Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

9

Dinendra Kumar Roy

Often enough we have taken recourse to Dinendra Kumar Roy's Aurobindo Prasanga ('Topic Aurobindo'). So now let us take a fuller look at it and at him.

Dinendra Kumar Roy (1869-1943) was a rising Bengali man of letters. His articles in Bharati, a magazine edited by the Tagores, had aroused appreciation in Bengal's literary circles. When Sri Aurobindo felt the need to speak Bengali fluently with the right pronunciation and to correct and perfect his knowledge of the language, his Boromama engaged this young litterateur to help his nephew. It was Rabi Babu who had recommended this name. It was towards the end of 1898, a few weeks after the pujas, that D. K. Roy arrived at Deoghar together with his pupil who had gone to Calcutta for a few days to be with his Na-masi. From Deoghar they went to Baroda, breaking their journey at Bankipore (near Patna) for a day or two, as Sri Aurobindo wished to meet an uncle of his there.

After a few days they alighted one morning from a train at Bombay's Victoria terminus. Then they rested the whole day in a comfortable room at a big European hotel. At nightfall

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Bombay's Victoria Terminus early this century

they went to the Colaba station and boarded a train of B. B. C. I. R. line (Bombay-Baroda Central India Railways). The train left the station at 10 P.M. and reached Baroda very early in the morning. Lieutenant Madhavrao Jadhav was waiting on the platform to receive them. He took them to his brother Khaserao's house. This palatial, double-storeyed building was red —like Théon's at Tlemcen! —and situated on the main road. Sri Aurobindo had a room on the first floor, and the big hall there served as his study.

Dinendra Kumar was given another room. Then for two years he had the greatest of good luck to live with his pupil as a companion. He says that he was not called upon to do any

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regular teaching. In the preface of Aurobindo Prasanga (1923) he narrates how he came to write the book in 1911.

"My beloved friend," wrote D. K. Roy, "the late Suresh Chandra Samajpati,¹ once said to me: 'When Aurobindo was at Baroda few Bengalis knew him or recognized his worth. Nobody was aware of the treasure that lay hidden in the desert of Gujarat.... But during his long stay there, you were the only Bengali who was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of knowing him intimately and observing him at close quarters for some time.... Today new Bengal is eager to hear about him." Repeated D. K. Roy, "Today millions of Bengali readers are, indeed, very anxious to know something of the past life of Aurobindo. I hope the holy saga of this dedicated votary of Mother India will be appreciated by the youth of Bengal.... I believe that in future, people born in Bengal with a heart will feel joy and satisfaction discussing the life of Aurobindo."

He admits feeling rather nervous when he was asked "to coach Aurobindo in Bengali. Aurobindo was a profound scholar. He had secured record marks in Latin and Greek in his I.C.S. examination," he explained.

"Before I met Aurobindo," began his testimony, "I had formed an image of him somewhat like this: a stalwart figure, hatted-coated-booted from head to foot, a stern gaze in his spectacled eyes, a distorted accent and an exceedingly rough

1. S.C. Samajpati (1870 1921) was a grandson of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. A leading journalist of the period, he was also an orator who never used English words in his speeches.

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temper, hell to pay at the slightest breach of form.... It is therefore needless to say that I was rather disappointed in my estimate when I saw him for the first time. Who could have thought that this darkish young man with soft dreamy eyes and long, thin, shoulder-length wavy hair parted in the middle, clad in coarse Ahmedabad dhoti and close-fitting jacket, his feet shod in old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, a face sparsely dotted with pockmarks,¹ this slim young man was Sriman Aurobindo Ghose, a living fountain of French, Latin and Greek? I would not have been more surprised — and disappointed —had someone pointed to the hillocks of Deoghar and said, 'Look, there stand the Himalayas!' However, I had hardly known him for a couple of days when I realized that there was no meanness and dross of the earth in Aurobindo's heart. His laughter was simple as a child's, as liquid and gentle. Though an inflexible will showed at the corners of his lips, there was only the longing, rare even among gods, of sacrificing himself for the relief of human suffering; there was not the slightest trace in his heart of any worldly ambition or the common human selfishness. Aurobindo could not yet speak in Bengali, but how very eager he was to speak in his mother tongue! I lived with him day and

