Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

21

From His Students

It was the evening of 30 december 1938, barely a month after Sri Aurobindo's accident on 24 November. Those attending upon him stood around his bed. The talk turned to his brother Manmohan as a hard-working professor. Sri Aurobindo confirmed that generally the professors don't work so hard. Then, looking at Purani, he said, "I was not so conscientious as a professor."

Purani begged to differ. "But," he said, "people who heard you in College and those who heard you afterwards in politics differ from you. They speak very highly of your lectures."

"I never used to look at the Notes," recalled Sri Aurobindo, "and sometimes my explanations didn't agree with them. I was Professor of English and for some time of French. What was surprising to me was that students used to take down

everything verbatim and mug it up____ The students at

Baroda, besides taking my notes, used to get notes of other professors from Bombay, especially if they happened to be examiners.

"Once I was giving a lecture on Southey's Life of Nelson,

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Sri Aurobindo as a professor in Baroda

and my lecture was not in agreement with the Notes in the book. So the students remarked that it was not at all like what was in the Notes. I replied that I hadn't read them. In any case they are mostly rubbish. I could never go into the minute details, I read and left it to my mind to absorb what it could. That's why," he concluded, "I could never become a scholar."

Hmmmm!

Although he never read the Notes of Bombay's examiners, he read. Book after book after book. And how! "He used to be absorbed in reading to the extent that he was at times oblivious of things around him," recounted R. N. Patkar, a former student of Sri Aurobindo's. "One evening the servant brought his meal and put the dishes on the table and informed him: 'Sab, khana rakha hai'' (Master, the meal is served). Aravind Babu simply said 'Achha' (all right), without even moving his head. After about an hour the servant returned to remove the dishes and found to his surprise the dishes untouched on the table! He dared not disturb his master and so quietly came to me and told me about it. I had to go to his room and remind him of the waiting meal. He gave a pleasant smile, went to the table and finished his meal in a short time and resumed his reading."

The recollections of the students open a portal to the past, and a picture emerges. A touch here, a touch there, and the picture comes alive —we glimpse another facet of Sri Aurobindo's personality.

"I had the good fortune to be his student," R. N. Patkar's narrative continues, "when I was in the Intermediate Class. His method of teaching was a novel one. In the beginning he used

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to give a series of introductory lectures in order to initiate the students into the subject matter of the text. After that he used to read the text, stopping where necessary to explain the meaning of difficult words and sentences. He ended by giving general lectures bearing on the various aspects of the subject matter of the text. These lectures, which were given at the close of the term, were availed of by many students belonging to other colleges.

"But more than his College lectures it was a treat to hear him on the platform. He used to preside occasionally over the meetings of the College Debating Society. The large central hall of the College used to be full when he was to speak. He was never an orator but was a speaker of a very high order and he was listened to with rapt attention. Without any gestures or movements of the limbs he stood like a statue — motionless — and the language flowed like a stream from his lips with a natural ease and melody that kept the audience spell-bound.... Though it is more than fifty years since I heard him on the Baroda College platform," wrote Patkar, "I still remember his figure and the metallic ring of his sweet melodious voice as if I heard him yesterday."

Patkar deeply cherished the memory of his former Professor. "Being in close contact with this great man, I sometimes used to take liberties with him. While I was in Matriculation class, I once asked him how I should improve my English, what author I should read and study. I had read some portion of Macaulay's Lives of Great Men and I was fascinated by his style. I asked him if I should read Macaulay. Then, as was

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usual with him he smiled and replied, 'Do not be anybody's slave, but your own master. By reading Macaulay or any other writer you will never be like him. You will not be a Macaulay but a faint echo of Macaulay. You will be but a copy to be derided by the world, but never an original. Therefore you may read any good author carefully, but should think for yourself and form your own judgment. It is likely you may differ from the views of the writer. You should think for yourself and cultivate a habit of writing and in this way you will be the master of your own style."

That appears to be the advice Professor A. Ghose generally gave to his students. Records R. S. Dalai, "He was revered by all, but being by nature shy and reserved was not easily accessible. His reading of English Texts was very simple and did not create an impression in students' minds of his Rhetorics, but we were all stunned at his genius when he dictated extemporaneous notes in a very lucid style. One sentence followed another naturally. I owe to him and his notes on Pride and Prejudice for my effort in writing a Gujarati novel."

