Nirodbaran

Nirodbaran (November 17, 1903 - July 17, 2006, Pondicherry) or "Nirod" for short, was the personal physician and scribe of Sri Aurobindo, and senior member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He was born on November 17, 1903 in Chittagong (now Bangladesh). He lost his father when he was five years old. After passing Matriculation Examination, he participated in the famous Non-Cooperation Movement and was punished with two months' imprisonment. After passing Intermediate Examination in the first division, he decided to go to England to qualify for the Bar. In 1924, he went abroad, but finally went in for Medical Studies at Edinburgh. After a long six-year course, he took the M.B.C.H.B. Degree and then went on a tour of Europe with his niece. His meeting with Dilip Kumar Roy, the famous musician in Paris, sealed his fate. His niece, having heard about Sri Aurobindo from Dilip Kumar Roy, met the Mother and was highly impressed. On her repeated requests, Nirodbaran, after coming to India in 1930, met the Mother and was overwhelmed and had a spiritual experience. He then spent 2 or 3 years practising medicine in Burma, but this work failed to satisfy him. After some vacillation he finally felt the call and joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1933, leaving behind the prospect of a highly lucrative career. He returned to the Ashram with the intention of practising Yoga, and took up work as the resident doctor. He found to his surprise that poetry was one of the vocations taken up by some of the disciples. As Sri Aurobindo had already withdrawn from the public life of the ashram, he communicated with and instructed the sadhaks via letters, and Nirodbaran entered into a voluminous correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (receiving about 4000 letters), who encouraged and guided his attempts at poetry. He published a collection of his poems as Blossom of the Sun and 50 poems by Nirodbaran, which were revised and commented on by Sri Aurobindo.

In November 1938 Sri Aurobindo broke his leg and as a physician Nirodbaran was one of the disciples with medical knowledge who attend him while he recuperated.

He had been engaged with Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education as a teacher of English, French and Bengali. He has been a prolific writer, in English and Bengali, having to his credit quite a few beautiful books (Talks with Sri Aurobindo (3 volumes), Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (2 volumes), and his memoir 12 years with Sri Aurobindo) and numerous articles which will not only rank as fine literature, but also serve as an invaluable guide for knowing Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, their teachings, their many-splendoured personality and also about the Ashram and the disciples.

Nirodbaran left his body on the evening of 17 July 2006 at the Ashram Nursing Home in Pondicherry. He went peacefully. He was 102. He was buried at the Ashram's Cazanove Gardens at around 4 in the evening of the next day.