Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master

Publisher's Note

Since the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950 many research publications have seen the light of day dealing with various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's life-work and teachings. But to our knowledge no book has so far been published exclusively devoted to the study of Sri Aurobindo's humorous writings. The present book hopes to break new ground in this particular field.

Apropos of Nirodbaran's Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo the Mother had once remarked: "Thanks to Nirod, we have a revelation of an altogether unknown side of what Sri Aurobindo was. It is extremely interesting and very instructive." It is the fond and humble hope of the writer of the present work that the readers will find in its pages another not so well-known but lovable side of the Master's personality revealed in ample measure. To our happy surprise we shall meet here "not the Sri Aurobindo of Himalayan grandeur and aloofness, but the modern Shakespeare of spiritual sublimity and jollity".

This is a book on humour. But, as Prof. Stephen Leacock has pointed out, "Articles and books on humour are apt to resolve themselves into a series of jokes and stories, or to take on all the appalling dullness of undiluted theory." In the present work the author has tried to strike a happy mean. Hence the sub-title, "Sri Aurobindo's Humour: An Analysis and an Anthology". The book does not reduce itself to the task of a bare 'assembling' of jokes and witty remarks made by Sri Aurobindo nor does it degenerate into an unmitigated theorising.

This is avowedly a book of research analysis, an analysis of the canons and principles and art of humour; but, in each case, appropriate examples have been immediately cited to illustrate the principle discussed, followed by a full quota of Sri Aurobindo's humorous passages belonging to the genre in question. The author has followed this procedure because he has felt that a suitable example clearly showing what is meant is worth a full page of theory.

While writing this book, the author has consulted, apart from all the published works of Sri Aurobindo, scores of other precious books written either by the disciples of the Master or by other scholars. An immense amount of help has been received from the books of three among the most intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo: Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Dilip Kumar. Gratitude towards all of them.

For the writing of this book the two following treatises have been extensively consulted and freely drawn on:

1.Humour and Humanity By Prof. Stephen Leacock; and

2.A Book of Famous Wits By Prof. Walter Jerrold.

The copies of the two books available with the writer are indeed very old and the title-pages are missing. Hence the author fails to locate the names of the publishers or the respective copyright-holders. However, the author of the present work on Sri Aurobindo's humour acknowledges with gratitude the profound insights he has gained from a careful perusal of the two books.

One last word and we have come to the end of our Note. Every hour of the three months the author has spent on the composition of the present work, he has constantly basked in the heart-warming mellow sunshine of Sri Aurobindo's humour. He has felt with wonder how close and intimate Sri Aurobindo is even to us, the ordinary dwarfs, and how great is the sympathetic understanding he bears towards us, the mortals of clay!

The author will feel immeasurably rewarded if the readers going through the pages of this book experience even a little of the benign and benevolent Presence Sri Aurobindo is.

August 15, 1995.

Chapter 1

Sri Aurobindo and Humour

Sri Aurobindo and humour? - What a preposterous subject! And to venture to write a book of four hundred fifty pages on a theme like 'Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings'? - What a queer idea bordering on the incredible! And to try to evoke the image of a smiling Sri Aurobindo? - Is it not divorced from all facts of the case? Can one remember having seen a photograph of Sri Aurobindo, even a single one, either pertaining to his early period of sojourn in England or to his days of active youth spent in Baroda and in Calcutta or even to his last year of physical existence - the year 1950, where Sri Aurobindo is found even with the faintest trace of a smile? No, one will fail to find any. Now, contrast with this the available photographs of the Mother. Side by side with some showing a serious mien we shall find a good many of them which bless and please our hearts with the images of a sweetly smiling beaming Mother. It is not without reason, at least apparent, that Nirodbaran, one of the closest associates and most intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo, once complained to him about his "Himalayan austerity and grandeur that takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate", and went to the extent of jocularly writing to him at the approach of a "Darshan Day":

"The Darshan is coming next month and I can't remain in this condition and come to you with a glum face to see your glum face too!"

Of course, pat came a witty reply from Sri Aurobindo: "I won't be glum — I shall receive you with a cheerful grunt."¹

But that was not so easy for him to do. We shall presently come to that point.

We were talking about the Mother's smiling face as contrasted with the 'smileless' appearance of Sri Aurobindo clothed in the austere snow-white grandeur of Mount Everest. Yes,

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indeed, being struck by such a contrast Nirodbaran could not but write to Sri Aurobindo:

"You thrashed me for calling you grave and austere at the Darshan time. But see, when we go to the Mother, how seraphically she smiles, while your self being near, appears still far away at some Olympian height. It is difficult to discern the gravity or the jollity of a face at such a height."²

Yes, that was and still is the image of Sri Aurobindo as imprinted in the minds of most men who have come to know him either through his photographs or through his various now famous books - an image of oceanic profundity and awe-inspiring grandeur but surely not one of 'human jollity'. Nirodbaran has so aptly given expression to this widely held impression in the following words:

"Sri Aurobindo, as we had come to know him..., had created in our minds a picture of him, high-poised as his Life Divine, far-moving as his Synthesis of Yoga, unapproachable, except perhaps by the gods, not at all close and intimate... or accessible to our mortal longings."³

And to associate humour with Sri Aurobindo's writings? -How incongruous it sounds! For whenever Sri Aurobindo's image as a writer flashes in our mind's sky, we invariably remember passages like the following:

1.From The Life Divine:

"Our evolution in the Ignorance with its chequered joy and pain of self-discovery and world-discovery, its half-fulfilments, its constant finding and missing, is only our first state. It must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a self-finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the divinity in things in that true power of itself in Nature which is to us still a Supernature."⁴

2.From The Synthesis of Yoga:

"Perfection is demanded of us, but not the perfection that can exist only by confining its scope within narrow limits or

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putting an arbitrary full stop to the ever self-extending scroll of the Infinite. Our object is to change into the divine nature, but the divine nature is not a mental or moral but a spiritual condition, difficult to achieve, difficult even to conceive by our intelligence. The Master of our work and our Yoga knows the thing to be done, and we must allow him to do it in us by his own means and in his own manner."⁵

3.From The Ideal of Human Unity:

"And all repressive or preventive law is only a makeshift, a substitute for the true law which must develop from within and be not a check on liberty, but its outward image and visible expression. Human society progresses really and vitally in proportion as law becomes the child of freedom; it will reach its perfection when, man having learned to know and become spiritually one with his fellow-man, the spontaneous law of its society exists only as the outward mould of his self-governed inner liberty."⁶

4.From Savitri:

"I know that thy creation cannot fail.

For even through the mists of mortal thought

Infallible are thy mysterious steps,

And, though Necessity dons the garb of Chance,

Hidden in the blind shifts of Fate she keeps

The slow calm logic of Infinity's pace

And the inviolate sequence of its will.

All life is fixed in an ascending scale

And adamantine is the evolving Law;

In the beginning is prepared the close."⁷

Writings of this nature issuing forth from the pen of Sri Aurobindo possess a magnetic charm of their own. But these, being concerned with illumined clarity, more often dazzle us with their impersonal effulgence than warm our hearts with any soothing personal touch.

This personal touch is, of course, very much present in the five bulky volumes of Sri Aurobindo's collected Letters — three

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on Yoga, and one each on himself and on the Mother. But even there, in those more than three thousand pages of printed matter, is there any sign of the chiaroscuro of his wit and humour? Alas, the answer is in the negative. The normal tenor of his letters as published in the above-mentioned five volumes is as follows:

5. From The Letters on Yoga:

"I take it therefore that the condition you describe is a period of transition and change, negative in its beginning, as these movements often are at first, so as to create a vacant space for the new positive to appear and live in it and fill it. But the vital, not having a long continued or at all sufficient or complete experience of what is to fill the vacancy, feels only the loss and regrets it even while another part of the being, another part even of the vital, is ready to let go what is disappearing and does not yearn to keep it."⁸

Yes, such is the style and temper of Sri Aurobindo's writings as known to the reading public outside. Even if there is found here and there an occasional sparkle of his humour, it is conspicuous by its utter rarity. And this is to such an extent that although Sri Aurobindo has established himself in the heart of his admirers as a Mahayogi, seer-poet, philosopher and a literary critic, to name only four facets of his multiform creative genius, a vague murmur is often heard that in the many-splendoured personality of Sri Aurobindo there is perhaps a serious lacuna caused by the absence of any articulate humour.⁹

And this idea is prevalent not only in the not so well-informed public mind outside, but even in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram itself. Before the "Correspondence" began in the early thirties of this century, there was an all-round sense of awe vis-avis Sri Aurobindo who appeared to be so great and so grave! -"too great," as Dilip Kumar Roy has observed, "too great for such as we, is he not? — we asked ourselves almost with a pang."¹⁰

This image of Sri Aurobindo, the image of someone who

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was always grave and far removed from any penchant for comic laughter, was somehow imprinted in the public mind even from the early days of his public career. "The man who never smiles," said Henry W. Nevinson, English writer and journalist who had met Sri Aurobindo in 1907 during his full revolutionary activities. Nevinson, an active journalist of U.K., has left his impressions of Sri Aurobindo in his book The New Spirit in India. Here are two extracts from that book, which among others helped to reinforce in the popular mind the above-mentioned image of Sri Aurobindo:

In the Surat Congress session of December 1907, "Grave and silent -1 think without saying a single word - Mr. Aravinda Ghose took the chair, and sat unmoved, with far-off eyes, as one who gazes at futurity...."¹¹

"I called on one whose name is on every lip as a wild extremist across whose path the shadow of the hangman falls.... He talked of things which trouble the soul of man; he wandered into the dim regions of aspiration where the mind finds a soothing resting-place. He was far more a mystic than a politician.... [He looked] a youngish man, I should think still under thirty. Intent dark eyes looked from his thin, clear-cut face with a gravity that seemed immovable.... Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who will act their dreams, indifferent to the means...."¹²

Such was the impression Sri Aurobindo left in Nevinson's mind in the year 1907. In May 1908 he was arrested by the Government of the day on a trumped-up charge of complicity in the Muzzaferpore outrage and kept in detention for full one year in the notorious Alipore Jail.

Now, while in detention, Sri Aurobindo granted an interview to a correspondent of the Anglo-Indian evening newspaper The Empire, on 15 August 1908, a few months after his arrest

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and the beginning of the trial proceedings in the Magistrate's court. This is how the said correspondent described Sri Aurobindo's demeanour at that time:

"Ever since the commencement of the trial... Aravinda has preserved a stolid demeanour. From the first day's hearing to the thirty-sixth, he has occupied one bench, his eyes immovably fixed on the floor, totally indifferent to the unfolding issues of the case."¹³

Now how to associate comic laughter with a person of such unmitigated gravity and impersonal aloofness? This seems well-nigh impossible and Dilip Kumar learnt this truth years later in 1943.

On February 4 of that year Sri Aurobindo granted a long interview to Dilip Kumar. The writer-disciple prepared a detailed transcript of all that had happened during that interview and sent the typescript to Sri Aurobindo for necessary correction and approval so that it could be subsequently published in print. At one place of his transcript Dilip Kumar had written:

" 'Tell me,' I said, 'shall I have a try at this process of domesticating my mind?' No sooner had I blurted it out than I dreaded lest he reply in the affirmative.

"He must have read my mind, for he laughed till his body shook. He answered: 'But mind you, you mustn't try as did one Iyer here.' He paused again and laughed, then went on: 'It was so comic, you know! He asked me how he might still the mind. I told him. He followed my direction and, by a rare stroke of fortune, succeeded. But fancy him rushing to me, scared to death! "Oh, my brain is empty of thoughts, I cannot think! Good God! I am becoming an idiot!" Little did he realise,' he laughed once again, 'that one could not very well become what one already was.'

"I joined in his happy laughter."¹¹¹ {Italics ours)

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After having gone through Dilip Kumar's transcript, Sri Aurobindo deleted the description and wrote on the margin:

"This won't do. It is a too exhilarating over-description. It calls up to my mind a Falstaff or a Chesterton; it does not fit in my style of hilarity. It is long since my laughter has been continuous and uncontrolled like that. For that to be true I shall have to wait till the year 1, S.D. (Supramental Descent). And 'rollicking'? The epithet would have applied to my grandfather but not to his less explosive grandson."¹⁵

Well, this is so far as comic laughter is concerned. But what about Sri Aurobindo's smile? Was it a very common phenomenon?

This question arises because Sri Aurobindo is reported to have once remarked: "I do not laugh but I smile." Alas! even that smile was such a rarity in public. For, is it not a fact that even within the four corners of his Ashram itself, even on such a happy and auspicious occasion like the periodic "Darshan" of himself and of the Mother, and even towards his most intimate disciples like Nirodbaran and Dilip Kumar, Sri Aurobindo wore the appearance of a calm and serene but smileless countenance. We have already referred to Nirodbaran's witty complaint on this score made to Sri Aurobindo. Here is a very interesting and altogether revealing experience that came to Dilip Kumar on the same score.

It is well known to all who have had the rare privilege of having Sri Aurobindo's Darshan even for once that during Darshan time he looked absolutely calm and serene, golden and majestic, with his eyes reflecting the Unfathomed. But one could not discern any sign of a smile there in his face. Now, it so happened that Dilip Kumar, on whom Sri Aurobindo showered his affection in unbelievable profusion through the medium of his correspondence, fondly yearned to be greeted with a smile of recognition from the Master when he, whom Sri Aurobindo considered as his "friend and son", would go to him at Darshan time for receiving his blessings. Dilip Kumar expressed his

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heart's wish in a letter addressed to Sri Aurobindo and the latter duly agreed to grant him his prayer. Very soon after that the Darshan Day arrived and the beloved disciple went to his Master. But did, or rather could, Sri Aurobindo smile on Dilip as previously agreed upon?

Let us listen to Dilip Kumar narrating the whole episode from the very beginning to its comic ending. D.K. writes:

"Few people who have known Sri Aurobindo will disagree with my estimate that he was essentially a man of deep reserve, a denizen of the deeps. It reminds me of a joke I had with him nearly fifteen years ago.

"On three (and later four) occasions in the year when he used to come out for us as well as the visitors, we used to take a look at him, but not, alas, a long look. His eyes rested on each of us but for a few seconds - because the whole procedure had to be concluded in about a couple of hours. On me he used to shed a kind glance but I searched in vain for a smile. I was indeed impressed by his grave face but I missed the smile of a friendly recognition which made to me all the difference in the world.

"When Sri Aurobindo came to know of my disappointment he did try to change but equally in vain. At all events, that was my impression, I insisted. But a lady who happened to be next to me drove me to the wall by asseverating that he had smiled at me. So I wrote to him more in shame than in sorrow: 'O Guru! here you put me out of countenance once more - possibly to pulverize the last vestiges of my self-confidence. For Lady Emphatic swears - and none can outswear her, as you know -that she saw your lips bend into a curve which can only be equated to a smile.

" 'So it follows, as the rain the drought, that I have forfeited even the right to believe in the testimony of my own senses, or is it that you only gave me a Supramental smile? If so, why did you waste such a boon on us, humans, whose mentality cannot possibly recognise it as such? '

"To that he wrote back: 'But Lady Emphatic is right. For I

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did indeed smile to you though it was not the broad smile of a Tagore or the childlike smile of a Gandhi. But I assure you I will try to be more convincing in future.' "¹⁶

So this is Sri Aurobindo who has to make special effort to make his supposed smile look really like a smile! It is no wonder that Dilip Kumar concludes his narration with these words:

"But when even his smile had to be warmly mooted before one could be convinced as to its authenticity, how could one call him anything but a reserved man?"¹⁷

Yes, Sri Aurobindo was indeed a reserved person and he once sought to account for it when Dilip Kumar lovingly complained to him that he would never laugh nor even smile. In one of his letters to D.K. Sri Aurobindo explained that since his early childhood he had been estranged from his family and accustomed to live a solitary life. His nature had therefore become reserved, somewhat remote and he felt shy of too much personal emotion.¹⁸

Whatever be the explanation of the phenomenon, the fact remains that his outwardly shy and reserved nature greatly contributed to the vast impersonality that characterised Sri Aurobindo. Nolini Kanta Gupta, one of the earliest and closest disciples of the Master, once called him the 'Impersonal-personal Sri Aurobindo'. The designation is so very apt; for Sri Aurobindo was impersonal even in his personal relationship and in his habitual demeanour, and impersonality marked even his utterances. A feeling of surprise overtakes us when we come to learn from Nirodbaran, one of Sri Aurobindo's constant companions during the last twelve years of his physical existence, that Sri Aurobindo "would, while talking, hardly look at us or address us by our names, for his eyes were cast downwards or looking away in front... and were seldom fully open."¹⁹

And even while living in the midst of people who crowded his small room, Sri Aurobindo used to live aloof somewhere else in some other plane of consciousness. At times he would not even be aware of what was going on around him in his room itself. Here are two small incidents testifying to this fact; these

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have been gathered from Nirodbaran's intimate account of the outer life of the Master as recorded in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo:

"Once the Mother came to inform Sri Aurobindo that Bhishmadev, a former disciple and an eminent singer of Bengal, was going to sing on the radio, and he very much wanted Sri Aurobindo to hear him. So the radio was brought near and the sponge-bath and the music went on simultaneously. When at the end of Bhishmadev's programme we asked him how he had liked the music, he answered, 'Oh, I completely forgot.' We had a good laugh."²⁰

"A similar instance happened in Dilip's case. He had sent the timing of his radio programme from Calcutta and beseeched Sri Aurobindo to hear him. Sri Aurobindo asked Champaklal to remind him of it. When the music was over, he asked Champaklal, 'Where is Dilip's music?' Champaklal laughed and said that it was already finished!"²¹

Sri Aurobindo was not even a conversationalist - as we normally understand and use the term. Nirodbaran was a regular participant in Sri Aurobindo's conversations for a good number of years. Basing himself on his close observation and personal experience, he makes an illuminating contrast between the styles of Tagore and Sri Aurobindo and remarks apropos:

"Tagore was a conversationalist par excellence. Those who have heard or talked to Tagore, recall their experience as 'great'. When we read his talks, we can well imagine how brilliant he must have been with his rich similes and metaphors, his sparkling wit and banter, the twinkling of his eyes, the rise and fall of his voice and all the other concomitant dramatic gestures so that his personality came in front more than his talks.

"Sri Aurobindo is quite a different study in perfect contrast. Life here is steady, there are no eddies or whirls, the stream flowing unobstrusively in a quiet rhythm, the jokes uttered

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rather casually, in an even tone in a typically English fashion... Here the personality remained behind and the subject-matter became more prominent."²²

Sri Aurobindo's impersonal far-away-ness is even more distinctly brought out when we watch him in his normal daily life as lived in the company of six of his disciples who attended on him during and after the period of his recovery from a serious thigh injury that he incurred due to an accidental fall in 1938.

As reported by Nirodbaran, who was Sri Aurobindo's literary secretary and one of his medical assistants, Sri Aurobindo would pass most of the time of his day in silent aloofness and his serene and silent human-divine Presence pervaded the room in which he lived with his disciple-attendants. But - yes, there is an interesting 'but' to this story, which has emboldened us to embark on this venturesome project of writing a bulky volume on Sri Aurobindo's humour. This is as follows.

Due to some inscrutable reason or, perhaps as a gesture of his unbounded grace towards the young disciples who were serving him day and night so loyally and with so much love, Sri Aurobindo used to put off his mantle of reserve for a short period every day and engage himself in animated conversation with these young attendants. He would then help these young souls forget for a while the sublime Guru-Shishya relationship and rise above all feelings of constraint or sanctimonious awe that might have possibly put a check on their spontaneous impulses. Here is Nirodbaran's description of Sri Aurobindo during those short interludes:

"It was quite a different Sri Aurobindo from what he was at other times of the day. The high, serene and silent snow on the Himalayan peaks had melted down into a quiet and cool gurgling stream. Hold the pure sanctified waters in your hands, sprinkle them over the body, drink them or play with them like a child. How perennially fresh and diversely rich, sparkling always with his ready wit and humour!"²³

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Yes, 'sparkling with his ready wit and humour'. Here are two specimens of Sri Aurobindo's conversational jokes made during these periods of relaxed intermission. Nirodbaran is recounting:

1."Champaklal is the custodian of all their relics such as hair, nails, teeth. He has even stored up all the ashes of the burnt mosquito-coils. Here is a humorous incident in connection with the ashes:

"Once during our evening talks, the Mother came in with a telegram in which somebody had asked Sri Aurobindo to send 'ashes' for the marriage of his daughter. We were perplexed for we could not make out the meaning. Purani had an intuitive flash and said, 'It may be the Indian word dshish for benediction.' 'Oh, I see!' exclaimed Sri Aurobindo, T was wondering how I was supposed to carry ashes with me, perhaps on my head! Of course I can give them some from Champaklal's mosquito-coils. If I had not given up smoking, I could have given some cigar-ash.' "²⁴

2."One day Sri Aurobindo addressed Purani and said, 'There is something nice for you, Purani.' (For once he used his name!)

"Purani: For me?

"Sri Aurobindo: Yes. A letter has come from America addressed to Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The writer says, T have heard that you are a great yoga. I am also a yoga. I have started to predict sporting events. I can go into trance and know everything. If you agree to work in collaboration with me, we will share the profits. Let me know your terms. If you don't want to take the money yourself, you can give it to the poor. Our collaboration will be a service to yourself, to me and to the poor.' What do you say, Purani? You too can go into trance or send Nirod into trance!"²⁵

Yes, Sri Aurobindo used to become somewhat expansive and indulge in humour during these times when he would put off his mantle of majesty and high impersonality and the

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amiable aspect of his nature would come to the forefront.

But, alas, this was so only for a short duration during the day. As Nirodbaran has pointed out:

"The stream flowed at some particular time and not for a long period. Again the grand, serene and silent Presence on the peaks! One could say that the austere 'cloak of a reclining God', the robe of silence had slipped down and brought to our view the body of a human godhead. But he would put on the robe of silence again; yet, both the visions had their unfailing charm and grandeur."²⁶

But even this short period of expansiveness every day could not become a permanent feature all along. It went on decreasing in its duration till, in the closing years of Sri Aurobindo's earthly existence, he became his silent self again. In Nirodbaran's words, "As the years passed, the original stream of abundance began to get thinner and thinner till in the last years there was practically a silent attendance on a silent Presence.... Only when Dr. Manila! arrived from Baroda, the still atmosphere quickened with life for a while but he too would soon lapse into a quiescent mood."²⁷

So we are back to square one and our readers may reasonably wonder how can then one hope to weave a garland of humour around a personality of such high aloofness. Indeed, even two or three decades back one could not have possibly dared to associate humour with Sri Aurobindo in any great measure. But then occurred some happy events and a new till-then-unknown Sri Aurobindo emerged into our full view. A few precious books written by his intimate disciples appeared in print in quick succession. First came out Dilip Kumar's Sri Aurobindo Came To Me whose chapter "Avowedly Personal" showed to the reading public how humorous Sri Aurobindo could be in his written correspondence. Then came out in 1967 Amal Kiran's Life-Literature-Yoga which revealed Sri Aurobindo's humour enlivening literary topics in rich profusion. The Second

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Series of Nirodbaran's Correspondence saw the light of day in 1959 and it brought the humorist Sri Aurobindo in sharp focus. With 1974 came to the readers' notice Nirodbaran's Sri Aurobindo's Humour which happened to be a collection of humorous exchanges between the writer and Sri Aurobindo. This particular book opened the eyes of the reading public to a quite unfamiliar aspect of the great Yogi-philosopher - his wonderful humour "presented with an intensity of concentration and a profusion of new material". This book of correspondence was followed by Fifty Poems of Nirodbaran: With Corrections and Comments by Sri Aurobindo which was published in 1983. Fifty Poems showed Sri Aurobindo in another light, in the role of a Poet-maker. In this role Sri Aurobindo offered again and again 'patient and empathic corrections' to the not-so-successful compositions of his disciple who, although a medico by training, aspired to be a good poet. Now the interesting point relevant to our present discussion is the surprising discovery that all the lessons in poetry-making Sri Aurobindo gave to Nirodbaran were always suffused with "a lavish yet most apposite humour." Finally, only a few years back, in 1984, has come out the 'unexpurgated' (!) edition of the complete set of Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo. This peerless book of more than twelve hundred pages is replete to saturation, almost in every one of its pages, with exquisite instances of Sri Aurobindo's wit and humour.

A careful perusal of all these books opened the world's eyes to a most lovable side of Sri Aurobindo's personality - and a most charming aspect of his luminous writings. It became confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt that although in society Sri Aurobindo generally withdrew into "the shell of his deep, congenital reserve", with his intimates of the inner circle he always loved to indulge - albeit through the medium of writing - in banter and laughter and quips of every description.

So in his inner disposition Sri Aurobindo was not after all 'grim and austere', as NB had 'complained' in one of his communications! Sri Aurobindo's riposte is ringing in our ears:

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"O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern! every blasted thing that I never was! I groan in un Aurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all you people?"²⁸

On another occasion when Nirodbaran wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "I am much delighted and relieved to find that you have not lost your sense of humour by your Supramental transformation, Sir," Sri Aurobindo wrote back:

"Where the deuce do you get these ideas? From Dilip? The supramental being the absolute of all good things, must equally be the absolute of humour also. Q.E.D."²⁹

"From Dilip?" - yes, Sri Aurobindo's query was justifiable. For Dilip Kumar, a close friend of Nirodbaran, could not at first believe that Sri Aurobindo - with all the widening and heightening and deepening of his spiritual consciousness - could still retain his mood of humour. Hence was his sense of happy relief and rapture when he started receiving from his Guru his first letters laved with the balm of humour. He has given adequate expression to his mood in the following words:

"When such a living orb of superhumanity comes down to us with letters limpid with love and human understanding, then comes the thrill because the incredible thing then seems to have come to pass: even such a giant can then, on occasions, dwarf himself so that we may feel his humanity! I can almost recapture the thrill which his first letters gave me and the mystic thanksgiving that rose from my heart like vapour from a calm lake at sundawn, wistful and yet iridescent with romance. For such a great revolutionary, who matured later into an even greater Yogi of invulnerable gravity, to have retained unimpaired the human zest for laughter and humour and repartees!"³⁰

So it may not after all be altogether impossible to write a whole book on the subject of Sri Aurobindo's humour nor

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would it be, let us hope, blasphemous on our part to associate jollity with such a Mahayogi like Sri Aurobindo. For has he not himself assured us? -

"I am not aware that highly evolved personalities have no sense of humour or how the person can be said to be integrated when this sense is lacking. 'Looseness' applies only to a frivolous levity without any substance behind it. There is no law that wisdom should be something rigidly solemn and without a smile."³¹

Yes, in Sri Aurobindo's case his humour has always been "the flower of his wisdom". As Nirodbaran has pointed out, "Sri Aurobindo's jokes were never really trivial; they could be playful but always had an intellectual element in them."³²

Sri Aurobindo once remarked, "Can't afford to play jokes like that in public." - Yes, 'not in public', but in his voluminous correspondence with his intimate disciples Sri Aurobindo has shown himself to be a supreme artist of humour and in unbelievable profusion. And this is especially so in the case of his written exchanges with Nirodbaran, his doctor-disciple. Dilip Kumar used to remark to NB: "In your Correspondence Sri Aurobindo has revealed himself in a totally new aspect."³³ Such deeply intimate personal touch transmitted through the indirect contact of letters! Its magic Sri Aurobindo alone seemed to know.

And what an unceasing cascading of wit and humour is found in Sri Aurobindo's correspondence with Nirodbaran! It is simply amazing to observe how the entire gamut of the correspondence is irradiated through and through with the sunny humour of Sri Aurobindo. Nirodbaran, delightfully surprised by this breath-taking outpouring of grace, once asked Sri Aurobindo from what perennial fount flowed so much silent laughter; to that puzzled query the Master's cryptic answer was the Upanishadic 'Raso vai sal?', 'Verily He is Delight.'³⁴

But what strikes us in these epistolary compositions of Sri Aurobindo is the remarkable fact that he passed from the

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serious to the light moods and back again to the serious with an astounding ease of transit. Even the Mother, in referring to these 'dialogues' between the Master and his beloved disciple, remarked to Satprem years later in 1972:

"Have you read the whole 'Correspondence with Nirod'? There are extraordinary things in there. He seems to be joking all the time but ... it's extraordinary.

"You see, I lived - how many years? Thirty years, I think, with Sri Aurobindo - thirty years from 1920 to 1950.1 thought I knew him well, and then when I hear this, I realise that ..." [Mother makes a gesture as if to indicate a breaking of bounds^

And so far as the quality of Sri Aurobindo's humour is concerned, here is the Mother's appraisal of it:

"And you know, from the point of view of humour, I have never read anything more wonderful, oh! ... He had a way of looking at things ... it's incredible. Incredible."³⁶

And this applies to Sri Aurobindo's humour not only as expressed in his "Correspondence" but also in all his other writings beginning with those of his early teens and ending with those of his advanced years. But this fact is not so well known to people in general. The world at large is still not aware of the vastness and sublimity of this side of Sri Aurobindo's personality, of his personality aglow with a sense of rich and variegated humour.

Hence arises this humble attempt on our part to acquaint die reading public with this not so familiar but altogether engaging aspect of Sri Aurobindo. As the readers will go through the various chapters of this book, they will not fail to make the pleasant discovery that Sri Aurobindo has been a genius even in this popular field and "he could, if he wanted, flood one with torrents of cosmic laughter on any subject, on any occasion, without a moment's thinking."³⁷

And this has been a constant trait with him. For even in his

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most 'serious' books like The Life Divine, Essays on the Gita or The Human Cycle we come to meet at times a deep vein of sublime humour. Here are just three examples.

1.From The Life Divine:

"It is so that ascetic philosophy tends to conceive it. But individual salvation can have no real sense if existence in the cosmos is itself an illusion....Who then profits by this escape? ... For the Illusionist the individual soul is an illusion and nonexistent except in the inexplicable mystery of Maya. Therefore we arrive at the escape of an illusory non-existent soul from an illusory non-existent bondage in an illusory non-existent world as the supreme good which that non-existent soul has to pursue!"'⁸

2.From Essays on the Gita:

"An inner situation may arise in which all duties have to be abandoned, trampled on, flung aside in order to follow the call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine or journalism."³'

3.From The Human Cycle:

"The truth is that upon which we are now insisting, that reason is in its nature an imperfect light... It can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual and collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between them, for the belief in Being or for the belief in Becoming, for optimism and pessimism, for activism and quietism. It can justify the most mystic religionism and the most

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positive atheism, get rid of God or see nothing else. In aesthetics it supplies the basis equally for classicism and romanticism, for an idealistic, religious or mystic theory of art or for the most earthy realism. It can with equal power base austerely a strict and narrow moralism or prove triumphantly the thesis of the antinomian. It has been the sufficient and convincing prophet of every kind of autocracy or oligarchy and of every species of democracy; it supplies excellent and satisfying reasons for competitive individualism and equally excellent and sufficient reasons for communism and against communism and for State socialism or for one variety of socialism against another. It can place itself with equal effectivity at the service of utilitarianism, economism, hedonism, aestheticism, sensualism, ethicism, idealism or any other essential need or activity of man and build around it a philosophy, a political and social system, a theory of conduct and life. Ask it not to lean to one idea alone, but to make an eclectic combination or a synthetic harmony and it will satisfy you..."⁴⁰

The nondiscerning readers may not be easily convinced about the presence of humour in these long passages taken from three of Sri Aurobindo's major prose works. But what, after all, is humour? What is its true nature and essential trait? Has it undergone any upward evolution? Is it synonymous with anything that causes laughter? And, finally, does the expression of humour have a unique form or it may express itself through many different forms?

These and some other allied questions must be thoroughly discussed before we can be in a position to appreciate in full Sri Aurobindo's humour in its multichrome manifestation. And such a discussion will form the theme of our second chapter.

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The Smiling Master

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult the Bibliography on page 439.

.

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Chapter 2

Humour as an Art

Humour is a marvellous art; humour is a difficult art. To be a humorist of class, that is to say, someone consciously skilled in comic artistry, is not at all an easy task. To be so requires a different sort of genius.

Yes, only a genius can become a veritable humorist; yet the irony of the situation is that an altogether different and contrary impression prevails in the popular mind. As Prof. Walter Jerrold has sorrowfully remarked, men of wit and humour are not as a rule considered men of letters, or even persons of literary training or experience.¹

How erroneous the idea is! The poet talked of the "loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind". Here, 'vacant mind' is in reality an expression of deep approbation; by this he meant a mind that is free from undue care and anxiety, delivered from the heavy and depressing load of the boredom of life. But popular interpretation has shifted the sense of the word 'vacant' to mean empty-headed and idiotic! All laughter, according to this notion, arises out of an unoccupied mind, and, who does not know, 'idle laughter' has to be sharply contrasted with its polar opposite 'profound reflection', "as if it were better to be puzzled than to be happy!"²

It is not at all surprising that a bygone Senator of U.S.A. named Corwin exclaimed in exasperation: "The world has a contempt for the man who amuses it. You must have to be solemn - solemn as an ass. All the great monuments on earth have been erected over the graves of solemn asses."³

Let us not bother about the mistaken notion of the generality of common men. For, all connoisseurs of higher scholarship recognise that "learning should be bright and luminous, as cheerful as Sydney Smith, as optimistic as Leonardo da Vinci: gloom, like that of Carlyle, mostly means indigestion!"⁴

Be it that laughter is decried by the self-styled serious

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people, but even the Gods are said to laugh - they who are the masters of the Spirit's Delight. The dazzling whiteness of Mount Kailasa is in Kalidasa's visionary eyes "the eternal laughter of a God". And Homer's Gods? - Are they not constantly breaking into laughter over the follies of men below?⁵ In this connection, let us recall the witty remark Sri Aurobindo once made to his anxiety-laden disciple, Dilip Kumar: "Dilip, there is laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven, though there may be no marriage there."

Be that as it may, let us first be clear in our mind about what humour actually is and what causes laughter in us and finally what the relation is between humour and laughter.

I. What is Humour?

Let us for the moment take 'humour', not as a specialised and particular mode of expression of the comic, but rather in its generic sense, in its most comprehensive connotation.

Humour has come to acquire two different shades of meaning, although closely allied to each other: (i) a person's ability to perceive and appreciate the comic; and (ii) one's capacity to express the comic in an art form (through words or pictures or pantomimes, for example). These two senses are, of course, in relation to the perceiving subject but there is a third meaning attached to the object or vehicle of expression. In this last case 'humour' signifies the comic quality of the expression. We have thus various linguistic expressions such as, (i) a man of humour; (ii) a humorous man; (iii) humorous writing; (iv) to appreciate the humour of a remark; etc.

But how has the word 'humour' come into the language? What is its etymological significance? Has this significance evolved with the passage of time?

In its Latin origin 'humour' signified 'wetness', a meaning which has left its vestiges in the current expressions 'humid' and 'humidity'. With Hippocrates and his medical successors 'humour' took on a specific sense of wetness, 'the liquid contents

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flowing through the human body'. These 'humours' were supposed to be of four kinds - the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile and the black bile, and man's general health was stated to depend entirely on the proper harmony of these four humours. The physician's task was thus perceived to be to 'keep a man in good humour'. With the advent of the Middle Ages 'humour' lost this specific sense and acquired instead a general meaning of 'disposition' and 'temperament'. In course of time the expression branched off in two different directions, acquiring in the process two different meanings: (i) caprice, whim, wilfulness; (ii) something odd, exceptional or incongruous. By and by the second sense gained ground and we have our modern word 'humour' which signifies "not merely incongruity but something pleasing and amusingly incongruous."⁶

Yes, 'amusingly incongruous'. And the special mention of this character makes us recall with pleasure the felicitous words of Amal Kiran, a senior disciple of Sri Aurobindo:

"Sri Aurobindo remarks that humour is the salt of life. Well, it is at least one of the salts. You know there are many kinds of salts — bathing salts, smelling salts, somersaults. I suppose humour should be considered somersaulty!"⁷

"Somersaulty" is OK. But any and every type of somersault cannot produce humour. So the question is, how to make it more specific. In other words, as the logicians would say, how to 'define' humour. But is it at all possible to convey in words what humour is, to someone who has no sense of humour? The task is difficult, so difficult indeed that Isaac Barrow 'defined' it as follows:

"Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how."⁸

Yet scholars and analysts have tried to tackle the task, and let us see what tentative definitions they have offered us for the strange phenomenon and faculty of humour.

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Aristotle felt it to be the perception of some sort of unseemliness, of some defect that does not involve pain or injury.

According to Henri Bergson the comic is something 'mechanical' encrusted upon the living.

In Immanuel Kant's view the comic is "an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing."

Each of the above ways of looking at humour contains an element of truth but not the whole truth. Exclusively taken, they miss something essential to the production of genuine humour.

Prof. Walter Jerrold has quoted a famous lexicographer defining humour as follows:

1.Definition (applicable to the 2nd sense of humour).

"The faculty of associating ideas in new and ingenious, and at the same time pleasing way, exhibited in apt language and felicitous combinations of words and thoughts, by which unexpected resemblances between things apparently unlike are vividly set before the mind, so as to produce a shock of pleasant surprise; facetiousness."

2.Definition (conforming to the 1st sense):

"A mental faculty which tends to discover incongruous resemblances between things which essentially differ, or essential differences between things put forth as the same, the result being internal mirth or an outburst of laughter."⁹

Leaving these cumbrous dictionary definitions behind, we may formulate our working definition in this way:

Humour may mean either the expression of the incongruities of life, or the sense in us which enables us to express it. Humour is "the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof."¹⁰

But what about the relation between humour and laughter?

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II. Humour and Laughter

Laughter is generally taken to be a cognate phenomenon of humour. But it is a fact that some persons are found to laugh a good deal without possessing for that matter any great sense of refined humour. On the other hand, there are quite a few genuinely humorous people who themselves seldom laugh although their humorous words or writings may make others laugh a lot. In the recent past there has been a great writer in Bengali literature of the name of Rajshekhar Basu. He was a scientist by profession, also at the same time an erudite scholar and a reputed lexicographer. In his personal life and social dealings he was a person of serious demeanour, not given to jollity at all. Yet, under the nom de plume Parashuram, he wrote a good number of stories and novels which can be counted as gems in the field of humorous literature. And his case is by no means unique.

Thus we see that humour and laughter need not be always invariably associated. Social scientists and psychologists have studied the phenomenon and come to the conclusion that the comic laughter is only one particular type of laughter; laughter has many other varieties and may arise from altogether different factors. For example, laughter may be induced

(a)by a purely physical cause like tickling, or inhalation of nitrogen monoxide or the so-called 'laughing gas';

(b)by the automatic reflex-imitation of others' laughter;

(c)by a nervous relaxation;

(d)by joy and exultation of any sort;

(e)by a sense of escape or deliverance;

(f)by what M. Dupreel has called "social welcoming" or "social exclusion";

(g)by what Profs. A. Stern and C. Lalo have characterised as the negative tendency to devalue and denigrate the higher and the superior: thus, an unrefined person hurls his laughter of ridicule against all that is good and beautiful, and a foolish man laughs at anything and everything that he cannot understand; and finally

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(h) by what is comic in nature.

The comic laughter should therefore be clearly distinguished from all other non-comic phenomena of laughter. But what is this comic laughter due to? What are the essential elements that provoke or sustain it?

III. Theories of Comic Laughter

There have been many contending theories in the field. From Socrates to Koestler various thinkers have tried to explain the reason for the comic feeling and the consequent laughter. Each of them has sought to pin-point one essential element in the complex phenomenon that is laughter of humour.

Sully in his An Essay on Laughter shows that all these diverse theories can be brought under three main catogories which may be respectively stated as

(a)the theory of degradation;

(b)the theory of exultation, and

(c)the theory of incongruity.

Thomas Hobbes' theory belongs to the first category. According to it we experience a comic feeling of sudden glory or triumph for ourselves when we take down somebody or see somebody taken down from his generally accepted position of glory. It is a relative feeling arising out of the unexpectedly observed contrast between a man's supposed dignity and his real weakness, or between what is required of him and what he actually does.

McDougall's theory may be taken to belong to the second category. According to it comic laughter is nature's antidote to misplaced and exaggerated sympathy. It is true that without mutual sympathy man's social existence would have been impossible. But this is equally true that an unmitigated and too excessive 'sympathy' would have spread around the contagion of depressing gloom and thus made man's social life equally debilitated. Therefore, against this too pronounced sympathetic tendency Nature has implanted in us a distinct instinct of

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laughter which is set in motion whenever we find someone in mild distress or discomfiture which should not be of such a degree as to call for any active sympathy or practical help. This comic feeling helps us see our so-called misfortunes in the right perspective and thus delivers our mind from depressing thoughts.

Now the third category of theories, the theory of incongruity, holds that any incongruity or inconsistency in human speech, dress, action, behaviour, etc., blows up the lid from the assumed gravity of the whole affair and makes us laugh out because of the release from habitual tension and tautness.

What is of crucial importance for the production of the comic feeling is the fact that the degradation or the incongruity or their combination should be slight and really harmless, for, otherwise, some other contrary feeling such as anger, irritation or pity may be excited and the nascent comic feeling completely submerged and supplanted.

Another interesting point to note in this connection is the fact that both the comic and the sublime are relative feelings arising out of a distinct perception of contrast. But this contrast has "opposite effects in the two cases; in the former, the object is belittled, while we feel momentarily triumphant; in the latter, the greatness of the object is magnified, while we feel small before it. Consequently, while in the one case we have a feeling of joy and exaltation, in the other we have a feeling of awe and humility.""

IV. Humour: Its Ascending Evolution

The humorous impulse in man has passed through many stages of upward development, at the bottom of which are the guffaws and malice and primitive fun, and at the top are smiles and tears and refined reflection. Prof. Stephen Leacock has made a profound study of this subject in his charming opuscule Humour and Humanity. What follows below is an abridged adaptation of his valuable observations.

Both the sense of humour and the expression of it have

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undergone in the course of history an upward and continuous progress. Humour meant exultation, the sense of personal triumph over one's adversary, or the sense of impish delight in seeing something — anything — demolished or knocked out of shape. But humour has been undergoing a refining process. The 'exultation' must somehow keep away the reality of harm and arise as it were out of the mere appearance of it. Humour, in other words, has changed from the basis of injury or destruction, to what may be described as a basis of pleasant 'incongruity' or 'maladjustment'. Malice has given place to human kindliness.

In course of its progressive development humour has followed in different hands two opposite streams: negative and positive, destructive and constructive. The movement of the humorous impulse or the expression of the humorous idea has not, alas, been in all cases consistently inspired by understanding sympathy and human kindliness. In one direction have flowed "the polluted waters of mockery and sarcasm, the infliction of psychological pain as a perverted source of pleasure"; along this line are found the impish malice, the sneer of the scoffer, and the snarl of the literary critic as opposed to the kindly tolerance of the true humorist.

In the other direction has flowed, "clear and undefiled", the humour of human kindliness, unpolluted by the malicious counterpart. "Humour goes upon its way, moving from lower to higher forms, from cruelty to horseplay, from horseplay to wit, from wit to the higher humour of character and beyond that to its highest stage as the humour of life itself. Here tears and laughter are joined, and our little life, incongruous and vain, is rounded with a smile."¹² Humour attains its consummated stage when it broadens its outlook and becomes one with pathos and reflection. Then one realises that "the humourous conception and the serious conception are just the two Janus faces of the same truth."¹³

We are here reminded of Nirodbaran's pregnant remark visa-vis Sri Aurobindo's humour. Let it not be forgotten that NB lived in close physical proximity to Sri Aurobindo for a long

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period of twelve years. He has observed: "Sri Aurobindo's jokes were never really trivial; they could be playful but always had an intellectual element in them."¹⁴

Before we close this section on the evolution of humour we may refer, in the barest possible outlines, to a few of the specialised forms through which the humorous impulse of man has sought its verbal expression.

A 'joke' is an item of humour reduced to a single point or particle. It represents the breaking up of the humorous matter into its elements or components so that we can examine and appreciate one little bit of it at a time.

'Satire' has for its aim not merely to amuse but to make amusement a vehicle of purpose. Satire may possibly be of many different kinds and used for many different purposes.

'Wit' is an expression of humour involving an unexpected and ingenious play upon words. A quickness of dual perception is essential to the production of wit. Humour may very often be merely playful, but a wit is frequently weighted with some interest. This interest may often be either to wound or to convey a reproach or snub or criticism.

Wit may be of a lower negative variety or it may be of a higher positive kind. Here are two examples of wit, one each of the two categories. (These have been taken from Walter Jerrold's A Book of Famous Wits.)

Ex. 1: An affected young man was dining with an Yorkshire family. When the hostess ordered the servant to remove the "fool", meaning the fowl, the young man sought to correct the lady's pronunciation by saying: "I presume you mean the fowl, madam." "Very well," responded the annoyed Yorkshirewoman, "take away the fowl and let the fool remain."¹⁵ Ex. 2: At a dinner of artists and literary men, a poet wittily proposed the toast of "The painters and glaziers of Great Britain!" coupling it with the name of a famous artist. The toast having been duly honoured, the artist returned thanks. It was now his turn to propose a toast and he neatly retaliated on the

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poet by coupling his name with a further toast "The British paper stainers!"¹⁶

This was the happy give-and-take of an intelligent witty exchange.

V. Basic Principles and Devices

In spite of E.B. White's injunction that humour should not be dissected, many a scholar has tried to analyse the phenomenon of humour in order to disengage its basic canons and principles, also how a humorous effect is successfully produced by the artists of humour. The scholars' analysis has revealed the fact that a successful humorist, while bringing together a certain combination of words, phrases, ideas, phenomena, fancies, actualities or accidents, must somehow bring to light (i) certain pleasing contrasts, discrepancies and incongruities, or (ii) an unexpectedly occurring discomfiture of others, moderated by the relieving sense that it does not cause any serious hurt or damage.

Now this may be done and the required humorous effect produced by adopting any one of a number of literary devices which may collectively be called the "rhetoric of humour". Some of these 'tricks of the trade' may be formulated as follows:

(1) Exaggeration or overstatement; (2) Understatement; (3) Distortion; (4) Surprise; (5) Faulty logic; (6) Violation of the laws of logical thinking; (7) Unexpected logic; (8) Unexpected truth; (9) Reductio ad absurdum; (10) Hypocrisy; (11) Deception; (12) Disguise; (13) Witty cynicism; (14) Disparaging comparison or contrast; (15) Verbal irony; (16) Dramatic irony; (17) Witty insults; (18) Unmasking; (19) Pose of ignorance; (20) Vanity; (21) Violation of a taboo; (22) Small misfortunes; (23) Discomfiture; (24) Ingenious twists; (25) Twisting of cliches; (26) Paradox; (27) Pun; (28) Parody; (29) Frustrated expectation; (30) Unexpected fulfilment; (31) Sudden juxtaposition of impossibilities; (32) Incongruous juxtaposition of

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ideas; (33) Rule ingeniously broken; (34) Coining unexpected definitions; (35) Outwitting; (36) Intentional violation of the common or proper use of words; (37) Intentionally made false statements; (38) Expressing a blunt truth when the conventional is expected; (39) Pungently stating a belief widely held but rarely expressed; (40) Expressing an original idea; (41) Contradicting well-known facts; (42) Rationalisations as if they were true motives; (43) Treating the imaginary or the impossible as the real, and the trivial as the important; (44) Playful violation of anything customary; and so on and so forth. For, given human inventiveness the name of these literary contrivances is simply Legion.

But it goes without saying that a formal employment of any of the devices mentioned above will not automatically produce a humorous effect. If it would have done so, we would not have referred to humour as an art. Something more, something almost intangible, is needed on the part of the writer before he can qualify as a genuine writer of humour.

VI. Abilities Required

To write humour is a difficult art. In improper hands it may degenerate into something "as dull and respectable as philology or epistemology!"¹⁷ Also, the humour should not be overdone nor should it be blunt and crude. There should be great subtlety in the expression of humour and this subtlety should not be explicitly elaborated.

There are subtle undertones lying just beneath or around the words we use; these undertones have to be cleverly exploited as potent devices for creating the requisite humorous effect. Thus, to produce the right kind of happy humour, the writer must possess a keen sense of individual words and phrases and an adequate understanding of the sequence of the constitutive senses, and use them naturally, almost inevitably, so much so that if one seeks to alter any of the words or the phrases, the quality and/or the effect of the humour will come down by a few leagues.

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We may succinctly state that a qualitatively successful humorous writing demands on the part of the author

(1)a very exact knowledge of the value of the words, of the mots propres;

(2)a knowledge of how to use the right word at the right place;

(3)a knowledge of using the wrong word at the right place;

(4)a knowledge of using the right word in the wrong place;

(5)the capacity for choosing the right word, the inevitable word;

(6)the ability to bring about an unexpected matching of words and their senses, giving rise to a shock of humour;

(7)a great naturalness of language, avoiding scrupulously all straining after producing the effect;

(8)a proper awareness of the emotive meanings of the words used, as distinct from their literal dictionary referents;

(9)a knowledge of the proper shades of meaning of apparently synonymous words and a dexterity in using them ingeniously with a view to creating a pleasant and surprising shock of humour; and lastly,

(10)metaphors being the very life of humour, an ability to extend the use of a given word to a new situation where it fits in with surprising aptness.

This last requisite, - the ability to compare by similes, metaphors and subtle implications, - proves a peerless asset in the hands of an accomplished humorist. As Prof. Leacock has observed in connection with Charles Dickens' writings:

"Such comparisons were characteristic of Dickens and all his work. He was for ever comparing everything with everything else: and, above all, in this way endowing inanimate objects with life and movement; for him windows grin, doors yawn, clocks wink solemnly and trees talk in the night breeze. The fancies of Barnaby Rudge watching the clothes dance upon the clothesline are those of his creator."¹⁸

Let us call a halt now to our abstruse theoretical discussion and pass on to the citing of concrete examples. For, mere theory or abstract formulation of principles and devices will not be

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able to carry conviction to us as regards what actually produces the comic effect and how this humorous effect is linguistically evoked. One right example will speak much more than a shipload of analytical verbiage. Hence we now proceed to the task of demonstrating our principles with a sufficiently large number of examples of good humour collected from the writings of celebrated humorists. These will show in ample measure the essence of various literary techniques employed by the masters of the art that is humour. A very short introductory delineation followed by one or two illustrative examples is all that we propose to offer for each of the devices referred to. We shall refrain from any detailed analysis and our readers are invited to sharpen their sense of humour in order to perceive in each case where the humour lies and which principle or principles this particular example of humour illustrates. A much greater reflection on the part of the readers will reward them, we hope, with more of amusing revelation and enjoyment.

One last word. Let us not forget that humour can be expressed through different mediums such as (i) words and phrases taken in themselves, (ii) ideas, (iii) situation, (iv) character, (v) narration, etc. Of course, in all the cases of linguistically expressed humour, words and phrases are bound to form an essential part. But the striking fact is that just as there can be humour got out of mere words, i.e., out of the incongruities found in the manipulation of the words themselves without any supporting aid of humour of ideas, so also there may be pure ideational humour where the words or phrases do not play any significant role so far as the element of incongruity is concerned.

Thus we have the cases of purely verbal humour side by side with those of pure ideational humour. And of course we have the third, mixed class — and this is by far the most common case - where humour of ideas joins hands with humour of words. The following examples will illustrate what we mean.

Example 1 (Purely verbal humour):

"A peer appears upon the pier, who blind still goes to sea."¹⁹

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Example 2 {Pure humour of ideas):

"Here were four old fellows, all more or less deaf, sitting round out of doors, each busy with some little occupation of whittling or fixing tackle or something. One calls across to one of the others, in quite a loud voice with his hand to his ear: 'How would you like to go fishing to-day?' The other deaf man with the same gesture but even a little louder answers back: T can't, because I'm going fishing!' "²⁰

Example 3 (Verbal and ideational blended):

A white gentleman had married a coloured lady merely because of her wealth but did not get on well with her. On having come to know of this the great clerical wit Canon Ainger remarked: "It seems a pity that he should quarrel with his bread and butter - even though it is brown."²¹

How delectable is the subtle play on 'bread and butter' and its 'brown' colour!

Example 4 (again, verbal and ideational combined):

"At a city banquet someone asked if the word 'reforme' should not have an e at the end of it in a French menu.

'Yes,' said Dean Mansel, with great readiness, 'reform in France is always followed by an e mute.' "²²

An example of very subtle and very happy wit. Dear readers, do you comprehend it all right? The play is on the different meanings of the two homophonous French expressions 'e mute' (silent e) and 'emeute' (an uprising).

In all the examples we list below, to whichever class they may individually belong, readers will find on keen observation that all of them, in some way or other, embody an element of (i) ingenuity, or (ii) incongruity, or (iii) unexpected discovery, or (iv) sudden 'exaltation'. Now with the examples.

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VII. Humour of Words

1.Repetition:

(i)Such nicknames as "Jo-Jo" or "Poppo-Poppo".

(ii)Such combinations as "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-eh" or "The Walla-Walla Wahoo, Walla-Walla, Wash".

(iii)Sri Aurobindo's 'curative mantra' (!) given to NB for his

boil:

"Tut nut tut nut tut tut!"

2.Rhythm:

Sometimes a set of syllables rapidly following each other becomes so smooth and rhythmical that we can't at first understand what they mean. This succession of syllables sets up thus an incongruity between the smooth flow of speech and the fact of unintelligibility. The French language lends itself especially to this sort of overrhythm.

Examples: (i) "She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore"

(ii) In French: "Didon dina dit-on du dos d'un dodu dindon."²³

3.Alliteration:

Elementary examples: (i) "Let's have a ship-shape shop."

(ii)"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

(iii)In French: "A qui sont ces saucis-sons-ci et a qui sont ces saucissons-ld?"²⁴

American newspaper headings: (i) "Vandal Vamps" (instead of "Criminal escapes")

(ii) "Dangerous Desperado Disappears"

Here, in such alliterative combinations, there is evidently some incongruity of language, a piece of 'fun with words'.

An advanced example: In a clerical company the conversation had turned upon the then head of the Church. Dr. Samuel

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Parr, a clergyman himself, listened for some time to the strictures of his companions, then called in 'apt alliteration's artful aid' and broke in with:

"Gentlemen, he is a poor paltry prelate, proud of petty popularity, and perpetually preaching to petticoats."²⁵

4.Anagram:

An anagram is a rearrangement of the letters in a given word to produce another, thus leading to an incongruous confusion.

Example: The doctor advised a patient to add lemon as a regular item to his daily diet, for his body required a supply of citric acid and lemon contains that in plenty. While coming back home he got somewhat confused about what the doctor had prescribed as the new item of diet. He came to his place and solemnly addressed his wife: "From now on please give me a water melon along with my breakfast."

'Melon' had in his mind replaced the original word 'lemon'.

5.Ambiguity:

An ambiguity is the use of a word or phrase having two meanings. This provides numerous jokes, whether accidentally made or deliberately contrived.

Example: Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) may be regarded as the most notable wit of his generation. His neat retorts and happy sayings earned him a name.

One day, after a dinner party, Gilbert was standing in the hall waiting for a friend to join him when a short-sighted old gentleman, mistaking him for one- of the servants, ordered: "Call me a cab!"

Gilbert looked him up and down, and then quietly observed: "Ah, you're a four-wheeler!"

The old gentleman turned on him wrathfully, "How dare you, sir? What do you mean?"

"Well," retorted Gilbert, "you asked me to call you a cab -and surely I couldn't call you 'hansom'."²⁶

(The joke is of course based on the two different significances of the verb 'to call': (i) to demand presence of, and (ii) to name or to describe as.)

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6.Pun (Paronomasia):

A pun is an ingenious type of play upon words, which can arise whenever there is a double sense to a single or similar sound. It is often used as a device for jokes and riddles. We shall talk a great deal about puns later in this chapter.

Example: James Kenneth Stephen, the author of 'Lapsus Calamf, is reputed to have made the neat remark:

"It has been said that heaven lies about us in our infancy -but that is no reason why we should lie about heaven in our old age."²⁷

7.Circumlocution (Periphrasis):

Circumlocution is the expression in a roundabout way of something which could be very well said in a much simpler manner.

Example: "He brought his enfolded hand into abrupt juxtaposition with his rival's olfactory organ", meaning thereby "He punched his rival on the nose."²⁸

8.Spoonerism:

A spoonerism is a fun with words we chance upon when the initials of words are mutually transposed in a sentence.

Example: Someone said: "I have a half-warmed fish in my mind", when he actually wanted to say "I have a half-formed wish in my mind."²⁹

9.Metathesis:

A metathesis is the transposition and recombination of letters within a single word.

Example: Someone reported that "The young girl's hair was decked with robins" when he wanted to convey that "Her hair was decked with ribbons."'⁰

10.Syllepsis:

The phenomenon of syllepsis arises when we employ in our sentence-construction a single word to refer to two items grammatically but rather incongruously.

Example: "She was serving soup to us with a ladle and a scowl."³¹

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11.Anticlimax (Bathos):

An anticlimax is the listing of things in such a way as to make the trivial appear last, thus producing a ludicrous effect due to the humorous shock of sudden frustration of an expectation.

Example: The poet Pope wrote in his The Rape of the Lock:

"Here thou, great Anna,

whom three realms obey,

Dost sometimes counsel take,

and sometimes tea."

12.A portmanteau word:

A portmanteau word is a fictitious word created, usually with humorous intent, by blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others.

Examples: (i) 'motel' for 'motor' + 'hotel'.

(ii) 'Oxbridge' for Oxford + Cambridge. ("You are doing something against Oxbridge tradition.")

13.Palindrome:

A palindrome is an ingenious succession of words such that, read from left to right or from right to left, the sound and the sense remain the same.

Example 1: "Madam, I'm Adam."

Example 2: A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!

Example 3: Here is a palindrome of seven words supposed to have been uttered by Napoleon. He was, as we know, first exiled to the isle of Elba before he was finally banished to the island of St. Helena.

During his reminiscent spells at St. Helena, Napoleon is supposed to have said to his British attendant there: "Able was I ere I saw Elba."³²

14.Ingenuity:

The appreciation of ingenuity and the sense of amusement lie close together; for an ingenious innovation sets up an

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incongruity which makes us laugh.

Example: This is from Amal Kiran's Talks on Poetry:

"We went up a lift from floor to floor. The first floor was so large that — if my memory is correct — four restaurants, each bigger than our Ganpatram's, were situated on it - an English restaurant, a French, a German, an Italian, each with its own national edition of our laughing and welcoming Ganpatram, a Mister Ganpatram, a Monsieur Gannepatramme, a Herr Gaunpautraum, a Signor Ganpatramo.""

15.Malapropism:

An erroneous word-usage is called 'malapropism'. The word has come from Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop, a character in his play The Rivals, who had the tendency to use words in wrong senses.

A malapropism in a given context may be either unintentional or intentional, giving rise to humorous effect all the same. It may also happen that a gifted writer of humour may slightly alter, in a deliberate way, the form or the usage of a given word and thus impart to it an altogether new and ingenious implication.

Examples: (i) "Illiterate him from your memory" (instead of "obliterate").

(ii)"He was as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile" (instead of "an alligator").

(iii)"She is having a historical fit" (instead of "hysterical").

(iv)To call the "feudal system" a 'futile system' or even a 'fuddle system'.

16.Twisted word-usage:

Just as a legitimately used pun possesses a genuine second meaning, a humorist can impart an artificially created second meaning to a word or phrase by slightly twisting it.

Example: "Base Ball World Series" referred to as the "Voild's Serious". Here are the relevant observations of Prof. Leacock:

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"The annual Base Ball World Series is, or ought to be, the last word in care-free amusement. But mentioned with a Yiddish touch, as the 'Voild's Serious', the implication is as entertaining as it is obvious."³⁴

17. Humour of neologisms:

17a. Analogical condensation:

Examples: The fish called a 'chub' is also called a 'chaven-der'. Then why not call a 'pub' by the second name of 'pavender'? Or, in the reverse order, why not give 'lavender' a new name 'lub'?³'

17b. 'Mutilated' words:

At times an artist of humour may chop off a part of a word, either the head or the tail, and use the residual part alone to convey the original sense. It thus 'saves time and makes rhyme'. This device has been called "Poetical Economy" by Harry Graham.

Example:

"When I've a syllable de trop,

I cut it off without apol:

This verbal sacrifice, I know,

May irritate the schol.

But all must praise my devilish cunn,

Who realise that Time is mon."³⁶

17c. Telescopic words:

Words may be condensed and recombined in various ways to produce a humorous effect. One cannot but recall in this connection Lewis Carrol's 'brillig' which meant 'brilliant twilight', or 'galumping' which is a compound of 'galloping' and 'leaping', and the ingenious name 'Rilchiam' to combine 'Richard and William'.

Example 1: "Lord North's daughter - Lady Charlotte Lindsay - arriving late for dinner at Holland House apologized to her hostess saying, T am exceedingly sorry, but really the

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roads are so macadamnable!' ""

Example 2: Tensing and Hillary were the first climbers to conquer the Mount Everest. But who amongst the two was actually the first to put his foot on those summit snows? As a matter of fact, that is of no real importance. For "it was not possible for the two sole conquerors to reach the summit gaily together arm-in-arm: they could pant and gasp up to it only on a rope one behind the other and the slightest personal competition would have sent them crashing to an Ever-rest below. The two, thus bound, were really equal to one man.... So, truly speaking, we should hold that not Hillary or Tensing but Hillsing climbed up there and felt the hill sing his triumph."³⁸

18.Ingenious spelling:

These new forms of deliberately adopted 'bad' spellings are mostly used in advertisements to attract attention of the customers by amusing them.

Examples: (i) Fit-rite clothes (for 'Fit right').

(ii)Nite restaurants (instead of 'Night').

(iii)Uneeda biscuits and much else are sold here (for 'You need').

(iv)Waukenphast boots (for 'Walking fast').

(v)Phiteasi garment (instead of 'Fit easy').

19.Incongrous grafting:

Example: "In the seventeenth century an English scholar of Italian - a man named Pinkerton - felt so keenly the lack of dignity in English as compared to Italian that he made the proposal that English words should be provided with Italian endings and thus rendered more aristocratic. The idea did not catch on".... De Quincey summed up very tellingly the failure of Pinkerton's Italianising fantasy:

"Luckilissime this proposalio of the absurdissimo Pinker-tonio was not adoptado by anybodyini whateverano.' "³⁹

20.Use of uncommon or pedantic words:

Example: Use of the archaic word "honorificabilitudinity"

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for the more common "honorableness". By the way, there is an interesting story behind this word. Let us attend to Amal Kiran's narration:

"Some Baconians have traced in the works of Shakespeare various hidden messages, several declarations of Bacon's authorship put in the form of ciphers....The shortest of all cryptograms ... is evolved directly from a word occurring in Shakespeare. The word is "honorificabilitudinitatibus". In Love's Labour Lost, Act V, Scene 1, you will find this verbal whale....It is the semi-jocular form of a word which actually exists in English, though it is archaic now: "honorificabilitudinity". The semi-jocular form comes from the ablative plural of the Latin original of the English term.... By the way, among polysyllabic English words, the longest is "honorificabilitudinity" - twenty-two letters.

"The form used by Shakespeare has been pounced upon by the Baconians and they have juggled out of its twenty-seven letters a variety of Latin sentences, the most plausible of which is: "Hi ludi orbituiti F. Baconis nati." The sentence translates: "These plays preserved for the world (are) born of F. Bacon." The Shakespearians are expected to be impressed into dumbfounded defeat."⁴⁰

21. Humour with initials and acronyms:

Example 1: This is from the poet-critic K.D. Sethna lecturing to the students of his class on Poetry:

"Here is a surprising image evoked by the poet Eliot:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table ...

"It almost sounds like one surgeon egging another on to take advantage jointly of a wonderfully opportune situation in Nature. To operate on an anaesthetized evening! By Hippocrates, that's a thing few F.R.C.S.'s - Fellows of the Royal

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College of Surgeons - could hope to do, unless the sky falls and overwhelms them with grace.

"But leaving aside acknowledged F.R.C.S.'s we may ask whether Eliot has produced here a true poetic image that could please this unconventional F.R.C.S. before you - this Fellow Researching in Comparisons and .Symbols or if you want to generalise, this Fellow Roaring to Cute Students. At once we have to admit that the image is extraordinary."⁴¹

Example 2: Modern high-tech War acronyms sound quite often so mystifying and so funny at the same time! Here are a few examples with their hidden meanings added within brackets.

