A casual remark by a newly acquainted intellectual friend of
Kolkata at Coffee House round table meet after many years on a Sunday, “Oh,
Rishi Arabinda! He would have been hanged if C R Das didn’t plead for him and
the matter would have ended. Why, he was first to create violence in Bengal.”
elicited the following letter to him after some days
Actually we were not old friends
but we met through common friends. Such remarks from intellectuals are
sometimes heard about him so I didn’t pay much attention at that moment, others
mightn’t have heard at all. But the fact is, it went very deep in me and gnawed
at my heart as I love Sri Aurobindo. Your remarks might have been uttered just
casually like uttering such words as, “He escaped at a crucial moment of the
Independence Movement when his presence was very required”, etc.
I haven’t forgotten, may be
because it was uttered by you, an intellectual with a long academic and
journalistic career but such remarks are usually shallow without full
understanding of facts, without a common knowledge of who Sri Aurobindo was!
It is an irony that he was active
in open politics only for five years in Bengal. But by his presence and activities
for a short while he left an indelible impression of his personality and
influence on the then public, he pioneered the thoughts and actions
of the Independence Movement for decades. He edited two papers in English;
daily and weekly, and one weekly in Bengali with such courageous tone and
dignity, such deftness and dexterity of language; with or without mention of
his name as editor, that the British knowing full well could not charge him for
long. When they charged him later for sedition for quite a few times
desperately, he came out unscathed each time without entering their snare
before and after the Alipore trial when great C R Das took charge of the case.
When he was charged for one
of his writing in Bande Mataram, for sedition for the first time, he resigned
from the post of the Principal of the National College but was released without
any charge proved against him. Rabindranath Tagore, eleven years elder to him,
came to him at his place of stay at Raja Subodh Mullick’s residence and greeted
him with his poem “Namaskar”, beginning with “Arobindo Rabindrer laha
namaskar!” Tagore met him again long after that 1907, in 1928, at Pondicherry
and was astounded observing his face and was impressed that Sri Aurobindo
carried the divine in him. He wrote an article on it. This is to
impress that he was a man above usual man, not to be so casually dispensed with
light remarks.
Das was his friend in England when
a student. While in Pondicherry quite later Sri Aurobindo was engaged in yoga
but had little money to carry on with his disciples. He was again helped by his
friend, Chitta, who paid him rupees one thousand as remuneration for
translation of his poem, “Sagar Sangeet”.
After many night-labours and many
days pleading the concluding remarks of the God inspired Barrister C.R. Das’s
speech while pleading for Aurobindo Ghose was,: “Therefore I say, that the man
standing before the bar of this court is standing before the bar of the high
court of history, that long after this turmoil is hushed in silence, long after
he is dead and gone, he will be considered as the Prophet of Patriotism, Father
of Nationalism and Lover of Humanity.”
Yes, the man standing there before
the bar was a God realized, transformed person due to his rigorous sadhana in
jail and before, The future Yogi, Sri Aurobindo, was standing before the bar in
the presence of the presiding Judge, Charles Porton
Beachcroft.
At his time very few were there in
India who could write English like him. He later created the largest epic in
English, Savitri, which was one of the twelve largest works in world
literature. He wrote more than 50000 lines of poetry besides other prose works.
His vision of life divine was so lofty that forgetting his revolutionary role,
the British paper “Times” came out with great appreciation in favour of The
Life Divine; a creation which gives great hopes for man in the unknown
future in contrast to the hellish presentation of the communist world to the
contemporaries, two diabolic dark personalities like Stalin and Mao-Ze-dong
whose contribution to the mankind is best remembered by their victims.
In Bengal it seems that he is more
known as Rishi, not known in what exact sense. In other states he is more
respected and known as Sri Aurobindo. Aurobindo Ghose was the first to have
claimed full freedom, Purna Swaraj, from the British yoke as early as in
1906-07. Long before Gandhi Sri Aurbindo called for boycott and
non-cooperation, passive resistance and independent Indian education system, etc.
