Mother's Chronicles - Book Four

14

Darjeeling

"Up to the age of five I was in Rangpur," Sri Aurobindo remarked, contradicting a statement by a biographer, "as my father was in Rangpur, not in Khulna. I went to Khulna long after returning from England."

Sri Aurobindo reminisced. "Before the Swadeshi movement started, Debabrata Bose¹ and myself went on a tour of Bengal to study the conditions of the people. We lived simply on bananas. D. Bose was very persuasive and could win anybody round. We found the people steeped in pessimism, a black weight of darkness weighing over the whole country. Only four or five of us stood for independence. We had great difficulty in convincing people. At Khulna, we were given a right royal reception. They served me with seven rows of dishes and I could hardly reach out to them; and even from the nearer ones I could eat very little. I was not known as a political leader but as the son of my father K. D. Ghose. My father had been the all-powerful man there. There was nobody that hadn't received

1. Debabrata Bose was committed for trial in the Alipore Bomb Case, but was acquitted. He later became Swami Prajnananda. His sister, Sudhira Bose, was a bosom friend of Mrinalini Devi, Sri Aurobindo's wife.

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some benefit from him and none had returned from his door empty-handed. He was said to have been a great friend of the poor. Previous to Khulna, my father was at Rangpur. There also he was like a king." The Doctor was far ahead of his time in his medical outlook; he was genuinely concerned with public health. Rangpur was swampy and malaria-ridden.¹ So, using his intuitive wisdom and his influence, Dr. Ghose got a canal constructed there; the drainage works were started in December 1877, with him driving the first stake. In gratitude people named it the K. D. Canal.

Sri Aurobindo went on. "When he was at Rangpur he was very friendly with the Magistrate² who did nothing without consulting him. It was with the friends of this magistrate — the Drewetts —that we stayed in England. This magistrate was transferred and a new magistrate came in his place. He found that he had no authority in the town, all power being in the hands of my father. He couldn't tolerate it. He asked the Government to transfer my father and so he came to Khulna. But he was hurt by this treatment and lost his previous respect for the English people and turned into a nationalist."

It was in December 1877 that E.G. Glazier was transferred to Dinajpur. The new magistrate Sri Aurobindo alludes to may

1.When an article by Dr. Malcolm Moore, "Malaria vs. Recognizable Climatic Influences" was published in the Indian Medical Gazette (November 1881), Dr. K. D. Ghose boldly took up arms against that authority in an article in the same review (June 1882), "A Plea for Malaria."

2.Edward George Glazier, Bengal Civil Service. He served in various grades of Magistrate, then Collector at Rangpur, broadly between September 1867 and March 1877.

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not have succeeded immediately in getting Dr. Ghose transferred from Rangpur. Because, according to available records, it was only from the latter part of July 1883 that Dr. Ghose stopped working in Rangpur. There cannot be any doubt that K. D. was 'hurt' as again and again he was shuttled from one place to the next. On 30 October 1883 we find him C. M. O., Bankura District. Come January 1884, Dr. Ghose was the Officiating C. M. O., Noakhali District. On 10 February he was posted at Khulna. Again from March 1884, and for one year, the Government of Bengal appointed him "Superintendent of Vaccinations, Metropolitan Circle," meaning Calcutta. The Bengal Government made this appointment in spite of the many objections raised by the Government of India —which might have added to K. D. 's bitterness against the English. Then in July 1885 Dr. Ghose was reverted to Khulna. He was to remain there for the next eight years, until the end of 1892 when he died ... in harness.

It was in Bhagalpur that Benoybhusan and Manmohan

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were born. Calcutta was Sri Aurobindo's birthplace. After him one child, the fourth son, died. Then at Rangpur, on 3 September 1877, was born Sarojini, their only sister. The youngest brother, Barindra Kumar, was born in England. We shall come to him in due course.

"I was born in the lawyer Manmohan's house on Theatre Road," Sri Aurobindo replied in 1940 to a query. Lawyer Manmohan Ghose was no relation of Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose's, but they were such friends that the latter named his second son Manmohan. M. M. Ghose's wife also bore the name of Swarnalata. The two Swarnalatas were bosom friends, and called each other 'Golap' (rose).

The day Sri Aurobindo's name-giving ceremony was performed, there was present at the lawyer's house a Miss Annette Susannah Akroyd. K. D. named his third son 'Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose.'

