24 MARCH 1940PURANI: Jinnah speaks of two Indian States-one Hindu and one Muslim. SRI AUROBINDO: Why two and not several? PURANI: Armando Menezes, the Goan poet, has come. He is publishing another book called Chaos and a Dancing Star. SRI AUROBINDO: The dancing star will be taken for a cinema star. (Laughter) PURANI: Yes, he himself fears so. NIRODBARAN: One criticism of Nishikanto's book is out. SRI AUROBINDO: I was wondering why no criticism had been made by anybody. What does it say? NIRODBARAN: It is by Buddhadev. He says that Nishikanto, by using fine images and rhythms, gives us pictures as well as sound-patterns so that both eye and ear get plenty of joy. SRI AUROBINDO: Well, what more does he want? NIRODBARAN: He is lamenting over Nishikanto's exclusion of his prose-poems and also his previous poetry. Bengalis think that his early work was wonderful. Page-575 SRI AUROBINDO : I didn't see anything in it. Does Nishikanto think like them? NIRODBARAN: Perhaps not. Buddhadev says that there are seeds of a great poet in him but they are likely to be spoiled if he remains secluded in the Pondicherry Ashram. The complaint is that he writes in the same way and on the same subject all the time. SRI AUROBINDO: He surely doesn't write in the same way. As for the subject, others also write on the same subject, their own, though other than Nishikanto's. NIRODBARAN: These people seem to be too much enamoured of their prose-poems. They think prose-poetry is a great creation. PURANI : Yes. I wonder how Tagore could take it up. SRI AUROBINDO: To keep up with the times. Nobody has really succeeded in prose-poetry except to some extent in France. Whitman has succeeded in one or two instances — but only when he has approached nearer poetic rhythm. I read somewhere that modern poets are giving up prose-poetry now and going more towards irregular free verse. PURANI: Tagore says that his works of this kind must be read aloud to catch the rhythm. SRI AUROBINDO: Anything read aloud can have a rhythm, even prose. 25 MARCH 1940On the radio there was news that Alia Bux had been shot at while returning from Ramgar. SRI AUROBINDO (to Purani): Have you found out why he was shot at? PURANI: No. SATYENDRA: Alia Bux says that there was a European in his compartment. So it can't be said that Alia Bux was really shot at. SRI AUROBINDO: Who would shoot such an inoffensive man? One may as well shoot Malaviya or Pattabhi Sitaramayya. (Laughter) SATYENDRA: In Sind the Muslim League seems to have been dissolved and a Nationalist Party formed. Page-576 SRI AUROBINDO: There was no Muslim League in Sind. The Sind Ministers appear to be as fluid as the French ones. SATYENDRA: The French Ministers seem to last about nine months. Only Daladier remained a little longer. SRI AUROBINDO: About two and a half years. The shortest period of a Ministry was one day. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: It couldn't be shorter perhaps. SRI AUROBINDO: Then they can write "ex-Ministers" and hope by that to govern some day. PURANI: There was a joke in the Indian Express. Somebody in England during the air raids wanted to camouflage his house with palm leaves over the chimney. He was asked: "Why palm leaves?" He replied: "The German pilot will then think he is in Africa." SRI AUROBINDO: There is another joke somewhat similar. Somebody went up in an aeroplane and was trying to learn things. He was calculating where he could be at the time. Then suddenly he told the pilot: "Take off your hat". "Why?" asked the pilot. He replied: "Don't you see we are under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral?" 26 MARCH 1940NIRODBARAN: You have said in The Synthesis of Yoga, Volume II, in the chapter entitled "The Difficulties of the Mental Being", that there are divine planes in the mental being just as there are divine planes above into which one ordinarily enters in Samadhi. What are these planes? Higher Mind, etc.? SRI AUROBINDO: But there are divine planes everywhere. It depends on the context. NIRODBARAN: Here is the passage. SRI AUROBINDO (after reading it): I must have meant the reflections of the higher planes in the mind. Thus, for instance, one may receive a reflection from the Overmind. One may not oneself know it. What is called genius is the reflection from the higher planes-from the Intuitive Mind, for example. But it does not mean that one is living in that plane. There may be reflections in the vital being also. Page-577 27 MARCH 1940PURANI: Professor Attreya of Benaras has brought some "psychic" photographs. SRI AUROBINDO: Is he a spiritualist? PURANI: Looks like one. SRI AUROBINDO: But what is the good of photographs of these things? You know about the famous photograph of fairies by Conan Doyle. I don't know how it was done, because fairies don't lend themselves to photography. PURANI : There has been one good result of Attreya's visit. KS has broken his silence and was talking with him. SRI AUROBINDO: It was not due to that. Nolini spoke to the Mother about the silence and afterwards told KS: "Sri Aurobindo doesn't like silence." He at once started talking. It seems he was fading away into the Ineffable—couldn't talk or walk or do anything. Such things happen to those who force themselves before they are ready. They either go into that condition or become rajasic. One kitten of ours became like that. Whenever we used to concentrate, it came and lay down near us and afterwards it couldn't move or walk. With great difficulty it had to be pulled out of that condition. It was a remarkable cat. PURANI: It was Baby perhaps? SRI AUROBINDO: No, it was Goldie. Baby was possessed by a devil. While a procession was passing, she got a sudden fit. Perhaps a devil came from the procession and entered her. It is always the kittens that are affected. Old cats are too much fixed in cathood. 29 MARCH 1940Satyendra was smiling at Nirodbaran without any apparent reason. NIRODBARAN: What is the matter? What makes you smile? SATYENDRA: I was thinking, "Nirod thinks himself so important but if he knew how much empty space there is in his body, he wouldn't." SRI AUROBINDO : It is because of the empty space that he feels important. NIRODBARAN: What empty space? Page-578 SATYENDRA: I was reading a popular book of science where it is said that the empty space between protons and electrons is comparatively greater than between the stars and that the table which looks so solid has more empty space than we know: the very earth we stand on is mostly empty space! SRI AUROBINDO: But somewhere in the New Statesman, perhaps in an article by Haldane, I read that the empty space of the infinite cosmos is not of the same kind as that within the atom. But how do they know that the space between protons and electrons is empty? NIRODBARAN: Because they can't find anything there. SRI AUROBINDO: Science is full of emptiness then. Jinnah has proclaimed his Muslim India and Hindu India scheme which has brought out numerous protests. Savarkar is touring all over India and is getting a tremendous reception. SATYENDRA: Savarkar says Hindus have never been conquered by the Muslims after 1677. SRI AUROBINDO: What about Panipat? PURANI: He mentions Panipat but doesn't call it a conquest. Nadir Shah, he says, couldn't. SRI AUROBINDO: Because he didn't want to, perhaps. Savarkar has suddenly shot up into a powerful personality. And how does he call Shivaji an emperor? He is no more an emperor than Fazlul Huque. (Laughter)
31 MARCH 1940NIRODBARAN: 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? Page-579 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? Page-580 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. Page-581 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) Idon't see how it can be taken in any other way. It seems a fine suggestion.
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