Tilak Lokamaṇya Bal Gangadhar : (1856-1920); Pārvatibai, wife of Gangādhar Shāstri (b.1846), who though frail in health after three daughters, had worshipped Suryadeva with endless fasts & prayers for a son, & on 23rd July 1856, 6th day of Krishna-paksha of Ashādha, an hour after sunrise, the longed for son was born. Tilak came, said Sir Raghūnath Paranjape, “at a psychological moment when the obvious advantages of British rule as compared with the old Indian rule had come to be regarded as habitual, a part of the very nature of things, & the disadvantages had begun to be acutely felt.” All his life he pursued the goal of Swaraj with an unmatched single mindedness. Thrice prosecuted for sedition, twice involved in long-drawn defamation trials, he also prepared the defence of three friends in three different litigations – each of these litigations enhanced his reputation, each of these judgments furthered his cause. ― In the 1882 Barve defamation case, students of Kolhapur (one of them, G.K. Gokhale) staged a play to raise funds for his defence, & K.T. Telang defended him. ― Arrested on 27th July 1897 on charge of sedition under Sections 124-A & 153-A, for his articles in Kesari in connection with murders of the villainous Rand & Ayerst, his barrister Dinshaw Dāvar was refused bail from High Court Justices Parsons & Ranade but was granted by Justice Tayābji on a security bond for Rs 50,000 entered by Annāsaheb Nene & Seth D. Dharamsey of Poona. When Tilak refused to offer the apology advised by Ranade & Motilal Ghose, S.N. Bannerjea & Tagore persuaded two English barristers L.P. Pugh & William Garth to take up his defence. They appeared in the Sessions trial with young barrister Mr Chaudhuri. On 13th September three out of the nine jurors found Tilak innocent on both counts (which, in Britain, not in India under Pax Britannica, required a retrial) upon which Tilak stated, “...the verdict has been arrived owing to the misunderstanding of certain Marathi texts [mistranslated, as ordered, by Govt.’s Muslim translator]. There was not a single Mahratta gentleman put into the witness box by the prosecution...the writings themselves are not seditious...& were not likely to produce disaffection against Govt. in readers of Kesari or any intelligent Mahratta.” Still, accusing Tilak of publishing “articles of the kind which could only bring misfortune upon the people”, Justice Stratchey convicted him “for absence of affection to the Govt. established by law in British India”, & sentenced to 18 month’s rigorous imprisonment. In jail, Tilak wrote Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas. On 24th, the Full Bench of the Bombay High Court rejected the application for leave to appeal to Privy Council in London. When Pugh & Garth offered to help to prefer a special appeal to Privy Council, Dāji Abāji Kharé (q.v.) sailed for England on 2nd October. H.H. Asquith, then M.P., later Prime Minister, argued his appeal in Privy Council which confirmed Strachey’s judgment on 19th November. Thereafter Governor Sandhurst’s satisfied soul remained untouched when Chaphekar brothers, the culprits of Rand-Ayerst murders, betrayed by a convict in prison, were arrested convicted & hanged proving Tilak uninvolved, when news spread that Tilak had lost 25 pounds in just 2 months of R.I., even when Sir Sankaran Nair, presiding over the INC session at Amravati, demanded why there was no Indian in the jury that convicted Tilak, why was he not extended the facilities he was entitled to as a political prisoner. Max Müller, learning of Tilak’s eagerness to study the Rig Veda in jail, sent his volumes, that study laid the seed of Tilak’s book Arctic Home in the Vedas. Müller also prepared a memorial for Tilak’s release on 12 grounds based on the fact that prosecution failed to establish even remotely any relation between his writings & Chaphekars’ crime; got it signed by William Caine, R.C. Dutt, Naoroji, Sir A.A. MacDonnell, Sir William W. Hunter & other scholars, & submitted it in London to Secretary of State Hamilton in June 1898. Petitions for Tilak’s release also poured in from Bombay & other places in the province which had that year experienced the same horrors of Govt. plague-administration as had Poona the previous years. Cornered, Sandhurst ordered Strachey on 7th July to grant release if Tilak agreed to abandon politics altogether & not join any public celebration on his release. CID officer Brewin, who had grilled Tilak in the Tai Maharaj & Rand-Ayerst cases, was sent to negotiate these conditions. When Kharé told him that the first was out the two hammered out a compromise in which the key phrases were “he will do nothing by act, speech or writing to excite disaffection towards the Govt.”