( i) Snafu - (Situation normal, all fouled up.)

(ii)Slam - (Stand-off land attack missile)

(iii)"Cas jets with Awacs and Flir fire arm at triple-a and Sam." - ("Fighter jet pilots fly 'Control Air Support' missions, along with 'Airborne Warning and Control System' aircraft, using all-weather night-vision 'Forward Looking Infrared' system and fire radar-busting high radiation 'Anti-radar Missiles' at an opposing force's 'Anti-aircraft Artillery' and 'Surface to Air Missile' defences.")

(iv)Art - (Airborne radar technician)

(v)"Bda is done by both pilot and Gib" - ("Battle damage assessment is done by both the pilot and the guy in the backseat.")

(vi)"Troops ride humvees as per Dod." - ("Troops ride 'High mobility multi-wheeled vehicles' as per U.S. 'Department of Defence'.")⁴²

22. Humour of ellipsis:

Ellipsis is the omission from a sentence of words needed to complete construction or sense. Now this sort of ellipse occurs at times unintentionally or is taken recourse to deliberately, in order to produce a pleasantly incongruous effect.

Example: "How are you, I hope?" (instead of "How are you? I hope you are keeping well?") Here is how our inimitable Amal Kir an describes the situation:

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"Early this morning I ran across one of our students, who had been absent last time. I naturally said, 'How are you keeping?' It was a minute later that I thought I should have put the question in the typical South-Indian way. In South India many English-fancying people fuse several phrases into one and ask: 'How are you, I hope?' And the general answer is: 'Somewhat, I am afraid.' Don't ask me to explain these compact sentences. But surely I can appreciate their piquancy."⁴³

All language becomes 'funny' when its employment is patently wrong or even felt to be wrong. There are many ways a humorous effect may be produced by the appropriate use or 'mis'-use of words. Here are a few illustrative cases.

VIII. Humour of 'Mis'-Use of Words

Case 1: Wrong word rightly used:

This is the use of a word obviously wrong for its sense but so aptly used for the occasion. And it produces the desired effect.

Example: Mr. Ballou's friend, in Mark Twain's Western book Roughing It, complains sorrowfully: "Ballou has abused me by calling me a logarithm; it has hurt me a good deal."

Prof. Leacock comments on the above: "One might search the whole dictionary and find nothing to equal 'logarithm'."⁴⁴

Case 2: Right wbrd 'wrongly' used:

This is the reverse case, the case of a right word for the sense but the context in which it is used proves rather odd.

Example : The delectable poem "Lawyer's Lullaby" begins:

"Be still my child, remain in status quo,

While father rocks the cradle to and fro."⁴⁵

Case 3: Apparently nonsensical expression hut so apt for the purpose!

Example: "You are a 'no doubt'!" ... We call again our

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friend Amal Kiran on the stage. Let us listen to him narrating the story behind this peerless 'no doubt':

"Once at a railway station a chap was trying to enter a crowded third-class carriage. He had all sorts of bundles under his arms and an umbrella slung over his shoulder and there dangled from one hand a cage with a parrot in it. Somebody who had secured a place near the carriage entrance tried to dissuade him from inflicting such an assortment of luggage plus himself on the already bursting compartment.

"The man with the parrot-cage got indignant and exclaimed: "You think you are a who?" Immediately the other fellow retorted: "Well, if I am a who, then you are a no doubt!" I am sure the squabblers understood each other and we can also intuit the drift of their squabble. Perhaps some day these delicious Indianisms will get into the English Language."⁴⁶

Case 4: 'Irish bull:

This is the case of the right use of the words to convey the right sense but somehow if the words are scanned too literally for their meanings, the new meanings extracted become totally incongruous.

Example 1: "Indeed, miss," said the Irish usher of a Dublin theatre, "I'd like to give you a seat but the empty ones are all full."

The 'empty ones' are 'full'? What an absurdity! Yet the meaning is clear.⁴⁷

Example 2: An Irish doctor sent in his professional account to a lady with the heading - "For curing your husband till he died".

What sort of 'curing' it was if the man 'died'! Yet what the doctor sought to convey through his formulation is crystal clear to us.⁴⁸

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IX. Puns

Of all mere verbal devices the one that has stood supreme through the ages is the pun or paronomasia. By pun we mean the use of a word or phrase which has two distinctly separate meanings that the context brings into a glaring incongruity. Viewed from one angle a pun is obviously a scholarly thing; for, a penetrating knowledge of language coupled with an instantaneous sense of dual perception alone can enable one either to produce or even to apprehend a high-class pun. For example, take the celebrated joke or musing made by Pope Gregory when he saw some handsome English slaves at a Rome market: "Now Angli sed angeli". The pun of 'Angli' and 'angeli' cannot be properly appreciated without a knowledge of Latin declensions. In English translation it roughly means: "Not Angles but angels."

In extended connotation a pun, as a play on words, may signify either (i) a use of the same word to suggest different meanings, or (ii) a use of different words with different meanings but possessing the same or similar sound. Here are two simple examples of the two types:

Example 1: A play on the verb 'to draw':

"A man directing Archbishop Whateley's attention to a powerful draught horse expatiated on its great strength saying, 'There is nothing which he cannot draw.'

'H'm!' said Whateley musingly; 'Can he draw an inference?' "⁴⁹

Example 2: A play on the homophones 'red' and 'read':

Here is Hilaire Belloc's epitaph for himself:

When I am gone, let this of me be said:

"His sins were scarlet, but his books were read."⁵⁰

This is, of course, an excellent pun. But in improper hands a pun may degenerate into what Holmes has designated as 'a laughable verbicide'. This latter sort of cheap pun has been

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"roundly and soundly execrated"; for it has no other point to it than just the similarity of sounds. The mere punster is all the time seeking to wrestle with and twist words to give them a semblance of similarity of sound. Such word-twisting has neither any genuine wit nor humour though its very far-fetchedness has in it something of the ludicrous.

This mania of producing puns "easily runs to a sort of mental degeneration in which the unhappy victim tries to make puns all the time, hears only sounds and not ideas, his mind as vacant as a bell waiting for its clapper. ... Many people hate puns because of such punsters."⁵¹

Here are a few examples of cheap 'execrable' puns.

Example 1: "He went and told the sexton, and the sexton tolled the bell."

Example 2: "O Mother Almighty, I have finished all my tea."

Example 3: "this, then, is all my knack you see, An almanack I've been."

Because of such tendency to word-torturing, puns often fall into disrepute. We recall in this connection the highly witty assertion of Prof. Stephen Leacock:

" 'He who would make a pun would pick a pocket', Dr. Johnson is said to have said but didn't say, or didn't say first."⁵²

But puns need not be as bad as that. Handled by a veritable artist of humour a pun may exhibit different kinds of saving graces. The first of these is ingenuity. The combination of words may be so ingeniously made that the very ingenuity evokes in us a sense of pure mirth. Here is an example often quoted in defence of a genuine pun.

Example: There is a heroic poem by Thomas Campbell on the battle of Hohenlinden (A.D. 1800), which caught the attention of the English world of that day and which began:

On Linden when the sun was low,

All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,

And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser rolling rapidly.

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Now Campbell took his poem on the battle of Hohenlinden to a publisher. After handing the piece to the publisher, Campbell whose head was still humming with poetry stepped out to the stairs but missed his footing and fell with a great deal of clatter down the stairway. The publisher, hearing the noise, put his head out of his door at the top of the landing and asked: "What's happening?" To which the falling poet shouted back in the midst of his tumble: "I, sir, rolling rapidly.""

"I, sir, rolling rapidly" - this is a felicitous pun of ingenuity. It does not carry however any deeper intent or any humour of idea with it. But very often a pun may have a much higher saving grace than mere ingenuity. It may, in that case, become a subtle way of saying something with much greater point than a plain matter-of-fact statement. As Prof. Leacock has observed, a right kind of pun "often enables us to say with delicacy things which would never do if said outright. ... Pun is a form of polite satire where direct attack would be uncivil and displeasing."⁵⁴

Example: The Rev. Sydney Smith said to his fellow-canons of St. Paul's Cathedral who were animatedly discussing the question of a wooden side-walk round the edifice:

"Come, gentlemen, lay your heads together and the thing is done."

Please note how the pun is hidden in the couples of meanings possessed by each of the expressions 'lay your heads together' and 'wooden'! Prof. Leacock's remarks are worth quoting here: "If Dr. Sydney Smith had said, 'Gentlemen, you canons are a wooden-headed interminable lot of bores*' it would convey the same truth but with an unpermissible directness."'⁵

Therefore the true pun needs defence no more than any other work of art. It cannot arise out of a mere word-twisting. Its source is in the ready perception of the diverse significances of words, and it may often be "the feather of the arrow on which is carried the point of wit."⁵⁶

Let me end this eulogy of puns by quoting a famous

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exclamation of Charles Lamb - "the immortal Elia, one of the most engagingly delightful of our humorists". A pun was to him a thing of true art and he, in its use, was something of a true artist. He once remarked:

"May my last breath be drawn through a pipe and exhaled in a pun."

PUNS OF VARIOUS KINDS

1.Lowly pun or the "pun obvious":

Example 1: The Virgin Queen Elizabeth's supposed remark: "Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh, but ye make less stir than the Earl of Leicester."⁵⁷

Example 2: When after the election of 1892 the Liberal Party was returned to power in England with a majority of forty-two, Canon Ainger remarked: "The G.O.M. will try to bear his moderate majority with forty-twod."⁵⁸

Example 3: Edward Lear, author of "The Book of Nonsense", wrote in a letter to one of his friends: "As for me I am 40 - and some months; by the time I am 42 I shall regard the matter with 42de I hope."⁵⁹

2.Excellent pun:

Example 1: (A play on the word 'habit'): Burke's great rival, Charles James Fox, was no mean master of the retort. Once, asked by a friend to explain the meaning of the passage in the Psalms, 'He clothed himself with cursing, like as with a garment,' Fox answered with a pun: "The meaning, I think, is clear enough - the man had a habit of swearing.'⁶⁰

Example 2: (play on the phrases "tender made" and "tender maid"): An old lady was brought forward as a witness to prove a certain tender having been made. Joseph Jekyll, whose wit excelled in making impromptu epigrams, remarked:

"Garrow, forbear! that tough old jade

Can never prove a tender maid."⁶¹

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Example 3: (A deep play on the word "perfection", also on "to bring to"):

A lady showing Sydney Smith round her garden pointed out some plant saying, "Isn't it a pity I cannot bring this flower to perfection?"

"Let me, then," said the ready canon, taking her hand, "bring perfection to the flower."⁶²

Example 4: Being told that Henry Holl had left the stage and set up as a wine merchant, Douglas Jerrold, the great conversational wit, commented: "Oh yes, and I'm told that his wine off the stage is better than his whine on it."⁶'

Example 5: (Play on "can, sir" and "Cancer"):

Challenged by a friend to make a pun on any given subject, Jerrold, the ready wit, engaged to do so. The friend considered a moment and then said: "Well, I'm sure you can't pun on the Zodiac." "By Gemini, I Can-cer," came the prompt reply.⁶⁴

3.Pun conundrum:

Richard Whately, one of the wittiest of divines, devised the following ingenious conundrum based on clever punning:

Q. "Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert?"

A. "Because he can eat the sand which is there."

Q. "But what brought the sandwiches there?"

A. "Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred.'"'⁵

4.'Logical' pun:

The logicians call this 'The fallacy of accent'. This fallacy is committed whenever a second unintended or intended meaning is conveyed by misplaced accent in speech or writing. Careless or slurred pronunciation may wittingly or unwittingly generate the fallacy of accent. Here are two funny examples.

Example 1: "F.C.S. Schiller tells us in his Formal Logic that he once heard an audience of philosophers solemnly accept as an authentic quotation from William James the reading 'If you are radically tender, you will take up with the Mormonistic form

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of philosophy'. James, of course, had only said, 'more monistic.'⁶⁶

Example 2: "Another writer confesses that through the years of his childhood he had cherished a silent devotion to a mystic, supernatural animal, holy though afflicted, which his Church choir sang about nearly every Sunday. The animal so celebrated was 'The Consecrated Cross-Eyed Bear.' Alas for the illusion of childhood! It turned out that the choir was singing only about 'the consecrated Cross I'd bear.' "⁶⁷

5. Pun as a device for much in little:

A pun may present neatly in a nutshell what could only otherwise be expressed in a roundabout fashion. Here is what G.K. Chesterton has written apropos of this characteristic of a true pun:

"When we come to the great puns of Hood or of any other writer, we note first of all this use of the pun in sharpening and clinching a thought. Suppose that Hood, writing a journalistic report of one of the last duels, had written: 'Both principals fired in the air; and we cannot too strongly express our hope that those who think it incumbent on them to use this old form of self-vindication may imitate such a sensible and humane interpretation of it.'

"That is sound enough; but it is a little laborious, and does not express either the detachment or the decision of such a critic of duelling. Hood, as a fact, did write:

'So each one upwards in the air

His shot he did expend.

And may all other duels have

That upshot at the end.'

"Here the verbal pun [on the word 'up-shot'], falling so ridiculously right, does express not merely the humanity of the critic, but also his humorous impartiality and unruffled readiness of intellect."⁶⁸

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6. 'Ideational' pun:

In these cases the starting point is a simple verbal pun followed by a detailed humour of ideas.

Example: (Play on the two different senses of the word 'foot'):

Amal Kiran is addressing his students in his class on Poetry:

"Metre is a system of rhythmic units composed of stressed or unstressed syllables and called feet. There are various kinds of feet - the most frequendy used being iambs, trochees, spondees, pyrrhics, anapaests, dactyls. I shall not deal with all their details just now. I shall merely say that a spondee has two syllables that are equally stressed and an anapaest has three syllables the first two of which have no stress and are termed slacks while the third bears a stress.

"I pick out these metrical units because they are relevant to my remark that we cannot be quite the same in metre. The metre of all of you may be said to be spondaic: your feet fall with equal stress on the ground. Mine do not on account of a limp in one of them. And I use a stick to help me walk better. So my metre is two slacks and one stress. I am an anapaestic fellow. Yes, we have to differ in metrical movement."⁶⁹

X. Humour of Ideas

(PURE OR WITH VERBAL DEVICE)

Humour at a higher level may use ideas as an expressive medium. In such a case, instead of relying on the verbal devices of contrasts, incongruities and conflicts of words as such, it seeks to express itself through the juxtaposition of incongruous ideas. Naturally the two, the verbal humour on one side and the 'ideational' humour on the other, run very close together. In other words, as Prof. Stephen Leacock has pointed out, "the humour of words is ancillary and auxiliary to the humour of ideas. But the humour of incongruous ideas may be expressed,

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and often is, without any special departures in the use of the single words."⁷⁰

We have already given on page 34 examples of (i) pure verbal humour, (ii) pure humour of ideas, and (iii) mixed verbal-and-ideational humour. In this Section X of the present chapter we would like to cite many more classic examples of humour of ideas - both of the pure and of the mixed varieties -and categorize them under different headings. No special logical or psychological principle will be followed in setting the order of this enumeration. The readers are invited to appreciate and enjoy the particular type of humour that each example provides in its splendid isolation.

1.Incongruity of the way and the goal:

Example: Here is an example of Greek witticism, of that of Hierocles. - A simpleton who heard that parrots live for two hundred years bought one to verify if it was indeed true.⁷¹

2.Humour of 'No' and a qualified 'Yes':

Example 1: Mark Twain speaks of a temperate old man who had 'never tasted liquor - unless, of course, you count whisky! '⁷²

Example 2: "... There are many good partners to men -wives who are devoted companions, wonderful home-managers, worthy respecters of their husbands' rights: they can be so scrupulous as never even to open letters addressed to their husbands' names - unless, of course, the letters are marked 'Private'."⁷³

3.Detection of the Achilles' heel:

This kind of humour arises out of the sudden and unexpected and, at the same time, amusing pointing out of the "hollow" side of the "high and mighty". Here is E.C. Bentley's 'estimate' of Christopher Wren, the celebrated designer of St. Paul's Cathedral.

"Sir Christopher Wren

Said, 'I'm going to dine with some men.

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If anybody calls

Say I am designing St. Paul's.' "⁷⁴

4.Sudden revelation of unexpected 'truth':

Example: "How shall I express my point? You know the saying: 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' Somebody has considered this an incomplete sentence and finished it thus: 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder - of absence!' "⁷⁵

5.Unexpected 'logic':

Example: A youth was tried for a particularly brutal crime, the murder of his mother and father with an axe. Confronted with overwhelming evidence, the trial judge was on the point of delivering a judgement of capital punishment. At that moment the youth pleaded for leniency, addressing the judge thus: "My Lord, have pity on me, I am an orphan."⁷⁶

6.Irrelevant exaggeration:

Example: Clarence Darrow, the celebrated lawyer, was a master in the art of using this device. In defending Thomas I. Kidd, a functionary of the Amalgamated Woodworkers' Union, who was indicted on a very serious charge of criminal conspiracy, Darrow spoke these moving words to the jury in order to arouse pity in the jurymen:

"I appeal to you not for Thomas Kidd, but I appeal to you for the long line - the long, long line reaching back through the ages and forward to the years to come - the long line of despoiled and downtrodden people of the earth. I appeal to you for those men who rise in the morning before daylight comes and who go home at night when the light has faded from the sky and give their life, their strength, their toil to make others rich and great. I appeal to you in the name of those women who are offering up their lives to this modern god of gold, and I appeal to you in the name of those little children, the living and the unborn," etc., etc.⁷⁷

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Prof. Irving M. Copi observes apropos of the above defence argument of Clarence Darrow: "Is Thomas Kidd guilty as charged? Darrow's appeal was sufficiendy moving to make the average juror want to throw questions of evidence and of law out the window. Yet, however persuasive such a plea might be, from the point of view of logic that argument is fallacious which draws from 'premises' such as these the conclusion that the accused is innocent."

7.Unexpected explanation:

Example: Appearances can be quite deceptive - the case of William Morris and the Eiffel Tower:

"William Morris, when he was in Paris for a fairly long stay, began to go everyday to the Eiffel Tower and sit from morning to evening, perched high there. At last, after a month of his daily visit, a friend said to him: 'William, what makes you so fond of the Eiffel Tower?' Morris replied: 'Fond? The blasted thing is so tall that it is forced on one's eyes in every nook and corner of Paris. I felt sick of it. So I have gone every day to the only place from which I can't see the monstrosity piercing into God's blue!'⁷⁸

So we see that the constant togetherness of Morris and the masterpiece of Monsieur Eiffel was no proof of the poet-painter's attachment!

8.Ingenious comparison:

To make ingenious metaphors demands both originality and training. Here are a few examples.

Examples: (i) "His face was like a ham."

(ii)"Her eyes were like puddles of molasses."

(iii)"His legs were like twenty-five minutes past six."

(iv)"His hair all hung over his face in tangled strings like he was behind vines."⁷⁹

9.Praise turns unexpectedly into dispraise:

Example: "If you could properly make out what Mallarme

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says he would consider himself to have failed. When a young lady once told him that she had understood one of his poems after brooding over it a while, the poet exclaimed: 'What a genius you are! You have so soon understood what I the author am still trying to understand after twenty years!' "⁸⁰

10.Twisted interpretation:

Example: Charles Bannister won fame as an actor in eighteenth-century England. One day a physician observing Bannister about to drink a glass of brandy warned: "Don't drink that filthy stuff; brandy is the worst enemy you have."

"I know that, I know that," replied the actor; "but what can I do? You know we are commanded by Scripture to love our enemies."⁸¹

11.Stating something absurd which, on reflection, proves to be apt:

Example: An orator in voicing the thanks of a meeting to a political leader solemnly said: "I hope that this distinguished gentleman may long be spared to continue his political career, and that even when he's dead he'll turn into a cigar."

A political leader turning after death into a cigar? What absurd thing does the orator mean by that? - Here is the explanation as given by Prof. Leacock:

"It has long been the custom in the United States for the makers of tobacco to name cigars after bygone statesmen — the Henry Clay cigar, the Stonewall Jackson cigar. Hence 'turning into cigar' becomes synonymous with obtaining immortality!"⁸²

12.Amusingly overstretched implication:

Example 1: Sheridan, an Irish M.P., has this dig at the parliamentary practice of amending a bill:

"First comes in a bill, imposing a tax, and then comes in a bill to amend that bill for imposing a tax; next a bill to remedy the defects of a bill for explaining the bill that amended the bill for imposing a tax; and so on ad infinitum.""

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13.Super-grammar:

Example: A desperate effort at trying to make one's language grammatically precise and tiptop leads to the production of a humorous effect as in the following:

"Mr. Spoffard told us all about his mother and I was really very very intrigued because if Mr. Spoffard and I become friendly he is the kind of gentleman that always wants a girl to meet his mother. I mean if a girl gets to know what kind of a mother a gentleman's mother is like, she really knows more what kind of a conversation to use on a gentleman's mother when she meets her. Because a girl like I is really always on the verge of meeting gentlemen's mothers. But such an unrefined girl as Dorothy is really not the kind of girl that ever meets gentlemen's mothers."⁸⁴

14.Exaggeration ad absurdum:

Example: "I knew a practically toothless man whose nerves were so shaky that he could never stand the sight of a drop of blood. Not only this: he even fought shy of red colour anywhere; it would remind him of blood and he would at once faint. Our Ashram Stores had to take care not to give him red hair-oil. Green oil was always given. If by any chance red was handed to him he would be all ready to collapse in Pavitra's arms! He even told me that to look at a red pencil was enough to make him dizzy."⁸⁵

15.Expressions intended to be right but in reality wrong when pressed:

Example: There were two notices put up in a South-Indian library. One ran: "Loose dogs not allowed." The second notice said: "Only low conversation permitted."

Dear readers, do you see the oddity of the notices? Of course, the intended meanings are quite clear: "Dogs should be in leash" and "Loud talk prohibited." But in English "loose dogs" and "low conversation" respectively signify "persons of lax morality" and "coarse and vulgar talk."⁸⁶

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You can see now the ludicrous incongruity between what the two notices are meant to convey and what they actually do.

16.Valid instruction becoming ludicrous when literally interpreted:

Example: The physician advised the patient: "Every morning take a walk on emply stomach."

The perplexed patient enquired: "On whose, Doctor?"⁸⁷

17.Expression apparently innocent but hiding a sting underneath:

Example: "A lady was telling Lord Palmerston that her maid objected to going to the Isle of Wight again, as the climate 'was not embracing enough', and added, 'What am I do with such a woman?'

"The statesman replied, 'You had better take her to the Isle of Man next time.' "^8S

18.Expression apparently absurd but, rightly understood, turns out to be quite correct:

Example: A gentleman having a remarkably long visage was one day riding by a school when he heard young Sheridan say: "That gentleman's face is longer than his life."

Struck by the strangeness of the remark, the passer-by turned his horse, and asked the boy what he meant by his phrase. "Sir," replied the would-be wit, "I meant no offence in the world, but I have read in the Bible at school that a man's life is but a span, and I am sure your face is double that length."⁸⁹

19.Clever trapping:

Example: (Play on the words "Here, here" and "hear, hear".) - Once upon a time there happened to be in the House of Commons a noisy member who had got into the habit of interrupting every speaker with cries of "Hear! Hear!". The celebrated Sheridan, a M.P. himself, thought of trapping this member into an embarrassing discomfiture.

One day while rising to speak in the Parliament Sheridan

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took an opportunity to allude to a well-known political character of the time, whom he represented as a person who wished to play the rogue but had only sense enough to play the fool. Then, at an opportune moment in course of the delivery of his 'impassioned' speech he exclaimed in emphatic continuation: "Where, where shall we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish fool than this one?" "Hear! Hear!" was instantly shouted from the usual seat. Sheridan bowed, thanked the gentleman for his ready affirmative reply to the question, and sat down amidst convulsions of laughter, in which it may be believed the hapless victim did not join.⁹⁰

20.Half true and half untrue:

Example: A pleasantry with regard to weather. - James Quin, a famous wit of the eighteenth century associated with the theatre, was asked one wet and cold July whether he ever remembered such a summer. "Yes, of course," said he, in all seriousness, "last winter."⁹¹

21.Incongruity of seeing the unexpected in the expected:

Example: There was a Frenchman who complained about the tiger: "Cet animal est tres rnechant, il se defend quand on I'attaqueV ("This animal is very nasty, it defends itself when attacked!")⁹²

22.Blown up by his own bomb:

Example: Here is the narration of a "little passage of arms between Bernard Shaw's cockiness and his own wife's quiet irony."

"Once he was holding forth to a company of friends on the comparative merits of man's mind and woman's. At the end of a coruscating monologue Shaw said that male judgment was always superior to female judgment. 'Of course,' Mrs. Shaw coolly replied, 'after all you married me and I you.' It was the one time the old battering-ram was silenced."⁹³

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23.Pedantic definitions:

Example 1: "lie = a locution deliberately antithetical to a verity apprehended by the intellect."

Example 2: "Eating = the successive performances of the functions of mastication, humectation and deglutination."⁹⁴

24.Humour of mistaken identity:

Example: Be it noted as a prelude that M. Coquelin was a great comedian who used to send his audience into rapturous laughter. Now, it so happened that a melancholy-looking man having come to consult a physician was told by the doctor that what he needed was not medicine but cheering up. "Go and see Coquelin on the stage this very evening and have a good laugh," concluded the doctor. The patient shook his head, "Sir, I am Coquelin."⁹⁵

25.Humour of deafness (genuine or pseudo-):

Example 1: (a case of genuine deafness):

"Two men in a suburban train, evidently commuters and each a little hard of hearing, engaged themselves in a bit of conversation when the train halted at a station.

Mr. X: Is this Wemsley?

Mr. Y: No, no. Thursday.

Mr. X: Yes, so am I; let's have a drink.⁹⁶

Example 2: (again a case of genuine deafness):

"Have you heard of the Abbe Bremond? It seems very few in India know that he existed. I discovered that even residents in French India were not familiar with his name. I looked up an old Indian Christian in Pondicherry whom I had known to be a book-lover. When I mentioned the Abbe Bremond to him he simply stood and gaped. I felt most self-conscious and began wondering whether I had committed some mistake in pronunciation of the French name.... But my fears were set at rest when the old fellow put a hand to his ear, bent that organ a little towards me and squeaked with irritation: 'Vraiment? Mais quoi vraiment? (Truly? but what truly?')⁹⁷

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26.Humour of misunderstanding:

Example: A judge, noted for his gentleness to defendants, asked the contrite and broken man before him, "Have you ever been sentenced to imprisonment?"

"No, your Honour," said the convict, and burst into tears.

"There, there, don't cry," consoled the judge, "You're going to be now."⁹⁸

27.Humour of deliberate misconstruing:

Example: "Do you know how a certain Armenian interpreted the famous Biblical phrase that reads in English: 'The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak'? This foreigner expressed his understanding of it thus: 'The whisky is good but the meat is rotten.' "⁹⁹

28.Foreign words suggesting a different sense:

Example: Goethe's original German line "Verweile dock, du bist so scbon" means "Linger a while, thou art so fair." To someone not knowing German the expression "doch" by its characteristic sound may suggest the abbreviation of "doctor": "doc." But how far from the truth we shall be! As Amal Kiran comments:

" 'Linger a while, thou art so fair.' - I doubt if any doctor would deserve such an appeal. A lady-doctor once sent a marriage-proposal to a friend of mine who is now in the Ashram. He simply shuddered because he felt she would try all sorts of medical and surgical experiments on him. I am sure he would fancy the first two words - "Verweile doch" - to be an echo of 'Fair wily doc' or, still more satisfyingly, 'Farewell, doc' "¹⁰°

29.Humour arising out of fallacious translation:

Example 1: In French, 'sous' means 'under' and 'tenir' means 'to stand'. But for that reason 'soutenir' does not mean 'to understand'; it means instead 'to support'. Now read the following account which is claimed by its author to be true to facts.

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"Sometimes mistakes occur by a wrong combination of words in a foreign language: two words that are clearly known by themselves may constitute a howler when wrongly combined. In the days when I was in charge of the Ashram's furniture department, I once got a note from a European but a non-English [French] resident: 'Will you please send me four wooden blocks to understand my table?' I wrote back: 'Certainly - since luckily you have not asked for four blockheads.' "^1U1

Other possible examples: Humour may arise out of a fallacious translation into English of the following French words: (i) 'Timbre-poste' understood as 'timber post' when it actually means a 'postage stamp'; (ii) 'Demander' translated as 'to demand' when it signifies the milder expression 'to ask for'; (iii) 'manipuler'; etc.

30. Humour of the 'logic' of mispronunciation:

Example 1: There are some odd people who pronounce the English vowels in a slightly aspirate way. Thus they pronounce 'e' as 'he', 'o' as 'ho', 'n' as 'hen', 'encroach' as 'hencroach', etc.

"A Japanese Consul visited the British Consul without an appointment. Now, his wife had done the same the day before. This Japanese had always imagined the word 'encroach' to be 'hencroach'. So with the intention of being logically correct in English he bowed before the British Consul and said with great politeness:

'Sir, yesterday you were kind enough to let my wife hencroach upon your time. May I be allowed today to cockroach upon it?' "¹⁰²

Example 2: To appreciate the humour involved in this second example let us bear in mind that Napoleon Bonaparte's coat of arms bore the insignia of an eagle.

"Lord John Russell sat at a city banquet next to a civic dignitary who taking a very beautiful snuff box from his pocket said: 'This was given to my father by the first Napoleon; there is a hen engraved on the top of it.' 'Surely,' said Russell, 'it cannot

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be a hen, it must be an eagle.' 'No, no,' said the owner, 'it's a hen, surely a hen,' - pointing as he spoke to the letter 'N' on the lid!"¹⁰³

31.Ingenious repartee:

Example: In a law-court the accused, who had a pretty flimsy case, protested to the judge: "My Lord, I have not said a single false word. Everything I have said is true. I have always been wedded to truth." The judge dryly remarked: "Very likely. But the point is: how long is it since you have been a widower?"¹⁰⁴

32.Tit for tat based on quick dual perception:

Example: Johannes Erigena, otherwise called John the Scot, was a ninth-century philosopher. When Erigena was at the French king's court, the monarch wanted to be clever and asked him one day at dinner: "John, what separates a Scot from a sot?" The king received from the philosopher this prompt reply: "Only the table, Sir!"¹⁰⁵

It is now high time to bring this long chapter on 'humour as an art' to a close. We have briefly referred to the nature and the evolution of the sense of humour, also of its linguistic expression through the media of words and ideas. We have at the same time indicated with appropriate examples in each case how, through the adoption of suitable principles and devices, the accomplished artists of humour try to produce the required humorous effect. In the perspective of this background let us now proceed to see from close quarters how Sri Aurobindo the multisided genius has left his stamp of excellence in the field of comic literature.

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REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 3

On the Disciples' Humour

Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit poet, once addressed this plea to Saraswati, the goddess of learning: "Arasikesu rasasya nivedanam, sirasi ma likha, ma likha, ma likhaV - "To offer rasa to one who is devoid of humour, let this not be my fate, never, never!"

Yes, it is not so easy to appreciate wit and humour; to be able to do so requires a special bent of mind and a rare genre of capacity. One may be an erudite scholar, even a reputed lexicographer, but he may very well miss a subtle witty point. Did not the poet Pope remark: "A dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but not of two put together!"

Humour to be humour should not be spelt out in too explicit a way; much of it has to be conveyed by subtle suggestion. A little is said and much more left unsaid, and this deliberate reserve speaks volumes to one who knows how to look behind the surface and retrieve the jewels hidden there. The appreciation of the thing said, also of the thing not said, is absolutely necessary for the production of humour's successors. Without this appreciation the source of humour will soon die away. This fact is variously expressed as "Wit can occur only in company" or "Wit is essentially the product of gregariousness".

That wit and humour needs society for its production was also indicated by Shakespeare when he wrote that a jest's prosperity lies in the ears of those who hear it. Unfortunately, just as there are colour-blind people, so are there listeners and readers who prove themselves incapable of appreciating the deeper nuances of humour. This is what Samuel Johnson said in his familiar lexicographical way:

"Wit like every other power has its boundaries. Its success depends on the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and just as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of

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fancy may be pointed without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt."

And such was the situation with Sri Aurobindo till the third decade of this century. He was generally looked upon as a grave and austere person having perhaps the sublime grandeur of the Mount Everest but not the mellow sweetness of someone with whom one could smile and laugh and joke.

But such an impression was far from being correct. Sri Aurobindo wrote to one of his disciples: "Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence. Without it the world would have got utterly out of balance — it is unbalanced enough already — and rushed to blazes long ago." Now, as Nirodbaran has remarked, one who wrote the above lines could not be himself devoid of any sense of laughter. "Only, it needed, I suppose, the suitable time and occasion for the Delight to come out and manifest."¹

It so happened that a few disciples in the thirties, especially Nirodbaran, Dilip Kumar and Amal Kiran, provided Sri Aurobindo with this needed occasion. And the result was that they became fortunate enough to be the recipients of the Master's 'divine levity' in profusion and thus be able to share with the world at large the joy of knowing that Sri Aurobindo was Raso vai sab, "Verily he is the Delight".²

Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran were themselves persons of deep sense of humour, each with his characteristic style and flavour. AK with his sparkling intellectual humour, DK with his restrained but sublime humour and NB with his simple-hearted bantering jollity drew Sri Aurobindo out of his habitual reserve and he amply rewarded them with a heavenly feast through his sustained correspondence with these disciples. Sri Aurobindo's relationship with these three disciples was so sweet and so informal! He had never any weakness for lording it over the weak whom he actually invited to "discuss things" familiarly with him.'

Sri Aurobindo approached them "not only with the power of a Guru's wisdom but with the sweet persuasiveness of a father's superior experience and at times with the confiding

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appeal of a friend who stands on one's own level..."⁴

To Dilip Kumar Sri Aurobindo once wrote: "It is a strong and lasting personal relation that I have felt with you ever since we met and even before and it is only that that has been the base of all the outward support, consideration, care and constant helping endeavour which I have always extended towards you and which could not have arisen from any tepid impersonal feeling. On my side that relation is not likely to change ever."⁵ And it did not change till Sri Aurobindo left his body in 1950.

On another occasion Sri Aurobindo wrote to DK: "There is no day on which I do not devote some time to thinking of you and concentrating for you."⁶

And what about Nirodbaran? For some inscrutable reason Sri Aurobindo treated him like a close and intimate comrade. In his correspondence with NB there was always found an interplay of wit. Sri Aurobindo chose to meet NB's banter with banter and would at times go on browbeating this "charming pessimist" (to quote Dilip Kumar's felicitous phrase).

It is worth recording here what the Mother once saw in her vision when she entered Sri Aurobindo's room and found there Nirodbaran attending on his Guru. She saw that Sri Aurobindo and NB were playing with each other like two babies on a bed!⁷

Here is an interesting piece of dialogue (through correspondence) between Sri Aurobindo and Nirodbaran on the subject of their personal relationship:

NB: You refuse to be a Guru and decline to be a father, though ladies especially think of you as father and call you so. If they come to know of your refusal, I'll have to run with smelling salts from one lady to another!

Sri Aurobindo: Father is too domestic and Semitic - Abba Father! I feel as if I had suddenly become a twin-brother of the Lord Jehovah. Besides, there are suggestions of a paternal smile and a hand uplifted to smite which do not suit me.

Let the ladies "father" me if smelling salts are the only alternative, but let it not be generalised.

NB: They are saying that a "sweet relation" has been

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established between you and me. I only hope and pray that it will be sweeter and sweetest.

Sri Aurobindo: The sweet relation is all right, but let it be nameless.⁸

Dilip Kumar used to remark to NB: "In your correspondence Sri Aurobindo has revealed himself in a totally new aspect." NB himself once asked Sri Aurobindo about the reason behind their exceptional relationship. Sri Aurobindo's cryptic reply was: "Cast your plummet into the deep and perhaps you shall find it — or perhaps you will hit something that has nothing at all to do with it." NB said, "But the 'deep' is too deep for my plummet." His answer was, "For any mental plummet. It is not the mind that can discover these things."⁹

So they went on, Sri Aurobindo and Nirodbaran, with their daily literary duels, Sri Aurobindo often encouraging and allowing himself to be attacked on all fronts but ultimately throwing the puny adversary down with a benign laughter. But the disciple would shake off the dust, get prepared for another tussle and "though vanquished, would argue still."¹⁰

NB writes in this connection: "Friends wondered how I dared to take such an extraordinary liberty with Sri Aurobindo; to some it even appeared sacrilegious. They often asked me, 'Don't you tremble with fear when you face him during Dar-shan?' Fear? where was the question of fear when his face, his eyes would say ma bhaih, ['Have no fear'], his lips parted in a sweet smile and his whole body bending in love and sweetness to bless the head lying at his feet?"¹¹

When NB started corresponding with Sri Aurobindo in February 1933, he could not imagine that very soon their relationship would take an intimate personal turn. Yet it did, and in a surprisingly sudden manner. Let NB narrate how it happened:

"One day, when my note-book came back from Sri Aurobindo, I began to read what he had written, when to my utter bewilderment I came across the sentence, 'Well, sir, do

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you understand now?' I was so taken aback that I could not believe my eyes. 'Is this a joke or a slip of the pen?' I asked myself, for I did not remember his having addressed anybody as 'sir!' Neither could I ask him about this strange phenomenon. But he did not keep me long in doubt, for, from that day the whole correspondence changed its character and bore to me the rasa of Heaven's delight which Sri Aurobindo's pen alone could give and his many-faceted personality alone could create ..."¹²

Dilip Kumar's first direct personal contact with Sri Aurobindo's humour is also worth recounting here. This happened in 1932. When Sri Aurobindo came to know that DK had accidentally hurt his head badly, he wrote to him:

"You struck your head against the upper sill of the door our engineer Chandulal fixed in your room? A pity, no doubt. But remember that Chandulal's dealings with the door qua door were scientifically impeccable; the only thing he forgot was that people - of various sizes - should pass through it. If you regard the door from the Russellian objective point of view as an external thing in which you must take pleasure for its own sake, then this will be brought home to you and you will see that it was quite all right. It is only when you bring in irrelevant subjective considerations like people's demands on a door and the pain of a stunned head, that objections can be made. However, in spite of philosophy, the Mother will speak to Chandulal in the morning and get him to do what has (practically, not philosophically) to be done. May I suggest, however, if it is any consolation to you, that our Lilliputian engineer perhaps measured things by his own head, forgetting that there were in the Ashram higher heads and broader shoulders?..."¹⁵

We have so far talked about Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran: now about the third disciple, Amal Kiran. By the way, 'Amal Kiran' or the 'Clear Ray' was the name given by Sri Aurobindo to K.D. Sethna who, as a youngman of great promise, joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1927. In course of time he has become

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famous as a poet of renown, a scholar specialising in many fields, a literary critic of a very high order and a priest of high journalism.

When Dilip Kumar came to join the Ashram in 1928, he was deeply impressed by Amal Kiran both by the latter's intellectual prowess coupled with robust common sense and his appealing outer appearance. As DK himself has written: "I can clearly recapture with my mind's eye his delicate sensitive face which first attracted me with its fine crop of Christ-like whiskers ... And then his eyes: how they radiated a keen though not unkind glint of intelligence!"¹⁴

Amal Kiran's deep relationship with Sri Aurobindo was on a different plane. This can be testified by the fact that at a very critical moment of his life when he was almost on the point of dying, he spontaneously, almost instinctively, turned to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for necessary help and received it in full measure. This is how he has narrated the incident:

"I seemed to drip ice from my face and be forcibly bent and broken. So, there was nothing else I could do except creep to bed and lie flat. The feeling of a hollow in my chest was growing deeper and deeper. So sucked in and dragged down I felt that I thought I would soon die. Various medicines were given me to keep me up. Yet the terrible sinking increased. It struck me that the only decisive help could be drawn by inwardly appealing to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ... With all my power of faith and aspiration I kept outstretching invisible hands to them, calling and calling. I pulled at the saving and healing light that is their Yogic consciousness and when I thought a blue sheen and a gold glow enveloped my heart I sensed a subtle supporting strength gradually taking outward effect. A doctor had been summoned. By the time he came I had emerged to a considerable extent from the vacuity in the heart-region."¹⁵

Amal Kiran's heart started improving day by day and every phase of its history he communicated by letter to the Mother. She wrote back in one of her replies to AK:

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"My dear child, I quite agree with you that there is a power other and much more powerful than that of the doctors and the medicines and I am glad to see that you put your trust in it. Surely it will lead you throughout all difficulties and in spite of all catastrophic warnings. Keep your faith intact and all will be all right."¹⁶

Such then were the three intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo -Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar and Nirodbaran - who became instrumental in their own characteristic ways in opening the floodgates of Sri Aurobindo's humour. Sri Aurobindo responded to them in styles and contents suited to their own individual temperament. The written records of these literary exchanges between the Guru and his disciples provide us with a richly variegated delectable fare. Before we come to taste the rasa of Sri Aurobindo's own humour as delineated in the coming chapters, let us first examine and enjoy how humorous these three disciples were, each in his own way. The remaining pages of the present chapter will be devoted to the exemplification of this topic.

I. Amal Kiran's humour - literary and intellectual

1. When Milton went blind he taught his daughters to read Greek and Latin to him without understanding what these languages said. He did not teach them the meanings of Greek and Latin words nor their syntactical structure but only how to pronounce them. The poor girls were bored with long hours of gibberish recitation to their papa. They must have frequently protested, but Milton was adamant. When one of his friends asked him why he had not taught them Greek and Latin properly, he tartly replied: "One tongue is sufficient for any woman."¹⁷

2. The mispronouncing or mishearing of words in other languages has sometimes a farcical effect. The first Indian baronet was a Parsi, a man named Jamshedjee Cursetjee

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Jeejeebhoy, When he went to England he was invited by Queen Victoria to a party. A grandly attired butler stood at the door of the reception hall and announced the names of the visitors as they came. When the Parsi baronet arrived, the butler inquired his name. He got the answer: "Jamshedjee Cursetjee Jeejeebhoy." The butler was a little puzzled but he kept his aplomb and, looking at the Queen, announced in a loud voice: "Damn says he, Curse says he. She's a boy."¹⁸

3.Certain mannerisms are to be avoided. We get into the nervous habit of inserting "You see" or "You know" into our sentences every now and then. A lecturer could very well waste ten minutes out of his fifty by "you see"-ing and "you know"-ing. Another mannerism is "what's called". I have heard a great Bengali scholar in philosophy, now dead, use it with outrageous results. He once visited the Ashram and lectured on the progress of Indian thought in the world. And this is one of the sentences with which he developed his subject: "Then what's called Vivekananda sailed away and after many what's called hardships reached Chicago and there at the Parliament of the Religions he at last what's called appeared." I simply had to get up and what's called run away in order to avoid an explosion of laughter.¹⁹

4.We have to guard against certain peculiarities in the saying of names in a foreign language. Some English proper names are a devil of a problem. Thus what is written as Marjoriebanks is pronounced Marshbanks, What is written as Cholmondeley is pronounced Chumly. Once the well-known journalist Horatio Bottomley went to interview Lord Cholmondeley. Not being intimate with aristocratic nomenclature he asked the butler whether Lord Chol-mon-de-ley would be good enough to given him a few minutes. The butler politely but with a superior air said: "I shall ask Lord Chumly about it. What name shall I give him as yours, Sir?" Horatio Bottomley handed his visiting card to the butler, and when the latter was looking at the word "Bottomley", the journalist said with great hauteur.

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"Please tell Lord Chumly that Mr. Bumly has come to see him."²⁰

5.I have wondered whether "veranda" is an Indian word. My dictionary gives it a Portuguese origin. But it is common across the length and breadth of India. Mentioning it, I am reminded of some provincial peculiarities here in pronouncing English. In Gujarat sh seems difficult: it lapses into s. 'English' is called 'Inglis' and 'ocean' becomes 'osun'. Bengalis get all twisted up in differentiating between b and v. The Bengali language has, in fact, no i>-sound. And that brings me to my "veranda".

You know at one time I was in charge of the Ashram furniture. Once I had to get a cot removed from the house of an Ashramite called Barinda. On my way I met an inmate of the house and asked where the cot exactly was. He said: "The cot is on Barinda." I was rather shocked. Barinda was a fairly old man and the idea of the cot lying on him was disquieting. I protested: "Surely, Barinda must be on the cot and not the other way round?" I got the reply: "No, the cot is on Barinda." I made haste to the house - only to find the cot on the veranda!²¹

6.You know what "lumbago" means? The dictionary gives it as "rheumatic pain in the lower back and loins". The loins are the region between the false ribs and the hips. Get the words "loins" correctly: don't be like a friend of mine who always referred to his "lions" when he meant his "loins" - just as some people speak of quotations from Sri Aurobindo published in the Ashram Dairy when they mean Diary.

To return to "lumbago". Well, this morning I knew its meaning not quietly from any dictionary but growled out from my own lower back by my "lions". Yes, I have a touch of this rheumatic pain. I shall tell you how I am going to make history by my battle with this hellish visitor whose sound entitles it to be almost a compeer of Satan. Satan is also known as Lucifer. Lucifer and Lumbago could very well be twin Archangels fallen from on high.

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The history I shall make in dealing with this fiend will be in three dramatic stages. First, there will be a realisation of the full presence of the dread torturer — full presence summed up by my thundering out the name as it is: "Lumbago!" Next, you will see me tackling the demon and sending him away by a mantric strategy of the resisting will. I shall shout: "Lumba, go!" The last stage will find me quite relieved, a conqueror wearing a reminiscent smile and whispering with a sense of far-away unhappiness the almost fairy-tale expression: "Lumb, ago!"²²

7.It is after three weeks that we meet again. You must have been wondering what could have put so long a stop to this endlessly wagging professorial tongue. One of you was curious or kind or bold enough to ask me. My reply was: "A sprain in the brain." A friendly visitor to the Ashram got the same reply. He became goggle-eyed with surprise and exclaimed: "Oh, I didn't know that such things could happen. Does one sprain the brain also?" I had no explanation to give. My phrase was not quite meant to be explained. It was a piece of mystic poetry, or at least of mystic verse, since it had rhyme but no reason. I wore a serene and far-away smile on my face instead of answering. Unfortunately the silent smile served as an answer which I had not intended. My questioner looked serious - very knowingly serious — and slightly shook his head. I knew what he was thinking: "Really, something has gone wrong with this poor chap's top floor."²³

8.Anatole France can be summed up in his literary quality by the rule he has laid down for writers: "D'abord la clarte, puis encore la clarte, enfin la clarte" - "Clarity first, clarity again, clarity at the end."

The English genius differs here from the French, perhaps because England has more mist and fog than the other side of the Channel. The English poet William Watson has said: "They see not the clearliest,/Who see all things clear." And Havelock Ellis, looking at Anatole France's advice, has added his own comment of both agreement and disagreement: "Be clear. Be

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clear. Be not too clear."²''

9. During my school days I wrote an essay in verse on a Library and wanted to speak of the heaps and heaps of books there on diverse subjects. But I looked out for somewhat uncommon words for my idea. My dictionary gave me "mound" for a heap and I went from "mound" to other words and produced the couplet:

O there were mounds of metaphysical mystery

And poetry-piles and haemorrhoids of history!

I felt I had achieved the grand style, especially with the last phrase. I showed my work to my father who happened to be a doctor. He burst into devastating laughter and made me sink into the ground for shame by informing me that haemorrhoids were small bleeding boils so placed in the body that it would be difficult for one to sit down comfortably. It was the word "pile" with a sense other than the "mound" that had made an utter fool of me. When I found "haemorrhoid" for "pile" I should have looked up that impressive polysyllable in my dictionary.²⁵

II. Dilip Kumar's humour — sublime and restrained

1. "I could now see clearly that whenever I toyed with a wrong suggestion, some part of me was glad while another part was unhappy resenting it as an intrusion. What made me unhappier still was that I became more and more conscious, as days passed, of a wilful encouragement somewhere. But as this made me feel disloyal to my Guru, I tried in my clever (!) way to rationalise it into legitimacy. 'Oh, keep an open mind, don't you know', a part of me said to myself coaxingly. 'Don't you invite blindness, my boy! Why must you accept everything you are told as gospel truth! Watch well and sift all the time: never surrender your native inviolable right to be a judge of your own reactions. If an idea is burgeoning within you, do not show it the door in this off-hand manner because somebody commands

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you to. Remember that you have an inalienable right to your own ideas, you cannot possibly grow to ultimate stature without their friendly help. Everything that happens to you can give you a leg up, you know, provided you accept its aid in the right spirit. And, dash it all, your individuality is the most precious part of your integral self, isn't it? How can you then - you, a born lover of freedom — will yourself into blind slavery and have it liquidated? How can you possibly forget that the Divine has fashioned your individual ego to be harmonised into a distinctive flower - not to be squeezed out into an amorphous jelly.' Ugh! - and so on - endless variations on one theme: do not surrender your self-will."²⁶

How restrained the passage is! The humour is not loud at all. Yet it is there throughout the passage as an under-current of subdued irony. And that is the style of DK.

Here is a second passage, this time addressed to Sri Aurobindo himself:

2. "You write calmly, Guru, that we have only to withdraw from all egoistic movements — whereupon I can but smile sadly. For you seem to assure us placidly that we can't get rid of the tyranny of pain because we won't - being in love, congenitally, with the drama which the tyrant brings in its wake. Such statements do baffle me! For if what you say was true, it would follow (would it not?) that all suffering must be a make-believe, a mdya, since we like it so much? — ergo, why not welcome it sportingly, taking it all as a joke? That is why I often wonder whether the Supramental consciousness of your ideal stratospheres can ever truly enter into the world of fact of us, mental humans! For I can tell you that we - common mortals, constituted as we are - resist nothing as stubbornly as suffering and agony, self-pity and despair. How can I then help wondering whether your ascending peak of Yogic consciousness has not made you somewhat aloof, perforce, from what really happens down in our plains of blood and sweat and tears? ... It is only because I find your prescription too outlandish that I

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have to bandy words with you even when I know, alas, that I cannot possibly cope with your intellectual arguments. But, Guru, what do you come to gain by winning in the lists of wordy arguments? ... There is a saying in English that you can catch a swallow if you put salt on its tail. You seem to prescribe similarly: 'Detach yourself, don't lend your ears to hostile suggestions, open yourself and go on doing it all the time sleeplessly till, one fine morning, you will find your ships simply haled into the harbour of bliss beyond the dark storms!'... Well, Guru, there you have in a nutshell my difficulty, or rather the typical impasse of an average aspirant. But you seem very much like those great doctors who go to a pauper and prescribe remedies for him which only a prince can procure. No wonder we do not recover from our ailments — have little progress to show, alas!"²⁷

Let it be noted that even after having received such a scathing letter biting with sarcasm, Sri Aurobindo remained totally unperturbed and came out with his balm of sympathy towards "one who had failed him utterly and deliberately." This last quoted clause is from Dilip Kumar's own pen. He further adds: "Then with regard to Sri Aurobindo's diagnoses and prescriptions about human pain and suffering he went on to argue with me for the hundredth time." We need not dwell on Sri Aurobindo's reply here, for that will take us out of the purview of our present book which is concerned only with the humorous writings of the Master-Yogi.

At times, Dilip Kumar used to feel the qualms of conscience because of the tone of irony he mingled in the letters to Sri Aurobindo. Here are his own words:

"No wonder my brief glow of questioning and challenging left me only a legacy of brooding sadness if not an aftermath of despondent depression. Could it be right to take such liberties with one's Guru (and what a Guru!) because he tolerated them? And was it seemly to assume such a tone of banter if not irreverence, treating him as though he were something like an

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honourable colleague in the Parliament of Words — a fellow-member in opposition whom one could address with polite reverence only to show up the more effectively his deficiency in acumen? So I apologised in a postscript: wouldn't he pardon my unpardonable temerity? For if he got displeased with me, where would I be?"

To this letter of Dilip Kumar Sri Aurobindo wrote, indulgent as ever:

"I do not understand why you should assume that I am displeased with the Karma question. I castigated or fustigated Nirod not from displeasure nor even 'more in sorrow than in anger', but for fun and also from a high sense of duty: for that erring mortal was bold enough to generalise from his very limited experience and impose it as a definite law in Yoga, discrediting in the process my own immortal philosophy! What then could I do but to jump on him in a spirit of genial massacre?"²⁸

Such was Sri Aurobindo and such was his tender and affectionate compassion flowing out towards his disciple. Let us now enjoy some of the sparkling laughter that used to issue forth from their mutual exchanges.

III. Sri Aurobindo and Dilip Kumar: Wisdom and Laughter

1. In 1934, Dilip Kumar composed a Bengali poem purporting to be a parable of the ass and the flood and in due course sent it up to Sri Aurobindo with this introductory note:

"Once upon a time, Guru, there was a foolish ass who lived in the neighbourhood of a wise Yogi. One day a sudden flood burst the banks of a river nearby and flooded the countryside. The wise Yogi, being wise, ran up till he reached the safe top of a hill at the foot of which he used to meditate day and night in a cave. But the ass - being foolish, not to say unmeditative - was

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swept away by the rushing tides. 'Alas!' he brayed, 'the world is being drowned!' 'Don't be an ass,' reprimanded the Yogi in high scorn from up the hill-top. 'It's only you who are being drowned - not this great big world.' 'But, sir,' argued the idiot, 'if I myself am drowned how can I be sure that the world will survive?' And the Yogi was struck dumb and wondered, for the first time, which was the deeper wisdom - the human or the asinine! And I too have started wondering on my own, Guru! So I appeal to you to adjudicate: tell me whose is the more pitiable plight: the Yogi's or the ass's? And incidentally, tell me also if my mind is going off the handle because I find the foolish ass's argument nearly as rational as the wise Yogi's?"

To this humour-laden letter Sri Aurobindo replied with a greater dose of humour:

"Your wise but not overwise ass has put a question that cannot be answered in two lines. Let me say, however, in defence of the much-maligned ass that he is a very clever and practical animal and the malignant imputation of stupidity to him shows only human stupidity at its worst. It is because the ass does not do what man wants him to do even under blows, that he is taxed with stupidity.

"But really, the ass behaves like that first because he has a sense of humour and likes to provoke the two-legged beast into irrational antics; and secondly, because he finds that what man wants of him is quite a ridiculous and bothersome nuisance which ought not to be demanded of any self-respecting donkey. Also note that the ass is a philosopher. When he hee-haws, it is out of a supreme contempt for the world in general and for the human imbecile in particular. I have no doubt that in the asinine language man has the same significance as ass in ours. These deep and original considerations are, however, by the way - merely meant to hint to you that your balancing between a wise man and a wise ass is not so alarming a symptom after all."²⁹

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2.Once Dilip Kumar wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "Guru, Lady Indignant told me today that she had reported of late to you that she was being forced by me and Saurin to accept our invitation to tea. A word in self-defence. We never suspected that she had disliked our - shall I say - 'chivalry'. In fact when we invited her she complied after a few no's which we had, naturally, interpreted as yes because when she came to tea, she, with her face wreathed in smiles, did not at all toy with the tea, far less with the cakes! 'Caprice!' I philosophised ruefully, 'thy name is woman!' But henceforth - now that the iron has entered my soul - she comes to tea to us at her own peril, let her beware!"

Sri Aurobindo wrote back, applauding: "Well, that is all right. If Lady Indignant is a devotee of the Great Chd Devi (chd, in Bengali, means tea.] - she will fly and throw herself on the altar without need of urging: if not, she will sit in tealess meditation, invitation free. As for chivalry, however, it is more than a century ago that Burke lamented: 'The days of chivalry are gone'! And in the year of grace, 1932, with feminism triumphant everywhere - except in France and Bokhara - how do you propose to keep the cult going any longer?"³⁰

3."O Guru", Dilip Kumar communicated, "Mr. Effusive, who is an admirer of yours has just sent me a Bengali poem which he implores me to sing to you 'without fail'. But I wonder how you would react to it if I complied, for he has in effect sounded the death-knell of Rishihood, calling you virtually the last of the Romans. I will translate into English only the opening couplet so that Mother may also know, just to be forewarned:

'Glory to thee, O wistful India's last and lingering seer!

Let me expire with thee, my Lord, who never more

shalt appear.'

One hardly knows, Guru, whether one should be laughing or whether weeping here is de rigueur? What do you say? And he wants your blessings, too, remember!"

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Sri Aurobindo humorously admonished: "Dilip, you don't understand! What he means is that my shishyagan [disciples] will all become supermen; ergo, there can be no possible chance of any such small thing as a Rishi [seer] appearing again - I am positively the last of the crowd! All the same, you may send him my blessings — he deserves it richly for giving us such a gorgeous prospect."³¹

Leaving Amal Kiran and Dilip Kumar behind, let us now peep into the Treasure House of the third disciple, Nirodbaran. What do we find here? - a sumptuous storehouse of unbridled fun and rollicking laughter. And Sri Aurobindo responded to NB in equal measure. Here are a few samples of their give and take.

IV. Nirodian jollity!

1. NB: "O Guru, I observe that whenever I communicate an experience to you, the next moment it stops. I hope the Guru is not responsible for this?

I recall an incident of my childhood days. I was dining with my father when I was called out. 'Papa', I said to him warningly, 'take care, you mustn't eat my fish.' Well, fathers may not, but Gurus?"

Sri Aurobindo: "No, sir, I don't eat your fish. I have oceans of fish at my disposal and have no need to consume your little sprats. It is Messrs. Hostile Forces who do that - the dasyus, robbers."³²

2. NB: To think that five or six years more of barren desert stretch between me and the Divine Grace, coagulates my blood!

Sri Aurobindo: Coagulate! coagulate! coagulate!

NB: Very well, Sir, whip the cats and dogs, bulls and hogs, to your heart's content. Only the whipping has been rather severe in my case, but no help since I have surrendered my life and death at your feet. O cruel one, I shall accept all whipping as a gift of your compassion.

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Sri Aurobindo: Righto.

NB: The fellow is still dreaming of Sup. M. Tail! [the Supramental Tail!] He doesn't realise yet that many of us will see it after our souls have departed into the subtle planes and will have taken birth again in proper circumstances and conditions - and now one after another, so many are dropping, dropping after so many years of stay - viz. M-lal! Next X-lal, Y-lal, then Nirodlal!

Sri Aurobindo: Excuse me. M-lal and Company are not running away from the Sm. Tail - they are only running after the paternal tail - as soon as they have stroked it sufficiently, they will return. All the Lais have gone like Japhet in search of their fathers and will return in June... Two others asked for filial leave - one is perhaps still thinking of running after P.T. But we are beginning to kick. One 'leave' has been refused.

NB: N-lal - a fellow who has been here for 7 or 8 years and doing Yoga, runs after such a thing as a paternal tail!

Sri Aurobindo: He says he has been attached to the paternal tail ever since he came here and he felt quite outraged when Mother hinted rather sharply that it was absurd to run after it.

NB: K-lal, after 3 years' stay, goes out for the marriage of a niece. Ridiculous! Absolutely unthinkable! Who are these paters and maters and what's their place in your Yoga of surrender?

Sri Aurobindo: Quite agree with you. Hear! hear!³³

3. NB: My cold has given me the quick realisation that everything in this world - including the Divine - is Maya [illusion]. What Shankara and Buddha realised by sadhana, I realise by a simple cold!

Sri Aurobindo: No need of sadhana for that - anybody with a fit of the blues can manage that. It is to get out of the Maya that sadhana is needed.

NB: Please ask blessed Time to stand still behind you till your pen has run a 50-mile gallop on this sheet.

Sri Aurobindo: Time can't stand still, but I have tried to

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make the fellow trot slower instead of cantering - with no great result.'⁴

4. NB: Have you written anywhere what would be the nature of the physical transformation [to be brought about by the Descent of the Supramental] ? What would it be like? Change of pigment? Mongolian features into Aryo-Greco? Bald head into luxuriant growth? Old men into gods of eternal youth?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not seven tails with an eighth on the head - everybody different colours, blue, magenta, indigo, green, scarlet, etc.; hair luxuriant but vermilion and flying erect skywards; other details to match? Amen.

NB: My disgust is becoming more and more acute as regards poetry. I suppose the slightly lit-up channel has closed again. Things are pushing me towards medicine - an absolutely opposite pole! Where is your alchemist, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: Has taken opium probably and is seeing visions somewhere. Perhaps they will come out some day from your suddenly galvanised pen.

NB: No Goddesses for poor folks like us; they can only cut jokes, play pranks or tease our tails, that's all.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, if they tease your tail sufficiently, might not a poem be the result?

NB: Couldn't touch K without making her burst into tears. These ladies think what heartless brutes, animals, these doctors are!

Sri Aurobindo: Much safer than if they think "What dear these doctors are, darlings, angels!"

NB: People say I am getting absolutely bald, Sir. Two things I feared - one a big tummy and another a smooth baldness. Couldn't be saved from one. If you can't grow new hair, please help to preserve the little I have, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: What one fears, is usually what happens.... If you had not feared, you might have had the waist of a race-runner and the hair of Samson.

NB: What most upsets me at present is that there is no

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current of aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo: Low current of electricity? Well, well, let us see to the dynamo.

NB: I am sending you a few snaps - some samples of your supramental yogis! Isn't Dilipda splendid in a standing posture?

Sri Aurobindo: Superb!

NB: And my noble self seems to be coming out of the grave or going there probably?

Sri Aurobindo: Asking where will be the end of this Pra-nanta-Lild [life-finishing play],

NB: My supramental forehead is merging with the Infinite, what?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, dominating scornfully from there the pigmy universe.

NB: I give you a rare occasion for laughter. Please do laugh loud and share it with us!

Sri Aurobindo: No time to laugh! Can only smile.³⁵

5.NB: What have you kept in store for us, Sir? Not sandesh and rasagollal Will the sadhaks tumble one by one in this way as your Supramental comes nearer and nearer? Then with whom you will enjoy your Supramental? Night and day you are soaring and soaring.

Sri Aurobindo: Romantic one! I am not soaring and soaring - I am digging and digging. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard" sort of affair.

NB: You don't even look to see what fires your wings are throwing on our mortal frames!

Sri Aurobindo: My wings are throwing no fire. If anything happens to your mortal frames, it is your own kerosene stoves that are responsible.³⁶

6.NB: "From the grapes of sleep", "God's vineyard" sound funnily delightful, Sir! You seem to be trying to be modernistic!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I'm blowed! What is there modern about "vineyard"? Vineyards are as old as Adam or almost, at any rate they existed before the Flood.

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NB: [I have composed a poem with the lines] "

... As if I had become infinity

And God his mystery to me confides ..."

Is the link missing?

Sri Aurobindo: No, If God confides his mystery to you, the rest follows as a natural consequence of that portentous act of His.

NB: I have become a Father Confessor to God, what?

Sri Aurobindo: That's not a father confessor but only a confidant. A father confessor would be one to whom God confesses His sins, but perhaps you think the creation is a big enough sin in itself?

NB: [A stanza of my new poem]:

"The silent spheres of thought have opened now

Their hidden gates; I enter like a god In

triumphal majesty; upon my brow

Is crowned an eagle-sun, infinity-shod."

Sri Aurobindo: Look here now! neither eagles nor suns are in the habit of wearing shoes. Besides this idea of somebody's shoes on your head is extremely awkward and takes away entirely from the triumphal and godlike majesty of your entrance.

NB: Please don't give a start when you see me entering like a god! Too much to bear even in poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: Sorry! couldn't help starting. But the start was worse when I got the vision of somebody's shoes on your godlike head.³⁷

So, such were the disciples - Amal Kiran, Dilip Kumar, Nirodbaran et al. — who with their radiantly charming personalities provided Sri Aurobindo with the occasion for shedding his exterior reserve and showering his smiles and laughter on all around. And the succession of fourteen chapters that are now going to follow will show to us beyond any pale of doubt how variegated as well as opulent Sri Aurobindo's humour was.

