Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

March 1938

Here is N's letter. I don't like his tone at all.

Neither do I.

He asks, "Won't Sri Aurobindo see my poems even after 5 or 6 days?"

Can't promise anything.

Have you any answer to give to his letter?

No.

March 4, 1938

"Nature is apparelled with a poise
Like the wings of a drowsy bird..."

Sir, if you walk through Pondicherry apparelled only with a poise, the police would arrest you at once. What would happen to Nature if she tried a similar eccentricity, I don't know.

March 5, 1938

O dear, dear, what have you done, Sir? Havoc, indeed! You couldn't get the trochaic rhythm in yesterday's poem?¹⁸⁶

My God, that was intended for trochaic? You are sure it was not anapaestic or dactylic or all three together + iambic? That would be a more accurate description of it. I couldn't make out what metre was intended so I reduced all to a single one, octosyllabics.

"Incense-woven words thy heaven-reveried."

Words can be woven with incense?

They may be but can't be woven by incense, but what the deuce is the construction of this line? and the meaning?

Woven-incense words and heaven-reveried.

March 6, 1938

[The poem of 6.3.38.] Why, the construction is quite clear; you can take "words" referring to prayer, if you refer "it" to seed, it can be made "word". What do you say? And words are "heaven-reveried", of course. Not clear? But "woven-incense words" don't get me.

Incense-woven words (or word) thy heaven-reveried—has absolutely no coherence, meaning or syntax, in English at least. In German, Sanskrit or Japanese it might perhaps do. The reference of words is quite clear, but that does not save the Bedlamic syntax. "Woven-incense" words is a Hopkinsian compound—that and my alteration of "thy" to "and" gives the line a clear and poetic sense, and it is the best I can do with it. Otherwise the whole will have to be changed. If you dislike Hopkinsese (though your line is ultra-H), you can do it in straightforward English "Words like woven incense heaven-reveried."

NK's poem? Please see if you can manage it so that I can write at least that you have seen it, what?

Nishikanta later on. Have done too much for one night.

[Chand's wire:] "Why silent great struggle protection." Guru, I don't know why he says "silent". I have sent the Darshan blessings on 23rd or 24th which he must have received.

But you have not given him protection.

Reddy's relative has got urticarial rashes all over the body. André asks us to wait and see.

[The Mother underlined "urticarial rashes".]

[Mother:] Is it not that she has been given too strong medicines?

Benjamin wants onions also in the vegetables. As you don't favour onions, I hesitate.

[Mother:] You can give him.

March 7, 1938

"In my soul's still moments you bring
A rapture from the vast untrod
Spheres of Light through slumbering
Arches of misty groves..."

Why "misty"? and why is the rapture brought through groves? A woodland promenade? I think both the mist and the groves ought to disappear.

"The scented air your gold locks leave
Haunts like a heavenly piece of art."

Doesn't it suggest that she was using a fragrant hair-oil?

Plenty of romanticism and incoherence and outburst, perhaps.

R and I are there in plenty, but O is not in evidence.

Should the word "frost" go?

No, it might be left to freeze.

Is this fellow Hopkins or Hopkensise? Whoever he may be. I am for the new stuff so I keep your "woven-incense".

Hopkinsese is the language of Hopkins—quite a famous poet now in spite of your not having heard of him—a fore-runner of present day poetry. He tried to do new things with the English language. A Catholic poet like Francis Thompson.

What's Bedlamic, please? Never heard of him, I'm sure!

Bedlam is or was the principal lunatic asylum in England. You have never heard the expression "Bedlam let loose" etc.? Bedlamic syntax = rollickingly mad syntax.

Guru,

Dilipda requests me, as you will see, to type this letter [Dilip's letter written to Sri Aurobindo, from Allahabad], for your facility. I will certainly type it out, if required. Kindly send ii in the afternoon. I have helped you here and there—in pencil. Surely the Supramental is a greater decipherer than the inframental, what?

Read—very interesting.

March 8, 1938

You said that I have found myself in English poetry [13.9.37].

Now it seems I have lost myself, what?

You are flopping about a bit, but not lost.

March 9, 1938

"The rich sun-mirrored fuming blood
Running through choked earth-laden pores."

What's this bloody fuming phenomenon? Won't do at all. Pores too! It suggests a bloody sweat like Charles IX's (of France).

Is the construction all right?

No, can't make out head or tail of the beast.

March 10, 1938

Guru, you must admit that I have hit this time, what?

Bull's eye!

André has prescribed some medicine for S's suspected enlargement of thyroid gland. I send you the prescription.

[Mother:] Considering S's character I do not think it is quite safe to try this medicine.

March 11, 1938

"O symbols of His jewelled reverie
Burn myriad-hued
On my diamond altar a prophecy
Of His solitude."

You shift the accent on "prophecy"?

