Down Memory Lane

Counouma

Padmanabha Counouma, hailing from Kerala, was a resident of Pondicherry for years before he joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He rose to be the Managing Trustee of the Ashram and died on that chair in 1991 at the age of 82 after a prolonged illness.

He was a scholar of French law that prevailed in Pondicherry in those times. He served as an officer of the Government of Pondicherry, holding the post of the Registrar of Documents. Also a politician, he was a member of the Pondicherry Assembly for some period.

Counouma was a firm believer in the principle that everyone has a right of being heard. He was always ready to hear all the parties on any issue, even in matters on which he had already made up his mind. Sometimes he narrated to me his experience in the Assembly when he was a lone independent member. The different party speakers had spoken on the subject of the ongoing debate and the matter was going to be treated as closed when he wanted to speak. Of what use it would be for him to speak when he had no supporter ? But he solicited their indulgence in hearing him all the same and he was allowed to express his views. Well, one of his suggestions was accepted.

When the Tamilnadu Agricultural Land Ceiling Bill was referred to a Select Committee, the Select Committee was touring the State to elicit public opinion and giving personal hearing. Counouma and I went together to Cuddalore to appear before the Select Committee for both the Ashram and Auroville would be affected by the provisions of the Bill.

Later, it was thought advisable to meet the Chief Minister at Madras. The matter was reaching its final stage and after asking Mother, both of us went together to Madras.

After finishing the work at the Secretariat, we took our lunch at the house of a relative of Counouma's who had already been informed of the visit. He had gone to Madras after many years

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and the host family was quite excited.. It was a sight to see. Counouma asked them to treat me as his brother, and he himself looked after me there as a guardian would take care of his young ward.

I should mention here that the exemption we wanted in the Agricultural Land Ceiling Bill for institutions like ours was claimed by other institutions in general in the State and it was provided in the statute. Both the Ashram and Auroville got the benefit of the exemption for the existing holdings. As Auroville had to acquire more lands for which permission had to be obtained from the Government of Tamilnadu, I went to Madras later to see the Chief Minister Karunanidhi with our request. He had already visited Auroville earlier and readily agreed to give an ad hoc exemption for 500 acres to start with. He dictated the order on the spot.

When the Society- Auroville trouble started, Counouma took active part in it. He obtained a certificate from Nolini about himself to the effect that he was the wisest, sanest and most impartial man and that his advice should be listened to. In a meeting at Auroville when a resident of Auroville, Bernard, raised the objection that the man appointed by Mother should be listened to and not the one appointed by a man like Nolini, I asked him not to speak derogatorily of Nolini. The result was that then those who found it convenient to supersede Mother's direction by Nolini's, increased in number and a sordid drama ensued in which I got beaten from all sides. Of course, Nolini and Counouma also were thrown away by their, new admirers after their self-interest was served.

Counouma, the astute politician, however succeeded in keeping the Ashram organisation intact in spite of the attacks of the Gang of Four, so to say. But he did so at the heavy cost of Auroville and Sri Aurobindo Society. He knew what he was doing. In later years when one could ruminate over the past, he sometimes expressed his doubts about the correctness of what he had done. It was too late then and the only reply I gave him was that he had saved the Ashram structure.

In those days there were heavy differences of opinion between Counouma and me. With his authority as the Managing Trustee of the Ashram and his shrewd manipulations, he could

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in most of the cases have the upper hand over me, but I never yielded to him on any principle and we found ourselves opposing each other for long. But I don't think we ever stopped speaking to each other or felt like enemies. There, it was a great quality of his, very often absent among our fellow-Ashramites, that he could maintain speaking relationship with those with whom he differed.

His capacity of objective analysis and viewing was also remarkable, though his political sense would take the driver's seat and mostly he left himself in the driver's hands. I witnessed him on a good number of occasions going back on his right discernment and words without blinking his eyes.

To give an instance. relates to the time when he had a major say in the Sri Aurobindo Society and used to attend the meetings of its Executive Committee as a special invitee. Just before the meeting, on the corridor, he assured me that a resolution would be passed to the effect that no more cut will be made from the donations received by the Society earmarked for the Matrimandir. A few minutes later, in the meeting he started dictating the resolution that 50% will be cut and paid later in indefinite future. The only concession he made was that my objection was recorded.

I may give one more instance, a bit long though. One morning he requested me to go to Auroville to quieten a group of residents there who were planning some disorderly acts against Navajata. He also added that I would not be able to return in time for the scheduled meeting of the Executive Committee of the Society and that as he would be attending that meeting he would take care of the matters there. In that meeting a resolution was passed stripping me of all my work given by Mother and vesting it in the person dislodged by Mother in 1971.

