Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

23

Sundar Chetty's House

The observant reader has surely noticed the change of address in Sri Aurobindo's letter.

It was actually in October 1910 that the change took place. It was a rented house, let by one Sundar Chetty at Rs. 20 a month. Sri Aurobindo with Bejoy and Moni had already spent some six months—'less three and half days' to quote Moni— at Shankar Chetty's house. Then Sri Aurobindo's brother-in-law, Saurin Bose, turned up on 30^th September, the 'last day' (Moni says) at Shankar Chetty's, and passed the night with the two young men. Next day, on the forenoon of 1^st October, the four of them moved to their new residence.

The move brought them from the west of the canal to its east. The canal, running north to south, divides the town into two quarters: European (east) and native (west), or as the French put it, 'ville blanche 'and. ville noire' (white town, black town).

This N°4() Rue du Pavilion (now Rue Suffren) was to be their first rented house. The street is south of the big central park, and runs north-south, parallel to the canal. The door of N°40 opens to the east. There is a lane at the back of the house. Otherwise only houses. As one stepped in through the large

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door, one saw a garden to the left. A smallish one, but with trees. Particularly a Neem tree, like many other old houses in Pondicherry. Because of its purifying quality Mother named the Neem flower 'Spiritual Atmosphere.' There was another fruit tree, 'Janblon' in local parlance, we call it Black Jamun; it is, I think, Rose Apple tree (Eugenia jambos). To its flower Mother gave the meaning 'Mastery' and explained, "Know what the Divine wants and you will have mastery."

To the right of the gate was the house proper. About ten steps up and you were on a spacious verandah of the raised house. A door to the right opened to a room which Moni and Saurin shared. A similar door to the left led to the dining room. At the deep end of the verandah was yet another door. And this time we are at the threshold of the room where Sri Aurobindo lived all those six months, from October 1910 to April next year. That was the northernmost room. It had two north windows and two doors. The eastern door opened to a smaller room which was taken by Bejoy, and Nolini when he arrived in November. The western door communicated with the kitchen.¹

Moni and Bejoy kept up their job as cooks, just as they had done at Shankar Chetty's. Now Nolini and Saurin joined them. "We did the cooking ourselves," said Nolini, "and each of us developed a specialty. I did the rice, perhaps because that was the easiest. Moni took charge of dal (pulses), and Bejoy being the expert had the vegetables and the curry." Nolini specified

¹ I hope the reader will visualize better the layout with the help of the rough sketch than with my verbal description! To my horror, I just heard (14 October 1998) that the old building has been demolished, and a modern office stands in its place. The number too is changed, I understand.

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Sketch showing the layout of Sundar Chetty's house

to me, "And sometimes we would invite Sri Aurobindo into the kitchen, make him sit on a chair, and let him watch us at work."

Now that the Bengalis were at liberty, they did not forget fish! Nolini narrates in his Reminiscences with some humour. "Fish three annas" Bejoy would instruct in his particular Tamil (meen moon anna, illai, naal anna) their one and only servant, who shopped for them, "if not, then four annas."

They had more substantial food at Rue Suffren. Purani, who did as thorough a research as was then possible on Sri Aurobindo's life, provides us with the following list.¹

At breakfast each one had: tea, milk, sugar and bread (loaf).

Lunch was taken between 11:30 and 12:30. The five of them shared 3 lbs of meat; or they had curry along with other food.

In the afternoon, Sri Aurobindo was given a cup of tea. Generally Saurin prepared it. From time to time Moni made it.

Their dinner time was a little variable. Because, I believe, the four young men soon struck up friendship with local youth and joined them at sports. After they returned towards 7 or 7:15 they would set about cooking the dinner. Generally it was fish, rice and one vegetable. Or curry. It was therefore towards nine at night that they dined.

As they settled in, a dog turned up one day and adopted the household. Sri Aurobindo named it Yogini as the dog was a bitch. Eventually, she gave birth to puppies, "and two of them," Nolini recalled, "became particular favorites with Sri Aurobindo."

¹ The Life of Sri Aurobindo (1964), p.152.

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Sri Aurobindo never agreed with the then current idea that animals cannot think. In January 1939 he told a story about Yogini's thought processes. "We had, when we were staying in Rue Suffren, a bitch left by someone in the house which had a room upstairs with glass windows and a bathroom at one extremity. One day this bitch found herself locked out. She tried all sorts of devices to enter the room but could not as the main door and the windows were all closed. As all attempts failed, she sat down in front of the window and began to think—how to get in? The way she sat and the attitude of her sitting showed clearly that she was thinking. Then suddenly she got up as if saying: 'Ah, there is the bathroom door! Let me try it.' She went in that direction. The door there was open and she got in."

