Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

13

To Boromama

"c/o Rao Bahadur K. R. Jadhava

Near Municipal Office

Baroda

15 August 1902

"My dear Boromama," wrote the nephew to his maternal uncle, Jogindranath Bose. So far we have heard others on 'Aurobindo' or 'Auro-dada.' This letter gives Sri Aurobindo's own view on his life as it then unfolded itself. It was his 30^th birthday.

"My dear Boromama,

"I am sorry to hear from Sarojini that Mejdada has stopped sending mother's allowance and threatens to make the stoppage permanent unless you can improvise a companion to the Goddess of Purulia.¹ This is very characteristic of Mejdada ; it may even be described in one word as Manomaniac. Of course he thinks he is stopping your pension and that this will either

1. Manmohan's wife Malati. Manmohan was then posted at Purulia, in the district of Chota Nagpur.

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bring you to reason or effectually punish you. But the main question is, 'What is to be done now?' Of course I can send Rs. 40 now and so long as I am alone it does not matter very much, but it will be rather a pull when Mrinalini comes back to Baroda. However even that could be managed well enough with some self-denial and an effective household management. But there is a tale of woe behind.

"Sarojini suggests that I might bring her [their mother Swarnalata] or have her brought to Baroda with my wife. I should have no objection, but is that feasible? In the first place will she agree to come to the other end of the world like that ? And if she does, will not the violent change and the shock of utterly unfamiliar surroundings, strange faces and an unintelligible tongue or rather two or three unintelligible tongues, have a prejudicial effect upon her mind? Sarojini and my wife found it intolerable enough to live under such circumstances for a long time; how would mother stand it ? This is what I am most afraid of. Men may cut themselves off from home and everything else and make their own atmosphere in strange places, but it is not easy for women and I am afraid it would be quite impossible for a woman in her mental condition. Apart from these objections it might be managed. Of course I could not give her a separate house, but she might be assured that whenever a Boro Bou¹ came, she should have one to receive her in; I daresay that would satisfy her. In case however it does

1. Eldest son's wife. Benoybhusan, the eldest, was as yet unmarried; in case he married and brought his wife to his mother.

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not or the experiment should be judged too risky, I must go on sending Rs. 40 as long as I can."

Sri Aurobindo's concern for his mother is so touching! D. K. Roy was overwhelmed when he found out "the deep loving regard in which Aurobindo held his mother. Frequently he would say with a smile 'I am the mad son of a mad mother!'"

"But there comes the tale of woe I have spoken of. We have now had three years of scarcity, the first of them being a severe famine. The treasury of State is well nigh exhausted —a miserable 30 to 40 lakhs is all that remains, and in spite of considerable severity and even cruelty in collection the revenues of the last year amount simply to the tail of the dog without the dog himself. This year there was no rain in Baroda till the first crop withered; after July 5^th about 9 inches fell, just sufficient to encourage the cultivators to sow again. Now for want of more rain the second crop is withering away into nothingness. The high wind which has prevented rain still continues, and though there is a vague hope of a downpour after the 15^th, one cannot set much store by it. Now in case there should be a severe famine this year, what may happen is something like this; either we shall all be put on half-pay for the next twelve months, — in other words I who can only just manage to live on Rs. 360 will have to do it on Rs. 180 —or the pay will be cut down permanently (or at least for some years) by twenty-five per cent, in which case I shall rejoice upon Rs. 270; or thirdly (and this may Heaven forbid) we shall get our full pay till December and after that live on the munificent amount of nothing a month. In any case it will be impossible to bring

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mother or even Mrinalini to Baroda. And there is worse behind. The Ajwa reservoir after four years of drought is nearly exhausted. The just-drinkable-if-boiled water in it will last for about a month; the nondrinkable for still two months more. This means that if there is no rain, there will be a furious epidemic of cholera before two months are out and after three months this city, to say nothing of other parts of the Raj, will be depopulated by a water famine. Of course the old disused wells may be filled up, but that again means cholera in excelsis. The only resource will be for the whole State to go and camp out on the banks of the Narmada and the Mahi.

"Of course if I get half-pay 1 shall send Rs. 80 to Bengal, hand over Rs.90 as my contribution to the expenses to Khaserao and keep the remaining 10 for emergencies; but supposing the third course suggested should be pursued? I shall then have to take a third class ticket to Calcutta and solicit an 150 Rs. place in Girish Bose's or Mesho's¹ College —if Lord Curzon has not abolished both of them by that time. Of course I could sponge upon my father-in-law in Assam, becoming a ghorjamai² for the time being, but then who would send money to Deoghur and Benares?³ To such a pass have an all-wise Providence and the blessings of British rule brought us! However let us all hope it will rain.

