Memories of First Darshan

A Child at Play

Q: Tell me about your early days in the Ashram.

Well, I was just an infant and there was actually not much of an Ashram community at that time and no school. I remember one story that my father [A.B. Purani] told about me when I was still in the crawling stage. My father's quarters were just across from Sri Aurobindo's rooms. The talks with sadhaks would take place in the evenings. The sadhaks meditated, also, with Sri Aurobindo and perhaps I heard them speaking about meditation. Sometimes, as Sri Aurobindo's room had swinging doors, I would crawl into Sri Aurobindo's room and settle into a chair. My father would come looking for me and apologise to Sri Aurobindo and ask me, "What are you doing?" I would say "jeu, jeu". At times doors to both quarters were left open. One night I crawled from my father's flat into Sri Aurobindo's rooms and I was heard repeating the words "dana", "dana". It was surmised that I had heard the sadhaks during these evening talks discussing sadhana so often that I was trying to imitate the sound of the word!

- Anu Purani

(The Golden Path – Interviews with Disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville by Anie Nunnally, published by East West Cultural Center, California, 2004, pp. 179–80)