash" for A. But, they say, it is specially meant for lung diseases, but it is also a renowned tissue builder... All cold producing things, e.g. cold water, curds, lime, fruits, cocoanuts must be avoided.
I don't understand how a medicine for the lungs can be used in his case. He doesn't need tissues either; but nervous energy.
June 23, 1937
Rajangam says that Chyavanprash is indicated for everything—a panacea. So can we fire?
Yes, if it can be done without stopping his eating cold water etc. and confining himself to pickles and cayenne pepper.
K—Well, red and grey hepatisation are parts of morbid anatomy. When there is pneumonia, the lungs undergo pathological changes from red to grey and get the solid appearance of liver. So the stages are called red and grey hepatisation. Nothing alarming, you see!
But hang it all! Has he pneumonia or not? Is there fever now? Alarming or not, what is his present condition?
Black despair has swallowed me up to the neck, except for the hand with which I write! As regards sadhana, I don't find any rosy tint anywhere. All clouded, clouded and shrouded. As regards poetry, same, if not more. Have devoted myself to a task utterly impossible and wholly useless—a foolish attempt.
Whoosh! Anyhow, as regards your poetry, it doesn't seem to me there is any ground for any indulgence in this black luxury.
June 24, 1937
I told you long ago that K is hale and hearty and that was the miracle: no fever, nothing at all. You said that according to our diagnosis you expected him to be in Paradise; I said no, not so early, but in a hell of suffering etc.; that's all. That grey hepatisation troubled you, eh?
Naturally, if you say that a fellow who is supposed to be hale and hearty, is brown and grey with a mysterious hepatisation and suffering a hell of agony and not yet in Paradise!
... Please help me to a higher consciousness. Where is the higher Being that I had met with? I seem to have lost everything.
Everything once gained is there and can be regained. Yoga is not a thing that goes by one decisive rush one way or the other—it is a building up of a new consciousness and is full of ups and downs. But if one keeps to it the ups have a habit of resulting by accumulation in a decisive change—therefore the one thing to do is to keep at it. After a fall don't wail and say I'm done for, but get up, dust yourself and proceed farther on the right path.
June 25, 1937
There is hardly any improvement in J's eczema. What's to be done? I can't try anything else. Kindly ask Mother.
The medicine is practically exhausted—so you will have to find another—we don't know of any that is effective. Eczema is a thing that comes and goes and comes again.
Why is it taking such a long time?
She writes that she has always had it owing to the peculiarity of her skin—insufficient secretion—some gland responsible. If so—
Can't you give her a big dose?
If it is constitutional, a big dose will not be sufficient—it is only by a prolonged action that it could cease altogether.
Deviprasad has an enlarged gland below the jaw. He has been having it for a long time. Looks like a T.B. gland.
!![Sri Aurobindo put 2 exclamation marks.]
This poem is absolute hooking, Sir! As great poetry usually does, you know, the whole thing simply came down, so it must be a genuinely great creation, what?
Come down it did! As for the great creation, well—
Jatin Bal wants to know the last date for permission; is there such a date?
Can a tentative permission be given?
Yes.
If no rooms are available, can he share my room?
I suppose so, if it is large enough for two.
June 26, 1937
Yes, about J's gland secretion it is true. Almost every doctor in England attributed her skin condition to lack of gland secretion and almost all said it was thyroid, so they prescribed thyroid pills. And her eczema also is chronic, due to the skin.
But deficiency of thyroid gland does not make people fat? J is not fat. It was thyroid gland medicine which turned T into a lifelong skeleton.
Should thyroids be given internally?
I have no idea what are the effects of these pills. These gland medicines seem to be rather risky—only if you are sure.
Can't interpret your exclamations about Deviprasad! What do you say to cod-liver oil?
He is already oily and greasy enough.
Here is another masterpieces163—hooking on again, and seems a colossal sample of incoherent utterances. Please try to bring it to a Grecian perfection. And if you succeed in the task kindly illumine me.
I have succeeded. Hooked on again and you must admit that every thing is now coherent, cogent and masterly!!!
"A solitary pilgrimage of the Soul Rising from dark tombs of death Whence began all conscious throbs of life And end in one ultimate Breath."
Is the construction O.K.?
I don't know what you mean by "Whence". Do you mean that it is from the tomb of death life comes and ends there in the ultimate breath? That is what the construction would mean. But trusting to the capital B I have changed to "To whence".
How do you find the masterpiece?
Superb, after my dealings with it.
Amal appreciated yesterday's poem164 very much. He says that it has become a very fine poem. Agree?
Of course, very fine indeed.
June 27, 1937
J is not fat, but she seems to think so. People say she is in Tulsi's group which has naturally alarmed her. And she is thinking of dieting: cutting down rice, bread, etc. What do you say to that?
That seems to me nonsense—in any case cutting down food is not advisable.
S came today with a sad and determined face and said that he could not sleep at all, too much pain. Twice you kept silent over his treatment. Silent again?
How can I prescribe? It is your business.
I admit, Sir, that yesterday's poem is damned masterly and superbly beautiful. Only if I could be the master! I ask myself "How much of it is yours? Well, since nothing is yours, why shed tears?"
Can't say that nothing is yours.
Do you think hooking like this will continue or a time will come when everything will be a finished product?
Certainly, you have sometimes had it; but still usually there is the mixture of an old poetic mind and your own romantic sentimentalism helping it. That luxury has got to go, so that the inspiration from a higher source may come out clear.
"The moon's pale songs ringing in the dark Are its own mystery-voice ..."
Can songs be pale?
May, but moon's songs are rather toffee.
Have you brushed aside Surawardy's poems?
No, I have combed them only. I send you the results. A few lines are extremely fine, others are very good, others give a fine poetic turn. But he lapses from all that to a modernist rhythmlessness and triviality to which I cannot get accustomed. Anyway—fashion is fashion and the Time spirit has its tricks,—so I leave it there.
June 28, 1937
Yesterday what did you write, Sir—Moon's songs are rather "toffee"? Toffee! Gracious! Bonbon?
Yes, too sweety-sweety.
June 29, 1937
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