Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1863

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

March 1, 1937

You find “funny” things in my poems? Then, Sir, you have only to ask me to stop writing.

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.

How is it then that you give remarks “very fine” etc.?

Well, it can be funnily fine or finely funny – can’t it?

If they are really funny, why should I spoil my valuable time writing them when I could sleep comfortably for two hours?

For the joy of the world, of course.

Funny however is used in the sense of “extraordinary”. You can’t deny that these things are extraordinary?

Is that the reason why you don’t give any explanations either? Very well, Sir!

Why should I explain when you can understand and explain yourself? As Christ came to save sinners, not the righteous, so am I here to explain the inexplicable to the non-understanding, not to the understanding.

[There were a few friends who, inspired by my surrealistic poetry, were writing poems in the same vein, and I was sending them to Sri Aurobindo asking him to explain some of the difficult ones. After explaining once or twice he said that if it continued he would go on “strike”.]

But I don’t see the logic of your threat of “strike”. If people begin writing these surrealistic poems by your inspiration, am I to blame and suffer?

The strike is supposed to be against the 4, 5, 6 ad infinitum, not against the two.

My inspiration? When they catch it from you!

By the way, for whom have you to write explanations from set to dawn? One is my precious self?

Yes.

And the other is J?

Yes. I have to explain for her also.

But she is not a surrealist!

Surrealist or symbolist, it comes to the same so far as need for explanation goes.