Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

Prologue

"In the times of the Mahabharata," Sri Aurobindo wrote* "the earth was reeling under the weight of demoniac might.... If Sri Krishna had not destroyed that might and established a kingdom of the Law of Truth ... India would have fallen untimely into the hands of barbarians.

"We must remember that the Kurukshetra war occurred five thousand years ago. Only after two thousand five hundred years passed was the first successful attack by barbarians able to reach the other shore of the Indus river. Therefore the Kingdom of Truth founded by Arjuna had still so much power of the warrior-force, inspired by spiritual force, that it was able to protect the country for such a long time.

"Even then, there remained such an accumulation of warrior-force that a mere fraction of it kept the country safe; great men like Chandragupta ... Vikram ... Pratap ... Shivaji, etc., fought the country's misfortune with the strength of that warrior-force. Only the other day, in the Gujerat war [1848] and the funeral pyre of Lakshmibai [the Indian Joan of Arc, died 1858], was its last spark extinguished. Then the good effect and puissance of Sri Krishna's statesmanship were exhausted.

"To save India, to save the world, there then became necessary another full Divine Manifestation, puma avatar."

* Foreword to the Gita, published in the Bengali weekly

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Krishna Dhan Ghose in his later years

1

"Ara-Ara"

"You must have lived a very short time with your father?"

"Yes," replied Sri Aurobindo, "only the early years. When I was seven we left for England and before we returned he had died. I was in a way the cause of his death. He was suffering from heart disease. Grindlays informed him that I was to start on a particular steamer....... He asked me to return to India by a particular ship........ I don't know why on that ship........The steamer went down off the coast of Portugal and many lives were lost. Somehow I didn't sail by it. Grindlays didn't know it. They telegraphed the news to my father and he died on receiving the news. But I hadn't sailed on it at all."

It was the vessel Roumania, which was wrecked in heavy weather at the mouth of the river Arelho, about eighty kilometres from Lisbon, on 27 October 1892.

According to Sarojini Ghose, her father had sent a cable to Bombay's Grindlays & Co. asking when the ship was to berth at Bombay. The reply came, 'The ship has sunk.' Dr. K. D. Ghose was then in Khulna. Said Saro, "He was on the

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point of getting into his tandem in the evening when the telegram arrived. After reading the message he put one foot on the footboard and, while raising his other foot, he fell down. He was carried indoors and placed on his bed. Three or four days later he expired owing to this blow."

No one from his immediate family was present at his bedside. His three elder sons were still in England. Saro and her younger brother Bari were in Calcutta; they were given the news after the funeral.

Krishna Dhan died in December 1892, most probably on Wednesday the 14^th. An obituary was published on the 15^th in the Amrita Bazar Patrika. On Saturday, 17 December 1892, the Bengalee published the following on the demise of Dr. Ghose.

"It is with very great regret that we have to record the death of Dr. K. D. Ghosh, Civil Surgeon of Khulna. He was in many respects a distinguished man. Rung pur owes him a debt immense of endless gratitude for the important sanitary works, which were carried out at his instance, and under his immediate supervision. If Rung pur is a healthier place now than it was twenty years ago, the result is due in no small degree to the efforts of the late Dr. Ghosh.

"He was at one time a candidate for the Health Officer-ship of Calcutta and would have been appointed to that office, but that his dark skin was against him. We offer our heart-felt condolence to his bereaved family."

A friend of Krishna Dhan's, Brajendranath De, an I.C.S. and Magistrate at Khulna, who lived nearby, gave the

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following account of the doctor's last days. "Dr. Ghose believed up to the very end that his son had been admitted into the I.C.S. and was in fact coming out. He, in fact, took a month's leave to go and meet him in Bombay, and bring him back in triumph." The doctor had taken privilege leave from 4 September 1892 to 25 October. "But he could not get any definitive news," B. N. De's recital continues, "as to when he was coming out and returned from Bombay in a very depressed frame of mind. At last one afternoon he got a wire from his Agents in Bombay.... It so happened that that very night he and the Superintendent of Police. Were coming to dine at my house. The dinner was ready, the Superintendent came, but there was no sign of the doctor, although his bungalow was quite close to my house. After waiting for some time I sent an orderly to remind him of the fact that he had agreed to dine at my house that night. The man came back and informed me that the doctor was very ill. I at once went round, heard of the telegram and found the doctor very ill and quite unconscious. The medical men in the station were assiduous in their attentions. I did all I could. But it was all of no avail. The poor man lingered on for a day or two and then passed away.... I had to take the body to the cremation grounds and to attend the cremation."

He was not the sole man to attend the funeral. An impressive procession accompanied the mortal remains of Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose. Heaps of garlands of flowers covered his body. The whole town poured in at the cremation ground to have a last look at its beloved doctor. Stricken with grief Khulna mourned the death of the great physician.

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His mother's grief was beyond description. "For one whole year," said Saro, "The news of Krishna Dhan's death was concealed from his mother Kailasbasini. Then, when she insistently demanded that she be shown his handwriting, we were compelled to give her the news. Instantly she fainted. She remained in this unconscious state for one month." Her son would visit her twice a year, and write a letter to his mother every month. And every month he would send her Rs. 50

It would seem that K. D. often said in sorrow, "If I were to meet Destiny,¹ I would have asked Him, why did you write so much suffering on my forehead?" We do not know what answer his Creator gave him. We only hope that as the tormented Spirit passed from the sphere of sorrow, leaving the cry and the struggle, a great peace enveloped it. And the great Spirit that was Krishna Dhan Ghose, was, at last, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite.

Like King Dasaratha of another Age, who died while uttering his son Rama's name in lamentation, Sri Aurobindo's father also died while uttering in lamentation the name of his son: "Ara-Ara."

1. Destiny personified —Bidhata —who is believed to write down the future of a newborn baby on its forehead.

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