Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

31 March 1940

Nirodbaran: Nishikanto says that Becharlal has asked for his poems.

Sri Aurobindo: Why does he want them when he says they are too philosophic and thus unfit for publication?

Nirodbaran: Nishikanto asks the same question and, besides, he wonders why one who speaks against the Ashram should want them.

Sri Aurobindo: But since he is asking for them Nishikanto can send them. Criticism is no reason why poems shouldn’t be sent. And Becharlal himself doesn’t want his criticism to be taken seriously: otherwise why should he ask for poems he doesn’t like?

Purani: Yes, and if the poems are published the public will see that Becharlal is himself going against his own criticism.

Nirodbaran: According to Bhattacharya, there seems to be a section of the public in Calcutta that says Nishikanto lacks a little refinement in poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: In what way?

Nirodbaran: In the use of some expressions like “womb”.

Sri Aurobindo: What is wrong with it? Why do they find it vulgar or unrefined? Is it because it is sexual?

Nirodbaran: I don’t know.

Sri Aurobindo: But I want to know. The word has been used in all Indian languages for a long time. If you say that such expressions should not be used, that is different. But how are they vulgar? Since when has Bengal become so puritan? It seems to be a Brahmo Samaj influence.

Nirodbaran: Tagore never uses such words. In Sanskrit they are used extensively.

Sri Aurobindo: Has Bhattacharya been to Shantiniketan?

Nirodbaran: But he is a Sanskrit scholar. Why then does he object? Some people object to Nishikanto’s use of the word “prostitute” also.

Sri Aurobindo: Bah! That is too much. In English they use “harlot” and “whore”. At one time in Europe, particularly in England, such words were considered vulgar and they were not used. But now everybody is using them. The pre-Brahmo Bengal was also to a certain extent puritan. Moni said that he was not allowed by the teachers to sing in school: it was considered immoral. If music is immoral, then there can be no question about dancing, and yet in ancient India even the princesses were taught dancing and used to dance before the public. Music, painting, dancing, all these were publicly encouraged. These objections have no substance in them: they are just finicky.

Nirodbaran: Dilip doesn’t like the use of “worm, insect, phlegm”. He gets a repugnant sensation because he is reminded of their associations.

Sri Aurobindo: Madhusudan has used such words, I think. In English they use the word “worm”; I myself have used it.

Nirodbaran: He may not object to it in English.

Purani: Why? It doesn’t give those associations?

Sri Aurobindo: Should one write only of aesthetic things in poetry?

Nirodbaran: “Buttocks” too is regarded as vulgar.

Sri Aurobindo: It is frequently used in Sanskrit. In English one wouldn’t use “buttocks” but that is because of the prosaicness of the word itself: the English say “posterior”.

Nirodbaran: Have you seen Nishikanto’s song sent to you the other day by Dilip?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, what about it?

Nirodbaran: There is one expression in it – “own dream” – about which there is a dispute. Nishikanto says he has used the first part of it in the sense of the Self, which Dilip says nobody will understand and so should be changed.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can’t be taken as the Self; but I understood it to mean one’s self-dream which one can’t get away from. It is one’s own creation and has not been imposed upon one and one has to fulfil it. In that sense it is all right.

Nirodbaran: Dilip says that what the poet has tried to express is not important: what is important is whether the expression has come right and people will understand it in that sense. According to him, Nishikanto’s word will be understood as “own dream”.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of understanding only. The feeling too has to be considered. We must see whether one feels something even if one does not understand.

Nirodbaran: Nishikanto says that we have to see the drift of the whole poem instead of considering a single expression taken separately. His whole poem’s idea, he says, is that what appears as “illusion” or “dream” is not “dream”, it is something real of one’s own Self. If that word is changed, the entire meaning will be spoiled. The two words coming together have produced the emphasis.

Sri Aurobindo: He is quite right. If the word is changed, the lyrical beauty of the poem will be spoiled. One has also to see the implication.

Nirodbaran: Nishikanto seems to agree with Dilip. Dilip goes too much by the mind: what is intellectually not clear to him is suspect.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he follows the old tradition of his father and others. Here the poetry is trying to be suggestive. In his own poetry intellectuality is quite in place.

Nirodbaran: Satyendra said that X employed the expression “own shore” in a recent poem; by “own” she meant the Self, but Nishikanto objected and told her that it couldn’t have that meaning in Bengali and so she changed it.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the context. (After a pause) I don’t see how it can be taken in any other way. It seems a fine suggestion.