The resolution was passed unanimously by the whole Executive Committee which had two of the Ashram Trustees also as its members. The subject had not even been put on the agenda of the meeting sent to me. Counouma had attended that meeting and as a part of the plan he had packed me off to Auroville on his mission and on my return when I reported to him about the good meeting I had there, he complimented me and kept the

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fact of the resolution a secret. I came to know of the resolution a day or two later when my daughter Manju received it with a shock and phoned me at my office at Auroville.

Counouma had the capacity to pretend that he was not a party to it and even said that it should not have been passed. Santosh Chakravarti, who had settled down at the Ashram after retirement as a Judge of the Calcutta High Court, had drafted the resolution in consultation with Counouma, felt repentant afterwards for his role in it. I consoled him saying that if not he, someone else would have given the legal aid to them in the matter and that the wheels of destiny would have taken their own course anyway. He agreed with me that the resolution was invalid in law as it was a capricious and mala fide act, and that it would have been set aside by the Calcutta High Court if I had chosen to approach the Court. He felt more sorry for the fact that the Resolution went against Mother's direction.

On the other hand, even years later, when Carlo Schuller spoke to Counouma about it, he affirmed that it was a wrong thing, but he refused to tell the Society to rescind the Resolution. Nor was Nolini willing to move in the matter.

In the late seventies the Income Tax Department was reopening cases of charitable trusts, particularly of those engaged in commercial activities. As I was personally attending to the Income Tax matters of the Trusts'in which I was an office-bearer, I became aware of the proceedings in the pipeline against the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Assessing Officer confided to me that the matter was being taken lightly by the Ashram representative and advised me to do the needful in the matter. The good-hearted officer hinted that he was under pressure as there were anti-Ashram reports and quick action was needed. He did not know that I myself was a persona non grata in the eyes of the Ashram establishment, nor could I make of it an excuse before him. I talked to Counouma, and as he was with the toppers in the establishment against me, I suggested that I had discharged my duty by informing him of the situation and that he should do the needful. He thought for a while and showed his capacity of taking objective decisions for the sake of work. He decided that both of us will handle the matter together and asked me to fix an appointment with the officer.

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When we were to go to the Income Tax Office, Counouma arranged to pick me up from my residence for he did not want both of us to be seen together by another Trustee colleague of his living nearby. Well, we represented the Ashram before the Income Tax Officer to his satisfaction and sent him the needed clarifications. That trouble ended.

Next morning, Dyuman was emotional in telling me, "We all are Mother's children. Let us forget the past. We work together." It was a short-lived emotion.

Counouma, in later years, showed considerable affection for me and was also interested in my personal welfare. In 1981, he came to see me at the Ashram Nursing Home where I was lying in bad condition. He felt genuinely concerned and wished me to recover soon, saying, "There are many more wishing you recovery."

Later, when I continued to suffer at home after leaving the Nursing Home, he visited me there, advised me to switch over to another doctor and when we decided to consult Dr. Chaudhari, an eminent surgeon at the JIPMER Hospital, he gave a letter of introduction for him. The doctor used his discretionary power to visit me at home as I was in great pain and decided to make a puncture in the infected part then itself to take the pus out and give me immediate relief. Counouma sat outside the room while the surgoen was at work and left only after that. When I was admitted to the JIPMER Hospital for the final surgery, he went to the house of Dr. Chaudhari and requested him to take good care of me. It was something very unusual for him to do and I felt touched and grateful to him for it.

The surgeon himself wanted to know more about me in the context of Counouma's concern and assured me of his attention and added with humour that the second reason of his special attention was the fact that the name of his wife was the same as that of my daughter, Manju. One day, when out of boredom in the post-surgery period, I went to the Ashram for an hour's change of air in the car, using the back door of my room and a subsidiary gate of the Hospital Campus, the doctor's wife noticed me from their house on the way and reported it to her husband. She also had started taking care of me.

Counouma never claimed to have spiritual experiences and

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was completely free from hypocrisy, a disease from which many suffer. He always worked in the interest of the Ashram as he saw it.

One of the several things I learned from him was that one should retrace one's steps on discovering one's mistake. He would at times confess also.

We had our moments of humour as well. About the special patronage extended to some persons in the Ashram, sometimes Counouma would say, "Well, Mother was an Empress and she had her favourites."

In his lifetime his was a familiar figure in the Ashram surroundings. Frail bodied, dressed in a clean white lungi, a long sleeved kurta and a white

on his shoulders, he came to the Ashram at fixed hours walking from his house nearby. I see him like that.

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