I don't see how shifting the accent on prophecy (quite impossible) would make it better. There would be no rhyme as écy can't rhyme with rie, but only with "greasy" or "fleecy" and the whole thing would sound like an Italian talking English. I take "altar a" as a dactyl—a light dactyl can sometimes replace a trochee.

March 14, 1938

Today I missed meditation as the boy whom we operated upon for tonsil stopped breathing; after half an hour's struggle, we succeeded in restoring the pulse. I wish I could know if you had heard my call so that in the future I may call with greater faith.

[Mother:] Forgot to tell you yesterday that I heard your call all right.

March 15, 1938

"Shine on their path O star-hearted Dawn
With your gold-crested sun
The quest of dumb centuries burn upon
Their dim flame-pinion."
This stanza is no good, I think.

The first two lines are all right, the last two not. It is a devil of a job to get a true rhyme for dawn! and a true rhyme is badly needed here. "drawn" "fawn" "pawn" "lawn" "sawn"—none will do, not even Bernard-Shawn. Got a stroke of genius with a hell of a compound adjective. For the rest I have sandwiched some of your words in here and there and got out a something. I think it does well as a close.

Shine on their path, O high-hearted Dawn;
Let your gold-crested sun
Crown the dumb quest of centuries dim-withdrawn
With its flame-union.

I understand S is taking mercury ointment for a long time. I hope she Ls not using it continuously.

[Mother:] For what is she taking the ointment? and who is giving it to her? Is it not better to stop it?

Guru, Mother is supposed to have said to X that I am one of those who have done harm to him. I would like to know how so that I may correct myself in the future... My impression was quite the contrary, for I thought he felt lonely, so he should ask Mother for permission to come for tea in the morning and how much he should associate himself with me. If he wants to come, I should at least be careful not to harm him.

Mother never said anything of the kind about you. On the contrary she has always approved of his going to you because you give him a physical support, encourage him to eat, etc. What she said was about Y (she has told Y himself to that effect) because of his wrong ideas, advocacy of all kinds of self-will and self-indulgence, etc., and recently to X himself about Z.

March 16, 1938

"Heart-beats of a lustrous life,
In myriad images unfurled."

Good Lord! How do you unfurl a heart-beat?

March 17, 1938

Dyuman has sprained his finger. There is evidently no dislocation. Still if you want screen-exam, we can do it.

[Mother:] I think it is not necessary.

Angamathu's swelling and ulcers on feet are better. He is not working in the smithy now, but he has to come all the way from near the station, for dressing. Wouldn't it be better for him to go to the hospital as it is nearer?

[Mother:] Yes, it is better.

March 18, 1938

"... Floating like a nightingale's moon-crested song
On the enamelled ocean-floor."

Nobody can float on a floor. Try it and see!

March 19, 1938

Bala's¹⁸⁷ stye burst. He didn't turn up in the afternoon.

[Mother] He was driving the car.

March 20, 1938

I'm afraid "God" is coming too much in this poem.

Where is he?

Seen my scansion? Too great, perhaps?

Never heard of such scansion in a trochaic metre. Is it the new prosody?

Much too great.

Besides, what kind of grammar is "a myriad" with a singular noun?

March 21, 1938

Flowing like the rays of gold impregnable
Sun, on sky-blue dome."

Ugh, sir! Sky-blue dome is as stale as hell.

Could you tell, X to make some time for taking soup? Today it got spoilt. After seeing you he can come this way.

[Mother:] I shall tell him but I'm not quite sure he will listen.

March 22, 1938

Chand writes: "... I shall try to come to Pondicherry after joining service..."

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the word "try".]

"Try!" What about our permission?

March 23, 1938

"Voices of some birds are heard..."

Some birds? Very vague and weak—unless some in American sense! Put anything else, e.g. sky-birds—

"... Pouring from their luminous-rhythmed feet
Songs of a magic-hearted moon."

Songs from feet?

Never! If people began to sing with their feet, the world would be startled into a magic-hearted swoon.

Mulshankar has headache and vomiting. They are recurrent nowdays. I am thinking of trying to find a remedy by the method you suggested ["energetic sadhana", 8.12.37]. But has it the possibility of success? I raise the question because some diseases seem to have no remedy at all, e.g. S's, L's and A's. Can't say definitely about Mulshankar's. It is also a chronic thing from his childhood. Of course it doesn't mean that for that reason it has no cure. Anyway. I shall try; please give your help.

[Mother:] Nothing is incurable but it is the hidden cause of the illness that must be discovered. I'll put in French what I mean:

C'est un fonctionnement qui est mauvais quelque part, pasune lésion—etl'origine de ce mauvais fonctionnement est probablement nerveuse (due à quelque chose de faussé dans le vitalceci est l'ultime cause psychologique).¹⁸⁸

March 26, 1938

Guru, I hope this poem,¹⁸⁹ will pass.

