Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

13 January 1940

Nirodbaran: Now from your non-committal answer Nishikanto understood that there was something wrong with his rhythm.

(Sri Aurobindo began to smile when he heard this.) He was depressed for three days. He has now rewritten it.

After a long time I read an appreciation of X’s new novel by a man who counts. He says it is not a novel in the conventional sense. It may be called an “intellectual novel”. He has praised X’s insight and his power of analysis, but at the same time he says that X has fallen victim to that power by overuse, so that it becomes monotonous and fatiguing to the reader.

Sri Aurobindo: Do X’s novels have a good sale?

Nirodbaran: Well, his own publishers say they have a pretty small sale, while another firm says they sell very well. I personally think intellectual novels can’t be popular.

Sri Aurobindo: Somebody has said that X expresses all his psychology through the mouths of his characters in dialogue form and there is little left of the story itself. That is the difficulty with intellectual novels. They may have a lot of analysis and acute discussion but lack the life-push. And it is always difficult to put this life-push in dialogue form. Novels without the life-push cannot grip the public as a whole. It is not that stories with the life-push have no intellectual theme. Both can go together; but the intellectual theme is now enmeshed in the story itself and does not stick out. I understand Proust was an intellectual novelist.

Nirodbaran: X puts in a lot of incidents and most of his characters are rich people.

Sri Aurobindo: There may be a lot of incidents, but everything depends on how they are put in.

Purani: Nowadays there is an attempt to write novels about the common people, the masses – socialistic novels.

Sri Aurobindo: But the Socialists themselves have got tired of such novels.

Purani: These books try to be realistic, depicting things as they actually are.

Sri Aurobindo: They often exaggerate things.

Satyendra (after a lull): Some of the members of the Gita Prachar Party have died on a pilgrimage.

Sri Aurobindo: Died?

Satyendra: Yes, Sir. They consider it a great virtue to have such a death – death while on a pilgrimage. They are all well-to-do people.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, then they can afford to die. (Laughter)

Evening

Nirodbaran: This old judge who has come here seems to be a typical Bengali. He said that Y has some high realisation. He saw A on the way and declared that she had established peace in herself.

Satyendra: Didn’t he want to meet N?

Sri Aurobindo: N is a Buddhist. The judge should have been told that. He would have said to N, “I see Buddha in your face.” Somebody should have told the judge, “By your ready embrace it seems you have realised Bhakti.” He should have been given some compliments, too.

Nirodbaran: X is not able to get rid of his age-old idea that Y and Z are not doing your Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: How is that? What is his reason for thinking so?

Nirodbaran: He says they don’t mix with people, don’t behave well with people, they are not courteous or sociable.

Sri Aurobindo: Is sociableness part of my Yoga?

Nirodbaran: I don’t think he goes so far as to say that. His grievance is that they are not easy in their behaviour with others. If he makes some allowance for Y, he yet sees no excuse for Z. “Z”, he says, “lives in seclusion, isolation, which is not the aim of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga.”

Sri Aurobindo: But I myself live in isolation!

Nirodbaran: You do it for a special purpose, he will contend.

Sri Aurobindo: Z’s isolation also may be a part of his Yoga. Besides, he has isolated himself with the consent of the Mother. And what is meant by “Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga”?

Purani: Different people have different temperaments and isolation may be a temporary necessity for Z.

Champaklal: But he is not really isolated. He talks with many people, jokes and laughs freely.

Nirodbaran: X asks why Z shouldn’t be free and easy with people. He quotes one instance. Z, it seems, went to the length of writing five or six pages to someone on some difficulty in Yoga when he could have cleared it up by half an hour or less of talk.

Sri Aurobindo: If he wrote, perhaps he thought that was the best way. By writing, things are cleared up more easily than by talking. If Y and Z are not doing my Yoga, then who is doing it?

Nirodbaran: Exactly what I said.

Sri Aurobindo (After a pause): X claims to be a psychologist. Why doesn’t he understand that temperaments differ with people? Y and Z may be all he says, but what I object to is bringing my Yoga in. My Yoga cannot be rigidly formulated like that. Even if Y hadn’t been doing Yoga, he wouldn’t have run after people.

Nirodbaran: Have you seen Amal’s recent article “Can Indians Write English Poetry?”?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He has paid a compliment to the Ashram. He has said that there is a growing band of gifted poets here. Perhaps he is paying a compliment to himself! (Laughter)

Nirodbaran: He says one must know English prose in order to write English poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: The English language rather.