. Before he signed it, Tilak added “such act, speech or writing as may be pronounced by a Court of Law to constitute an offence under the Indian Penal Code”. Two months after Sandhurst relented, at midnight of 6th September, Tilak was released. In December 1901, on his way to the Congress Session in Calcutta, Tilak met Swami Vivekananda who spoke to him about national regeneration. In 1902, Tilak met Sri Aurobindo at the Ahmedabad Congress Session – the upshot was the launching of an all-India the Nationalist movement. On 2nd May 1908, Sri Aurobindo was jailed on the charge of having masterminded the Muzaffarpur bombing. On 7th London Times: “If Bengal has been chiefly conspicuous in its resort to destructive methods, the cunning brains that conceived & fostered the movement are probably to be found for the most part in Western India.” Tilak’s editorial in his Kesari of 12th, entitled “The country’s misfortune”, denounced & disowned the incident but warned, “Occasions like the present demand a consideration of the limit within which those in authority can flout public will & the limit beyond which they cannot try the patience of the governed.” In the next weeks, even as his editorials thrashed out issues & side-issues arising out of the fateful bomb, while preparing for the inevitable police raids, he returned the letters of an English professor of Deccan College, which, though not even remotely connected with politics, would still have got him into trouble. On 22nd he wrote: “We view with deep regret the recent acts.... We firmly believe that they are the result of prolonged & persistent disregard of public opinion & a continued policy of repression...& not, as alleged [in Anglo-Indian quarters] of any speeches or writings. We are convinced that the true remedy ... lies not in ... repression & coercion ... but in the prompt redress of popular grievances & in making liberal concessions to the legitimate demands & aspirations of the people in a spirit of large-minded sympathy & far-sighted statesmanship.” Minto’s hands were strengthened when Morley telegraphed him a hint about the English Explosives Act [Footnote on p.263 of Vol. II of Morley’s Recollections]. On 8th June 1908, Minto issued the deliberately open-ended Explosive Substances Act & Newspapers Incitement to Offences Act, signalling ruthless repression of all nationalists & their papers. The Govt. of Sir George Clarke, in Bombay Presidency, started a ruthless campaign against newspapers. Marathi weeklies like Hind Swarājya, Vihāri & Arunōdaya, were some of the early victims of this campaign. On 9th (that day’s Kesari’s editorial was “These remedies are not lasting”) he decided to prosecute Tilak for “The country’s misfortune” even before it was officially translated. S.M. Paranjape editor of Kāla was arrested on the 11th, jailed in Bombay. The same day Paranjape was granted bail, the 20th, publicly hinted Tilak was next. Tilak, who had come to Bombay for the 12th to 15th annual Shivaji festival, was arrested on 24th evening. The same night in Poona, Bombay police assisted by local police invaded Gayakawādā, Tilak’s residence, threw the family out, locked & sealed Kesari office & the residence. The next morning they ransacked the place ‘to gather evidence’; then drove to Simhagadh, broke into Tilak’s house there disdaining every legal & human propriety but came up empty handed. Poona that day observed a spontaneous hartal. The same morning of 25th, Bombay observed a spontaneous bandh & from 9 a.m. crowded into the court of Chief Presidency Magistrate A.H.S. Aston who had foisted the Tai Maharaj case on Tilak. Tilak was arraigned before Aston around noon; assistant prosecutor Bowen charged him under Sections 124-A & 153-A of IPC on the basis of a police translation of “The country’s misfortune” of 12th May. When Aston postponed the hearing to 29th, Tilak’s barrister, J.D. Dāvar, son of High Court Justice Dinshaw Dāvar, applied for bail. Aston refused & sent Tilak back to Dongri jail. There, on 27th June, he was served with the 2nd warrant, this one on a slapdash translation of “These remedies are not lasting” of the 9th. On 29th when Dāvar Junior complained that the Anglo-Indian Press made illegal comments which amounted to contempt of court, Aston was forced to warn Anglo-Indians to lay off, but when Dāvar favoured a single trial for both sets of charges he upheld Bowen’s demand for two separate trials. When Bowen wanted to admit as evidence an unstamped, undated post-card ‘found’ in Gayakawādā on which were jotted the names Handbook of Modern Explosives by M. Eissler & Nitro-Explosives by P. Gerard Sanford & Aston admitted it rejecting Dāvar’s cogent arguments against it, Dāvar insisted he record his reasons for admission. Bowen examined some witnesses for the 2nd case but Tilak reserved his cross-examinations for both cases for the Sessions. Since High Court required defendants to inform Govt. 48 hours before filing a bail application, Tilak’s solicitors gave the intimation that (29th) evening. On 1st July, when Barrister Jinnah, appearing for Tilak, sought to be heard, first he was told the 48 hours had yet to run, then Justice