He became the first Principal of the first National College in
India. For his active leadership beyond their control the British
considered him as the most ‘Dangerous Man’ in India. While he was incarcerated
in Alipore jail British Parliament was engaged for a full day discussing about
his arrest and it continued beyond one day. His support was Sir Ramsay
Mcdonald, once a British Prime Minister who had interviewed Sri Aurobindo
earlier. Please excuse me, with knowledge and mastery over half a dozen
European languages and half a dozen Indian languages, with new interpretation
of the oldest available Scripture, Vedas and mastery over Sanskrit, Greek and
Latin, he was like father to most of the intellectuals of his time, yet he
cared little for intellect. He received words spontaneously from the heaven in
his pen; he was a giant in the Intuitive and Overmental world. He not only
created mystic poetry but simple poems also, touching the common man and
society.
I have written this in
a single flow as if inspired by my feeling and interest on the subject. I have
books on him and on the Mother; I have translated them and have a book of poems
on them only. If you feel interested, we can go more, if you don’t it won’t go.
I am happy to have cleared my heart of an oppressed feeling, I am happy to have
made efforts to let you know that he was such a Himalayan entity that no dwarf
can reach him really without a spiritual width and depth.
Though he tried, made all efforts
to remain in politics, edited papers, wrote and gave speeches after he was
released, without any charge against proved, from the Alipore Jail and Court,
he could not continue. Government’s pressure was immensely increasing to arrest
him in any way and serve the final blow to finish all their future deals with
him. It was a long and arduous struggle, more in his inner life than outwardly.
As in his Uttarpara Speech he said on 30. 5. 1909 that God was his only guide
and that He had wished him to do his work, meaning work of inner Yoga to reach
him, he could not stay in turbulent political life; on one hand chased by the
British Raj and on other hand his inner being was unwilling to continue in the
same way, Finally he, throwing dust in the eyes of the police, reached the
French India, Pondicherry, never again to return contrary to expectations, and
plunged in the deepest water of yoga.
While the case had still been
going pending judgment, when his co-prisoners asked him about the result, he
said that he would be freed. When, after the verdict was given to hang Barindra
Kumar Ghose and Ullaskar Dutta to death, he said to his brother, Barindra, that
he would not be hanged. After sometime when the two to be hanged appealed to
the High Court, their punishments were commuted to life imprisonment in Andaman
jail with some others. Sri Aurobindo knew of the results.
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2020/21
Here is a poem from my
book, "Poems on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother"
Sri Aurobindo
“God shall grow up
while the wise men talk and sleep
For man shall not know
the coming till its hour
And belief shall be
not till the work is done”-
said Sri Aurobindo in
his epic poem Savitri.
The voice of truth in
the seer poet Sri Aurobindo was heard
As he was a lotus born
in mud, away from the mundane scene,
The cascading
Supramental light like the golden swan
Touching the sky kept
its foot on earth fixed.
Like a tree he was
peaceful, unhurried and calm with perseverance
Among the thousand
resounding words his existence was silence
In his body sat the
God, his face revealed the eternity
Out of intense love
for men he sat away from humanity.
Small fries in shallow
water and surface-gazers
were lost in the depth
of his fathomless water.
©
Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2020
The Mother of Pondicherry
Hardly her birthday was celebrated;
Keeping the celebration of the centenary
Of Mother’s permanent coming to Pondicherry
Pending for the next April twenty-fourth
Vicious Corona Viruses Began their Reign
Signaling almost an end of it after a year;
Visit to their last Earthly Abode including her room
Is still a taboo
Hush hush silence, barricade and boundary remains
We haven’t visited them for more than a year hence!
Nature has given a signal in the meantime;
There was torrential rain on her next birthday
From the early hours before the dawn
Until noon without a respite soon
On Twenty-first February 2021;
Such rains unprecedented drowning the Sun
Never happened in Pondicherry
On such a date
In such a manner
Restricting further her Restricted Birthday affair,
From the beginning of her Coming
Till the end of her Ministry
Even up to date;
But the issue is neither local nor temporal
Not to be decided by the Nature solely;
It is in the infinity in the eternity
Where things shall take shape
Events be reshaped
It is in the realm of the Mother’s Divinity
Where the future shall be molded;
We wait
Wait!
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2021
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