Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

4

Shankar Chetty's House

On their way from Cours Chabrol to Shankar Chetty's house, as they rode in the horse carriage, Srinivasachari and Bharati explained to Sri Aurobindo the arrangements made for his lodging. At first the Guest was reluctant to live in another man's house and said he would rather have a separate place. The two men assured him that an alternative existed, in case this one did not suit him. But this one was safer than the other. Would 'Babu' not give it a try tonight? Sri Aurobindo consented. On arrival he inspected the accommodation provided, "and found that by closing the doors of the stairs the whole upstairs became a separate block," recalled Srinivasachari. The next day when they asked him, Babu said it was secluded, and there was no need to change the place for the present.

The guests had no cot, no bedding. Moni and Bejoy had straw mats, and a thin mattress was' provided for Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo, Moni and Bejoy lived at N°39 Comoutty Street (now Calvé Soupprayan Chetty Street) for approximately six months. During the first three months none of the three ever stepped outside the house. Even to the courtyard, they went down but once a day for bath, such was their seclusion.

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Shankar Chetty's house as it was in the 1950s.

Sri Aurobindo probably lived in the small rooms at the top.

After that Sri Aurobindo allowed the two teenagers to go out, though he denied himself the pleasure. The two generally would go out around five in the evening, stroll up and down the pier for an hour or so, meet and talk with some local acquaintances, then return home.

As a rule they did not have foreign visitors. Paul Richard was an exception. He met Sri Aurobindo twice. They talked long together, for two to three hours each time.

But local revolutionaries dropped in of an evening. Subramania Bharati was a daily visitor. Most of the local people were before my time. However, I did meet one gentleman, Mr. Mouttayen. In the '40s he taught French to the top graders of the Ashram School, which included my two younger sisters. He was a stickler for good manners, was Mouttayen. Well, at any rate, he had the privilege of witnessing Sri Aurobindo walk in Shankar Chetty's compound. We have had the occasion already, when speaking of Sri Aurobindo's two long fasts,¹ to state that the longer one took place here, in this house. He fasted for twenty-three days while carrying on all his other activities. But what did he eat when not on fast? Here is Moni with a description of their meals.

"Sri Aurobindo used to take tea twice a day—once in the morning (around 6:30 or 7), and again at four in the afternoon. We two didn't get into the habit of drinking tea for quite some time. During those six months Sri Aurobindo drank his tea from a silver tumbler which had been offered by Shankar Chettiar." It was no high tea, just plain tea. The boys had something in

¹ See Mother's Chronicles, Book V, ch. 19.

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between meals.

"Let me now introduce you," murmured Moni, "to some of our eating habits during our stay at the Chettiar house. In the kitchen on the second floor, which I mentioned earlier, there were four or five ordinary wood-burning ovens in a row. Firewood was then commonly used in Pondicherry." Bejoy and Moni began preparing lunch there at around eleven. "Bejoy was the 'Chef de cuisine,' I his assistant There was one iron frying pan and two to three earthen vessels." That's all they had. "We sat on the kitchen floor and ate rice served on banana leaf." They also had brinjal. Unlike the soft brinjals of Bengal, these were hard as brick which they sliced in rings, and learned to soften a little by boiling them in moong dal.1 In addition they made a sort of gruel or pulp of sweet pumpkin. "Bejoy and I ate after Sri Aurobindo had finished his lunch. The banana leaves were brought along with our vegetables. A maid servant was engaged for our works of cleaning, washing and marketing.

"During those six months our menu invariably consisted of five items: rice, moong dal, brinjal, sweet pumpkin, and milk. There were no changes, no exceptions, no nothing—like the wheel of fate those items invariably turned up every day in our second-storey kitchen.... At night all the three of us had payas.2 A real case of plain living and high thinking. Naturally the high thinking was done solely by Sri Aurobindo."

It was lucky for them that in 1910 vitamins and calories were yet to be discovered. As Moni pointed out in the mid-'40s,

¹Moong dal: a type of lentil.

²Payas: rice boiled in sweetened milk. Often garnished with almonds, pistachios, raisins, etc.

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"That's why we survived, and I am able to chronicle this story."