Dāvar adjourned the bail hearing to 2nd. That day Jinnah refuted Govt. arguments against bail, referring to Tilak’s health (he was then being treated for diabetes), holding that official translation of both articles bristled with mistakes & submitting correct translations & enabling Tilak to build his defence made bail indispensable; & clinching his argument by referring to the plea by which Justice Dāvar himself had in 1897 obtained bail for Tilak from Justice Tayābji: The main criterion in considering bail was whether the accused would present himself or not. Though Dāvar had no option but to refuse bail, he did facilitate Tilak request to obtain all the legal books from the High Court library he needed & even went out on a limb to procure the books Tilak needed from other places. The next day, Barrister J. Bapista contested Govt.’s demand for ‘special’ jury: It was unjust to shift venue from Poona where accused would have easily secured Marathi-knowing judge, assessors & jurors; this ‘special’ jury would consist of Europeans & Anglo-Indians ignorant of Marathi besides, misleading translations had already appeared in Anglo-Indian Press & prejudiced this class of jurors; more crucially their communal affinity with English rulers ought to disqualify them because of the identity of interest between them & the prosecution, especially with regard to section 153-A which alleges that these articles had created hatred against them; whereas a common jury was more likely to do justice to the accused. Dāvar ruled that the special jury would be formed on 13th July. The overriding criterion which forced Dāvar to refuse bail was that Govt. had been ‘hearing’ ominous underground rumblings, of plans for a golden jubilee of ‘1857’in 1907 planned by Indian revolutionaries organised mainly by the Nationalist leaders of Punjab, Maharashtra & Bengal, headed by Tilak – a crafty Chitpāvan Brahmin cast in the mould of the Peshwas; Govt. had ‘heard’ too of the aid they received from Russian & Afghan sources. This is why London had made Sir George Clarke (Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence since 1904) the Governor of Bombay in 1907. What if any of Tilak’s friends in ‘terrorist’ groups spirited him away if given bail or even from the prison, & re-enacted Shivaji’s escape from Aurangzeb’s prison? Hence soldiers patrolled every corner of every suspicious locality & late on 12th night Tilak was removed from Dongri into a solitary room high up in High Court building, with an armed sergeant as his shadow. From 13th onwards Tilak argued for himself. Advocate-General Branson began by asking for a single trial for all four counts (124-A + 153-A in both articles). Tilak objected to this joinder at Sessions stage when Aston had ruled all counts as distinct; also it handicapped him in marshalling his defence. When Dāvar agreed to allow the joinder if Govt. dropped one of the four counts, 153-A against “country’s misfortune” was dropped. Then the jury was empanelled: out its nine members six were Europeans, two Parsis & one Jew – not one a Marathi knowing Hindu. Next day Branson’s assistant opened the trial by a wild barrage: Tilak’s articles referred to English rule as country’s misfortune, suggested bombs & murders would help India secure political rights as happened elsewhere; & quoted from articles not admitted! In just a few minutes Tilak shut him up. Then, instead of putting its Muslim Chief Oriental Translator whose reckless translations it had submitted, Govt. brought his assistant B.V. Joshi, a former student of Tilak in his New English School whose careful translations it had rejected. Tilak made Joshi admit that the sanction to prosecute was given before Govt. translations were ready, that Chief translator’s hasty job on the 2nd article was rushed in just before the proceedings before Aston & that it failed to distinguish between many such terms as ‘colour’& complexion’; then asked Joshi to translate back into Marathi “A despotic rule need not be necessarily tyrannical” & a Sanskrit shloka, in both of which Joshi failed. However, before the hearing resumed the next day, Joshi had realised that it was not him Tilak was after but to prove Govt. translations were gross perversions of what he had actually written; led by Tilak he admitted the translation was not his & was faulty. Cross-examining Inspector Sullivan who was deputed to search his residence in Poona, Tilak made him admit that the original search-warrant did not mention his Simhagadh house; that it was added by the Poona City magistrate & he did not know when the addition was made; that he had broken into Simhagadh house without any resident’s permission or presence of anyone from Tilak’s Poona residence & forced open cupboards; & that the drawer from which he specially selected the post-card was not locked, that it contained a whole heap of papers relating to a variety of subjects in which it was neither at the top nor at