Mother's Chronicles - Book Four

12

Krishna Dhan Ghose - Sri Aurobindo's Father

"Everyone makes the forefathers of a great man very religious-minded, pious, etc.," said Sri Aurobindo correcting a misstatement by a biographer. "It is not true in my case at any rate. My father was a tremendous atheist."

Barin, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother, wrote, "Among my father's old, torn papers, I have found songs to the Mother Goddess, written by him, that are deeply devotional."

The apparently contradictory statements by the two brothers are not really so contradictory as all that.

Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose,¹ M.D. M. R. C. S. (Eng.), L. M. S. (Calcutta), was born on 21 November 1844 at Patna (now in Bihar). His ancestral home was, however, at Konnagar, in the

1. We give on the following pages the genealogical tree of the Ghoses of Konnagar, drawn up by Paresh Chakraborty and obtained through the efforts of Nirmal Nahar. Anybody with the surname of Ghose belongs to Saukalin Gotra, the descent line founded by Rishi Saukalin. Ghoses are of kayastha caste, and were traditionally cowherds (like Krishna's father Nanda Ghose).

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Hooghly District of Bengal. Konnagar is a small township, about fifteen kilometres north of Calcutta, on the west bank of the river Hooghly. Some of Bengal's remarkable leaders of religious and social movements —such as Raja Rammohan Roy —came from this fertile riverine soil, as did he in whom India's spirituality was embodied: Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa.

Around the eighth or ninth century A.D., the story goes, a king named Adisura is said to have invited to Bengal five Brahmins with five non-Brahmin attendants from Kannauj (near Kanpur in today's Uttar Pradesh), for the purpose of restoring the purity of Hindu cult and rites in Bengal. One Makaranda Ghose was among the five non-Brahmins. The Ghoses of Konnagar are the descendants of Makaranda. Some well-known sannyasins were born in his line, a few of them disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Sivbhadra, sixteenth in the lineage, was the first to settle in Konnagar in the sixteenth century. Counting from Makaranda, Krishna Dhan's was the twenty-fourth generation.

Kaliprasad Ghose was K. D. 's father. Not much is known about him except that he seems to have had a good knowledge of English and worked as a civil servant in the East India Company, with a salary of Rs. 300 a month. The Ghoses had some property, land and a house. When K. D. was twelve years old, his father died. His family became impoverished. His mother, Kailasbasini, was very beautiful; she was also very devout and orthodox. Several years after the death of her husband she went to live in Benares. Her widowed eldest daughter, Biraj Mohini, was her companion. Every six months, K. D. used to go there to see them. His younger brother, Bamacharan settled

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in Bhagalpur where he found a government job as head-clerk to the Commissioner. Their youngest sister, Tinkori, was married to one Nabakumar Mitra; Krishna Dhan helped enormously in their son Ashutosh's education. Dr. Ashutosh Mitra later joined the Kashmir State service as the Chief Medical Officer; he was as civic-minded as his uncle. Maharaja Pratap Singh of Kashmir took note of the sterling qualities of his C. M. O. and, in appreciation, made him the Acting Chief Minister of Kashmir State. When Sri Aurobindo went to Kashmir in 1903, he met his cousin 'Ashudada' and his family.

K. D. 's second son Manmohan once confided in a letter to Laurence Binyon (July 28, 1887), "My father when a boy was very poor, living almost entirely by the charity of friends; and it is only thro' his almost superhuman perseverance that we have to some degree retrieved ourselves." Krishna Dhan did overcome the calamity of his father's death and passed the Entrance Examination in 1858 (2 ^nd division) from Konnagar High School (Aided) when he was running fifteen.¹ Then he went up to join the Medical College of the Calcutta University.

As a college student K. D. Ghose became attracted to Brahmoism. As we have already seen, Rajnarain Bose was one of the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj. His eldest daughter, Swarnalata, was stunningly beautiful. So there is nothing strange that the young man from Konnagar should fall in love

1. Calcutta Gazette, April 1859. 1 feel that Krishna Dhan has generally been neglected by Sri Aurobindo's biographers, although he is worth knowing, which is the reason for this detailed account of him.

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with her, is there? Thus it was that while still a fourth-year student he married Rajnarain's daughter.

Rajnarain Bose writes in his autobiography that the first ceremony he performed according to Brahmo rites in Midnapore was when he married his eldest daughter Swarnalata to Krishna Dhan. "The function was a grandiose affair," he notes. "Both Debendranath Tagore and Keshab Chandra Sen¹ came to Midnapore. A harmonium, just as it was becoming popular in Calcutta, was brought from there and was played during the musical interlude. The marriage ceremonies were held with such pomp and grandeur that afterwards Deben babu told me that even kings' and princes' marriages come nowhere near it." Isn't there an echo of Mira Ismalun, Mother's grandmother ?

The marriage was solemnized in 1864.

Swarnalata was twelve and Krishna Dhan nineteen.²

1.Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-84) was to break away from the original Brahmo Samaj, form another branch and disclaim any relation with Hinduism. But ironically he was a great admirer of Ramakrishna, whom he met in 1875, and wrote glowingly about him in his daily, The Indian Mirror. This was a widely read newspaper among the young college students, and many of Ramakrishna's disciples came to hear about him through its columns. A street named after the paper still exists in Calcutta. And —pardon me for mentioning this —it was in the Indian Mirror Street that most of my brothers and sisters (including me!) were born.