To an epistolary frivolity of Dilip's in 1934, about four different Aurobindos, Sri Aurobindo replied in the same light vein: "But look at the irony of human decisions and human hopes. My father who wanted all his sons to be great men —and succeeded in a small way with three —in a sudden inspiration gave me the name Aurobindo, till then not borne by anyone in India or the wide world, that I might stand out unique among the great by the unique glory of my name. And now look at the swarm of Aurobindos with their mighty deeds in England, Germany and elsewhere! Don't tell me it is my fault because of my indiscretion in becoming famous." With his habitual Attic salt, Sri Aurobindo added, "When I went to the National College in

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the Swadeshi days which was my first public step towards the ignominies of fame, there was already an Aurobindo Prakash waiting for me there with the sardonic comment of the gods printed on his learned forehead. Aurobindo Prakash, indeed!" But we anticipate.

Annette S. Akroyd was a friend of Miss Sharpe's, who was a pen-friend of Rajnarain's. He sent presents to Sharpe through his son-in-law when the latter went to England in 1870. It was there that Dr. Ghose met the Akroyd family and became well acquainted with it.

When Annette came to India in December 1872, Miss Sharpe reciprocated Rajnarain's gesture and sent presents for the Bose family. One day, on 10 March 1873 to be precise, Rajnarain called on Annette at 14 South Circular Road, at the house of M. M. Ghose, whose guest she was. She was appreciative of the comforts provided to her, and was amazed at the large, spacious house. "The house is quite in the best part of Calcutta and is a very nice one . . . how comfortably they have arranged for me. Bless me! Since we wandered in wilds at Ferrara, I have not lived in so much space," she wrote to her sister.

According to Rajnarain, he was at the receiving end of her temper at their meeting, as was Keshab Sen on another occasion. "We were discussing about the customs and manners of our respective countries," narrates Rajnarain. "Then I asked her, 'Had it been we who had conquered England and greatly encouraged the local people to imitate our ways, would you have liked that?' She replied, 'No.' Outwardly she was agreeing with me, and I didn't realize that she was getting angrier by

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the minute. Then, unfortunately for me, I said, 'Do you consider English manners to be perfect?' At once she began to strike the table with her fist, stamp on the ground, her eyes emitting sparks of fire." Rajnarain hastily fled. But despite her short temper, the same year in November, Annette Akroyd did start a school for the higher education of women in Bengal. Later she married a district judge named Henry Beveridge. When he was posted at Rangpur, she often called on Swarnalata and met the three boys.

Swarnalata, however, had begun to show signs of abnormality just after the birth of her first son, Benoybhusan. Sometimes she would beat her children. Purani recounts, "One day she was in a fit of anger and was screaming and beating Manmohan mercilessly. Sri Aurobindo who was present got afraid and making an excuse that he was thirsty he went out of the room."

Man's cruelty to man ! Was it only fear? Was it only pain that the child felt ? "The feeling was more abhorrence than pain; from early childhood there was a strong hatred and disgust for all kinds of cruelty and oppression," replies Sri Aurobindo.

The frail little boy, Ara —as his family members called him —was timid to a degree. But when he was older, whenever he felt any fear he would do the very thing he was afraid of, even if it brought him the risk of a sudden death. However, if there was anything to do with cruelty then a feeling of revulsion would grip him. When young he could not even read anything that related to cruelty. "I could not kill an insect," said Sri

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Aurobindo, "say, a bug or a mosquito. This was not because I believed in Ahimsa but because I had nervous repulsion. Later, even when I had no mental objection, I could not harm anything because the body rejected the act."

Sri Aurobindo's love for his mother was profound. He often referred to himself as 'a mad mother's mad son.' Even in the 1940s if something recalled him of his mother he would narrate the incident he had witnessed as a tiny tot. "Talking of Kabuli animals, I remember my mother had a Kabuli cat. She had asked a Kabuliwalla to bring her a cat: he brought one, the size of a small tiger. The first thing it did was to kill all the chickens in the neighbour hood. I don't know what happened to it afterwards." The tale sent the others into gales of laughter.

After his return from England, enamoured of English ways, Dr. Ghose decided to give his children an exclusively English education. At home he engaged an English nurse for them, Miss Pigott. From their butler the children picked up a smattering of Hindustani. Until the age of five little Ara spoke only these two languages. Although I presume that his parents spoke Bengali among themselves, as did his mother's family at Deoghar, which was occasionally visited by the family. Purani recounts that on one such visit, Jogindra, Boromama (eldest uncle), held up a mirror before his small nephew and said, "See, there's a monkey (banar)." Whereupon little Ara held up the mirror before his Boromama and said, "Boromama boro banar" (big uncle big monkey)! When questioned, Sri Aurobindo said, "My uncle told me that I was very bright, but I have no recollection of those days."