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On the Disciples' Humour

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 4

Sri Aurobindo's Humour: An Analysis

Analysing Sri Aurobindo's humour? What a daredevil task we have been proposing to undertake! For, a chorus of protests will immediately arise, how can humour, of all things, be analysed? It is so soft, so delicate and so living. Its flow is as spontaneous as the flight of a humming-bird and you venture to analyse and classify* it! How can you hope to "weigh an argument in a balance, measure social forces with a slide rule, and resolve humour with a spectroscope"?' Has not Prof. Leacock rightly warned: "This process of analysis is like applying the microscope to the soft beauty of the flower wet with dew, or to the down on the ripened peach. It seems to threaten to turn it into something else."²

But this is just one side of the picture: there is another to it. For an untrained reader it is not always easy to understand and appreciate a subtle and intelligent point of humour when it comes from the pen of a truly master artist. To perceive the point intended, by breaking the riddle, often requires a great amount of reflection on the part of the reader or the listener. Has not Prof. Walter Jerrold spoken of someone who foolishly laughed out without understanding, also of one who remained grave for a long time and then suddenly burst into laughter? Here are the two incidents as narrated by the Professor:

1."A tea-table jest having been received with hearty laughter, one of the longest of the laughers being a young lady, who, when she had at long last discovered her speaking voice, set everyone else off anew by naively whispering: 'I don't see it yet.' "'

2."I remember making a joke after a meeting of the clergy in Yorkshire, where there was a Reverend Mr. Buckle who never spoke. When I gave his health saying that he was a buckle without a tongue, most persons within hearing laughed, but my next neighbour somehow sat unmoved and sunk in thought. At

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last, a quarter of an hour after we had all done, he suddenly nudged me, exclaiming: 'I see now what you meant; you meant a joke! That relieves me of my anxiety.' With this he started laughing."⁴

Hence arises the necessity of a proper training through deeper probe and acute analysis. This analysis, it goes without saying, should not be dry and dissectional: it must be, to serve its purpose, perceptive and illuminating. And this is what we propose to do in the present chapter. A taste cultivated in this way will, we hope, contribute to the readers' proper enjoyment of Sri Aurobindo's humour. May we in this connection quote with humility what Prof. Leacock once uttered:

"Personally I am quite sure that if I gave a course of lectures on the practice of humour, the students would go away from it, if not better men, at least funnier."⁵

Yes, even a simple verbal humour that depends for its effect on the subtle play upon the words and their sounds cannot be fully appreciated in all its beauty and richness unless the reader possesses a spontaneous or cultivated sense of a multifaceted perception which simultaneously seizes all the nuances intended by the author. Otherwise he has to be content with the bare skeletal meaning of the phrase which may perhaps furnish him with some information but will surely fail to enliven him with the rasa of joy. The two following examples of what is called 'humour of words' will make clear what we have been trying to convey. These examples have been taken from Stephen Lea-cock's Humour and Humanity.

Theodore Hook wrote: "A peer appears upon the pier, who blind still goes to sea." The informational content of this sentence is limited to the simple fact that a certain nobleman, although deprived of sight, was found upon the dock and he decided to go to the ocean. We may perhaps sympathise with the gentleman on his state of sightlessness but that's all, there is nothing further to it.

But when we contemplate on the sound-structure of the

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sentence, it at once shines forth and offers us the prospect of a lot of fun. One has simply to note the succession of sounds "A peer", "A-ppear" and "a pier" and remember the dictionary meanings (the sound "peer" - not the word - means at the same time a 'nobleman', 'to come into sight' and 'a dock'; the sound "see" refers indifferently to the 'ocean' or to 'vision') and the humour will be apparent.

The second example is still more interesting. Watching a fire raging, if someone exclaims: "Dickens! how it burns!", what does he seek to convey? The dictionary wryly notes: dickens (colloq., in imprecations etc.) devil, deuce. But is that all? Does the exclamatory sentence merely express the wonderment and irritation of the speaker and nothing more? Not so; as a matter of fact, it is packed with humour. To quote Leacock's words:

"When some great forgotten genius first said 'Dickens! how it burns!' the terrific amusement lay in the fact that the name of Dickens could be used as an expletive, and 'Burns' meant either conflagration or a Scotsman."⁶

Here is a third example - this time, an example of what is termed a 'humour of ideas'. It is a very intelligent piece of humour whose beauty will vanish if we try to explain it. So, we stop with merely reproducing it.

"There was a famous canon who had said to his brother: 'Brother, you and I are exceptions to the laws of Nature. You have risen by your gravity and I have sunk by my levity.' "⁷

As in all other fields of his literary creativity - philosophy, sociology, history, poetry, drama, criticism - Sri Aurobindo has been a master artist even in the domain of production of humorous writings. And being a true artist endowed with a genius of a very high order he had not to labour hard or take to any artificial device to produce the required comic effect. Rich humour used to flow out from his pen, if he so wished, in a continuous stream. Still the fact remains that when we try, out of curiosity, to probe deeper into the matter and seek to

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discover the essential techniques and basic devices which Sri Aurobindo spontaneously utilised in his humorous writings, we discover a certain number of core elements which meet us again and again in varying permutations and combinations. In the present chapter we propose to single out some of the more important literary devices and illustrate them with suitable examples chosen from Sri Aurobindo's writings.

But let us repeat it once again that Sri Aurobindo was not a mere technician who consciously and deliberately manipulated his devices to produce the comic effect. In his case it was the other way round. Being a creative genius he produced humour in a most natural and spontaneous way and it is only later on, when an analyst seeks to disengage the factors instrumental to the production of his humour, that one finds out the constitutive devices. What Sri Aurobindo wrote on the subject of "Figures of Speech" in connection with the difference between an inspired true poet and a mere poetaster who labours hard to create an ornamental effect, equally applies to the case of a writer of humour with consummate skill like his.

The devices should never b.e made ends in themselves, but rather they have to serve the Rasa and become means of its adequate realisation. They should spontaneously arise with the tide of the Rasa and their introduction should be absolutely natural and unobtrusive. And such is the case with Sri Aurobindo's humour.

With these preliminary remarks which should help us keep our study within the bounds of proper perspective, we proceed to the task of classifying the devices and techniques found in Sri Aurobindo's humorous writings.

Devices and Techniques

I. Humorous rhyming (with or without alliteration):

1. NB: But can you tell us what the experience of Self was like? Was it by any chance like the one you speak of in your Uttarpara Speech — the Vasudeva experience?

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Sri Aurobindo: Great jumble-Mumble! What has Vasu-deva to do with it?⁸

2.NB: As poetry also has come, I wouldn't like to give it up either. But how to harmonise?

Sri Aurobindo: No need to harmonise by any set arrangement — only keep up the concentration. One hour of packed concentration or even a few minutes can do as much as three hours less packed. Do you say yours is not packed? Well, striped, streaked, spotted, dotted or whatever it may be.^v

3.NB: A good piece of news: I find now three mules -mules, mind you, not horses - are trying to draw me on: (1) meditation, (2) silence (not of the mind but of the buccal cavity), (3) poetry.

The buccal silence I can keep off from clashing with the other two. But the collision between meditation and poetry is inevitable unless I favour one of them.

Sri Aurobindo: There are three ways of meeting the situation - (1) say "Yes, yes" to both parties, - but that may create trouble afterwards, (2) Be cryptic-cystic in your answers, so that neither will be sure what you mean, (3) silence with an occasional profound "Ah, hum, Yes, eh!" "Ah hum" always sounds unfathomable depths - and if "Yes" is too positive, "eh" tones it down and corrects it. You have not enough worldly wisdom.¹⁰

II. Humorous repetition of a single word:

1.NB: ... Where is the sincerity in me? So wouldn't it be better for you to let me go instead of wasting so much of your time and labour on me?

Sri Aurobindo: If you had some big object in ordinary life and nothing to hope for here it might be different, but as things are it would be foolish to walk off under the instigation of this old Mother Gloom-Gloom. Stick on and you will get the soul's reward hereafter.¹¹

2.NB: Apart from this depression, these last two days I have

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been feeling unaccountedly rotten, sad, irritated, why?

Sri Aurobindo: No reason. If the Man of Sorrows gets grounds to wallow in agony, he wallows on the ground - if he doesn't he wallows in the waters - if waters are denied to him, he will wallow in the air. If no he will wallow in the void. But wallow he must. Even if you had written a poem as deep as the sea and as splendid as the sunrise, he would still wallow, if that was his fancy - "wallow and luxuriously wail to the world and its Witness."¹²

[N.B. Note the pun on "grounds" and "ground", and alliteration in "wallow", "wail", "world" and "Witness"; these have come so smoothly, almost inevitably!]

3. NB: God, alas! What a queer fellow your Supramental will be!

Sri Aurobindo: Can't be queerer than the mental human! But I suppose he will seem queer to the queer mental human just as the queer human seems queer to the queer vital monkey and the queer monkey to the queer material jelly-fish. All queer together! and to each other!¹³

III. Echo device: Responding in the same vein and style:

1.NB: You discover too late, Sir! No escape now but to drag us, the ignorant fools and for this very reason I was protesting that fools can't do what Avatars can. However!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, they can if they stop being fools. However!!!¹⁴

2.NB: By the way, after a long time I enjoyed two or three days' true Nirodian, i.e. unyogic, jollity; but the yogic Nirodian gloom has restarted! Goodness knows why these glooms and blooms come and go!

Sri Aurobindo: Goodness doesn't know why, nor does anybody else.¹⁵

3.NB: But even if you have no medico in you, it is high time that something opens up in you! Don't you see how so many difficult cases are rising, the nearer the Supramental is des-

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cending, if it is descending at all?

Sri Aurobindo: Let it open up in you then. Don't you see how all these things are coming just to make you bloom into a Dhanwantari [A legendary Indian doctor] overnight?¹⁶

4.NB: Today I shall request you to 'stand and deliver' on a different subject.... What shall I hear from the mighty pen as a remedy for my chronic despair and impatience?

Sri Aurobindo: Now look here, ... if I can be patient with you and your despairs, why can't you be patient with the forces? ...Now, sir, if my yuga-like persistence could work a miracle ... with such a one [as X], why can't you expect an earlier result with you? Stand and answer.¹⁷

5.DK: O Guru, I send you a Bengali poem of mine entitled Akuti which I translated last night into English. Can you revise it? Is it good? Mediocre? Worthless? Frank opinion, please!

But what about Raihana's letter? Won't return? You keep mum. What's up? Bridge-building? Supramental? Woolgathering?

Sri Aurobindo: I shall see if I can get a few minutes for revising your English translation. But you seem to have progressed greatly in your English verse - How so quickly? Yogic Force? Internal combustion? The subliminal self?

Raihana's letter and drawing which have unaccountably turned up again with me. Poltergeist? Your inadvertence? Mine?¹⁸

IV. Humorous alliteration and sound-sameness:

1.AK: In line 2 of the poem I have sent up, "utter" seems quite a clutter after "batter" of the previous line and "but" in the same. Is it advisable to substitute "perfect" for it?

Sri Aurobindo: "Utter" and "batter" may be a clutter and a clatter but "perfect" is much too flatter. So find something else which will fit more inevitably into the matter.¹⁹

2.NB: A, though "much more granite" than I, seems to

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receive very well in poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: Ah, you think so! My dear sir, I have to do boring operations like digging an artesian well before I can get a few poems out of him - And afterwards it is one long wail "All gone! all gone! I am damned, doomed, dead, deteriorated, degenerated" for a whole day period. Sir, A is twice the Man of Sorrows you are.²⁰

3.NB: Guru, I fear you will find the poem suffering from the first signs of flu!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, sir, your flu has made you fluid and fluent, and the hammering headache has hammered out a fine poem. Wa Allah!²¹

4.NB: If you advise me that one has to go on sitting and racking one's brain - inspiration or no inspiration and then only the grey matter can open up, I'll say it is not a very royal road that you show me.

Sri Aurobindo: I don't think the inspiration usually comes in that way! It is better to put yourself in receptive attitude and let it come. If it doesn't come, try, try again but no need to sweat and swear and writhe.²²

5.NB: My friend Jatin Bal, whose photo I sent you the other day, expressed a desire for Darshan. Is permission possible?

Sri Aurobindo: No recollection of it at all! But the Mother remembers and she has given me a glimmering and gleaming reflection of a recollection. Yes, it was the photograph in which you qualified for Abyssinia. Right.

It is the only thing possible for a beginning.²³

6.NB: You have said to X that my natural bent is pessimistic. But why then is there such an ambition, such an aspiration to be pure and perfect in life ...?

Sri Aurobindo: It is two different portions of your being. One wants to climb mountains, the other which stands at the foot or is climbing or rather being hauled up the first step of the

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ascent, pulls back, groans, grunts, growls, wails and cries "That? all that height? Tchah! pooh! I'll never be able to negotiate one ten-thousandth part of that! Let me sit down and lament."²⁴

7.NB: Z does not claim to know any sadhana but still to have an inner peace and joy. It must be true, for I find Z very happy and cheerful.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, yes, many people are like that. Calm or peace or happiness or cheerfulness, so long as there is no cause for disturbance, but immediately there is, then boil, seethe, simmer, growl, howl, yowl! The calm which causes of disturbance cannot disturb is the thing.²⁵

8.NB: What do you say, Sir, about this poem? Somewhat forced and artificial, no rhythm?

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid so. Rather dream-dream-dreamy-brang-clangy.²⁶

9.Sri Aurobindo to Dr. N: ... Tradition demands that a doctor should be soft like butter, soothing like treacle, sweet like sugar and jolly like jam.²⁷

10.NB: A screen examination ia advisable. These things are intractable and there is a hereditary taint.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, you can do the screen exam, but if there is any scream on the screen, be discreet and let us know first before S is informed. After we know what's the matter, can fix medicine.²⁸

11 NB: Good Lord, the fellow is harbouring all sorts of organisms! Of course, it is in a way expected, for diabetes diminishes resistance to infection. But ... he doesn't seem to be taking Insulin treatment.

Sri Aurobindo: The Civil Surgeon Fisher who fished him into the hospital, talked vaguely of a possibility of Insulin in the future if the examination proved the necessity, but the new Civil

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Surgeon Kapur who is making him caper out of hospital, positively forbids the use of Insulin. So!²'

V.Humorous double perception and link-up:

1.NB: Guru, day after tomorrow is my blessed birthday. The year has gone round and the prophecy that at the age of 32 my trouble will be over has well —!

Sri Aurobindo: Thirty-second year over? Perhaps in the "will be over" over has a different significance!³⁰

[Readers, do you catch the point and thus enjoy the beautiful humour?]

2.NB: Have you brushed aside Surawardy's poems?

Sri Aurobindo: No, I have combed thern only. I send you the results.³¹

VI.Humorous play upon a word with two significations:

NB: Tomorrow, by the way, I am going to burst a little -Attention!

Sri Aurobindo: Eh what! Burst? Which way? If you explode, fizz only - don't blow up the Ashram.

NB: The Ashram is quite safe! My explosion will burst me alone, but I will see if the Divine can as well be exploded. I expected very much that your touch would relieve my burden, a little even, or would do something somewhere by which something at least would be tangible outwardly. Well, illusion it has been all ...

Sri Aurobindo: Man alive (or of Sorrows or whatever may be the fact), how is it you fell on such a fell day for your burst? There has been an explosion, as D merrily calls it, beginning on the 14th (August) but reaching now its epistolary climax and I have been writing sober letters to excited people for the last few years. Solicit therefore your indulgence for a guru besieged by other people's disturbances (and letters) - until tonight. Send back the blessed burst and I will try to deal with it.³²

NB: The boil paining all the time. Please do something, otherwise I can't do anything.

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Sri Aurobindo: Why so boiled by a boil?³³

VII.Inversion device:

1.NB: You have made me very happy by your comment on my poem I had sent you. But I doubt if the same sustained level will be maintained.

Sri Aurobindo: Very few poets can. The best poetry doesn't come by streams, except in periods of extraordinary inspiration. It usually comes by intermittent drops, though sometimes three or four drops at a time.

Of course there are exceptions — Shakespeare etc. — but that kind of spear doesn't shake everywhere.³⁴

2.NB: S's same trouble continues or worse. Why are you silent on liver extract?

Sri Aurobindo: Extract liver — no objection. ... since it is his liver - let's see if it extracts him out of his agonies.³⁵

VIII.Humorous linguistic licences:

NB: You said "circumstances are exceptional" as regards my early success in English versification. It must be so, but please

Let me know

How 'tis so

A dullard like me

Bursting like a sea

With the heart of the Muse

Makes his rhythm fuse?

Sri Aurobindo:

You are opening, opening, opening

Into a wider, wider scopening

That fills me with a sudden hopening

That I may carry you in spite of gropening

Your soul into the supramental ropening.³⁶

IX.Deliberate but seemingly 'innocent' misconstruing:

1. NB: A is bleeding from piles. It has to be stopped. V

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seems to be very enthusiastic over him!

Sri Aurobindo: What's that? Enthusiastic over his bleeding? V's enthusings are generally catastrophic to the enthused over."

2.NB: My friend Jatin Bal and his wife visiting the Ashram want rooms given to them in the Ashram. Why no reply? I was almost going to tear my hair but your "delightful time" prevented me from doing it! I wait till Sunday after which I will tear my hair certainly.

Sri Aurobindo: Preserve it — preserve your precious hair. Be calm, be patient.

NB: I don't understand whether it is the yogic or accommodation trouble that stands in the way of putting them together.

Sri Aurobindo: Who is "them" - your hairs? What an abrupt Tacitean writer you are.³⁸

3.NB: My big photo requires Sanjiban's treatment. Granted permission?

Sri Aurobindo: What? which? where? how? what disease? what medicine wanted?

NB: By 'my big photo', I meant your photo which would be drawn by Sanjiban.

Sri Aurobindo: You are always plunging me into new mysteries. If it is a photo how can it be drawn by anybody? And what is the tense, connotation and psychological and metaphysical annotation of "would be" here?

NB: You see the photo is being eaten by insects, so it has to be treated. So all interrogations answered. Permission granted?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes.³⁹

4.NB: Now let me tell you how an Englishman named Thompson visiting our Ashram, looks at our versification in his tongue, which has thrown cold water on it.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not interested in the looks of your Englishman.

Thompson's tongue has thrown cold water on it - or what?

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This sentence is almost as unintelligible as Thompson's own English.⁴⁰

X.Using a word in an unconventional context:

NB: Dr. Sircar has a touch of cold! Please save me; no more patients, especially big and bulky ones!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, well, prevent the cold from becoming bulky.⁴¹

NB: Self - Pus still coming out. Nose also angry! Sri Aurobindo: What a bad-tempered "pussy" cat of a nose!⁴²

XI.Humorous focussing on etymology:

1.NB: Opinion on the poem, please.

Sri Aurobindo: All right except for a rather amorphous rhythm. I have tried to morph it a little.⁴³

2.NB: I thought that it was not possible for us to have spiritual experiences, especially major ones, without your previously knowing that so and so will have such and such experiences.

Sri Aurobindo: Previously? My God, we would have to spend all our time prevising the sadhaks' experiences. Do you think Mother has nothing else to do? As for myself, I never previse anything, I only vise and revise.⁴⁴

XII.Humour centering around ellipses and elisions:

1.NB: I asked also Dr. R but he has no time. Hence those two, thinking that they understand at least better than I.

Sri Aurobindo: Which two, Great Heavens, O Aeschylus? R&Z?orX&Y?I suppose the latter. And the elliptical "Hence those two" - Hence I asked about those two? I shall become quite a skilful Aeschylean scholar at this rate.⁴⁵

2.NB: S is suffering from neuralgia, no doubt but 2 ry to the joint trouble.

Sri Aurobindo: This is worse than Aeschylus. Is it an

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Egyptian hieroglyph? English? Bengali? Shorthand?⁴⁶

NB: Now all symptoms are subsiding. Pt. will soon become all right.

Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce is pt., O Aeschylus?⁴⁷ NB: D better; pain.

Sri Aurobindo: Is it that he has a better pain? or that the fact that he has a pain shows that he is better or that he is better, but still has pain? An aphoristic style lends itself to many joyfully various interpretations.⁴⁸

3.NB: The word 'focus' was unintelligible? But you understand all right. I adopt the device and 'your attention' to save your time and mine as well, as it is obvious.

Sri Aurobindo: Good God! Is this Hebrew or Aramic or Swahili? I can't understand a word. Which device? Which attention? Some reference to something I wrote?...⁴⁹

4.NB: I have checked one wave so far. Any more coming on the top of it?

Sri Aurobindo: Wave of what? Wave of genius? Wave of poetry? Wave of the blues? For Heaven's sake write comprehensively!⁵⁰

[NB writes a long account of G's uncertain medical case.]

Sri Aurobindo (replying): ... Please clear this point and don't write Delphic oracles. Leave that to me as my monopoly.⁵¹

NB: As for K, no, Sir, not in Paradise but in hell of agony, suffering, fever, brown [red] hepatisation, grey hepatisation etc., etc. (nothing to do with liver, though).

Sri Aurobindo: What on earth is this hepatisation? Where? Lungs? pneumonic? What etc.? Kindly be less cryptic.⁵²

NB: What does Mother say about making S a hospital bird for some days? I think he will benefit by it. This neurotics do you know.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the last sentence.] Sri Aurobindo: What on earth does this cryptic sentence mean?⁵³

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XIII. Humorous neologisms:

1.NB: Have you asked Dr. R's opinion on this matter about the new patient?

Sri Aurobindo: Haven't asked him. Afraid of a resonant explanation which would leave me gobbrified and flabbergasted but no wiser than before.⁵⁴

2.NB: But let me add that my roasting has already begun, not in your spiritual oven, but in the barometric oven. Dilip and myself have decided to cycle off to the Lake in the early hours of the morning. As it is not possible to get a cycle at that hour from outside, what about getting it from here?

Sri Aurobindo: Can't ask Benjamin for a cycle at that time. He would eat our heads off and yours too. This cyclomania is becoming too epidemic - we won't be able to supply at that rate.

NB: And this time it's not a "melancholiac" that asks but a maniac, you may say!

Sri Aurobindo: Melancholomania.⁵⁵

3.NB: The Divine writing has made me a little peaceful. But the way you are hammering the 'Supramental' on us in everything, one would almost think that its descent will make all of us 'big people' overnight.

Sri Aurobindo: My insistence on the Supramental is of course apodiaskeptic. Don't search for the word in the dictionary. I am simply imitating the doctors who when they are in a hole protect themselves with impossible Greek. ...

Of course, I am not asking you to become supramental offhand. That is my business, and I will do it if you fellows give me a chance, and which you are not doing just now (you is not personal, but collective and indefinite) and will do less if you go blummering into buzzific intensities. (Please don't consult the dictionary, but look into the writings of Joyce and others.)⁵⁶

4.NB: When a person with few or no friends comes to see you, how to turn your face away? If any disturbance results

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from it I can bear if it is helpful, but when it becomes too frequent it'll be unbearable.

Sri Aurobindo: Let us hope it will not be too frequent. Don't want you to fall again either into the flummocks or flumps or into the dumps. Don't look for these words, at least the first two in the dictionary, they are not there - my own Joycean neologisms.⁵⁷

5.NB: It is proposed to include me in an Ashram anthology of Bengali poets. But won't my work look pale and anaemic beside something like Nishikanta's, all splendour and glow?

Sri Aurobindo: No. Besides, there must always be varieties in an anthology which is like a museum or a botanical collection. So a modestum Nirodicum inside will do no harm even beside a flaminga Nishikantica.™

6.NB: I send you the poem again. How do you find the effect, on the whole? I have very little credit though, this time.

Sri Aurobindo: ... I think between us ... we made a rather spendaceous superrealist poem out of your surrealist affair.⁵⁹

XIV. Fun with Greek/Latin expressions:

1.NB: [A's case] Anemie cerebrale! Good God, no! It is anaemia hepaticus.

Sri Aurobindo: Who is this hermaphrodite? [Sri Aurobindo changed "hepaticus" to "hepatica".]⁶⁰

2.NB: M's is not a pimple. It looks like a Myobeian cyst. Sri Aurobindo: What the hell is that? I don't know bad

Greek.

NB: I send you a diagram of M's condition, drawn by Nishikanta. I hope the "hell" is clear now! Meibomian cyst is an enlargement of one of the glands in the inner coat of the eye-lid.

Sri Aurobindo: This is more intelligible. You have not explained your bad Greek, though - myoboemian* which

* It is mock-Greek, a play on the word "meibomian", which is a legitimate medical term and is not Greek. Myo

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seems to have something to do with a mystically silent shout.⁶¹

3.NB: Dr. Andre says that anti-anaphylactic injection is very good for eczema and asthma.

Sri Aurobindo: I don't know what anti-anaphylactic means (my proficiency in quasi-Greek is not very great) but it sounds swell. No objection.⁶²

4.NB: S's stomach is no more 'gloomy' - bright and cheerful today. I am tempted to dance in glee. Is it the [Yogic] Force or Pancrinol, or both?

Sri Aurobindo: What's this Pancrinol? All-hair? AU-what? or has it to do with the Pancreas?⁶³

XV.Making fun of X having used a wrong word or having made a slip of pen:

1.Dr. NB: The first portion of this poem I wrote almost dosing.

Sri Aurobindo: 'Dosing'? this is a medical spelling!⁶⁴

2.NB: We are really getting tired and hopless.

Sri Aurobindo: [Underlining the word "hopless"] That is a good word. To be hopeless means to have no hop left in you.⁶⁵

3.NB: I don't know what to do with R.K. There is virtually no improvement in his trachoma. Today he says he has great pain in right pain and wants to be reported.

Sri Aurobindo: You are certainly a born supramental. "To have great pain in right pain" is of a supramental depth.⁶⁶

4.NB: A carpenter beaten by a rat ...

Sri Aurobindo: Say, say! I never heard of a rat beating a man before! He ought to go to the criminal court instead of the hospital.⁶⁷

5.NB: Since the soul descended into Ignorance through a process of devolution, it has to go back through evolution.

Sri Aurobindo: What is this devolution? Let me hear more about it, - for it is new to me. I know of an involution and an evolution, but not of a devolution.⁶⁸

XVI.Making fun of X's queer expressions/sentence-structures:

1. NB: I saw Madanlal going about with bare clothing. Not good for asthma.

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Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce is bare clothing? I have heard only of a bare body etc. Your Aeschylean expressions are sometimes very puzzling.⁶⁹

2. NB: About The Life Divine class, I would have loved to read with Z, but his Purushalike bearing scares one. You know he refused even to take up and only by Mother's order he did it.

Sri Aurobindo: Take up what? You have already asked him for the L.D. and been sent banging? Or is it something else indicated by an Aeschylean ellipsis?⁷⁰

XVII.On the incomprehensibility of language:

1.Sri Aurobindo to Dr. NB: Mahendranath telegraphed about his mother - "appendix affected fall" - couldn't understand. Asked for exact nature of illness, got this telegram in reply. Kindly perorate.⁷¹

2.NB: Jaswant writes: "Deepest Love to Sri Aurobindo. Do convey it if Papa writes blessings, if Jaswant comes up in memory."

Sri Aurobindo: Don't understand. What is to be conveyed? And how do the two ifs relate together or with the "convey"?⁷²

XVIII.Parts of words retained and humorous effects created:

1.NB: You have kept the type-script? I am finished then! I know it will have the same fate as the previous one [on Avatar hood]! However, I send the book in the off-chance of an expatiation or a divagation.

Sri Aurobindo: None, none, none! I prefer to excavate instead.⁷³

2.NB: As for J's case, you seem to be much behind time, Sir! You don't favour these new discoveries!

Sri Aurobindo: How is that? About the blood injection juggle? I told you it was fashionable and you could fash along with it if you liked or rather if J liked - provided Dr. Andre did it.⁷⁴

3.NB: They will say - Sri Aurobindo gave expositions of

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this poetry? - ha, ha! and he praised it and gave Force for it! The poetess was undoubtedly "queer", but the Guru?

Sri Aurobindo: But do you then find that it is bad poetry? for at fine poetry posterity will not say ha! ha! but at most "Oof! how difficult!" It is only contemporary opinion that is foolishly contemptuous of grand poetry.⁷'

4. NB: With great difficulty I have deciphered your Supra-mental writing. Now it requires to be metabolised. But one point remains to be clarified.

Sri Aurobindo: Which diabolical point was that? Some point of a pin on which the whole universe can stand?⁷⁶

XIX.Break-up of a word to create a humorous effect:

We know when Richard Bentley started his periodical "Miscellany" the famous wit Theodore Hook commented: "An ominous title - Miss-sell-any." Here is a piece from Sri Aurobindo:

Dr. NB: A has finished 3 Takadiastase bottles. He finds good effect from it. We require another bottle now. Should we buy it?

Sri Aurobindo: Buy the take-a-distaste and keep his liver quiet for God's sake. He shows signs of starting his lamentations again. The bottle to keep the baby quiet.⁷⁷

XX.Humour with illegible handwriting:

1. NB: There was no drowsiness - understandable?

Sri Aurobindo: [Sri Aurobindo underlined the word "drowsiness", which was written rather badly.] Your writing is sometimes no more understandable than mine. It took me some time to understand whether this word was Bengali, Sanskrit or English with a mixture. But I suppose it is drowsiness?⁷⁸

[Readers will surely enjoy the undercurrent of subtle humour involved in N insisting that there was no drowsiness while Sri Aurobindo affirming that it was probably so. Here 'drowsiness' appears at two different levels: how sweet!]

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2.NB: Guru, what do you say to the poem of J's? I am damned if I understand anything of it. Blakish, Mallarmic? ... Have you any more of these mystic members to compare her with?

[Sri Aurobindo put a question mark above "members" which was not very clearly written

Sri Aurobindo: What's this mystic word?⁷⁹

3.NB: S has profuse "w.....". [This last word was illegibly

written.]

Sri Aurobindo: What on earth is this word? Winter? wintes? It may be profuse but it is not legible. For God's sake don't imitate me.

NB: The word you stumbled against, is "whites", Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: Great Lord! What an h! I could not do worse myself.⁸⁰

XXI. A word or an expression used by the correspondent leads to humorous follow-up:

1.NB: Guru, you hardly take an initiative and ask people to do this or that. Your principle is to give a long rope either to hang oneself or have a taste of the bitter cup.

Sri Aurobindo: I am to put everybody into leading strings and walk about with them - or should it be the rope in their nose? Supermen cannot be made like that - the long rope is needed.⁸¹

2.NB: The laws of its [of the glimpse of the Presence etc.] coming and going are as unknown to me as Einstein's law of Relativity. It comes of its own sweet will, at its own sweet hour.... The tragedy is that I know nothing of its reason of arrival and departure.

Sri Aurobindo: No reason. Only unreason or superreason. Keep your end up and it will arrive again, and some day perhaps after jack-in-the-boxing like that sufficiently, one day it will sit down and say "Here I am for good. Send for the priest and let us be married." With these things that is the law and the rule

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and the resson and rhyme of it and everything.⁸²

3.NB: I am thrown out of joint at two miracles, Sir: (i) R's treatment or yours; (ii) NK's English poetry, though Madam Doubt still peeps from behind.

Anyhow, no chance for me! Kapal [Fate], Sir! What to do?

Sri Aurobindo: Why out of joint? It ought to strengthen your joints for the journey of Yoga.

Not at all Kapal [Fate], sir. Mind, sir, mind. Madam Doubt, sir, Madam Doubt. Miss Material Intellectualism, sir! Aunt Despondency, sir! Uncle Self-distrust, sir! Cousin Self-depreciation, sir! The whole confounded family, sir!⁸'

4.NB: I am at the end of a long poem; have been working at it for many hours, but could not extract anything.

Sri Aurobindo: But what did you extract? Not even words? What a constipation!⁸⁴

5.NB: ... In that case Music should have the greatest gift. I won't dilate any more, but ask you to do it.

Sri Aurobindo: Why should I dilate either - at the risk of bursting? Besides to-night I have other dilatations (I can't call them delectations) occupying me.⁸⁵

6.NB: How do you find the poem I am sending you? Does it deserve incineration?

Sri Aurobindo: ... You needn't incinerate, but bury it in a drawer somewhere for the moment. Read it again after ten years (Horace's advice).

NB: What about the refrain?

Sri Aurobindo: Refrain? Man alive, if all were like the refrain, I should say "Bury, bury - burn, burn."⁸⁶

7.NB: J doubts that her poems have enough poetry. Our saying and feeling don't matter much, you see. Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, etc., etc. must acclaim. Please acclaim, acclaim!

Sri Aurobindo: Clamo, clamavi, clamabo. [In Latin: I

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acclaim, I have acclaimed, I shall acclaim.]⁸⁷

8.NB: "My soul keeps its wide calm

Amidst the surge ..."

Sri Aurobindo: For heaven's sake don't bring calm in at the end of a line. One has to rhyme with balm, palm or psalm, and to bring any of these in without an obvious effort of manufacture is a Herculean feat.

Of course if you slam in an Imam or warm up to an alarm, it becomes easier but at the cost of an uneasy conscience.⁸⁸

9.NB: You compare your nights with mine! God above! Yours, Sir, is a labour of love -

Sri Aurobindo: Love under protest then or at least labour under protest!

NB: And mine - labour of Yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: A labour of Bboga? [Bhoga - Enjoyment]⁸⁹

10.NB: Suddenly at 5 p.m. B's pain vanished. So I justify his epistle [to you], Sir! His thundering scowl burst your ear!

Sri Aurobindo: It wasn't a scowl, even a thundering surrealist one - it was a tympanum-piercing howl - so one had to do something.⁹⁰

11.NB: Guru, do you see the Overhead reflected in this poem [of mine]? I've hammered it.

Sri Aurobindo: I don't know but the overheadache is also reflected, which accounts for the number of alterations that have to be made.⁹¹

12.NB: The other day Dilip said to M. Baron, "But one can't understand this surrealist poetry." He replied, "Why should you understand it?"

Sri Aurobindo: Exactly — why should you understand? When you can instand, overstand, roundstand, interstand, what's the need of understanding?⁹²

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XXII.Humour with initials / abbreviations / acronyms:

1.NB: Absolutely in the physical consciousness! Don't find any trace of the psychic anywhere, Sir! Are you handling the blessed subconscient physical or what?

Sri Aurobindo: I am handling the handle. Sticky! If you are absolutely in the physical consciousness so much the better. It shows you are on the way. If you were in your uproarious mental or tragic vital then there would be little chance for the psychic to emerge. But now that you are in the physical, there is some prospect of your finishing the circle M. V. Ph. Afterwards possibly there will be a chance for the line Ps. HC. S. Rejoice!

NB: What are these abbreviations - Ps. HC. S.?

Sri Aurobindo: Psychic — Higher Consciousness — Supra-mental.

NB: You are trying to adopt shorthand now?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course! what to do? Shorthand lessens the labour of the writer, even if it increases that of the reader. Besides, the attempt to find out what the abbs, mean should stimulate your intuition and sharpen your intelligence.⁹³

2.NB: [My new poem:]

"The scented air your gold locks leave

Haunts like a heavenly piece of art."

Plenty of romanticism and incoherence and outburst, perhaps?

Sri Aurobindo: R and I are there in plenty, but O is not in evidence.⁹⁴

XXIII.Humorous exploitation of a quick procession of terms:

1. NB: What does Mother say about sending S to the hospital for a few days? ... If vetoed, I may try Tonekine injections - (containing arsenic, eau de mer, etc.)

Sri Aurobindo: But is this dried liver curable by treatment? Mother says she had an acquaintance who suffered from it, but nothing could cure him. There was nothing left of him but bones and some appearance of skin. Only he kept it up to the age of 80 and died after burying all his relatives and most of his friends.

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But this S takes just the wrong attitude, making the most of his illness. Just read the letter I send you. What is all this jerks, hammerings, beatings, lumpings, movements? Neurotics? facts? ...⁹⁵

2. NB: I have again the same chronic trouble. At Pranam I felt Mother was serious with me and the reason was, I thought, she did not like my comparing the sadhaks in the way I did yesterday. I have no intention of belittling anyone. ...

Sri Aurobindo: Rubbish! Mother did not think anything about it at all. Why the hell or heaven or why on earth or why the unearthly should she be displeased? You all seem to think of the Mother as living in a sort of daylong and nightlong simmering cauldron of displeasure about nothing and anything and everything under the sun. Lord! what a queer idea!⁹⁶

XXIV. Leaving an 'offensive' word unfinished but making the intended dig transparent:

NB tried to argue with Sri Aurobindo on some sadhana matter. His reasoning was all fallacious. This is how Sri Aurobindo counter-argued:

"[tea and talk] were granted by me as a concession to D's nature, because by self-deprivation he would land himself in the seas of despair — not as a method of reaching the Brahman. ... Is it so difficult to understand a simple thing like that? I should have thought it would be self-evident even to the dullest intelligence.

Because I allowed him to talk and objected to his making an ostentatious ascetic ass of himself does it follow that talk and tea were given as part of his Yoga? If the Mother allowed butter or eggs to Y for his physical growth does it follow that butter and eggs are the bases of the Brahman? If somebody has a stomachache and I send him to the Dispensary, does it follow that stomach-ache, the Dispensary, Dr. Nirod and allopathic drugs are the perfect way to spiritualisation?

Don't be an a I mean a ... logician!⁹⁷

[How sweet and sudden is this last line"!]

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XXV.Humour out of improper grammatical grafting:

NB: "Lonelily like a sheep I go

Along the watermark of time..."

How is this sheep? And "lonelily"?

Sri Aurobindo: It is certainly impossible. Sheep is too sheepish, - you might just as well say, "like a mouse".

The word "Lonelily" simply doesn't exist, any more than "lovelily" or "silily" or "wilily"....⁹⁸

XXVI.Ingenious twist given to an expression:

Sri Aurobindo closed a rather long discussion with these words: "... In this case the experiment is to see whether what extraordinary minds can do, cannot be done by Yoga. Sufficit -or as Ramachandra [a disciple] eloquendy puts it' 'Nuff said!'

[What an unexpected but delectable elision! - " 'Nuff said."]

XXVII.Humour arising out of wrong pronunciation:

NB: P's operation tomorrow at 9-30 a.m. Please circulate some Force!

Sri Aurobindo: P in order to facilitate matters for tomorrow, has started ...What cheer brothers!

NB: 'What cheer brothers!' or 'bothers!'? Never heard of such a phrase, Sir! Most 21st century, I am sure. Even Wodehouse hasn't that!

Sri Aurobindo: It is both. You don't know the story of Pavitra and Khitish and the bother? Pavitra who had just come here [to the Ashram] with a rather French pronunciation of English said to K "I am a 'brawther' to you all" and Khitish, [understanding 'bother',] cried out "Oh, no, no!" Pavitra insisted but Khitish still cried out with pain and politeness in his voice "Oh, no, no!"

It turned out K had heard all through "I am a bother to you all!" So brothers are bothers and bothers are constant brothers to us insisting on inhabiting the Ashram - or at least visiting it, like the vaccination, P's needle, etc.¹⁰⁰

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XXVIII.Humour out of confusion of words:

1.NB: In P's case I must give more credit to the Mother for P's quick recovery. Good he believes in her Force, for you will have a disciple of the Warriorland of which you have none.

Sri Aurobindo: Have several (not here, but there) but they are almost all neurasthenics!

NB: (not being able to read properly this last word of Sri Aurobindo): Under P, you wrote: "...they are almost all nervous thieves"? Gracious!

Sri Aurobindo: I didn't. I wrote "neurasthenics" - neurasthenic Warriors, sir!¹⁰¹

2.NB: Dilipda has asked for a poem. I am sending the one enclosed...

Sri Aurobindo: ... But there's something wrong. What's "this brief mystical experience" coming in without any syntactical head or tail? Either I have dropped something or you have dropped or else missed. Please look again at my original hieroglyphs.

NB: I am sending you 'the original hieroglyphs' of your poem. I think you have dropped one 'of before "this brief mystical experience".

Sri Aurobindo: I haven't, but as I thought you have transmagnified what I wrote - it is not mystical but mortal and not experience but existence? "this brief mortal existence".¹⁰²

3.NB: You wrote me that we should drop the mixing together and cooking. How to drop the mixing, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: I did not write "mixing" - I wrote "messing" - food, sir, food; eating in common, sort of psycho-gastric communion forming a 'spiritual' culinary joy. If you want occultism, you shall have it with a vengeance.¹⁰³

XXIX.Names intentionally twisted:

Sri Aurobindo, then a young officer in the service of the Baroda State, wrote to his uncle in 1902:

"... I have received Rs. 90 promotion. The story goes that a

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certain officer rejoicing in the name of Damn-you-bhai* wanted promotion, so the Maharaja gave him Rs. 50, he then proceeded to remark that as this would give Damn-you-bhai an undue seniority over Mr. Would-you-ah! and Mr. Manoeu (vre) bhai,** the said Would-you-ah and Manoeu (vre) bhai must also get Rs. 50 each, and as Mr. Ghose has done good work for me, I give him Rs. 90."^1M

XXX.Unintentional muddle of names:

1.NB: Manubhai (in the smithy) has conjunctivitis.

Sri Aurobindo: Manibhai is the Smithy Superintendent -Manubhai is the Lord High Gardener. Don't mix men and vowels supramentally like that.¹⁰⁵

2.NB: A worker from Cycle House — Cassel — has conjunctivitis.

Sri Aurobindo: Another of the dictionary? I suppose you mean Keshavalu?¹⁰⁶

3.NB: Rambhai complains of severe pain in the abdomen, due to constipation. Had to give a dose of castor oil.

Sri Aurobindo: Rambhai is in Gujarat, if you please. If you are administering doses of castor oil to his abdomen direct from here [Pondicherry], you must be a siddha Fascist Yogi. But perhaps you mean Ramkumar? Or whom do you mean?¹⁰⁷

XXXI.Puns:

1. NB: You must have seen in today's paper the great news: Prof. Sanjib Chowdhury of Dacca has got the Nobel Prize in literature - for his book Songs from the Heights.

Sri Aurobindo: Didn't see it. Who the devil is he? The title of the book doesn't sound encouraging; but I suppose it can't be merely Noble Rubbish.¹⁰⁸

* Perhaps Dayabhai, an officer of the Baroda State. **Manubhai, private secretary to the Maharaja of Baroda in 1902.

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2.NB: U's neck tumour can be operated upon under local anaesthetic. Now all this question of operation is useless, because he says he is afraid. After all he has no discomfort and neither is it very big, he says, so let it be. Only I was thinking that if it grows bigger, as undoubtedly it will, unless your Force prevents it, what will be done then?

Sri Aurobindo: No use doing it if he is afraid. Let us wait on the Gods and hope they won't increase the lipoma till it deserves a diploma for its size. An American skyscraper on the neck would be obviously inconvenient.¹⁰⁹

3.NB: (Dilip's telegram: Nirod Ashram, arriving tomorrow evening train. Heldil.) Guru, this is from Dilip - heldil is not he, of course. But what is it then? Can your Supramental Intuition solve? But mine has: it is H for Hashi, e for Esha, 1 for Lila, -Dil of course, you know. [It's Dilip himself.]

What do you think, Sir, of my Intuition? He perhaps thought he'd beat us!

Sri Aurobindo: I don't see how he could with the Dil there to illume the Hel.¹¹⁰

4.NB: I should say Avatars are like well-fitted, well-equipped Rolls Royce machines.

Sri Aurobindo: All sufficient to themselves — perfect and complete from the beginning, hey? Just roll, royce and ripple!¹¹¹

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 5

On Matters ''Medical''

Medicines and the medical profession, physicians and surgeons, their diagnoses, prescriptions and operation procedures, have all provided a hunting-ground for the humorists to pick their games from. As Sri Aurobindo pointed out to his doctor-disciple, "the temptation of a joke at doctors has always been too much for any lay resistance."¹ Here are a few typical humorous anecdotes concerning the disciples of Hippocrates and Dhanwantari.

(1)Dr. so and so had a fancy to visit a far-off village and dwell there for a month in the midst of the simple village-folk. When the time came for his departure back, - and the doctor was very happy with his sojourn, — the benevolent physician opened his medicine-chest, brought out some bottles containing patent medicines and offered one bottle each to all those who were standing near by. The villagers protested: "Why, sir? We have no sicknesses!" The sympathetic doctor replied: "Don't worry, don't worry, friends; you'll surely have, once you take my medicines."

(2)A village doctor, almost a quack, was treating somebody for his lingering illness "diagnosed" as typhoid. When no improvement was noted even after many days, the poor patient murmured: "Doctor Sahib, don't you think my disease may be pneumonia and not typhoid?" The physician thundered: "Why this doubt, my good fellow?" "Because, Doctor Sa'b, Haripada, my neighbour, was recently treated by Dr. Dhurandhar for his supposed typhoid but the poor fellow died. And after death it was found on autopsy that Haripada had suffered from pneumonia and not from typhoid." At this our doctor jumped up from his seat and gave a bull-throated shout: "To hell with Dhurandhar-Phurandhar! On my part, when I have declared

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you have typhoid, you have to die of typhoid and not of pneumonia!"

(3)This third anecdote relates to a surgeon. The patient was laid upon the operation table and the young surgeon approached him. In a broken voice the trembling patient murmured: "Surgeon Sa'b, fear grips me." The surgeon cleared his throat and enquired: "Why, why, why are you afraid?" "This is my first operation, Sahib!" The trepidant surgeon ready with his scalpel whispered: "So is it mine, good fellow. You have expressed my own feeling."

(4)Now about a veteran surgeon. Before starting the surgical operation this surgeon, in a grave and solemn voice, addressed the patient: "Your case is very serious. Nine out of ten patients suffering from the same ailment expire after the operation." On hearing these ominous words, the patient started shaking with fear. But the surgeon consoled him: "No fear, no fear, my friend. For, the last nine patients I have operated on have all died; yours is the tenth case. So, logically, you will survive my operation."

We leave it to our readers to imagine how the patient reacted to this added piece of information coming from the lips of the much-practising surgeon!

(5)Now a piece of American joke with its habitual dig at the pre-Gorbachevian system prevailing in the Soviet Union.

An American surgeon was on a visit to a reputed Moscow hospital. He saw there the Soviet doctors doing many difficult and complicated operations with great skill and expertise: the bio-medical technologies involved were surprisingly hyper-modern and the procedures adopted were far superior to those employed in the United States. The American surgeon was deeply impressed. Full of admiration he then proceeded to the ENT theatre. He saw there a team of Russian surgeons engrossed in a surgical operation: the patient was lying unconscious on the table and a very large portion of his neck just

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below his left ear was found cut open. The American doctor enquired: "Tell me, prithee, what is this operation for? What surgical ailment does the patient have in his ear?" The taciturn chief of the team of Russian surgeons replied: "Nothing in his ear." "Then?" The Soviet surgeon replied: "We have been operating on the tonsils of his throat." Terribly puzzled the visiting American exclaimed: "Tonsilitis? If so, why are you cutting his ear?" The Russian surgeon kept quiet for some time and then whispered to the American: "This is the only feasible way of doing tonsilitis operation here; for, in our country the rule is that none should open one's mouth."

(6) Here is a piece of jolly good joke playing upon the popularly averred mutual distrust and recrimination found amongst the practitioners of medicine.

Dr. White could not in any way tolerate the presence of Dr. Green. Dr. Green, on his part, set little store by any professional advice of Dr. White. It so happened that one day a patient visited Dr. Green's clinic for consultation. Dr. Green, as was his wont, asked the patient point-blank: "Did you consult any other physician before coming to me?" The patient timidly replied: "Yes, sir, I did; I first went to Dr. White." "Dr. White! What wrong advice did that stupid quack offer you?" "He asked me to come to you."

Let us now leave for a moment the domain of general physicians and surgeons and cast an anxious look at another much-maligned tribe of doctors, the dental surgeons. Theirs is an unthankful task and so many unkind jokes are current about them. The rumour is spread abroad that the dentists are apt to pull out your healthy tooth instead of the diseased one in spite of your agonised protest, "Oh, not that one, please!" Or, worse still, a dentist in his momentary aberration may strap on to his chair the healthy friend of the patient accompanying the latter to the dentist's chamber, and then violently extract his absolutely sane tooth while the genuine patient sits near by groaning in pain.

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Be that as it may, it is an undeniable fact that most men are inclined not to give the dentist's job the importance and respect it deserves. "But", to quote Amal Kiran, "Shakespeare has a dig at the savants, the wise men, who look down their noses at it — until something goes wrong with their wisdom-teeth:

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods

And made a push at chance and sufferance.

"In plain prose, philosophers may have high-falutingly made light of our mortal situation in which ill-luck and suffering have play, but let them get a cavity in their teeth and they will be jumping about with exclamations which, whether melopoeic or phanopoeic or logopoeic, would certainly not be philosophic."²

And to have a carious tooth extracted, it was indeed a veritable ordeal for the patient in those bad old days when anaesthetics had not yet come into the armoury of surgeons. Let us listen to Amal Kiran describing the horrific old way, expecting him, of course, to lace his description with humorous overtones:

"The patient's chair was put against a wall and his hands strapped down to the arms of the chair. The dentist would stand before him with a huge forceps held in both hands. On grasping the tooth with the forceps the dentist would pin down the patient in the chair by planting his own right foot on the patient's chest. Then, with the foot pushing and the hands pulling, the tooth would be out of the patient's mouth accompanied by a hideous yell."³

Such was the case before the discovery of Nitrous oxide or the so-called "laughing gas". Nitrous oxide happened to be the first general anesthetic to be applied to surgical cases and it was one Dr. Riggs, a dentist by profession, who was the first to have used it to good effect while extracting the diseased tooth of one

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Dr. Wells, a general physician. To good effect, did we say? Yes, it was indeed so, at least in the beginning; but the denouement was not very happy for poor Dr. Riggs. Let us hear the tragicomic story as told by our incomparable Amal Kiran.

"Dr. Riggs the dentist took Dr. Wells the physician in his hands. Dr. Wells had a bad tooth needing extraction. But it was a firmly rooted molar and it would have made the patient howl madly if pulled out in the old way. ... All this was avoided by a few whiffs of [the anaesthetic] laughing gas. Dr. Wells became a completely co-operative dummy. In front of hundreds of people the dentist extracted the physician's tooth and demonstrated the efficacy of general anaesthesia.

"Soon after the operation Dr. Wells opened his eyes and holding up from the tray on the table beside him the extracted molar shouted to the audience: 'Here's a new era in tooth-pulling!' However, the next moment he took a [closer] look at the molar [innocently lying in the cup of his palm]. Dr. Wells went suddenly pale. It was a perfectly whole and healthy tooth. Dr. Riggs had extracted the wrong molar! The perfect cooperation of the unconscious patient unable to know which tooth was being painlessly pulled out had indeed ushered in a new era in erroneously effective dentistry!"

Now the denouement. "Dr. Wells went for Dr. Riggs and with one hefty punch in the nose knocked him senseless in turn."⁴

Let the 'senseless' dentist depart from the scene and let us now make some harmless fun of the ponderously pedantic diagnostic pronouncements at times made by the doctors. But whom should we call on the scene for our purpose? — For a change, let a psychiatrist now appear on the stage. And here is the 'true' (!) story concerning his diagnosis.

There was a naughty boy who was thought by his parents to be acting rather oddly. The anxious mother of the boy took him to a reputed psychiatrist; for, she hoped that the veteran doctor

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with his varied experience and great expertise would surely be able to find the concealed complexes and hidden disorders that were supposedly playing havoc with her child's mind!

In the psychiatrist's parlour the mighty man of mental science wanted to get the spontaneous response of the boy's subconscious. So he fired at him the startling question: "What would happen if I chop off your right ear?" The boy at once replied: "I would hear everything half." "Hum! half!", muttered the psychiatrist to himself. Then he asked the naughty boy for the second time: "And what would happen if I cut off your left ear also?" The boy grinned and unhesitatingly answered: "Why, I wouldn't be able to see anything." "Ah, there you are," muttered the psychiatrist with grim pleasure. He took the mother aside and whispered to her in a solemn voice: "A very serious case. We shall have to examine the matter very deeply. Something abnormal is evidently at work in a hidden way. We'll gradually bring it up to the surface and effect a cure. Madam, bring the boy back to my clinic next Thursday."

The boy and his worried mother went back home. The lady was as puzzled as the psychiatrist at her son's strange unexpected answer: If both his ears were cut off, he won't be able to see anything! But as she was not entrenched in psycho-analytic pseudo-profundity, she did the most natural thing and asked her son: "Johnny, why did you give that queer reply?" Johnny smiled and said: "Why, mamma, it's so simple. If both my ears were cut off, my cap would come down over my eyes. How could I then see anything?" It goes without saying that the relieved mother flung some unpalatable words at the absent psychiatrist and there was no return visit to the doctor's clinic'

By now we have had enough of light-hearted digs at the whole tribe of surgeons and physicians, dentists and psychiatrists. Let us be repentant now and recall to our mind that the doctors have a sunny side too. They do not merely deal with knives and potions, they can be at the same time great lovers of the Muse. So, let us close this narration by describing the medico-poetic thrill that a doctor friend felt when he, being a

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Shakespearean scholar, first read the following lines in the Poet's Macbeth. Macbeth is appealing to his physician on behalf of his wife:

Canst thou not minister to a mind disease'd;

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;

Raze out the written troubles of the brain;

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff d bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

Our said doctor was enraptured on hearing an appeal like this. He thought that he would feel like a god if asked to do such things in such a sublime language. Macbeth is speaking of plucking a rooted sorrow, razing out brain-troubles and cleansing the stuffed bosom - procedures that appear to call for deep-going surgical operations! So, our friend thrilled and wondered, the great Shakespeare understood and appreciated the art and craft of the surgeons and the physicians! Three cheers for the Elizabethan marvel!!⁶

Leaving our doctor friend to revel in the thrill of his new Shakespearean discovery we now pass on to a consideration of Sri Aurobindo's own humour and witty remarks concerning various matters medical. But there is an interesting background to it. And this is how the fountain of Sri Aurobindo's 'medical' humour started gushing forth in streams of pure rasa and laughter:

Dr. NB, after having passed the Intermediate Examination from the University of Calcutta, went to Edinburgh for medical studies. In due course he returned to India and joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1933. He was allotted work in the Carpentry Section of the Ashram. The Ashram dispensary was then under the charge of one Dayashankar to whom Sri Aurobindo had given the name of Aesculapius. He was a brilliant man but somewhat eccentric. In the year 1935 a serious

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mishap occurred to Dayashankar incapacitating him for the dispensary work. Dr. Becharlal, a visiting physician devotee from Gujarat, was looking after the dispensary affairs after the departure of Dayashankar. Now a need was felt for having someone as the permanent head of the Ashram medical services. Sri Aurobindo sounded Dr. NB if he would like to take charge of the dispensary. It so happened that NB was not very happy with his work in the timber godown. But there was a little snag. Dr. NB, fresh from the college campus, had not had sufficient personal experience as regards how to treat difficult cases. He expressed his misgivings to Sri Aurobindo and asked for his Guru's constant guidance in the matter. Sri Aurobindo assured him and with the Master's and the Mother's blessings he took independent charge of the medical services in the Ashram. The following excerpts from NB's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo will throw light on the whole sequence of the story.

Dr. NB: In Yoga everything seems to be opposite. My Rs. 20,000 over my medical education is in vain! I don't know what purpose will be seived by making me a carpenter of the Divine. If on the contrary I could have been the Son of a carpenter, that would be something!

Sri Aurobindo: I was under the impression that you are not enthusiastic over medicine or at least over the practice of it. If we had known that you are anxious to justify the 20,000, we could have utilised you in that direction. Are you serious about it?

Dr. NB: It comes as a great surprise to hear that you consider enthusiasm so important for want of which you didn't utilise my medical knowledge!

Sri Aurobindo: I meant that as you had no enthusiasm for drugs, you might just as well be busy with timber.

Dr. NB: I am really puzzled by your question; the more so because you have said that I am progressing more [in sadhana] than I would have done if I were a literary or medical gent.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, Mother had thought of you when we wanted somebody to fill up the hole left by the erratic

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Dayashankar and we also don't know what we shall do when Becharlal goes for his periodic inspection of his affairs in Gujarat. We had rejected the idea because we thought you might not only [be] not enthusiastic but the reverse of enthusiastic about again becoming a medical gent. When however you spoke lovingly and hungeringly about the Rs. 20,000, I rubbed my eyes and thought "Well, well! here's a chance!" That's all.

Dr. NB: If you seriously think that I may add my little strength to help the Divine and call me to do it, I am thrice seriously your man.

Sri Aurobindo: We will think of it in case of need.

(After about a week) Sri Aurobindo: To come to serious matters. What would you say if the Mother actually proposed to you to exchange the timber-trade for medicine? E.g. (1) to transfer your worldly and unworldly goods and your learned and noble person to the Dispensary and take physical charge of keeping it in order. (2) to help Becharlal in ministering to the physical ills of the sadhaks - with the provision that you may have hereafter to take the main charge, if he takes a trip to Gujarat.

The Mother is rather anxious that you should take up this work; she had the idea, as I told you, when D. S. broke down (which was a pity because he was in many respects the ideal man for the charge), but she did not propose it because she was not sure you would like it. As yet the suggestion is confidential, for, pending your answer, we have said nothing to Becharlal.

(After a few days) Dr. NB: Dr. B asked me to shift over to the Dispensary today itself, but I refused, waiting for your full instructions about the furniture, table lamp, management work, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I think there is everything needed over there, table lamp and all. You had better go and see. If so, you will need to take only your personal things. ... You can move in whenever you like, handing over your wooden reponsibilities to Dikshit.

Dr. NB: Now that I shall be in charge of the Dispensary I

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feel afraid about my prestige. People expect great things from an England-returned doctor ( who, I may confide in you, hasn't had enough time for experience). If you can't save my prestige, save at least my face.

Sri Aurobindo: People are exceedingly silly - but I suppose they can't help themselves. ... The prestige I can't guarantee, but hope to save something of the face.

(After having shifted to the Dispensary) Dr. NB: Everybody seems to be happy to find me shifted from the "timber throne" to the Dispensary, and says, "Now is the right man in the right place"! But I don't know how long the right man will be right for them. They want me to entertain them with "payas"* to celebrate the occasion.

Sri Aurobindo: No man ever is the right one for them - for a long time, but just the time of digesting the payas.⁷

So Dr. NB settled down in his new job of "ministering to the physical ills of the sadhaks" and he started sending up to Sri Aurobindo every day what he called his 'Medical Notebook'. In this Exercise Book he used to note down all that was relevant about his patients of the day: the nature of their ailments, signs and symptoms shown, possible diagnoses, any complications feared, medicines prescribed or any other curative procedures suggested, etc., etc. Sri Aurobindo used to peruse these reports prepared by NB and send back to the doctor next morning his 'Medical Notebook'. This Notebook invariably contained Sri Aurobindo's own suggestions or his answers to the doctor's questions, sublime or ridiculous.

Dr. NB had established a very sweet relationship with Sri Aurobindo, his Guru. There was no trace of any inhibition in this relationship. Both the Guru and the disciple were absolutely free and frank with each other. The disciple used to frame his questions in a lively vein, and the Guru would answer with lightning flashes of humour. Here is an illustrative example:

* Payas: a sweet dish prepared from milk and rice.

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"NB: Thinking of this case and one or two others, I feel ashamed of my poor knowledge and experience. I was wondering how I would show my face to you at Pranam.

Sri Aurobindo: Cheer up. And as Danton said, 'De I'audace et toujours de I'audace¹: ['Boldness, and always boldness!] What is lacking in you is the doctor's confidence in guessing at a disease and throwing a medicine at it in the hope that it will stick and cure. But that is not what I mean by the quotation."⁸

This medical correspondence between Sri Aurobindo and his inexperienced doctor-disciple continued for more than three years till November 1938. It is from NB's Notebook that we have culled all the variegated instances of Sri Aurobindo's witty remarks and sparkling humour touching matters medical that we quote below. For the enhanced enjoyment by the readers we have at times categorized them under different sections. So far for the introduction. Now the actual delectable feast:

I. On the patient's complaints:

NB: S came back again [to the Dispensary]! But I can't get the head or tail of his symptoms. Now he says one thing, now another.

Sri Aurobindo: Mother stopped his hot water and tiffin carrier. He lamented about fever, liver pains and what not (that's his plea) for continuing them. I told him if he had such bad health, he must be under medical treatment, not rushing about everywhere and eating whatever he likes. He said doctor's treatment no good. But I suppose he has gone back either in the hope of your restoring his hot water and carrier or just to prove that cold water and Aroume [Ashram Community Dining Room] don't agree with him.

NB: Tomorrow I think we shall start santonin and watch.

Sri Aurobindo: Why give santonin to a healthy fellow and spoil his health? ... S's illness may now have become diplomatic ache and strategic fever.⁹

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II.On the doctor's way of prescribing:

NB: I intend to give him salicylate, iodine or arsenic one after the other.

Sri Aurobindo: It looks like throwing stones at a dog in the hope that one of them will hit him.¹⁰

III.How should a doctor prescribe:

NB: I want, to carry on the medical work well, the channel to open. Please don't say that I cogitate, hesitate, etc. It is precisely that that I want to avoid. Shall I adopt the surrealist method i.e. to keep for a moment very quiet and whatever strikes first, go ahead with it; only be careful in case of poisons!

Sri Aurobindo: There is a vegetable called "bubble and squeak". That describes the two methods you propose. "Bubble" is to go on tossing symptoms about in the head and trying to discover what they point to - that is your method. "Squeak" is to dart at a conclusion (supported by a quotation!) and ram some inappropriate medicine down the patient's throat - that's X's method. But the proper method is neither to bubble nor to squeak.

NB: You remember once I told you of this surrealist method and you cried - Good Lord!?

Sri Aurobindo: I did and I repeat it. I don't want this Ashram transferred to the next world by your powerful agency.¹'

NB: I wonder why you flared up at the idea of surrealist method. ... I didn't obviously mean sending your Ashram to the next world! No, not at all. I meant only this: say a case comes with pain in the stomach. I simply keep silent, suddenly comes to me the suggestion - gastritis.

Sri Aurobindo: I did not flare up. I was cold with horror. Doctors don't mean it when they do that kind of thing. It is not deliberate murder with them, but involuntary or, shall we say, experimental homicide.

NB: Do the successful doctors get it by plenty of experiences, treating, curing, killing, etc.?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, there are some who after killing a few

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hundreds, learn to kill only a few. But that is not intuition; that is simply learning from experience.¹²

IV. On a doctor making 'diagnosis':

NB: S had hard red swelling about the left elbow joint; no cause.

Sri Aurobindo: Sir, in this world there is nothing without a cause - unless you hold the ultramodern view that causation does not exist."

NB: Yesterday I thought K had T.B. or pneumonia. But where are they now? In one night everything over!

Sri Aurobindo: Shobhanallah With your diagnosis one would have expected him to be already in Paradise.¹⁴

NB: Still I am not sure that X's right side is free; but that can be ascertained by X-ray. Dr. R had that 'vicarious' impression to the last.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not pool results and say it was a vicarious monstrosity that produced a lung lesion in the middle left together with the right apex? Excuse levity - the temptation of a joke at doctors has always been too much for any lay resistance.

NB: If a homeopath went by symptoms only, he would perhaps cut off the leaf but I am afraid the roots would flourish as strongly as ever.

Sri Aurobindo: ... However, what bothers me about diagnosis is that if you put twenty doctors on a case they give twenty different diagnoses (in S's we had three doctors with three different theories of the illness) and such jokes as a doctor shouting "Appendix", opening up a man, finding illness neither of appendix nor volume or chapter and cheerfully stitching up are extremely common. So if a layman's respect for allopathic pathology and diagnosis is deficient sometimes and R's sneers at doctors' diagnoses find occasionally an echo, - well, it is not altogether without "rational" cause."

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V.On the doctors' only role!

Sri Aurobindo: I say - Dr. Hutchinson, President of the Royal Society of Medicine, - in London - says (vide "Sunday Times", p. 4) that if all the doctors struck work for a year, it would make no difference in the death rate. The doctors' only use is to give comfort, confidence and consolation. Now what do you say to this opinion of your President: Rather hot, isn't it?

NB: 'Our' President's theory is not only hot, but a little top-heavy it seems. If the doctor's function is only to give consolation, I fear many patients visiting us will leave, cursing us. Take X's case. ... Anyway, what is your opinion?

Sri Aurobindo: My opinion is that Allah is great and great is the mystery of the universe and things are not what they seem, etc.¹⁶

VI.On the doctor's prestige:

NB: I feel a great responsibility. It is bad luck for me to have to tackle such a difficult case... My prestige is also involved.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a test case, I suppose. But why so strong on prestige? I should have thought everybody knows that doctors have to be guessing all the time and that cure is a matter of hit or miss. If you hit often, you are a clever doctor - or if you kill people brilliantly, then also. It reduces itself to that.¹⁷

VII.Doctors' mania for pedantic gobbledegook!