1. It was of recent origin. "I also had a mild attack of smallpox in Baroda," Sri Aurobindo said. "It was given to me by a Bombay judge who had come to Baroda. Nobody knew that he had smallpox and in Baroda at that time there was no such illness. The judge prepared some mango drink and asked me to take it and transferred his smallpox too. The Maharaja asked me to go to Mussouri but the illness prevented me. When I got cured, I went there but the Maharaja sent me quickly away."

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night, and the more I came to be acquainted with his heart, the more I realized that Aurobindo was not of this earth — Aurobindo was a god fallen by some curse from his heavenly abode. God alone can say why he had exiled him as a Bengali to this accursed land of India.... But what struck me as most amazing was that his noble humane heart had suffered not the least contamination from the luxury and dissipation, the glitter and glamour, the diverse impressions and influences, and the strange spell of Western society." Luxury! Sri Aurobindo?

"Aurobindo never cared for money. When I was at Baroda, he was getting a pretty fat salary [Rs.300]. He was alone, he knew no luxury, nor did he misspend a single paisa, yet at the end of the month he didn't have a shot in the locker.... The first thing he did upon receiving his salary was to send money to his mother and sister for their expenses. His sister was then living with the Aghor family at Bankipore for her studies. Occasionally, at other times also, I have seen him send money to them.

"One day, incidentally, during a conversation I said to him, 'I see that only you send a monthly allowance to your mother and sister, but your two elder brothers also earn a big amount of money, don't they send any allowance to them ?' To which Aurobindo said, "Dada is in Coochbehar State service so he has to maintain a certain standard of living. As for Mejda, he is newly married, and he thinks that marriage is an 'expensive luxury'!"

Throughout his life Sri Aurobindo never formed an attachment to money or wealth. But as life began to unfold

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before him, what money and wealth represented also came to be unfolded.

But at present let us proceed with D. K. Roy's narrative. He noticed that the young man was very fond of his sister and cousins and regularly sent them money and would write them letters, but seldom wrote to his brothers. As a rule, however, "he was not much in the habit of writing letters, and he rarely completed a letter in one day. He would write ten lines or twenty on a small-sized Gray-Granite paper and leave them aside. Afterwards when he remembered or had the time he would complete the letter and post it. Some never reached the post-office, but remained buried in a notebook. Aurobindo used to say the less one reveals about oneself the better." D. K. Roy wondered, "Perhaps that is why he spoke so little." But laughed a lot. For A. Ghose was a man of few words but of uproarious laughter.

"He never favoured dressing himself up, he was unacquainted with luxury. I never saw him change his ordinary clothes even while going to the royal court. I never saw him use a hat. He used what is locally known as 'Pirali topee'." Or, as Sri Aurobindo described it: 'Palleri cap'; and admitted that "at times I used to put on Marathi dress."

"His bed was quite ordinary and simple as his dress," observed D. K. Roy. "The iron bedstead on which he slept was such that even a petty clerk would have disdained to sleep on it! He was not used to thick and soft bedding. Baroda being near a desert, both summer and winter are severe there; but even in the cold of January, I never saw Aurobindo use a quilt

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Manmohan with his two daughters: Mrinalini (standing) and Lotika (seated)

— a cheap, ordinary rug did duty for it. A plain blue woolen wrapper was his winter wear. As long as I lived with him, he appeared to me as nothing but a self-denying sannyasin, austere in self-discipline and acutely sensitive to the suffering of others; acquisition of knowledge seemed to be the sole mission of his life, and for the fulfilment of that mission, he practised rigorous tapasya even in the midst of the din and bustle of an active worldly life."