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When he was five years old, little Ara was sent to the Loretto Convent School at Darjeeling,¹ run by Irish nuns. His elder brothers, Beno and Mono were also students in the same school. This school was almost exclusively intended for the children of European officials. Therefore the schoolmates of the three brothers were mostly English, and English was the only language of communication in the boarding house as at the school.

Little information has come to light about the two years the Ghose brothers were at the Loretto Convent. However, Annette went to see 'the Doctor's little boys' in 1877. She wrote to her husband Henry (29 September) about her impression of the convent. "An amiable sister responded to my summons and ushered me into a room where flowers were arranged like Dutch flower pieces in quaint latticework dishes." She waited there, "and at length a lady appeared and had a long chat with me. She told me they (the boys) were very good and industrious and that the little one is now quite happy." It must have been a wrench for the 'little one' to leave home so young — he had just turned five. Anyway, as the three were long in coming from the boys' house which was considerably higher up, Annette left. But luckily she met them. "Coming up the very steep hill towards home I met the boys —all grown and

1. For the amusement of our readers, here is an advertisement found in The Bengali Directory (1878) : "DARJEELING LORETTO HOUSE (Boarding and day-school for girls and little boys.) Lady Superioress, Mrs. M. J. Hogan, assisted by twenty-nine religious sisters. Chaplain and spiritual director, Rev. Father Accurius, O. C." (From Sunil Bandopadhyay's Kabita, Niswanga Prabas O Manomohan, p. 19.)

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looking so well-dressed in their blue serges and scarlet stockings. The little fellow had a grey suit, very becoming —and is greatly aged — grown tall and boyish. I was struck particularly by the broadening of his forehead. He was pleased to see me I think but all were quite silent except for an extorted yes! or not I am going to see them again soon." Which she did. And several days later she had "Dr. G's boys to tea." She was woman enough to ask her husband, "Meantime please let the doctor hear this." She added that the ladies of the school asked her "if Dr. Ghose were a Christian and also Mrs. Ghose."

Of Darjeeling "Sri Aurobindo remembered," writes Purani, "the roads with golden ferns, and also one or two minor incidents. One was this: 'There was a long dormitory where children used to sleep. Manmohan usually slept near the door. One night someone was late and knocked on the door requesting him to open it. Manmohan replied: I can't, I am sleeping!!' "

Purani said to Sri Aurobindo, "M. R. has related that when you were five years old you got a vision of a great light at Darjeeling and you became unconscious." Sri Aurobindo replied, "All that is a legend.... And if you want the truth it was not light but darkness that I saw at Darjeeling. I was lying down one day when I saw suddenly a great darkness rushing into me and enveloping me and the whole universe. After that I had a great Tamas [inertia] always hanging on to me all along my stay in England. I believe that darkness had something to do with the Tamas that came upon me. It left me only when I was coming back to India."

During the holidays Beno and Mono went down to be

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with their parents, not so their little brother, it seems. At any rate, an oft-repeated story —can't vouch for its gospel truth I — goes round that during a vacation, little Ara was taken to the Tiger Hills by the Headmaster— or was it the Chaplain? —to see the sunrise. The play of colours on the Kanchenjunga is a splendour to behold. Next morning the Headmaster was greatly astonished to read a poem written by his six-year-old student: "You will be a great poet one day, my child," he is reported to have remarked. Whatever be it, one thing is sure: from the Headmaster to the youngest pupil, all marvelled at the pure British pronunciation of the shy little Indian boy. As for Ara's teachers, they were astounded by the sharp intelligence of the child. And, one and all —from the Headmaster to the sweeper — were charmed by little Ara's sweet nature.

Lotika Ghose puts it this way. "We can imagine these boys with deep wistful eyes, earnest and thoughtful, for genius had marked two of them for her own, wandering amidst a band of English boys. In the shadow of the Himalayas, in sight of the wonderful snow-capped peaks, even in their native land they were brought up in alien surroundings."

That was not enough for Dr. Ghose. He decided to transplant these three saplings squarely from 'alien surroundings' to an alien land.

So, in 1879, after two years of studies at Darjeeling, Sri Aurobindo sailed for the British Isles. He was six, running seven.

Mirra was one year old.

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