"Please let me know whether Mejdada has sent any money

1.Krishna Kumar Mitra. He was professor of History at City College, and its superintendent.

2.A resident son-in-law.

3.To his grandmother Kailashbasini and aunt Birajmohini.

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by the time this reaches you. If he has not, I suppose I must put my shoulder to the burden. And by the way if you have found my MS of verse translations from Sanskrit, you might send it to me 'by return of post'____

"My health has not been very good recently; that is to say, although I have no recognised doctor's illness, I have developed a new disease of my own, or rather a variation of Madhavrao's special brand of nervous debility. I shall patent mine as A. G.' s private and particular. Its chief symptom is a ghastly inability to do any serious work; two hours' work induces a feverish exhaustion and a burning sensation all over the body as well as a pain in the back. I am then useless for the rest of the day. So for some time past I have had to break up the little work I have done into half an hour here, half an hour there and half an hour nowhere. The funny thing is that I keep up a very decent appetite and am equal to any amount of physical exercise that may be demanded of me. In fact if I take care to do nothing but kasrat¹ and croquet and walking and rushing about, I keep in a grand state of health,—but an hour's work turns me again into an invalid. This is an extremely awkward state of things and if you know any homoeopathic drug which will remove it, I will shut my eyes and swallow it.

"Of course under such circumstances I find it difficult to write letters. I do not know how many letters to Sarojini and my wife I have begun, written two lines and left. The other day, however, there was a promising sign. I began to write a letter to

1. Physical exercise.

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you and actually managed to finish one side and a half. This has encouraged me to try again and I do believe I shall finish this letter today — the second day of writing. The improvement, which is part of a general abatement of my symptoms, I attribute to a fortnight's determined and cynical laziness.¹ During this time I have been to Ahmedabad with our cricket eleven and watched them get a jolly good beating; which happy result we celebrated by a gorgeous dinner at the refreshment room. I believe the waiters must have thought us a party of famine-stricken labourers, dressed up in stolen clothes, perhaps the spoils of massacred famine officers. There were six of us and they brought us a dozen plentiful courses; we ate them all and asked for more. As for the bread we consumed —well, they brought us at first a huge toast-rack with about 20 large pieces of toast. After three minutes there was nothing left except the rack itself; they repeated the allowance with a similar result. Then they gave up the toast as a bad job, and brought in two great plates each with a mountain of bread on it as large as Nandanpahad.² After a short while we were howling for more. This time there was a wild-eyed consultation of waiters and after some minutes they reappeared with large trays of bread carried in both hands. This time they conquered. They do charge high prices at the refreshment rooms but I don't think they got much profit out of us that time. Since then I have been once on picnic

1.Sri Aurobindo once avowed to a disciple who asked for a method for lolling: "... Well, there is no how about it : one just lolls if one ha s the genius for it. I have, though opportunities are now lacking for showing my genius."

2.The Nandan hill at Deoghar.

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to Ajwa with the District Magistrate and Collector¹ of Baroda, the second Judge of the High Court and a still more important and solemn personage whom you may have met under the name of Mr. Anandrao Jadhav.² A second picnic was afterwards organized in which some dozen rowdies, not to say Hooligans, of our club —the worst among them, I regret to say, was the father of a large family and a trusted officer of H. H., the Maharajah Gaekwar, —went down to Ajwa and behaved in such a manner that it is a wonder we were not arrested and locked up. On the way my horse broke down and so four of us had to get down and walk three miles in the heat. At the first village we met a cart coming back from Ajwa and in spite of the carters' protests, seized it, turned the bullocks round and started them back —of course with ourselves in the cart. The bullocks at first thought they were going to do the journey at their usual comfortable two miles an hour, but we convinced them of their error with the ends of our umbrellas and they ran. I don't believe bullocks have ever run so fast since the world began. The way the cart jolted, was a wonder; I know the internal arrangements of my stomach were turned upside down at least three hundred times a minute. When we got to Ajwa we had to wait an hour for dinner; as a result I was again able to eat ten times my usual allowance. As for the

1.Khaserao Jadhav was then the Collector of Baroda.

2.This Anandrao Jadhav seems to have been a lively young man (please read on), full of mischief like William Brown. In a letter to his wife, dated

3 October 1905, Sri Aurobindo wrote, "The other day I went to meet Khaserao. Anandrao has grown very big. He will become a big cheat."