the bottom, ergo given not special importance. On 15th July Tilak submitted his final statement. It contained a) a proper English translation of more than a dozen words in the two articles on which the prosecution was based, proving both Govt. translations misleading in material parts thereof; b) his statement to the Decentralising Commission to show that commenting on administration’s workings & offering suggestions for its improvement was the normal duty of every public worker & journalist; c) he had jotted down the names of those two books in the post-card found in his desk in order to procure those books to help him prepare his comment on Minto’s Explosive Substances Act. Then began his final address to the jury which, with a break on 17th, concluded on 22nd July, kept him on his feet for 22 hours! To witness that forensic feat the Russian consul & many English & Parsi wives of high-ranking gentlemen attended the court. It was published in English & Marathi translation immediately after he was removed to Burma where Clarke kept him until he himself demitted office. The half-truths & untruths in his report to London prevented Tilak’s release in 1911 on the occasion of King George’s coronation, though both George & Viceroy Hardinge wanted it. On the point of resuming his seat that 22nd, Tilak addressed the jury: “I am now on the wrong side of life, according to the Indian standards of life. For me, it can only be a matter of a few years; but future generations will look to your verdict & see whether you have judged wrong or right.... If at least one of you would come forward & say that I was right in what I did, it will be a matter of satisfaction to me; for I know that if the jury are not unanimous in England another trial would place. It is not so here: but it would be a moral support upon which I could rely with great satisfaction.” When Tilak resumed his seat, after just an hour, Branson began his closing speech. Seeing the way Branson went on, Dāvar announced that all the remaining stages of the case would be completed that very day. Branson spoke two hours before the normal Tiffin break, nearly two more after it & some more after the extra Tiffin break. When Dāvar finished summing up the case for the jury it was 8 pm. After its deliberations the jury returned at 9:20; six (all the Europeans?) out of nine held Tilak guilty. When Dāvar asked Tilak if he wished to add a word before the sentence was passed, Tilak related the story of Prahlada & the Narasimha avatar. “All I wish to say, is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of things, &, it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.” The Judge lost his temper: “It must be a diseased mind, a most perverted mind that could say that the articles you have written are legitimate weapons in political agitation. They are seething with sedition; they preach violence, they speak of murders with approval, & the cowardly & atrocious act of committing murders with bombs, not only seems to meet with your approval, but you hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something has come to India for good.” The sentence he had decided to pass – six years transportation & a fine of Rs 1,000, he said would be stigmatised as misplaced leniency! The barbarity of the sentence can be seen by the fact that in 1908 a well-fed British male’s life expectancy was around 48 years while Tilak was then 52 & in bad health. [S.L. Karandikar, Lokamāṇya Bal Gangādhar Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957; Editorial Note, “Documents on the Trial of Lokamāṇya Tilak–1” of Eternal India – A New Perspective Monthly, March 2011; R.J. Moore, “Escape from Empire – The Atlee Govt. & the Indian Problem”, OUP, London, 1983] Extracts from Reminiscences & Anecdotes of Lokamāṇya Tilak, edited & published by S.V. Bāpat, Poona, 1924: (1) Swami Shraddhānanda, founder of Gurukūla, Haridwar: I first met Lokamāṇya in December 1899 at the Lucknow Congress…. His Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas showed the courage to stand up for the Antiquity of the Vedas as against European Scholars, whom no Indian had dared to give lessons in research work before.... The Moderate leaders were afraid of being publicly associated with him because he had recently come out of jail. He entered by a side door... when the audience saw him & rose up to give him an ovation & pressed him loudly to go to the platform. The Moderate leaders remained seated & feared lest the idol of the people might compromise them by ascending the platform. He took a chair in the delegates’ block & quietly sat down. During the lunch break, I asked his views on the interpretation of the Vedic mantra on Varuna-Vyavasthā, & found they coincided with those of Rishi Dayānanda.... To my eyes he had no personal ambition but brooded on the wrongs of his Motherland, it was his determination to liberate her that was “terrible.... At Lucknow in 1916…he said in