2.It was the prevailing custom to marry very young. Rabindranath Tagore was twenty-two years old and his wife Mrinalini was eleven when they married ; Debendranath was twelve to fourteen while his wife was six years old; Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's age was eleven to his bride's five. And, it was around the age of twenty-three that Sri Ramakrishna married his little bride of six: Saradamani Devi.

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In 1864, K. D. completed his medical studies at the Calcutta Medical College and became a Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery (L. M. S. 2^nd Division). He was attached to the Medical College Hospital. Then came his first appointment. "The 16^th June 1865 —Sub-Assistant Surgeon (3^rd grade) Kristodhun Ghose¹ to be House Physician to the Medical College Hospital." Dr. Ghose was twenty years old.

Next year. "Orders by the Lt. Governor of Bengal. 20^th April 1866 —The third Grade Sub-Assistant Surgeon Kristo Dhan Ghose to have medical charge of the Dispensary, Bhaugal-pore." The following year, the Lt. Governor of Bengal issued another order on 5^th April: "Baboo Kristodhun Ghose" to become "a member of the local Commitee of Public Instruction at Bhaugalpore."

That is how Dr. K. D. Ghose came to Bhagalpur (then in Bengal). He went there with his wife, Swarnalata. Essentially a man of action, he became immensely popular in the districts he served. There were always those who frowned. Lotika Ghose² tells us that under his dynamic inspiration, there was formed the Bhagalpur Brahmika Society for women. This society was more radical than the one started in Calcutta a year earlier by Keshab Sen. The two were close friends. The Brahmo Year

1.The Reader should not get bewildered by the various spellings of the same name —of a person or a place. People of yore freely interpreted the sound and freely used their inclination. There were freer, weren't they!

2.Manmohan's younger daughter, Lotika Ghose, B. Litt. (Oxon), was a professor of English in the Bethune College, Calcutta. She edited several books of her father's work.

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Book 1882 has this to report: "After Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose had joined the Bhagalpur Brahmo Samaj it received a strong impetus to work social reform. This was mainly directed towards the improvement of women.... In fact such was the attention bestowed by the Bhagalpur Brahmika Society to the improvement of ladies that in some quarters their actions were made the subject of unfavourable remark."

For all that, wherever Dr. Ghose served, he exerted great influence in all spheres of civil life: schools, hospitals, municipalities and other public bodies. He was even to produce a monograph, Sanitary Outlook for Bengal, which was appreciated by the authorities.

In February 1870 K. D. went to England for an advanced course of medical studies.¹ He was twenty-five years old and was the father of two sons: Benoybhusan (1867), and Manmohan (19.1.1869). Barin records that when his father first went to England, he put his wife and two sons in the care of his friend Miss Pigott.

Dr. Ghose was among the first few Bengalis to go to England after the opening of the Suez Canal, completed by F. de Lesseps a few months earlier, on 17 November 1869. He was one of a party of six Brahmos, all well-known personalities of the day, including Keshab C. Sen. They shared a four-berth cabin in the steamer Mooltan, a P. & O. liner, which was

1. Granted leave without pay (his salary was Rs.100 a month) for eighteen months —from 15 November 1869 to May 1871—later extended by six months to 10 November 1871.

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Krishna Dhan Ghose - Sri Aurobindo's Father

berthed at the Garden Reach wharf in the Hooghly river, at Calcutta. The Mooltan weighed anchor on the morning of 15 February 1870. Steaming south in the Bay of Bengal, the ship's ports of call were Madras on India's Coromandel coast, Galle in Ceylon; then crossing the Arabian Sea she made a halt at Aden, in Persia; there they witnessed the "gigantic steamer, the wonder of the age," the Great Eastern laying the Anglo-Indian telegraph cable. The Mooltan then passed through the straits of Babel Manded, crossed the Red Sea, and finally entered the Suez Canal. The passengers disembarked on Egyptian soil and entrained for Alexandria. The Bengalis went sightseeing, which included Cleopatra's Needle, Pompey's Pillar, and the palace of the Pasha: "In the garden we see Paris fashion and a few fine African lions," noted K. C. Sen. Was that the fashion introduced by Mira Ismalun, Mother's grandmother ?

At Alexandria they boarded a smaller steamer, the Bangalore, which was bound for Marseilles. She put to sea on 14 March. The Mediterranean Sea, just then, was not in a meditative mood, but was joyously dancing and yelling with wild abandon, rolling and tossing the ship terrifyingly. But after two days of turbulence, Neptune stopped shaking his mane. Passing through the Straits of Messina, the ship rounded Corsica, keeping the Isle of Elba to her starboard side. Finally, after more than one month's voyage, the sight of the pleasant southern coast of France brought cheer to the impatient passengers. The Bangalore anchored at Marseilles' harbour on 19 March. The Bengali group entrained for Paris. "Southern

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France, from Marseilles to Paris, is indeed a very beautiful country," wrote Sen in his diary on 20 March 1870. "The railway passes through romantic regions, hilly but fertile, and likewise through several large French towns and hamlets mostly lighted with gas, such as Avignon, Orange, Montélimar, Livron, Chalon, Dijon." Before the break of dawn the next day they reached Paris. Two hours later they took another train from the Gare du Nord, and breakfasted at Amiens. "Leaving Boulogne behind, from where passengers by the tidal train cross over to Folkestone in England, we reach Calais at about 1 P.M. Fortunately the English Channel is exceedingly calm, and we cross it in a small but fast steam ferry commanded by a French Captain in two hours." Thus Sri Aurobindo's father made a rapid cross-country trip through France. The party landed at Dover and a two-hour train ride brought them to London on 21 March 1870.

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