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behaviour of those trusted pillars of the Baroda Raj at Ajwa, a veil had better be drawn over it; I believe I was the only quiet and decent person in the company. On the way home the carriage in which my part of the company installed itself, was the scene of a remarkable tussle in which three of the occupants and an attendant cavalier attempted to bind the driver, (the father of a large family aforesaid) with a horse-rope. As we had been ordered to do this by the Collector of Baroda, I thought I might join in the attempt with a safe conscience. Pater familias threw the reins to Providence and fought —I will say to his credit —like a Trojan. He scratched me, he bit one of my coadjutors, in both cases drawing blood, he whipped furiously the horse of the assistant cavalier, and when Madhavrao came to his assistance, he rewarded the benevolent intention by whipping at Madhavrao's camel ! It was not till we reached the village, after a six-mile conflict, and got him out of the carriage that he submitted to the operation. The wonder was that our carriage did not get upset; indeed the mare stopped several times in order to express her entire disgust at the improper and turbulent character of these proceedings. For the greater part of the way home she was brooding indignantly over the memory of it and once her feelings so much overcame her that she tried to upset us over the edge of the road, which would have given us a comfortable little fall of three feet. Fortunately she ' was relieved by this little demonstration and her temper improved wonderfully after it. Finally last night I helped to kidnap Dr. Cooper. the Health Officer of the State, and make him give us a big dinner at the Station with a bottle

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and a half of sherry to wash it down. The Doctor got so merry over the sherry of which he drank at least two thirds himself, that he ordered a special-class dinner for the whole company next Saturday. I don't know what Mrs. Cooper said to him when he got home. All this has had a most beneficial effect upon my health, as the writing of so long a letter shows.

"I suppose you have got Anandrao's letter; you ought to value it, for the time he took to write it is, I believe, unequalled in the history of epistolary creation. The writing of it occupied three weeks, fair-copying it another fortnight, writing the address seven days and posting it three days more. You will see from it that there is no need to be anxious about his stomach: it righted itself the moment he got into the train at Deoghur Station. In fact he was quite lively and warlike on the way home. At Jabal pur we were unwise enough not to spread out our bedding on the seats and when we got in again, some upcountry scoundrels had boned Anandrao's berth. After some heated discussion I occupied half of it and put Anandrao on mine. Some Mahomedans, quite inoffensive people, sat at the edge of this, but Anandrao chose to confound them with the intruders and declared war on them. The style of war he adopted was a most characteristically Maratha style. He pretented to go to sleep and began kicking the Mahomedans, in his 'sleep' of course, having specially gone to bed with his boots on for the purpose. I had at last to call him off and put him on my half-berth. Here, his legs being the other way, he could not kick; so he spent the night butting the upcountryman with his head; next day he boasted triumphantly to me that he had conquered a foot and half of

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territory from the intruder by his brilliant plan of campaign. When the Boers rise once more against England, I think we shall have to send them Anandrao as an useful assistant to Generals Botha and Delarcy.

"No rain as yet, and it is the 15^th of August. My thirtieth birthday, by English computation! How old we are all getting!

Your affectionate nephew

Aurobindo Ghose

"P.S. There is a wonderful story travelling about Baroda, a story straight out of Fairyland, that I have received Rs. 90 promotion. Everybody seems to know all about it except myself. The story goes that a certain officer rejoicing in the name of Damn-you-bhai wanted promotion, so the Maharaja gave him Rs. 50. He then proceeded to remark that as this would give Damn-you-bhai an undue seniority over Mr. Would-you-ah! and Mr. Manoeu (vre) bhai, the said Would-you-ah and Manceu(vre)bhai must also get Rs. 50 each, and 'as Mr. Ghose has done good work for me,¹ I give him Rs. 90.' The beautiful logical connection of the last bit with what goes before, dragging Mr. Ghose in from nowhere and everywhere, is so like the Maharaja that the story may possibly be true. If so, it is very satisfactory, as my pay will now be — Famine permitting — Rs. 450 a month. It is not quite so good as Mejdada's job, but it will serve. Rs. 250 promotion after ten years' service does not look

1. The 'good work' alluded to by the Maharaja was the preparation by 'Mr. Ghose', and completion, of a long report on trade in Baroda State.

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very much, but it is better than nothing. At that rate I shall get Rs. 700 in 1912 and be drawing about Rs. 1000 when I am ready to retire from Baroda either to Bengal or a better world. Glory Halleluja!

"Give my love to Sarojini and tell her I shall write to her — if I can. Don't forget to send the MS of translations. I want to typewrite and send to England."

The 'story' was true after all. The Maharaja was then at Coonoor, in the Nilgiris of South India, from where he had issued the following, highly descriptive Order.