D. K. Roy became familiar with some of Sri Aurobindo's habits of the time. "I have never known such an extraordinary fondness for reading as Aurobindo's." Carton-loads of books! D. K. Roy used to order for him many Bengali books from the Gurudas Library of Calcutta: "He liked most of the titles published by the Basumati Press." But Sri Aurobindo's main supply of books came from Bombay's two big booksellers: Atma-ram Radhabai Saggon and Thacker Spink & Co. "He seldom received books by book post; they came by railway parcel in great big packing boxes. Sometimes the parcels came twice or thrice in the course of a month." Exclaimed Roy, "He would finish all those books in eight or ten days and place fresh orders. I have never seen such a voracious reader." However, in later years, Sri Aurobindo remarked, "I have read comparatively little (there are people in India who have read fifty times or a hundred times as much as I have), only I have made much out of that little...."

Sri Aurobindo was a fast reader, and also he read with deep concentration. C. C. Dutt narrates an incident that occured in 1906-7 when Sri Aurobindo was the Principal of the just

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established National College at Calcutta. "Once after returning from College, Sri Aurobindo picked up a novel that was lying near where he sat and began to read it, while we were noisily engaged in a game of poker or chess. After half an hour he put down the book —of nearly a hundred pages —and took up a cup of tea. That day we were lying in wait as he often used to do this. As soon as he put down the book Subodh¹ picked it up and asked, 'Have you read it in full?' —'Yes.' —'From end to end? You have not skipped anything?' —'No, no, I have read it completely.' Subodh threw the book to me and said, 'Test him viva voce, brother.' I opened the book at random and read out a line from it. 'Now go on with the sequel, Sir Principal.' Aurobindo thought for a moment, and then repeated the contents of the whole page unhaltingly." Swami Vivekananda was endowed with the same ability.

"He read late into the night," D. K. Roy's narrative continued, "so would get up late [about 8A.M.]. He always kept on his person an open watch that cost about four to five rupees, and upon his work-table stood a timepiece. After his morning tea he would open his notebook of poetry. He was then translating from the Mahabharata. Although he did not understand Bengali that well, he understood very well the Sanskrit Ramayana and Mahabharata. He did not translate systematically, but would take up a legend or an episode from the Mahabharata and render it into English verse. He wrote in various

1. Raja Subodh Kumar Mullick, brother-in-law of C.C. Dutt, was also a revolutionary. We shall come across him a little later.

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metres." The Bengali man of letters was wonderstruck at Sri Aurobindo's "extraordinary mastery over English." And added, "He possessed an uncommon felicity of expression, and never misused a single word."

The remark about not understanding Bengali that well needs to be amended. For, did he not in August 1894, do a literary critique of Bankim and Michael Madhusudan Dutta in a series of articles in the Induprakash! Then again, Mano, almost immediately upon his return, in October 1894, wrote to Rabindranath: "Aurobindo is anxious to know what you think of his book of verses,¹ but I have explained to him how busy you are just now; and that you will write later when you have a little more leisure to do justice to his book.... I think, that he might do great things. Unfortunately he has directed (or rather misdirected) all his energies to writing Bengali poetry. He is at present engaged on an epic (inspired I believe by Michael Madhusudan) on the subject of Usha and Aniruddha." This legend is found in the Mahabharata.

Pictures rose in D. K. Roy's mind. "He wrote his poems first on the Gray-Granite writing pad; seldom did he cross out anything he had written. He would puff at his cigar and think awhile, then from his pen poetry would flow like the [celestial river] Mandakini. He was not a fast writer, true, but once he got started he did not rest his pen."

Sri Aurobindo never showed his annoyance even when his poetical flow was interrupted. Says Roy, "I never saw him

1. Songs to Myrtilla (1895)

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lose his temper." We may assume that Sri Aurobindo did not suffer fools gladly, but certainly he was long-suffering and, decades later, answered patiently all the myriad foolish questions the disciples put to him.

"Around ten in the morning Aurobindo would lay down his pen and go for his bath." Then plunge into his notebook again to review the poetry he had written hours earlier. "He would appear very cheerful" said D. K. Roy, "on the days he was pleased with his poetry. Now and then he would read it out to me. To make me understand whether or not his translation was faithful to the original he sometimes read aloud from the original Ramayana or the Mahabharata."