Modern doctors are often in the habit of speaking in a mysterious jargon sprinkled with Greek and Latin terms. Whether in the process of identifying an illness or in reporting about its ramifications, they employ terms which, alas, instead of revealing the secrets of diseases to the worried patients visiting their clinics, only dumbfound them beyond measure. In a scene in a play of Moliere's we find this practice humorously illustrated:

Patient: I suffer with my head, Doctor.

Doctor: Oh, I know. That's Cephalalgia.

Patient: (very much worried): My digestion is also bad.

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Doctor, (shaking his head to and fro): I see. I know what it is. It's Dyspepsia.

Now Cephalalgia is the Greek name for 'headache' while Dyspepsia is the Greek translation of 'indigestion': that's all there is in these pompous terms!¹⁸ Sri Aurobindo's dig at the doctors for the latter's penchant for pedantic language is illustrated in the following extracts from Dr. NB's Notebook.

NB: An abdominal support should fit closely to the symphysis pubis and Poupart's ligaments below; above, it should not extend higher than the umbilicus.

Sri Aurobindo: And if it is to fit closely to certain Latin things as well as to Poupart's affairs, how can it be done without measuring?¹⁹

NB: I am sending the 4 reports ... I hope this set of "hieroglyphics" is now as clear as water.

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid it is not so clear, though it is sufficiently watery.²⁰

NB: Have you asked Dr. R's opinion on this matter about the new patient?

Sri Aurobindo: Haven't asked him. Afraid of a resonant explanation which would leave me gobbrified and flabbergasted but no wiser than before.²¹

NB: Dr. Becharlal and I are again strongly suspecting D.L. of a double infection: hookworm with Trichomonas...

Sri Aurobindo: By the way, I understand how hookworms get in, but how do these tropical Technomaniacs or whatever you call them, make their entry on the stage?²²

NB: B has phimosis.

Sri Aurobindo: What kind of medical animal is this?

NB: There is a chronic difficulty with B's phimosis.

Sri Aurobindo: My dear sir, if you clap a word like that on

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an illness, do you think it is easy for the patient to recover?²³

NB: Examined Mulshankar. Most of the trouble is in the abduction of the hip joint.

Sri Aurobindo: Abduction of a joint, sir? What's this flagrant immorality? What happens to the joint when it is abducted?²⁴

Now comes the climax of Sri Aurobindo's dig. It so happened that his doctor-disciple NB started composing poems in English and in Bengali. The attempts were not always very successful. And Sri Aurobindo got the chance of paying the doctor in his own coin by fabricating strange-sounding Greek and Latin phrases to characterize the defects in NB's poetry. Here is a piece in illustration:

NB: Look at this Bengali sonnet. How is it?

Sri Aurobindo: Very fine indeed except for the concluding couplet which might be called a flat drop! What the deuce, sir! What kind of Coupletitis is this illness of yours? Anaemia finalis?

NB: What is this medical word, Sir? "What kind of coupletitis"?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that's it - like neuritis, laryngitis, etc.; so coupletitis, illness of the couplet.²⁵

VIII. On medicines and medical treatment:

NB: No medical cases today.

Sri Aurobindo: Hello! Golden Age come or what? No — for R's pain is kicking cheerfully again. It is telling her, "Your NB's potions and things indeed! I go when I like, come when I like. Doctors - pooh!"²⁶

NB: The opthalmologist said that N's eye-condition has improved. He has advised to give salicylates for past rheumatism.

Sri Aurobindo: All right — salicylate him as much as the Ost. likes. Queer! One has to be dosed not only for present and

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future but past ailments. Medicine like Brahman transcends time.²⁷

The following extract is not from NB's Notebook; it is from Amal Kiran's Life-Literature-Yoga:

A.K.: For Z's trouble, the advice of the doctors is a series of injections. I suppose he has to follow it?

Sri Aurobindo: Injections are all the fashion; for everything it is 'inject, inject, and again inject'. Medicine has gone through three stages in modern times - first (at the beginning in Moliere's days) it was 'bleed and douche' — then 'drug and diet' - now it is 'serum and injection'. Praise the Lord! not for the illnesses, but for the doctors. However, each of these formulas has a part truth behind it - with its advantages and disadvantages. As all religions and philosophies point to the Supreme but each in a different direction, so all medical fashions are ways to health - though they don't always reach it.²⁸

IX. On medical prescriptions:

NB: Krishna Ayyar has cold and slight fever. Given aspirin. Requires Divine help.

Sri Aurobindo: One tablet of aspirin and another of aspiration might do.²⁹

NB: D was given Codein Phos syrup, and he says it instantaneously stopped the cough. Very surprising, almost miraculous, more effective and definite than Yoga-Force - his opinion.

Sri Aurobindo: The fellow! After my strong intervention, he now says it is not God's Force, but Codein Phos!⁵⁰

NB: Our "poisoned" patient V has, to our surprise, recovered. Our medical authority says that castor oil seeds are highly toxic and that 10 seeds are the extreme limit. This chap took more than three times 10! Is medical science mistaken or has your Force worked or is it the antidote or cow dung given by some villagers that did the miracle?

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps it was Force + the cow dung that

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did it. You know the proverbial Cromwellism "Trust in God and keep your powder dry" - so "Open to the Force and keep your cow dung handy" would be the recipe for castor-oil-seed-eaters.'¹

X. On Sri Aurobindo's own prescriptions!

NB: I am plunged in a sea of dryness and am terribly thirsty for something. Along with it, waves of old desires. Any handy remedy?

Sri Aurobindo: Eucharistic injection from above, purgative rejection below; liquid diet, psychic fruit juice, milk of the spirit.'²

NB: Please ask Mother to give some blessings to this hopeless self.

Sri Aurobindo: R/

Vin. Ashirv. m. VII

Recept. Chlor. gr. XXV

Aqua jollity ad. lib.

Tine. Faith m. XV

Syr. Opt. Zss

12 doses every hour

(Signature)

NB: What's this second item in your prescription, Sir? Too Latin for my poor knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo: Chlorate of Receptivity.

NB: And I would put Aqua at the end to make it an absolutely pucca academical prescription.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but I thought of the two last ingredients afterwards.

NB: And 12 doses every hour - these tinctures and vinums?

Sri Aurobindo: 12 doses — every hour (one each hour. Plagiarised from your language, sir.)

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NB: Where is the cost to be supplied from?

Sri Aurobindo: Gratis - for the poor."

XI.On what a doctor should be like:

Sri Aurobindo: A says you spoke wrathfully to Becharlal and Becharlal spoke wrathfully to her and accused her of high crimes and misdemeanours (like irregularity in eating) of which she was not guilty. So she is very wounded and won't go to Doctors any more!! Fact? or liver?

NB: Spoke wrathfully? I thought I am a very calm and peaceful man. But I'll tell you what happened: Dr. Becharlal and I were breaking our heads over the budget when A entered. I was a bit troubled about it and I asked Becharlal what her complaint was and he asked her in Gujerati: "Have you done some indiscretion in the diet?" that's all. Now you can judge for yourself.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I don't know why but you have the reputation of being a fierce and firebrand doctor who considers it a sin for patients to have an illness; you may be right but tradition demands that a doctor should be soft like butter, soothing like treacle, sweet like sugar and jolly like jam. So!³⁴

XII.Humour about Dr. NB confusing the names of his patients:

(In the medical report, NB wrote the name of a patient as Ambala instead of Ambalal.)

Sri Aurobindo: I say! this is the name of a town [in the Punjab], not of a person.³⁵

NB: Rambhai complains of severe pain in the abdomen, due to constipation. Gave a dose of castor oil.

Sri Aurobindo: Rambhai is in Gujerat, if you please. If you are administering doses of castor oil to his abdomen direct from here, you must be a siddha Fascist Yogi. But perhaps you mean Ramkumar? Or whom do you mean? Is it -?³⁶

XIII.A case of sustained humour: Sallies between the Guru and the disciple:

Sri Aurobindo: Rene is sending me charts of the fever

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temperature of his cousin Badrunnissa who has been suffering from typhoid enteric (so the Colonel Doctor of Hyderabad says) with affection of chest which was suspected to be pneumonia. Now in his first chart the figures were 104°, 103°, 102°, 101° and an uninstructed layman could understand - but what are these damned medical hieroglyphs 30-112, 26-118, E 24-110, 24-110?

NB: Here's about the "damned hieroglyphs" you don't understand though I don't understand why you don't. If you only read Sherlock Holmes' science of deduction and analysis which I have done lately, you would have at once realised my remarks.

Sri Aurobindo: Sherlock Holmes arranges his facts beforehand and then detects them unlike the doctors.

NB: Well, keep the chart vertically, then it should be at once clear to you that the red line is the normal temperature line: 98.6, and the fever would be about 101.8. Then the figures below, what could they be? Well, your long association with doctors should have taught you that in a fever chart pulse rate is recorded with the temperature.

Sri Aurobindo: Never gave me one, so far as I remember; I mean not of this problematical kind.

NB: If that be so, between those pairs of damned figures, one must be of pulse and which is it? Surely not 30, 26, because with that rate no charts would have been sent to you!

Sri Aurobindo: Naturally, I knew it must be the pulse, but what were the unspeakable 30s and 24s attached to them? And I didn't want the pulse, I wanted the temperature. However your red line which I had not noticed sheds a red light on the matter, so that is clear now. I was holding it horizontal because of its inordinate length.

NB: What are these 30, 26, 24 and 24 then? Just a little bit of cool thinking would again point out, Sir, that they are respiration rates - normal being 20, 22, or so. Now is it simple and easy or is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: No, sir, it is not. What is the normal respiration rate anyhow? 32 below zero or 106° above? (N.B. zero not Fahrenheit but Breathen-height.) [Readers will not fail to enjoy

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here Sri Aurobindo's humour involved in the echoing expressions 'Fahrenheit' and 'Breathen-height'.]

But what about E? Extravagant? Eccentric? Epatant?

NB: I chuckled, Sir, to learn that you held the chart horizontally, because of its length! And E is none of those high-sounding "extravagant" words. If you had just looked about you for a moment, lifting your eyes from the correspondence, you would have discovered that E stands for nothing but a simple Evening. Clear?

Sri Aurobindo: No, what has evening to do with it? Evening star? "Twinkle, twinkle, evening star! How I wonder what your temperatures are?" But I suppose Sir James Jeans knows and doesn't wonder. But anyhow E for Evening sounds both irrelevant and poetic.

NB: No, Sir, it is not at all irrelevant, though poetic. I swear it is evening. You know they take these pulse and respiration rates Morning and Evening of which M and E are shorthands ... But what is this Jones — knows and doesn't wonder?

Sri Aurobindo: Jeans, Jeans, Jeans - not Jones!

Sir James Jeans, sir, who knows all about the temperatures, weights and other family details of the stars, including E.

By the way, what do you mean by deceiving me about E in the Hyderabad fever chart? Rene wrote that E is the entry in the "Motions" column; it evidently means enema. Poetry indeed! Sunset colours indeed! Enema, sir! Motions, sir! Compared with that, ling bling is epically poetic.

NB: I beg your pardon, Sir! Enema didn't strike me at all. But I hope it didn't make any difference in the working of your Force unless you enematised the patient too much. It is a pleasure to learn that one can deceive the Divine, however!

Sri Aurobindo: If the Divine chooses to be deceived, anyone can deceive him - just as he can run away from the battle, palayanamapi. You are evidently not up to the tricks of the Lila.³⁷

XIV. Witty remarks on matters medical (uncategorized):

(1) NB: For S, this time we hadn't tried charcoal, but

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yesterday we began it and are continuing it. Yes, his symptoms are blood-curdling, if they are true. God knows how to cure him.

Sri Aurobindo: If He does, send Him a telephone!³⁸

(2)NB: As for S, we have exhausted our means. One thing remains - liver extract which I have withheld till now.

Sri Aurobindo: You can try that - since it is his liver - let's see if it extracts him from his agonies.³⁹

(3)NB: Iodine is very often given, especially collosal iodine injection which is very good.

Sri Aurobindo: What's this word? Cousin of colossal?⁴⁰

(4)NB: For S, I can't increase his evening meal yet. My idea is to build up gradually the diet so that the system may be accustomed and strengthened at the same time. No use upsetting the fallen stomach, liver, etc. - what?

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose so. Don't understand the ways of a fallen stomach — sounds too much like a fallen angel — but S is not that, (no angel, that is to say) whatever his stomach may be.⁴¹

(5)NB: Mother is giving us doctors a very good compliment, I hear! that we confine people to bed till they are really confined!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Mother did pass on that epigram. Doctors were born to hear such remarks.⁴²

(6)NB: No meal as yet, Sir. It is 9.30 p.m. No sleep, no rest. And still you express your surprise and grudge at a doctor being given a certificate!

Sri Aurobindo: Poor doctors who give up rest and sleep and food, yet remain all unwept, unhonoured and unsung. Never mind! Perhaps in heaven they will have a big address given them one mile long and signed by all the angels -cherubim and seraphim together.⁴³

(7)NB: By 'lime juice', I meant orange juice - R would call it 'sweet lime juice', not orange juice which is supposed to be different!

Sri Aurobindo: Perplexing! Why should juice of oranges be called 'sweet lime juice'? I suppose in that case juice of sweet

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limes should be called orange juice? Vice versa? Mutual transmutation? or what? Orange is certainly supposed to be different from sweet lime and it is oranges and not sweet limes we are using. R seems to live in a world of his over-mental construction which has nothing to do with this poor earth and common "humanity".⁴⁴

(8)NB: I intend to try a new medicine for Prasanna's eyes, brushing the lids with sodium chlor. powder which is supposed to give good results. But it is rather painful. She might complain of the excruciating pain.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! She will make a worse noise than Hercules on the shirt of Nessus!

NB: If you give us courage, we may venture.

Sri Aurobindo: Not possible. Prasanna will become worse than aprasanna, she will become abasanna and do dharna. Won't do.⁴⁵

[N.B. The three Indian words 'aprasanna', 'abasanna' and 'dharna' mean respectively 'displeased', 'depressed or despondent' and 'hunger strike'.]

(9)NB: The hostile forces have made my life unbearable, sucking away every drop of blood. Can't sit outside even one minute under the breezy starry sky. Their breeding place is in the thick bushes M has planted. Can't you direct him to strike them off and save my precious life? What will happen if the Ashram doctor is to die of malaria?

Sri Aurobindo: My dear sir, M will have a fit and you will have to treat him and probably he will kill you into the bargain. You prefer a violent death to malaria? Where there is life, there is hope, even if there are also mosquitoes. Why not negotiate with M himself? If you plead with him in a sweet, low, pathetic voice, he may have mercy.⁴⁶

We bring to an end this chapter on "Matters Medical" with an interesting extract from N's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo bearing on the subject of the soul possibly dwelling in the pineal gland of the brain!

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NB: I read in a book that the soul dwells somewhere in the brain; is the soul the same as the entity residing in the pineal?

Sri Aurobindo: God knows and perhaps X also. I don't, I have no idea. Never bothered about the pineal gland. In fact my spirit entity "receded from" it, even "finally left" it long ago without my dying - at least I seem to myself to be alive still ...

NB: Kundalini business also seems a mystery to me. I read somewhere that the soul sojourns in the brain! Heard of it?

Sri Aurobindo: Now for the first time.

NB: Is the spirit-entity the same as the soul, residing in the pineal gland?

Sri Aurobindo: Allow me to state my difficulty. How the devil can a spirit-entity be enclosed in a material gland? So far as I know the self or spirit is not enclosed in the body, rather the body is in the self. ... A spirit confined in a gland and dislodged from it by a pistol shot is a kind of language which I buck at. ... Figuratively we speak of the Purusha in this or that centre of the body. ... If the Radhaswami affirmations are meant to be another kind of language expressing certain psycho-physical experiences, I have no objection. But why all this pineal glandism and talk about entities and bullets?

If I say the Purusha is in the heart, do I mean it is there in the physical heart, tumbling about in the flow of the blood or stuck in the valves or the muscular portions and when a bullet lodges in the heart it jumps up with an Ooah! and tumbles down dead or goes off skating and swimming into some grey or white matter worlds beyond? Certainly not. I am using a significant language which expresses certain relations between the psychic consciousness and the physical of which we become aware by Yoga."¹⁷

Here ends the chapter on "Matters Medical": let us now pass on to the consideration of Sri Aurobindo's humour playing on matters "logical".

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REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviationsstand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 6

On Matters ''Logical''

Logic and logical reasoning provide us with a rich warehouse wherein to gather material for a sumptuous feast of humour. Most of the elements leading to the production of comical effect in this field have their fountain-head in what is called fallacious argument. Now, the dictionary meaning of the word 'fallacy' is 'a misleading argument'. Logicians use the term to designate an argument which, though basically incorrect, is psychologically persuasive to an unreflective mind. Upon examination, the unsoundness of the argument and hence the incorrectness of the conclusion drawn are easily detected.

There are two broad groups of fallacies: formal and informal. A 'formal fallacy' is one which bears a superficial resemblance to (but not an essential identity with) a certain pattern of valid inference. An 'informal fallacy' is, on the other hand, an error of thinking into which we may unwarily fall either because of carelessness and inattention to our subject matter or through being misled by some ambiguity in the language used to formulate our arguments. Depending on the situation we may meet what have been designated by the logicians as 'fallacies of relevance' and 'fallacies of equivocation and amphiboly'¹.

The humorous effect is produced when, because of some hidden and undetected fallacy in reasoning, we suddenly find ourselves face to face with a 'conclusion' which is most unexpected and patently absurd. This unexpectedness coupled with the sense of a pleasant shock is, as we have noted before, one of the most common elements in the production of humour. Let us consider a few examples, and we invite our readers to unravel in each case the fallacy that makes the conclusion look plausibly valid while in reality it is not so.

Ex. 1: Bats eat small insects.

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But bat is a short word.

Therefore, some short words eat small insects.²

Ex. 2: An elephant is an animal.

Therefore, a gray elephant is a gray animal.

Similarly,

an elephant is an animal.

Therefore, a small elephant is a small animal.³

Ex. 3: A youngman is trying to convince a young girl that she indeed loves him. His argument, in the words of J.G. Vivian, is as follows:

I love you; therefore I am a lover.

All the world loves a lover;

and you are all the world to me.

Consequently you love me."

It is so easy and natural for an uninstructed or inattentive layman to commit fallacies in his reasoning. The study of logic as a discipline helps us know the methods and principles we have to adopt in order to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning.

Now, how do you draw a final conclusion in a chain of reasoning? Well, inference is a process in which one proposition is arrived at and affirmed on the basis of one or more other propositions which were accepted as the starting point of the process. The conclusion of an argument is that proposition which is arrived at and affirmed while the premisses are the other proposition or propositions whose truth-validity has supposedly led us to the inevitability of the conclusion.

When the conclusion is based on a single premiss, the reasoning involved is called "immediate inference", whereas a "mediate inference" is one wherein the truth of the conclusion is affirmed on the basis of the simultaneously affirmed truths of more than one premiss.

A syllogism is a form of deductive argument in which, granting the truth of two premisses, the truth of the third

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proposition (the conclusion) is claimed to follow necessarily.

Now, some arguments may appear to be perfectly sound and valid at the first glance, but on closer and careful examination they are found to be faulty and invalid. Apart from the case where right conclusions are validly drawn from a set of right premisses, there are three other situations, where fallacies may arise. These are: (i) wrong premisses leading to wrong conclusion; (ii) right premisses leasding to wrong conclusions; and (iii) wrong premisses supposedly leading to right conclusions. Now, these three latter situations may confront us with some strange absurdities which cannot but produce a humorous effect. As illustrations let us consider two inferences and try to examine if they are fallacious or not.

Ex. 1: All Parisians are Frenchmen. No Bostonians are Parisians. Therefore no Bostonians are Frenchmen.⁵

Ex. 2: All radicals are foreign-born. No patriotic citizen is a radical. Therefore no patriotic citizen is foreign-born.⁶

To the layman who does not reflect, these two arguments (of Exs. 1 and 2 above) seem to be absolutely sound and irrefutable but, in fact, they are not. Now how do we detect the fallacies and refute the 'validity' of the inferences? There are two possible methods; the first one is to take recourse to the formal theorems and the rigorous methods of the science of logic; the second one is the simpler method of constructing another argument having exactly the same form but with a different subject matter such that the so-called right conclusions appear in all their absurdity. Thus, "All triangles are plane figures; no squares are triangles; therefore no squares are plane figures" is an argument of the same type as the above two and yet the incorrectness of the conclusion will be patent to everyone.

Here is a third example of a fallacious argument of a different form:

All communists are proponents of socialized medicine.

Some members of the administration are proponents of

socialized medicine.

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Therefore some members of the administration are communists.⁷

The fallacy of this inference can be easily exposed by constructing the following syllogism conforming to the same pattern:

All rabbits are very fast runners.

Some horses are very fast runners.

Therefore some horses are rabbits.⁸

This is an excellent and efficacious method of arguing. The logical analogy is, as has been remarked by Prof. Irving M. Copi, one of the most powerful weapons that can be used in debate. In this connection we remember a witty remark once made by Dr. Johnson. The story is as follows.

"A slender butcher well known for his pretension to taste which he did not possess took up a volume of poems in a bookseller's shop and reading out the line 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free', turned to Dr. Johnson, who was standing by, and said, 'What think you of that, sir?' 'Rank nonsense!' bluntly replied Johnson; 'it is an assertion without a proof. You might as well say "Who drives fat oxen, should himself be fat." ' '"

Fallacies, both formal and informal, that men commit in their daily reasoning are of many different types; indeed their number is legion. As De Morgan so aptly said, "There is no such thing as a classification of the ways in which men may arrive at an error: it is much to be doubted whether there ever can be" Yet all textbooks of logic contain discussions of fallacies. Thus Copi's Introduction to Logic has elaborately considered eighteen informal fallacies alone. Some of the names are quite imposing and awe-inspiring; e.g., (i) Argumentum ad Baculum (appeal to force); (ii) Argumentum ad Hominem (abusive); (iii) Argumentum ad Hominem (circumstantial); (iv) Argumentum ad Ignorantiam (argument from ignorance); (v) Argumentum ad Misericordiam (appeal to pity); (vi) Argumentum ad Populum (to the gallery); (vii) Argumentum ad Vere-cundiam (appeal to authority); (viii) Accident; (ix) Converse

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accident (hasty generalization); (x) False Cause; (xi) Petitio Pricipii (begging the question); (xii) Complex Question; (xiii) Ignoratio Elenchi (irrelevant conclusion); etc.

We need not go into the detailed discussion of what these fallacies consist of. Indeed we beg to be excused by our readers for having dragged them through this long 'logical' digression but we felt it necessary to do so; for, in order to appreciate in full Sri Aurobindo's humour in matters 'logical', a prior acquaintance with the notions discussed above will be found very useful.

Before we pass on to the consideration of Sri Aurobindo's own humour touching logical themes, we take the liberty of appending below a number of inferences which, we hope, will tickle the logical imagination of our readers and add to their merriment. Please try to find out in each case wherein the fallacy lies, if there is any, and what leads to the comic effect produced. Of course, in logic fallacy is not the only factor leading to a humorous situation. At times we as onlookers become immensely amused when we see someone else being confounded by a maze of words and arguments signifying (i) something fallacious or (ii) perhaps nothing or (iii) something very very simple and so obvious as to release us into a peal of laughter. The examples given below belong to all these categories.

We have had enough of serious discussion; now, readers, we invite you to a 'logical' feast; relish the items presented below with your sharpened sense of humour.

(1) The story is told about Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist [of slavery in the United States], who one day found himself on the same train with a group of Southern clergymen on their way to a conference. When the Southerners learned of Phillips' presence, they decided to have some fun at his expense. One of them approached and said, "Are you Wendell Phillips?"

"Yes, sir," came the reply.

"Are you the great abolitionist?"

"I am not great, but I am an abolitionist."

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"Are you not the one who makes speeches in Boston and New York against slavery?"

"Yes, I am."

"Why don't you go to Kentucky and make speeches there?" Phillips looked at his questioner for a moment and then said, "Are you a clergyman?"

"Yes, I am," replied the other.

"Are you trying to save souls from hell?"

"Yes."

"Well - why don't you go there?"¹⁰

(2)"A servant who was roasting a stork for his master was prevailed by his sweetheart to cut off a leg for her to eat. When the roasted bird came upon the table, the master desired to know what had become of the other leg. The witty servant answered that storks had never more than one leg. The master, very angry, but determined to strike his servant dumb before he punished him, took him next day into the fields where they saw storks, standing each on one leg, as storks usually do. The servant turned triumphantly to his master, on which the latter shouted and the birds put down their other legs and flew away. It was now the turn of the master to feel triumphant. But the servant nonchalantly rejoined, "Ah, sir, you did not shout to the stork at dinner yesterday; if you had done so, he would have shown his other leg too."¹¹

(3)"When I was a boy I have seen plenty of people puzzled by the following: An elderly nun was often visited by a young gentleman, and the worthy superior thought it necessary to ask who he was. 'A near relation,' said the nun. 'But what relation,' said the superior. 'Oh, madam,' said the nun, 'very near, indeed; for his mother was my mother's only child.' The superior felt that this was perhaps very close, and did not trouble herself to disentangle it. And a good many people on whom it was proposed used to study and bother to find out what the name of the connexion was."¹²

Dear readers, what are your guesses on this point?

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(4)"Which is better, a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock that is right twice every day? "The latter,' you reply, 'unquestionably.' Very good, now attend. I have two clocks: one doesn't go at all, and the other loses a minute every day: which would you prefer? 'The losing one,' you answer, 'without a doubt.' Now observe: the one which loses a minute a day has to lose twelve hours or 720 minutes, before it is right, whereas the other is evidently right as often as the time it points to comes round, which happens twice a day.

So you've contradicted yourself once.

'Ah, but,' you say, 'what's the use of its being right twice a day, if I can't tell when the time comes?'

Why, suppose the clock points to 8 o'clock; don't you see that the clock is right at 8 o'clock? Consequently, when 8 o'clock comes round, your clock is right,

'Yes, I see that,' you reply.

Very good, then you've contradicted yourself twice. Now get out of the difficulty as best you can, and don't contradict yourself again if you can help it.

You might go on to ask, 'How am I to know when 8 o'clock does come? My clock will not tell.' Be patient. You know that when 8 o'clock comes, your clock is right; very good; then your rule is this: Keep your eye fixed on your clock, and the very moment it is right, it will be 8 o'clock. 'But -,' you say. There, that'll do; the more you argue, the farther you get from the point; so it will be as well to stop."¹³

Dear readers, are your heads reeling under this onslaught from Lewis Carroll's pen?

Now two other pieces - the humour here arising out of attempts at rigorous definitions:

(5)Let us say a barber is defined as one who shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself?

Yes or no? Ponder over the two possible answers and be seized of the impasse. How do you propose to solve the riddle?

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(6) Plato's successors in the Academy at Athens spent much time and thought on the problem of defining "man". First they opted for the definition: "A man is a biped animal." But presently they came across a chicken. And they amended their definition to the new form: "A man is a feather less biped." But their problem did not end there. For Diogenes plucked off the feathers of a chicken and threw it over the wall into the Academy, shouting at the same time, "Here is a man according to your definition."

Of course, it was not a man. The definiens was too broad, for it denoted more than the definiendum. After much deliberation, the Academics added the phrase "with broad nails" to their definiens.¹⁴

Do you think the question was finally settled?

Humorous effect can be produced in another way, by mixing up the literal and the emotive meanings of one and the same word. An illustrative joke based upon this confusion was made by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, when he sought to "conjugate" the "irregular verb" 'to be' as:

I am firm; you are obstinate; he is pig-headed. This is a simple illustration of the point we have in view. The three words 'firm', 'obstinate' and 'pig-headed' all have the same factual dictionary meaning - that is, 'following one's own course of action and refusing to be influenced by other people's opinions.' They have, however, different emotional meanings; 'firm' has an emotional meaning of strong approval, 'obstinate' of mild disapproval, while 'pig-headed' of strong disapproval. In other words, the three conjugated forms really mean:

I am firm = I am not easily influenced and that is a good thing.

You are obstinate = You are not easily influenced and that is rather a bad thing.

He is pig-headed = He is not easily influenced and that is an awfully bad thing.

Thus, all the three forms have the same overt and public meanings and hence the people concerned cannot 'logically'

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take offence and protest; but the last two forms covertly signify something which is not at all palatable and as a result 'you' and 'he' cannot but smart and yet have to digest in silence their anger and irritation. And this blatant incongruity makes the onlookers laugh!

Here are three more examples of the same type"; readers may try their hand at constructing a few of their own.

1.I am righteously indignant. You are annoyed.

He is making a fuss about nothing.

2.I am fastidious. You are fussy.

He is an old woman.

3.I have reconsidered it.

You have changed your mind.

He has gone back on his word.

In Logic there is a particular type of fallacy which goes by the name of "Fallacy of Many Questions". This leads to a most embarrassing, and at the same time comic, situation for the interlocutor.

Suppose we ask you point-blank a question like "Have you given up your evil ways?" or "Have you stopped beating your wife?" and demand: "Answer quickly: Yes? or No?" Dear readers, ponder over what happens if you give the reply either affirmatively or negatively, and silently enjoy your discomfiture.

And now one last example to test your skill in argument. Examine carefully the sequence of reasoning as given below, which claims to lead you step by logical step to an impossible and absurd conclusion.

Logical (!) demonstration of the proposition "A white horse is not a horse.":

I say a white horse is not a horse. For, if you are seeking a horse, a yellow or a black one will do, but they will not answer if

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you want a white horse, O.K.?

Now, if it be assumed for a moment that a white horse is a horse, then what one is seeking is one thing, namely a white horse, which, as it is a horse by assumption, is not different from horse in general. Right? ... And by analogy, so is the case with a yellow or a black horse; that it to say, a yellow horse or a black horse is not different from horse in general. Agreed?

Yet although they are supposed, by our assumption, not to be different, a yellow or black horse will not fulfil your desire for a white horse. But why? The only answer is: Because our starting assumption was wrong and that has landed us into this absurd situation. (Readers, are you following us in our reasoning? We hope you have not lost the trail!)

So we have demonstrated by the 'method of absurd conclusion' that a white horse is not a horse. Q.E.D.¹⁶

Dear readers, are you convinced of the validity of this demonstration?

At long last we are in a position to enter into the pleasant realm of Sri Aurobindo's humour enlivening matters 'logical', but there is first of all a short introduction to it.

After the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formally established in 1926, many young men and women started flocking to Pondi-cherry with the aspiration to lead a higher life and to do spiritual sadhana under the guidance of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Apart from using more potent inner spiritual means, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo used to guide their disciples through the medium of correspondence. This correspondence became a regular feature of the Ashram life for a period of eight years from 1930 to 1938. "Piles and piles of notebooks and letters used to be written, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo poring over them the whole night month after month, answering all sorts of questions, sublime and ridiculous, put by the sadhaks and sadhikas."¹⁷

Now it so happened that most of Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's now famous books had not yet seen the light of day during the period of time we are speaking of. So the sadhaks of

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that time had very confused ideas about many of the central aspects of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy and Yoga. And as a result the notions they entertained or the questions they formulated were at times of a bizarre character. As NB, one of the principal correspondents of Sri Aurobindo, has remarked:

"Readers may sometimes find the questions rather silly; but in those days when the smaller books had not been published and we had only the [old issues of the monthly Review] Arya to fall back upon, we did not know much about this Yoga — for most of us the Arya was very difficult to understand. Secondly, the temptation to draw Sri Aurobindo out was so irresistible that we did not much weigh the wisdom of our queries."¹⁸

Sri Aurobindo, on his part, would not mind the obvious flaws of these queer queries and hare-brained assertions of his disciples. With great magnanimity he would repeatedly come down to their own mental level and patiently argue point by point, knowing fully well how shallow were their thoughts and ill-founded their reasonings. With infinite care he would expose all the fallacies implicit in their arguments and affirmations and then establish the truth for the edification of the persons concerned. To quote NB again:

"The lightning flash of humour, the brilliant passage at arms, the arguments exposing to ridicule the utter hollowness of my unripe reasoning were things beyond my usual mortal fare. With great joy, I used to run to Dilip Roy [another regular correspondent of Sri Aurobindo] to share the sumptuous feast. How we would roar with laughter and enjoy all the thrashings given me for my wooden-headed logic!¹⁹ [At times Sri Aurobindo would] invalidate my logic with the sweet comment, 'To be a logician, sir, is not easy.' "²⁰

As Prof. I.M. Copi has so aptly remarked, "Fallacies are pitfalls into which any of us may tumble in our reasoning. There is no 'royal road' for the avoidance of fallacies. To avoid the 'fallacies of relevance' requires constant vigilance and awareness of the many ways in which irrelevance can intrude. The 'fallacies of ambiguity' are subtle things. Words are slippery, and most of them have a variety of different senses or meanings. Where

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these different meanings are confused in the formulation of an argument, the reasoning is fallacious. One way of avoiding this sort of fallacy is to define the key terms that are used."²¹

In course of his long and sustained correspondence with his disciples, Sri Aurobindo used to pin-point all the fallacies committed by them, sometimes in a serious vein but at other times with a high dose of humour. Here are three examples belonging to the first category:

(1) Amal Kiran: "An additional nuance arose in my mind... - namely, that the joy and beauty found in 'mutable things' was due to the magnificent revealing flame of youth and desire. Without that flame, even earth's beauty and the beauty of the body would have proved dreary and comfortless. And it was because I had the same zest and emotive ardour when turning towards the Infinite as when turning towards things carnal that what I sought for could never be for me barren and cold... It is this idea in particular that seems to have suggested the title I proposed: The Sovereign Secret — the secret being that to find in spiritual life something more pleasurable than even in that of the senses, one must turn towards the Unknown with a heart of intense love [desire] and not with 'sage calm'."

Sri Aurobindo: "If I am to take some expressions in your letter at their face-value you seem to put forward... three notions about spiritual seeking which are somewhat extraordinary.

1.It is the same love which is addressed to a 'carnal prize' and towards the Divine. I should imagine that one who approached the Divine with a 'carnal' or untransformed vital love would embrace something of the vital world but certainly get nowhere near the Divine.

2.The Divine in itself is something cold and empty and dark — only human love gives it some warmth and attraction. I always thought the Divine was the supreme ineffable Ananda of which human love and delight is only a clouded and fallen ray -most often hardly even that — compared with the empyrean of ethereal fire. How can the luminous eternal Ananda be some-

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thing cold and dark, I should like to know.

3. Or perhaps you only mean that the Divine Infinite which the calm sages seek is by the very fact of their calm and wisdom something cold, dark, empty, gloomy. Has it not occurred to you that if they really sought for something cold, dark and gloomy as the supreme good, they would not be sages but asses? The sages sought after the Divine as the supreme Existence, Consciousness and Bliss, the Light beyond lights, by which all this shineth, the Joy beyond all other joys. Even the seekers of the Absolute Indefinable find in it the peace that passeth all understanding and that is nothing cold, dark or gloomy."²²

(2)Here is a second example of Sri Aurobindo's argumentation: this is taken from Dilip Kumar Roy's Sri Aurobindo Came to Me. Sri Aurobindo is writing to Dilip Kumar with 'stinging sarcasm':

"I would ask one simple question of those who would make the intellectual mind the standard and judge of spiritual experience.

"Is the Divine something less than Mind or He is something greater? Is mental consciousness with its groping enquiry, endless argument, unquenchable doubt, stiff and unplastic logic something superior or even equal to the Divine Consciousness or is it something inferior in its action and status?

"If it is greater, then there is no reason to seek after the Divine.

"If it is equal, then spiritual experience is quite superfluous.

"But if it is inferior, how can it challenge, judge, make the Divine stand as an accused or a witness before its tribunal, summon it to appear as a candidate for admission before a Board of Examiners or pin it down like an insect under its examining microscope?"²³

(3)The third example is a very interesting one. It concerns Bejoy Nag, the young man who accompanied Sri Aurobindo on his voyage to Pondicherry in April, 1910. Now, as ill luck would have it, in 1933 Bejoy rebelled and revolted against the Mother

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and Sri Aurobindo and decided to leave the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He had a devoted friend in the Ashram, of the name of Sarat Guha. Before leaving, Bejoy assumed a very clever pose and sought to justify his rebellious departure as an act of high spiritual adventure. What was still worse, he tried to infect Sarat's mind with the diabolical idea of making a clear distinction between what he called the inner Mother and the outer Mother, between the inner Sri Aurobindo and the outer Sri Aurobindo, and then disregarding the instructions of the outer ones: he even persuaded Sarat to follow suit and leave the Ashram.

Sarat was confused. He was torn between two pulls: his natural emotional love for Bejoy and his deep devotion towards Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In his desperation, he tried to hold a brief for Bejoy's perverse attitude and behaviour and prove to Sri Aurobindo that the rebellion of his apparently misguided friend was in fact an act of devotion to Sri Aurobindo and, what was more, was secretly supported and approved by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo themselves!

After having received Sarat's letter this is what Sri Aurobindo wrote to him in reply:

"As regards your defence of Bejoy, they sound like Bejoy's own ideas and very queer ideas they are. If they are right, we should have to come to the following conclusions:

1)Sattwa is not the best passage towards realisation, Rajas is the best way to become spiritual. It is the rajasic man with his fierce ego and violent passions who is the true sadhak of the Divine.

2)The Asura is the best bhakta. The Gita is quite wrong in holding up the Deva nature as the condition of realisation and the Asura nature as contrary to it. It is the other way round.

3)Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Sishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few lives — compared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana,

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but let me point out that these Asuras and Rakshasas did not pretend to be disciples or worshippers of Rama and Krishna or Vishnu or use their position as disciples to get Moksha by revolt - they got it by being enemies and getting killed and absorbed into the Godhead.

4)Obedience to the Guru, worship of the Divine are all tommy rot and fit only for sheep, not men. To turn round furiously on the Guru or the Divine, abuse him, express contempt, challenge his sincerity, declare his actions to be wrong, foolish or a trick — to assert oneself as right at every point and his judgment as mistaken, prejudiced, absurd, false, a support of devils, etc., etc. is the best way of devotion and the true relation between Guru and Shishya. Disobedience is the highest respect to the Guru; anger and revolt are the noblest worship one can give to the Divine.

5)One who takes the blows of Mahakali with joy as a means of discovering his faults and increasing in light and strength and purity is a sheep and unworthy of disciplehood - one who responds to the quietest pressure to change by revolt and persisting in his errors is a great man and a mighty adhar and a noble disciple on the way to perfection.

I could go on multiplying the consequences, but I have no time. Do you really believe all these things? They are the natural consequences of Bejoy's theory or of this theory of revolt as the way to perfection. If you accept the premiss, you have to accept the logical consequences. That is what Bejoy did — only he called his errors Truth and the way prescribed by me as falsehood explicable only by the fact that I was a "Master who had forgotten his higher self. And the consequences worked to his departure, not willed by us, but by his own choice — and under such circumstances that he had made it a practical impossibility for me to let him come back unless he undergoes a change which the experience of the past does not warrant me in thinking possible."²⁴

The day following the receipt of Sri Aurobindo's analytical reply as given above, Sarat sent a second communication to his

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Guru, of which a part is as follows:

"In your communication to Mrityunjoy, Anil Kumar and myself you have narrated facts in relation to Bejoy's conduct which are staggering. If it had not been from you, I would have scarcely believed them as possible. ... You have rightly guessed that the ideas in my yesterday's letter were (generally speaking) Bejoy's own - arguments that he would usually put forward in support of his refractory conduct. They had appeared to me as plausible..."

In course of his long letter quoted above Sri Aurobindo reminded Sarat inter alia: "If you accept the premiss, you have to accept the logical consequences." This was a device Sri Aurobindo often adopted to expose ruthlessly the fallacious nature of his disciples' assumptions and confused thinking. If the persons concerned protested that they had not intended so, he would simply point out to them that non-intention cannot be an alibi for indulging in wrong reasoning. The following extracts will make this point explicit:

(1)NB: Only I find that you have beaten me right and left for what I did not even intend to say.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course! One is most responsible for what one does not intend. It is besides the nature of bad logic to imply what the logician did not mean or did not know that he meant. Ignorance is no defence in law and non-intention is no defence in logic. Such is the beauty of life!²⁵

(2)NB: Really, Sir, you have put into my mouth what I never mentioned or even intended to.

Sri Aurobindo: You may not have mentioned it but it was implied in your logic without your knowing that it was implied. Logic has its own consequences which are not apparent to the logiciser. It is like a move in chess by which you intend to overcome your opponent but it leads, logically, to consequences which you didn't intend and ends in your own checkmate. You can't invalidate the consequences by saying that you didn't intend them.²⁶

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(3) Sri Aurobindo: You make a flourish of reasonings and do not see the consequence of your reasonings. It is no use saying "I believe this or that" and then reasoning in a way which leads logically to the very negation of what you believe.²⁷

Sri Aurobindo v/as never tired of pointing out that one cannot possibly have a double promotion from the status of infrarationality to the suprarational one; one has to pass through the stage of rigorous rationality. When the intellect of man is not severely trained to a clear austerity, one is apt to fall a prey to all sorts of perilous distortions and misleading imaginations. What one will then achieve is, in the significant words of Sri Aurobindo, only "illuminating confusion rather than clarifying truth". "Especially is this mixed functioning dangerous when men with unchastened minds and unpurified sensibilities attempt to rise into the higher domains of spiritual experience. In what regions of unsubstantial cloud and semi-brilliant fog or a murk visited by flashes which blind more than they enlighten, do they not lose themselves by that rash and premature adventure!"²⁸

In a vein of humour Sri Aurobindo once remarked about his disciples: "Common sense is exceedingly uncommon in this Ashram. Sometimes I think the Mother and myself alone have our stock left unexhausted and all the rest have sent theirs flying sky-high. However!"²⁹

That is why Sri Aurobindo wanted to "logicise" his disciples before anything else. He expressed this task in a most jocular way in his exchange of letters with NB with whom he had a pleasant and totally uninhibited relationship. Here are two extracts which will tell their tale:

(1) NB: With that thrashing... if she (X) had stuck to you, I must say she is exceptionally enduring.

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose X was able to stick because X had no brains. It is the confounded reasoning brain that is the ruin of you. For instead of taking the lesson of things it begins reasoning about them in this futile - shall I say asinine - way.³⁰

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(2) NB: Please don't think what India is going to do with her independence. Give her that first, and then let her decide her fate for herself. Independence anyhow — your supermind will do the rest.

Sri Aurobindo: You are a most irrational creature. I have been trying to logicise and intellectualise you, but it seems in vain. Have I not told you that the independence is all arranged for and will evolve itself all right? Then what's the use of my bothering about that any longer? ... To drag in the Supermind by the tail here is perfectly irrelevant. We have been talking all the time on an altogether infra-supramental basis - down down low in the intellect with an occasional illumined intuitive or overmental flash here and there. Be faithful to the medium, if you please. If you do not become perfectly and luminously logical and rational, how can you hope to become a candidate for the next higher stage even? Be a little practical and sensible.³¹

But human reason has its serious limitations too. If it becomes rigid, non-plastic and obstinate in its claim of inviolability, it acts as an insuperable obstacle to the reception of higher Light and Truth. Sri Aurobindo has expressed this fact in a lighter vein as well as on a sublimer note. Let us enjoy the pieces:

(1) NB: You have admitted your failure in intellectualising me; now I am waiting to hear at any time the admission that all your attempts to make me a Yogi seem to be in vain!

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps that is because for the sheer fun of it I tried the impossible, intending not to succeed — because if you had really become luminously intellectual and rational, why, you would have been so utterly surprised at yourself that you would have sat down open-mouthed on the way and never moved a step farther.³²

Indeed human reason, left to itself, can only move in circles and bigger circles, not being able to free itself from the

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fascination of the old accustomed "centre", or, perhaps, it adapts itself to any view or position depending on the interest and predilection of the moment. How can it then be an instrument for the discovery of true Truth?

Sri Aurobindo expresses this idea in the two following extracts through which flows an undercurrent of sublime humour:

(2) "... reason is in its nature an imperfect light with a large but still restricted mission and... once it applies itself to life and action it becomes subject to what it studies and the servant and counsellor of the forces in whose obscure and ill-understood struggle it intervenes. It can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual or collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between them, for the belief in Being or the belief in Becoming, for optimism and pessimism, for activism and quietism. It can justify the most mystic religionism and the most positive atheism, get rid of God or see nothing else. In aesthetics it supplies the basis equally for classicism and romanticism, for an idealistic, religious and mystic theory of an or for the most earthy realism. It can with equal power base austerely a strict and narrow moralism or prove triumphantly the thesis of the antinomian. It has been the sufficient and convincing prophet of every kind of autocracy or oligarchy and of every species of democracy; it supplies excellent and satisfying reasons for competitive individualism and equally excellent and satisfying reasons for communism or against communism and for State socialism or for one variety of socialism against another. It can place itself with equal effec-tivity at the service of utilitarianism, economism, hedonism, aestheticism, sensualism, ethicism, idealism or any other essential need or activity of man and build around it a philosophy, a political and social system, a theory of conduct and life. Ask it not to lean to one idea alone, but to make an eclectic combination

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or a synthetic harmony and it will satisfy you; only, there being any number of possible combinations or harmonies, it will equally well justify the one or the other and set up or throw down any one of them according as the spirit in man is attracted to or withdraws from it. For it is really that which decides and the reason is only a brilliant servant and minister of this veiled and secret sovereign.""

(3) DKR: O Guru, how I wish Subhash would not attach much value to Reason's inordinate pretentions which often make people as blind to stark reality such as this! Qu'en dites-vous?

Sri Aurobindo: You are right, Dilip. Only you again seem to forget that human reason is a very convenient and accommodating instrument and works only in circles set for it by interest, partiality and prejudices. The politicians reason wrongly or insincerely and have power to enforce the results of their reasoning so as to make a mess of the world's affairs: the intellectuals reason and show what their minds show them, which is far from being always the truth, for it is generally decided by intellectual preferences and the mind's inborn or education-inculcated angle of vision, — but even if they see the Truth, they have no power to enforce it. So between blind power and seeing impotence the world moves, achieving destiny through mental muddle.³⁴

Leaving behind us these serious reflections on the office and limitations of the human reason, let us now have some close acquaintance with Sri Aurobindo's wit and humour concerning various matters 'logical'. As in the case of the previous chapter ("On Matters 'Medical' ") here, too, we have categorized the extracts under different headings.

I. To be cautious about the 'terms' one uses:

NB. But when did I tell you, Sir, that I expect to become supramental overnight? All I asked was whether this Mr. S [Supramental] is going to make us great sadhaks overnight? If

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so, how? By what supramental logic or intuition, do you heap this great ambition on my head, my human logic fails to comprehend.

Sri Aurobindo: You said "overnight", sir, "overnight". It was a logical inference from your desire to become a great sadhak overnight. In this remarkable correspondence I am not using the intuition — I am proceeding strictly by mental (not supramental) reason and logic. A "great sadhak" in the supramental Yoga means a supramental - or ought to according to all rules of logic.

NB: But, really, Sir, I never expected you to take my "overnight" as overnight.

Sri Aurobindo: Don't understand your deep expressions -you did not mean that it would happen rapidly and suddenly? "Overnight" in English means that, - but if you had some extraordinary supramental meaning (beyond the mental and out of the human time-sense) in your mind — it is a different matter, and then I express my awe-struck, heart-felt, flabbergasted regrets, pleading only as excuse my inability to grasp such a deep and novel use of the language. May I ask, very humbly, what you did mean, if not a sudden and rapid development into great sadhaks?"

II. Logical fallacies exposed:

(1) NB: ... If the Mother smiles at somebody we think him good; if she doesn't, well!

Sri Aurobindo: What a coupling of disparates! What a blunder! Don't you know that the Divine smiles equally on the wicked and the good together?⁵⁶

(2)NB: Very strange, Sir, that you don't have a single intelligent chap in the species of your Supramental race to be! On what do you build your hopes, please?

Sri Aurobindo: Excuse me, you said intelligence and interest. You might find one of these separately, but how do you hope to get them combined together? Anyhow, we can't hunt for the kind of animal you want, you yourself should take up the chase.⁵⁷

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(3)NB: When somebody leaves the Ashram, I feel a kick, a shock, a heartquake.

Sri Aurobindo: May I ask why? People have been leaving the Ashram since it began, net only now. Say 30 or 40 people have gone, 130 or 140 others have come. The big Maharathis, X, Y, Z departed from this too damnable Ashram where great men are not allowed to do as they like. The damnable Ashram survives and grows. A and B and C fail in their Yoga - but the Yoga proceeds on its way, advances, develops. Why then kick, shock and heartquake?

NB: I hold the view that the Supramental is descending concentratedly and that those who resist, who are between two fires, have either to quit or to submit.

Sri Aurobindo: Not so strongly or concentratedly as it ought, but better than before.

Even if it were so, that is their own business. The Divine is driving nobody out except in rare cases where their staying would be a calamity to the Ashram; if they cannot bear the pressure and rush away, listening to the "go away, go away" push and suggestions of the Hostile, can it be said then that it was the Divine who drove them away and the push and suggestion of the Hostile is that of the Divine? A singular logic! The "go, go" push and suggestion have been successfully there ever since the Ashram started and even before when there was no Ashram. How does that square with your theory that it is due to the concentrated descent of the Force?⁵⁸

(4)NB: If poets have powerfully active sex-glands, I suppose I can also be called a poet, at any rate an embryonic one! Q.E.D. Logic, Sir, n'est-ce-pas?

Sri Aurobindo: No, sir - ce n'est pas qa. You are illegitimately connecting two disconnected syllogisms.

1st syllogism - All poets are sex-gland-active, Nirod is a poet, therefore Nirod is sex-gland-active.

2nd syllogism - All sex-gland-actives are poets, Nirod is sex-gland-active, therefore Nirod is a poet.

The second proposition does not follow from the first as you seem illogically to think. All poets may be sex-gland-active, but

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it does not follow that all sex-gland-actives are poets. So don't start building an epic on your sex-glands, please.'⁹

III.Pushing an assertion to its extreme logical consequence and thus showing its absurdity:

NB: All these cases of failures prove what? I apprehend the same reasons may operate in me and I may behave exactly like an insane person.

Sri Aurobindo: What you say may apply to everybody because everybody has things in him which conflict with the Yoga. Logical conclusion - Nobody should try anything in which anybody has failed or in which there is a possibility of failure! I am afraid most human activities would stop on that principle except Ahara [food], Nidra [sleep], Maithuna [sex], and perhaps only the first two. But after all not even these - for people die in their sleep and others die of their food by poison, indigestion or otherwise.

So to be safe one must neither eat, sleep nor [do] anything else - much less do Yoga. Q.E.D.⁴⁰

IV.Debate on Divine Omnipotence:

NB: You say that since "these things" [such as, sudden opening in the understanding of painting, liberation of mind in three days, transformation of Nature] have been possible in you, they are possible in the earth-consciousness. Quite true: but have they been done? Has any sweeper or street beggar been changed into a Buddha or a Chaitanya by the Divine? We see in the whole history of spirituality only one Christ, one Buddha, one Krishna, one Sri Aurobindo, one Mother. Has there been any breaking of this rule? Conclusion: Since it has not been done, it can't be done.

Sri Aurobindo: The question was not whether it had been done but whether it could be done. The street-beggar is a side-issue. The question was whether new faculties not at all manifested in the personality up to now in this life could appear, even suddenly appear, by force of Yoga. I say they can and I gave my own case as proof.

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The question involved is also this - is a man bound to the character and qualities he has come with into this life — can he not become a new man by Yoga? That also I have proved in my sadhana, it can be done.

When you say that I could do this only in my case because I am an Avatar (!) and it is impossible in any other case, you reduce my sadhana to an absurdity and Avatarhood also to an absurdity.

For my Yoga is done not for myself who need nothing and do not need salvation or anything else, but precisely for the earth-consciousness, to open a way to the earth-consciousness to change. Has the Divine need to come down to prove that he can do this or that or has he any personal need of doing it?

Your argument proves that I am not an Avatar but only a big human person. It may well be so as a matter of fact, but you start your argument from the other basis. Besides, even if I am only a big human person, what I achieve shows that that achievement is possible for humanity....

What a wonderful argument! Since it has not been done, it cannot be done! At that rate the whole history of the earth must have stopped long before the protoplasm.

When it was a mass of gases, no life had been born, ergo, life could not be born!

When only life was there, mind was not born, so mind could not be born!

Since mind is there but nothing beyond, as there is no supermind manifested in anybody, so supermind can never be born! Sobhanallah Glory, glory, glory to the human reason!! Luckily the Divine or the Cosmic Spirit or Nature or whoever is there cares a damn for the human reason. He or she or it does what he or she or it has to do, whether it can or cannot be done.

NB: Can a Muthu** or a sadhak be ever a Sri Aurobindo, even if he is supramentalised? I say that it is absolutely impossible, impossible, a thousand times so.

* Urdu term meaning "Glory to God".

** An illiterate servant of the Ashram.

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Sri Aurobindo: What need has he to be a Sri Aurobindo? He can be a supramentalised Muthu!

NB: If anybody comes and says "Why not?" I would answer, "You had better rub some Madhyam Narayan oil* on your head."

Sri Aurobindo: I have no objection to that. Plenty of the Middle Narayan is needed in this Ashram. This part of youa argument is perfectly correct - but it is also perfectly irrelevant.

NB: Next point: It is hoped that the sadhaks [of Sri Aurobindo Ashram] will be supramentalised. Since it is a state surpassing the Overmind, am I to deduce that the sadhaks would be greater than Krishna, who was the Avatar of the Overmind level? Logically it follows, but looking at others and at myself, I wonder if such a theory will be practically realised.

Sri Aurobindo: What is all this obsession of greater or less? In our Yoga we do not strive after greatness. It is not a question of Sri Krishna's disciples, but of the earth-consciousness...

NB: I would not mind your fury in revenge if only you would crush me with a convincing assault.

Sri Aurobindo: "Peace, peace, O fiery and furious spirit! calm thyself and be at rest." Your fury or furiousness is wasted because your point is perfectly irrelevant to the central question on which all this breath (or rather ink) is being spent. Muthu and the sadhaks who want to equal or distance or replace the Mother and myself and so need very badly Middle Narayan oil -there have been several — have appeared only as meaningless foam and froth on the excited crest of the dispute. I fear you have not grasped the internalities and modalities and causalities of my high and subtle reasoning. It is not surprising as you are down down in the troughs of the rigidly logically illogical human reason while I am floating on the heights amid the infinite plasticities of the overmind and the lightninglike subtleties and swiftnesses of the intuition. There! What do you think of that? However!!

* An Ayurvedic oil used for insanity, composed of thirteen herbs and barks. Madhyam literally means "middle".

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More seriously. I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here in ipsa persona has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother - I have pointed out what I meant when I objected to your explaining away my sadhana as a perfectly useless piece of Avatarian fireworks. So on my comment on the Muthu logic, I simply pointed out that it was bad logic - that someone ignorant and quite low in the social scale can manifest a great spirituality and even a great spiritual knowledge. I hope you are not bourgeois enough to deny that or to contend that the Divine or the spiritual can only manifest in somebody who has some money in his pockets or some University education in his pate?

NB: I am a little taken aback to hear that a "certain note of persiflage" dilutes the grave discussion I am having with you?

Sri Aurobindo: Look here, don't tell me that because you are a doctor, therefore you can't understand a joke. It would have the effect of making me dreadfully serious.

NB: I am sorry I can't detect the adulteration of the Divine philosophy with persiflage. My medical appliance is hardly capable of doing it.

Sri Aurobindo: A sense of humour (not grim) ought to be a sufficient appliance.

NB: No doubt, I enjoy heartily the humour but I should like to be able to suck up the cream and give the rest its proper place.

Sri Aurobindo: The cream = the persiflage - the rest'is the solemn part of the argument.

NB: I would like to know something about my "bad logic" before I write anything further to you.

Sri Aurobindo: Helps to finding out your bad logic. I give instances expressed or implied in your reasonings.

Bad logic No. 1. Because things have not been, therefore they can never be.

" " No. 2. Because Sri Aurobindo is an Avatar, his

sadhana can have no meaning for humanity.

" " No. 3. What happens in Sri Aurobindo's sadhana

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cannot happen in anybody else's sadhana (i.e. neither descent, nor realisation, nor transformation, nor intuitions, nor budding of new powers or faculties) - because Sri Aurobindo is an Avatar and the sadhaks are not. No. 4. A street beggar cannot have any spirituality or at least not so much as , let us say, a University graduate - because, well, one doesn't know why the hell not. No. 5. (and last because of want of space) Because I am a doctor, I can't see a joke when it is there.

NB: But how terrifying is your "Look here"! What I have heard about your extreme seriousness in former days, is quite enough not to invite it farther on my poor head!

Sri Aurobindo: Bad logic again! When I write "Look here" it means I am not serious, however terrifying I may be!

NB: Others say - and it was the central question - that wherever the Divine Power has successfully acted upon and miraculously changed those who were in their external nature robbers and social pariahs, there was probably in them, interiorly, something latent.

And they say - excuse my reiteration - that from those who have evidently no music or poetry latent in them, the Divine cannot bring out these elements in spite of his omnipotence.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the use of an argument based on a "probably"? ... If the Divine is omnipotent, he can do it. If he can't do it, he is not omnipotent. What is this absurd self-contradiction of an Omnipotent who is impotent?...

As for the Muthu affair, that was only a joke as ought to have been clear to you at once. Nobody has any intention of making Muthu a saint or an Avatar... the question is whether there is a chance for human beings becoming more like the Divine? If not, there is no use in anybody doing this Yoga; let the Krishnas and Ramakrishnas rocket about gloriously and uselessly in the empty Inane and the rest wriggle about for ever in the clutch of the eternal Devil. For that is the logical conclusion of the whole matter!

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NB: It seems that before I could come out of the pit of "latency", the Avatar-pyramid has fallen on my head, sending me down to the bottom again! But I am afraid, you are making me admit something I never wrote, nor implied in what I wrote.

Sri Aurobindo: Can you not understand that it was the natural logical result of the statements made on either side about the unbridgeable distance between "Man Divine" and the human being moving in the darkness towards the Divine? If you admit the utility of my sadhana, the controversy ceases. But so long as you declare that what I have done in my sadhana has no connection with what can be done, I shall go on beating you....

For the rest I propose that all discussion be postponed till after the 21st ["Darshan Day"] (not immediately after). This will give time for you to clear your ideas and for me to pursue my "Avataric" sadhana (not for myself, but for this confounded and too confounded earth-race).⁴¹

So after an interval of six weeks the disciple was back on the scene, this time trying to cross swords with his Guru on the topic of Avatarhood. Let us enjoy the delightful fare that was the product of this controversy.

V. Debate on the phenomenon of Avatarhood:

NB: Enclosed is a long, perhaps too long controversy [i.e. a typed letter of 5 pages taking up the subject of Avatarhood]. But the subject demands it. You may read it at one, two or three stretches. Please write an exhaustive reply, but in ink.

Sri Aurobindo: On the back the rational and logical result of your arguments. I shall write some irrational answers on your MS. - in ink.

You have won all along the line. Who could resist such a lava-torrent of logic? slightly mixed but still! You have convinced me (1st) that there never was nor could be an Avatar, (2) that all the so-called Avatars were chimerical fools and failures, (3) that there is no Divinity or divine element in man, (4) that I have never had any true difficulties or struggles, and that if I

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had any, it was all my fun (as K.S. said of my new metres that they were only Mr. Ghose's fun); (5) that if ever there was or will be a real Avatar, I am not he - but that I knew before, (6) that all 1 have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham -sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way found, the Way followed, the call to others to follow, everything - it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing could touch me and none follow me. That is truly a discovery, a downright knock-out which leaves me convinced, convicted, amazed, gasping. I won't go on, there is no space; but there are a score of other luminous convictions that your logic has forced on me. But what to do next? You have put me in a terrible fix and I see no way out of it. For if the Way, the Yoga is merely sham, fun and chimera — then?

NB: I have read your Essays on the Gita, Synthesis of Yoga... and, though I am wiser, my original and fundamental difficulty remains as unsolved as ever. What is so simple to you, as everything is, appears mighty complex and abstruse to my dense intellect. So no alterative but to submit to a fresh beating.

What your view comes to, put in a syllogism, is this: Since I have done it and I am an Avatar, every other blessed creature can do it.

Sri Aurobindo: This is idiotic. I have said "Follow my path, the way I have discovered for you through my own efforts and example. Transform your nature from the animal to the spiritual, grow into a higher divine consciousness. All this you can do by your own aspiration aided by the force of the Divine Shakti." That, if you please, is not the utterance of a madman or an imbecile. I have said, "I have opened the Way; now you with the Divine help can follow it." I have not said, "Find the way for yourself as I did."

NB: In the Essays on the Gita you say, man "is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal of... Nature, Prakriti, Maya... she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity..."

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Sri Aurobindo: Does it follow that the coating cannot be dissolved nor the mark effaced? Then stamp the stamp of the chimera on all efforts at spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal...

NB: [In your Essays on the Gita] you say that the Avatar's descent is "precisely to show that... even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show... how that suffering may be a means of redemption." Well, Sir, it will have no go with me, my heart won't leap up at such a divine possibility, such a dream of Paradise!

Sri Aurobindo: Your heart not leaping up does not make my statement a falsehood, a non-sequitur or a chimera.

NB: My fellow-brothers may venture to reach there through such a thin hanging bridge but if they do, I am afraid, it will be into a fool's Paradise.

Sri Aurobindo: The fool being myself, eh? For it is my Paradise and it is I who call them to it.

NB: The difficulties you face, the dangers you overcome, the struggles you embrace would seem to be mere shams. [Sri Aurobindo underlined "mere shams".]

Sri Aurobindo: Truly then what a humbug and charlatan I have been, making much of sham struggles and dangers - or, in the alternative, since I took them for realities, what a self-blinded imbecile!

NB: To his beloved children created in his own image the Divine says with gusto, "I send you through this hell of a cycle of rebirths. Don't lose heart, poor boys, if you groan under the weight of your sins and those of your ancestors to boot, I will come down and take hold of a pure heredity with no coating around me and say unto you — come and follow my example."

Sri Aurobindo: Who gave this message? It is your own invention. The Divine does not come down in that way. It is a silly imagination of yours that you are trying to foist on the truth of things.... Nobody ever said there was no coating - that is your invention.

NB: Not a very inspiring message, Sir!

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Sri Aurobindo: No, of course not - but it is yours, not any Avatar's.

NB: I prophesy that your message will reverberate in the rarefied atmosphere evoking a loud rebellious echo from human hearts.

Sri Aurobindo: I admit that you have successfully proved that I am an imbecile.

NB: We don't want to give you a compliment when we say these things.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not. It is the reverse of complimentary, since you prove me to be an ignorant and mistaken fellow of an Avatar, who merrily wastes his time doing things which are of no earthly use to any human being...

NB: We say that the Sun is a thing apart, not to be measured by our human standards.

Sri Aurobindo: The Sun's rays are of use to somebody -you say all my acts and life and laborious opening of the way I thought I had made for spiritual realisation, are of no use to anybody - since nobody is strong enough to follow the path, only the Avatar can do it. Poor lonely ineffective fellow of an Avatar!

NB: We respect him, adore him, lay ourselves bare to his light, but we do not follow him.

Sri Aurobindo: Who is this we? Editorial "We"?... It has always been supposed by spiritual people that divine perfection, similitude to the Divine, sadrishya, sadharmya, is part of the Mukti.... All this is trash and humbug? Christ and Buddha were fools? Myself even a bigger fool? ... The whole spiritual past of man becomes a fantastic insanity, with the Avatars as the chief lunatics.... You cannot generalise in the way you try to do by an intellectual reasoning. The mystery of the Spirit is too great for such a puny endeavour.⁴²

VI. An exercise in syllogistic reasoning:

NB: From whatever you have said in joke or in earnest, it logically follows that you are immortal. Because if you say that Supramental can alone conquer death, one who has become

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that is evidently and consequently immortal.

Sri Aurobindo: Your syllogism is:

"One who has become supramental, can conquer death.