All the same, after three months when the two boys were allowed to go out of an evening, they tried to bring back, clandestinely, some eggs. Eggs in the house of an orthodox vegetarian! But how to dispose of the shells? Flush them down the drain, of course! and they will vanish in the sewers. To the boys' sorrow the drain pipe ended about one foot from the ground in the courtyard. The eggshells fell in a heap at one corner. Chettiar let off the youths lightly, saying not to do it again. They didn't do it again; the next three or four times they ate eggs in the house the boys were careful to smuggle out the shells in their pockets.

Eggs could somehow be managed, but fish? How long could a fish-eating Bengali do without fish? Swami Aiyar was a young Tamil Brahmin. He was placed as a companion to them, to look after their needs. He hailed from Tinnelvelly and had come but recently to Pondicherry. He was then the editor of the Tamil paper Dharma (Tarumam) and lived at Dharmalayam, from where the paper was printed.

Moni and Bejoy fried their fish in Aiyar's house—the latter was less orthodox than the older generation—wrapped up the fried fish in a newspaper, and brought the packet into the house. Not a soul in sight. All went without a hitch ... the first time. Not the next time though. As the boys tried the same trick a second time they found that Shankar Chettiar was very much there. "Making a beeline for the staircase" Moni recalls, "I tried to avoid him. But he was quick and cut off my way. Then pointing to the packet he asked 'What is in it?'

" 'Some sweets,' I replied as a thumping began at a

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particular spot in my left breast.

"Chettiar asked again, 'From where?'

"I replied, 'Bought in the market.' The thumping had now become a pounding. Then I had a brain wave.

" 'For Babu.'

"Instantly Chettiar moved away and freed my passage. I ran up the stairs taking two steps at a time."

Sri Aurobindo was then known as 'Babu' to the Tamil friends at Pondicherry.

*

* *

But apart from eating, sleeping, bathing etc. what else did they do? How did they spend their time?

Sri Aurobindo divulged to his disciples in 1923 that he was "following a certain programme that was laid down for me when I came down to Pondicherry." We will come to it presently.

But he was not one to neglect anyone. The cheerful service done by the two Bengali boys must have touched him. God, as I know so well, never neglects His servitors. He / She always gives the necessary help, even material help. The Divine wants the full flowering of a being.

It was during those three months' virtual incarceration, with practically nothing to do, that the idea came to Moni to woo the Muse of Bengali literature.

Moni and Bejoy, specially the former, did some studies. Moni, I happen to know, was well versed in Bengali and English and French. He may have learnt Tamil also. But Sri Aurobindo was not his teacher of Tamil! Then there was their new-found

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friend, S. Aiyar, who was nearer their age than the others. The boys often had hilarious time with him. But what they must have looked forward to was the evenings. The evening spent with their adored 'Sejda' (elder brother). For that was when Bharati and Srinivasachari would come to see 'Babu.' Srinivasachari could see 'Babu' at any time of the day if the need arose.

The conversations between the elders were engrossing. They were not necessarily centred on politics only, though that must have been the main topic as all of them were revolutionaries. Besides, Sri Aurobindo always liked to keep a finger on the pulse of the nation.

Also, as we have already seen, the revolutionaries of that period were greatly drawn to Yoga. Add to that the fact that both Sri Aurobindo and Bharati were men of wider ranges. When they were alone, their talks conceivably were as wide as the universe.

My idea received support when I came across some writings of S. Srinivasachari.¹ His notes say that "though political subjects would often come up in the conversation, it lost its importance as our sole preoccupation." Sri Aurobindo was giving them "some instructions as to how to practise concentration," and watch how ideas rise in the mind. "After such instructions our conversation would turn on general subjects, on one of those occasions I asked him what he meant by Akasic records about which he used to write in his Karmayogin. He said that he himself cannot say much about them, he felt some scribbled scrolls were unfurling before his eyes with some

¹ Published in Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research (December 1988).

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connected ideas rising in his mind, he was neither able to say what language it was nor what the script was."

Another point noted by Srinivasachari: "On another occasion he was telling us that the coming Yuga will be a glorious one, for man will be able to live a far higher life, almost divine, in this world Then Bharati said that if divine life is lived on earth, then we must be immortal also. Yes, he said, we are bound to be so when we work for it."

How hard Sri Aurobindo worked—for decades—to usher in the New Yuga.

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