APPENDIX [Extracts from Suresh Chandra Chakravarti's Reminiscences in Bengali Smriti Katha bearing on Sri Aurobindo's life.] It was about two-thirty in the morning. The date was March 30, 1910. There came a sound of the whistle from the engine. Then the train began to slow down; it became slower and slower and slower, until finally it came to a dead stop after giving a jolt backward and a slight push to the front. It was obvious that there was no such thing as a vacuum brake on this train. I opened the door of my compartment and got down on the platform. This was the railway station at Pondicherry. I feel sure that my readers will wonder with wide-open eyes at th

VII PONDICHERRY (2) I have said that this cemetery that was Pondicherry had been infested by ghosts and goblins. These had a special category known ordinarily as spies. The word "spy" carries with it, as you know, an association of all that is low and disgusting and unspeakable, things of dark import. But did you know that the word is pure Sanskrit? It was spaśa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spaśa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a

DEOGHAR The scene was Deoghar, though not exactly the town itself. About five miles before you reach the town, there is the Jesidih Junction on the main railway line. Nearly a mile from there, close to the railway line there was a house with only a ground floor and quite neat and clean on the whole. All around were open fields—not the green meadows of Bengal but the barren red moorlands of Bihar. Not entirely unpleasant scenery though, for it breathed an atmosphere of purity and peace and silence. A little farther away there stood a larger two-storied mansion, perhaps the comfortable holiday retreat of some rich man. The time was towards the end of 1907 and the beginni

XI I PLAYED FOOTBALL (1) Some of you have asked to hear about my performance in football. I have already told you something on an earlier occasion. Let us have a little more today. I have dabbled in football almost since my birth or, to be more exact, from the time I barely completed five. My hand was introduced to the pen or chalk and my feet touched the ball practically at one and the same time. Would you believe it, I had my formal initiation into studies, not once but twice, and on both occasions it was performed with due ceremony on a Saraswati Puja day, as has been the custom with us. The first time it took place, I was only four years old a

 I SUBHAS — OATEN ULLAS — RUSSELL The Subhash-Oaten encounter has attained some notoriety, as a number of people have on several occasions given an account of how Subhash Chandra once gave a thrashing with his shoe to one of his British professors, Oaten. But it seems to have almost been forgotten by the general public that this incident was a mere replica or imitation of an earlier and identical performance. Subhash did not institute anything new; he was simply following in the footsteps of eminent and heroic predecessors. Today I propose to give an account of that original performance. It was in the year 1905. The Swadeshi movement was in full ti

IlI MURARIPUKUR (2) Now I come to the last phase of our life at Manicktolla Gardens, that is when we turned towards terroristic activities like the manufacture of bombs, collecting pistols and rifles and making good use of them. The first chapter had already begun with the Yugantar newspaper. As we took up these revolutionary activities, we discovered that it was not easy to carry on this kind of secret work unless there was, common in the country as a whole, a keen desire and hope for freedom. What was needed was a favourable atmosphere from which the revolutionaries could get the desired sympathy and support. One could not expect anything but opposition from

v SHYAMPUKUR On coming out of jail, Sri Aurobindo found shelter in the house of his maternal uncle, Krishna Kumar Mitra; the place was known as the Sanjivani Office. Bejoy Nag and myself had got our release along with him, but we could not yet make up our minds as to what we should do next; we were still wandering about like floating weeds or moss. But both of us used to go and see him every afternoon. About this time, he went out on a tour for a short while in the Assam area in connection with political work and he took the two of us along. I shall speak about that on another occasion. On return from the tour he told me one day that he had decided to bring out t

VIII PONDICHERRY CYCLONE I have once spoken to you of an earthquake and a small fire. Today I shall say something about two or three other inclement natural phenomena of which I have had direct personal experience. The first was when I was a child, it has left a clear imprint on my mind. Many of you, no doubt, are familiar with storms and hurricanes. But have you ever seen a whirlwind, what they call a tornado? This word has been rendered by a Pundit into tūrna-da, a thing that is swift in its flight. I have had a chance to see the thing with my own eyes. Just listen, you will see how terrible a thing it is and how well in keeping with its formidable

I THE WORLD WAR (1939-1945)* ITS INNER BEARINGS This is a war to which even spiritual seekers can hardly remain indifferent with impunity. There are spiritual paths, however, that ask to render unto God what is God's and unto Satan what belongs to Satan; in other words, spirituality is kept apart from what is called worldliness, clean and untouched by the dust and murk of Ignorance—Maya. The injunction accordingly is that they who are worldly must remain worldly, they have no business, no right to meddle with spirituality, and they who are spiritual should, on the other hand, remain strictly spiritual, should have nothing to do with worldli

V I PONDICHERRY (1) Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry1 and took shelter here. We might say of course from another point of view that it was he who gave shelter to Pondicherry within his own consciousness. But why this city in particular? There is indeed the usual view that he retired into French territory to escape the wrath of the British bureaucracy. But actually, all he wanted was to find a quiet spot where he might give himself to his own work undisturbed. The place was so quiet that we can hardly imagine now what it was really like. It was not quiet, it was actually dead; they used to call it a dead city. There was hardly any traffic, particularly in the ar