His conclusion: "It is the Europeans who make a big difference between man and animals. The only difference is the animals can't form a concept, can't read or write or philosophise."

As in most (if not every) houses in those days, Sundar Chetty's also had a well in the backyard. The water from the well was used for cooking, for bath and every other purpose. Nolini added, "for cleaning our teeth, we used tooth powder," and not neem twigs as I thought.

Well, the boys managed to procure a camp cot for Sri Aurobindo. They themselves had no bedding, so they slept on mats. 'Slept,' that is when the buzzing and bites of mosquitoes would allow sleep. They were too poor to afford mosquito nets. "If there were too many mosquitoes, we would carry the mats out onto the terrace for a little air, assuming, that is, that there were any." Pondicherry is notorious for its hot climate. After all it is not quite 12° north of the Equator (to be precise: 11°58'

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North 79°54' East will find the spot on a map).

These young men did not have any furniture for themselves. But they had a lot of books. Not at once though. Sri Aurobindo, however, had two or three trunks full of books and papers with him as always. Including, Nolini recalled, "a copy of Max Muller's ten-volume edition of the book (Rig-Veda), only the text. Sometime later he secured a copy of Sayana's 'Commentary' " It was indeed when Sri Aurobindo was living at Sundar Chetty's house that he started studying the Rig-Veda in the original Sanskrit.

At Shankar Chetty's house, with nothing to do, Moni had taken up writing in Bengali during the first three months. But in the new house, Sri Aurobindo began to educate the four young men. Almost the first need they felt was therefore for books. "Sri Aurobindo had fixed Rs. 10 a month for buying books. He himself used to select the books—mostly they were classics of English literature ... especially the series published in the Home University Library and the World Classic editions," Nolini specified to me.

Sri Aurobindo took up the young men's education from where he had left off at Shyam Pukur Lane, at the Karmayogin office at Calcutta. Remember how he taught Nolini French beginning with Moliere's L'Avare? Nolini had studied only Bengali and English in his school and college days. Here he continued to learn French, and having such a wonderful teacher he did not miss knowing Greek and Latin. "Sri Aurobindo has taught me a number of languages," Nolini said. "Here again his method has often evoked surprise. I should therefore like to say something on this point. He never asked me to begin the

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study of a new language with primary readers or children's books. He started at once with one of the classics, that is, a standard work in the language. He used to say that the education of children must begin with books written for children, but for adults, for those, that is, who had already had some education, the reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone. I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the State." Nolini never completed the translation. "I began my Latin with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante." I do not know with what books he began his Spanish and German lessons! Nolini knew well those two languages also. And Sri Aurobindo taught him Sanskrit. He learnt it so well that he translated many hymns into Bengali from the original texts of the Rig-Veda.

One would think, what could one buy with rupees ten a month? "We were able to purchase some French books at a very cheap rate, not more than two annas [one eighth of a rupee] for each volume in a series. We had about a hundred of them, all classics of French literature Afterwards, I also bought from the secondhand bookshops in the Gujli Kadai area several books in Greek, Latin and French. Once I chanced on a big Greek lexicon which I still use," Nolini said in 1962. "Gradually, a few books in Sanskrit and Bengali too were added to our stock, through purchase and gifts." There being no bookshelves, no tables, the books necessarily lay on the floor. Mind

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you, they did "not even have a decent kerosene lamp or lantern. All I can recall is a single candle-stick, for the personal use of Sri Aurobindo."

During the day, Sri Aurobindo taught the young men. He did his correspondence. He did his own sadhana. At night he burned the midnight candle over the Veda. However his sadhana and the Veda are separate stories, and we shall go into them later.

Anyway, now that the 'open' secret was no longer a secret, Sri Aurobindo received many visitors. He used to come out into the verandah, occupy a chair, with a table in front of him, while the visitors would sit in 'rickety' chairs—"there were a few rickety chairs too, for the use of visitors and guests"—and everyone would "sit around and engage in talks with Sri Aurobindo."

Among the locals and regulars were: "Rangachari, Ranga-swamy, Srinivasachari and Subramania Bharati."

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