Sri Aurobindo has become supramental.

Sri Aurobindo has conquered death."

1st premiss right; second premiss premature; conclusion at least premature and in any case excessive, for "can conquer" is turned into "has conquered" = is immortal. It is not easy, my dear doctor, to be a logician; the human reasoning animal is always making slight inaccuracies like that in his syllogisms which vitiate the whole reasoning. This might be correct:

"One who becomes wholly supramental conquers death.

Sri Aurobindo is becoming supramental.

Sri Aurobindo is conquering death."

But between "is conquering" and "has conquered" is a big difference. It is all the difference between present and future, logical possibility and logical certitude.

NB: I hope I haven't made a rigid mental conclusion.

Sri Aurobindo: The premiss is false. I have never said that I am supramental - I have always said that I have achieved the overmind and am bringing down the supramental. That is a process and until the process is complete it cannot be said that "I am supramental".

NB: Though you say that death is possible because illness hasn't been conquered, I take it as a principle. Amal and myself firmly believe that those whom you have accepted, are absolutely immune to death.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined twice "accepted"]

Sri Aurobindo: Too comfortable a doctrine. It brings in a very tamasic syllogism. "I am accepted by Sri Aurobindo. I am sure of supramentality and immune from death. Therefore I need not do a damned thing. Supramentality will of itself grow in me and I am already immortal, so I have all time and eternity before me for it to happen - of itself." Like that, does it sound true?

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NB: My logic again, Sir: Sri Aurobindo is bound to become wholly supramental and is being supramentalised in parts. If that is true - and it is - well, he can't die till he is supramental -and once he is so, he is immortal.

Sri Aurobindo: It looks very much like a non-sequitur. The first pan and the last are all right - but the link is fragile. How do you know I won't take a fancy to die in between as a joke?⁴³

Let us end this chapter on "Matters Logical" on a note of pure fun. In the preceding chapter we have mentioned that Sri Aurobindo had a disciple who, though a medico by training, aspired to be a poet. He used to send his compositions to Sri Aurobindo in a regular way and ask for the latter's comments and appreciation. Depending on the quality of the composition sent, Sri Aurobindo used to favour his disciple with remarks like "good", "very good", "fine", "very fine" and occasionally "damn fine" which jocularly signified a poem of a "superlative" quality. Now there is a humorous dialogue between the Guru and the Shishya, centering round a particular poetical composition of the disciple NB.

VII. Logical demonstration (!) of the equality of NB to Shakespeare;

NB: This time, Sir, the poem looks to me damn fine. I know you will say, "Well, well!" - but we have very rarely agreed on any point! But does it really leave your plexus cold?

Sri Aurobindo: Very fine, yes, and perfect in expression; but I don't know about damn fine, for that is a tremendous superlative. Such a solemn phrase should only be used when you write something equalling Shakespeare at his best.

NB: Guru, "Shakespeare at his best"? The very name of Shakespeare makes my breath shake with fear! And to talk of equalling him at his best, oh, people will call me mad, Sir. If someone else had told me that, I would have called him mad! But I don't know what to say to you! You stagger me so much!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, but look at logic. G.B.S. [George Bernard Shaw, the great satirist] declares himself the equal, if

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not superior, of Shakespeare. Now, you write better poetry than Shaw ever did (which is easy because he never wrote any). So you are the equal (if not the superior) of Shakespeare!

NB: But, if I remember aright, some of my lines you have called 'damn fine'! So?

Sri Aurobindo: Did I indeed? Then, logically, it must have been equal to the best of Shakespeare, otherwise it couldn't have been so damned. This also is logic.

NB: By the way, I am surprised to see that in spite of three marginal lines over the whole poem, you call it only 'very fine'. Not a mysterious remark?

Sri Aurobindo: How is it mysterious? What do you expect three lines to come to then? Damn fine? That would be Shakespeare.

NB: Guru, I wrote this poem today. It gave me such a damn thrill that I thought I must share it with you tonight.

Sri Aurobindo: The thrill but not the damn.⁴⁴

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

1.Introduction to Logic by I.M. Copi.

2.Logic by J.G. Brennan, p. 8.

3.Copi, op. cit., p. 75.

4.Brennan, op. cit., p. 208.

5.Cohen & Nagel, Logic, p. 76.

6.Ibid.

7.Copi, op. cit., p. 173.

8.Ibid., p. 174.

9.FW, p. 74.

10.Copi, op. cit., p. 73.

11.De Morgan (as quoted in Logic by Cohen, pp. 456-57).

12.Ibid., p. 451.

13.Lewis Carroll (as quoted in Logic by Cohen, p. 431).

14.Adapted from Copi, op. cit., pp. 124-25.

15.Based on p. 10 of R.H. Thouless' Straight and Crooked Thinking and on p. 39 of Copi's Introduction to Logic.

16.Based on pp. 228-29 of Brennan's A Handbook of Logic.

17.Corr., First Series, p. 2.

18.Ibid., p. 4.

19.Ibid., p. 3.

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20.C-Compl., Vol. I, p. x.

21.Copi, Introduction to Logic, p. 84.

22.LLY, p. 160.

23.SAC, p. 174.

24.From the unpublished documents available with the author.

25.C-Compl., p. 145.

26.Ibid., p. 150.

27.p. 176.

28.LD, p. 11.

29.C-Compl., p. 157.

30..S/4H, pp. 92-93.

31.C-Compl., p. 325.

32.Ibid.

33.HC, pp. 111-12.

34.SAC, pp. 54-55.

35.C-Compl., pp. 326, 328.

36.SAH, p. 192.

37.Ibid., p. 176.

38.Ibid., pp. 318-19.

39.C-Compl., pp. 396-97.

40.IW., pp. 90-91.

41.Ibid., pp. 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151.

42.Ibid., pp. 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174.

43.Ibid., pp. 193, 194, 195, 196.

44.SAH, pp. 420, 421, 422-23.

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Chapter 7

Humour on Matters ''Literary''

It is well known that Sri Aurobindo is a multisplendoured creative genius. Every field that he has touched he has adorned with a golden achievement. During his life he has been successively a teacher of extraordinary calibre, a politician of rare worth and, finally, a Mahayogi par excellence.

And as a creative writer how many diverse fields he has made bis area of exploration! And everywhere he has brought the master's touch of insight and excellence. To quote Amal Kiran's significant words,

"How shall we crown Sri Aurobindo? Is he greater as a Yogi than as a philosopher? Does the literary critic in him outtop the sociological thinker? Does he shine brighter as a politician or as a poet? It is difficult to decide. Everywhere Mount Everest seems to face Mount Everest."¹

Sri Aurobindo has been a poet even from his early teens. The earliest pieces of his poetry were probably written when he was in Cambridge in the late '80s of the last century; and the last lines of poetry - additions to his epic poem Savitri - he dictated to his scribe only a few days before he passed away in 1950. That is to say, his poetic career extends over a period of sixty years.

But Sri Aurobindo has been not only a great creative poet but at the same time an equally great literary critic too. And what is still more interesting to note in this connection is the fact that some of the celebrated contemporary poets of the English language who have not been able to appreciate in full the genre of poetry Sri Aurobindo has written, have been highly impressed by the eminent worth and quality of his literary criticism. One of them has gone as far as to say that while going through Sri Aurobindo's The Future Poetry and his Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art she felt like marking marginal lines almost on every page of Sri Aurobindo's writings, for they

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seemed to her so important for further reflection and future reference.

And the field of Sri Aurobindo's literary criticism has been so wide and varied! Some of the topics he has adequately dealt with are as follows:

The Essence of Poetry; Rhythm and Movement; Style and Substance; Poetic Vision and the Mantra; The Evolution of Poetry; The Character of Poetry; The Ideal Spirit of Poetry; The Sun of Poetic Truth; The Soul of Poetic Delight and Beauty; The Word and the Spirit; The Process, Form and Substance of Poetry; Sources of Poetic Inspiration and Vision; Poetic Rhythm and Technique; Beauty and Art; Appreciation of Poetry and Art; Poets, Mystics and Intellectuals; Poetic Creation and Yoga; Modern Poetry; Translation of Poetry; The Movement of Modern Literature; etc., etc.

Some of Sri Aurobindo's disciples have themselves been good poets and litterateurs. In answer to their pointed questions Sri Aurobindo often threw much significant light on different aspects of literature and literary creation. Now, our present chapter deals specifically with Sri Aurobindo's humour on matters 'literary'. So, leaving out other serious topics and views, we have chosen to append below a few illustrative examples of Sri Aurobindo's humorous observations touching themes of the literary domain. As everywhere else here too his sparkling genius does not fail to evoke our joyous smile and laughter.

But before we come to actual exemplification, let us prelude the chapter with a rather long quotation from Sri Aurobindo on the Irish genius, Bernard Shaw. The passage is of a serious nature but deals with the subject of humour. This will show Sri Aurobindo as a critic with his keen observation, penetrating analysis, luminous insight and powerfully felicitous expression.

Sri Aurobindo's Estimate of Bernard Shaw

"I do not think Harris' attack on Shaw as you describe it can be taken very seriously any more than can Wells' jest about his pronunciation of English being the sole astonishing thing about

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him. Wells, Chesterton, Shaw and others joust at each other like the Kabliwalas of old Calcutta, though with more refined weapons, and you cannot take their humorous sparrings as considered appreciations; if you do, you turn exquisite jests into solemn nonsense. Mark that their method in these sparrings, the turn of phrase, the style of their wit is borrowed from Shaw himself with personal modifications; for this kind of humour, light as air and sharp as a razor-blade, epigrammatic, paradoxical, often flavoured with burlesque seriousness and urbane hyperbole, good-humoured and cutting at once, is not English in origin; it was brought in by two Irishmen, Shaw and Wilde. Harris' stroke about the Rodin bust and Wells' sally are entirely in the Shavian turn and manner, they are showing their cleverness by spiking their Guru in swordsmanship with his own rapier....

Shaw's seriousness and his humour, real seriousness and mock seriousness, run into each other in a baffling inextricable melange, thoroughly Irish in character, - for it is the native Irish turn to speak lightly when in dead earnest and to utter the most extravagant jests with a profound air of seriousness, - and it so puzzled the British public that they could not for a long time make up their mind how to take him. At first they took him for a jester dancing with cap and bells, then for a new kind of mocking Hebrew prophet or Puritan reformer! Needless to say, both judgments were entirely out of focus....

At bottom he has the possibility in him of a modern Curtius, leaping into the yawning pit for a cause, a Utopist or a Don Quixote, - according to occasions, a fighter for dreams, an idealistic pugilist, a knight-errant, a pugnacious rebel or a brilliant sharp-minded realist or a reckless or often shrewd and successful adventurer. Shaw has all that in him, but with it a cool intellectual clearness, also Irish, which dominates it all and tones it down, subdues it into measure and balance, gives an even harmonising colour. There is as a result a brilliant tempered edge of flame, lambent, lighting up what it attacks and destroys, and destroying it by the light it throws upon it, not fiercely but trenchantly - though with a trenchant playfulness -

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aggressive and corrosive. An ostentation of humour and parade covers up the attack and puts the opponent off his defence. That is why the English mind never understood Shaw and yet allowed itself to be captured by him...

... I call him devastating, not in any ostentatiously catastrophic sense, for there is a quietly trenchant type of devasta-tingness, because he has helped to lay low all these things with his scythe of sarcastic mockery and lightly, humorously penetrating seriousness - effective, as you call it, but too deadly in its effects to be called merely effective....

As for his pose of self-praise, no doubt he valued himself, -the public fighter like the man of action needs to do so in order to act or to fight. Most, though not all, try to veil it under an affectation of modesty; Shaw, on the contrary, took the course of raising it to a humorous pitch of burlesque and extravagance. It was at once part of his strategy in commanding attention and a means of mocking at himself -1 was not speaking of analytical self-mockery, but of the whimsical Irish kind - so as to keep himself straight and at the same time mocking his audience. It is a peculiarly Irish kind of humour to say extravagant things with a calm convinced tone as if announcing a perfectly serious proposition - the Irish exaggeration of the humour called by the French pince-sans-rire; his hyperboles of self-praise actually reek with this humorous savour. If his extravagant comparison of himself with Shakespeare had to be taken in dull earnest without any smile in it, he will be either a witless ass or a giant of humourless arrogance, - and Bernard Shaw could be neither...."²

Let us now taste some specimens of Sri Aurobindo's humour on various matters 'literary'.

(1) "Don't differentiate between Rama and Shyama, brother]"

(The great medieval saint Kabir composed a song in Urdu, addressed to Lord Rama; Dilip Kumar translated this song into Bengali but in the process substituted Krishna for Rama. Sri Aurobindo commented on this change in the following words.)

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Sri Aurobindo: I have no objection to your substituting Krishna for Rama, and if Kabir makes any, which is not likely, you have only to say to him softly, 'Ram Shyam juda mat karo bhai', and he will be silenced at once.³

(2)"Oh, two by three plus four plus sevenl"

"What does he mean? that you can't write mathematics in verse? I suppose not, it was not meant to be. You can't start off

Oh, two by three plus four plus seven!

To add things is to be in heaven.

But all the same, if one thinks it worth while to take the trouble, one can express the mathematician's delight in discovery, or the grammarian's in grammatising or the engineer's in planning a bridge or a house. What about Browning's Grammarian's Funeral? The reason why these subjects do not easily get into poetry is because they do not lend themselves to poetic handling, their substance being intellectual and abstract and their language also, not as the substance and language of poetry must be, emotional and intuitive. It is not because they appeal only to a few people and not to the general run of humanity. A good dinner appeals not to a few poeple but to the general run of humanity, but it would all the same be a little difficult to write an epic or a lyric on the greatness of cooking and fine dishes or the joys of the palate and the belly.... Artistic or poetic value cannot be reckoned by the plaudits or the reactions of the greatest number."⁴

(3)"I can't stand Willy Wet-leg"

"Lawrence's poetry, whatever one may think of his theory or technique, has too much importance and significance to be lightly handled and the modernism of contemporary poetry is a fait accompli. One can refuse to recognise or legitimise the fait accompli, whether in Abyssinia or in the realms of literature, but it is too solid to be met with a mere condemnation in principle.

Apropos, the other day I opened Lawrence's Pansies once

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more at random and found this:

I can't stand Willy Wet-leg

Can't stand him at any price.

He's resigned and when you hit him

He lets you hit him twice.

Well, well, this is the bare, rocky, direct poetry? God help us! This is the sort of thing to which theories lead even a man of genius."⁵

(4) "To be a judge between the godheads?"

"I do not know what to say on the subject you propose to me - the superiority of music to poetry - for my appreciation of music is bodiless and inexpressible, while about poetry I can write at ease with an expert knowledge. But is it necessary to fix a scale of greatness between two fine arts when each has its own greatness and can touch in its own way the extremes of aesthetic Ananda? ... Who shall decide between such claims or be a judge between these godheads?...

I fear I must disappoint you. I am not going to pass the Gods through a competitive examination and assign a highest place to one and lower places to others. What an idea! Each has his or her own province on the summits and what is the necessity of putting them in rivalry with the others? It is a sort of Judgment of Paris you want to impose on me? Well, but what became of Paris and Troy? You want me to give the crown or apple to Music and enrage the Goddesses of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Embroidery, all the Nine Muses?

Your test of precedence - universal appeal - is all wrong. I don't know that it is true, in the first place. Some kind of sound called music appeals to everybody, but has really great music a universal appeal? ... a band on the pier at a seaside resort will please more people than a great piece of music with the orchestration conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. In a world of gods it might be true that the highest makes the most universal appeal, but here is a world of beasts and men (you bring in the

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beasts - why not play to Bushy, the Ashram cat, and try how she responds?) it is usually the inferior things that have the more general if not quite universal appeal.

On the other hand the opposite system you suggest (the tables turned upside down - the least universal and most difficult appeal makes the greatest art) would also have its dangers. At that rate we should have to concede that the cubist and the abstract painters had reached the highest art possible, only rivalled by the up to date modernist poets of whom it has been said that their works are not at all either read or understood by the public, are read and understood only by the poet himself, and are read without being understood by his personal friends and admirers.

... For instance a modern painter wishing to make a portrait of you will paint at the top a clock surrounded by three triangles, below them a chaos of rhomboids and at the bottom two table castors to represent your feet and he will put in underneath this powerful design, 'Portrait of N'. Perhaps your soul will leap up in answer to its direct appeal and recognise at once the truth behind the object, behind your vanished physical self, - you will greet your psychic being or your Atman or at least your inner physical or vital being. Perhaps also you won't....

I have written so much, you will see, in order to say nothing - or at least to avoid your attempt at putting me in an embarrassing dilemma."⁶

(5) "...our valleyed sake"

AK: In the line

"Of utter summit for our valleyed sake..."

what do you think of the turn 'our valleyed sake'? Can it pass?

Sri Aurobindo: 'For our valleyed sake' is a locution that offers fascinating possibilities but fails to sound English. One might risk, 'Let fall some tears for my unhappy sake' in defiance of grammar or humorously, 'Oh shed some sweat-drops for my

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corpulent sake'; but 'valleyed sake' carries the principle of the arsa prayoga (Rishi's licence) beyond the boundaries of the possible.⁷

(6) On the use of Latin-English neologism:

AK: In my lines -

This heart grew brighter when your breath's proud chill

Flung my disperse life-blood more richly in -

a terminal d will at once English that Latin fellow "disperse", but is he really objectionable? At first I had "Drove" instead of "Flung" - so the desire for a less dental rhythm was his raison d'etre, but if he seems a trifle weaker than his English avatar, he can easily be dispensed with now.

Sri Aurobindo: I don't think 'disperse' as an adjective can pass — the dentals are certainly an objection but do not justify this Latin-English neologism.

AK: Why should that poor "disperse" be inadmissible when English has many such Latin forms — e.g. "consecrate", "dedicate", "intoxicate"? ... I have a substitute ready, however:

Flung my diffuse life-blood more richly in.

But is not "disperse" formed on exactly the same principle as "diffuse"? By the way, does "dispersed" make the line really too dental, now that "Flung" is there and not the original "Drove"?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't think people use 'consecrate', 'intoxicate' etc. as adjectives nowadays - at any rate it sounds to me too recherche. Of course, if one chose, this kind of thing might be perpetrated -

O wretched man intoxicate,

Let not thy life be consecrate

To wine's red yell (spell, if you want to he 'poetic').

Else will thy soul be dedicate

To Hell -

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but it is better not to do it. It makes no difference if there are other words like 'diffuse' taken from French (not Latin) which have this form and are generally used as adjectives. Logic is not the sole basis of linguistic use. ... Archaism or neologism does not matter. 'Dispersed life-blood' brings three d's so near together that they collide a little - if they were farther from each other it would not matter - or if they produced some significant or opportune effect. I think 'diffuse' will do.

AK: What do I find this afternoon? Just read:

Suddenly

From motionless battalions as outride

A speed disperse of horsemen, from the mass

Of livid menace went a frail light cloud

Rushing through heaven, and behind it streamed

The downpour all in wet and greenish lines.

This is from your own Urvasie, written in the middle nineties of the last century!

Sri Aurobindo: I dare say I tried to Latinise. But that does not make it a permissible form. If it is obsolete, it must remain obsolete. I thought at first it was an archaism you were trying on, I seemed to remember something of the kind, but as I could find it nowhere I gave up the idea — it was probably my own crime that I remembered.⁸

(7) Literalness in translation:

Sri Aurobindo: ... The proper rule about literalness in translation, I suppose, is that one should keep as close as possible to the original provided the result does not read like a translation but like an original poem in Bengali, and, as far as possible, as if it were the original poem originally written in Bengali.

I admit that I have not practised what I preached, — whenever I translated I was careless of the hurt feelings of the original text and transmogrified it without mercy into whatever my fancy chose. But that is a high and mighty criminality which

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one ought not to imitate. Latterly I have tried to be more moral in my ways, I don't know with what success. But anyhow it is a case of "Do what I preach and avoid what I practise."⁹

(8)An Aurobindonian freak:

AK: In your sonnet Man the Enigma occurs the magnificent

line:

His heart a chaos and an empyrean.

But I am much saddened by the fact that the rhythm of these words gets spoiled at the end by a mis-stressing in "empyrean". "Empyrean" is stressed currently in the penultimate syllable, thus: "empyrean". Your line puts the stress on the second syllable. It is in the adjective "empyrean" that the second syllable is stressed, but the noun is never stressed that way, so far as I know....

Sri Aurobindo: ... Even if I had no justification from the dictionary and the noun 'empyrean' were only an Aurobindonian freak and a wilful shifting of the accent, I would refuse to change it; for the rhythm is an essential part of whatever beauty there is in the line.

P.S. - Your view is supported by the small Oxford Dictionary which, I suppose, gives the present usage, Chambers' being an older authority. But Chambers must represent a former usage and I am entitled to revive even a past or archaic form if I choose to do so.¹⁰

(9)"O voice of a tilted nose! ''

AK: The English reader has digested Carlyle and swallowed Meredith and is not quite unwilling to reJOYCE in even more startling strangenesses of expression at the present day. Will his stomach really turn at the novelty of that phrase [of mine] which you wouldn't approve: "the voice of a devouring eye"? "The voice of an eye" sounds rather idiotic, but if the adjective "devouring" is added the phrase seems to become effective.... If Milton could give us "blind mouths" and Wordsworth

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Thou eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, readst the eternal deep,

is there very much to object to in this visioned voice?

Sri Aurobindo: Can't accept all that. A voice of a devouring eye is even more re-Joycingly mad than a voice of an eye pure and simple. If the English language is to go to the dogs, let it go, but the Joyce cut by the way of Bedlam does not recommend itself to me.

The poetical examples have nothing to do with the matter. Poetiy is permitted to be insane - the poet and the madman go together: though even there there are limits. Meredith and Carlyle are tortuous or extravagant in their style only — though they can be perfectly sane when they want. In poetry anything can pass — for instance, my 'voice of a tilted nose':

O voice of a tilted nose,

Speak but speak not in prose!

Nose like a blushing rose,

O Joyce of a tilted nose!

That is high poetry, but put it in prose and it sounds insane."

(10)Poetry of the lower vital:

AK: Here is a poem which seems to me an expression of the lower vital - to use our yogic classification - lashed to imaginative fury. Any real possibilities along this line?

Sri Aurobindo: An expression of the lower vital lashed to imaginative fury is likely to produce not poetry but simply 'sound and fury', - 'tearing a passion to tatters' and in its full furiousness may even rise to rant and fustian. Erotic poetry more than any other needs the restraint of beauty and form and measure, otherwise it risks being no longer poetic but merely pathologic.¹²

(11)"Unspeakable rubbish, unhappily spoken"

AK: I should like to have a few words from you on the

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poetic style and technique of these two quotations. The first is...

The next quotation illustrates Kipling's Tommy-Atkins-music at its most vivid and onomatopoeic — lines considered by Lascelles Abercrombie to be a masterly fusion of all the elements necessary in poetic technique:

Lest you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at

once,

For the bullocks are walking two by two,

The "byles" are walking two by two,

The bullocks are walking two by two,

An' the elephants bring the guns!

Ho! Yuss!

Great — big — long - black forty-pounder guns:

Jiggery-jolty to and fro,

Each as big as a launch in tow —

Blind - dumb - broad-breached beggars o' battering guns!

Sri Aurobindo: My verdict on Kipling's lines would be that they are fit for the columns of The Illustrated Weekly of India and nowhere else. I refuse to accept this journalistic jingle as poetry. As for Abercrombie's comment, - unspeakable rubbish, unhappily spoken."

(12) Abercrombiean acrobacy:

AK: Why have you bucked at my "azure" as a line-ending? And why so late in the day? Twice before I have used the same inversion and it caused no alarm. Simple poetic licence, Sir. If Wordsworth could write

What awful perspective; while from our sight...

and leave no reverberation of "awful" in the reader's mind, and if Abercrombie boldly come out with

To smite the horny eyes of men

With the renown of our Heaven

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and our horny eyes remain unsmitten by his topsyturvy "Heaven" - why, then, I need not feel too shy to shift the accent of "azure" just because of poor me happening to be an Indian. Not that an alternative line getting rid of that word is impossible - quite a fine one can be written with "obscure". But why does this particular inversion shock you?...

Your "through whom" in place of my "wherethrough" in another line is an improvement, but it is difficult to reject that word as a legal archaism inadmissible in good poetry. Your remark about "whereas" in my A.E. essay seemed to me just in pointing out the obscurity of connection it introduced between the two parts of my sentence, but the term itself has no stigma in it of obsolescence as does for instance "whenas": in poetry it would be rather prosaic, while "wherethrough" is a special poetic usage as any big dictionary will tell us, and in certain contexts it would be preferable to "through which", just as "whereon", "wherein", and "whereby" would sometimes be better than their ordinary equivalents. I wonder why you have become so ultra-modern: I remember you jibbing also at "from out" - a phrase which has not fallen into desuetude yet, and can be used occasionally even in a common context: e.g. "from out the bed".

Sri Aurobindo: I can swallow 'perspective' with some difficulty, but if anybody tried to justify by it a line like this (let us say in a poem by Miss Mayo):

O inspector, why suggestive of drains?

I would buck. I disapprove totally of Abercrombie's bold wriggle with Heaven, but even he surely never meant to put the accent on the second syllable and pronounce it Hevenn. I absolutely refuse to pronounce 'azure' as 'azure'. 'Perspective' can just be managed by making it practically atonal or unaccented or evenly accented, which comes to the same thing. 'Sapphire' can be managed at the end of a line, e.g. "strong sapphire", because 'phire' is long and the voice trails over it, but the 'ure' of 'azure' is more slurred into shortness than trailed

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out into length as if it were 'azyoore'.

I didn't suggest that 'whereas' was obsolete. It is a perfectly good word in its place, e.g. 'He pretended the place was empty whereas in reality it was crowded, overflowing'; but its use as a loose conjunctive turn which can be conveniently shoved into any hole to keep two sentences together is altogether reprehensible.

None of these words is obsolete, but 'wherethrough' is rhetorically pedantic, just as 'whereabout' or 'wherewithal' would be. It is no use throwing the dictionary at my head - the dictionary admits many words which poetry refuses to admit. Of course you can drag any word in the dictionary into poetry if you like, e.g.:

My spirit parenthetically wise

Gave me its obiter dictum; a propos

I looked within with weird and brilliant eyes

And found in the pit of my stomach the juste mot.

But all that is possible is not commendable. So if you seek a pretext wherethrough to bring in these heavy visitors I shall buck and seek a means whereby to eject them.

P.S. It is not to the use of 'azure' in place of an iamb in the last foot that I object but to your blessed accent on the last syllable. I will even, if you take that sign off, allow you to rhyme 'azure' with 'pure' and pass it off as an Abercrombiean acrobacy by way of fun. But not otherwise - the accent mark must go.¹⁴

(13)"0 vizhn! O pasbn! m'd'tashnl"

AK: The Oxford Dictionary seems to leave one no choice as regards counting the number of syllables in the word "vision" and its likes. I quote below some of the words explained as monosyllables in the same way as "Rhythm" and "prism":

Fashion (-shn)

Passion (pa.shn)

Prison (-zn)

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Scission (si.shn)

Treason (-ezn)

Vi.sion (-zhn)

As Dilip would say, qu'en dites-vous? Chambers' Dictionary makes "vision" a dissyllable, which is quite sensible, but the monosyllabic pronunciation of it deserves to be considered at least a legitimate variant when H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler -the name of Fowler is looked upon as a synonym for authority on the English language - give no other. I don't think I am mistaken in interpreting their intention.

Take "realm", which they pronounce in brackets as 'relm'; now I see no difference as regards syllabification between their intention here and in the instances above.

P.S. I must admit, however, what struck me after typing the preceding. In the preface to the Oxford Dictionary it is said that it has not been thought necessary to mention certain pronunciations which are familiar to the normal reader, such as that of the suffix "-ation" (ashn). Does this mean that a word like "meditation" is to be taken as three syllables only? According to my argument there seems no alternative; and yet the example looks very much like a reductio ad absurdum.

Sri Aurobindo: You may not have a choice - but I have a choice, which is to pronounce and scan words like vision and passion and similar words as all the poets of the English language (those at least whom I know) have consistently pronounced and scanned them - as dissyllables. If you ask me to scan Shakespeare's line in the following manner to please H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler,

In mai/den med/itation / fan/cy free,

I shall decline without thanks. Shakespeare wrote, if I remember right, "treasons, stratagems and spoils"; Shelley, Tennyson, any poet of the English language, I believe, would do the same — though I have no books with me to give chapter and verse. I

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lived in both northern and southern England, but I never heard vision pronounced as vizhn, it was always vizhun; treason, of course, is pronounced as trez'n, but that does not make it a monosyllable in scansion because there is in these words a very perceptible slurred vowel sound in pronunciation which I represent by the '; in poison also....

This is my conviction and not all the Fowlers in the world will take it away from me. I only hope that the future lexicographers will not 'fowl' the language any more in that direction; otherwise we shall have to write lines like this -

O vizhn! Opashnl m'd'tashnl h'rr'p'lashnl

Why did the infern'l Etern'l und'take creash'n?

Or else, creat'ng, could he not have al ford'd

Not to allow the Engl'sh tongue to be Oxford'd?

P.S. I remember a book (Hamerton's? some one else's? I don't remember) in which the contrast was drawn between the English and French languages, that the English tongue tended to throw all the weight on the first or earliest possible syllable and slurred the others, the French did the opposite - so that when an Englishman pretends to say strawberries, what he really says is strawb's. That is the exaggeration of a truth - but all the same there is a limit.

AK: ... I should like to ask you a few questions suggested by your falling foul of the Fowlers. The poetic pronunciation of words cannot be accepted as a standard for current speech -can it? On your own showing, "treason" and "poison" which are monosyllables in prose or current speech can be scanned as dissyllables in verse; Shelley makes "evening" three syllables and Harin has used even "realm" as a dissyllable... All the same, current speech, if your favourite Chambers' Dictionary and as well as my dear Oxford Concise is to be believed, insists on "evening", "precious" and "conscious" being dissyllabic and "realm" monosyllabic...

... the Concise Oxford Dictionary is specially stated to be in

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its very title as "of Current English"; is all its claim to be set at nought? It is after all a responsible compilation and, so far as my impression goes, not unesteemed. If its errors were so glaring as you think, would there not be a general protest? Or is it that English has changed so much in "word of mouth" since your departure from England? This is not an ironical query - I am just wondering.

P.S. Your exclamatory-interrogatory elegiacs illustrating the predicament we should fall into if the Fowlers were allowed to spread their nets with impunity were very enjoyable. But I am afraid the tendency of the English language is towards contraction of vowel-sounds, at least terminal ones...

Sri Aurobindo: Where the devil have I admitted that 'treason' and 'poison' are monosyllables or that their use as dissyllables is a poetic licence? Will you please quote the words in which I have made that astounding and imbecile admission? I have said distinctly that they are dissyllabic, - risen, dozen, maiden, garden, laden and a thousand others which nobody (at least before the world went mad) ever dreamed of taking as monosyllables.

On my own showing, indeed! After I had even gone to the trouble of explaining at length about the slurred syllable e in these words, for the full sound is not given, so that you cannot put it down as pronounced maid-en, you have to indicate the pronunciation as maid'n. But for that to dub maiden a monosyllable and assert that Shakespeare, Shelley and every other poet who scans maiden as a dissyllable was a born fool who did not know the 'current' pronunciation or was indulging in a constant poetic licence whenever he used the words garden, maiden, widen, sadden etc. is a long flight of imagination.

I say that these words are dissyllables and the poets in so scanning them (not as an occasional licence but normally and every time) are much better authorities than any owl - or fowl -of a dictionary-maker in the universe. Of course the poets use licences in lengthening out words occasionally, but these are exceptions; to explain away their normal use of words as a

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perpetually repeated licence would be wild wooden-headedness (5 syllables, please)....

I do not know why you speak of my 'favourite' Chambers'. Your attachment to Oxford is not balanced by any attachment of mine to Chambers' or any other lexicographer. I am not inclined to swear by any particular dictionary as an immaculate virgin authority for pronunciation or a papal Infallible. It was you who quoted Chambers' as differing from Oxford, not I. You seem indeed to think that the Fowlers are a sort of double-headed Pope to the British public in all linguistic matters and nobody could dare question their dictates or ukases — only I do so because I am antiquated and am living in India. I take leave to point out to you that this is not yet a universally accepted catholic dogma. The Fowlers indeed seem to claim something of the kind, they make their enunciations with a haughty papal arrogance condemning those who differ from them as outcasts and brushing them aside in a few words or without a mention. But it is not quite like that....

If the Oxford pronunciation of 'vision' and 'meditation' is correct current English, then the confusion has much increased since my time, for then at least everybody pronounced 'vizhun', 'meditashun', as I do still and shall go on doing so....

But you suggest that my pronunication is antiquated, English has advanced since then as since Shakespeare. But I must point out that you yourself quote Chambers for 'vizhun' and following your example - not out of favouritism - I may quote him for 'summation' - 'summashun', not 'shn'....

So your P.S. has no solid ground to stand on since there is no 'fixed' current speech and Fowler is not its Pope and there is no universal currency of his vizhn of things.

Language is not bound by analogy and because 'meditation' has become 'meditashun' it does not follow that it must become 'meditashn' and that 'tation' is now a monosyllable contrary to all common sense and the privilege of the ear. It might just as well be argued that it will necessarily be clipped farther until the whole word becomes a monosyllable. Language is neither made nor developed in that way - if the English language were so to

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deprive itself of all beauty by turning vision into vizhn and then into vzhn and all other words into similar horrors, I would hasten to abandon it for Sanskrit or French or Bengali - or even Swahili.

P.S. By the way, one point. Does the Oxford pronounce in cold blood and so many set words that vision, passion (and by logical extension treason, maiden, garden etc.) are monosyllables? Or is it your inference from 'realm' and 'prism'? If the latter, I would only say, 'Beware' of too rigidly logical inferences. If the former, I can only say that Oxford needs some gas from Hitler to save the English mind from its pedants. This quite apart from the currency of vizhns....

It seemed to me impossible that even the reckless Fowler -reckless in the excess of his learning - should be so audacious as to announce that this large class of words accepted as dissyllables from the beginning of (English) time were really monosyllables. After all, the lexicographers do not set out to give the number of syllables in a word. Pronunciation is a different matter. Realm cannot be a dissyllable unless you violently make it so, because 1 is a liquid like r and you cannot make a dissyllable of words like 'charm', unless you Scotchify the English language and make it char'r'r'm or vulgarise it and make it charrum - and even char'r'r'm is after all a monosyllable. Prism, the ism in Socialism and pessimism, rhythm can be made dissylabic; but by convention (convention has nothing to do with these things) the ism, rhythm are treated as a single syllable, because of the etymology.... The French pronounce rhythme reethm... without anything to help them out in passing from th to m, but the English tongue can't do that, there is a perceptible quarter vowel or one-eighth vowel sound between th and m - if it were not so the plural rhythms would be unpronounceable. I remember in my French class at St. Paul's our teacher (a Frenchman) insisted on our pronouncing ordre in the French way - in his mouth orrdrr; I was the only one who succeeded, the others all made it auder, orrder, audrer, or some such variation. There is the same difference of habit with words like rhythm, and yet conventionally the French treatment is

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accepted so far as to impose rhythm as a monosyllable. Realm on the other hand is pronounced truly as a monosyllable without the help of any fraction of a vowel."

(14) "Damned! that is to say, romantic."

AK: Yes, the line "... so grief-hearted, strangely lone" is pretty poor. How would you exactly hit off the "quality" of its failure?

Sri Aurobindo: The line strikes at once the romantically sentimental note of more than a hundred years ago which is dead and laughed out of court nowadays. Especially in writing anything about vital love, avoid like the plague anything that descends into the sentimental or, worse, the namby-pamby.... Romantic poetry could be genuine in the early nineteenth century, but the attempt to walk back into it in the year 1931 is not likely to be a success, it can only result in an artificial literary exercise.¹⁶

NB: [Guru, this is my latest poem]:

"O sleepless star in the calm snow-white shore,

Open my barren heart to thy profundity

And make its wilderness more and more

A golden vision of thy prophecy.

On my dim hours thy glimmering shadow falls

And paints their edges with a timeless brush.

Transparent figures on its invisible walls

Are carved from rocks of thy luminous hush.

White flocks of birds perch on its towering height;

A gleam of heaven sparkles on their wings

And from the cavern of their soul of light

A nectarous flow of fountain music springs.

Their bright ethereal voices I can hear

Like echoing notes of a far wind-blown lyre;

They seem to break upon my listening ear

In rhythmic waves of magical moon-rose fire.

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My slumbering moments one by one arise

In the firmament of thy divinity:

Each is a miracle of thy Paradise

Burdened with a mysterious prophecy."

Guru, do you think a little star can do all that?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't!

NB: There seems to be a lot of paint and colour.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is all colour and nothing else.

NB: Either the poem is exceeding or damned - which?

Sri Aurobindo: Damned! that is to say, romantic.

Let me say again that in condemning things as romantic, it is because they are of the wilted echo kind. "Nectarous flow", "fountain music", "bright ethereal voices", "echoing notes", "far wind-blown lyre", "break upon my listening ear" etc. are perhaps new to you and full of colour, but to experienced readers of English poetry they sound as old as Johnny, — one feels as if one had been reading hundreds of books of poetry with these phrases on each page and a hundred and first book seems a little superfluous.... The third and fourth stanzas are hopeless. Where the deuce does your inspiration draw these things from? From remembered or unremembered reading or just anyhow? It looks as if some unknown nineteenth century poet from time to time got hold of you to unburden himself of all his unpublished poetry.¹⁷

(15) "Oh damned fine, damned damned damned fine!

Sri Aurobindo (to AK): You seem to demand a very rigid and academic fixity of meaning from my hastily penned comments on the poetry sent to me.... My judgment does differ with different writers and also with different kinds of writings. If I put 'very good' on a poem of Shailen's it does not mean that it is on a par with Harin's or Arjava's or yours. It means that it is very good Shailen, but not that it is very good Harin or very good Arjava. 'If very good were won by them all', you write! But, good heavens, you write that as if I were a master giving marks in a class. I may write 'good' or 'very good' on the work

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of a novice if I see that it has succeeded in being poetry and not mere verse however correct or well rhymed - but if Harin or Arjava or you were to produce work like that, I would not say 'very good' at all.... If I write 'very good' or 'excellent' on some verses of Dara about his chair, I am not giving it a certificate of equality with some poems of yours similarly appreciated - I am only saying that as humorous easy verse in the lightest vein it is very successful, an outstanding piece of work. Applied to your poem it would mean something different altogether....

You all attach too much importance to the exact letter of my remarks of the kind as if it were a giving of marks. I have been obliged to renounce the use of the word 'good' or even 'very good' because it depressed Nirod - though I would be very much satisfied myself if I could always write poetry certified to be very good. I write 'very fine' against work which is not improvable, so why ask me for suggestions for improving the unimprovable?...

Incidentally, even if my remarks are taken to be of mark-giving value, what shall I do in future if I have exhausted all adverbs? How shall I mark your 'self-exceeding' if I have already certified your work as exceeding? I shall have to fall back on swears "Oh damned fine, damned damned damned fine!"¹⁸

(16) "Surprised to see your remark on my remark}."

NB: My poem is only a 'fine' sonnet! Can you clarify?

Sri Aurobindo: Again what the damn do you mean? When an English poet achieves a fine sonnet, he feels like a peacock and spreads his tail - and you say, "only a fine sonnet!" Well, I am damned! Surprised myself to see your remark on my remark.¹⁹

NB: What have you opined about my poem - 'good' or 'grand'? What's the word?

Sri Aurobindo: It was good. I forgot that you didn't like "good" poetry, only 'fine' and even 'very fine'. Let us then promote it to "fine", but stop short of 'grand'.²⁰

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NB: What's your opinion on today's poem, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: Quite successful.

NB: "Quite successful" only? When will this be followed by a little more warmth and exhilaration, can you predict?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I can write, if you want: "Superlative! Extraordinary! Unimaginable! Surprising! Inexpressible! Ineffable!" That ought to be warm and exhilarating -²¹

NB: How is this sestet, Guru?

Sri Aurobindo: Very pleasing. (Going to use new adjectives occasionally.)

NB: Some other new adjectives? Oh Lord, no! Your 'pleasing' pleases me not!

Sri Aurobindo: Dear me, dear me! I was tired of writing 'fine' and 'beautiful' (you forbid "good") and thought I was very clever in getting a variation. You are hard to please! What do you say to "nice"? "exhilarating"? "epatant", "jolt, tres jolf, "surprenant, mon cher"? Let's have some variety, sir.²²

Thus ends our chapter on Sri Aurobindo's humour on matters 'literary'. Let us now pass on to the chapter on the poet-maker's humour.

REFERENCES

NB. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 8

The Poet-Maker's Humour

The poet-maker? What is meant by this startling phrase? Are not true poets born and never made? At least that is the significance of the old Latin tag: Poeta nascitur non fit. By the way, this classical dictum, so the rumour goes, has two mistranslations, though obliquely 'meaningful'. A schoolboy is reported to have made the startling translation: "Poets are nasty, but don't you get a fit!" Another philosophic (!) youngster has the sententious rendering: "Poets are born, but they are not fit to be!"¹

Ignoring these frivolities we may indeed affirm with certitude that a veritable poet, if not born, can never be trained into poetry; a born poet, on the other hand, may exhibit his poetic propensity even from his early adolescence. As a digression we may recall here the case of Alexander Pope, the 18th century classic. Here is the narration in the words of Amal Kiran:

"From his very childhood he [Alexander Pope] made poems. He has autobiographically written:

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.

But his father was extremely displeased with this waste of time as he considered it, and so he took little Alexander to task rather severely. He often scolded him and once put him across his knees and administered a good whacking. Poor Alexander cried and cried, and promised his father he would not indulge in that waste of time. But the promise he sobbed out ran:

Papa, Papa, pity take!

I will no more verses make."²

So a born poet uses the medium of poetry to promise that he

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would not make poetry! And he cannot do otherwise, because poetry is in his blood. Amal Kiran, a born poet himself, has told us a story concerning his own experience, which is quite revealing. At a stage of his poetic life he discovered to his pleasant surprise that when he talked prose, "there came suddenly in the midst of commonplace language bright poetic phrases that led me [Amal Kiran] away from the conversation along strange trails of image and rhythm. Or, out of the talk of others, some casual word would bring me vivid suggestions and set me off to write a poem. And at the oddest moments poetry would rush in..."³

Well, such is the situation with born poets. But cannot poets be made at all? The answer is: "Yes, they can. At least the latent and not yet manifest poetic faculty can be brought to the fore and made creative there." But how? The answer is: "Through Yogic sadhana and the application of Yogic Force." And this experiment was successfully undertaken by Sri Aurobindo himself in his Ashram in the third and the fourth decades of the present century. Quite a few of Sri Aurobindo's disciples who had never written a single line of poetry before they joined the Ashram and opened themselves to Sri Aurobindo's spiritually creative Force, became very good poets in course of time. Two especially striking examples are those of Dr. Nirodbaran and the mathematical philosopher John Chadwick otherwise known as Arjava in the Ashram. Arjava and Nirodbaran became Sri Aurobindo's disciples respectively in 1929 and in 1933.

Before he came to the Ashram Arjava was a professor of mathematical or symbolic logic at Cambridge: his was a mind that used to move among arid abstractions. A distinguished Cambridge philosopher entertained great hopes from Chad-wick's brilliant abilities in mathematical philosophy of the specifically 'Cambridge' brand.

Very soon after Arjava joined the Ashram, his sadhana under Sri Aurobindo's guidance brought about a profound transformation in his nature and, as a result, he whose language had hitherto been limited to the arid propositions of intellectual

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philosophy became a poet of the first order and, with the aid of poetry, entered the mysteries of the inner worlds.

Let us listen to what Roland Nixon alias Krishnaprem has to say on the phenomenon that was Arjava, ne John Chadwick:

"Traditionalists and those who take a narrow view of sadhana will perhaps wonder what poetry has to do with yoga. The truth is that the reintegration of the psyche that is brought about by sadhana has the effect of releasing unsuspected powers that were lying latent in the heart of the sadhaka, as, indeed, they are in the hearts of all.... This truth... is witnessed to by these poems left behind by Arjava when, at what seems to us the early age of forty, the Sovereign Dweller of his heart decided to withdraw to inner worlds."⁴

Now about Nirodbaran. He was trained as a doctor and had never dreamt of becoming a poet before joining Sri Aurobindo's Ashram. He had read very little of poetry either in English or in his native tongue Bengali, during his academic life. When he came to the Ashram in the early thirties, he found that poetry was one of the vocations taken up by some disciples as a means of their sadhana. Sri Aurobindo was giving inspiration to them and very often taking an active interest in their compositions. Nirodbaran's heart warmly responded to this situation. He too, though engaged in the practice of medicine, wanted to become a poet. He appealed to his Guru, and Sri Aurobindo took in his hands the task of moulding the medico into a creative poet. And what was the result? Let Amal Kiran, NB's poet-friend, speak now:

"Nirodbaran's aspiration was towards Apollo, not Aesculapius. He wanted to write sonnets, not prescriptions. He yearned to dispense not medicines, but Coleridgean 'honey-dew'. Here, too, Sri Aurobindo did the trick. Sri Aurobindo knew how to give a poet birth in one who was not born a poet. That is the master art of Yoga..."⁵

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Now a third example, the example of Prithwi Singh, a scion of a well-known aristocratic family of Calcutta, who joined the Ashram in 1944. He had not composed a single verse till his fifty-second year. Then, one day, almost casually a brother disciple repeated to him the words the Mother had pronounced in reference to Sri Aurobindo: "He has many Names and Forms." These words stirred him to the depths and began vibrating in his heart like the words of a potent Mantra. While recounting this event which was of momentous value to his soul-evolution, Prithwi Singh has written:

"I meditated day after day on the Mother's words. Then, with a sudden unexpectedness, these words in conjunction with others began to form themselves into lines of rhythmic measure, and a desire arose in me to put these down in writing. In this way the first poem came to be written — 'O Lord of many Names and Forms!' Then I discovered that I could write poems in English. In a flash, as it were, the first secrets of rhythm and versification, the manipulation of words of varying lengths in a foot and their subtle movement and variation, were revealed to me."⁶

Nishikanto offers us a fourth striking example. He joined the Ashram in 1934 when he was twenty-four years old. He had written before some poems in Bengali which were good but not of any superior quality. But after only a few months' stay in the Ashram he could open himself to Sri Aurobindo's Yogic Force and 'a sudden Brahmaputra of inspiration' gripped him and his new poetical compositions reached in quality a remarkable height and profundity. Nirodbaran wondered and wondered, and then asked Nishikanto for the secret. Here is how he reported the matter to Sri Aurobindo:

NB: Nishikanto says that before writing... he bows down once before the Mother and you. If that is the secret, why, I shall bow a hundred times, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on how you bow.

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NB: Methinks it does not depend on it. Even if it did I don't think Nishikanto knows it. Or was it in his past life that he knew it?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, there is a certain faculty of effacing oneself and letting the Universal Force run through you - that is the way of bowing. It can be acquired by various means, but also one may have the capacity for doing it in certain directions by nature.⁷

But a far greater miracle was still to come. For very soon Nishikanto who never had written a single line in English and did not know the language well, always committing outstanding mistakes in spelling and grammar, started composing poems in English. And what sort of poems? Here is a specimen which speaks splendidly for itself:

The Artist Almighty

From where come the shimmering dots of emerald green

On the dead-red canvas of a stone-stricken soil?

Such honey-sweet plenty flowers from what source unseen -

Here, where earth's form is a crude poisonous coil?

Here I have seen a straight brush-stroke, iron-ash-grey,

A long winding of palm groves horizon-stretched,

Branches of star-triangular rhythm with heaven-sapphire play,

Steel-strong sinews by deathless spirals caged.

O Thou, the Almighty Artist of royal reality,

Teach me thy technique of miraculous transformation,

By which I can lose my flesh-born dull triviality

And gain release for my life, gain realisation.

Give Thy colour-iountained luminous brush of power,

Let bloom through my hard granite a heavenly flower.⁸

How could Nishikanto achieve this feat? His knowledge of

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English metre was almost nil and his familiarity with the language was neither deep nor extensive. Then, how to account for this strange phenomenon? The poet himself says in his own inimitable way -

"Inspirations come

From a God-white source -

And my heart-beats drum

To their wide-open force."

We feel like echoing the words of Kishor Gandhi, the publisher of his poems: "Without the poet having an opening to some high world of beauty it would be difficult to account for the immediate enchantment his verse lays upon our sensibilities. Without such an opening it would also be impossible to explain the poet's success in writing English poetry with extremely meagre external technical equipment."⁹

We now come to our last example - last, yes, but not least. Dilip Kumar Roy, a scholar, musician and novelist, came to Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1928. Before, he had scribbled a few so-called poems which were defective in every way. His style, diction and rhythm were all halting, so much so that the great Nobelist Rabindranath Tagore who spoke highly of Dilip Kumar's musical talents, never gave him a word of encouragement about his poetical utterances.

Thus when D.K. joined the Ashram he had to start from scratch, so to say. He came to learn from Sri Aurobindo that Yoga could help one develop a perfect sense of rhythm. He was thrilled to hear this and kept praying to Sri Aurobindo, his Guru, that he might flower into a poet.. And, then, in due course the 'miracle' happened: with Sri Aurobindo's active outer help added to his invisibly operative Yogic powers Dilip Kumar achieved poetic utterance. Let us listen to the story as narrated by the new-born poet himself:

"I posted a bunch of my [new] poems to Tagore and

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requested him to tell me frankly what he thought of them. 'Also, please guide me once more in my poetic aspirations', I added, 'and indicate the errors, if any, in my chhanda (rhythm and metre).' Kind as ever, Tagore replied to me... he commented on my Bengali poems thus:

'Now let me come to your poetry. The quantity you sent to me in one sweep did give me a scare! Hitherto I have seen many of your writings which are supposed to belong to the category of verse. But they made me feel that you had missed your way to the heart of melody of our Bengali language, that you were a cripple in rhythm....

'But what is this? You seem to have acquired rhythm overnight! You have left me no scope to correct with a vengeance. How did you manage to train your ears? Now you have no cause to be diffident any more. But how a cripple can possibly dispense with his crutches one fine morning and start to run straight are what I find unfathomable deeps. At times I almost ask myself if you might not have had it all written by somebody else!' "¹⁰

Such was then 'the incredible which yet happened', for Sri Aurobindo was, indeed, the poet-maker. What is still more striking is the fact that in a few years' time Dilip Kumar mastered the Bengali metres to such an extent that he was regarded by the connoisseurs as one of the authorities in the field: he even wrote a celebrated book on Bengali prosody.

Thus, as soon as they started doing sadhana in right earnest and opened themselves to the creative Yogic force of Sri Aurobindo, Arjava the mathematician, Nirodbaran the medico, Prithwi Singh the novice, Nishikanto the improbable and Dilip Kumar the inexperienced became in time successful poets. But was it really due to the action of the Force or, perhaps, it was their own personal labour and efforts which brought about this surprising phenomenon?

NB, one of the new-made (!) poets of the Ashram, was besieged by such doubt and sent a long letter to Sri Aurobindo asking him about the real secret of the matter. He concluded his

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letter with this fervent appeal: "Give an answer that will pierce the mind-soul. By an answer only. I don't expect more!" Sri Aurobindo's reply was equally long, illuminating, and emphatic and unambiguous. We feel tempted to quote portions of this letter in ex ten so:

"It has always been supposed since the infancy of the human race that while a verse-maker can be made or self-made, a poet cannot. 'Poeta nascitur non fit', a poet is born not made, is the dictum that has come down through the centuries and millenniums and was thundered into my ears by the first pages of my Latin Grammar. The facts of literary history seem to justify this stern saying. But here in Pondicherry [Ashram] we have tried, not to manufacture poets, but to give them birth, a spiritual, not a physical birth into the body. In a number of instances we are supposed to have succeeded — one of these is your noble self — or if I am to believe the man of sorrows in you, your abject, miserable, hopeless and ineffectual self. But how was it done?

"There are two theories, it seems - one, that it was by the Force, the other that it was done by your own splashing, kicking, groaning Herculean efforts.

"Now, sir, if it is the latter, if you have done that unprecedented thing, made yourself by your own laborious strength into a poet... then, sir, why the deuce are you so abject, self-depreciatory, miserable? ... a self-made poet is a miracle over which we can only say 'Sabash! Sabash!' without ever stopping. If your effort could do that, what is there that it can't do? All miracles can be effected by it and a giant self-confident faith ought to be in you.

"On the other hand, if, as I aver, it is the Force that has done it, what then can it not do? Here too faith, a giant faith is the only logical conclusion.

"So either way there is room only for Hallelujahs, none for Jeremiads. Q.E.D."¹¹

"In a number of instances we are supposed to have succeeded", so says Sri Aurobindo. But the task was not at all easy

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in all cases. Apart from the psychological resistance that operated against a successful "opening", the raw ore one had to start with offered often to Sri Aurobindo a daunting task. The would-be poet could not become overnight a flawless writer of verse. Also, "inspirations were often mixed up, attenuated in transit, sometimes even lost leaving nothing but a half-memory or a faint echo of the original."¹²

Take the case of NB. For a long time Sri Aurobindo had to intervene even outwardly and amend and emend NB's poetic efforts. As the doctor himself has written in a reminiscent mood:

"Sri Aurobindo took up my juvenile spurts of fancy and set his heart, as it were, upon turning them into true works of imagination. I had my own sense or non-sense of metre and when I practised it most freely, thinking that I was writing in trochaic metre while it was a jumble of iambic and awkward anapaest, Sri Aurobindo thundered jocularly, but neither ceased to correct me nor asked me to put a stop to my wild pursuit.... After a long painful period of gestation, travail, pathetic failure, gradual success, the poet shone forth.... Oh, it was a marvellous journey, the Guru at the helm and the disciple pulling the oars at his behest, the Master often swearing at the pupil's gaucherie.... [One] will not fail to appreciate what tremendous labour and time Sri Aurobindo spent till he succeeded in what he had undertaken"¹³ - to deliver a poet out of the medico! And Sri Aurobindo jocularly remarked to NB: "The poet seems to have come out after all. So the pains of labour, and even the forceps, were useful."¹⁴

So, after this long introduction of nine pages whose purpose has been to show that Sri Aurobindo was not only a Master Yogi-philosopher or himself a great poet but he was a poet-maker too, we now turn to the delineation of his lavish yet most apposite humour displayed in the process of turning a non-poet into a poet. As in the case of the other chapters that have gone before, here too we shall categorise the material into different

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sections. And in return for the 'solemn' perusal of the last nine pages the readers will, we hope, now be compensated with peals of unadulterated laughter. So, let us now take a plunge into the river of learning-cum-humour.

I.On the budding poet's rhyming faults:

(1)NB: Your yesterday's long letter has delighted me

much... And you know,

We are not worshippers of you

But your immortal letter!

We do not worship the dumb blue

But his resplendent star!

Which shines and all the night shines

In the dark cave of our mines.

Sri Aurobindo: [Underlining "letter" and "star"] Good

Lord! I hope you don't imagine that is a rhyme?"

(2)NB: Wandering thoughts, sails of life drifted by wind

Grow still on a transparent sea of hush

As an immensity from thy fathomless Mind

Falls like dawn-hues in an invisible rush.

Sri Aurobindo: Too rushing - moreover, how can there be invisible rush of hues? But this confounded hush of yours "opens" only to impossible rhymes: "bush, blush, crush, flush, brush, lush, mush, push, slush, thrush, tush, gush" - what can a serious poem do with these light-hearted and rollicking rhymes? So I have kept rush and tried to do my best with it.¹⁶

II.On the budding poet's metrical/rhythmical faults:

(1) NB: "... She comes crossing the heights of mid-night

glow,

With the swift wings of a cataractous flow." Sri Aurobindo: You can't have wings of a flow... "Cataractous flow" is impossible. It could have been a very fine poem, but you have peppered anapaests and dactyls all over the place with such an injudicious vigour that, (unless you are in parental labour of a new kind of iambic pentametre) the rhythm writhes

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in agony under the twists you gave it.¹⁷

(2)NB: What about the thought, sequence, etc.? Please show the defects with your opinion and criticism. Is it a metaphysical or philosophic poem?

Sri Aurobindo: God knows! But the matter is that the metre of some of your lines is enough to make the hair of a prosodist stand on end in horror! I have marked all the quadrupeds you have created in situ - also put in the margin my five-footed emendations of them.¹⁸

(3)NB: Does the trochee in the word 'vision' spoil the rhythm?

Sri Aurobindo: By God it does. If the syllable before were an accented one, the trochee would be all right. But this can only read,

But how / can lim/ited vi/sion surmise /? A quadruped, sir, a quadruped.¹⁹

(4)NB: The couplet seems flat. What do you say?

Sri Aurobindo: Flat! The rhythm is like that of a carriage jolting on a road full of ruts.²⁰

(5)NB: I have scanned thus a line of my poem: "Flash like / a light/ning inten/sity /,"

you don't seem to accept the scansion.

Sri Aurobindo: Because that is purely arbitrary and contradicts the natural cadence of the line. It is not the cadence of an iambic line. Scansion is not a matter of arbitrary measurement, it must take account of the cadence of the language. For instance you might write and scan

O you / damned fool! / what an / ass re/ally!/

and call it an iambic pentametre, but it could not be anything of the kind!²¹

(6)NB: "Intimate secrets from invisible spheres caught..." Sri Aurobindo: How the deuce is this scanned and rhy-

thmed? Without "caught" it is a complete pentametre line. After that, "caught" comes in like a cough or hiccup (caught by the spheres?).²²

(7)NB: This is how I have scanned these lines:

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"Of immor/tality shines / like a glit/tering sound

Reach not / that In/fini/ty's o/cean-edge."

Sri Aurobindo: How the deuce can any stress go on "mor" and "li" of Immortality? It is like making an elephant balance on two walking sticks.²³

(8) NB: Can I call the original version good poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: What the hell do you mean by trying trochees like

In whose / gilded / shackles / we laugh / and weep,

or

Into / a profound / stillness / of lone / sky-heights,

or worst of all

The finite for / one brief / moment / climbs. Do you think you are adult enough yet for such Hitlerian violences to English metre?²⁴

III. On the budding poet's stressing faults:

(1)NB: What do you think of the first line, Sir? - "My clouded soul, do you know where you are?" Flat? and the clouded soul?

Sri Aurobindo: Flat? By God, sir, abysmal! The soul can get as clouded as it likes but do you know where you are? In Pondicherry, sir, in Pondicherry - the most clouded soul can know that. You might just as well now write "My friend, do you know that you are an ass?" and call it metre and poetry.

Note well —

It is absolutely unrhythmical to stress a number of unstressed syllables in a line suppressing the true accents - such broken-backed lines are unmetrical and intolerable e.g.

Do you / know un/der the / garb of / the night. You might just as well write,

They were / married to/gether / in a pantry /

or

Oh, why / do you / perpe/trate such / horrors /^s

(2)NB: Here are some new lines:

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Trickle, trickle, O mighty Force divine.

Pour, pour thy white moon dreams

Into my stomach, heart and intestine

In little silver streams.

Sri Aurobindo: Two most damnable blunders, sir. "Intestine" is stressed on the second syllable and pronounced intestin, so how the blazes is it going to rhyme with divine? A doctor misstressing "intestine" - shame! How are you going to cure people if you put wrong stresses on their anatomical parts?...²⁶

(3) NB: Mother, one more poem. Amal was not available. I have tried to stick to the normal form, unless my scansion is wrong. I have put the scansion. I find that in the foregoing ones my scansion was wrong. For instance,

You scanned: Illumined / by thousand / resplendent / suns. I did:Illum/ined by / thousand / resplen/dent suns.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a mathematical scansion, not rhythmic. If you scan like that, there is no prose that cannot become verse. I have scanned in that way your prose:

Mother, / One more / poem. / Amal / was not / avail/able. / I have tried / to stick / to the nor/mal form, / unless / my scan/sion is wrong. / I have put / the scansion. //I find / that in / the fore-/going / ones my / scansion / was wrong. / For in/stance, I / scanned //...²⁷

IV. Sri Aurobindo humorously commenting upon and correcting NB's verses:

(1)NB: In this poem should I put 'faint murmur' or 'radiant murmur'?

Sri Aurobindo: Faint away - all right - better than radiation.

NB: Don't know about the sestet — especially this 'poisoned arrow'.

Sri Aurobindo: "Poisoned" be hanged — otherwise it's very fine.²⁸

(2)NB: "Thy presence wraps around my reveried sense,

An air burdened with heavenly frankincense..."

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Sri Aurobindo: I say, this sounds like making a perfumed package. Reveried?²⁹

(3)NB: "I am still far away

From thy haloed feet.

"While the dawn-birds sing in their nest...

The clouds from the land of snow

Bring their white offerings...

The moon's pale line of trance

Becomes an angel-face..."

Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce have all these birds and clouds and moon and things got to do with your being far away? I have stuffed in a mystic touch or two in order to make people think "Ah, ah! he means something after all! something deep and shiny."

NB: Is the conclusion effective?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, if a perfectly irrelevant circumstance flanked in the beginning and end can't be effective, then what can?

NB: "A luminous spark born of the Infinite

To lift us to an unwalled release."

Sri Aurobindo: Have turned the... lift into free - more appropriate; for a breath and stress can lift; but a spark? unless it is a spark in gunpowder.³⁰

(4)NB: Amal says that [my expression] "concentrated blood" is very fine but how can it be lost in the night?

Sri Aurobindo: Concentrated blood sounds like condensed milk. It's the blood that's lost or the night?

Sorry, but I had to rewrite the last lines. As they stand they are simply magnificent nonsense.

NB: You seem to have transformed the sun into a majesty of night!

Sri Aurobindo: No, it's condensed milk - oh, I mean, blood.³¹

(5)NB: "... Recalling to my memory dim-paced

Foot-falls of a paradisal star..."

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Sri Aurobindo: But, my dear sir, a star has no feet and the picture of a star walking about on 2 feet in the sky is rather grotesque, so I have had to invent a godhead of a star who can do it all right.³²

(6) NB: "Shine on their path O star-hearted Dawn

With your gold-crested sun

The quest of dumb centuries burn upon

Their dim flame-pinion."

This stanza is no good, I think?

Sri Aurobindo: The first two lines are all right, the last two not. It is a devil of a job to get a true rhyme for 'dawn'! and a true rhyme is badly needed here, "drawn" "fawn" "pawn" "lawn" "sawn" - none will do, not even Bernard-Shawn. Got a stroke of genius with a hell of a compound adjective. For the rest I have sandwiched some of your words in here and there and got out a something.

Shine on their path, O high-hearted Dawn;

Let your gold-crested sun

Crown the dumb quest of centuries dim-withdrawn

With its flame-union."

V. Sri Aurobindo's humorous remarks on the budding poet's verses:

(1)NB: Have you had the time and enough appetite to gulp the little whale [meaning one of NB's poems sent up to Sri Aurobindo for his comments]? If you had I hope it was not nauseating!

Sri Aurobindo: The whale taken as a whole tasted very well; its oil was strong and fattening, its flesh firm and full and compact and whalish. Not quite so exquisite as the sonnet minnows, but the quality of a whale can't be that of a minnow. As a whale, it deserves all respect and approbation.³⁴

(2)NB: "We lose, yet gain our spirit's freedom bold" Sri Aurobindo: Look here, sir, — I bar, damn and com-

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pletely reject and repudiate your "freedom bold". This kind of inversion is cheap bric-a-brac - and to be resolutely avoided."

(3)NB: How is this line:

"Recumbent trees lost in their inward peace

Hum a glowing tune"?

Sri Aurobindo: Trees humming a glowing tune is rather too surrealistic.

NB: Wouldn't 'recumbent palms' be better?

Sri Aurobindo: Recumbent means lying on one's back on the ground. Palms do that? Never saw it.³⁶

(4)NB: "The moon's pale songs ringing in the dark

Are its own mystery-voice..."

Can songs be pale?

Sri Aurobindo: May, but moon's songs are rather toffee.

NB: Yesterday what did you write, Sir - Moon's songs are rather "toffee"? Toffee! Gracious! Bonbon? Sri Aurobindo: Yes, too sweety-sweety."

