Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
26 November 1939
Sri Aurobindo sat up in bed before walking. Dr. Manilal opened the conversation.
Dr. Manilal: Tomorrow I am going, Sir. One request before I go. May I massage your leg?
Sri Aurobindo (curtly though with a slight smile): No.
Nirodbaran (to Dr. Manilal who looked nonplussed): Why do you want to massage it? From the medical point of view or for personal satisfaction?
Dr. Manilal: From the medical point of view.
Sri Aurobindo: One day’s massage won’t do any good.
Dr. Manilal: No, but afterwards Nirod and others may continue.
Mulshankar: You want to begin first?
Sri Aurobindo: They can as well begin.
Dr. Manilal (again outdone and feeling perhaps a little humbler): All doctors agree that massage is the right thing.
Sri Aurobindo: I know!
Dr. Manilal: If it is not objectionable, may I know, Sir, why you object?
Sri Aurobindo: It is a secret.
The subject could not be pursued any further and the Mother came in soon after. When Sri Aurobindo’s walk was over, Dr. Manilal came slowly to the front and took up another line of conversation.
Dr. Manilal: Bose is wild against the Congress resolution. He says the Government has already closed the door while Congress keeps the door open and is going to lick its shoes.
Sri Aurobindo: How can Congress lick its shoes if the door is banged? The Government has not closed the door yet.
Dr. Manilal: What is your opinion about the resignation of ministers?
Sri Aurobindo: I have no opinion.
Dr. Manilal: But are they right? Is it a correct step?
Sri Aurobindo: Everything is correct if it is successful!
Dr. Manilal: Not always true, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: I mean, in politics.
Dr. Manilal: People say the ministers are wrong.
Sri Aurobindo: Which people?
Dr. Manilal: Bose and the Leftists. I also think they are wrong.
Sri Aurobindo: Why?
Dr. Manilal: Well, they were once doing so much good work, village uplift, etc. Now everything will stop and perhaps be undone.
Sri Aurobindo: That is not the point. They accepted ministership for a greater purpose and if they find that that is not going to be fulfilled, what can they do?
Dr. Manilal: But they could have accepted and remained and tried to work for further progress.
Sri Aurobindo: In that case the Moderates could have done the same thing and you would be right where you were.
Satyendra: They wanted a clarification of the war aims and when the Government is not willing to give even that, how can they remain?
Dr. Manilal: But do you think this will lead to anything?
Sri Aurobindo: How can I say? It depends on what they do next and how they work things out. Nowadays there are no more resolutions, only speeches. Gandhi and Nehru’s resolutions are speeches. I got tired of reading them and gave up half-way.
Satyendra: They want to put everything clearly.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that can be done with brevity too.
Satyendra: C.R. could have done it perhaps.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he could have.
Dr. Manilal: Will the Government go against the Congress Ministry reforms? For example, prohibition?
Sri Aurobindo: Not likely, unless India as a whole wants it to go.
Dr. Manilal: But the Parsees may agitate.
Sri Aurobindo: They are only a small number. A government can’t undo it for a tiny minority.
After this there was a lull. Dr. Manilal seemed to be thinking of some other points.
Nirodbaran: What next, doctor?
Satyendra: He seems to be thinking.
Sri Aurobindo: He wants to find the sort of questions to which I may give a less agnostic reply. He wants supramental answers while I am giving only overmental ones. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Huque seems to be an incapable fellow; he goes on talking rabidly. Sikandar seems more able.
Sri Aurobindo: Sikandar is a very able politician.
Dr. Manilal: Huque seems to have surrendered to Jinnah. He has no position of his own.
Sri Aurobindo: He never had.
Dr. Manilal: And yet Bose couldn’t drive him out.
Sri Aurobindo: Bose is no better statesman than Huque.
Dr. Manilal: Is he still under his brother’s influence and guided by him?
Nirodbaran: Not quite but their programmes and opinions seem to be the same. They say the country is ready for launching civil disobedience.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they can say anything. They don’t know what it means to launch such a thing.
After this Purani asked Dr. Manilal, in an aside, about the present Gaekwar’s family. One of us noted that the Gaekwar had seven children and his wife was only twenty-five.
Sri Aurobindo: At twenty-five, seven children?
Dr. Manilal: She was married at the age of thirteen.
Sri Aurobindo: Then they started at once. (Laughter) What industrious people they are!
Dr. Manilal: Four boys and two girls.
Sri Aurobindo: And one in between? (Laughter) Otherwise how seven?
Dr. Manilal: No, she started labour-pains while I was coming here. The next issue of the Baroda paper will bring the tidings.
Sri Aurobindo: Tidings of the next issue? (Laughter)
Purani: When I read of the Gaekwar touring Europe, I thought: how could the Rani accompany him?
Dr. Manilal: The Gaekwar does not take her with him.
Sri Aurobindo: Why?
Dr. Manilal: Well, Sir, she comes in his way.
Nirodbaran said that a Chinese professor had been much impressed by his interview with the Mother.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he says he is going to conquer China for me. He also says the Chinese are a selfless people. He seems to think all people can be selfless!
Evening
Dr. Manilal: I had a vision of snakes coming towards me but being thrown off.
Sri Aurobindo: Snakes usually mean hostile forces. But in getting a vision you have been rewarded for your patience!
Dr. Manilal: The 26th of November is said to be Immortality Day. What is meant by it? The Mother used to give the Immortality flower on this day every year.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. What do you understand by it?
Dr. Manilal: Physical immortality; but why the 26th? Did you attain it on this day?
Sri Aurobindo: It may be to remind you that you have to realise it as I can’t remind you every day.
Dr. Manilal: But we have to be reminded every day just as Madalasa reminded her child.
Sri Aurobindo: The Divine parents have much to do while Madalasa had nothing else.
Dr. Manilal: Why was that bakul flower violet, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: May be Sri Krishna’s compassion for your patience or perhaps he has the compassion to wait patiently for you. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal (addressing Nirodbaran after a short pause): Try Arnica oil for your hair.
Nirodbaran: No need. I am waiting for the Supramental.
Sri Aurobindo: To remove the rest of your hair or save it?
Dr. Manilal: We are all eagerly waiting for the Supermind.
Sri Aurobindo: For your liver, Nirod’s hair and Amal’s leg?