M. H. Kantavala was another former student of A. Ghose. "Mr. Littledale was succeeded [in 1900] by Mr. Arvind Ghosh," began his account, given in 1933. "The speech he delivered at one of the annual social gatherings¹ was a piece of chaste and polished English, the like of which I have never heard. It occupied only three pages of the College Miscellany, but it set an example in classical English. Professor Ghosh gave

1. A part of it has been quoted in Book Four, Chapter 25.

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us essays to write. He corrected all the essays. He used to teach us that every sentence should logically follow from the preceding sentence, and similarly every para should logically follow from the preceding one. Correct composition leads to correct thinking."

Purani was right of course. Student after student bore witness to the quality of A. Ghose's lectures. "Mr. Arvind Ghose," said N. K. Dikshit carrying his thoughts back to his college days, "used to grace the Debating Society's meetings with his presence. Once or twice he was accompanied by Mr. K. G. Deshpande,

B.A., Bar-at-law Rarely they addressed the meeting but

when they did it was really an intellectual feast that seemed to us. Later on Ghose was appointed Lecturer in French and English. His tutorial work was much appreciated. He took an active part in the literary activities of the College boys."

Sri Aurobindo never looked at the Notes, as he recalled in 1938. Sometimes the students remarked the disparity between what was in the Notes and his explanations, so that many of them found him difficult to understand. A Sindhi student of his at the College, Chandwani, calling up a sixty-year-old memory, confirms all that.

"Sri Aurobindo used to be very silent, almost shy. He was respected by the students. We got the impression that he was preparing for something great. He used to be terribly serious and never joked in the classroom. When he would come he would sit against the table with his thumb on the forefinger. Mostly he would keep his eyes down and speak as if in half meditation.

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"He seldom gave homework. He never prepared the students from the point of view of examinations. But as he lectured he-would throw light on the subjects in an all-round way.

"I remember him once lecturing on the political philosophy of Burke. His exposition was so luminous that there was no need of questions and answers. Also I remember the days when he was teaching us Reflections on the Revolution in France¹ by Burke. Sri Aurobindo never took the help of the book and never cared to read it with us to the end. He would go on giving comments without once opening it. Some of the students, who wanted to put questions and get answers from him on this or that point, were not satisfied with his method of teaching, because he did not deal with the points of the book para by para, in the sequence of the book. He took a broad, overall and penetrating view of the subject. He would give his lecture in the class and leave the students to ponder over his exposition. He left them to study the book elsewhere with the help of his expository comments. But I was very much satisfied with his way of teaching and if I did not understand anything, I would go to him to get my difficulties solved.

"When I passed the Intermediate Examination in First Class, he was very happy over it, for First Class at that time was rare. As a result of getting First Class I was offered a scholarship in Elphinstone College [Bombay]. He tried to dissuade me from leaving Baroda College but due to my pecuniary

1. Lord Curzon vehemently opposed the teaching of it: "Though as a composition it is excellent, it is certainly dangerous food for Indian students."

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condition and the substantial amount of the scholarship I could not but go. I remember he gave me a testimonial.

"He used to attend social gatherings and dramatic performances. But mostly he remained silent. I remember how he appreciated Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, in which I took part as Portia. Barindra, his younger brother, was also there during those days. Later Sri Aurobindo left Baroda College and joined the National College in Calcutta. His articles in the Bande Mataram used to inspire me greatly. I still remember one of his articles which appeared in this paper under the caption, 'The Wheat and the Chaff.'

"A couple of years later he came to Bombay and gave a series of lectures. I enthusiastically took the opportunity to attend them.

"One day we invited him to tea among my Sindhi friends. He climbed up the three storeys to have tea with us. As I rose to introduce him and started speaking in praise of him, he made a gesture to stop me and said, 'We are all children of the Mother.' By 'Mother', he meant Mother India. Then he spoke to us, in a calm contained tone, of our responsibilities to our country. His very silence was inspiring to all.

"As long as he was in the political field, he was the sole inspiration of my national ideals and activities. The flame of patriotism that burns intensely in my heart was lit by him. But when later he left for Pondicherry, my attitude towards him changed, for I believed that the country needed him badly at that hour. My interest was mainly confined to the freedom of the country. With his departure my extraordinary enthusiasm

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for him became a little cold, for I always thought of the battlefield of action. His leaving this field did not appeal to me. And I felt that our deep and intimate link was then severed.

"I admired and remembered him like a God. While people would repeat the name of God, I used to repeat the name 'Aurobindo, Aurobindo' in my mind. I have no words to express how much I was aflame with him."

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