(5)NB: "The stars slowly fall into a web of swoon"

Sri Aurobindo: Sir, this can't be. It suggests an invisible spider.

NB: "In a far isle of golden peace

Thy languorous note is heard,

Pulsing the hushed white silences

With heaven's inspired word."

Sri Aurobindo: Can't pulse a silence - nobody can, not even you.'⁸

(6)NB: "O far-seeing eye of a white shadowless fire,

Through the gloom-suspense of slumbering centuries..."

Sri Aurobindo: I think it is better without any gloom.

NB: "Thy vision travels like a lightning blaze

In the deep silence of the tempest-seas..."

Sri Aurobindo: Silence of tempest-seas? They are not

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usually so taciturn as that.

NB: "Thy irresistible Power trailing through space..."

Sri Aurobindo: No, sir, an irresistible Power is not so lame as to trail.

NB: "Dim utterances of starry notes,

Hyaline clouds in the sky's blue glades..."

Sri Aurobindo: Clouds can be hyaline? Never saw any like that. Don't like your sky's blue glades - too pretty-pretty.

NB: "... Can lift us to an unwalled release

On the topless hills of God-delight."

Sri Aurobindo: Rather excessive for even a hyaline cloud to do.⁵⁹

(7)NB: Now about my poetry!

"... From each petal you shed

A hue of fragrant peace

On life's wild and far-spread

Reveries."

Sri Aurobindo: Wild reveries? It sounds like a wild sheep.

NB: I am almost sure you will howl this time, seeing my poem. But I can't help it.

Sri Aurobindo: I won't howl, but only sigh.⁴⁰

(8)NB: In the last stanza:

"The smile of a sun-haloed Face

It colours the bare voiceless sea

With the heart-beats of a moon-white ecstasy."

Can anything be coloured with heart-beats?

Sri Aurobindo: Quite lunatically impossible.

NB: I suppose it can because the heart propels blood, no?

You don't agree?

Sri Aurobindo: This is not a poetic treatise on the functioning of the heart.⁴¹

(9) NB: "Slumbering birds awake with a start..."

"With a start" O.K.?

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Sri Aurobindo: No - it makes me start.

NB: "Of wild crimson desire" all right?

Sri Aurobindo: Too wild and bloody.

NB: "The wandering waters of my life

Wash thy eternal shore...

... But thy impregnable silence bears

With calm, their passionate moans."

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! don't moan like that.

NB: "Brilliance breaking the night-shell

Like laughter-peels of a ringing bell." Sri Aurobindo: Lord, sir! A bell is not an orange.⁴²

(10) NB: "They are at thy touch reborn

Into new shapes and thoughts;

And my soul's prayer adorn

With their bright starry dots."

Sri Aurobindo: This is decoration with a vengeance dottily so. One might just as well write

And my soul's verandah adorn

With starry-red rose-pots.

Then the soul of Donne would rejoice. But Donne should be doffed here.

NB: Do you find any meaning here?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, except that the dots have too much meaning.

NB: "Mystery's heavenly fane" all right?

Sri Aurobindo:

Get rid of this fane,

please. So long as we keep

it, all emendations

will be in vain.

NB: "Murmuringly I roll

Along a grey beech.."

Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce? Why a beech and not an oak or pine-tree? Or do you mean beach?

NB: "Through the night's pendulous haze

Stars wave and glow..."

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Sri Aurobindo: Pendulous! You might just as well write "suspensive"!⁴³

(11) NB: "A withering ball

Of fire on the wide canvas of time

Fades to a dot..."

Sri Aurobindo: What's this ball of fire on a canvas? Have you reflected that the canvas would be burned away in no time?

NB: "... the wan shadows are cast

From its sleepless whirl..."

Sri Aurobindo: I can't make out for the life of me what are these wan shadows and why they poke their pale noses in here!

NB: "I have seen in thy white eyes

A spark unknown..."

Sri Aurobindo: White eyes — eyes without pupils which would be rather terrifying.

NB: "Replete with the essences..." how do you like it?

Sri Aurobindo: Great Scott! Replete! essences! petrol! This line is terribly philosophic, scientific and prosaic.

NB: "A purple shadow walks along..."

It sounds rather like a sentry walking along, no? Seems funny!

Sri Aurobindo: "walking along" suggests not a sentinel but someone taking a constitutional stroll on the beach in the hope of getting a motion. Too colloquial.

NB: "A strange intensity glows

Through its wild frame

Sweeping all barriers flows

In mystery-flame.

Sri Aurobindo: What is this domestic broomstick work on barriers? If you mean sweeping away, you have to say so.

NB: I have tried to drag the Muse out, has she come out?

Sri Aurobindo: She has come out but trailing three cliches-tails behind her. Most reprehensible conduct for a self-respecting Muse.⁴⁴

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(12)NB: "A fire leaps from range to range

And touches a height

Unshadowed by time's sudden change

Or the bulk of night."

Night has a bulk?

Sri Aurobindo: It may have, but it is not polite or poetic to talk about it — gives the idea that she is corpulent.

NB: "... a sapphire veil with immortal splendour glassed."

Sri Aurobindo: A veil "glassed" with splendour? Put in a glass case? or what?

NB: "I dive into the fathomless / Riches of God..." Sri Aurobindo: One doesn't dive into riches - a tankful of bank notes!⁴⁵

(13)NB: "Benighted traveller sore, why do you moan

Because a transient darkness entwines your

way?"

Sri Aurobindo: What is this "sore"? It sounds like a bear with a sore head. Benighted also sounds like an abuse.

NB: "When the Divine like a loving friend has poured

His luscious grace on thee..."

Sri Aurobindo: "luscious" is too palatal or sensual to be an adjective of grace.

NB: Which is better:

"To a motionless abode — intense hushed seas"? or "of deep hushed seas"?

Sri Aurobindo: My God, sir, the line with its tangle of sh and s sounds would be unpronounceable like Toru Dutt's "Sea-shells she sells".

NB: "Wandering on the wild seas of thought" won't do perhaps?

Sri Aurobindo: Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, is a piece of highway robbery - you might just as well write "To be or not to be that is the question" and call it yours.

NB: Instead of "weary traveller" it could as well be "weary sheep", I suppose! "I wait and wait like a weary tramp."

Sri Aurobindo: Sheep!!! why not "cat" at once? "I wait

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and wait like a weary cat" would be very fine and original!

NB: "New centuries open their eyes..." You won't agree, perhaps, that centuries have eyes?

Sri Aurobindo: I agree to everything and anything — let them have ears also. When one can write like that, all objections vanish.

NB: "... Breaking all crag-teeth distances

Of the dark abysmal dominion."

Sri Aurobindo: Sir, this "crag-teeth"* is a too obvious theft.

NB: "Green locks of virgin woods

Waived by a gentle breeze..."

Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce is this "waived" - You waive your claim, not your hair.

NB: "O Beauty, write in immortal scroll

The passion of my creative fire."

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid writing fire in a scroll is too difficult an operation — even for Beauty unless she has become entirely surrealistic since I first made her acquaintance.

NB: "Nature is apparelled with a poise

Like the wings of a drowsy bird..."

Sri Aurobindo: Sir, if you walk through Pondicherry apparelled only with a poise, the police will arrest you at once. What would happen to Nature if she tries a similar eccentricity, I don't know.⁴⁶

(14) NB: "Incense-woven words thy heaven-reveried" Words can be woven with incense?

Sri Aurobindo: They may be but they can't be woven by incense, but what the deuce is the construction of this line? and the meaning?

Woven-incense words and heaven-reveried.

NB: Why, the construction is quite clear; you can take "words" referring to prayer, if you refer "it" to seed, it can be made "word". What do you say? And words are "heaven-reveried", of course. Not clear? But "woven-incense words" don't get me.

* Sn Aurobindo's own expression (vide Collected Poems,

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Sri Aurobindo: Incense-woven words (or word) thy heaven-reveried - has absolutely no coherence, meaning or syntax, in English at least. In German, Sanskrit or Japanese it might perhaps do. The reference of words is quite clear, but that does not save the Bedlamic syntax. "Woven-incense" words is a Hopkinsian compound - that and my alteration of "thy" to "and" gives the line a clear and poetic sense, and it is the best I can do with it. Otherwise the whole will have to be changed. If you dislike Hopkinsese (though your line is ultra-H), you can do it in straightforward English "words like woven incense heaven - reveried''.

NB: What's Bedlamic, please? Never heard of him, I'm sure!

Sri Aurobindo: Bedlam is or was the principal lunatic asylum in England. You have never heard the expression "Bedlam let loose" etc.? Bedlamic syntax - rollickingly mad syntax.

NB: Is this fellow Hopkins or Hopkinsise? Whoever he may be, I am for new stuff, so I keep your "woven-incense".

Sri Aurobindo: Hopkinsese is the language of Hopkins -quite a famous poet... in spite of your not having heard of

him...⁴⁷

(15) NB: "The scented air your gold locks leave

Haunts like a heavenly piece of art."

Sri Aurobindo: Doesn't it suggest that she was using a fragrant hair-oil?

NB: Plenty of romanticism and incoherence and outburst, perhaps?

Sri Aurobindo: R and I are there in plenty, but O is not in evidence.

NB: "The rich sun-mirrored fuming blood

Running through choked earth-laden pores."

Sri Aurobindo: What's this bloody fuming phenomenon? Won't do at all. Pores too! It suggests a bloody sweat like Charles IX's (of France).

NB: "Heart-beats of a lustrous life,

In myriad images unfurled."

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Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! How do you unfurl a heartbeat?

NB: "... Floating like a nightingale's moon-crested song

On the enamelled ocean-floor."

Sri Aurobindo: Nobody can float on a floor. Try it and see!

NB: "Flowing like the rays of gold impregnable

Sun, on sky-blue dome."

Sri Aurobindo: Ugh, sir! Sky-blue dome is as stale as hell.

NB: "... Pouring from their luminous-rhythmed feet

Songs of a magic-hearted moon."

Sri Aurobindo: Songs from feet? Never! If people began to sing with their feet, the world would be startled into 'a magic-hearted swoon'.

NB: "The sudden resurrection comes

Within the slow

Fire of unremembered history

In its clustered snow."

Sri Aurobindo: Now, look here, look here! There is a limit — some coherence there must be! This means nothing either to the brain or the solar plexus.

NB: "... That longs like a winged spirit to fly

Beyond the pale

Zone of terrestrial pathways

Under a veil."

Sri Aurobindo: This flying under a veil is an acrobacy that ought not to be imposed on any bird or spirit. Besides the bird was on the moon — how did the terrestrial pathways come in then?

NB: "And melts the snow

From its chilled spirit and reveals

Before its gaze

Columns of fire immensities..."

Sri Aurobindo: Why should the bird want to go into fire? Hot bath after cold one?

NB: "... The awakened bird

Now voyages with foam-white sails,

That vision stirred!"

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Sri Aurobindo: A bird with sails is unknown to zoology! Or do you mean that the bird hires a sailing vessel to go into the fires? Lazy beast! And what is it that is stirred by the vision, the bird or the sails? I don't think the last line can stand.

NB: "The fathomless beauty on the soul's blue rim

Wakes with a heaven-stirring cry

And mirrors on the heart's horizon glass..."

Sri Aurobindo: Lord Christ! what a yell for beauty to emit! Besides the correlation waking with a cry and mirroring is not very convincing. For heaven's sake do something about this.

What is a horizon glass? cousin of opera-glass?

NB: "All drunken shadows of thought fade and pass..."

Sri Aurobindo: "Drunken shadows"!! If even shadows become bibulous and stagger, what will become of the Congress [The Indian National Congress] and its prohibition laws? Besides Rajagopalachari [the then Chief Minister of the 'dry' state Madras] is sure to pass a law soon forbidding the publication of any book with the words "wine" and "drunken" in it.⁴⁸

(16) NB: "Break that chain, find in the soul's lonely sign

A fountain of volcanic deluge-fire,

The rock-embedded source of spirit-mine

The immortal wine of sovereign Desire."

Sri Aurobindo: Sir, this is a surrealistic tangle. You find a fountain of volcanic fire in a sign and that fountain is the source of a mine (rather difficult for the miners to get at through the volcanic fire) and also in that source is a wine-cellar, - perhaps in the rocks which embed the source, but all the same a strange place to choose. Perhaps for the miners to drink.

NB: Really, Guru, you float easily through the complicated constructions of Dilip, NK and others, while I am your stumbling block. What?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, sometimes your constructions are like a lot of finely dressed people (words) crowded together in a dancing-hall, but I don't know who is the wife of who, and who the bien-aimee, and who the paternal uncle and who the

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maternal grand-niece. So I have to ask and fix their genealogy and general relations.⁴⁹

(17) NB: See, Sir, I sat down to write and it came. I feel it is a good fish.

Sri Aurobindo: Fish or fishy?

NB: I have caught, though I'm not sure whether it is a sprat, trout or a salmon, which?

Sri Aurobindo: A sprat, sir, a sprat and a weird one at that.

NB: "Hush, tread softly like a bride,

See, the night is dreaming."

Sri Aurobindo: Good God!

NB: "Between the shadows of her curved lips

A white smile is brimming."

Sri Aurobindo: Christ! Woogh!

NB: "Oh, what angels have come to kiss

Her virgin face.

What rapture thrills her soul

With diamond rays!"

Sri Aurobindo: Holy Virgin!

NB: "Do not wake her, let her sleep

Through the desert-day."

Sri Aurobindo: Who? Night? Where on earth is she sleeping?

NB: A bit of philosophy and metaphysics has spoilt the poem intended to be a fine piece of poetry, no?

Sri Aurobindo: My dear sir, what possessed you to write in this vein of the most tender and infantile Victorian sentiment -alism in this year of the Lord 1937? And who or what on earth you are writing about? Night sleeping? What's the idea? It sounds as if it were the sleep of Little Nell (Dickens).

NB: "Between the crescent tender lips..."

Sri Aurobindo: Woogh! Night's lips are tender?

NB: Please try to restore it to its deserving beauty.

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid I can do nothing unless you shed some light on what you can possibly mean. At present I am at sea.

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NB: A funny idea, no?

Sri Aurobindo: Very funny.

NB: Can Night sleep through desert-day?

Sri Aurobindo: Never heard of her behaving in this way before.⁵⁰

So, such was the amorphous stuff the budding poet wrote at the beginning of his poetic career. But in course of time he flowered into a good poet. Through the Grace and unfailing attention of Sri Aurobindo the Poet-Maker, NB could at least compose a poem like the following.

0Beauty, I have sought Thee everywhere,

But my eyes failed to find Thy hidden abode;

Then a voice rang through the silver hush of air

And I began my strange journey to God.

Now I have met Thy everchanging Face

Swayed by a myriad inscrutable moods,

Each an expression of Thy fathomless grace

Showering the supreme beatitudes.

My soul's eternal quest fulfilled in Thee,

1am to Thy heart inseparably bound;

Thou hast revealed Thy human mystery

To my aspiring senses; they are crowned

With visions that penetrate the veil of time

Like a gleam of stars piercing a nebulous haze,

And bring close to my spirit God's sublime

Beauty sculptured in Thy mysterious Face.

The new-born poet sent this poem to Sri Aurobindo for the latter's comments, with this diffident single-sentence observation:

"Guru, this poem is so simple (and bare at places?) that I fear it approaches flatness."

And pat came the contented Guru's comments in his inimitable style:

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"Well, sir - well, sir - well, sir! I force myself not to break out into strong and abusive language; but really, really, you must mend your defective sense of poetic values. This is another triumph. You must have had, besides the foiled romantic, a metaphysical poet of the 17th century latent in you, who is breaking out now from time to time. Donne himself after having got relieved in the other world of his ruggedness, mannerisms and ingenious intellectualities, might have written this poem."⁵¹

So, all's well that ends well.

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 9

Sri Aurobindo's Humour in Verse

Once a budding poet sent up some of his poems to Sri Aurobindo for the latter's perusal and comment. Sri Aurobindo remarked that there were certain "funny" things in these poems but nevertheless they were "fine". The word "funny" somewhat hurt the feelings of the amateur poet and he complained to Sri Aurobindo: "You find 'funny' things in my poems? Then, Sir, you have only to ask me to stop writing." But Sri Aurobindo consoled him with these words:

"But why do you object to fun? Modern opinion is that a poet ought to be funny (humorous) and that the objection to funniness in poetry is a romantic superstition."

But the budding poet persisted: "How is it that you give remarks 'Fine', 'Very fine' etc.?"

Sri Aurobindo cryptically rejoined: "Well, it can be funnily fine or finely funny - can't it?"

The final shot of the young poet was like this: "If they are really funny, why should I spend my valuable time writing them when I could sleep comfortably for two hours?"

Sri Aurobindo's short and pithy reply: "For the joy of the world, of course."¹

For the joy of the world? - Yes, for the joy of the world! Indeed, the poetic form easily lends itself to the fun of the humorist and there is a wide domain where humour is better expressed in forms that belong to poetry and verse. The budding poet we have mentioned above finally wrote to Sri Aurobindo almost in a mood of self-adulation: "In spite of your decrying my poems, Sir, there are plenty of beautiful conceptions, you must admit!"

Sri Aurobindo's prompt reply was: "Who decries it? Some are funny - I beg pardon, extraordinary - but the beauty is all there."²

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Yes, the beauty of expression and the joy in its effect is all that is sought by the humorist when he takes to poetry as his chosen medium. And it has its marked advantages too. For, as Prof. Stephen Leacock has so aptly remarked:

"Poetry in the full and proper sense means the creation of things by the human imagination, making something out of nothing, or as children say, out of one's own head.... Poetry can say in a word what prose must say in a page; poetry can convey in a flash what prose loses in a fog. Poetry can breathe life and colour and pathos into the texture of words, where prose fails to animate."³

Says in a word and conveys in a flash? — Yes, this is so true; and as we are dealing with humour in verse, let us cite two or three examples which will adequately substantiate this point.

Ex. 1: E.C. Bentley made an "estimate of the mighty dead" in these four lines:

Sir Christopher Wren

Said, "I'm going to dine with some men.

If anybody calls,

Say I am designing St. Paul's."⁴

Readers will surely appreciate with pleasure how the real dig is here conveyed with surprising and ingenious brevity.

Ex. 2: Here is the epitaph of the poet Gay as inscribed on his tomb in the Westminster Abbey:

Life is a jest; and all things show it,

I thought so once; but now I know it.⁵

Ex. 3: Here is an epitaph composed by Dryden who allies humour with solemnity to convey with a telling effect the frustrations of a conjugal life:

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Here lies my wife: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest - and so am I.⁶

Humorous poetry has taken many forms in course of its evolution. Some of the more common forms are: parody; mock heroic poetry; burlesque; narrative light verse; epigrammatic verse; super-comic; pure comic verse; satirical light verse; tragic light verse; and finally poetic humour. Prof. Stephen Leacock has in his book Humour and Humanity described in detail with appropriate examples the main characteristics of these different forms of humorous poetry. In some of the forms merriment and amusement become the dominant element; in a few others a satirical or a didactic element may appear, although the fun-element continues to occupy the centre stage; at a still higher level, humour in verse is divested of mere comicity and becomes one with reflection on the incongruities of life itself. And when comic verse reaches its highest level of development, humour broadens in its outlook and becomes one with half-saddened and half-amused pathos in which tears and laughter join together. At this stage - to quote the words of Prof. Leacock -

"... under the light form there is a deeper shade of meaning: the laughter flickers on the surface like sunshine over rising waters.... It is obviously humour, yet it is sad, but not so terribly sad; full of reflection, yet expressed so easily, so lightly."⁷

This is so for the essence of the thing; but so far as is concerned the technique for the production of comic effect in poetry, the masters in this field have been found to have adopted many a varied device and principle. Following the analysis of Prof. Leacock we may briefly mention them as follows, as lack of space will not allow us to allude to them in greater detail:

(i) The pretence of terrific importance of things that don't really matter; (ii) the pretence of terrific dangers that are ludicrously small; (iii) the pretence of tremendous exploits that really amount to nothing; (iv) conveying the intended meaning with unexpected and ingenious brevity; (v) the ingenuity of

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unexpected rhymes; (vi) a delectable trickery of words; (vii) mixing two poems together in a 'funnily' original way; (viii) cutting off the head and tail of well-known poems and juxtaposing them with the middle left out; (ix) employing funny verbal forms; etc.

An example of (vi) above:

They played him a sonata - let me see -

'Medulla oblongata' key of G —"

An example of (vii) above:

"Under a spreading chestnut tree

the village smithy stands,

His breast is bare, his matted hair

lies buried in the sands."

Another example of the same device (vii):

"Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

I hardly know what I must say.

But I'm to be Queen of the May, Mother,

I'm to be Queen of the May."

An example of (viii) above:

"It was the schooner Hesperus

that sailed the wintry sea;

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,

A frozen corpse was he."

(All the four examples cited above are from Prof. Leacock's collection.)

So far for the introduction. Let us now turn to Sri Aurobindo's works for examples of his own humour in verse. They are of different genres ranging from simple unadulterated

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fun to sublime humour passing through the satirical comicality.

I. From Sri Aurobindo's "Correspondence..."

(1)Surrealist poetry\

NB: You said 'circumstances are exceptional' as regards my early success in English versification.... Let me know how it is so...

Sri Aurobindo:

You are opening, opening, opening

Into a wider, wider scopening

That fills me with a sudden hopening

That I may carry you in spite of gropening

Your soul into the supramental ropening.⁸

(2)"O apples, apples,...A

NB: I hear that J [a patient] is now shedding tears of joy at the sight of apples, oranges and prunes. Tears of sorrow, tears of joy, oh dear"!

Sri Aurobindo: "fruity" tears of joy. They move me to poetry:

"O apples, apples, oranges and prunes,

You are God's bliss incarnate in a fruit!

Meeting you after many desolate moons

I sob and sniff and make a joyous bruit."

Admit that you yourself could not have done better as a poetic and mantric comment on this touching situation.⁹

(3)On the cricket field of Mindl

NB: I send you a new poem of mine:

"I gather from the fathomless depth of the Mind

Transparent thoughts that float through a crystal wind

To a spirit-sky and weave a memory

Around the starry flames (glimpse) of Infinity."

Sri Aurobindo: I read you varitaion (glimpase ) first as ''stumps'' .What a magnificent and original image image ! the starry stumps (or star- stumps ) of infinity! But I fear alas that it would

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be condemned as surrealistic...

NB: In yesterday's poem, I am much tempted to take the "stumps", even if it is surrealistic. Who cares what it is when you find it magnificent?

Sri Aurobindo: Don't do it, sir, or you will get stumped. The "star-stumps" are "magnificent" from the humorous-reckless-epic point of view, but they can't be taken seriously. Besides you would have to change all into the same key, e.g.

"I slog on the boundless cricket field of Mind

Transparent thoughts that cross like crystal wind

God's wicket-keeper's dance of mystery

Around the starry-stumps of infinity."¹⁰

(4)"Laugh and grow fat":

NB: ... By the way -

My boil has burst and as you see

From the depression I am free.

Thanks, Guru, thanks to Thee!

Wilt Thou now pour some poetry?

Sri Aurobindo:

Thank God for that!

Free from boil, At poems toil.

Laugh and grow fat.¹¹

(5)"O blessed blessed boil...":

NB: Again I have a blessed boil inside the left nostril -painful. I feel feverish. A dose of Force, please!

Sri Aurobindo: I hope the [following] stotra will propitiate the boil and make it disappear, satisfied.

O blessed blessed boil within the nostril,

How with pure pleasure dost thou make thy boss thrill!

He sings of thee with sobbing trill and cross trill,

O blessed, blessed boil within the nostril.¹²

(6)"Drop it, pleasel"

NB: I have a bad frontal headache, feeling feverish, hope no complication of left frontal sinus suppuration! Help, Guru!

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Sri Aurobindo: What's all this? Is this a time to start suppurating sinuses? Drop it, please.

Throw off the cold,

Damn the fever.

Be sprightly and bold

And live for ever.¹³

(7)"A bill from Smith or Jones":

NB: How is it, Sir, that my letter and the poem came away as they went? Because I was late or some Supramental forget -fulness?

Sri Aurobindo: Never had a glimpse of either of them. Must have been hiding scared in your bag.

NB: I'll send it again at your door. You will kill me, O Guru,

if you forget it this time!

Sri Aurobindo's Humour in Verse

O must I groan and moan and scarify my poor inspired

bones

To get my poem back as if it were a bill from Smith or

Jones'"

(8)NB:

What thinkest thou of this anapaest poem, Sir -

Written by my humble self? Pray, does it stir

Any soft feelings in thy deep within

Or touches not even thy Supramental skin?

Sri Aurobindo:

O soft, so soft, I almost coughed, then went aloft

To supramental regions,

where rainbow-breasted pigeons

Coo in their sacred legions.

N.B. This inspired doggerel is perfectly private. It is an effort at abstract or surrealist poetry, but as I had no models to imitate, I may have blundered!

NB: Is that "Coo in their sacred legions"?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, the cooing is the superamental zenith of the softness and the surrealistic transformation of the cough! 15

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(9)"Noted with comments (poetic and prosaic)":

NB: Here is my attempt at the use of anapaests in the iambic metre. Please have a look at the poem and give some comments:

"The dismal clouds haunting my days and nights

Dissolve into a calm transparent wide

Horizon, when ascends on the black heights

Thy moon increasing in its luminous tide." Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo: Noted with comments 9poetic and prosaic )...

It is stressed transparent , not transparent. What a howler! It makes me ''drop into poetry''-thus

"Sir, you seem apparently ignorant

That parent is the trick and not parent.

And yet the stress transpires transparently

And is apparent to both ear and eye.

So you compare and do not compare things;

Your soul prepares, not prepares heavenly wings."¹⁶

(10)"Enough? Amenl"

NB: Please give a few examples of conceit in English poetry. Not very clear about it.

Sri Aurobindo: Conceit means a too obviously ingenious or far-fetched or extravagant idea or image which is evidently an invention of a clever brain, not a true and convincing flight of the imagination. E.g. Donne's (?) comparison of a child's smallpox eruptions to the stars of the milky way or something similar. I have forgotten the exact thing, but that will serve.

This hill turns up its nose at heaven's height,

Heaven looks back with a blue contemptuous eye -that's a conceit.

O cloud, thou wild black wig on heaven's bald head, would be another.

These are extravagant specimens. I haven't time to think out any ingenious ones, nor to discuss trochees adequately — have given one or two hints in the margin [of your notebook].

Some more conceits, ingenious all of them:

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Am I his tail and is he then my head?

But head by tail, I think, is often led.

Also

Like a long snake came wriggling out his laugh.

Also

How the big Gunner of the upper sphere

Is letting off his cannon in the sky!

Flash, bang bang bang! he has some gunpowder

With him, I think. Again! whose big bow-wow,

Goes barking through the hunting fields of Heaven?

What a magnificent row the gods can make!

And don't forget

The long slow scolopendra of the train.

Or if you think these are not dainty or poetic enough, here's another:

God made thy eyes sweet cups to hold blue wine;

By sipping at them rapture-drunk are mine.

Enough? Amen!¹⁷

II. From Sri Aurobindo's Collected Poems:

(1) A Dream of Surreal Science

One dreamed and saw a gland write Hamlet, drink

At the Mermaid, capture immortality;

A committee of hormones on the Aegean's brink

Composed the Iliad and the Odyssey.

A thyroid, meditating almost nude

Under the Bo-tree, saw the eternal Light

And, rising from its mighty solitude,

Spoke of the Wheel and eightfold Path all right.

A brain by a disordered stomach driven

Thundered through Europe, conquered, ruled and fell,

From St. Helena went, perhaps, to Heaven.

Thus wagged on the surreal world, until

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A scientist played with atoms and blew out

The universe before God had time to shout.¹⁸

(2)Self.

He said, "I am egoless, spiritual, free,"

Then swore because his dinner was not ready.

I asked him why. He said, "It is not me,

But the belly's hungry god who gets unsteady."

I asked him why. He said, "It is his play.

I am unmoved within, desireless, pure.

I care not what may happen day by day."

I questioned him, "Are you so very sure?"

He answered, "I can understand your doubt.

But to be free is all. It does not matter

How you may kick and howl and rage and shout,

Making a row about your daily platter.

"To be aware of self is liberty,

Self I have got and, having self, am free."¹'

(3)Despair on the Staircase:

Mute stands she, lonely on the topmost stair,

An image of magnificent despair;

The grandeur of a sorrowful surmise

Wakes in the largeness of her glorious eyes.

In her beauty's dumb significant pose I find

The tragedy of her mysterious mind.

Yet is she stately, grandiose, full of grace.

A musing mask is her immobile face.

Her tail is up like an unconquered flag,

Its dignity knows not the right to wag.

An animal creature wonderfully human,

A charm and miracle of fur-footed Brahman,

Whether she is spirit, woman or a cat,

Is now the problem I am wondering at.²⁰

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(4) Surrealist:

I have heard a foghorn shouting at a sheep,

And oh the sweet sound made me laugh and weep

But alas, the sheep was on the hither shore

Of the little less and the ever-never more.

I sprang on its back; it jumped into the sea.

I was near to the edges of eternity.

Then suddenly the foghorn blared again.

There was no sheep - it had perished of ear pain.

I took a boat and steered to the Afar

Hoping to colonise the polar star.

But in the boat there was a dangerous goose

Whom some eternal idiot had let loose.

To this wild animal I said not "Bo!"

But it was not because I did not know.

Full soon I was on shore with dreadful squeals

And the fierce biped cackling at my heels.

Alarmed I ran into a lion's den

And after me ran three thousand armoured men.

The lion bolted through his own backdoor

And set up a morose dissatisfied roar.

At this my courage rose; I grew quite brave

And shoved myself into a tiger's cave.

The tiger snarled; I thought it best instead

To don my pyjamas and go to bed.

But the tiger had a strained objecting face,

So I turned my eyes away from his grimace.

At night the beast began my back to claw

And growled out that I was his brother-in-law.

I rose and thought it best to go away

To a doctor's house: besides 'twas nearly day.

The doctor shook his head and cried, "For a back

Pepper and salt are the remedy, alack."

But I objected to his condiments

And thought the doctor had but little sense.

Then I returned to my own little cot

For really things were now extremely hot.

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Then fierily the world cracked Nazily down

And I looked about to find my dressing gown.

I was awake (I had tumbled on the floor).

A shark was hammering away at my front-door.²¹

Before we close this chapter we would like to make an additional observation. Comic poetry pleases us at times by its sheer lack of any significant meaning although there may be there plenty of rhythm and word music. Here are two examples. The first one is from Mr. Gillet Burgess:

I never knew a Purple Cow,

I never hope to see one.

But I can tell you anyhow

I'd rather see than be one.²²

Artemus Ward is the author of the second one:

Uncle Simon he

Clumb up a tree

To see

What he could see,

When presentlee

Uncle Jim

Clumb up beside of him

And squatted down by he.²³

Now a piece from the pen of Sri Aurobindo and with this we come to the end of this chapter on Sri Aurobindo's humour in

verse:

In the human heart of Heligoland

A hunger wakes for the silver sea;

For waving the might of his magical wand

God sits on his throne in eternity.²⁴

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REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 10

Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Plays

Whether in the literatures of ancient times or in classical literature or in the literature of today, dramatic compositions have provided a rich and fertile field for the production and display of humour. To cite only two instances among a host of others, we are immediately reminded of the comic characters of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain who desperately tried to be a 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'.

The humour of Falstaff is based on "the chasm of contrast between his ungainly, inglorious person and the new glory of Elizabethan England." Prof. Stephen Leacock's remarks are worth recalling in this connection:

"Falstaff runs true to the line in which humour lies in that we don't dislike him: on the contrary, we feel we could enjoy his society. Most of us would rather take Falstaff out fishing or put him up at our golf club than we would Antonio or the Doge of Venice or King Lear. He'd make a bigger hit."¹

And what about Monsieur Jourdain, that delectable creation of the unsurpassed genius of comedy, Moliere? "Polish me", entreated Jourdain who was a nouveau riche and who intensely desired to pay anything to anybody if only he would acquire the 'polish of the world of the court' of the Sun King, Louis XIV. And immediately at his request masters of philosophy and maitres d'armes begin to try 'to teach Monsieur Jourdain the unteachable and to make out of a bourgeois a gentleman.' Her too we feel tempted to quote the observations of Prof. Leacock:

"Moliere's humour turns partly on the simplicity and naivete of Monsieur Jourdain - his joy in his new coat, his amazement that he has talked prose all his life, etc., etc. but also on the silliness and futility of the things they teach him. Monsieur Jourdain, eager to learn rhetoric, desires to send a letter to a marquise to convey the sentiment: 'Belle marquise, vos yeux me

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font mourir d'amour.^, Nothing is more delightful than the way the sentence is twisted back and forward, to Monsieur Jour-dain's further amazement, in variants such as:- 'Belle marquise, d'amour mourir me font vos yeux' and 'Mourir d'amour me font, belle marquise, vos yeux', etc."²

Sri Aurobindo who has been the author of five complete plays and a few unfinished ones, has created in his turn quite a few humorous characters. Not only that: we discover in his dramas, apart from humour of characters, all other modes of creating humorous effects, such as, humour of words, humour of ideas, humour of situation, satirical humour, humour of narration, etc. We are reminded in this connection of a short dialogue between two of his 'characters', Brigida, the cousin of a nobleman, and Basil, the nephew of another nobleman:

"BRIGIDA: Pray now, disburden your intellect of all the brilliant things it has so painfully kept to itself. Plethora is unwholesome and I would not have you perish of an apoplexy of wit. Pour it out on me, conceit, epigram, irony, satire; flout and invective, tuquoque and double-entendre, pun and quibble, rhyme and unreason, catcall and onomatopoeia; all, all, though it be an avalanche. It will be terrible, but I will stand the charge of it.

"BASIL: St. Iago! I think she has the whole dictionary in her stomach. I grow desperate."³

Sri Aurobindo, born in 1872, was taken to England at the age of seven. He studied and stayed there till his twenty-first year. He came to India in 1893 and joined the Baroda State Service. He served from 1898 as the acting Professor of English and lecturer in French in the Baroda College. On June 19, 1906, he took one year's leave without pay from Baroda College and returned to Bengal. He became the Principal of the Bengal National College. He plunged into political activities for the liberation of his motherland and was arrested on 2 May 1908, being implicated in the terrorist activities of a group led by his younger brother Barindra. He stayed in the Alipore Jail for one

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full year as an unclertrial prisoner and was released on 6 May 1909. He left Calcutta for Chandernagore in February, 1910. And from there he proceeded to and reached Pondicherry on April 4, 1910. He lived there from then onward till the year 1950 when he withdrew from his body on the 5th of December.

Such being the short biographical sketch of Sri Aurobindo it is important to point out that he devoted to the writing of his dramas only a short period of time, barely ten years or so, stretching from the late nineties of the last century to the early years of the first decade of the present one. Perseus the Deliverer, Rodogune, The Viziers of Bassora, Eric and Vasava-dutta are the five complete plays written by Sri Aurobindo. These are really, to quote the words of Prof. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, "dramas of life and love, of conflict and change: of conflict that is at the heart of life, of change that is the result of the dialectic of the conflicting opposites - of 'thesis' and 'antithesis'! Sri Aurobindo was thinking and poetising and dramatising at once: he was looking at life steadily and in its totality, he was also peering into the future, throwing out suggestions, hinting at possibilities, invoking inspiring visions of the future."⁴

Apart from the five complete plays Sri Aurobindo has left behind some dramatic fragments like Prince of Edur (only three Acts), The Maid in the Mill (only the first Act and part of the second Act) and The House of Brut (only one scene). Strangely enough, although these three plays as they are extant are tantalisingly incomplete, Sri Aurobindo has prefixed to each of them the full dramatis personae. Does it signify that the author had completed the plotting in his mind although, for whatever reason, he did not or could not complete the writing?

Another intriguing question haunts our mind. Except for Perseus the Deliverer which was published in 1907, no other play of Sri Aurobindo saw the light of day during his long lifetime. Does it mean that Sri Aurobindo did not authorise their publication because he could not somehow find time to revise, finalise or complete them? - or, perhaps, these were not intended to be published at all! In that case it would be unfair

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to Sri Aurobindo's literary genius to judge his talents as a writer of drama solely on the basis of these first drafts of his complete or fragmentary plays. But these are questions for the literary critic to answer which need not detain us here. For we are concerned in our present dissertation only with the humorous aspect of Sri Aurobindo's writings. Hence, let us fix our attention on all that is there of humour in his plays in the forms they have come down to us.

In Perseus the Deliverer almost whatever is spoken by Cireas (a servant in the temple of Poseidon) and by Perissus (a citizen butcher) is enlivened with a rich touch of humour. Some conversations of Praxilla (head of the palace household in the women's apartments) and Diomede (a servant and playmate of Andromeda) are equally humorous in tone.

In Rodogune there is very little humour apart from some sarcasm in the words of Phayllus, the Chancellor of Syria.

Eric is very intense and compact as a play and there is almost no humour in it.

In the play Vasavadutta, Vasunthah, the friend and companion of Vutsa Udayan, the King of Cowsambie, is depicted as a poet, thinker and satirist; his words often have a twist of wit and humour, but they are not solely 'funny', they go further in depth and intent.

The Viziers of Bassora is a most enjoyable play, most of which is pure fun. If its blank verse is full of lightness and grace, its prose has wit and sparkle and the savour of earthiness. The entire play is bubbling with laughter and enjoyment of living. The humour expressed is either in the play of words or is of situation or of characters or of all of them together.

The incomplete plays, The Maid in the Mill and The Prince of Edur are all full of joie de vivre and gaiety. The Maid in the Mill is a play largely about wit. It is full of word-play and has strong feminist undertones. It has laughter in every page.

Readers are invited to read the above plays in their entirety and savour the humour contained therein. Space forbidding we cannot quote many examples here; we shall content ourselves

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with citing two long passages from two of Sri Aurobindo's dramas in order to illustrate his humour in plays.

I. From The Viziers of Bassora

[Background story: "Alzayni, King of Bassora, has two Viziers -the good Ibn Sawy and the evil-minded Almuene. Nureddene, the son of Ibn Sawy, is, although given to reckless ways, handsome and has a frank and open nature. On the King's behalf, Ibn Sawy buys a slave girl, Anice-aljalice, but later acquiesces in her romance with his own son, Nureddene - a romance half-promoted by Doonya, the fun-loving, frolicsome, but good-natured niece of the Vizier. Doonya and Anice-aljalice make a pair, equally quick-witted, equally open-hearted, and equally expert in the language of romance and gaiety.... Nureddene is a creature of romance too... [but] he squanders away his money in no time and finds himself high and dry... Before Almuene, the evil-minded Vizier is able to arrest Nureddene, he escapes to Bagdad with his beloved Anice. There at once their native gaiety returns.... There is elaborate wine-drinking and singing, in the company, first of Shaikh Ibrahim, the Superintendent of the Caliph's gardens, and later of the Caliph himself who joins them disguised as a fisherman."' Ibrahim, be it noted, is an inveterate liar and hypocrite who at first pretends to be himself the proprietor of Haroon al Rasheed's Garden of Delight and absolutely attached to ethical scruples. The denouement will be revealed in the extract below.]

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ACT FOUR

Bagdad

Scene I

The gardens of the Caliph's Palace outside the Pavilion of Pleasure.

Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene.

[...]

Nureddene:

And this pavilion with its crowd of windows!

Are there not quite a hundred?

Anice-Aljalice :

Do you see

The candelabrum pendent from the ceiling?

A blaze of gold!

Nureddene:

Each window has a lamp.

Night in these gardens must be bright as day.

To find the master now! Here we could rest

And ask our way to the great Caliph, Anice.

Enter Shaikh Ibrahim from behind.

Ibrahim:

So, so! So, so! Cavalier sirvente with your bona roba! You do not know then of the Caliph's order forbidding entry into his gardens? No? I will proclaim it then with a palmstick about your pretty back quarters. Will I not? Hoh!

He advances stealthily with stick raised. Nureddene and Anice turn towards him, he drops the stick and remains with arm lifted.

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Nureddene :

Here is a Shaikh of the gardens. Whose garden is this, friend?

Anice-Aljalice:

Is the poor man out of the use of his wits? He stares open-mouthed.

Ibrahim:

Glory to Allah who made you! Glory to the angel who brought you down on earth! Glory to myself who am permitted to look upon you ! I give glory to Allah for your beauty, O people of Paradise!

Nureddene (smiling):

Rather give glory to Him because he has given thee a fine old age and this long silvery beard. But are we permitted in this garden? The gate was not bolted.

Ibrahim:

This garden? My garden? Yes, my son; yes, my daughter. It is the fairer for your feet; never before did such flowers bloom there.

Nureddene:

What, is it thine? And this pavilion?

Ibrahim:

All mine, my son. By the grace of Allah to a poor sinful old man. 'Tis by his election, my son, and divine ordination and sancti-fication, and a little by the power of my prostrations and lustrations which I neglect not, neither morning nor noon nor evening nor at any of the intervals by the law commanded.

Nureddene:

When did you buy or lay it out, old father?

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Ibrahim:

A grand-aunt left itto me. Wonder not, for she was indeed

aunt's grandmotherto a cousin of the sister-in-law of the Caliph.

Nureddene:

Oh then indeed! She had the right divine to be wealthy. But I trust thou hast good doctrinal justification for inheriting after her?

Ibrahim:

I would not accept the Caliphate by any other. Oh my son, hanker not unlawfully after perishable earthly goods; for, verily, they are snare and verily, verily, they entrap the feet of the soul as it toileth over the straight rough road to Heaven.

Anice-Aljalice :

But, old father, are you rich and go so poorly robed? Were I mistress of such a garden, I would float about it in damask and crimson and velvet; silk and satin should be my meanest apparel.

Ibrahim (aside):

She has a voice like a blackbird's! O angel Gabriel, increase this unto me. I will not quarrel with thee though all Houridom break loose on my garden; for their gates thou hast a little opened, {aloud) Fie, my daughter! I take refuge with Allah. I am a poor sinful old man on the brink of the grave, what should I do with robes and coloured raiment? But they would hang well on thee. Praise the Lord who has given thee hips like the moon and a waist indeed! a small, seizable waist. Allah forgive me!

Anice-Aljalice:

We are weary, old father; we hunger and thirst.

Ibrahim:

Oh, my son! Oh, my daughter! You put me to shame. Come in,

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come in; this my pavilion is yours and there is within it plenty of food and drink, - such innocent things now as sherbet and pure kind water. But as for wine, that accursed thing, it is forbidden by the Prophet, whose name is a benediction. Come in, come in. Allah curse him that giveth not to the guest and the stranger.

Nureddene:

It is indeed thine? We may enter?

Ibrahim:

Allah, Allah! its floor yearns for thy beauty and for the fair feet of thy sister. If there were youth now instead of poor venerable me, would one not kiss the marble wherever her fair small feet will touch it? But I praise Allah that I am an old man with my thoughts turned to chastity and holiness.

Nureddene:

Come, Anice.

Ibrahim (walking behind them):

Allah! Allah! she is a gazelle that springeth. Allah! Allah! the swan in my lake waddleth less perfectly. She is as a willow when the wind swayeth it. Allah! Allah!

Exeunt to the pavilion.

Scene II

The Pavilion of Pleasure.

Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene, Shaikh Ibrahim on couches, by a table set with dishes.

Nureddene:

These kabobs are indeed good, and the conserves look sweet and the fruit very glossy. But will you sit and eat nothing?

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Ibrahim:

Verily, my son, I have eaten at midday. Allah forbid me from gluttony!

Anice-Aljalice:

Old father, you discourage our stomachs. You shall eat a morsel from my fingers or I shall say you use me hardly.

Ibrahim:

No, no, no, no. Ah well, from your fingers, from your small slim rosy fingers. Allah! Only a bit, only a morsel: verily, verily! Allah! surely thy fingers are sweeter than honey. I could eat them with kisses.

Anice-Aljalice :

What, old father, you grow young?

Ibrahim:

Oh, now, now, now! 'Twas a foolish jest unworthy of my grey hairs. I take refuge with Allah! A foolish jest.

Nureddene:

But, my aged host, it is dry eating without wine. Have you never a flagon in all this palace? It is a blot, a blot on its fair perfection.

Ibrahim:

I take refuge with Allah. Wine! For sixteen years I have not touched the evil thing. When I was young indeed! Ah well, when I was young. But 'tis forbidden. What saith Ibn Batata? That wine worketh transmogrification. And Ibrahim Alhash-hash bin Fuzfuz bin Bierbiloon al Sandilani of Bassora, he rateth wine sorely and averreth that the red glint of it is the shine of the red fires of Hell, its sweetness kisseth damnation and the coolness of it in the throat causeth bifurcation. Ay, verily, the great Alhashhash.

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Anice-Aljalice:

Who are these learned doctors you speak of, old father? I have read all the books, but never heard of them?

Ibrahim:

Oh, thou hast read? These are very distant and mystic Sufis, very rare doctors. Their books are known only to the adepts.

Anice-Aljalice:

What a learned old man art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim! Now Allah save the soul of the great Alhashhash!

Ibrahim:

Hm! 'Tis so. Wine! Verily, the Prophet hath cursed grower and presser, buyer and seller, carrier and drinker. I take refuge with Allah from the curse of the Prophet.

Nureddene:

Hast thou not even one old ass among all thy belongings? And if an old ass is cursed, is it thou who art cursed?

Ibrahim: Hm!

My son, what is thy parable?

Nureddene:

I will show you a trick to cheat the devil. Give three denars of mine to a neighbour's servant with a dirham or two for his trouble, let him buy the wine and clap it on an old ass, and let the old ass bring it here. So art thou neither grower nor presser, seller nor buyer, carrier or drinker, and if any be damned, it is an old ass that is damned. What saith the great Alhashhash?

Ibrahim:

Hm! Well, I will do it. {aside) Now I need not let them know that there is wine galore in my cupboards, Allah forgive me!

Exit.

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Nureddene:

He is the very gem of hypocrites.

[...]

Shaikh Ibrahim returns with the wine and glasses in a tray.

Ibrahim:

Allah! Allah! Allah!

Anice-Aljalice :

Where's that old sober learning?

I want to dance, to laugh, to outriot riot.

Oh, here he is.

Nureddene:

What a quick ass was this, Shaikh Ibrahim!

Ibrahim:

No, no, the wineshop is near, very near. Allah forgive us, ours is an evil city, this Bagdad; it is full of winebibbers and gluttons and liars.

Nureddene:

Dost thou ever lie, Shaikh Ibrahim?

Ibrahim:

Allah forbid! Above all sins I abhor lying and liars. O my son, keep thy young lips from vain babbling and unnecessary lying. It is of the unpardonable sins, it is the way to Jahannam. But I pray thee what is the young lady to thee, my son?

Nureddene:

She is my slave-girl.

Ibrahim:

Ah, ah! thy slave-girl? Ah, ah! a slave-girl! ah!

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Anice-Aljalice:

Drink, my lord.

Nureddene (drinking): By the Lord, but I am sleepy. I will even rest my head in thy sweet lap for a moment.

He lies down.

Ibrahim: Allah! Allah! What, he sleeps?

Anice-Aljalice:

Fast. This is the trick he always serves me. After the first cup he dozes off and leaves me quite sad and lonely.

Ibrahim:

Why, why, why, little one! Thou art not alone and why shouldst thou be sad! I am here, - old Shaikh Ibrahim; I am here.

Anice-Aljalice:

I will not be sad, if you will drink with me.

Ibrahim:

Fie, fie, fie!

Anice-Aljalice:

By my head and eyes!

Ibrahim:

Well, well, well! Alas, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin. (drinks)

Verily, verily.

Anice-Aljalice: Another.

Ibrahim:

No, no, no.

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Anice-Aljalice:

By my head and eyes!

Ibrahim:

Well, well, well, well! Tis a grievous sin, Allah forgive me! (drinks)

Anice-Aljalice:

Just one more.

Ibrahim:

Does he sleep? Now if it were the wine of thy lips, little one.

Anice-Aljalice:

Old father, old father! Is this thy sanctity and the chastity of thee and thy averseness to frivolity? To flirt with light-minded young hussies like me! Where is thy sanctification? Where is thy justification? Where is thy predestination? O mystic, thou art biforked with an evil bifurcation. Woe's me for the great Alhashhash!

Ibrahim:

No, no, no.

Anice-Aljalice:

An thou such a hypocrite? Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!

Ibrahim:

No, no, no! A fatherly jest! a little little jest! (drinks)

Nureddene (starting up):

Shaikh Ibrahim, thou drinkest?... You have drunk half your cup only; so, again; to Shaikh Ibrahim and his learned sobriety!

Anice-Aljalice :

To the shade of the great Alhashhash!

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Ibrahim:

Fie on you! What cursed unneighbourly manners are these, to drink in my face and never pass the bowl?

Anice-Aijalice and Nureddene [together): Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!

Ibrahim:

Never cry out at me. You are a Hour and she is a Houri come down from Heaven to ensnare my soul. Let it be ensnared! Tis not worth one beam from under your eyelids.

[...]

Anice-Aljalice:

An thou transmogrified, O Sufi, O adept, O disciple of Ibn Batata?

Ibrahim:

Laugh, laugh! laughter is on your beauty like the sunlight on the fair minarets of Nazinderan the beautiful. Give me a cup. (drinks) You are sinners and I will sin with you. I will sin hard, mv beauties, (drinks)

[...]

Scene IV

Inside the pavilion.

Nureddene, Anice-Aljalice, Shaikh Ibrahim.

Nureddene:

Shaikh Ibrahim, verily thou .art drunk.

Ibrahim:

Alas, alas, my dear son, my own young friend! I am damned, verily, verily, I am damned. Ah, my sweet lovely young father! Ah, my pious learned white-bearded mother! That they could see

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their son now, their pretty little son! But they are in their graves; they are in their cold, cold graves.

Nureddene:

Oh, thou art most pathetically drunk....

Outside:

Fish! fish! sweet fried fish!

Anice-Aljalice:

Fish! Shaikh Ibrahim, Shaikh Ibrahim! hearest thou? We have a craving for fish.

[...]

Call him in.

Ibrahim:

Ho! ho! come in, Satan! come in, thou brimstone fisherman. Let us see thy long tail.

[Enter the Caliph, Haroun al Rasheed,

dressed as a fisherman.]

Nureddene:

What is your name, fisherman?

Haroun al Rasheed:

I call myself Kareem, and in all honesty when I fish, 'tis for the Caliph.

Ibrahim:

Who talks of the Caliph? Dost thou speak of the Caliph Haroun or the Caliph Ibrahim?

Haroun al Rasheed:

I speak of the Caliph, Haroun the Just, the great and only Caliph.

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Ibrahim:

Oh, Haroun? He is fit only to be a gardener, a poor witless fellow without brains to dress himself with, yet Allah hath made him Caliph. While there are others - but 'tis no use talking. A very profligate tyrant, this Haroun! ... he cuts off a man's head when the nose on it does not please him. A very pestilence of a tyrant!

Haroun al Rasheed:

Now Allah save him!

Ibrahim:

Nay, let Allah save his soul if He will and if 'tis worth saving, but I fear me 'twill be a tough job for Allah. If it were not for my constant rebukes and admonitions and predications and pestri-giddi - prestigidgide - what the plague! prestidigitations, and some slaps and cuffs of which I pray you speak very low, he would be worse even than he is. Well, well, even Allah blunders; verily, verily!

Anice-Aljalice:

Wilt thou be Caliph, Shaikh Ibrahim?

Ibrahim:

Yes, my jewel, and thou shalt be my Zobeidah. And we will tipple, beauty, we will tipple.

Haroun al Rasheed:

And Haroun?

Ibrahim:

I will be generous and make him my under-kitchen-gardener's second vice-sub-under-assistant. I would gladly give him a higher post, but, verily, he is not fit.

Haroun al Rasheed {laughing): What an old treasonous rogue art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim!

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Ibrahim:

What? Who? Thou art not Satan, but Kareem the fisherman? Didst thou say I was drunk, thou supplier of naughty houses? Verily, I will tug thee by the beard, for thou liest. Verily, verily!

Nureddene:

Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!

Ibrahim:

Nay, if thou art the angel Gabriel and forbiddest me, let be, but I hate lying and liars....⁶

II. From The Maid in the Mill

[The background. - The dramatis personae involved in the passage quoted below are two pairs of young people: Antonio, the son of a nobleman — Count Beltran by name, and Basil, the nephew of Count Beltran; Ismenia, the sister of Count Conrad, a young nobleman, and Brigida, the female cousin of Ismenia. Antonio and Ismenia form a romantic pair who love each other but the problem before them is who becomes the first to avow his or her love in open speech. Ismenia, accompanied by Brigida, at last decides to speak first although subtly and with much of double entendre. Too much of emotion renders Antonio speechless and he cannot respond to Ismenia in spite of the constant prodding by his cousin Basil.

Then Basil offers to teach Antonio how to woo a young girl. Antonio challenges Basil to show the efficacy of his teaching by actual demonstration and Basil picks up the gauntlet. At that very moment enters on the scene Brigida, a smart and witty girl, with a love-letter written by Ismenia and addressed to Antonio. Now Antonio invites his cousin Basil to try his wooing skill on Brigida, the cousin of Ismenia, and win her love. Basil fumbles and gets completely outmanoeuvred by the witty Brigida. Now, readers, come and enjoy the fun involved in this happy encounter of two young couples.]

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ACT ONE

Scene I

[•••]

Brigida:

What other task! Shall we go, cousin?

Ismenia:

Stay.

Let us not press so closely after them.

Brigida:

Good manners? Oh, your pardon. I was blind.

Basil:

Are you a lover or a fish, Antonio?

Speak. She yet lingers.

Antonio:

Speak?

Basil:

The devil remove you

Where you can never more have sight of her. I lose all patience.

Brigida:

Cousin, I know you are tired

With standing. Sit, and if you tire with that,

As perseverance is a powerful virtue,

For your reward the dumb may speak to you.

Ismenia:

What I shall I do, dear girl?

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Brigida:

Why, speak the first,

Count Conrad's sister! Be the Mahomet To your poor mountain. Hang me if I think not The prophet's hill more moveable of the two; An earthquake stirs not this. What ails the man? He has made a wager with some lamp-post surely.

Ismenia:

Brigida, are you mad? Be so immodest? A stranger and my house's enemy!

Brigida:

No, never speak to him. It would be indeed Horribly forward.

' Ismenia:

Why, you jest, Brigida.

I'm no such light thing that I must be dumb Lest men mistake my speaking. Let frail men Or men suspect to their own purity Guard every issue of speech and gesture. Wherefore Should I be hedged so meanly in? To greet With few words, cold and grave, as is befitting This gentle youth, why do you call immodest?

Brigida:

You must not.

Ismenia:

Must not? Why, I will.

Brigida:

You must not, child.

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Ismenia:

I will then, not because

I wish (why should I?), but because you always Provoke me with your idle prudities.

Brigida:

Good! You've been wishing it the last half-hour

And now you are provoked to't. Charge him, charge him.

I stand here as reserve.

Ismenia:

Impossible creature!

But no! You shall not turn me.

Brigida:

'Twas not my meaning.

Ismenia:

Sir-

Basil:

Rouse yourself, Antonio. Gather back

Your manhood, or you're shamed without retrieval.

Ismenia:

Help me,Brigida.

Brigida:

Not I, cousin.

Ismenia:

Sir,

You spoke divinely well. I say this, Sir,

Not to recall to you that we have met -

Since you will not remember - but because

I would not have you - anyone - think this of me

That since you are Antonio and my enemy

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And much have hurt me — to the heart, therefore

When one speaks or does worthily, I can

Admire not, nor love merit, whosoe'er

Be its receptacle. This was my meaning.

I could not bear one should not know this of me.

Therefore I spoke.

Basil:

Speak or be dumb forever.

Ismenia:

I see, you have mistook me why I spoke

And scorn me. Sir, you may be right to think

You have so sweet a tongue would snare the birds

From off the branches, ravish an enemy,

- Some such poor wretch there may be - witch her heart out,

If you could care for anything so cheap

And hold it in your hand, lost, - lost, - Oh me!

Brigida!

Basil:

O base silence! Speak! She is Confounded. Speak, you sheep, you!

Ismenia:

Though this is so,

You do me wrong to think me such an one, Most flagrant wrong, Antonio. To think that I Wait one word of your lips to woo you, yearn To be your loving servant at a word From you, - one only word and I am yours.

Basil:

Admirable lady! Saints, can you be dumb Who hear this?

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Ismenia:

Still you scorn me. For all this You should not make me angry. Do you imagine Because you know I am Lord Conrad's sister And lodge with Donna Clara Santa Cruz In the street Velasquez, and you have seen it With marble front and the quaint mullioned windows, That you need only after vespers, when The streets are empty, stand there, and I will Send one to you? Indeed, indeed I merit not You should think poorly of me. If you're noble And do not scorn me, you will carefully Observe the tenour of my prohibition. Brigida.

Brigida:

Come away with your few words, Your cold grave words. You have frozen his speech with them.

Exeunt.

Antonio:

Heavens! it was she — her words were not a dream,

Yet I was dumb. There was a majesty

Even in her tremulous playfulness, a thrill

When she smiled most, made my heart beat too quickly

For speech. O that I should be dumb and shamefast,

When with one step I might grasp Paradise.

Basil:

Antonio!

Antonio:

I was not deceived. She blushed, And the magnificent scarlet to her cheeks Welled from her heart an ocean inexhaustible. Rose but outcrimsoned rose. Yes, every word Royally marred the whiteness of her cheeks

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With new impossibilities of beauty.

She blushed, and yet as with an angry shame

Of that delicious weakness, gallantly

Her small imperious head she held erect

And strove in vain to encourage those sweet lids

That fluttered lower and lower. O that but once

My tongue had been as bold as were mine eyes!

But these were fastened to her as with cords,

Courage in them naked necessity.

Basil:

Ah poor Antonio. You're bewitched, you're maimed, Antonio. You must make her groan who did this. One sense will always now be absent from him. Lately he had no tongue. Now that's returned His ears are gone on leave. Hark you, Antonio, Why do you stay here?

Antonio:

I am in a dream.

Lead where you will; since there is no place now

In all the world, but only she or silence.

Scene II

A garden in the town-house of Count Beltran.

Antonio, Basil.

Basil:

I am abashed of you. What, make a lady

Woo you, and she a face so excellent,

Of an address so admirably lovely

It shows a goddess in her — at each sentence

Let pause to give you opportunity

Then shame with the dead silence of the hall

For her continual answer. Fie, you're not

Antonio, you are not Beltran's issue. Seek

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Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps Or call a post your father.

Antonio:

I deserve

Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again,

I know I should again be dumb. My tongue

Teems in imagination but is barren

In actuality. When I am from her,

I woo her with the accent of a god,

My mind o'erflows with words as the wide Nile

With waters. Let her but appear and I

Am her poor mute.[...]

Basil:

Away! You modest lovers are the blot

Of manhood, traitors to our sovereignty.

I'd have you banished, all of you, and kept

In desert islands, where no petticoat

Should enter, so the brood of you might perish.

Antonio:

O you speak at ease,

Loved you, you would recant this without small Torture to quicken you.

Basil:

I? I recant?

I wish, Antonio, I had known your case Earlier. I would have taught you how to love.

Antonio:

Come, will you woo a woman? Teach me at least By diagram, upon a blackboard.

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Basil:

Well,

I will so, if it should hearten your weak spirits. And now I think of it, I am resolved I'll publish a new Art of Love, shall be The only Ovid memorable.

Antonio:

On, on! Let's hear you.

Basil:

First, I would kiss her.

Antonio:

What, without leave asked?

Basil:

Leave? Ask a woman leave to kiss her! Why What was she made for else?

Antonio:

If she is angry?

Basil:

So much the better. Then you by repetition Convince her of your manly strength, which is A great point gained at the outset and moreover Your duty, comfortable to yourself. Besides she likes it. On the same occasion When she will scold, I'll silence her with wit. Laughter breaks down impregnable battlements. Let me but make her smile and there is conquest Won by the triple strength, horse, foot, artillery, Of eloquence, wit and muscle. Then but remains Pacification, with or else without The Church's help, that's a mere form and makes No difference to the principle.[...]

Page 265

Antonio:

You are a Pagan and would burn for this If Love still kept his Holy Office.

Basil:

Am safe from him.

Antonio:

And therefore boast securely

Conducting in imagination wars That others have the burden of. I've seen The critical civilian in his chair Win famous victories with wordy carnage, Guide his strategic finger o'er a map, Cry "Eugene's fault! here Marlboro' was to blame, And look, a child might see it, Villars' plain error That lost him Malplaquet!" I think you are Just such a pen-and-paper strategist. A wooer!

Basil:

Death, I will have pity on you, Antonio. You shall see my great example And learn by me.

Antonio:

Good, I'm your pupil. But hear, A pretty face or I'll not enter for her, Wellborn or I shall much discount your prowess.

Basil:

Agreed. And yet they say experimentum In corpore vili. But I take your terms Lest you subtract me for advantages.

Antonio:

Look where the enemy comes. You are well off

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If you can win her.

Basil:

A rare face, by Heaven. Almost too costly a piece of goods for this Mad trial.

Antonio:

You sound retreat?

Basil:

Not I an inch.

Watch how I'll overcrow her.

Antonio:

Hush, she's here.

Enter Brigida.

Brigida:

Senor, I was bidden to deliver this letter to you.

Basil:

To me, sweetheart?

Brigida:

I have the inventory of you in my books, if you be he truly. I will study it. Hair of the ordinary poetic length, dress indefinable, a modest address, - I think not you, Senor, - a noble manner, -Pooh, no! - a handsome face. I am sure not to you, Senor.

Basil:

Humph.

Antonio:

Well, cousin. All silent? Open your batteries, open your batteries!

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Basil:

Wait, wait. Ought a conqueror to be hurried? Caesar himself must study his ground before he attempts it. You will hear my trumpets instanter.

Brigida:

Will you take your letter, Sir?

Antonio:

To me then, maiden? A dainty-looking note, and I marvel much from whom it can be. I do not know the handwriting. A lady's, seemingly, yet it has a touch of the masculine too - there is rapidity and initiative in its flow. Fair one, from whom comes this?

Brigida:

Why, Sir, I am not her signature; which if you will look within, there I doubt not you will find a solution of your difficulty.

Basil:

Here's a clever woman, Antonio, to think of that, and she but eighteen or a miracle.

Antonio:

Well, cousin.

Brigida:

This Don Witty-pate eyes me strangely. I fear he will recognize me.

Antonio:

Ismenia Ostrocadiz! O my joy.

Brigida:

You're ill, sir, you change colour.

[•••]

Page 268

Basil:

Damsel, you are of the Lady Ismenia's household?

Brigida:

A poor relative of hers, Senor.

Basil:

Your face seems strangely familiar to me. Have I not seen you in some place where I constantly resort?

Brigida:

0Sir, I hope you do not think so meanly of me. I am a poor girl but an honest.

Basil:

How, how?

Brigida:

1know not how. I spoke only as the spirit moved me.

Basil:

You have a marvellously nimble tongue. Two words with you.

Brigida:

Willingly, Sefior, if you exceed not measure.

Basil:

Fair one -

Brigida:

Oh, Sir, I am glad I listened. I like your two words extremely. God be with you.

Basil:

Why, I have not begun yet.

Page 269

Brigida:

The more shame to your arithmetic. If your teacher had reckoned as loosely with his cane-cuts, he would have made the carefuller scholar.

Basil:

God's wounds, will you listen to me?

Brigida:

Well, Sir, I will not insist upon numbers. But pray, for your own sake, swear no more. No eloquence will long stand such draft upon it.

Basil:

If you would listen, I would tell you a piece of news that might please you.

Brigida:

Let it be good news, new news and repeatable news and I will thank you for it.

Basil:

Sure, maiden, you are wondrous beautiful.

Brigida:

Senor, Queen Anne is dead. Tell me the next.

Basil:

The next is, I will kiss you.

Brigida:

Oh, Sir, that's a prophecy. Well, death and kissing come to all of us, and by what disease the one or by whom the other, wise men care not to forecast. It profits little to study calamities beforehand. When it comes, I pray God I may learn to take it with resignation, if I cannot do better.

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Basil:

By my life, I will kiss you and without farther respite.

Brigida:

On what ground?

Basil:

Have I not told you, you are beautiful.

