Down Memory Lane

Indra Sen

Dr. Indra Sen, en erudite disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, used to attend study circles, seminars and conferences including the sessions of the Indian Science Congress and All-India Philosophic Associations. He had carved out a name for himself in the intellectual circles as an able exponent of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and Yoga. Earlier, already an M.A., LLB, he had got his doctorate from the University of Freiburg in Germany and taught Psychology and Philosophy at the Hindu College in Delhi. My elder sister's husband Shri Vindeshwari Prasad Gupta, a resident of Delhi, also a devotee of Sri Aurobindo, was a good friend of his. Indra Sen had contacts with my father as well who stayed at Delhi for months.

Shortly after my return to Pondicherry, Indra Sen had come to Calcutta, probably to give a talk at the Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir. He came to our bungalow, and that was our first meeting. I was impressed by his personality and a healthy lifelong association started. He was a happy contributor to my Hindi journal Ma and a prompt correspondent.

Stationed as he was at the Sri Aurobindo Yogamandir at Jwalapur, a suburb of Haridwar, and also at the Ramgarh and Tapovan orchards near Nainital in the Himalayas, he would occasionally visit Pondicherry. There the Ashram had provided a house for him, his wife Leelavati (Mother named her Violette) and his daughter Meera (Mother named her Aster), who was one of the earliest students at the Ashram school. After her studies she married and left Pondicherry to join her husband.

Indra Sen was the eldest son in a cultured Punjabi family. His original name was Yudhishthira, his remaining four brothers got names of the other four Pandavas—Arjun, Bhima, Nakul and Sahadeo. Nakul became an ICS officer and occupied a high post in the Government of India. The family status and contacts in high Government circles came handy to Indra Sen's daughter and her associates in the quarrel of the Auroville residents with Sri Aurobindo Society in the years to come.

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A time came when Indra Sen got the urge of home-coming. He decided to give up the assignments in North India and to spend the rest of his life at Pondicherry. He came to me sometimes to take legal advice for some property problems at Jwalapur and the Himalayan centres.

After settling down at Pondicherry sometime in 1981, he took interest in the Ashram and Auroville matters at his own initiative. He was always constructive in his approach and favoured compromise and reconciliation.

When the political trouble in the C.P.N. Singh episode was at its peak, he showed me a letter drafted by him intended to go from the Ashram Trustees to Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister. I very much liked the approach and text of the letter and some others also agreed, but it did not go through. He was saddened by his failure at that important juncture.

Once an Ashram youth, usually respectful to him, was impolite to him when he went to him for some reconciliation efforts, and he came badly hurt to my office next door to get a word of sympathy. He had started seeing that in the clash of egos the voice of reason and reconciliation is not appreciated.

Then, after quite some time, one day Indra Sen came with almost tears in his eyes. A few days before he had arranged a meeting at his house between me and the two Administrators of Auroville, appointed by the Government of India, in his presence. His daughter had got irritated over the meeting having been arranged by him. Further, she told him not to let me in again. He could not bear this insult in his own home and arranged to shift to another place. His wife continued to live at the old place where the daughter would come to stay with her on her visits.

Once Indra Sen came to express his sadness over the falling standard of 'Sri Aurobindo's Action', and urged me as its editor to raise it suitably. "You must give it an identity of its own", he said, and offered to write a series of articles for this purpose according to a plan which I liked. He gave some articles and then stopped, but continued to be interested in it and I felt encouraged. He expressed his happiness over the improvement that had come in the journal.

He gradually retired with failing health. After a long sickness

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in which he was reported to be indrawn, Indra Sen passed away at the Nursing Home in 1994 at the age of 91. Only some days earlier, I had got a phone call from his wife asking me on his behalf for publication of some material of his in book form.

His body was brought to the house. I saw him lying in peace in an emaciated body which was a thin one even in his lifetime.

In the eighties Indra Sen had once told me that he had just come to see that the opening and growth of the psychic being was a must in Sri

Yoga and thenceforth he would endeavour in that direction. I had then wondered in my heart, how a scholar of his stature took so long to realise the importance of the psychic being.

Well, time does not really matter here, in one sense.

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