Then "lunch was served around eleven o'clock. He read the newspapers during his lunch." And the cigar would be by his side even at mealtimes.

We shall take up again the subject of food.

What does come through in the recital of Dinendra K. Roy is the great admiration his junior evoked in him. It is the picture of a gentleman that Roy paints. It was beneath the dignity of A. Ghose's soul to stoop to react to the small ills of life. The armour of his soul was so complete that it was proof not only against the great ills of life but even against the small ones. Sri Aurobindo was a gentleman par excellence. In 1926, in one moment, he gave up his decades-old habit of cigar-smoking when he saw that it was discommoding Mother.¹

1. Reminds us of an anecdote noted by Nirod (16.1.39). Mother came in with a telegram, garbled it seems, which wanted Sri Aurobindo to send ashesfor somebody's marriage. After some badinage Sri Aurobindo remarked , " IfI had not given up smoking, I could have given some cigar ash. "

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D. K. Roy gives an illustration. After staying at Khaserao's house at Dandia Bazar, the two Bengalis had removed to lodgings in the centre of the town at Mir Bakarali's wada, also a two-storeyed building. Then when the plague began raging they went to live at a place on Baroda's outskirts called Killedar's wada. The spacious grounds enclosed a handsome building, with an orchard at one end and a flower-garden at the other. "Bands of monkeys and squirrels made the big trees their clubhouses." There were also some sandalwood trees. In front was a large open meadow. A wide road ran along the northern side. The two men were given a large cottage, rather in a neglected state of repair, which was at the bottom of the flower-garden, and roofed with pantile !"Those who have never lived under a pantile shed will never understand what one has to endure during summer or during winter I" The summer's heat would make the pantiles fiery hot. so much so that Roy would wet a towel and wrap it around him 1Winter brought another problem. So cold, so cold that it almost congealed the blood in one's chest. "But come winter, come summer, I never saw Aurobindo pulled down."

Then there were flies and mosquitoes. "At night I used to think that the mosquitoes would drag me out to the field and finish me off!" When it rained, it rained right inside the room, through the unrepaired pantile roof. "Aurobindo would sit at his table and read in the light of a 'Jewel lamp' till one in the morning," marvelled D. K. Roy, "unmindful of the intolerable mosquito bites. I saw him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on the book he was reading, like

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a Yogi plunged in contemplation and oblivious of all outside happenings. Even if the house had caught fire he would probably have remained unaware!"

Warm was the assessment of Dinendra Kumar Roy. "Aurobindo was always indifferent to pleasure and pain, prosperity and adversity, praise and blame." Sri Aurobindo's point was, "How can the flatteries of some selfish and ignorant men bring one joy?" Quips D. K. Roy, "Even the unstinted praise of the learned failed to make Aurobindo glow with happiness."

Romesh Chandra Dutt¹ visited Baroda towards the end of 1899, at the invitation of the Maharaja. "He had just returned from England," recounts Roy, "where his abbreviated English translations in verse of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata had then been published [in Everyman's Library] and had received a very favourable press. Hearing about Aurobindo's partial renderings of the two epics he asked to see them." The young author showed them shyly, with reluctance almost. The older man was so enchanted that he said, "After reading these translations of yours I feel sorry when I think of my fruitless toil in translating the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Had I but seen your translations before, I certainly would not have published mine. I now feel that mine have been but child's play." D. K. Roy added with astonishment, "Even this full-hearted praise from an erudite person left Aurobindo unmoved."

1. R. C. Dutt (1848-1909) was an I.C.S., a novelist and historian, whom we shall meet again later. In 1904 he joined the Baroda State as its Finance Minister, to become the State's Dewan.

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It is with a sense of wonder and gratitude that Dinendra Kumar says, "Whoever has once lived even for ten days with Aurobindo will never be able to forget him. It was my great good fortune that I had the opportunity of living with him for over two

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