Down Memory Lane

Dilip Kumar Roy

I had heard of Dilip Kumar Roy, son of Dwijendra Lai Roy, a reputed literary figure of Bengal. Dilip Kumar, himself a musician of fame, was a literary talent as well. I enjoyed listening to his music available through the HMV records. But when I heard him singing in person, it was an experience of a still higher order, more vibrant and more living.

It happened at Pondicherry in February 1949. Uday Singh took me to his house for introduction and I was happy to learn that Dilipda would be singing that very evening, it being his usual singing day for Ashramites and visitors. Dilip created an atmosphere when he sang, and to me he seemed to be at his best when he sang of the pangs of viraha, separation, and of the urge for milan, union. Indira Devi, a new-comer to the Ashram, who would not go back any more, but stay permanently with Dada ( that is how she would call Dilip), sat at his side, with closed eyes, entranced. We sat still for some moments when the music ended and then one by one, took leave of Dilipda, who stood with his usual loving smile.

Next evening, I saw him on the sea-beach, moving towards me as if he wished to speak to me. I was pleasantly surprised when he invited me for his music session that very evening. He would be singing for some select friends then. After that I happily went to hear him sing whenever he would.

I felt a great power of invocation in Dilip's music. When I mentioned it to Uday Singh, he said that Mother also had spoken of it. He also added an anecdote. Dilip had desired that Sri Aurobindo should hear hjm sing in person. Mother arranged for him to sing in the corridor next to Sri Aurobindo's room from where Sri Aurobindo would listen. After the singing ended, Mother remarked, "How sweet was the dance of Krishna !" Krishna had responded to the invocation in Dilip's music, and that is what Mother had seen. Dilip must have been pleased over Mother's confirmation of his musical power, but certainly not over his failure to see Krishna dancing.

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Later, from Calcutta I wrote to him mentioning my remembrance of Mother and the wish to go again to see her. He replied that as my psychic being had opened I felt like that. When I asked him how he could say so, he answered that he had the capacity to see it and that Mother knew of it. His answer made me happy and also urged me to be faithful to it.

When the journal Ma was started, he happily collaborated. Once he sent a poem in simple Sanskrit written in Bengali script. His handwriting was not very legible and I took the poem to a learned Bengali ayurvedic physician, miles away, who helped me out with more joy than what he got in seeing patients.

After Sri Aurobindo passed away, Dilip underwent a change in his relation with the Mother and the Ashram. I do not remember having any contact with him after he left the Ashram. Finally he founded an institution of his own, Harekrishna Mandir- at Pune, where Indiraji accompanied him. Mother continued to keep his house at Pondicherry vacant for him. Since Dilip's passing away in the year 1980 at Bombay at the age of 83, Indiraji has been the Head of the Mandir.

I don't remember having any contact with Indiraji after the first introduction of a moment in 1949, but in 1983 she remembered me when a common friend met her at Pune and when she was told of the treatment meted out to me and Madanlal at Auroville and that I was not even being allowed to go to the Matrimandir, she said that the situation will change and that Matrimandir would be built with our participation.

Her ingoing and trance faculties were confirmed by Sri Aurobindo and Mother to Dilip. In her deep indrawn state she heard the saint Meerabai, and the songs thus received were published when she was at the Ashram.

In spite of their detractors at the Ashram, my feelings for them remain unchanged. I remember how Dilip embraced people with loving simplicity. The number of letters written by Sri Aurobindo to Dilip and published in Letters on Yoga is, besides his music, his valuable gift to posterity.

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