Huzur Order

His Highness the Maharaja Saheb has been graciously pleased to order that

(1)A monthly increase of Rs. 90. Ninety British is given to Mr. Aravind Ghose.

(2)His Highness is pleased to note that he has found Mr. Ghose a very useful and capable young man. With a little more of regularity and punctual habits he can be of much greater help; and it is hoped that Mr. Ghose will be careful in future not to injure his own interests by any lack of these useful qualities.

(3)The Minister should try to make a good use of Mr. Ghose's abilities in entrusting him with the compilation of Annual Administration Reports and other important compilations. He is a man of great powers and every use should be made of his talents.

(4)The Minister should also suggest from time to time the different uses to which Mr. Ghose's abilities can be

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advantageously put. The Huzur will also occasionally direct the uses to be made of Mr. Ghose's services.

(5) If convenient Mr. Ghose's services can be utilised in the Baroda College, only care should be taken that his interests do not suffer in any way by his services being lent to the College for some time.

Camp Coonoor.Sayaji Rao Gaekwar

6 August 1902

The long epistolary effort must have totally exhausted the 'capable young man.' So he rested for five days before writing to his wife ... in English —a one-time exception. By then the Huzur Order had come through confirming the Rs. 90 promotion to 'Mr. Aravinda Ghose.'

"c/o K. B. Jadhav Esq

Near Municipal Office

Baroda

20^th August 1902

"Dearest Mrinalini,

"I have not written to you for a long time because 1 have not been in very good health and had not the energy to write. I went out of Baroda for a few days to see whether change and rest would set me up, and your telegram came when I was not here. I feel much better now, and I suppose there was nothing really the matter with me except overwork. I am sorry I made you So anxious; there was no real cause to be so, for you know I never get seriously ill. Only when I feel out of sorts, I find writing letters almost impossible.

"The Maharaja has given me Rs. 90 promotion —this

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will raise my pay to Rs. 450. In the order he has made me a lot of compliments about my powers, talents, capacity, usefulness etcetera, but also made a remark, on my want of regularity and punctual habits. Besides he shows his intention of taking the value of the Rs. 90 out of me by burdening me with overwork, so I don't feel very grateful to him. He says that if convenient, my services can be utilised in the College. But I don't see how it will be convenient, just now, at least; for it is nearly the end of the term. Even if I go to the College, he has asked the Dewan to use me for writing Annual Reports etc. I suppose this means that he does not want me to get my vacations. However, let us see what happens.

"If I join the College now and am allowed the three months' vacation, I shall of course go to Bengal and to Assam for a short visit. I am afraid it will be impossible for you to come to Baroda just now. There has been no rain for a month, except a short shower early this morning. The wells are all nearly dried up; the water of the Ajwa reservoir which supplies Baroda is very low and must be quite used up by next November; the crops in the fields are all parched and withering. This means that we shall not only have famine; but there will be no water for bathing and washing up, or even, perhaps for drinking. Besides if there is famine, it is practically sure that all the officers will be put on half-pay. We are hoping, rather than expecting, that there may be good rain before the end of August. But the signs are against it, and if it comes, it will only remove the water difficulty or put it off for a few months. For you to come to Baroda and endure all the troubles and sufferings of such a state of things, is out of the question. You must decide for yourself

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whether you will stay with your father or at Deoghur. You may as well stay in Assam till October, and then if I can go to Bengal, I will take you to Deoghur where you can stop for the winter at least. If I cannot come then, I will, if you like, try and make some arrangement for you to be taken there.

"I am glad your father will be able to send me a cook when you come. I have got a Maratha cook, but he can prepare nothing properly except meat dishes. I don't know how to get over the difficulty about the jhi [maidservant]. Sarojini wrote something about a Mahomedan ayah, but that would never do. After so recently being readmitted to Hindu society, I cannot risk it; it is all very well for Khaserao and others whose social position is so strong that they may do almost anything they like. As soon as I see any prospect of being able to get you here, I shall try my best to arrange about a maid-servant. It is no use doing it now.

"I hope you will be able to read and understand this letter; if you can't, I hope it will make you more anxious to learn English than you have been up to now. I could not manage to write a Bengali letter just now —so I thought I had better write in English rather than put off writing.

"Do not be too much disappointed by the delay in coming to Baroda; it cannot be avoided. I should like you to spend some time in Deoghur, if you do not mind, Assam somehow seems terribly far off; and besides I should like you to form a closer intimacy with my relatives, at least those among them whom I especially love.

Your loving husband.

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