Chapter 1 Sri Aurobindo and Humour Sri Aurobindo and humour? - What a preposterous subject! And to venture to write a book of four hundred fifty pages on a theme like 'Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings'? - What a queer idea bordering on the incredible! And to try to evoke the image of a smiling Sri Aurobindo? - Is it not divorced from all facts of the case? Can one remember having seen a photograph of Sri Aurobindo, even a single one, either pertaining to his early period of sojourn in England or to his days of active youth spent in Baroda and in Calcutta or even to his last year of physical existence - the year 1950, where Sri Aurobindo is found even wi

-17_Sri Aurobindo^s Satirical Humour.htm Chapter 15 Sri Aurobindo's Satirical Humour The movement of the humorous impulse as well as its expression in words may not in all cases be inspired by human kindliness. If not properly handled they may easily degenerate into mere mockery and sarcasm arising out of personal malice and conveyed through the medium of impish invectives. Sarcasm has for its aim the infliction of psychological pain on the object with a perverted sense of sardonic pleasure: it often enough represents the 'sneer of the scoffer and the snarl of the literary critic' which 'scrapes the human feeling with a hoe.' But this is only the undesirable negative stream of hum

-10_The Poet-Mark^s Humour.htm Chapter 8 The poet-maker Humour The poet-maker? What is meant by this startling phrase? Are not true poets born and never made? At least that is the significance of the old Latin tag: Poeta nascitur non fit. By the way, this classical dictum, so the rumour goes, has two mistranslations, though obliquely 'meaningful'. A schoolboy is reported to have made the startling translation: "Poets are nasty, but don't you get a fit!" Another philosophic (!) youngster has the sententious rendering: "Poets are born, but they are not fit to be!"1 Ignoring these frivolities we may indeed affirm with certitude that a veritable poet, if not born, can never be trained i

-16_Sri Aurobindo^s Humorous Titbits.htm Chapter 14 Sri Aurobindo's Humorous Titbits In the preceding chapter ("Sri Aurobindo's Humour-Miscellany") we have given more than fifty examples of Sri Aurobindo's delectable and multisplendoured humour permeating long passages of his writings. The present chapter, on the other hand, will present the same rich humour of Sri Aurobindo but this time in rather short passages. Without unnecessarily wasting our time on the preliminaries let us directly go to the feast-table. I. On himself (1)NB: Did you not retire for five or six years for an exclusive and intensive meditation? Sri Aurobindo: I am not aware that I did so. But my biog

-18_Sri Aurobindo^s Humour of Compassionate Understanding.htm Chapter 16 Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Compassionate Understanding After long chapters of undiluted humour we have at last reached our penultimate station. We have by now had sufficient acquaintance with different aspects of the genius of humour that Sri. Aurobindo was. Whatever subject or situation or character his 'jollity' has touched has been made to shed sparkling laughter. His witty remarks, his ingenious word-play, his novel manipulation of ideas, and his production of pure fun almost out of nothing - all these have come to us as so many pleasant surprises and have helped to enliven our thoughts, sublimate our fee

-02_The Publisher^s Note.htm Publishers' Note Since the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950 many research publications have seen the light of day dealing with various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's life-work and teachings. But to our knowledge no book has so far been published exclusively devoted to the study of Sri Aurobindo's humorous writings. The present book hopes to break new ground in this particular field. Apropos of Nirodbaran's Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo the Mother had once remarked: "Thanks to Nirod, we have a revelation of an altogether unknown side of what Sri Aurobindo was. It is extremely interesting and very instructive." It is the fond and humble hope of the writer of the

Chapter 17 The Smiling Master At last we have come to the end of our book which has principally dealt with Sri Aurobindo's humour. We may now delightfully take leave of the Smiling Master. It has by now been made manifestly clear that Sri Aurobindo comes to us not only as the Day-bringer who floods us with his Light and Wisdom, not merely as the unparalleled Guide on the arduous and austere path of the Integral Yoga, but also as an intimate loving Companion who not only enlightens us but cheers our weary care-laden heart all the way. His is the infinite human kindliness spiced with a rich flavour of delectable humour, which brings an enlivening smile to our l

-05_On the Disciples^ Humour.htm Chapter 3 On the Disciples' Humour Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit poet, once addressed this plea to Saraswati, the goddess of learning: "Arasikesu rasasya nivedanam, sirasi ma likha, ma likha, ma likhaV - "To offer rasa to one who is devoid of humour, let this not be my fate, never, never!" Yes, it is not so easy to appreciate wit and humour; to be able to do so requires a special bent of mind and a rare genre of capacity. One may be an erudite scholar, even a reputed lexicographer, but he may very well miss a subtle witty point. Did not the poet Pope remark: "A dictionary-maker might know the meaning of one word, but not of two put together!" Hum

-13_Sri Aurobindo^s Humour of Situation and Character.htm Chapter 11 Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Situation and Character The question arises again and again: How is humour produced? What gives rise to a successful comic effect? Over the last so many chapters of our book we have sought to provide the answer to this question. We have noted that in all the examples we have cited so far, in spite of the wide diversity in their outer setting, there has been a constant fundamental factor linking all the instances together. This factor may be summed up as a "sense of unexpected exultation" arising out of the simultaneous presence of the three following elements: ( i) sudden juxtaposit

BIBLIOGRAPHY To economise space, books and journals referred to in the Reference List appended to each chapter of the present work have been represented by appropriate abbreviations. These abbreviations are given their respective referents in this Bibliography, Books have been listed below not necessarily in the order of their relative importance but solely on the basis of their alphabetical order in terms of their abbreviations. This will help the readers to locate the name of any particular book consulted once they know its abbreviation as given in the Reference Lists mentioned above. When a particular book has been referred to only once or twice, its