SANAT-DA

by

Prithwindra Mukherjee

 

Appointed the First Governor of the independent State of Pondicherry in the mid-50s, Sanat Kumar Banerjee appeared to us to be the very personification of a refined diplomat, elegant in his gait, fair of complexion, a face and two large eyes always ready to smile. Chandana, his wife, looked like a China doll, fond of her guitar. The Mother at once welcomed them. Shortly after a few trips in their luxury car, tossing between the Governor’s palace and the Samadhi, they obtained the Mother’s permission to join the Ashram. Reaching the zenith of his brilliant career,   he resigned when he was hardly forty-five.  Little did his other brothers - all of them holding important posts in the Central Administration and highly appreciated by the Prime Minister Nehru – approve this foolish decision.

Without any difficulty Sanat-da and Chandana-di embraced their new life in utter earnest. The Mother accommodated them on the first floor of the building opposite the Play Ground, known as Nanteuil; downstairs, besides a hall for ping pong, Manoj Dasgupta and his three sisters had each their apartments.

A man of vast reading, Sanat-da taught us history in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision. He was especially fond of the Ideal of Human Unity and The Human Cycle, with an eye open on the Foundations of Indian Culture. Those were his subjects of predilection for the Higher Course at the International Centre of Education. Sanat-da attended the Mother’s class when she began translating into French some of Sri Aurobindo’s major writings. He was an attentive auditor of talks on international laws given by the retired notary public Jules Rassendren.  He started a special class to teach us short-hand writing. Sitting in a corner of the Ashram library, where he spent more hours than at his home, in no time did  he make himself available for anybody who wanted to consult him.

A prolific writer, he published mainly in Mother India and in other periodicals connected with the Ashram. The only available title of his books is Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Man: A Study in Synthesis, published by Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry. Nothing in today’s Ashram reminds of the great dedication of this disciple who served the Mother in silence. Some people may remember that he was victim of a distasteful experience. Highly romantic, a childless woman, Chandana-di fell in love with a senior poet of the Ashram. Somewhat flattered by this affair, however, the poet did not seem to expect that the situation was to lead his own wife to put an end to her life.

Fond of Paris, when, in 1966, Sanat-da learnt that I was coming to France with a French Government Scholarship, he remarked : “You will find that Paris is very  much like Calcutta !”