Exceedingly fine.

Well, that's some inspiration! (American sense of some!) O.K to the nth degree...

March 28, 1938

Mrs. Sankar Ram has a very bad defect of the eyes—The ophthalmologist suspects something wrong in the fundus of rt. eye (she had an accident). To be sure, he wants to dilate the eyes with Homatropine—but he doesn't promise a cure. Shall we dilate and see?...

[Mother:] No, it is better not

March 29, 1938

Mrs. Sankar Ram wants me to ask you whether new glasses should be taken.

[Mother:] I suppose so.

We are thinking of giving S: 1) Some iodine, 2) Bromides, 3) Quinine and 4) Thyroid extract. If you approve of any of these, kindly let us know which. Of course, they have their somewhat uncertain and harmful side-effects.

[Mother:] All these drugs seem to be more dangerous one than the other. It is safer to abstain from them.

Can the Flute be metaphored as a bird, or can it be taken as a mysterious Bird?

Good Lord! no! A flute can't wander about like a bird and have a flaming heart and all. Better leave it vague as it is, to be taken as any blooming mysterious bird.

My life is veiled in a sleep of light,
A hush that nothing breaks;
The world before my inward sight
Into pure beauty wakes.

Life that is deep and wonder-vast,
Lost in a breath of sound;
The bubbling shadows have been cast
From its heart's timeless round.

In its lulled silver stream now shines
A lustrous smile of God
Whose brilliantly curved outlines,
Flashing on the memory-trod

Caverns of slumbering earth, there bring
A glow of the Infinite,
While my soul's diamond voices wing
Into a heaven of light.¹⁹⁰

Guru, I fear this is only a sprat—not even a perfect one, perhaps; for "earth" has strayed away from "my" without any link between them.

It is not a sprat, sir; it is a goldfish. You seem to be weak in poetical zoology. It is perfect, except for the one fault you have detected. The only alterations, (except the "pure") I find needful, are meant to obviate that defect, by going back to "my", so connecting the first and last lines (also aided by the repetition of "light") and making the rest appear as closely connected with it. Like that it makes a very well-built and finely inspired poem. If you can produce more sprats like that, there will be much wealth in your fisheries. It is much better than the other recent ones, except the stress poem—nothing decorative,—all there!

March 30, 1938

About yesterday's poem, I am still "weak" in finding the "gold" you found in my fish. I don't see what beauty is there to make you mark certain lines thrice—e.g. "Into a heaven of light", which is a very simple, ordinary sort of line, I should say. I admit it is well-built and devoid of decoration, but to see it as you see it—hum! well, could you explain a bit? But I can increase this sort of "wealth" if you are at my back!

There is probably a defect in your solar plexus which makes it refuse to thrill unless it receives a strong punch from poetry—an ornamental, romantic or pathetic punch. But there is also a poetry which expresses things with an absolute truth but without effort, simply and easily, without a word in excess or any laying on of colour, only just the necessary. That kind of achievement is considered as among the greatest things poetry can do. The three lines are put in yesterday's poem wherever that happened.

A phrase, word or line may be quite simple and ordinary and yet taken with another phrase, line or word, become the perfect thing. If you look you will see that my 3 lines are put against the two last lines taken together and not this one only by itself. So taken they express with perfect felicity something that can be seen or felt in spiritual experience. The same reason for the other three line encomiums. E.g. A line like "Life that is deep and wonder-vast" has what I have called the inevitable quality, with a perfect simplicity and straightforwardness it expresses something in a definitive and perfect way that cannot be bettered; so does "Lost in a breath of sound", with less simplicity but with the same inevitability. The two lines that follow are very fine but they have to labour more to express what they want and express it less absolutely—still they do so much that they get 2 lines, but not three. The same distinction applies to the next two lines "In the lulled silver stream etc." and the four that follow. I don't mean that highly coloured poetry cannot be absolutely inevitable, it can e.g. Shakespeare's "In cradle of the rude imperious surge" and many others. But most often highly coloured poetry attracts too much attention to the colour and its brilliances so that the thing in itself is less felt than the magnificence of its dress. All kinds are legitimate in poetry. I only wanted to point out that poetry can be great or perfect even if it uses simple or ordinary expressions—e.g. Dante simply says "In His will is our peace"¹⁹¹ and in writing that in Italian produces one of the greatest lines in all poetic literature.

"And thy magic vastness wraps my secret hours
With its conquering breath of flame..."

Breath won't do. You have breathed once already.

Benoy got a scorpion bite at 8.30 p.m. Luckily he didn't get violent pain as one would expect from the size of the scorpion. Should such cases be reported to you at once?

[Mother:] Not necessary unless it is a serious case.

March 31, 1938