substance, “the British tell us that we descendants of the Aryans are not the original owners of the soil. We Aryans took the country from the Aborigines; the Muslims conquered it from the Aryans, & the English conquered it from the Muslims. Hence the English are the guardians of the aborigines. Well, I agree to this & ask the English to go away delivering the possession to the Bheels, Gonds, & Ādi-Drāvidas. We will gladly serve the original owners of the soil.” (2) Saralā Devi Chaudhurani: I did not meet Lōk. Tilak personally till September 1902.... My Lāthi-cult was in full swing in those days. I had succeeded in making the practice of fencing & boxing, of the stick & the sword & all other weapons of self-defence & captured the heart of the Bengali youth. But to my dismay stories of banded robberies & murder of Bhadralog began to be heard of from certain quarters. Some of my lathial boys felt tempted to join in those bands.... I was hard put to convince them that it would be unworthy of their manhood. For against all my reasonings was brought in the personality of Tilak & his approval as the greatest argument in favour of dacoities. So I, a Bengali maiden took courage to my heart & mended my way at once to Poona.... Those were the days of the Tai Maharaj Case. I found him & his friends immersed in books of law & detectives thronging in & out of the house like ants. He was calm & undisturbed like a rock under buffets of billows. I had nearly three hours quiet talk with him...he told me distinctly he did not approve of the dacoities, much less authorise them on the score of their being practically useless for political purposes. At the Benares Congress of 1905, I & my husband were putting up in tents. One morning we were taken by surprise by a call from him..... Unlike many a national leader...he never felt too proud to show regard & esteem to compatriots of whatever school of thought or following they might be. (3) S. Satyamurti, Leader of Swarājya Party, Madras: The first time I saw Tilak was at the Calcutta Congress, 1906.... While the leaders from other provinces stayed in separate houses...leaving the other delegates to take care of themselves, this leader of leaders stayed with all the Maharashtra delegates in their camp & shared their boarding & lodging.... On the S.S. Egypt from London to Bombay in 1919: ...He was requested by many European passengers to deliver a lecture on the Arctic Home in the Vedas. For an hour he held a largely European audience spell-bound by his wealth of learning, his keenness of critical acumen, & above all his power of simple, humorous & effective expression. Many of them felt & told me “what Indian politics has gained in Tilak, scholarship & research has lost.”... I last met him in May 1920 in Benares, at the meeting of the All-India Congress Committee. The Ali brothers invited him Allahabad to attend a special meeting for discussing the Khilafat (q.v.). He told them he would only attend meetings of the Congress to decide questions of national policy. (4) V. Venkateśwara Sastrulu, proprietor Vavilā Press, Madras: While still a student it happened that I accidentally followed Messrs S. Doraiswamy Iyer, M.A. B.L. & V. Chakkarai Chetty to attend the Surat Congress. Everyone is aware of the great attempts made by Messrs Mehta & Gokhale just before the Congress sessions to kill the Nationalist aspirations that were then spreading in the country. It is also well- known that the Moderates prevented Mr Tilak’s occupying the Congress presidential chair at the Calcutta Congress in 1906, that they did not give room for national aspirations, that they shifted the venue of this Congress from Nagpur to Surat lest Mr Tilak should occupy the presidential gaddi. Owing to the unprecedented activity on both sides, the country was ablaze with unprecedented enthusiasm. It is...not possible to adequately describe the fury & agitation that arose from the audience when Mr Tilak, the Mahrātta lion, at the behest of the party, ascended the rostrum, cool & serene but nevertheless dignified with his usual subdued smile playing upon his lips, to oppose the election, as president, of the Moderate Rash Behari Ghose. It was a sight for the gods to see the thin slim figure stand boldly facing an audience who were come prepared to use all means, fair & foul, to prevent our hero addressing.... The previous night Mr Gokhale came to our Nationalist camp on a canvassing mission & with a great show of dignity requested us to give votes in his favour. To this Mr Chakkarai firmly replied, “Enough of your moderation. This is not the place for the display of your moderation. Please be off.” Immediately on returning from Surat I published in Telegu the proceedings of the Surat Congress, the life of the Lokamāṇya & Ananda Matha.... In 1915, when he filed the suit Sir Edward Carson had agreed to appear for him but withdrew when he became a Cabinet Minister but in 1919 he resigned from the