Brigida:

So has my mirror, not once but a hundred times, and never yet offered to kiss me. When it does, I'll allow your logic. No, we are already near enough to each other. Pray, keep your distance.

Basil:

I will establish my argument with my lips.

Brigida:

I will defend mine with my hand. I promise you 'twill prove the abler dialectician of the two.

Basil:

Well.

Brigida:

I am glad you think so, Sefior. My lord, I cannot stay.

[•••]

You look sad, Sir. God save you for a witty and eloquent gentleman.

Exit.

[•••]

Basil:

... Saints and angels! How is it? How did it happen? Is the sun still in heaven? Is that the song of a bird or a barrel-organ? I am not drunk either. I can still distinguish between a tree and the squirrel upon it. What, am I not Basil? whom men call the witty

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and eloquent Basil? Did I not laugh from the womb? Was not my first cry a jest upon the world I came into? Did I not invent a conceit upon my mother's milk ere I had sucked of it? Death! And have I been bashed and beaten by the tongue of a girl? silenced by a common purveyor of impertinences? It is so and yet it cannot be. I begin to believe in the dogmas of the materialist. The gastric juice rises in my estimation. Genius is after all only a form of indigestion, a line of Shakespeare the apotheosis of a leg of mutton and the speculations of Plato an escape of diseased tissue arrested in the permanency of ink. What did I break my fast with this morning? Kippered herring? Bread? Marmalade? Tea? O kippered herring, art thou the material form of stupidity and is marmalade an enemy of wit? It must be so. O mighty gastric juice! Mother and Saviour! I bow down before thee. Be propitious, fair goddess, to thy adorer.

Arise, Basil. Today thou shalt retrieve thy tarnished laurels or be expunged for ever from the book of the witty. Arm thyself in full panoply of allusion and irony, gird on raillery like a sword and repartee like a buckler. I will meet this girl tonight. I will tund her with conceits, torture her with ironies, tickle her with jests, prick her all over with epigrams. My wit shall smother her, tear her, burst her sides, press her to death, hang her, draw her, quarter her, and if all this fails, Death! as a last revenge, I'll marry her. Saints!⁷

Here ends the chapter on humour in Sri Aurobindo's plays.

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult the Bibliography on p. 439.

1.HH, 5.Ibid.,

2.Ibid., 6.CPSS , pp.672-97.

3.B-A, 7.Ibid.,

4.Ibid.,

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Chapter 11

Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Situation and Character

The question arises again and again: How is humour produced? What gives rise to a successful comic effect? Over the last so many chapters of our book we have sought to provide the answer to this question. We have noted that in all the examples we have cited so far, in spite of the wide diversity in their outer setting, there has been a constant fundamental factor linking all the instances together. This factor may be summed up as a "sense of unexpected exultation" arising out of the simultaneous presence of the three following elements:

( i) sudden juxtaposition of oddities, incongruities or contrasts;

(ii)innocent exultation over the discomfiture or disaster (!) involving someone;

(iii)a relieving sense that the disaster or discomfiture does not really hurt the person concerned beyond a tolerable limit.

This third element is very important, for in its absence a contrary feeling like sorrow or sympathy will arise to occupy our psychological field and the sense of humour will for the moment completely evaporate.

We have seen too that the said sense of sudden exultation or its polar opposite, - a sense of unexpected frustration, - may be induced in the reader or the listener by an artful play upon the words ("verbal humour") or by the clever manipulation of the ideas ("ideational humour"). But these are not the only two devices available with the humorist. He can produce the same comic effect through other media such as (a) the narration of an anecdote or an incident, (b) the description of a situation, or (c) the portrayal of a character. It goes without saying that any and every narration or description or portrayal will not lead to the production of humour. To be humorous these must have to

Page 273

exhibit in an artistic way the proper and judicious combination of the three elements mentioned above. Let us cite a few examples to substantiate the point. (The first two examples are from the inimitable pen of Amal Kiran, a celebrated poet-disciple of Sri Aurobindo, whom we have already met in our chapter "The Disciples' Humour".)

(1) A rain-storm after a thunder-cloud\

"Socrates was perhaps the most tested, though the least testy, of all philosophers. For he was married to a woman who has become as famous for her nagging ways as he for his equanimity. Her name was Xanthippe. I'll tell you of one incident in their eventful married life.

"Once Xanthippe, ior some reason or perhaps no reason, started shouting at her husband. She made such a noise that Socrates went downstairs and out of the house and sat exhausted at his own door-step. Just then Xanthippe emptied a bucket of dirty water over his head from the first-floor window. Socrates took the compulsory shower-bath quietly. A passer-by who witnessed the ablution asked him: "Don't you feel annoyed?" Socrates replied: "Friend, we must accept Nature's phenomena with composure. After a lot of thunder such as I heard upstairs, what can one expect but a rain-storm?"¹

Please note that in the above instance character-traits (Xanthippe's irritability and Socrates's composure) and an incident (Xanthippe pouring dirty water over the head of the philosopher) have no doubt contributed to the production of humour. But by themselves these two elements would have produced a humour surely not of a high quality. But the significant words of Socrates have elevated the tone of humour to a sublime height. And in the present instance, the "verbal" and the "ideational" devices play the dominant roles.

Here is a second example - again from the pen of Amal Kiran:

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(2) Coleridge discoursing to Charles Lamb:

"S.T.C., Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was intoxicated with philosophical ideas and made of philosophical talk a poetic feast which Wordsworth and others enjoyed... But occasionally he was difficult to endure because of his interminableness. Especially difficult was he when he insisted on discussing philosophy even when suffering from a roaring cold. He would keep chattering of 'omjective' and 'sumjective' — which are, of course, 'objective' and 'subjective' spoken when the nose is completely blocked with mucous matter. He would also be somewhat of an embarrassment when you were in a hurry.

"Charles Lamb was once on his way to his office when Coleridge caught him and drew him to a quiet corner in the street. He started a brilliant discourse. Lamb was charmed for five minutes, tolerant at ten, impatient at fifteen, thoroughly fidgetty after twenty and absolutely bewildered and desperate at the end of twenty-five. The biggest trouble was that Coleridge had caught him by one of his coat-buttons and was holding forth on his interminable theme. Lamb was a Government servant and couldn't afford to be late. Already he was behind time. And there was no prospect of interrupting Coleridge and getting away. To attempt it was like trying to get a word in with the Niagara Falls in order to persuade them not to fall so much. So Lamb thought of a novel means of effecting his escape. He whisked out a pen-knife and cut off the button chaining him to Coleridge. Quietly he slipped away, leaving S.T.C. lecturing. An hour and a half later he left his office and was going home for lunch. There, at the quiet corner in the street, Coleridge was still standing, his eye rolling at the sky, his hand grasping the button, his lips spouting his poetic philosophy. Lamb went up to him and stood where he had been ninety minutes earlier and gently tapped his friend on the shoulder. Somehow the trick worked. Coleridge came out of his splendid soliloquy, smiled, looked at the button in his hand, apologised for unintentionally pulling it off Lamb's coat and assured him that he would have it restitched by his efficient wife Sarah. Lamb set his mind at ease,

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turned him round to face the opposite direction and ran off to his lunch."²

What do we find in this narration? The self-oblivious simplicity of the scholar that was Coleridge charms us no doubt and brings an amused smile to our lips. But what gives an exquisite humorous turn to the whole of the narration is the element of deliberate exaggeration introduced in the delineation of S.T.C.'s character. And we have noted in one of our earlier chapters ("Humour: Its devices and technique") that exaggeration often becomes very effective in reinforcing the oddity and the incongruity involved in the humorous situation.

Now let us pass on to the study of two other cases which illustrate in a pure and simple way what is technically called "humour of situation". The interesting point to note in these and similar cases is that the humour arises entirely out of the oddity of the situation itself; it does not depend in any appreciable way either on any verbal devices or on the subtle manipulation of the ideas or even on the character of the persons concerned.

Here are the two illustrations culled from Prof. Stephen Leacock's book Humour and Humanity.

(3) "At a ball one night a lady came to her husband and beckoned him aside and said, 'John, you've managed somehow to rip your trousers at the back of the leg. Come with me and we'll find a quiet room. I've a needle and thread and I can mend them in no time.' They found a quiet room and the husband removed his trousers and stood patiently in his shirt-tail while his wife was mending the trousers. Just then they heard people coming. 'Good Heavens!' said the lady, 'get in behind that cupboard door and I'll stand in front and see that nobody can get by.'

The man dived through the door and his wife held it. A moment later she heard his frantic voice on the other side, 'Let me back, let me back! I'm in the ballroom.' "'

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What we observe here is that the humour in this case does not depend in any way on any special choice of words nor on the peculiar character-trait of any person; it is implicit in the situation itself. And hence it will allow of its narration in a hundred and one ways without for that matter suffering any diminution of the humour involved in it. And this is because the elements constitutive of this humour are woven in the fabric of the situation itself: a sudden juxtaposition of incongruities - the bright publicity of a ballroom and the entire privacy of being in one's shirt-tail; our exultation over the terrible discomfiture of the gentleman concerned. A mistaken notion that the door would offer him access to the secure privacy of a spacious cupboard when in reality it led to the crowded gaze of the ballroom — this is what creates the explosive humorous situation. But the humour is saved only by the fact that the act of diving through the open door did not involve the gentleman in any serious physical hurt although it exposed him to a great amount of discomfiture. Professor Leacock's comments in this connection are worth quoting: "If he opened what he thought was a cupboard door and fell downstairs and broke his neck, that would be very funny to a Pottawattomie Indian, but not to us."⁴

The second example of an unadulterated "humour of situation" centres round what once befell Canon Ainger, a 'reverend gentleman'. The story is as follows - as told.by Prof. Leacock:

(4) "The canon, very fond of children, was invited to a children's party. On his arrival, the servant was about to show him into a room where the buzz of voices indicated company. 'Don't announce me,' said the reverend gentleman. Then, to get the full fun out of his entry, he put himself on all fours, threw his coat tails over his head, pushed the door open and came crawling into the room making a noise like a horse. But hearing no children's laughter, he looked up. Oh ho ho! he had come to the wrong hall. This was a dinner-party!"'

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Here again the humour is not dependent on any special form of wording nor on character; it is embedded in the situation itself. As Prof. Leacock has so aptly described:

"The humour of situation arises out of any set of circumstances that involve discomfiture or disaster of some odd incongruous kind, not connected with the ordinary run of things and not involving sufficient pain or disaster to overweigh the pleasure of contemplating this incongruous distress; or it may arise without any great amount of personal discomfiture when the circumstances themselves are so incongruous as to involve a sort of paradox."⁶

We may now briefly deal with what has been termed "humour of character". We call a particular character "humorous" when he shows some oddity, incongruity or contradiction in his bearing which are not of a very serious nature but, on the contrary, strike us with a sense of pleasantness. Even a man who has the odd habit of keeping on repeating in an immoderate measure some phrase or form of words - 'yes, yes, yes', or 'what's that, what's that?' - becomes for that mannerism somewhat 'funny'.

If we go through the history of literatures of different countries, we come across a procession of remarkable humorous characters created by the great masters of fiction. Some of the more well-known names in this field are: Cervantes's Don Quixote with Sancho Panza beside him, Shakespeare's Falstaff, Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme', Dickens's Mr. Picwick, Daudet's Tartarin of Tarascon, Wode-house's Jeeves, Harry Leon Wilson's Mr. Ruggles, etc.

Here is a small piece illustrating humour of character: it concerns one Mr. Hallam who was inordinately fond of contradicting whatever was reported to him. Sydney Smith, the great humorist, describes Hallam's character-trait in this way (as reported by Prof. Walter Jerrold in his book A Book of Famous Wits):

(5) Someone having begun, 'I think I may assert without fear

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of contradiction,' Sydney Smith broke in with: 'Stop, sir; are you acquainted with Mr. Hallam? ... if Euclid were to enter the room and were to say, "Gentlemen, I suppose no one present doubts the truth of the Forty-fifth proposition of my First Book of Elements," Hallam would immediately say, "Yes, I have my doubts...."

Sydney Smith continued: 'You know, during an influenza epidemic poor Hallam was tossing and tumbling in his bed when the watchman came by and called, "Twelve o'clock and a starlight night." Here was an opportunity for controversy when it seemed most out of the question! Up Hallam jumped, "I question that! Starlight! I see a star, I admit; but I doubt whether that constitutes starlight." Hours more of tossing and tumbling and then comes the watchman again: "Past two o'clock, and a cloudy morning." "I question that, - I question that," says Hallam, and he rushes to the window and throws up the sash - influenza notwithstanding. "Watchman! do you want to call this a cloudy morning? I see a star. And I question it's being past two o'clock - I question it - I question it."⁷

We have spoken of the humour of character as well as of the humour of situation. But for the happiest effects of humorous creation another elusive element is called for, which may be called the 'comic atmosphere'. This sort of atmosphere is produced when the writer places a 'humorous character' in an odd mixed-up 'humorous situation' and looks at the whole thing as if "through an air coloured to a slight rosiness as from the setting of the sun or the veil of ashes of a forest fire."⁸

We conclude: a properly modulated humorous situation involving a humorous character caught in a humorous atmosphere and the whole thing described with all the art of words and verbal technique, produces a work of humour in its fully developed form. And this is no easy task. As Prof. Leacock would put it, "Writing sermons is play beside it."⁹

Sri Aurobindo has been a master in all the fields of humour. Here, too, in this particular domain of humour of narration,

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situation and character-portrayal, his creations are most delectable to a refined taste. We give below a few illustrative examples.

I.Anandrao's character-trait:

(Written by Sri Aurobindo in 1902 when he was thirty years old.)

"... I suppose you have got Anandrao's letter; you ought to value it, for the time he took to write it is, I believe, unequalled in the history of epistolary creation. The writing of it occupied three weeks, fair-copying it another fortnight, writing the address seven days and posting it three days more. You will see from it that there is no need to be anxious about his stomach: it righted itself the moment he got into the train at Deoghur Station. In fact he was quite lively and warlike on the way home. At Jabalpur we were unwise enough not to spread out our bedding on the seats and when we got in again, some upcountry scoundrels had boned Anandrao's berth. After some heated discussion I occupied half of it and put Anandrao on mine. Some Mahomedans, quite inoffensive people, sat at the edge of this, but Anandrao chose to confound them with the intruders and declared war on them. The style of war he adopted was a most characteristically Maratha style. He pretended to go to sleep and began kicking the Mahomedans, in his "sleep" of course, having specially gone to bed with his boots on for the purpose. I had at last to call him off and put him on my half-berth. Here, his legs being the other way, he could not kick; so he spent the night butting the upcountryman with his head; next day he boasted triumphantly to me that he had conquered a foot and half of territory from the intruder by his brilliant plan of campaign. When the Boers rise once more against England, I think we have to send them Anandrao as an useful assistant to Generals Botha and Delarcy."¹⁰

II.Maharaja's character-trait:

(Written as a postscript to the same letter)

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"There is a wonderful story travelling about Baroda, a story straight out of Fairyland, that I have received Rs. 90 promotion. Everybody seems to know all about it except myself. The story goes that a certain officer rejoicing in the name of Damn-you-bhai wanted promotion, so the Maharajah gave him Rs. 50. He then proceeded to remark that as this would give Damn-you-bhai an undue seniority over Mr. Would-you-ah! and Mr. Manoeu(vre) bhai, the said Would-you-ah and Manoeu(vre) bhai must also get Rs. 50 each, and 'as Mr. Ghose has done good work for me, I give him Rs. 90.' The beautiful logical connection of the last bit with what goes before, dragging Mr. Ghose in from nowhere and everywhere, is so like the Maharajah that the story may possibly be true..."¹¹

III. Maulvi Sams-ul-Alam's character-trait:

"Benodebabu was entrusted with taking us to the police station.... It was there that I first came to know the sly detective Maulvi Sams-ul-Alam and had the pleasure of entering with him into a cordial relation. Till then the great Maulvi had not acquired either enough influence or energy, he was not yet the chief researcher in the bomb outrage or functioning as [the Prosecutor] Mr. Norton's prompter and unfailing aide me-moire.... The Maulvi made me listen to a most entertaining sermon on religion. That Hinduism and Islam had the same basic principles: in the Omkara of the Hindus we have the three syllables, A,U,M; the first three letters of the Holy Koran are A,L,M. According to philological laws, U is used for L; ergo, Hindus and Musulmans have the same mantra or sacred syllables.... To be truthful is part of the religious life. The Sahibs say Aurobindo Ghose is the leader of the terrorist party, this is a matter of such shame and sorrow for India. But by keeping to the path of rectitude the situation could yet be saved. The Maulvi was fully convinced that distinguished persons, men of high character, like Bipin Pal and Aurobindo Ghose, whatever they might have done, they would openly confess these.... I [Sri Aurobindo] was charmed and delighted with his knowledge, intelligence and religious fervour. Thinking that it would be

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impertinent to speak much, I listened politely to his priceless sermon and cherished it in my heart. But in spite of so much religious enthusiasm the Maulvi did not give up his profession of a 'tec'. Once he said: 'You made a great mistake in handing over the garden to your younger brother to manufacture bombs. It was not very intelligent on your part.' Understanding the nature of the innuendo I smiled a little, and said: 'Sir, the garden is as much mine as my brother's. Where did you learn that I had given it over to him, or given it to him for the purpose of manufacturing bombs?' A little abashed, the Maulvi answered: "No, no, I was saying in case you have done it.' Then the great-souled Maulvi opened an autobiographical chapter before me, and said, 'All the moral or economic progress I have made in life can be traced back to a sole sufficing moral adage of my father. He would always say, "Never give up an immediate gain." This great word of his is the sacred formula of my life. All this advancement is owing to the fact that I have always remembered that sage advice.' At the time of this pronuncia-mento the Maulvi stared at me so closely that it seemed as though I was his meat and food, which, following the excellent parental advice, he would be loth to give up."¹²

IV. Mr. Norton, the government Counsel:

"The nature of the case was a little strange. Magistrate, counsel, witnesses-, evidence, exhibits, accused, all appeared a little outre. Watching, day after day, the endless stream of witnesses and exhibits, and the counsel's unvaried dramatic performance, the boyish frivolity and the light-heartedness of the youthful magistrate, looking at the amazing spectacle I often thought that instead of sitting in a British Court of Justice we were inside a stage in some world of fiction. Let me describe some of the odd inhabitants of that kingdom.

"The star performer of the show was the government counsel, Mr. Norton. Not only the star performer, but he was also its composer, stage manager and prompter - a versatile genius like him must be rare in the world. Mr. Norton hailed from Madras... I cannot say whether Mr. Norton had been the

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lion of the Madras Corporation, but certainly he was the king among beasts at the Alipore court. It was hard to admire his depth of legal acumen - which was as rare as winter in summer. But in the ceaseless flow of words, and through verbal quips, in the strange ability to transmute inconsequential witness into something serious, in the brashness of making wild statements with little or no ground, in riding roughshod over witnesses and junior barristers and in the charming ability to turn white into black, to see his incomparable genius in action was but to admire him.

"Among the great counsels there are three kinds — those who, through their legal acumen, satisfactory exposition and subtle analysis, can create a favourable impression on the judge; those who can skilfully draw out the truth from the witnesses and by presenting the facts of the case and the subject under discussion draw the mind of the judge and the jury towards themselves; and those who, through their loud speech, by threats and oratorical flow can dumbfound the witness and splendidly confuse the entire issue, and win the case by distracting the intelligence of the judge or the jury. Mr. Norton is foremost in this third category.... If God has not endowed one with other qualities, then one must fight with such qualities as one possesses, and win the case with their help. Thus Mr. Norton was but following the law of his being (svadharma). The government paid him a thousand rupees a day. In case this turned out to be a useless expenditure, the government would be a loser. Mr. Norton was trying heart and soul to prevent such a loss to the government....

"Just as Holinshed and Plutarch had collected the material for Shakespeare's historical plays, in the same manner the police had collected the material for this drama of a case. And Mr. Norton happened to be the Shakespeare of this play. I, however, noticed a difference between Shakespeare and Mr. Norton: Shakespeare would now and then leave out some of the available material, but Mr. Norton never allowed any material, true or false, cogent or irrelevant, from the smallest to the largest, to go unused; on top ,of it he could weave such a

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wonderful plot by his self-created and abundant suggestion, inference and hypothesis that the great poets and writers of fiction like Shakespeare and Defoe would have to acknowledge defeat before this grand master of the art. The critic might say that just as Falstaff's tavern bill showed a pennyworth of bread and countless gallons of wine, similarly in Norton's plot an ounce of proof was mixed with tons of inference and suggestion. But even detractors are bound to praise the elegance and construction of the plot.

"It gave me great happiness that Mr. Norton had chosen me as the protagonist of this play. Like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, in Mr. Norton's plot at the centre of the mighty rebellion stood I, an extraordinarily sharp, intelligent and powerful, bold, bad man! Of the National Movement I was the alpha and the omega, its creator and saviour, indomitably engaged in undermining the British empire. As soon as he came across any piece of excellent or vigorous writing in English he would jump and loudly proclaim, Aurobindo Ghose! All the legal and illegal, the organised activities or unexpected consequences of the movement were the doings of Aurobindo Ghose! And when they are the doings of Aurobindo Ghose then, even when lawfully admissible, they must contain hidden illegal intentions and potentialities.... If my name ever appeared on any torn sheet of paper, Mr. Norton's joy knew no bounds; with great cordiality he would present it at the holy feet of the presiding magistrate. It is a pity I was not born as an Avatar; otherwise, thanks to his intense devotion and ceaseless contemplation of me for the nonce, he would surely have earned his release, mukti, then and there, and both the period of our detention and the government's expenses would have been curtailed. Since the Sessions Court declared me innocent of the charges, Norton's plot was sadly shorn of its glory and elegance. By leaving the Prince of Denmark out of Hamlet the humourless judge, Beachcroft, damaged the greatest poem of the twentieth century.... Norton's other agony was that some of * the witnesses too seemed so cussed that they had wholly refused to bear evidence in keeping with his fabricated plot. At this Norton would grow red with

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fury and, roaring like a lion, he would strike terror in the heart of the witness and cower him down. Like the legitimate and irrepressible anger of a poet when his words are altered, or of a stage manager when the actor's declamation, tone or postures go against his directions, Norton felt a comparable loss of temper...."¹³

V. Mr. Birley, the magistrate:

"If Mr. Norton [the government counsel] was the author of the play, its protagonist and stage manager, Mr. Birley may well be described as its patron. A credit to his Scotch origin, his figure was a symbol or reminder of Scotland. Very fair, quite tall, extremely spare, the little head on the long body seemed like the Ochterlony monument, or as if a ripe cocoanut had been put on the crest of Cleopatra's obelisk! Sandy-haired, all the cold and ice of Scotland seemed to lie frozen on his face. So tall a person needed an intelligence to match, else one had to be sceptical about the economy of nature. But in this matter of the creation of Birley, probably the Creatrix had been slightly unmindful and inattentive. The English poet Marlowe has described this as 'infinite riches in a little room' but encountering Mr. Birley one had an opposite feeling, of little riches in an infinite room. Finding so little intelligence in such a tallish body one indeed felt pity....

Mr. Birley's knowledge of law came a cropper during the cross-examination by the barrister Shrijut Byomkesh Chakra-varty. Asked to declare when he had taken charge of the case in his own benign hands and how to complete the process of taking over charge of a case, after years of magistracy Mr. Birley's head reeled to find these out. Unable to solve the problem he finally tried to save his skin by leaving it to Mr. Chakravarty to decide.

"... From the start, charmed by Mr. Norton's learning and rhetoric, he had been completely under his spell. He would follow, ever so humbly, the road pointed out by the counsel Norton. Agreeing with his views, he laughed when Norton laughed, grew angry as Norton would be angry. Looking at this

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daft, childlike conduct one sometimes felt tenderly and paternally towards him. Birley was exceedingly childlike. I could never think of him as a magistrate, it seemed as if a schoolboy suddenly turned teacher was sitting at the teacher's high desk. That was the manner in which he conducted the affairs of the court. In case someone did not behave pleasantly towards him, he would scold him like a schoolmaster. If any one of us, bored with the farce of a case, started to talk among ourselves, Mr. Birley would snap like a schoolmaster; in case people did not obey he would order everybody to keep standing and if this was not done at once, he would tell the sentry to see to it. We had grown so accustomed to the schoolmasterish manner that when Birley and Chatterjee had started to quarrel we were expecting every moment that the barrister would soon be served with the stand up order.... Just as when a student asks questions or demands further explanation, an irritated teacher threatens him, so whenever the advocate representing the accused raised objections, Mr. Birley would threaten him."¹⁴

VI. About Mr. Norton's cross-examination procedure:

"Some witnesses gave Norton a hell of a time. Norton wanted to prove that a particular piece of writing was in the handwriting of such-and-such accused. If the witness said: 'No, sir, this is not exactly like that handwriting but may be, one cannot be sure' - many witnesses answered like that - Norton would become quite agitated. Scolding, shouting, threatening, he would try somehow to get the desired answer. And his last question would be, 'What is your belief? Do you think it is so or not?' To this the witness could say neither 'yes' nor 'no' every time; again and again, he would repeat the same answer and try to make Norton understand that he had no 'belief in the matter and was swayed by doubt. But Norton did not care for such an answer. Every time he would hurl back the same question, like thunder, at the witness: 'Come, sir, what is your belief?'

"Mr. Birley, the magistrate, in his turn, would catch fire from the embers of Norton's anger, and thunder from his high seat above: ^lTomar biswas ki achhay?'. ['What is your belief?

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What do you think?'] Poor witness! he would be in a dilemma. He had no 'biswas' (belief) at all, yet on one side of him was ranged the magistrate, and, on the other, like a hungry tiger, Norton, the Counsel, was raging in a circle to disembowel him and get at the priceless never-to-be-had ' biswas'\ Often the 'biswas' might not materialise, and, his brain in a whirl, the sweating witness would escape with his life from the torture chamber. Some, who held their life dearer than their 'biswas', would make good their escape by offering an artificial 'biswas' at the feet of Mr. Norton, who, now of course highly pleased, would conduct the rest of the cross-examination with unusual affability.

"Because such a counsel had been matched with a magistrate of the same calibre, the case had all the more taken on the proportions of a play.

"Though a few of the witnesses went against Mr. Norton, the majority provided answers in support of his leading questions. Among these there were few familiar faces. One or two we of course knew; of these Devdas Karan [the editor] helped to dispel our boredom and made us hold our sides with laughter, for which we shall remain eternally grateful to him. In course of giving evidence he said that, at the time of the Midnapore Conference when [the Nationalist leader] Surendra-babu had asked from his students devotion to the teacher, gurubhakti, Aurobindo-babu had spoken out: 'What did Drona do?' Hearing this Mr. Norton's eagerness and curiosity knew no bounds, he must have thought 'Drona' to be a devotee of the bomb or a political killer or someone associated with the Maniktola Garden or the Students' Store. Mr. Norton may have thought that the phrase meant that Aurobindo Ghose was advising the giving of bombs to Surendrababu as a reward instead of gurubhakti. Such an interpretation would have helped the case considerably. Hence he was asking eargerly: 'What did Drona do? What did Drona do?'* At first the witness

* In the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata Drona or Dronacharya is a preceptor of the royal princes. Norton and others, ignorant of the reference, took him to be a contemporary character, in fact a conspirator.

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was unable to make out the nature of the silly question. And for full five minutes a debate went on. In the end throwing up his hands high, Sri Karan told Norton: 'Drona performed many a miracle.' This did not satisfy Mr. Norton. How could he be content without knowing the whereabouts of Drona's bomb? So he asked again: 'What do you mean by that? Tell me what exactly he did.' The witness gave many answers, but in none was Dronacharya's life's secret unravelled as Norton would have liked it.

"He now lost his temper and started to shout. The witness too joined the game. An advocate smilingly expressed the doubt that perhaps the witness did not know what Drona had done. At this Sri Karan went wild with anger and wounded pride. 'What,' he shouted, 'I, I do not know what Drona had done? Bah! Have I read the Mahabharata from cover to cover in vain?'

"For half an hour a battle royal was waged between Norton and Karan over Drona's ghost. Every five minutes, shaking the Alipore judge's court, Norton hurled his question: 'Out with it, Mr. Editor. What did Drona do?' In answer the editor began a cock-and-bull story, but there was no reliable news about what Drona had done. The entire court reverberated with peals of laughter. At last, during tiffin time, Sri Karan came back after a little reflection with a cool head, and he suggested this solution of the problem, that poor Drona had done nothing and that the half-hour long tug of war over his departed soul had been in vain, it was Arjuna who had killed his guru, Drona.

"Thanks to this false accusation, Dronacharya, relieved, must have offered his thanks at Kailasha to Sadashiva, that because of Sri Karan's evidence he did not have to stand in the dock in the Alipore Bomb Conspiracy Case. A word from the editor would have easily established his relationship with Aurobindo Ghose. But the all-merciful Sadashiva had saved him from such a calamity."¹⁵

VII. Identification parade and police witnesses:

"The method for indentification was equally mysterious. First, the witness was told, Would you be able to recognise any

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one of these persons? If the witness answered, Yes, I can, the happy Mr. Norton would arrange for the identification parade in the witness box itself and order him to demonstrate the powers of his memory. In case the man said, I am not sure, maybe I can recognise, Mr. Norton would grow a little sad and say, All right, go and try. When someone said, No, I can't, I haven't seen them or I did not mark carefully, Mr. Norton would not let him go even then. Looking at so many faces some memory of the past life might come back, in that hope he would send him to the experiment to find out. The witness however lacked such a yogic power. Perhaps the fellow had no faith in the past life, and gravely marching, under the sergeant's supervision, between two long rows of accuse*! persons, he would say, without even looking at us, 'No, I don't know any one of them.' Crestfallen, Norton would take back his human net without any catch.

"In course of this trial there was a marvellous illustration of how sharp and correct human memory could be! Thirty to forty people would be kept standing, one didn't know their name, hadn't known them at all in this or any other life, yet whether one had seen or not seen someone two months back, or seen such a person at three places and not seen in the other two; maybe one had seen him brush his teeth once, and so his figure remains imprinted in the brain for all time. When did one see this person, what was he doing, was there anyone else with him, or was he alone? One remembers nothing of these, yet his figure is fixed in one's mind for all times; one has met Hari ten times, so there is no possibility of forgetting him, but even if one has seen Shyam only for half a minute, one would not be able to forget him till one's last breath, and with no possibility of mistake, — such a prodigious power of memory is not to be found frequently in this imperfect human nature, this earth wrapped up in matter and its unconsciousness.

"But not one, not two, every police chap seemed to be the owner of such uncanny, error-proof, accurate memory! Because of which our devotion and respect for the C.I.D. grew more profound day by day. It is not that in the magistrate's court we

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did not have, once or twice, occasions for scepticism. When I found in the written evidence that Sisir Ghose had been in Bombay in the month of April, yet a few police chaps had seen him precisely during that period in Scott's Lane and Harrison Road, one could not but feel a little uneasy. And when Birendrachandra Sen, of Sylhet, while he was physically present at Baniachung, at his father's place, became visible in his subtle body to the occult vision of the C.I.D. at the Garden and Scott's Lane - of which Scott's Lane Birendra knew nothing, as was proved conclusively in the written evidence - the doubts could not but deepen, especially when those who had never set their foot in Scott's Lane were informed that the police had often found them trfcre, in the circumstances a little suspicion seemed not unnatural. A witness from Midnapore - whom the accused persons from Midnapore however described as a secret service agent — said that he had seen Hemchandra Sen of Sylhet, lecturing at Tamluk. Now Hemchandra had never seen Tamluk with his mortal eyes, yet his shadow-self had rushed from Sylhet to Midnapore and, with his powerful and seditionary nationalist speech he had delighted the eyes and ears of our detective monsieur. But the causal body of Charuchandra Roy of Chandernagore, materialising at Maniktola, had perpetrated even greater mysteries. Two police officers declared on oath that on such and such date at such and such time they had seen Charubabu at Shyambazar, from where he had walked, in the company of a conspirator, to the Maniktola Gardens. They had followed him up to that place and watched him from close quarters, and there could be no ground for error. Both witnesses did not budge when cross-examined. The words of Vyasa are true indeed, Vyasasya vacanam satyaml The evidence of the police also cannot be otherwise!... But the surprising thing was that on that day and at that hour on the Howrah station platform he was found talking with the Mayor of Chandernagore, M. Tardivel, his wife, the Governor of Chandernagore and a few other distinguished European gentlemen. Remembering the occasion, they had, all of them, agreed to stand witness in favour of Charubabu. Since the police had to

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release Charubabu at the instance of the French government, the mystery has remained unsolved. But I would advise Charubabu to send all the proofs to the Psychical Research Society and help in the advancement of knowledge. Police evidence, especially the C.I.D.'s, can never be false, hence there is no way out except to seek refuge in Theosophy!"¹⁶

VIII.Manmohan's way of writing poetry:

"I liked Manmohan's poetry well enough but I never thought it to be great. He was a conscientious artist of word and rhyme, almost painfully careful about technique.

"Virgil wrote nine lines every day and spent the whole morning rewriting and rerewriting them out of all recognition. Manmohan did better. He would write five or six half lines and quarter lines and spend the week filling them up. I remember the sacred wonder with which I regarded this process -something like this:

The morn....red.... sleepless eyes

......lilac.................rest

Perhaps I exaggerate but it was very much like that!"¹⁷

IX.Young Sri Aurobindo's picnic adventurel

[This was written by Sri Aurobindo in 1902, when he was thirty years old.]

"... During this time I have been to Ahmedabad with our cricket eleven and watched them get a jolly good beating; which happy result we celebrated by a gorgeous dinner at the refreshment room. I believe the waiters must have thought us a party of famine-stricken labourers, dressed up in stolen clothes, perhaps the spoils of massacred famine officers. There were six of us and they brought us a dozen plentiful courses; we ate them all and asked for more. As for the bread we consumed — well, they brought us at first a huge toast-rack with about 20 large pieces of toast. After three minutes there was nothing left

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except the rack itself; they repeated the allowance with a similar result. Then they gave up the toast as a bad job, and brought in two great plates each with a mountain of bread on it as large as Nandanpahad [the Nandan Hill]. After a short while we were howling for more. This time there was a wild-eyed consultation of waiters and after some minutes they reappeared with large trays of bread carried in both hands. This time they conquered. They do charge high prices at the refreshment rooms but I don't think they got much profit out of us that time.

"Since then I have been once on a picnic to Ajwa with the District Magistrate and Collector of Baroda, the second Judge of the High Court and a still more important and solemn personage...

"A second picnic was afterwards organized in which some dozen rowdies, not to say Hooligans, of our club - the worst among them, I regret to say, was the father of a large family and a trusted officer of H.H. the Maharajah Gaekwar, - went down to Ajwa and behaved in such a manner that it is a wonder we were not arrested and locked up. On the way my horse broke down and so four of us had to get down and walk three miles in the heat. At the first village we met a cart coming back from Ajwa and in spite of the carters' protests, seized it, turned the bullocks round and started them back — of course with ourselves in the cart. The bullocks at first thought they were going to do the journey at their usual comfortable two miles an hour, but we convinced them of their error with the ends of our umbrellas and they ran. I don't believe bullocks have ever run as fast since the world began. The way the cart jolted, was a wonder; I know the internal arrangements of my stomach were turned upside down at least 300 times a minute. When we got to Ajwa we had to wait an hour for dinner; as a result I was again able to eat ten times my usual allowance. As for the behaviour of those trusted pillars of the Baroda Raj at Ajwa, a veil had better be drawn over it; I believe I was the only quiet and decent person in the company. On the way home the carriage in which my part of the company installed itself, was the scene of a remarkable tussle in which three of the occupants and an

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attendant cavalier attempted to bind the driver (the father of the large family aforesaid) with a horse-rope. As we had been ordered to do this by the Collector of Baroda, I thought I might join in the attempt with a safe conscience. Paterfamilias threw the reins to Providence and fought — I will say it to his credit — like a Trojan. He scratched me, he bit one of my coadjutors, in both cases drawing blood, he whipped furiously the horse of the assistant cavalier, and when Madhavrao came to his assitance, he rewarded the benevolent intention by whipping at Madhav-rao's camel! It was not till we reached the village, after a six-miles conflict, and got him out of the carriage that he submitted to the operation. The wonder was that our carriage did not get upset; indeed the mare stopped several times in order to express her entire disgust at the improper and turbulent character of these proceedings. For the greater part of the way home she was brooding indignantly over the memory of it and once her feelings so much overcame her that she tried to upset us over the edge of the road, which would have given us a comfortable little fall of three feet. Fortunately she was relieved by this little demonstration and her temper improved wonderfully after it. Finally last night I helped to kidnap Dr. Cooper, the Health Officer of the State, and make him give us a big dinner at the station with a bottle and a half of sherry to wash it down. The doctor got so merry over the sherry of which he drank at least two thirds himself, that he ordered a special-class dinner for the whole company next Saturday. I don't know what Mrs. Cooper said to him when he got home. All this has had a most beneficial effect upon my health, as the writing of so long a letter shows."¹⁸

The above highly humorous narration was from the pen of a young government officer that Sri Aurobindo was at that time. Now another narration equally humorous though with a profounder ring, from the pen of the Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo who wrote it in 1933 as a reply to his disciple Dilip Kumar in order to assuage the sorrowful feelings of the latter. The story behind this is as follows, as given by Dilip Kumar himself.¹⁹

In those days (in 1933) a musical programme used to be

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held in the Ashram, about once in two months. On one such occasion, as DK was singing a song on Krishna, with Mother sitting before him in samadhi,' a sudden commotion started behind him where the other sadhaks were sitting. It so happened that a senior sadhak of considerable girth, Purushottam by name, got up on a sudden to dance when Ambu, a rather thin but strong youngman, leapt up to restrain the other's indomitable ecstasy, as a result of which there was necessarily a tussle. The musical soiree was thus partially spoiled. This naturally saddened Dilip Kumar who asked Sri Aurobindo in a letter if he (DK) had been responsible in any way for the undesirable happening, for, who knows, perhaps he had simulated a bhakti towards Krishna, which was not really there in his heart! Sri Aurobindo, in reply, sent to Dilip the following letter of consolation:

X. Sri Aurobindo's humour on Ambu-Purushottam row.

"There was no misdirection of your appeal to Krishna; if there was anybody responsible it was Anilkumar with his Tabla [Indian drum]. But there was nothing wrong and no possession in the evil sense of the word - nothing hostile. The beat of the Tabla - more than anything else - created a vibration which was caught hold of by some rhythmic material energy and that in turn was caught hold of by Purushottam's body which considered itself under a compulsion to execute the rhythm by a dance. There is the whole (occult) science and genesis of the affair.

"Purushottam thought he was inspired and in a trance; Ambu thought Purushottam was going to break his own head and other people's legs; a number of others thought Purushottam was going cracked or already cracked; some thought Purushottam was killing Ambu which Ambu contemptuously rejects, saying he was able to hold Purushottam all alone, and out of these conflicting mental judgments - if they can be called so - arose the whole row. A greater quietude in people's minds would have allowed the incident to be 'liquidated' in a less uproarious fashion... That is all."²⁰

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Here ends the chapter on Sri Aurobindo's humour of situation and character.

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 12

Sri Aurobindo's Wit

What is wit? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as the "power of giving sudden intellectual pleasure by unexpected combining or contrasting of previously unconnected ideas or expressions." Wit is indeed a form of intellectual quickness, raillery and repartee, which is apt to startle our mind with delectable surprise, often through flashes of isolated sentences or even of words or phrases.

Now to produce the proper kind of wit and joke is not at all an easy matter; it requires a veritable genius of words to do so. There should be some sort of inevitability in the judicious use and arrangement of the words and phrases employed. Even a little gaucherie in this matter will spoil the whole effect. It is not without reason that Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the great Irish wit of the eighteenth century, once wittily remarked about a gentleman: "I can laugh at his malice - but not at his wit." The story is told that one Lord Lauderdale, after having heard an excellent joke, one day came to Sheridan and proposed repeating the same to the latter on which the master wit stopped him with: "Pray don't, my dear Lauderdale; in your mouth a joke is no laughing matter."

The acknowledged masters of this literary form, however, fall broadly into two different categories, some with a carefully rehearsed wit and the others with a spontaneously produced one. Sheridan himself generally belonged to the first type while Sydney Smith, whom Walter Savage Landor described as "humour's pink primate", belonged to the second one. Their attitudes towards the quality of which they were both briliant possessors were indeed antipodean. According to Smith, the best wit is born and not trained, and the perfect expression of wit in speech and writing should be "in midwife's phrase, a quick conception and an easy delivery." Sheridan's view was different. He once said: "A true-trained wit lays his plan like a

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general - foresees the circumstance of the conversation -surveys the ground and the contingencies - and detaches a question to draw you into the palpable ambuscade of his ready-made joke."¹

Here we have to note another important point. Whether ready-made and delivered to purpose or issuing forth in a spontaneous cascade, wit may at times be really dangerous, as are all sharp weapons that cut good and bad alike. It may even degenerate into something severe, bitter and satirical, that hurts much more than illumines. In this sort of dry and blunt display of wit which hits offensively albeit humorously, the unlucky target (the listener or the correspondent) cannot happily participate: it lacks any kindly feeling altogether. This sort of caustic wit cannot elicit our appreciation.

The other type of successful wit is a sort of kindly humour suffused with gentleness so much so that even when it hits the object, it will never give him offence and will be provocative of laughter as much in its object as in others. Sri Aurobindo's wit and humour have always been of this second kind.

Here is an instance of this sort of kindly wit as recorded in Jerrold's A book of Famous Wits:

When Richard Bentley who prided himself on being a wit started his periodical "Miscellany", he said that he had first thought of calling it "The Wit's Miscellany" but on second thought changed it to "Bentley's Miscellany": on which one of his friends remarked, "You needn't have gone to the other extreme."²

A remark offensively intended could not have been turned more delectable!

To grasp the real contrast in tone and temper, let us have acquaintance with some examples of 'dry' wit too. (All these examples have been taken from Jerrold's book.)

(1) "So then, sir," demanded X, "you think me a fool?"

"By no means," said Y; "I know you to be one."³

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(2)Playing on a man's name:

An attorney named Mr. Else, who was rather of a small stature, approached Mr. Jekyll, saying indignantly: "Sir, I hear you have called me a pettifogging scoundrel. Have you done so, sir?"

"No, sir," replied Jekyll imperturbably; "I never said you were a pettifogger or a scoundrel, but I did say you were little Else."⁴

(3)A tit for tat:

Richard Whately, the Archbishop of Dublin, was one of the wittiest of divines. One day a young and vain aide-de-camp, observing a Roman Catholic dignitary wearing a large cross, asked Whately what the difference was between the Roman bishop and a jackass, and answered in a malicious tone his own question: "One wears a cross upon his breast and the other on his back."

"Do you," said the Archbishop meaningfully, "know the difference between an aide-de-camp and a donkey?"

"No," was the youngman's reply.

"Nor I either," interjected Whately.'

(4)A subtly offensive hit:

Sydney Smith was a churchman. One day a country squire, having been worsted in an argument by his rector, remarked to Sydney, "If I had a son who was an idiot, I'd make him a parson."

Sydney Smith quietly replied, "I see that your father was of a different mind."⁶

Before we proceed to the study of Sri Aurobindo's witty remarks, let us first taste a few illustrative examples of wit coming from the pens or mouths of some celebrated masters of the art; this will help us to appreciate in full Sri Aurobindo's own wit in the proper historical pespective. The examples collected are again from the famous book by Jerrold, A Book of Famous Wits.

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Readers are requested to examine closely the different literary devices adopted by these wits to produce the desired humorous effects. Later on we may profitably compare these to the techniques employed by Sri Aurobindo in his humorous utterances.

(1)From Nicholas Bacon:

Sir Nicholas Bacon, a Tudor judge in the time of Elizabeth, was once importuned by a criminal to spare his life on account of kinship.

"How so?" demanded the judge.

"Because my name is Hog and yours is Bacon; and hog and bacon are so near akin that they cannot be separated."

"Ay," responded the judge dryly, "but you and I cannot yet be kindred - for hog is not bacon until it is well hanged."⁷

(2)From Edmund Waller:

Edmund Waller had written a lengthy "Panegyrick" to Oliver Cromwell the Protector. When the Restoration came about after Cromwell's death, the same Waller was not long in singing the "Happy Return" of Charles. When King Charles read this second poem, addressed to himself, he told the poet that it was reported that he had written better verse to Oliver Cromwell.

Unperturbed and undaunted, the ready-witted Waller answered: "Please your Majesty, we poets always excel in fiction.""

How neat and ingenious was the way of getting out of a difficult situation!

(3)From Dr. Busby:

Dr. Busby, presumably the headmaster of Westminster School, was a very small man. One day he was accosted by a very tall Irish baronet with: "May I pass to my seat, O giant!"

"Pass, O pigmy!" said the doctor, making way for him.

"Oh, sir," said the baronet, "my expression alluded to the size of your intellect."

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"And my expression, sir," retorted the doctor, "to the size of yours."⁹

(4)From James Quin:

Quin, the actor, did not lack in that coolness which remained undaunted at a difficult moment. A gentleman whom he had offended met him in a great rage and exclaimed: "Mr. Quin, I understand, sir, you have been taking away my name."

"What have I said, sir," asked the actor.

"You, you called me a scoundrel!"

"Well, sir, keep your name," said Quin, and walked on.¹⁰

(5)From Charles Bannister:

Bannister was an eighteenth-century actor. One day a friend of his was said to have been complaining that some malicious person had cut off his horse's tail, which, as he wished to sell it, must prove a great drawback.

"Not at all," said the actor, "you must now sell him wholesale."

"Wholesale!" exclaimed the other, "How so?" "Because you cannot re-tail him."¹¹

(6)From Lloyd George:

Lloyd George had the Celtic quickness of dual perception which is essential to wit. On one occasion when he was talking about Home Rule and saying that he wanted to see it not only for Ireland, but for Scotland and for Wales, an interrupter exclaimed, "And for hell, too."

"Certainly, my friend," came Lloyd George's unexpected retort, "I always like to hear a man standing up for his country."¹²

(7)From William S. Gilbert:

At one big gathering Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1931) had to take down to dinner a somewhat pretentious lady of the newly rich who, knowing nothing of music, posed as one of its patrons.

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"Oh, Mr. Gilbert," said she, "your friend Sullivan's music is really too delightful. It always reminds me of dear Batch (meaning Bach). Do tell me, what is Batch doing just now? Is he composing anything?"

"Well, no," replied Gilbert, in serious tone; "Batch is by way of decomposing."¹³

(8)From O'Leary:

John Philpot Curran, the barrister, and Father O'Leary were dining one day with Michael Kelly when the barrister said:

"Reverend Father, I wish you were St. Peter."

"And why, Counsellor, would you wish I were St. Peter?" asked O'Leary.

"Because, Reverend Father, in that case you would have the keys of heaven, and could let me in."

"By my honour and conscience, Counsellor," answered O'Leary, "it would be better for you if I had the keys of the other place [meaning, of course, hell], for then I could let you out."¹⁴

(9)From R.B. Sheridan:

During the trial of Warren Hastings, Sheridan, who was an M.P., was making one of his speeches when, having observed Gibbon among the audience, he took occasion to refer to "the luminous author of the 'Decline and Fall'." A friend afterwards reproached him for flattering the historian.

"Why, what did I say of him?" asked Sheridan.

"You called him the luminous author of the 'Decline and Fall'."

"Luminous!" repeated Sheridan, "Oh! of course I meant voluminous."¹⁵

(10)From Oscar Wilde (1856-1900):

(i) Sir Lewis Morris, the author of "The Epic of Hades", was complaining to Oscar Wilde of what he regarded as studied neglect of his claims when possible successors to the Laureateship were being discussed after Tennyson's death.

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Said Morris: "It is a complete conspiracy of silence against me - a conspiracy of silence! What ought I to do, Oscar?" "Join it," replied Wilde, with happy readiness.¹⁶

(ii)In a discussion on George Meredith, Oscar Wilde commented: "Meredith is a prose Browning - and so is Browning."¹⁷

(iii)Oscar Wilde possessed the power of spontaneous wit which he kept even when he was in an unfortunate position. He had the ill-luck of being sent to jail for a social offence. A friend visited him there and found him stitching gunny-bags. He hailed Wilde with the words: "Oscar, sewing?" Wilde at once replied: "No, reaping."¹⁸

(iv)When Oscar Wilde was introduced in Paris to the Comtesse de Noailles who had a charming mind but a very far from charming face, the Comtesse remarked: "Monsieur Wilde, I have the reputation of being the ugliest woman in Paris."

Wilde immediately bowed and with a most chivalrous wave of his hand said: "Oh no, Madame - in the whole

world."¹'

Let the long introduction end here. Now with the main part of this chapter which deals with Sri Aurobindo's own witty remarks. We do not propose to categorize the examples under different heads: let them appear in rapid succession in profuse variety of forms, and regale the readers with their polychrome spendour. Here is indeed a veritable feast of ceaseless mirth and laughter. And how wonderful! - Any and every occasion sufficed for Sri Aurobindo to look at it with a double perception and pour out his witty bons mots !

I. From Dr. Nirodbaran s bag:

(1) NB: S - pain_; burning "normal", i.e. you understand, I hope, this means normal pain.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course. It is the patient who is abnormal.²⁰

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(2)NB: Too busy to give us Force? Darshan is over, Sir! Sri Aurobindo: Darshan is over but Karshan is not.²¹ [Karshan means ploughing, cultivating, tilling, i.e., hard

labour.]

(3)NB: I am again prosaic and gloomy. Everybody is changing here; no change for me.

Sri Aurobindo: Everybody is who? Give me the good news.²²

(4)NB: Today at Pranam I felt a somewhat "blocky" feeling, if you know what I mean.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, though at first I was afraid you meant you felt blockheaded or felt foolish! but remembered in time the "block" of descent.²'

(5)Sri Aurobindo to Dr. NB: A has written twice about some eruption she is having - she said you would write to us about it, but there is no eruption in this book [Doctor's medical Notebook]. Please let me know what it is. An "eruption" may mean anything from prickly heat to —²⁴

(6)NB: I shall be very careful with D, and even if I have nothing to write to him, I shall write rubbish!

Sri Aurobindo: Right! Rubbish is usually better appreciated than things worth saying.²⁵

(7)NB: But what about my table? Forgotten? Ellipsis?

Out of the silence

What is the word that be

About my cane-table, Sir?

Shall I wait till Eternity?

Yes or no, do tell me, Sir;

Either can I take with surrender.

Sri Aurobindo: Forgot both the cane and the table. You can have if it is lying about.

Good Lord! Another! If you rhyme Sir and surrender you don't deserve a table but only a cane and plenty of it.²⁶

(8)NB: Friend C has sent a rupee to buy something for you. But your needs are so few and you are so strict about hygiene. At times I wonder why the Divine is so meticulously particular as regards contagion, infection. Is he vulnerable to the viruses,

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bacilli, microbes, etc.?

Sri Aurobindo: And why on earth should you expect the Divine to feed himself on germs and bacilli and poisons of all kinds? Singular theology yours!²⁷

(9)NB: But whatever miracle might happen, I don't see any chance for my caravan!

Sri Aurobindo: Too many dogs of depression bark?

NB: Too many dogs of depression, Sir, too many! And not only dogs, but cats and jackals and a host of other friends have made my life a misery!

Sri Aurobindo: Why are you so fond of this menagerie as to keep it with you? Turn them out into the street. Or, if that is not charitable to others, drown them in the sea. Don't shake your sorrowful head and say it is easier to say than to do. It is quite possible. It is only the Man of Sorrows that prevents it.²⁸

(10)NB: I have been unusually happy after months!... Man of Sorrows was non-existent - kicked out? But unfortunately he is trying to poke his face again!

Sri Aurobindo: Twist his nose.²⁹

(11)NB: Everybody else seems to be working with so much interest, and look at me. What a curious mixture am I!

Sri Aurobindo: Too many ingredients in too small and unstable proportions?

NB: In any case, break this old being, Sir, and let something emerge, whatever it be!

Sri Aurobindo: All right; let's have a try. Hammer, hammer, hammer! Only the being in question is a little - shall we say, solid?⁵⁰

(12)NB: And why should you stupefy me? Good Lord! Have you forgottten how Arjuna was stupefied, horrified, flabbergasted by seeing the Vishwarup [the supreme or universal Form] of Krishna whom he had thought of as his friend, guru, playmate? Could I for a moment play all these pranks on you if I saw your Vishwarup?

Sri Aurobindo: But that was because the Vishwarup was enjoying a rather catastrophic dinner, with all the friends and relations of Arjuna stuck between his dangstrani karalani [terrible tusks].

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But my vishwarupa has no tusks, Sir, none at all. It is a pacifist vishwarup."

(13)NB: I am obliged to sleep out for a few days because of repairs in our house. The whole building is smelling of lime, lime and lime.

Sri Aurobindo: If you want to be a real Yogi, go on sniffing and sniffing at the lime till the smell creates an ecstasy in the nose and you realise that all smells and stinks are sweet and beautiful with the sweetness and beauty of the Brahman.³²

(14)NB: I am wallowing again in the morass of the 3 Ds, now that I am free from my attendance on S.

Sri Aurobindo: Stand up, man, and don't wallow! Stand up and fix your third eye on the invisibly descending Tail of the Supramental.

NB: If I could apply myself to some pursuits that would be obligatory!

Sri Aurobindo: How to make them obligatory unless you do something which will take you to jail!

NB: Interest in poetry and reading has dwindled, and now I'm on the way to be a "subconscient ass".

Sri Aurobindo: Why not become a conscious one?³³

(15)NB: Please don't keep the Library book for long. Otherwise Premanand [the librarian] will lose all his prem and anand! [Love and bliss]

Sri Aurobindo: He is always doing that and losing his hair too into the bargain. If he objects to my keeping the book, I will give him a clout on the head which will help to keep his hair on.

NB: Have you written: "... I will give him a club on the head..."? He will die, Sir, but if he doesn't a doctor will be needed!

Sri Aurobindo: Clout, clout. A clout is a harmless thing — at most you will have to put a bandage.³⁴

(16)NB: About M's vomiting, Dr. Manilal says that since it is from birth, it has nothing to do with the accident. I wonder if it is the result of too much meditation and concentration which he used to do.

Sri Aurobindo: But surely he did not do a lot of concentration

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before birth?³⁵

(17)NB: I have composed two lines:

"The rich magnificence of the wandering sun Reflects my splendour from still height to height." Sri Aurobindo: I say, there ought to be a limit to your splendour!³⁶

(18)NB: I am pained when I hear people saying - after all Pondicherry has brought X to this!

Sri Aurobindo: Why can't they say he has acquired a Godlike samata? Don't you remember the loka - A Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and an outcaste are all the same to the sage? So X can embrace even actors - hope, he will stop short of the actresses, though.³⁷

(19)NB: What do you think of my taking lessons in English metre now? But at times I feel that after there's an improvement in Bengali poetry, I can try. Otherwise, I shall be Jack of all trades, master of none!

Sri Aurobindo: There is no harm in studying English metre. It won't prevent you becoming a John of some trades hereafter.³⁸

(20)NB: (On having completed 100 days of his stay in the Ashram) May I be permitted to see you on the 16th instant - the centenary of my arrival here?

Sri Aurobindo: I say, you have not been here 100 years, surely!³'

(21)NB: Do you think learning si tar will be useful to me? Sri Aurobindo: I don't see much use in sitarring - but if

you do!⁴⁰

(22)NB: In meditation, I had again a stillness of the inner and the outer being, but the body was gradually bending down as if I were in a light sleep. I could remember that you were there and others besides. Was that a state of sleep due to a full stomach?

Sri Aurobindo: Is that the medical man's explanation of the experience? If a full stomach can produce experiences, you might perhaps treble or quadruple your rations.⁴¹

(23)NB: By the way, people get poems, pictures in

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meditation and I seem to get only letters and points for letters! Since letters and discussions are interdicted I have been obliged to draw inspiration from sleep. And I find that sleeping has a decided advantage in this Yoga!

Sri Aurobindo: You get letters in meditation! that would be fine - it would save me the trouble of writing them, simply project into your meditation instead of sending through Nolini [the secretary]! No objection to sleep - the land of Nod has also its treasures.⁴²

(24)NB: I am thinking of doing some studies in English language, not for any creative purpose, but for recreation.

With this aim in view, I want to take up your immortal philosophy - though my walnut of a brain can't do much with it — and if you will allow, have some discussions with you, at intervals.

Sri Aurobindo: Provided the discussions can be put in a "walnut" shell!⁴³

(25)NB: I am thinking of taking some milk-tea and butter in the morning. Will it be a move to the 'left'? If so, I give it up at once.

Sri Aurobindo: Butter in milk-tea? Never heard of such a meal before! Is it symbolic of the Supramental?⁴⁴

(26)NB: Let me then say definitely that I love you and you love me a little. And let us meet somewhere in this real matter. You may remark, "This man has gone mad, otherwise why all these asthmatic gaspings?" Yes, I am mad, Sir, and impatient too.

Sri Aurobindo: Ummm! don't you think there are enough people in that condition already here without the Ashram doctor adding himself to the collection?⁴⁵

(27)NB: And if you have to wait for absolute purity of nature before the Supramental can come down I should say that you will have to go on waiting and waiting!

Sri Aurobindo: Whose nature? It is I who have to bring it down. Do you mean to insinuate that I am impure? Sir, I raise my blameless head in dignified remonstrance.⁴⁶

(28)NB: One material point. Can you sanction 3 pice worth

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of milk from the dairy, for an afternoon cup of tea?

Sri Aurobindo: Very revolutionary and hair-raising proposal, but you can do it and risk the loss of hair.

NB: What is this revolutionary invention of yours? Tea a cause of loss of hair? I am sure all the tea plantations over the world will send up loud lamentations if this theory be true!

Sri Aurobindo: It was not the tea but the 3 p. milk and the cause and effect were psychophysical, so there is no difficulty in accepting the theory.⁴⁷

(29)NB: X says that I have in me some capacity for "intuitive criticism" - whatever it may mean. I don't think I have got the right type of mind for criticism, or enough knowledge. Behind my bad logic, do you see any signs of a budding critic — intuitive or otherwise?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the easiest thing in the world to be a critic. Just look wise and slang the subject in grave well-timed sentences. It does not matter what you say.⁴⁸

(30)NB: Have I the necessary requirements for the sadhana? The only thing I seem to have is a deep respect for you, which almost all people have today.

Sri Aurobindo: It is good that for accuracy's sake you put in the 'almost'.⁴⁹

(31)NB: R's pleurisy is much better. The remaining few signs are of no importance, only he must not expose himself to cold, neither smoke much nor take wine.

Sri Aurobindo: Jehovah! You are recommending him a little smoke and wine? What next? All right - except for the last ominous touch.⁵⁰

(32)NB: People are longing to see the first batch of the supramental species from your great laboratory, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: Go forward, go forward and show yourself.⁵¹

(33)NB: What about Dr. R's subtle suggestion to take up this case?

Sri Aurobindo: A subtle silence.⁵²

(34)NB: A had a mild diarrhoea; his relatives made a great affair of it by caressing, fondling and surrounding him all the time!

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Sri Aurobindo: Killed with kindness?"

(35)NB: Today P came for her eyes. All on a sudden she burst out into sobs - God knows why!

Sri Aurobindo: God doesn't.⁵⁴

(36)NB: I suppose there is some play of yours behind the recent quarrel I had with X.

Sri Aurobindo: No, sir, no. Dramas are not my play. I detest them."

(37)NB: Please read C's letter on M's opinion on your philosophy. How can he compare your Yoga with Ramakrishna's! Yet he is considered as an authority on your yogic philosophy!

Sri Aurobindo: In a way he is, i.e. he is an authority on his own ideas about my yogic philosophy. But from whom can you expect more than that?⁵⁶

(38)NB: Even Sri Ramakrishna's baby-cat type of sadhak has to make a decisive movement of surrender and compel the rest of the being to obedience, which is the most difficult thing on earth.

Sri Aurobindo: I never heard that the baby-cat was like that - if it were it would not be a baby-cat. (It is the baby-monkey trying to become a baby cat who does that.) But you have evidently so great a knowledge of spiritual things (surpassing mine and Ramakrishna's) that I can only bow my head and pass humbly on to people with less knowledge.⁵⁷

(39)NB: If anybody can do the baby-cat surrender at a stroke, is it not because his "unfinished curve" in the past life has finished it in this?

Sri Aurobindo: Hail, Rishi, all-knower! Tell us all about our past lives.⁵⁸

(40)NB: What is the use of your complaining, Sir? You have committed the grave blunder of coming into this sorrowful world with a mighty magical pen. Sri Krishna, I conjecture, may have complained about his lungs because of his incessant blowing and fluting to melt our hearts!

Sri Aurobindo: It is an idea! Strange that none of the poets has mentioned it - a modernist poet would catch it at once. "The Flute and the Lungs" or "Krishna's Bronchitis."⁵⁹

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(41)NB: Is it really an illusion I am cherishing that the Force will some day galvanise the consciousness? What do you say about this some day?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is an admirable exercise in faith! As for the result, some day, one day, many days, no day - why bother?

(42)NB: You have so abruptly stopped writing about the Yogic Force.

Sri Aurobindo: I didn't stop because I didn't begin. I wrote some scattered answers only and intimated to you that volumes might come out in future... which you would probably not read.⁶¹

(43)NB: As I thought - no help but to wait for canalisation and in the meantime carry on. I suppose all 'lacks' will be removed by the descent of Force?

Sri Aurobindo: Obviously, obviously!

NB: 'Obviously, obviously!' What obviously, Sir? When will the blessed Force descend?

Sri Aurobindo: That is irrelevant. The time of its descent has nothing to do with its obviousness.⁶²

(44)NB: If everything goes on so tremendously slow, isn't it enough to make one despair and sit and lament? Because one doesn't know how the devil one should proceed!

Sri Aurobindo: If you appeal to the devil, you can't proceed.⁶³

(45)NB: We examine chemically first a sample of urine, i.e. by chemical re-agents, which is called qualitative test. You ought to know that from your English Public School chemistry, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: Never learned a word of Chemistry or any damned science in my school. My school, sir, was too aristocratic for such plebian things.⁶⁴

(46)NB: I felt an immense joy at the Darshan, but it ebbed away as soon as I came down.

Sri Aurobindo: It sounds like facilis descensus Averno. [In

* Hanker never after results.

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Latin: Easy the descent to Hell.] But after all downstairs and Erebus are not the same thing.⁶⁵

(47)NB: At present I am only sleeping and sleeping, no aspiration, no will, nothing — shunyam, void! Please save me from this Dilipian despair.

Sri Aurobindo: But why hug despair without a cause — Dilipian or other? Come to your senses and develop a Nirodian jollity instead (not necessarily Mark Tapleyan,* though that is better than none). Laugh and be fat - then dance to keep the fat down — that is a sounder programme.⁶⁶

(48)NB: You have finished the prospective action of the Supramental Force by two "yes"s and one "no". Evidently you are shy about it, or time is shy.

Sri Aurobindo: Time and I both are shy, good reason why. (Nishikanto says rhyme is quite common in Bengali prose, so why not in English too?)⁶⁷

(49)NB: I had a queer dream last night: I was bowing with love and devotion before a dark-complexioned gentleman, and he with equal affection raised me up and said: "You will require 18 years (Good Lord!!) to realise the Divine, out of which 12 years will pass away in just knocking about and playing." Heartrending prophecy! But who is this old gentleman, and what does his prophecy amount to — please?

Sri Aurobindo: The old dark-complexioned gentleman must be Old Nick, I suppose! and his prophecy amounts to Old Nickery.⁶⁸

(50)NB: I hear from all quarters that you are buried in letters... I don't know how you are ever going to keep your head above the mud of the letters, for your bhaktas, admirers are increasing by leaps and bounds. In the near future they will be millions, and millions of letters heaped upon your supramental segregation, if you don't relinquish it and come out boldly!

Sri Aurobindo: Come out and have millions and millions of admirers heaped upon my promiscuity? Thank you for nothing! The letters can be thrown into the W.P.B. [Waste-paper

* A light-hearted young man in Dickens's Martin Chuzxlewit.

