Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1948

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

May 23, 1937

Why do you call it “absurd”, Sir, writing a magnificent poem without knowing? If I knew I would have been glad, but there is a greater pleasure in surprises, isn’t there?

Surprise of what? Surprise of not knowing till somebody tells you?

Your remarks are rather mysterious. “If these are not O.P., they ought to be” means they are not? and “these” means also lines 7, 8, 9, 12, I suppose, but you say they are O.K.

I mean just what I say. It is evidently the overhead inspiration that is trying to come, that it changes into something more mental in the transmission. Lines 7, 8, 9 are those that can be suspected of being actually O.P. in rhythm, movement, spirit and turn of the language. But the poetry of the rest is not the less fine for the mental intervention.

O.K. in English is something like all right, quite fit, etc. no?

In American English.

Can your remark on my poem, with the Latin put right, go into circulation?

No.

Amal says it is Gaudumus igitur.

What’s that – that’s not Latin! There is no such word as gaudumus. I wrote “gaudeamus”¹.

... About the bakery servant – as the Mother knows, standing occupation is not good for these conditions; they tend to increase it. The risk I spoke of is no doubt remote; what happens, at times, is that blood in these veins clots and in that case one may be cured; if that does not happen, the clot can travel to deeper vessels and then to the heart too, or to the brain...

Well, those are things that happen in the course of illness and the employer is not responsible. As for risk, he has to work for his living and it won’t help him if we refuse him work. In Europe a large percentage of the working class have varicose veins, yet their work is standing work all day and they go on with it.

¹ “Gaudumus”, Amal says, is my misconstruction of his correct reading.

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