Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

We are happy to offer to the readers Volume Seven of the Collected Works of Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta. This particular volume has a speciality all its own. For, excepting the last piece “The Evolutionary Imperative” in the section ON SPIRITUALITY and the set of new Talks grouped under the generic title SWEET MOTHER, all the other essays making up the present volume were originally written in Bengali, the author's mother-tongue. The Eng- lish translations have been in the main made by Sanat K. Banerjee, Chinmoy Ghose and Tinkari Mitra. As a creative writer, Nolini Kanta has been prolific not only in English but in Bengali too. As a matter of fact, his golden pen has been enriching the Bengali literature in a ceaseless flow for the last seven decades. But regrettably this opulent harvest of N.K.G.'s Bengali writings has so far remained a sealed book to the non-Bengali readers. The representative selection of his Bengali essays rendered into English and included in this volume will, we hope, go some way to meet the long-felt need. One other point is worth noting here. Most of the pieces comprised in the section REMINISCENCES were originally written for the young inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Hence the readers are apt to encounter here and there some comments and references that may elude their comprehension. But the difficulty in appreciating in full these flashes of N.K.G.'s scintillating humour will not in any way detract from the intrinsic value and charm of these reminiscences. For various reasons, the consolidated Index for both the 7th and the 8th Volumes will appear at the end of the latter. We have as usual pleasure in acknowledging the grant given by the Government of India to our Centre of Education to meet the cost of publication of this volume.

21 February 1978