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basket] more easily than the admirers can be thrown out of the window.⁶⁹

(51)NB: Surely the soul instead of sleeping has to aspire etc. to call down its Lord the Grace. Where do you see that aspiration in me? If you build my spiritual castle on those one or two minutes' brief visitations of Ananda and that too once or twice only, excluding the moments of Darshan of your great self, which also have been sometimes marred in these three years, then I can only say - well, what shall I say?

Sri Aurobindo: Better say nothing. It will sound less foolish.⁷⁰

(52)NB: Your belief is right, Guru! I didn't feel happy yesterday. However, nothing untoward has happened; almost no pain, but the swelling persists, asked to foment.

Sri Aurobindo: Mother suggests hot water - 1 part peroxide, 3 parts water - and dipping the finger for 15 minutes. Some of these things are cured by that - it ought really to be done immediately, but even now it may be effective.

NB: Why, that is exactly what we have advised J to do from the very start, only peroxide was not given.

Sri Aurobindo: You are taking daily almost exactly the same thing as Anglo-Indians take in their clubs, i.e. a peg. Only brandy and soda are not there - but the water is.⁷¹

(53)NB: This morning I lost my temper over N.P.'s obstinacy. He would not listen to my instructions. But can you tell me why I've been feeling a sort of antagonism towards him?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be a Dr. Fell affair: "The reason why I cannot tell."⁷²

(To appreciate in full Sri Aurobindo's witty reply to NB's query, those amongst our readers who do not already know the story behind the classic saying "The reason why I cannot tell" may please note the following:

Tom Brown "of facetious memory", born in 1663, went to Chirst College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen. But his irregularities were such that Dr. Fell, the dean of his college, threatened to expel him. But on receiving a submissive petition from the

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pupil he relented and promised to forgive the recalcitrant youngman if he would extemporize a translation of the Latin poet Martial's epigram beginning "Non amo te, Sabidi." Brown immediately responded with lines that have since become familiar as household words:

"I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I cannot love thee, Dr. Fell."⁷³)

II. From Dilip Kumar's bag:

(1) A sample of Sri Aurobindo's "pre-yogic humour":

The Prince of Baroda was going to be married. In those days — late nineteenth century — monogamy was not particularly insisted on. Sri Aurobindo was then Vice-Principal of the Gaekwar's College. When the distinguished guests had assembled for the wedding dinner, the royal bridegroom came up to him dignified and demure. The grave Vice-Principal, revered by all, shook hands with 'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes' and wished him "Many many happy returns of the day!"⁷⁴

(2)DK: Well, Guru, since my friend Chadwick has driven me to the wall (how can I cope with him in argument?) I will try henceforth to bleat faith and humility like a trembling lamb and not roar doubts like a dying lion.

Sri Aurobindo: Good, especially because one must be the lamb of God before being His lion.⁷'

(3)DK used to be often steeped in gloom and fall a victim to his old monitor Doubt. Once, terribly afflicted by this mental difficulty, he wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "Gurudev, how to wheedle this sceptic into believing when it only aches to probe, weigh and, lasdy, hold suspect everything that defies its scrutiny."

In reply Sri Aurobindo wrote a long letter on doubt in

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which he opened his indictment of doubt with these witty words:

"I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the 'doubt' whether any amount of writing or of anything else can persuade the external doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance...."⁷⁶

(4)In 1931, when the Golden Book of Tagore was being compiled, the great savant Pramatha Choudhuri wrote to DK urgent letters to induce Sri Aurobindo to contribute something. For he averred: "Tagore's Golden Book will be incomplete without Sri Aurobindo's tribute. Even a message of two lines or a couplet coming from him will be looked upon as a boon of his Grace...."

But Sri Aurobindo's Grace was not like Caesar's, amenable to flattery. He wrote back: "I take Pramatha Choudhuri's remark - that Tagore's Golden Book will be incomplete without my contribution - as a complimentary hyperbole. The Golden Book will be as golden and Tagore's work and fame as solid without any lucubration from me to gild the one or buttress the other."⁷⁷

(5)DK: O Guru, I could not meditate of late, thanks to mountains of proofs [coming from the Press]. But soon I will start like [the famous saint] Pahari Baba. So beware!

Sri Aurobindo: After mountains of proof the mountain of meditation, with you, the BABA, on top? All right: I am ready to face it.⁷⁸

(6)DK: O Guru, Lady Indignant is again down on us, males! She says man is such a foul seducer and poor woman (poor? a modern woman? good Lord?) such a guileless, simple and trustful tendril! I retaliated in banter and reminded her what Tagore had sighed over in the 'twenties: "We are a much maligned sex, Dilip! The fair one would have it that we pursue and harry her. But between you and me, do you think that the most leonine of lions could dare approach a woman if she really frowned upon his advances?"

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So adjudicate, Guru: who tempts first - man or woman? Or shall we say a la Sir Roger de Coverley: 'Much can be said on both sides'?

Sri Aurobindo: Dilip, it is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. To throw it all on woman is Adamism. To ignore the woman's part is feminism. Both are in error. Yes, Sir Roger is right.⁷⁹

III. From Amal Kiran's bag:

(1)AK: We have various guesses about your previous lives. The other day I happened to ask Nolini whether you were Shakespeare. He was diffident. My own belief is that you have somehow amalgamated all that was precious in those that manifested as Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Dante, Virgil and Milton: if not all, at least the biggest of the lot. Kindly let us know the truth. Among your other and non-poetic incarnations, some surmise Alexander and Julius Caesar.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Heavens, all that! You have forgotten that Mrs. Besant claims Julius Caesar. I don't want to be prosecuted by her for misappropriation of personality. Alexander was too much of a torrent for me; I disclaim Milton and Virgil, am unconscious of Dante and Valmiki, diffident like Nolini about the Bard (and money-lender?) of Avon. If, however, you can bring sufficiently cogent evidence, I am ready to take upon my back the offences of all the famous people in the world or any of them; but you must prove your case....⁸⁰

(2)AK: When Paul Brunton saw you, he had the impression of you as a Chinese sage.

Sri Aurobindo: Confucius? Lao-Tse? Mencius? Hang-whang-pu? Don't know who the last was, but his name sounds nice!⁸¹

(3)AK: That incorrigible Nirod has a chronic habit of misquoting me. He garbles my words, misreads my corrections,

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attributes to me opinions I am quite innocent of! A few weeks back he coolly told me that I had definitely declared that Milton had written his "Paradise Lost" from the Overmind! Meher-cule! what's to be done with that fellow?

Sri Aurobindo: He ought to be sentenced to penal servitude - let us say, condemned to produce at least 14 lines of overhead poetry without the means to do it and then abused for not doing it. It is the only proper and sufficient inconsequent punishment for such inconsequence.⁸²

And thus ends the chapter on Sri Aurobindo's wit.

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REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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Chapter 13

Sri Aurobindo's Humour-Miscellany

In the last chapter, we have given a number of examples of Sri Aurobindo's wit; the present chapter will be devoted to the exemplification of his sustained humour.

Wit, as we have already noted, is a form of intellectual quickness, raillery and repartee; it may often be the flash of an isolated sentence. For its production the writer or the speaker, as the case may be, often takes recourse to verbal jugglery.

Humour, on the contrary, - in its technical sense and not in its generic connotation - has to rise to a higher level and exploit for its production the artful manipulation of the ideas involved. At times there may not be even a single verbal device and yet the humour may be sustained over a long extended passage. Or, perhaps, simple innocuous twists given to the words here and there enliven the narration with a humorous glow.

Also, wit generally surprises our mind, but humour, appealing to our heart as well, becomes more delightful. And what is more, humour frequently exhibits generous and benevolent sentiments which, although expressed in an odd out-of-the-way manner, justly command our fondness and love. Humour may even be a translucent guise to hide our tender feelings. No irritation even in the face of undesirable situations, no ill-feelings even against those who wrongly oppose, no biting sarcasm nor even the slightest trace of any rancour, but the soft soothing glow of the rising sun in a winter morning - this is humour as the highest and richest form of the comic. And the examples that the following pages will show of Sri Aurobindo's humour will testify to these observations again and again. We shall have, so to say, a refreshing and edifying dip in the crystal-clear waters of the gurgling Ganges.

But before we come to Sri Aurobindo's own humour, let us introduce this chapter with three pieces of humour, both short and long, produced by the ingenuity of three artists of words.

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(1)Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was a play-writer, also a director of his own plays. When H.M.S. Pinafore was being rehearsed, Gilbert said to Mr. Rutland Barrington, the actor who was enacting the role of the hero, "Cross left on that speech, Barrington, and sit on the skylight over the saloon pensively." The actor did so, but the skylight collapsed completely, upon which Gilbert said: "That's expensively."¹

(2)John Laurence Toole, an inimitable comedian of the nineteenth century England, did not believe in what he called "the quackery" of memory-teaching lessons. In order to illustrate the "effect" of a course of mnemonics he often narrated the following story:

"You know there was a man who paid a couple of guineas for effective memory lessons. After the course was over, he went back home but soon after returned to the place where he had received the lessons; he rang the bell, and on being asked what he wanted, said, 'I have forgotten my umbrella.' "²

The readers must have noted that out of the two examples cited above the first one had a play on the words "pensively" and "expensively" whereas the second one does not depend on any verbal device to create the excellent humorous effect that it actually does. Here is our third example, a rather longish one, which spins out an elaborate bit of fooling at the cost of a judge called Lord Avonmore who was rather vain about his knowledge of classical tongues like Greek and Latin.

John Philpot Curran, born on 24th July, 1750, was in due course called to the Irish Bar. Barrister Curran was fond of a form of humorous mystification. One day he appeared before the said judge Avonmore and addressed himself to a jury constituted of some ordinary Dublin shopkeepers whose knowledge of English was poor, not to speak of their acquaintance with Greek and Latin!

This is how Barrister Curran began his address:

(3)"I remember, gentlemen, I remember the ridicule with

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which my learned friend has been pleased so unworthily to visit the poverty of my client; and remembering it, neither of us can forget the fine sentiment of a great Greek historian upon the subject, which I shall take the liberty of quoting in the original, as no doubt it must be most familiar to all of you."

And Curran was addressing himself to the Dublin shopkeepers!

He continued: "It is to be found in the celebrated work of Hesiod, called the 'Phantasmagoria'. After expatiating upon the sad effects of poverty, you may remember — don't you remember, gentlemen? - Hesiod pathetically remarks:

'Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se

Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.'"

On hearing this recitation by Curran Lord Avonmore bristled up at once. "Why, Mr. Curran, Hesiod was not an historian - he was a poet, and for my part I never heard before of any such poem by him as the 'Phantasmagoria'."

"Oh, my good lord, I assure you he wrote it."

"Well, well, it may be so - I'll not dispute it, as you seem to be so very serious about it, but at all events, the lines you quoted are Latin, not Greek — they are undoubtedly Juvenal's."

"Perhaps, my lord, he quotes them from the 'Phantasmagoria'."

"Tut, tut, man; I tell you they're Latin - they are just as familiar to me as my Blackstone."

"Indeed, my good lord, they're Greek."

"Why, Mr. Curran, do you want to persuade me out of my senses? - I tell you they're Latin - can it be possible that your memory so fails you?"

"Well, my lord," said Curran, "I see plainly enough we never can agree upon the subject - but I'll tell you how it can be easily determined. If it was a legal question, I should of course bow at once to the decision of your lordship, but it is not - it's a mere matter of fact, and there's only one way I know of

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deciding it. Send it up as a collateral issue to that jury, and I'll be bound they'll - find it Greekl"¹

Wonderful, Mr. Curran! the jury of shopkeepers will surely find the quotation Greek!

We now come to Sri Aurobindo's own humour touching topics as diverse as they possibly can be under the sun, and everywhere it is so sweet, so enlivening and at the same time so enlightening!

As elsewhere in the other chapters here too we have to enter the store-houses of the three privileged disciples Dilip Kumar, Nirodbaran and Amal Kiran, for it is they and they alone who happened to be the happy recipients of these humorous rejoinders from Sri Aurobindo.

I. From Dilip Kumar's treasury

(1) But what! But when! But which!

Bindu, a friend of Dilip's, once wrote to Sri Aurobindo a long letter besieging him with a number of world-shaking questions. Sri Aurobindo's reply was as follows:

"Bindu,

Good heavens! But what! But when! But which! You expect me to give you 'clear and concise' notes on all that, fixing the 'nature and salient features' of each blessed thing? It will take me several Sundays wholly devoted to grappling with this tremendous task! And how the deuce am I to tell you in a 'clear and concise way' what consciousness is or mind or life is? Do you think these confounded entities are themselves clear and concise or have any 'salient features'? They are 'salient' only in the Latin sense of jumping about all the time and becoming something different each moment. As for 'consciousness' you might as well ask me to define the world. Of course I could do it by replying - 'a damned mess', and that would be very satisfactory to me as well as 'clear and concise' but it would

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hardly serve the purpose."⁴

(2)Bindu's Prasad preparation:

In those days Sri Aurobindo or the Mother never allowed outsiders to cook for them. But Bindu's sheer importunate genius prevailed and he was allowed to cook what they in the Ashram called prasad. This he sent up duly to Sri Aurobindo who ate of it but not much, whereupon Bindu penned him a disconsolate letter:

"Gurudev, Nalina brought me back the dishes. I was stunned to find that you had hardly touched them. I am deeply pained, sorely disappointed, utterly dejected and mortally wounded, and cannot imagine why you are so unsympathetic to me."

Sri Aurobindo wrote back a sweet letter of solace:

"Bindu! Don't be absurd! Our sympathy towards you is profound and perfect, but it cannot be measured by our sympathy towards your eatables. We, usually, just taste the prasad people send to us; sometimes we take more but never when it is very sweet or very extraordinary. Of your vermicelli pudding we could well speak in the language of the passionate address of the lover to his beloved: 'O sweet! O too too sweet!' (which doesn't mean, though, that it was not well done). And the stew was extraordinary, albeit of another world — so much so that if I tasted the first forkful with anxiety, the second was with awe, after which I ventured no farther into these unknown countries...."⁵

(3)Three pieces of jolly news!

Dilip Kumar: O Guru, three solid pieces of jolly news: first, a Muslim writer named Abul Fazl comes to congratulate me because in my recent controversy with Tagore, he opines, the latter had very much the worst of it. Then comes a savant who praises my Bengali novel, Dola. Last, though not least, turns up a Zamindar who implores me to draft for him an address for a local doctor who has been honoured by a Rajah.

Now tell me, do you smile on it or frown?

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Sri Aurobindo: I sympathise. Three cheers for Abul Fazl and the savant. But I don't feel enthusiastic about the doctor even though honoured by a Rajah! What are things coming to! (Please don't tell this to Nirod [who happens to be a doctor.]) Perhaps, however, it may be on the principle: 'Honour the doctor that thy life may be long in the land!' But then to call in an eminent litterateur like you is after all appropriate. You can furnish them with a long address on the romance of medicine beginning with Dhanwantari, Charaka and Galen and ending with Nirod Talukdar or Dr. Ramchandra.⁶

(4)Sri Aurobindo's taste of Maharatta cookery:

On learning that the Maharaja of Dewas had invited DK to dinner Sri Aurobindo wrote to the latter:

"I hope your dinner did not turn out like my first taste of Maharatta cookery — when for some reason my dinner was non est and somebody went to my neighbour, a Maharatta Professor, for food. I took one mouthful and only one, O God! Sudden fire in the mouth could not have been more cataclysmic! Enough to bring down the whole of London in one agonised sweep of flame!"⁷

(Readers will please mark the note of exaggeration which, as we have seen before, may be, when judiciously used, one of the principal constitutive elements in the production of humour.)

(5)Special permission to correspond:

When Sri Aurobindo's correspondence to his disciples in the Ashram increased to unconscionable proportions and he had to deal with them all by himself night after night from 9 p.m. till 5 a.m. the next morning, Mother intervened and decided that henceforth only a few were to be allowed to write to him, by special permission. But as the number of the privileged ones mounted day by day, DK wrote to Sri Aurobindo:

"To how many have you given a special permission to write to you daily? Nirod confided to me - it's 121. Bindu says -impossible, it is only 97, out of the present total [of Ashramites] 150."

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Sri Aurobindo: The number openly accepted is - two by tacit understanding, two by express notice and two by self-given permission. If it had been 97 or 121, I would have translated myself to the Gobi desert or the Lake Manasa in the style of Sri Bijay Krishna Goswami.⁸

(6)Sri Aurobindo refusing Prof. Radhakrishnan's request!

Once when an offer came from Sir Sarvapalli Radhakrish-nan that he would introduce Sri Aurobindo to the West if he wrote a philosophical article for the Westerners, he declined and wrote to Dilip Kumar:

"Look here! Do these people expect me to turn myself again into a machine for producing articles? The times of the Bande Mataram and Arya are over, thank God!...

"But I don't know how to excuse myself to Radhakrishnan — for I can't say all that to him. Perhaps you can find a formula for me? Perhaps: 'so occupied, not a moment for any other work, can't undertake because he might not be able to carry out his promise.' What do you say?...

"I had some thought of writing to [Prof.] Adhar Das pointing out that he was mistaken in his criticism of my ideas about consciousness and intuition and developing briefly what were my real views about these things. But I have never been able to do it. I might as well think of putting the moon under my arm, Hanuman-like - although in his case it was the sun - and going for a walk. The moon is not available and the walk is not possible. It would be the same if I promised to Radhakrishnan -it would not be done and that would be much worse than a refusal...."⁹

(7)Karma-puzzle put by DK:

Sri Aurobindo's reply to DK: "... You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But something puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction! - you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased

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gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last few years of his life in talking about the Divine and receiving disciples - was that not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin work?...

"I do not know why you drag in humanitarianism, Subhas's activism, philanthropical services, etc.... I never thought that the Congress politics or feeding the poor or writing beautiful poems would lead straight to Vaikuntha or the Absolute. If it were so, Romesh Dutt on one side and Baudelaire on the other would be the first to attain the highest and welcome us there....

"My remarks about being puzzled were, by the way, mere Socratic irony. Of course I am not in the least puzzled by the case either of Shankara or of Ramakrishna...."¹⁰

(8)It happened once that one of Sri Aurobindo's disciples on whom he had lavished his love declined to change and deserted. A year later this man wrote to Dilip Kumar flaunting not only an ephemeral success of a trivial undertaking of his but rationalising it into a deep (?) philosophy. DK forwarded to Sri Aurobindo the gist of his friend's philosophy of life which was as follows:

"Life is a mirror, Dilip, and being a mirror, it must return smile for smile and frown for frown."

Sri Aurobindo commented: "As for his 'philosophy' it is phrases and nothing else: what he means is, I suppose, that when one is successful one can be jolly - which is not philosophy but commonplace, only he turns it upside down to make it look wise. Or perhaps he means that if you smile at Mussolini and Hitler they will spare you castor-oil or cudgel: but even that is not sure, for they may want to know what the smile means first - flattery or satire."¹¹

(9)DK's 6-point resolution and Sri Aurobindo's rejoinder:

Dilip Kumar: O Guru, so be it. Since I have been hanging too long in mid-air and must land somewhere somehow, anyhow - therefore I propose - subject to your approval - a

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drastic prescription for my long-suffering .unconvalescing self.

Number one. I will give up tea: I love it.

Number two. I will do without cheese: I like it.

Number three. I will bid adieu to tasty dishes and start periodic fasts.

Number four. Will forswear hair-oil and shave my head.

Number five. I will sleep on only one sole blanket, pillowless.

Number six. I will sleep without the mosquito-curtain which, I fear, will be the most difficult of all feats because I have never been able to hail the crooning of the mosquito as a lullaby.

Only believe me when I say that although I move this resolution in a language that may sound unparliamentary, my heart is really heavy and tearful, since I can see no shorter cut to salvation. So, in the circumstances, will you and the Mother ratify my resolution, or amend, please?

Sri Aurobindo: I stand aghast as I stare at the detailed proposals made by you! Fastings? I don't believe in them, though I have done them myself. You would really eat like an ogre afterwards.

Shaved head? Have you realised the consequences? I pass over the aesthetic shock to myself at Darshan on the 24th November from which I might never recover — but the row that would rise from the Cape Comorin to the Himalayas! You would be famous in a new way which would cast all your previous glories into the shade. And just when you are turning away from fame and all the things of the ego! NO: too dangerous by half.

Sleep without the mosquito-net? That would mean no sleep, which is as bad as no food. Not only your eyes would become weak, but yourself also - and, to boot, gloomy, grey and gruesome — more gruesome than the Supramental of your worst apprehensions! No and no again. As for the rest, I placed some of them before the Mother and she eyed them without favour....

I have noticed about ascetics by rule that when you remove the curb they become just like others — barring a few exceptions, of course - which proves that the transformation was not

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real. A more subtle method used by some is to give up for a time, then try the object of desire again and so go on till you have thoroughly tested yourself; e.g., you give up your potatoes and eat only the Ashram food for a time — if the call comes for the potatoes or from them, then you are not cured: if no call comes, still you cannot be sure till you have tried potatoes again, and seen whether the desire, attachment or sense of need revives. If it does not and the potatoes fall away from you of themselves, then there is some hope that the thing is done.

However, all this will make you think that I am hardly fit to be a Guru in the path of asceticism and you will probably be right. You see, I have a strong penchant for the inner working and am persuaded that if you give the psychic a chance it will rid you of the impediments you chafe at without all this sternness and trouble....

But how in the earthly did you get this strange idea that we were pressing asceticism on you? When? How? Where? I only admitted it as a possibility after repeated assertions from you that you wanted to do this formidable thing, and it was with great heart-searchings and terrible apprehensive visions of an ascetic Dilip with wild weird eyes and in loin-cloth, eating ground-nuts and nails and sleeping on iron-spikes in the presence of a dumbfounded Lord Shiva! I never prescribed the thing to you at all: it was you who were clamouring for it, so I gave in and tried to make the best of it, hoping that you would think better of it. As for the Mother, the first time she heard of it she knocked it off with the most emphatic 'Nonsense!' possible.

In fact what you proposed was even more formidable than my vision - a shaven-headed and mosquito-bitten Dilip in loincloth and the rest (not that you actually proposed the last but it is the logical outcome of the devastating shave!). Conquest of attachment is quite a different matter - one has to learn to take one's tea and potatoes without weeping for them or even missing them if they are not there....

So your subtle interpretation of our intentions or wishes was a bad misfit. However, all is well that ends well and... I will

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consider the danger over. Laus Deo!¹²

II. From Amal Kiran's treasury

(1)Amal Kiran : There is an idea that Harin is a reincarnation of Shelley. It is supposed to be based on your own intuition and the Mother's or least a practical certainty on your part as well as on here. The character of H's poetry seems to add colour to the idea. .

Sri Aurobindo: I have never had any practical certainty or any certainty that Harin was Shelley - what by the way is this practical certainty? The phrase would mean normally that I was not quite sure about it but rather felt as if it might be so. I asked Mother and she said that the question had frequently been raised and she spoke to me about it and I said it might be so. If that is what is meant by practical certainty, then of course! But how is that an intuition? The question was often raised, often by Harin himself because he was anxious to have it confirmed - I remember to have replied in the negative.

No doubt there was a strong Shelleyan vein in Harin's poetry, but if everybody who has that is to be accounted a reincarnation of Shelley, we get into chaotic waters. In that case, Tagore must be a reincarnation of Shelley, and Harin, logically, must be a reincarnation of Tagore - who couldn't wait till Tagore walked off to Paradise or Shelley must have divided himself between the couple. It may be that afterwards I leaned at a time towards a hesitating acceptance, but I am certain that I was never certain about it..."

(2)Amal Kiran : What happened to my request for a message to grace the special number of [the journal] mother India of August 15? I have heard nothing from you .

Sri Aurobindo: I have been trying to get you informed without success about the impossibility of your getting your expected Message from me for the 15th August. I had and have no intention of writing a Message for my birthday this year. It is psychologically impossible for me to manufacture one to command...

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If I started doing that kind of thing, my freedom would be gone; I would have to write at everybody's command, not only articles but blessings, replies on public questions and all the rest of that kind of conventional rubbish. I would be like any ordinary politician publishing my views on all and sundry matters, discoursing on all sorts of subjects, a public man at the disposal of the public. That would make myself, my blessings, my views and my Messages exceedingly cheap; in fact, I would no longer be Sri Aurobindo.

Already the Hindusthan Standard, the Madras Mail and I know not what other journals and societies are demanding at the pistol's point special messages for themselves and I am supposed to stand and deliver. I won't. I regret that I must disappoint you, but self-preservation is a first law of nature.¹⁴

III. From Nirodbaran's treasury

(1) What a "woman" expects of a "man";

NB: I had been to the pier with Y. We were quietly resting on a bench with our feet up, when a Tamilian came with a stick in hand and ordered us to put our feet down. I was rather bewildered and put my feet down; so did Y. I said, maybe he is the guard of the pier. Behind us Purani and others were sitting with their feet up, but he didn't tell them anything. This made Y very excited and she said that he had insulted us. He was only a drunkard or a rogue. Then she accused me of cowardice for my abject submission. The first thing a woman respects and admires in a man is courage! etc., etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Obviously what you ought to have done was to go baldheaded for the Tamilian, bang up his eyes, smash his nose, extract some of his teeth, break his jaw and fling him into the sea. Afterwards if the police came to arrest you, disable half the force and slaughter the Inspector. Then Y would have come to you in jail and wept admiringly over the mighty hero. That's what a "woman" expects of a "man" since the cave days. It is also what a she-cat expects of a tom-cat.¹⁵

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(2)On feminine women and masculine women;

NB: What is meant by feminine women or masculine women?

Sri Aurobindo: Feminine is not used in opposition to masculine here, but means only a wholly unrelievedly feminine woman — a capricious, fantastic, unreasonable, affectionate — vitalistic, incalculable, attractive - intolerable, never-knows-what-she-is or what-she-isn't and everything else kind of creature. It is not really feminine, but is the woman as man has made her. By the way, if you like to add some hundred other epithets and double epithets after searching the Oxford dictionary you can freely do so. They can all be fitted in somehow.¹⁶

(3)Sri Aurobindo becoming 'grave, rough, stiff and gruff ?

NB: One misgiving is pressing heavily on my soul. I sense and feel that the tone of your letters has suddenly become very grave, rough, stiff and gruff - the owl-like severity with which you had once threatened me. Have I done anything to deserve punishment? Or is it because you are getting supramentalised day by day that you are withdrawing yourself so? There must be a reason if my sense-feel is correct. Well, if you want to press me between two planks and pulverise me... Not that I want it, you know.

Sri Aurobindo: I think your sense-feel has been indulging in vain imaginations, perhaps with the idea of increasing your concrete imaginative faculty and fitting you for understanding the unintelligible. As you have now much to do with mystic poetry, it may be necessary. But why object to being pulverised? Once reduced to powder, think how useful you may be as a medicine, Pulv. Nirod. gr. II. Anyhow disburden your soul of the weight. I am not owled yet and my supramentalisation is going on too slowly to justify such apprehensions. Neither I am withdrawing, rather fitting myself for a new rush in the near or far future. So cheer up and send the Man of Sorrows with his 'planks' to the devil.¹⁷

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(4)Sri Aurobindo 'shouting' differently at different times!

NB: Sometimes I feel that if the Divine loves all equally, even then X and myself, for example, transgressing some vital rules of the Ashram, will not be equally treated. In my saner moments I have tried to look at it more rationally.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not stand. Sometimes you might get nothing except perhaps an invisible stare; sometimes I might say, "Now, look here, Nirod, don't make an immortal ass of yourself - that is not the transformation wanted." Still another time I might shout, "Now! now! What the hell! what the blazes!" So it would depend on the occasion, not only on the person.¹⁸

(5)"Requests, beseeches, entreats" all in vain!

NB: Another letter from my friend Jatin. He has asked for the reply to his previous letter. Please do write something tonight, Sir. I request you, I beseech you, I entreat you, I pray to you. Do find out the letter from your heap — I can see it from here - and just a few marks and remarks will do. That's like the Divine!

Sri Aurobindo: Sorry, but your luck is not brilliant. Had a whole night i.e. after 3 no work - was ready to write. Light went off, in my rooms only, mark - tried candle power, no go. The Age of Candles is evidently over. So "requests, beseeches, entreats" were all in vain. Not my fault. Blame Fate! However, I had a delightful time, 3 hours of undisturbed concentration on my real work, - a luxury denied to me for ages. Don't tear your hair. Will be done another day with luck.¹⁹

(6)On the genesis and growth of vital-physical attachment:

(i) NB: Am invited for tea to the oculist's place - there's some function. I suppose it'll be rude not to go. Again social consciousness? - you may say. But say it again then, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, social consciousness - according to S.C., it is certainly rude not to go. What it may be from another S.C. (spiritual consciousness), is another matter.²⁰

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(ii)NB: If one has a double attachment, would it not be an insincerity?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the ideal. If it were a matter of the union of two lives, it would be an insincerity, a faithlessness. But for the vital? Its character is to change, sometimes to multiply, to run here and there. Unless of course it is caught, glued to a single attraction or passion for a long period or for a lifetime. But in such gluings it is generally one of the two that is entangled, the other skirmishes around dragging his living appendage or else leaving it half-glued, half-dropped.²¹

(iii)NB: X calls me now and then in the afternoon to taste something she has prepared. So I spend about 15-20 minutes on my way to hospital.

I like X's smile. It's innocent, childlike - nothing coquettish or sophisticated or trying to captivate.

Sri Aurobindo: Very dangerous! especially if you begin to luxuriate in the idea of her unsophisticated simplicity. Unsophisticated or not, if once the vital attachment is made, she will hold you as tightly as the other and with a greater violence of dabi [claim], abhiman [injured feelings] and the rest of it and, finally when the connection is cut, she will say and think that it was all your fault and that you are a very wicked person who took advantage of her foolishness and innocence. Well, well, you know about as much of women as a house-kitten knows about the jungle and its denizens and it is you who are in this field amazingly naive.

NB: If you think I had better stop this social relationship and check the unyogic enjoyment - I shall.

Sri Aurobindo: I certainly think that you should stop while there is yet time. It is no use getting out of one net to fall into another.

NB: Guru, you have castigated me for my inexperience, calling me sheep, lamb, house-kitten and what not. You will exhaust the whole zoology on me, methinks!

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? man has all the animals within him as he is an epitome of the universe.

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NB: I have resolved that next time X and Y call me, I shall go and "cleverly" tell them that it is the last time. Will it do, Sir? Sri Aurobindo

NB: I've given them mangoes and things before, as once you said regarding S's offer of curry, that it was quite trifling and absolutely harmless.

Sri Aurobindo: In S's case it was harmless, but similar things in another case might not be. All depends on the inflammability of the human materials in relation to each other. If they are mutually inflammable, a mango or a curry can be the match to light the flame.²²

(7) Fun with NB's boil!

NB: Again a boil on the left cheek. Good Heavens! No improvement.

Sri Aurobindo: As Rene's doctor says, "Tut tut tut tut tut tut."

NB: Punishment for too much talking or eating or subconscious welling out?

Sri Aurobindo: Probably.

NB: Boil a little ripe, but still -Hard and big as hazel-nut, In spite of your tut, tut, tut! Give one more dose at the least Or I howl on like a beast!

Sri Aurobindo: Tut nut tut, not nut tut tut!

Hope this will have the effect of a Tantric mantra which it resembles. So if you like OM ling bling hring kring! Just try repeating either of these 15,000 times concentrating on your boil {bling) at the time.

NB: Hard, throbbing painful boil. Slight fever, headache in the morning. Hot fomentation etc. Went to the 'miracle doctor', 4 powders! Added to these the Force! Does it budge? The game must be over by tomorrow, Sir. Otherwise I have to lie flat!

Sri Aurobindo: All this for a poor little boil? What would it be if you were put to roast?

NB: Did you really want me to chant that mantra? I took it

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as a big piece of joke.

Sri Aurobindo: You could not realise that Tut Tut Tut was a serious mantra with immense possibilities? Why, it is the modern form of [Upanishadic] tat and everybody knows that Om tat sat is a mantra of great power. Only you should as a penance for not having accepted at once, do it not 15,000 but 150,000 times a day - at a gallop, e.g. OM Tut a Tut, Tut a Tut, Tut a Tut and so on at an increasing pace and pitch till you reach either Berhampur* or Nirvana.

NB: Is it for nothing that I see the Red Light as the outcome of my misadventure?

Sri Aurobindo: Take courage. Say Tut tut tut to the misadventure and go ahead.

NB: Well, but what's the cure? That impossible mantra you gave me I am trying it though by fits and starts.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! What mantra? OM Tut a tut to to tuwhit tuwhoo? Man! But it is to be recited only when you are taking tea in the company of four Brahmins pure of all sex ideas and 5 ft. 11 inches tall with a stomach in proportion. Otherwise it can't be effective.²³

IV. On sadhana, sadhaks and spiritual themes

(1) "Happy-go-lucky fancy-web-spinning" sadhaks!

NB: With your silence, consciousness, overmental, partly supramental, etc., etc., it should be possible to draw from the highest plane, at the slightest pull, and it should tumble down, Sir, but it doesn't. Why not? We wonder and wonder! Could you send Alice to Wonderland and ask her to discover and divulge the secret to us - not in hints, but at length?

Sri Aurobindo: The highest planes are not so accommodating as all that. If they were so, why should it be so difficult to bring down and organise the supermind in the physical consciousness? What happy-go-lucky fancy-web-spinning ignoramuses you all are. You speak of silence, consciousness, over-

* A place once famous for its mental hospital.

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mental, supramental, etc. as if they were so many electric buttons you have only to press and there you are. It may be one day but meanwhile I have to discover everything about the working of all possible modes of electricity, all the laws, possibilities, perils, etc., construct roads of connection and communication, make the whole far-wiring system, try to find out how it can be made foolproof and all that in the course of a single lifetime. And I have to do it while my blessed disciples are firing off their gay or gloomy a priori reasonings at me from a position of entire irresponsibility and expecting me to divulge everything to them not in hints but at length. Lord God in omnibus!²⁴

(2)Pulling down the Supermind by tail-twists!

NB: And what is this again? You say you are in contact with the supermind and then again that you are very near the tail of it! Sounds funny! Contact and no contact?

Sri Aurobindo: ... it was better to be in contact with it [the Supermind] until I had made the path clear between S [Supermind] and M [Matter]. As for the tail, can't you approach the tail of an animal without achieving the animal? I am in the physical, in matter - there is no doubt about it. If I throw a rope up from Matter, noose or lasso the Supermind and pull it down, the first part of Mr. S that will come near me is his tail dangling down as he descends, and that I can seize first and pull down the rest of him by tail-twists. As for being in contact with it, well, I can be in contact with you by correspondence without actually touching you or taking hold even of your tail, can't I? So there is nothing funny about it - perfectly rational, coherent and clear.²⁵

(3)"Brahman asking Brahmam what Brahman is!"

NB: Guru, what the deuce is "Brahman consciousness"? It is not spiritual realisation, I suppose, I mean realisation of Self? You see I am a nincompoop in this business. Please perorate a little.

Sri Aurobindo: Eternal Jehovah! You don't even know

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what Brahman is? You will next be asking me what Yoga is or what life is or what body is or what mind is or what sadhana is! No, sir, I am not proposing to teach an infant class the A

Brahman, sir, is the name given by Indian philosophy since the beginning of time to the one Reality, eternal and infinite which is the Self, the Divine, the All, the more than All, which would remain even if you and everybody and everything else in existence or imagining itself to be in existence vanished into blazes - even if this whole universe disappeared, Brahman would be safely there and nothing whatever lost. In fact, sir, you are Brahman and you are only pretending to be Nirod; when Nishikanta is translating Amal's poetry into Bengali, it is really Brahman translating Brahman's Brahman into Brahman. When Amal asks me what consciousness is, it is really Brahman asking Brahman what Brahman is! There, sir, I hope you are satisfied now.

To be less drastic and refrain from making your head reel till it goes off your shoulders, I may say that realisation of the Self is the beginning of Brahman realisation; - the Brahman consciousness - the Self in all and all in the Self, etc....²⁶

(4) Difference between intuition and thought:

NB: Guru, your Intuition says everything to you? Have you nothing to think whether right or wrong? Alas! how then can the shishya follow the Guru!

Sri Aurobindo: Good Heavens! After a life of sadhana you expect me still to "think" and what is worse think what is right or wrong. I don't think, even; I see or don't see. The difference between intuition and thought is very much like that between seeing a thing and badgering one's brains to find out what the thing can possibly be like. Intuition is truth-sight - The thing seen may not be the truth? Well, in that case it will at least be one of its hundred tails or at least a hair from one of its tails. The very first step in the supramental change is to transform all operations of consciousness from the ordinary mental to the

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intuitive, only then is there any hope of proceeding farther, not to, but towards the supramental. I must surely have done this long ago otherwise how could I be catching the tail of the supramental whale?²⁷

(5)God's body born!

NB: Guru, I am puzzled! Your additional stanza of yesterday's poem is magnificent. But how can a "body" be born, either God's or an animal's, even if we admit God has a body?

Sri Aurobindo: It is I who am awfully puzzled by your puzzlement. A body is not born? When the child comes out of the womb, it is not a body that comes out and the coming out is not birth? It has always been so called in English. You have never heard the expression "the birth and death of the body"? What is it then that dies after having been born? The soul doesn't die, nor is it the soul that comes out of the womb! You think God cannot have a body? Brahmo idea? Then what of the incarnation - is it impossible? And how does the Divine appear in vision to the bhakta except by putting on a form - a body?... All the same one can understand a metaphysical (not a poetic) objection to God having a body if one believes that the Infinite cannot manifest the finite, but that an animal's body is not born is new to me.²⁸

[The stanza in question was:

"From which the cosmic fire

Sprang rhythmic into Space

That God's body might be born

And the Formless wear a face."]

(6)On the squeaking tamasic ego:

NB: ... Now about Yoga: you know how much progress I have made. I don't blame you. I can't meditate, I can't pray, I can't aspire. Without them, I don't see how I am to get anything. Why not do them - you ask? If I could, would I have troubled you with all these wailings? Since I can't, I have no peace, no joy! You can't give them without any urge or

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aspiration for them, can you?... If one can't aspire at all, where is his hope?

Sri Aurobindo: ... All the rest is dreary stuff of the tamasic ego. As there is a rajasic ego which shouts "What a magnificent powerful sublime divine individual I am, unique and peerless" (of course there are gradations in the pitch), so there is a tamasic ego which squeaks "What an abject, hopeless, worthless, incapable, unluckily unendowed and uniquely impossible creature I am, - all, all are great, Aurobindos, Dilips, Anilkumars (great by an unequalled capacity of novel-reading and self-content, according to you), but I, oh I, oh l!" That's your style.... It's all bosh - stuff made up to excuse the luxury of laziness, melancholy and despair. You are in that bog just now because you have descended faithfully and completely into the inner stupidity and die-in-the-mudness of your physical consciousness which, I admit, is a specimen! But so after all is everybody's, only there are different kinds of specimens. What to do? Dig yourself out if you can; if you can't, call for ropes and wait till they come. If God knows what will happen when the Grace descends, that is enough, isn't it? That you don't know is a fact which may be baffling to your - well, your intelligence, but is not of great importance - any more than your supposed unfitness. Who ever was fit, for that matter - fitness and unfitness are only a way of speaking; man is unfit and a misfit (so far as things spiritual are concerned) - in his outward nature. But within there is a soul and above there is Grace. "This is all you know or need to know" and, if you don't, well, even then you have at least somehow stumbled into the path and have got to remain there till you get hailed along it far enough to wake up to the knowledge. Amen.²⁹

(7) Too easy, too difficult, easy in parts and difficult in parts!

NB: ... I would not like to invite the same inevitable fate on my weak bony shoulders.... To think that five or six years more of barren desert stretch between me and the Divine Grace, coagulates my blood!

Please give an answer to these points - if no time tonight, tomorrow.

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Sri Aurobindo: Non, monsieur, — j'ai d'autres chats a fouetter. I have other cats to whip - I can't go on whipping one cat all the time. A few lashes in the margin are all I can spare for you just now.

There are three main possibilities for the sadhak -

1.To wait on the Grace and rely on the Divine.

2.To do everything himself like the full Adwaitin and the Buddhist.

3.To take the middle path, go forward by aspiration and rejection etc. helped by the Force.

The first, it appears, is too easy for you to do it; the second is too difficult for you to do; the third being easy in parts and difficult in parts is as impossible for you to do it. Right? Amen!!!'⁰

(8) NB: You deal too much with paradoxes and contradictory statements, for my little brain to understand. Compare these two statements: "There is the soul within and the Grace above", and "If you want things to happen there is no reason why they should happen at all." Are these not contradictions?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't see how it is contrary. Naturally the soul and the Grace are the two ends, but that does not mean that there is to be nothing between. You seem to have interpreted the sentence, "There is a dawdling soul within and a sleeping Grace above. When the Grace awakes, the soul will no more dawdle, because it will be abducted." Of course, it can happen like that, but as I put it, there is no reason why it should. Generally the soul wakes up, rubs its eyes and says, "Hallo, where is that Grace?" and begins fumbling around for it and pulling at things in the hope that Grace is at the other end of the said things. Finally it pulls at something by accident and the Grace comes toppling down full tilt from God knows where. That's the usual style - but there are others."

(9) Three ways of bringing down the force:

NB: I am getting more and more disappointed, still more in Yoga since I hear that you are now trying more for the transformation of nature than for experience.

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Sri Aurobindo: Because without transformation of nature, the blessed experience is something like a gold crown on a pig's head - won't do. Picturesque perhaps, but -

NB: What to do? How to bring down the Force?

Sri Aurobindo: How? is there a how?

You call, you open, it comes (after a time).

Or, you don't call, you open, it comes.

Or, you call, don't open, it doesn't come.

Three possibilities. But how -? Well, God he knows or perhaps he doesn't!

NB: You call, you open, you don't call, you open, you call, you don't open - no profounder mystery can there be than these your phrases!

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all, plain as your nose. Excuses to the nose! I gave you three different cases, - don't mix them up together.

NB: I have called for poetry, I have actually sat up for 2 hours, has it come?

Sri Aurobindo: You called but did not open, so it did not come.

NB: I am praying for A

Both instances establish my case. Q.E.D.

NB: Really your Yoga is a puzzle and I haven't been able to catch the head or tail of it, shall never perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo: You need not catch either its head or its tail. It will be sufficient if you allow it to catch your head or your tail or both! Cheerio! Tails forward!

NB: You said - I called, I didn't open. Isn't it mysterious when I called and sat up with paper and pencil for two hours? Then all I can say is that opening is a mysterious business!

Sri Aurobindo: Who says it is not?³²

(10) Modern-minded disciples who know all about everything!

NB: Everything seems to be queer in this world, this yogic world included. When a fellow works hard at French, Medicine,

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trying to improve his department and himself, and thereby serve the Divine, it is bad. Too much concentration and meditation is worse. When one follows the rule "eat, drink and be merry" it is worst. I am coming to X's view that your Yoga will always be yours.

Sri Aurobindo: There is where you miss the truth and he missed it also - he did not try to "improve himself", at any rate in any yogic way - he might try to aggrandise himself, but that is another matter. Self-aggrandisement does not save from collapse.

Well, I never heard that 'to eat, drink and be merry' was one of the paths of Yoga - unless Charvak's way is one of Yoga.

It is not my Yoga that is difficult to get the head or tail of - it is your and X's and others' views about Yoga that are weird and wonderful. If a fellow is brilliant in French and Sanskrit, you think he is a wonderful Yogi, but then it is the people who are first in the Calcutta B.A. who must be the great Yogis. If one objects to spending all the energy in tea and talk, you say, "What queer Gurus these are and what queer ideas", as if sociability were the base of the Brahman, or on the contrary you think that everybody must shut himself up in a dark room, see nobody and go mad with want of food and sleep — and when we object to that, you say, "Who can understand this Yoga?" Have you never heard of Buddha's maxim "No excess in any direction" - or of Krishna's injunction "Don't eat too much or abstain from eating, don't drop sleep or sleep too much; don't torture the soul with violent tapasya - practise Yoga steadily without despondency. Don't abstain from work and be inactive, but don't think either that work will save you. Dedicate your work to the Divine, do it as a sacrifice, reach the point at which you feel that the works are not yours but done for you etc., etc. Through meditation, through dedicated works, through bhakti - all these together arrive at the divine consciousness and live in it"? Buddha and Krishna are not considered to be unintelligible big Absurdities, yet when we lay stress on the same thing, you all stare and say "What's this new unheard-of stuff?" It is the result, I suppose, of having modern-minded disciples who know all about everything and can judge better than any guru, but to

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whom the very claims of Yoga are something queer and cold and strange. Kismet!"

(11)Ego and the use of the pronoun 'You'!

NB: I certainly want to improve my poetry to its zenith, but it must not bring in the egoistic idea that I have done it by my own power, as your expressions "You have to do this", "You have to bring this" etc., etc. may very likely feed the egoism. That's all, Sir! Not clear?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, sir, if I can't say you, must I write "that body" or "the phenomenon of an apparent Doctor-poet"? Or there must be an impersonal commotion in the apparently personal part which might be pragmatically called "doing this" or "bringing this". That would discourage egoism; but it might discourage my writing also as well as stifle your poetic inspiration while you stare about the roundabouts.³⁴

(12)Advanced sadhaks? advanced indeed!

NB: I understand your protesting against "great" or "big" sadhaks, but why against "advanced" sadhaks? It is a fact that some are more advanced than others and so we mention X as an advanced sadhak, [we] don't mean anything else.

Sri Aurobindo: Advanced indeed! Pshaw! Because one is 3 inches ahead of another, you must make classes of advanced and non-advanced? Advanced has the same puffing egoistic resonance as "great" or "big". It leads to all sorts of stupidities, rajasic self-appreciating egoism in some, tamasic self-depreciating egoism in others, round-eyed wonderings why X an advanced sadhak, one 3 inches ahead of Y, should stumble, tumble or fumble while Y, 3 inches behind X, still plods heavily and steadily on, etc., etc. Why, sir, the very idea in X that he is an advanced sadhak (like the Pharisee "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as other unadvanced disciples",) would be enough to make him fumble, stumble and tumble. So no more of that, sir, no more of that.³⁵

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(13)O Nirod of little faith and less patience!

NB: What shall I hear from the mighty pen as a remedy for my chronic despair and impatience?

Sri Aurobindo: Now look here, as to the Yoga etc., if I can become patient with you and your despairs, why can't you be patient with the forces? Let me give you a "concrete" instance. X is a sadhak of whom it might be said that if anyone could be said to be incapable of any least progress in yoga, X was the very person, blockhead absolutely and unique in that respect. Mulish, revolted, abusive. No capacity of any kind, no experience, not a shadow, little or blessed pinpoint of it anyhow, anywhere or at any time for years and more years and still more years. Finally some while ago X begins to fancy or feel that X wants Mother and nothing and nobody else (that was the result of my ceaseless and futile hammering for years), X makes sanguinary row after row because X can't get Mother, not a trace, speck, hint anywhere of Mother. Threats of departure and suicide very frequent. I sit mercilessly and very severely upon X, not jocularly as I do on you. X still weeps copiously, because Mother does not love X. I sit on X still more furiously but go on pumping Force and things into X. X stops that but weeps copiously because X has no faith, does not love Mother (all this goes on for months and months). Finally one day after deciding to stop weeping for good and all X suddenly finds X was living in barriers, barriers broken down, vast oceanic wideness inside her, love, peace etc. rushing in or pressing to rush; can't understand what on earth all this is or what to do -writes for guidance.

Now, sir, if my yugalike persistence could work a miracle like that with such a one, why can't you expect an earlier result with you, O Nirod of little faith and less patience? Stand and answer.³⁶

(14)About the 'deportees' from the Ashram:

NB: Obviously, evidently, undoutedly, Sir, your Force is growing! By the number of departees, one can see that!

Sri Aurobindo: They are not departees yet. X gone on a

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spree - says he will one day come back. V sent as a missionary by the Mother - don't expect his mission will be very fruitful though. R went for her property - property and herself held up by her family, as we told her it would be etc. So no sufficient proof of force here! If they had all gone saying '

NB: What, Sir, S has gone to deliver a 'message'?

Sri Aurobindo: There is nothing about message. Marriage, marriage - Two marriages, in fact. Not that he is going to marry 2 wives, but he is going to see the misfortune of two others consummated and gloat over it.

NB: Y seems to have gone for health.

Sri Aurobindo: Y went, not only for health, but to see his dear Guru who is preparing to shuffle off the mortal coil and for other motives of that kind. Quite natural, isn't it?

As for X, he has been going some dozen and dozen and a half times, only pulled back with great difficulty. Wants immediate siddhi in perfect surrender, absolute faith, unshakable peace. If all that is going to take time, can't do the Yoga. Feels himself unfit. Not being allowed to reach the Paratpara Brahman at once, had better rush out into the world and dissipate himself into the Nihil. Besides got upset by every trifle and, as soon as upset, lost faith in the Mother - and without faith no Yoga possible. Reasoning, sir, reasoning - the mighty intellect in its full stupidity. Understand now?

NB: When somebody leaves the Ashram, I feel a kick, a shock, a heartquake.

Sri Aurobindo: May I ask why? People have been leaving the Ashram since it began, not only now. Say 30 or 40 people have gone, 130 or 140 others have come. The big Maharathis, X, Y, Z, departed from this too damnable Ashram where great men are not allowed to do as they like. The damnable Ashram survives and grows. A and B and C fail in their yoga - but the yoga proceeds on its way, advances, develops. Why then kick, shock and heartquake?³⁷

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(15) Enrichment of Sri Aurobindo's Fishery!

NB: Apart from legal acumen I want more to see how far Doraiswamy's character has been changed and moulded by the Force.

Sri Aurobindo: Lord, man, it's not for changing or moulding character that this Ashram exists. It is for moulding spirituality and transforming the consciousness. You may say it doesn't seem to be successful enough on that line, but that is its object.

NB: I suspect, however, that you are closing in your supramental net and bringing in all the outside fish!

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord, no! I should be very much embarrassed if all the outside fish insisted on coming inside. Besides D is not an outside fish.

NB: But what about our X? When do you propose to catch him or a still longer rope required? I would call that your biggest success, Sir, and the enrichment of your Fishery.... We are all watching with interest and eagerness that big operation of yours. But I don't think you will succeed till your Supra-mental comes to the field in full-fledged colours, what?

Sri Aurobindo: What big operation? There is no operation; I am not trying to hale in X as a big fish. I am not trying to catch him or bring him in. If he comes into the true spiritual life, it will be a big thing for him, no doubt, but to the work it means only a ripple more or less in the atmosphere.

Kindly consider how many people big in their own eyes have come and gone (B, Q, H to speak of no others) and has the work stopped by their departure or the Ashram ceased to grow? Do you really think that the success or failure of the work we have undertaken depends on the presence or absence of X? or on my hauling him in or letting him go? It is of importance only for the soul of X - nothing else.

Your image of the Fishery is quite out of place. I fish for no one; people are not hauled or called here, they come of themselves by the psychic instinct. Especially I do not fish for big and famous and successful men. Such fellows may be mentally or vitally big, but they are usually quite contented with

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that kind of bigness and do not want spiritual things, or, if they do, their bigness stands in their way rather than helps them. The fishing for them is X's idea - he wanted to catch hold of S.B., S.C., now L.D. etc., etc., but they would have been exceedingly troublesome sadhaks, if they ever really dreamed of anything of the kind.

All these are ordinary ignorant ideas; the Spirit cares not a damn for fame, success or bigness in those who come to it. People have a strange idea that Mother and myself are eager to get people as disciples and if any one goes away, especially a "big" balloon with all its gas in it, it is a great blow, - a terrible defeat, a dreadful catastrophe and cataclysm for us. Many even think that their being here is a great favour done to us for which we are not sufficiently grateful. All that is rubbish.'⁸

(16) On bis own handwriting!

(i)NB: When you wrote yesterday, "I am simply busy trying to get out of the mind" etc., etc. I sighed, "What a happy ignorance! Will it be folly to get wise?"

Sri Aurobindo: Not mind, sir? I have gone out of my mind long ago. I wrote "mud", mud, mud, mud of the subconscient.³⁹

(ii)'[... In Sri Aurobindo's reply of the 18th there was a word NB had underlined in red, for Sri Aurobindo to decipher.]

Sri Aurobindo: Man, you can't expect me to read my own writing after so long a time! It looks like sideless, but can't be.⁴⁰

NB: Good God, I didn't ask you about that word again, for I read it the very next day. But that is no reason why you should not recognise your own writing, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: A marker was on that page, so I thought you were returning my writing by imposing on me the impossible task of reading it after many days!⁴¹

(iii)NB: You have forgotten a word in yesterday's poem. A blank remains. Or you can't make out your own writing. That's fine, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: The word looks like "fantasia" but I am not at all sure - it might be anything else. It is altogether irrational to expect me to read my own writing. I write for others to read,

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not for myself - it is their business to puzzle out the words, I try to read when I am asked, but I have to make a strong use of second sight with a melange of intuition, reasoned conjectural speculation and random guessings.'¹²

(iv) NB: Will you take the trouble, Sir, to mark the portions of your letters that I can show J?

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord, sir, L can't do that. You forget that I will have to try to read my own hieroglyphs. I have no time for such an exercise - I leave it to others.⁴³

(17) Purushottam is going fut!!!

NB: By the way, what is happening, pray? Supramental descending? Purushottam is going fut. Some passing blood, some vomiting blood, another died devoid of blood!

Sri Aurobindo: It appears that P has recognised that his Purushottamhood was indeed all fut! He says he felt evil forces making him do and say these things, but he was so helpless that he was forced to obey them! That is a fall from Purushottama heights, but a return to sanity, if only temporary - (but let's hope it will increase). For that is evidently what happened.

NB: All thought that he was doing serious sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo: Serious? You mean not to sleep and all that sort of thing? Well, it is just that kind of seriousness which brings these attacks - Earnestness of this sort does call down that kind of Purushottama or rather call him in - for it is a horizontal [and] not a vertical descent.

NB: Purushottama descended in consequence of the earnest sadhana and hence he was calling Sri Aurobindo to come and bow to him! What next?

Sri Aurobindo: Next? Perhaps he will want you also to come and bow to him and pummel you if you don't.

NB: Makes me shake to the bones!

Sri Aurobindo: Only the bones?

NB: Already I am feeling awfully pulled down, on top of that M [a difficult medical case] sits; and the Purushottama crowns them all. I ask myself - whither, whither are you going, my friend, and what awaits you?

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Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps the Paratpara Purusha beyond even the Purushottama.

But why this pulled downness? You are not pulling down Purushottama or any other gentleman from the upper storey, are you? It is strain and want of rest, I suppose. Sleep, sleep! read Mark Twain or write humorous stories. Then you will be quite chirpy and even M won't feel heavy to you.⁴⁴

(18) Sadhaks not floating in the flood of the Supramental:

NB: Some time back you wrote to me: "Never has there been such an uprush of mud and brimstone as during the past few months. However the Caravan goes on and today there was some promise of better things." What about the uprush of mud? Has it settled down, and are people now floating in the flood of the Supramental?

Sri Aurobindo: It is still there, but personally I have become superior to it and am travelling forward like a flash of lightning, that is to say zigzag but fairly fast. Now I have got the hang of the whole hanged thing - like a very Einstein I have got the mathematical formula of the whole affair (unintelligible as in his case to anybody but myself) and am working it out figure by figure.

As for people, no! they are not floating in the supramental -some are floating in the higher mind, others rushing up into it and flopping down into the subconscient alternately, are swinging from heaven into hell and back into heaven, again back into hell ad infinitum, some are sticking fast contentedly or discontentedly in the mud, some are sitting in the mud and dreaming dreams and seeing visions, some have their legs in the mud and their head in the heavens etc., etc., an infinity of combinations, while many are simply nowhere. But console yourself - these things, it seems, are inevitable in the process of great transformations.⁴⁵

(19) NB: All this about man being imprisoned in Maya, and going on swinging in its whirl, seems to me due to the soul clinging to the Ignorance for the sake of experience, if what you

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say about the origin of creation is true.

Sri Aurobindo: What has the origin of creation to do with it? We are concerned with the growth of the soul out of the Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature?

I suppose you are floundering about in the confusion of the idea that "desire-soul" in the vital is the true psyche of man. If you like - but that is no part of my explanation of things; I make a clear distinction between the two, so I refuse to sanctify the revolt of the lower nature by calling it the sanction of the soul. If it is the soul that wants to fail, why is there any struggle or sorrow over the business? It would be a perfectly smooth affair. The soul would lift its hat to me and say "Hallo! you have taught me a lot, I'm quite pleased but now I want a little more fun in the mud. Good-bye," and I too would have to say, "O.K. I quite agree. I was glad to see you come, I am equally glad to see you go. All is Divine and A.I.* — all has the soul's sanction; so go and mud away to your soul's content."⁴⁶

NB: If failures are due to the revolt of the lower nature, why should that revolt occur in A's case and not in B's?

Sri Aurobindo: Because A is not B and B is not A. Why do you expect all to be alike and fare alike and run abreast all the way and all arrive together?

NB: Because the soul wants more 'fun' in the mud of Ignorance, people follow their "round of pleasure and pain", and their lack of faith etc. is due to their soul still wanting Ignorance.

Sri Aurobindo: ... The psychic has always been veiled, consenting to the play of mind, physical and vital, experiencing everything through them in the ignorant mental, vital and physical way. How then can it be that they are bound to change

* "Did Sri Aurobindo mean to write Al intending 'first-rate'?" - NB's note.

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at once when it just takes the trouble to whisper or say "Let there be Light"? They have tremendous go and can refuse and do refuse point-blank. The mind resists with an obstinate persistency in argument and a constant confusion of ideas, the vital with a fury of bad will aided by the mind's obliging reasonings on its side; the physical resists with an obstinate inertia and crass fidelity to old habit, and when they have done, the general Nature comes in and says, "What, you are going to get free from me so easily? Not if I know it," and it besieges and throws back the old nature on you again and again as long as it can. Yet you say that it is the soul that wants all this "fun" and goes off laughing and prancing to get some more. You are funny. If the poor soul heard you, I think it would say, "Sir, methinks you are a jester" and look about for a hammer and break your head with it.

NB: But if you ask me, as you do, "Why then is there so much struggle and sorrow?" well, I am floundered, unless one can say that though the soul has given the last kick, still a longing, lingering look is bound to be there.

Sri Aurobindo: You call that a mere look! I suppose if you saw an Irish row or a Nazi mob in action, you would say, "These people are making slight perceptible gestures and I think I hear faint sounds in the air."

My dear Sir, be less narrowly logical (with a very deficient logic even as logic) - take a wider sweep; swim out of your bathing pool into the open sea and waltz round the horizons! For anything that happens there are a hundred factors at work and not only the one just under your nose; but to perceive that you have to become cosmic and intuitive or overmental and what not. So, alas!⁴⁷

(20) The intuitive gods playing jokes:

NB: I shall have to fall back on myself for The Life Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: You might try. Read an unintelligible para from the L.D., then sit in vacant meditation and see what comes from the intuitive gods. They will probably play jokes with you, but what does it matter? One learns by one's errors and

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marches to success through one's failures.

NB: Do you mean that the method you advise for reading The Life Divine can really do something?

Sri Aurobindo: It was a joke. But all the same that is the way things are supposed to come. When the mind becomes decently quiet, an intuition perfect or imperfect is supposed to come hopping along and jump in and look round the place. Of course, it is not the only way.

NB: I understand that you wrote many things in that way, ... but no Goddesses for poor folks like us; they can only cut jokes, play pranks or tease our tails, that's all.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, if they tease your tail sufficiently, might not a poem be the result?

NB: Anyhow, joke or no joke, I will try the method. But the trouble is that the mind finds it difficult to believe that a vacancy can be filled up all of a sudden without any kind of thinking.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the silliness of the mind. Why should it be impossible to fill up a vacancy? ... The idea that you are shaping the thoughts or fitting them together is an egoistic delusion. They are doing it themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion; you have to beat her often in order to make her do it, and the beating is not always successful. But the mind or nature or mental energy — whatever you like to call it, does this in a certain way and carries on with a certain order of thoughts, haphazard intelligentialities (excuse the barbarism) or asininities, rigidly ordered or imperfecdy ordered intellectualities, logical sequences and logical inconsequences etc., etc. How the devil is an intuition to get in in the midst of that waltzing and colliding crowd? It does sometimes, - in some minds often intuitions do come in, but immediately the ordinary thoughts surround it and eat it up alive. And then with some fragment of the murdered intuition shining through their non-intuitive stomachs they look up smiling at you and say "I am an intuition, sir". But they are only intellect, intelligence or ordinary thought with part of a dismembered and therefore misleading intuition inside them. Now in a vacant mind, vacant

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but not inert (that is important), intuitions have a chance of getting in alive and whole. But don't run away with the idea that all that comes into an empty mind, even a clear or luminous empty mind, will be intuitive. Anything, any blessed kind of idea, can come in. In other words, the mental being must be there, silent but vigilant, impartial but discriminating. That is, however, when you are in search of truth....⁴⁸

(21) Govinda Das, the Bangalore scientist:

NB: How did you find the Bangalore scientists? They seem to have been much moved, God knows by what!

Sri Aurobindo: The supramental, I suppose!

NB: One of them, the hardest nut and a "jewel" of the group, Govinda, was on the point of tears at the farewell! Just think!

Sri Aurobindo: Again the supramental! The supramental is beyond all thinking.

NB: Govinda, the Bangalore scientist, writes that he has written, but no reply! Asks me to enquire. What is the mystery, please? Usual timelessness or uselessness?

Sri Aurobindo: What mystery? Do you imagine I am conducting a voluminous correspondence with people outside? Put that pathetic mistake out of your head. It would have been a marvel and a mystery and a new history begun in the invisible (upstairs) spheres of the Infinite* if I had answered him! I don't even remember what he wrote.

NB: In the letter to me, he challenges God to give him peace, force and faith in this life. Only then will he admit its mulya [value, price], otherwise no good.

Sri Aurobindo: But what mulya is he prepared to pay for these fine things? Does he imagine that it is God's business to deliver these goods on order? Queer kind of business basis for the action of the Divine!

NB: He seems to think that we are striving for moksha

* Two lines of my poem that day were:

"Each moment new histories are begun

In the invisible spheres of the Infinite." - NB.

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[liberation] or some bliss in the next life! But he does not desire that.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "next life".]

Sri Aurobindo: Why don't you disabuse him of the idea and assure him that we don't care a damn for moksha and less than a damn for the next life?

NB: He wants peace, Force and nothing more; but in this life. Well, can the Divine give them?

Sri Aurobindo: Even if he can, why the deuce should he?

NB: That was precisely what I had thought of writing to Govinda Das. Now I can quote you, toning it down, of course.

Sri Aurobindo: No, sir, you mustn't make it a quotation from me, but you can unload it as your own original merchandise on your unwary customer.⁴⁹

(22) NB living like a cherub chubby:

NB: I couldn't quite catch the meaning of your phrase, "if you fellows give me a chance..." Nowadays we don't see many vital outbursts in the atmosphere.

Sri Aurobindo: O happy blindness!⁵⁰

NB: Now I hear that Y

Sri Aurobindo: You are astonished? Really, you seem to be living like a cherub chubby and innocent with his head in the clouds ignorant of the wickedness of men. I thought by this time the revolts of

NB: ...But the result of Darshan in some quarters leaves me staggered and staggered! I can't imagine such an incident taking place in the Ashram - I mean, of course, N's gripping M's throat. It makes me rather aghast. Coupled with that the incident of R rushing to shoe-beat P. Good Lord! but I suppose they are all in the game!

Sri Aurobindo: You seem to be the most candid and ignorant baby going. We shall have to publish an "Ashram News and Titbits" for your benefit. Have you never heard of N's going for K's head with a powerfully-brandished hammer? Or of his howling challenges to C to come out and face him, till

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Mother herself had to interfere and stop him? Or of his yelling and hammering in a rage at C's door till Dyuman came and dragged him away? These things happened within a short distance of your poetic ears and yet you know nothing??? N is subject to fits and has always been so. The Darshan is not responsible. And he is not the only howler. What about M herself? and half a dozen others? Hunger strikes? Threats of suicide? not to mention rushes to leave the Ashram etc., etc. All from the same source, sir, and apparently part of the game."

REFERENCES

N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

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