Cabinet to defend Chirol! No wonder the British Court ruled against Tilak after dragging the case for so long swallowing lakhs of rupees. As a result Tilak lost hope in an Englishman’s sense of fair play & justice either at home or abroad when it was a question between a white skin & a coloured skin.... He did not have much faith in the non-cooperation movement started by Gandhi & the Ali brothers.... There is no doubt, in my mind at any rate, that had Lōkamānya lived at the time of the Calcutta Special in September 1920, the history of the Congress & our country would have been thoroughly different.... (5) Rev. Andrews Charles Freer (1871-1940): “My personal relation to Lōkamānya was always in connection with Indians abroad…. When I was going to Africa & to Fiji, I had long interviews with him. On my return from Fiji I saw him again & described to him the immoral atmosphere in which our sisters were forced to live. I can never forget how very deeply he was moved to hear my report…. In the evening a very large meeting was held…. It was that day that I understood the meaning of his name ‘Lōkamānya’… the people were moved when he described to them the condition of our people in Fiji. He moved them even to tears…. I found that he had a very deep love for the poor & understood them far more than most Indian leaders.... He felt the sufferings & sorrows of India as they were his own. Another thing that was noticeable in him was the extreme simplicity of his life which was of the noblest & purest character. He spent everything that he had for the country, spending almost nothing on himself…. He always took the practical view of what could be done & aimed at doing that.... He was a learned Brahmin for his immense knowledge of the Arya Dharma, a true Kshatriya for his brave fight for the country, a real Karmayogin.... He will no doubt be remembered as…the father of Indian Nationalism. India free from foreign domination will be able to truly appreciate the unquestionable greatness of Lōkamānya Tilak. [Reminiscences & Anecdotes of Lōkamānya Tilak, edited by S.V. Bāpat, Poona, 1924] C. Rajagopalachari, 1957: The Lokamāṇya...played a very hard & very noble part in our social & political evolution during what must be regarded as the hardest period we had to pass through.... Reason & liberal doctrines had to be supplemented for the first time by irresistible popular awakening in order to move foreign Imperialism to doubt itself. Tilak’s battle was the first assault on British pride & self-complacency. And the poison that issued from the conflict was a deadly variety. It was met with a courage that set the right tone for the rest of the struggle which had to be continued through further phases.... Tilak was a conformist but no man was less narrow-minded or had broader sympathies.... He suffered much but never indulged in self-pity & never therefore had to hide it in loud martyrdom. He was up to his neck in public affairs all his life & wrote a great deal in Marathi in his journals but you will not find “I” in it anywhere. No great man was less troubled with a memory of himself or the thought of how he figured in anything. He did what he did caring only for what was wanted & not for what part he played in it. [Foreword to Karandikar’s Lokamāṇya Bāla Gangādhar Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957] H.W. Nevinson: (Nevinson toured India in 1907 & met Tilak at Simhagadh) “His full brown eyes are singularly brilliant, steady with daring, rather aggressive. But his general manner is very quiet & controlled, & both in conversation & public speaking, he talks in brief, assured sentences, quite free from rhetoric, outwardly passionless even in moments of the highest passion, & seldom going beyond the statement of facts, or rather, of his aspect of facts at the time…. In scholarship, he is known among all Sanskrit scholars as one of the closest & most original…. To me the book Arctic Home is significant because it appeared in the midst of the author’s direst persecution, when money, reputation, influence, everything was at stake & few men would have the courage to spare a thought either for sacred Books or Arctic Circles.” [Karandikar: 248, quoting Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, pp.65-66, 72-74] Abinash Bhattacharya: One day about noon a dignified-looking Marwari arrived & asked to speak to Aurobindo. I requested him politely to come back in an hour. He was stubborn. “Well, let me sit here in the drawing-room & chat with you. An hour will pass quickly.” He said that so jovially that I could not refuse him. Helplessly I sat down & began to chat with him. Talking with him was really a pleasure. Barely fifteen minutes had passed before Aurobindo-babu slowly came down the stairs with his slippers on. Recognising the visitor from a distance he called out happily: “Tilak, it’s you
” I gave a start. Bal Gangādhar Tilak
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