Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
8 January 1939
Tonight we were at a loss how to begin. But we saw that Sri Aurobindo was ready; he was as if inviting us by his look. But none could break forth; we seemed to have exhausted all our questions. In that puzzled mood Nirodbaran once looked up and Sri Aurobindo looked at him. Suddenly Nirodbaran burst into laughter and the rest joined in. Finding an opening or an inspiration, Purani began.
Purani: There is something interesting about snoring in the Sunday Times today. Someone says that snoring is the reaction of the subconscient against some pressure one does not like.
Sri Aurobindo: Nonsense! Does it mean that a man snores because he is protesting against someone’s presence he doesn’t like? Or that one can’t snore unless there is someone present whom one doesn’t like?
Nirodbaran (to Purani): Were you attracted by that question because of our snoring?
Purani: Yes, especially yours, I believe; whenever I come, I find you snoring.
Satyendra: That means Nirodbaran doesn’t like your presence!
Champaklal: No, he snores even long before.
Sri Aurobindo: That is perhaps in anticipation of Purani’s arrival. (Laughter)
As the talk on snoring didn’t proceed further, Purani began quoting from the Sunday Times about Middleton Murry, where it was said that he had come to believe in Gandhi’s non-violence and that because of Hitler he had become a believer in God.
Sri Aurobindo: How is that?
Purani: I don’t know; he says he finds Hitler an anti-Christ, after that murder of eighty people in one night.
Sri Aurobindo: Wasn’t Murry a mystic long before Hitler’s regime? Does he mean that his faith has become stronger?
Purani: Maybe. Gandhi writes that the non-violence tried by some people in Germany has failed because it has not been strong enough to generate sufficient heat to melt Hitler’s heart.
Sri Aurobindo: It would have to be a furnace in that case. The only way to melt his heart is to bomb it out of existence. Then his sentimental being which cries at the tomb of his mother and expresses itself in painting …
Nirodbaran: Are you referring to his “London cabman psychic”, as you once put it?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that would then have a chance in his next life. It is surprising how sentimental people can be extremely cruel.
The trouble with Gandhi is that he has dealt only with Englishmen. If he had been obliged to deal with Germans or Russians his non-violence would have had much less chance. The English people like to be at ease with their conscience. They have a certain self-esteem and they prize the esteem of the world also. Not that they are not sentimental; only they don’t show it. The Russians and Germans are also sentimental but at the same time more cruel. Today a Russian may knock your head through the window-pane but tomorrow he may weep and embrace you. Englishmen also can be very cruel – for a time – but they can’t go on with a persistent brutality. Hitler has cruelty in his blood.
Nirodbaran: Englishmen seem also to appreciate a man standing up to their violence.
Purani: I know of a case where a Punjabi settled in Fiji gave a fierce beating to an Englishman. The latter used to harass him. One day when it became unbearable, he caught hold of him, knocked him down and began beating him. After some time the Englishman shouted, “That will do, that will do.” From that time on, he was all right.
Sri Aurobindo: That is quite true. I remember once going to a station to see Deshpande off. In his carriage there were many Englishmen. He told us afterwards that as soon as he sat down, the Englishmen said, “We will beat you if you don’t get out.” He replied, “Come and try.” And they didn’t dare!
At one time, before the Swadeshi movement, our people were terribly afraid of these Europeans. But after that movement the fear ceased and it has not come back. It was a sudden transformation. Once in Howrah station, a young man was being bullied by an Englishman. He suddenly shouted, “Bande Mataram”; all the people in the train began to shout and the Englishman became alarmed.
You have heard of Shamakanta, the tiger-tamer. He was travelling in a compartment with some English soldiers and a Bengali with his wife. The soldiers began to molest the Bengali’s wife; he was so afraid that he did not know what to do. Shamakanta got up, caught hold of the soldiers and began to knock their heads against each other. At the next station they walked out.
I remember once when we were practising shooting, there was a middle-aged Bengali in the company. When he was asked to shoot, he became very nervous, said he didn’t know how to shoot, closed his eyes and then fired. After firing, he opened his eyes, smiled and said, “I didn’t know it was so easy!”
When my brother Barin and I were at Baidyanath, we used to go out with guns to shoot at birds, obviously with the idea of practising. My auntie saw us and said, “These two boys will be hanged.” The prophecy almost came true, for Barin got a death-sentence.
