Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 268

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

September 9, 1932

I am sending you the letter which was forgotten (I intended to send it and took the intention for the act) and also the printed poems. I am quite convinced of the possibilities of the mātrā-vṛtta – which would exist even if Anilbaran is right in insisting that it is the sagotra [kindred] of the akṣara-vṛtta. Two people may be conscious and yet have different characters, possibilities and destinies – and so may two metres.

Why do you want Shaw to be tied to some intellectual dogma and square all his acts, views and sallies to it? He is too penetrating and sincere a mind to be a stiff partisan – when he sees something which qualifies the “ism” – even that on whose side he is standing – he says so; that need not weaken the ideal behind, it is likely to make it more plastic and practicable. However, enough of Shaw, I have to answer Amal’s question and that ought to finish with him. I will only add that whatever his manner, it does not appear to me that he writes merely to shock but to expose in a vivid way the stupidity of the human mind in taking established things and ideas for granted. If he does it in a striking and amusing way, why so much the livelier and the better!

I do not say anything about your poems because I have nothing new to say. You seem to have arrived at a complete command over rhythm and metre and a complete plasticity of expressions. All the rest depends upon the depths and widenesses you command and the heights you scale in the future.