Madhav Pandit It was in 1949, the first year of my visit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I was in the long queue for the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. A bright youth came out of a room and asked me whether I would be interested in having a photo of the Mother, a costly one. I nodded and took it the next day. That was the start of my association with Madhavji, born out of a spontaneous feeling of his that made him choose me, an unknown face till then for him, from the middle of the crowd, for a picture of the Mother, a picture I have always cherished. It is one of her photos taken in Japan. The association that started then, grew into a happy lifelong brotherh

Court Titbits The CBI cases in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Pondicherry, had opened after all. On the first day the CBI officer was present. The Magistrate had not yet occupied his chair and chatting was going on in the Court room. I asked the CBI man, "Why did you file these false cases against me ?" He replied, "Please ask Kireet Joshi", and winked his eye. Kireet Joshi was the Ashramite turned bureaucrat "I am doing my duty", he said in his defence. "And what is your duty when you are asked to prosecute an innocent man." "I can only say that truth wins and truth is with you," he said from his heart. At Bhubaneswar, this ver

Panditji At Calcutta I had heard of Panditji as an important visitor to the Ashram. Navajata spoke highly of him as a person of great siddhis and as one who had become very intimate with Mother. He was offered a seat in front of Mother ,a rare honour. He was a tantric yogi and spontaneously recognised the Divine Mother at the first sight. He had remarked that Mother was free from all samskara, that is, she was the Immaculate Divine. I had heard before of a tantric from North Bihar who observed the traditional custom of not bowing before a non-Indian or a woman. But when he came to Pondicherry in course of a pilgrimage and went to the Mother, he prostrated himself before her s

Amrita Amrita was the name given by Sri Aurobindo to Arvamadu Ayengar, a South Indian youth who was introduced to Sri Aurobindo on August 15, 1913 and who then started frequenting Sri Aurobindo's house more and more. He joined Sri Aurobindo's household permanently in 1919 when he was only 24. He had started with the work of posting letters and later he became the Manager of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and was also appointed its Trustee. These posts were just his outer garment, so to say. The man, the sadhak, the Mother's child that he was, that is what stays in my memory of Amrita. I liked him, I respected him, though the occasions for our meeting were few. Quite often we sa

Counouma Padmanabha Counouma, hailing from Kerala, was a resident of Pondicherry for years before he joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He rose to be the Managing Trustee of the Ashram and died on that chair in 1991 at the age of 82 after a prolonged illness. He was a scholar of French law that prevailed in Pondicherry in those times. He served as an officer of the Government of Pondicherry, holding the post of the Registrar of Documents. Also a politician, he was a member of the Pondicherry Assembly for some period. Counouma was a firm believer in the principle that everyone has a right of being heard. He was always ready to hear all the parties on any issue, even in

Champaklal Everyone connected with Sri Aurobindo and Mother hears the name of Champaklal. As Hanuman's is known along with Rama's. When I went to Mother, Champaklal would be always there, in the corridor or at the staircase or inside Mother's room. My contacts with him started and grew there only, as it must have been in the case of most of his friends and acquaintances. In my early days, when I received from Mother a big birthday card, clad in silk, Navajata complimented Champaklal for it. "I only made the card," Champaklal protested, "It is Mother who chose it." Champaklal always tried to be exact in his words, and in acceptance of compliments, whereas ordinar

Dyuman I think it was in November 1949 or sometime in 1950. I was on a visit to the Ashram and sitting in the Ashram courtyard after dinner. I was to leave next morning in the early hours before Mother would come to the balcony. Yet there was a childlike wish in me, sitting there, to have Mother's darshan once more. My dear friend Kishorilal had come to say "Good-by" and he said that Mother usually came to the staircase at about 9 p.m. to see some Ashramites for specific purposes and although I did not fall in this category, Dyumanbhai was the man who could ask Mother about my wish at that odd hour. Dyumanbhai just passed near us at that moment and as I was shy to ask, Kishorila

Carlo Schueller I met him for the first time in 1961. It was also my first trip to Europe and I carried a letter of introduction from Navajata who, I discovered on reaching there, had never met Carlo till then, but was known to him by name due to his association with Mother India of which Carlo was a subscriber and with Sri Aurobindo Society which was a rising star then. In fact, Navajata had assigned me the task of getting Carlo involved in the Society and to have a centre of the Society opened at Carlo's place. Carlo lived then in a big and beautiful house opening on the Zurich Lake. He received me with his reputed hospitality for people coming from Pondicherry i

Down Memory Lane by Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala SRI AUROBINDO'S ACTION PONDICHERRY 1996 © Sri Aurobindo's Action Pondicherry—605002, India. First Published 1996 Distributed by: VAK The Spiritual Book Shop P.O. Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry-605002, India. Published by: Sri Aurobindo's Action P.O. Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry-605002, India. Phototypeset and printed at All India Press, Kennedy Nagar Pondicherry-605001, India. Author's Forewor

Indira Gandhi In September 1967 Laljibhai Hindocha asked me to go to Delhi for some work of his sugar factory with the Government of India. I wrote to Mother about it, adding that at Delhi I could also do some work of Sri Aurobindo Society. It would take four five days and I wrote to Mother asking for her 'orders'. Mother replied, 'Go there with my blessings', and added that perhaps I could go to Indira Gandhi to invite her for laying the foundation stone of Auroville on 28th February 1968 and that I should speak to Nava about it. Nandini Satpaty was contacted by Nava and she took me to Indira Gandhi at her residence. Indiraji was courteous and attentive, but she dou