Before the Swadeshi movement started, Debabrata Bose and I went on a tour of Bengal to study the conditions of the people. We lived simply on bananas. Debabrata Bose was very persuasive and could win anybody round. We found the country pessimistic, with a black weight of darkness over it. Only four or five of us stood for independence. We had great difficulty in convincing people. At Khulna we were given a royal reception, with plenty of dishes on the table. I was not known as a political leader but as the son of my father, K.D. Ghose. My father had been the all-powerful man there. There was nobody who hadn’t received some benefit from him and none had returned from his door empty-handed. He was said to have been a great friend of the poor. Previous to Khulna, my father was at Rangpur. There also he was like a king. The magistrate, who was his friend, did nothing without consulting him. It was with the friends of this magistrate – the Drewetts – that we stayed in England. The magistrate was transferred and a new magistrate came in his place. He found that he had no authority in the town, all power being in the hands of my father. He couldn’t tolerate it. He asked the Government to transfer my father and that is the reason he came to Khulna. But he was hurt by this treatment and lost his previous respect for the English people and turned into a nationalist.
Dr. Becharlal: You must have lived only a short time with your father.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes; only the early years. When I was seven we left for England and before we returned he had died. I was in a way the cause of his death. He was suffering from heart disease. Grindlays informed him that I was to start on a particular steamer. The steamer went down off the coast of Portugal and many lives were lost. Somehow I didn’t sail by that ship but Grindlays didn’t know it. They telegraphed the news to my father and he died on receiving it.
He had great hopes for his sons, expected us to be civil servants, and yet he could be quite reasonable. When Manmohan wrote to him that he wanted to be a poet, my father made no objection; he said there was nothing wrong in that. Only, he didn’t send any more money.
Nirodbaran: We have heard that your father was irregular in sending your allowances.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes; we lived for one year on five shillings a week which my eldest brother was getting by helping the secretary of South Kensington Liberal Club, who was a brother of Sir Henry Cotton. We didn’t have winter coats. We used to take tea, bread and ham in the morning and some sausages in the evening. Manmohan could not undergo that hardship, so he went to a boarding house where he managed to get his food, though he had no money to pay. Once when I was unable to pay the college dues, the principal called for me; I told him that my father had not sent my allowance. He sent a letter to my father. On receiving it my father sent me just the amount of the college dues and a lecture on my extravagance. It pained me to a certain extent, as we were living on such a meagre sum. Manmohan was extravagant, if you like.
When I went to Cambridge, I was introduced to a tailor who made suits for me on credit. When I returned to London, he traced me there and got introduced to Manmohan also. Manmohan got a red velvet suit made – not staring red, but aesthetic. He used to go to see Oscar Wilde in that suit. When we came back to India, that tailor wrote to the Indian Government about the arrears that Manmohan had not paid and to the Baroda Maharaja for my arrears. I paid everything except four pounds, five shillings, which I thought I was justified in not paying as he had charged double the amount for our suits. The Baroda Maharaja said I had better pay.
Manmohan used to have poetic illness at times. Once we were walking through Cumberland. We found that he had fallen half a mile behind, walking at a leisurely pace and moaning out poetry in a deep tone. There was a dangerous place in front of us, so we shouted at him to come back. But he took no heed, went on muttering the lines and came to us with his usual leisurely steps. When he came to India, his playing the poet dropped off.
When Barin and I became politically famous, Manmohan used to say with arrogant pride, “There are only two and a half men in India. The two are my brothers and the half is Tilak.”
Manmohan and I used to quarrel pretty often but I got on very well with my eldest brother. Once Manmohan said to me, “I hear you have been living with Madhavrao Jadhav year after year.” “Why not?” I said. “How could you do that?” he asked, “I could not live for six months without quarrelling with him.”
We all forgot ourselves rolling with laughter and forgot all about the time. In the midst of our hilarity Sri Aurobindo said, “The Mother is coming.” We all stopped laughing and stood up but couldn’t check our outburst. On seeing us, the Mother also began to smile.
The Mother (to Sri Aurobindo): What are you laughing about so much?
Sri Aurobindo: Nothing of importance. I was speaking about my poet-brother.
When the Mother had left, there was not much further conversation.
Nirodbaran: What about your eldest brother?
Sri Aurobindo: He went up for medicine but couldn’t go on. He returned to India and got a job in Coochbehar. Now I hear he has come back to Calcutta. He is a very practical man, the opposite of poetic, and takes more after my father. He is a very nice man and one can easily get on with him.