A Man of Letters   Sonia Dyne   K.D. SETHNA (the "Dear Amal" of a correspondence spanning more than twenty years) is a prodigious letter-writer. The 'clear ray' of his sparkling intelligence muminates any subject to which his attention is drawn, and ( no matter how profound the observation or how complex the question under consideration, his quick wit and gentle humour plays over it like sunlight on an ocean's depth. I am among the fortunate recipients of some of these wonderful letters - a few of the longer ones have already appeared in print as part of the series published in Mother India.   My first letter from Amal is dated May 18th, 1979.

-045_PartV Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works-Select Poems Part V   Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works   Select Poems from The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems*   I   (Has this poem too "brainy" an air? What do you think of the turn in the last stanza?)   Your Face   Your face unveils the cry, Divinely deep, Heard from the inscrutable core Of mystic sleep—   A lure of rapturous tune Where vision fails, Like a nest of heaven-hearted Nightingales.   No hush of love could catch That soul of swoon:  Dawn's body ever crossed My dream too soon.   But now with a face of dawn Night yearns to me, Kindling

-043_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-S.K.Chakraborty Amal Kiran - A Few Inspirations   S.K. Chakraborty   I MUST confess at the outset that I possess no credentials to write on K.D. Sethna (Amal Kiran). The sole justification perhaps is that, sometime in 1997, my wife and I had the great good fortune of sitting before him in his home for half an hour or so. It was a sultry afternoon and he was seated in a wheelchair. He hardly spoke, perhaps because of a sore throat. More correctly perhaps, I was unworthy of his profundity. I had not read anything about or by him. So, I was unprepared to receive anything from him. And surely he could have perceived this. Yet the memory of the short visit has ling

-040_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Makarand Paranjape The Renaissance in India?   Makarand Paranjape   I   A Semiology of Gravestones   What I propose to do in this paper is to discuss Sri Aurobindo's famous essay "The Renaissance in India." I intend to do this by invoking the names of some young men who, though separated from us by almost two hundred years, died before reaching their prime. I will then compare their lives with that of some famous makers of modern India who came after them. What is more, I am going to talk of the memorials that have been erected to all these men by those who loved and cared for them. To that extent, what I propose, to do today may actually be consi

Thinking of Amal - As He Wheels  His Way Towards A Century   Aditi Vasishtha   A HUNDRED years is like a moment in eternity and yet it is a long span of time in human life. Not many reach a century. The few who do, often get into a dilapidated state or begin to appear like ruins of a once grand monument.   Here in the Ashram we have two most marvellous disciples of Sri Aurobindo: the much loved and universally ad-mired Nirod-da who is 101, and the quintessential poet Amal Kiran alias K.D. Sethna who will be 100 this year.   Lines of Robert Browning come to my mind:   Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, Th

Amal Kiran: A Profile P. Raja   It was Sri Aurobindo, the Yogis' Yogi, who renamed K.D. Sethna Amal Kiran, meaning "The Clear Ray".   A Parsi Bombayite by birth, Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna, was born on November 25,1904. Son of a well-to-do physician, who spent much of his leisure in his personal library, Sethna had the privilege of having his early educa-tion at St. Xavier's School and College, a Roman Catholic Institution managed by foreign Jesuit priests. As a Collegian, he won in his Intermediate Arts examination of Bombay University the Hughlings Prize in English and the Selby Scholarship in Logic. He passed his B.A. (Hons) in Philoso-phy and w

Part IV Moments of Illumination                 (Poems with Sri Aurobindo's Comments)   1. Very neat and conceited. But perhaps the intellectual ingenuity of the conceit is too pronounced to allow die conversion of the conceit into the entirely poetic image. "Saboteur" ought, I believe, to have its accents on the first and third syllable, you seem to put it on the second; - a "has" would set the rhythm right. 2. Good; some of the lines are very fine, especially the last line and a half of the second stanza and the whole of the last stanza. But can a sea hang? We

Amal Kiran: The Clear Ray   Pushpa Prava Dash   I FIRST heard of him before I came to Pondicherry in 1972. One day some of my friends were going to visit him; I accompanied them so as to meet him. We all went to his house without prior appointment. We felt that all of us were part of the Mother's family and no formality was required. Truly, he received us very cordially, and made us feel free. Later, we were happy to have his contact.   Later, sometimes I had gone to show him my poems and articles. At such times, he used to treat me with the same frankness. Thus, an intimacy grew between us, and I was touched by his gentle behaviour.

-038_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-S.Murali Of Transience and Transformation: The Ebb and Flow of Creativity   S. Murali   AMAL KIRAN is a scholar of extraordinary depth and understanding. His intuitive analysis of Sri Aurobindo's insights offers a unique instance of the creative integration of scholarship and inner vision. I, for one, have been greatly benefited by his critiques of Aurobindian poetry and poetics. His is not a mere re-rendering of the master's voice but a creative interpretation. He never takes anything on trust, and his writings evidence his relentless intellectual curiosity and inquiring mind. Amal Kiran, I believe, is essentially a poet in whom the creative inner-view and th