21 Meanders of Destiny "Befall them in future." Future ? Well, as more than a couple of centuries has passed since those times and those deeds, history gives us a few answers. And provides us with a few meanders of destiny reserved for some of the above actors. Saint-Paul's Church. After leaving in 1748, the English regrouped themselves, and returned to the attack. On 16 January 1761, British troop entered the town. Lord Pigot, then governor of Madras, gave three months' time to the inhabitants to clear out. Then it was a 'Guy Fawkes Day.' Everything was blown up, but everything French. The white town with its fortifications, its fort, Dupleix'

49 Never a Dull Moment To be with Sri Aurobindo you have to have a feel for adventure. Adventure? what kind? Well, that depends. It could be an adventure of consciousness, where you explore inner worlds. Or ... Now one day before Amrita became familiar with Sri Aurobindo's house at rue Francois Martin, before Mother's arrival at the end of March, before Moni, Nolini, Saurin went away to Bengal in February 1914, something strange happened in that house. You may recall that in July 1913 Nagen Nag, a relative of Bejoy's, had come to stay with Sri Aurobindo to get cured of his illness. He had brought along with him an attendant, Birendra

44 The Have-Nots "The seers climb Indra like a ladder," fits the bill. Exactly. To our Seer much that remained to be done was becoming clear. Let us hear it from the horse's mouth. "All these matters as well as the pursuance of my work," wrote Sri Aurobindo to Motilal Roy in another undated letter,' "depend on the success of the struggle which is the crowning movement of my Sadhana—viz, the attempt to apply knowledge and power to the events and happenings of the world without the necessary instrumentality of physical action. What I am attempting is to establish the normal working of the Siddhis in life i.e. the perception of thoughts, feelings and happen

6 The Arrest Warrant Sri Aurobindo had left his own 'nearest and dearest' hundreds of kilometres away. Days had turned into weeks, weeks had rolled into months since he had vanished from public view. "The sudden disappearance of Arabindo," wrote his cousin Sukumar, "and being without any news of him for a very long time, his uncles and aunts and others at Deoghar, particularly Arabindo's maternal grandmother, Rajnarain Bose's wife, were stricken with anxiety." The family's worry found expression in Sukumar Mitra's article in the Bengali monthly Basumati. "They wrote us letters in Calcutta for Arabindo's news, but we were unable to tell them anything

-15_God^s Cracker.htm 12 God's Cracker Aeons passed. Aeons had passed before. But when aeons were not? When "Time moved not yet nor Space was unrolled wide?"1 Whamm! Cra-a-a-ck! Boom-booom-boo-ooom! What was that whiz-bang? A cracker bursting? My friends, had we been there to hear that ear-splitting noise, we would have had no ears left to hear anything. It was God setting off his cracker with a 'big bang' signalling the start of the World Game. Said Ishwar the God to Ishwari the Goddess: "When Light first from the unconscious Immense burst to create nebula and sun 'Twas the meeting of our hands through the empty Night that enkindled the fateful blaze;

22 Acquitted As at Chandernagore, so also at Pondicherry. "I remained in secrecy in the house of a prominent citizen until the acquittal, after which I announced my presence in French India," Sri Aurobindo was to clarify later. He sent a letter to the paper The Hindu of Madras, which it published the next day, on 8 November 1910. BABU AUROBINDO CHOSE AT PONDICHERRY A Statement Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes to us from 42, Rue de Pavilion, Pondicherry, under date November 7, 1910: "I shall be obliged if you will allow me to inform every one interested in my whereabouts through your journal that I am and will remain in Pondicherry. I left British Ind

-10_The Government^s Dilemma.htm 7 The Government's Dilemma That the Government was extremely agitated at the situation developing in the country is well brought out by the following news item in the Modern Review of March 1909. "Human Pawns? The report comes from Berlin that Great Britain has entered into an understanding with the Sultan (of Turkey) by which in consideration for British support in the Near East, he shall cast his influence with his coreligionists in India in favour of the British rule." (Boston Evening Transcripts) "This extraordinary announcement, if true, would seem to betoken a curious nervousness on the part of the British in India The people we wonde

-56_The ^Arya^.htm 53 The 'Arya Under the date 1st June 1914 Sri Aurobindo wrote in his diary: "The idea came to ask Mme R. how soon they would go into the new house, but the question was asked only in the mind; in 15 or 20 seconds she answered, 'In one or two days perhaps we shall go into the house.' " It stands to reason that they would not stay at Magrie Hotel for two years! So the moment the elections were over a search for a house for them got under way On 8 May Sri Aurobindo wrote in his diary: "The following decisions in the nature of trikaladrishti rising out of telepathis were registered for observation of success or failure. "1. Both will come—i.e. Richar

55 August Fifteen Well, yes, there was no entry in Mirra's diary under the date of 15 August 1914. Look, even with her limitless capacity to work, was she not liable that particular day not to have a single minute on her hand? A day, after all, has only so many minutes. That was the day when the first copies of the Arya were publicly released. We know Mirra's role, don't we? And ... it was Sri Aurobindo's birthday. He was to be forty-two years old. This was his fifth birth anniversary at Pondicherry. He had been a recluse at Shankar Chetty's house on his first birthday. His second and third birthdays in 1911 and 1912 were 'celebrated' quietly in the

43 The Clue It is Bharati who wrote: "All new knowledge is 'revealed,' " Suvrata1 reported. She repeated what Bharati had said: "A few days back I asked Sri Aurobindo how he got his new and wonderful theory of the interpretation of the Vedas: 'It was shown to me'—he replied and I knew that he was saying that in an absolutely literal sense." There is no doubt at all that Bharati was but stating a fact. Sri Aurobindo said as much in the undated letter to Motilal Roy from which we quoted some fragments in the last chapter. Here are some more parts from it. "I am now getting a clearer idea of that work and I may as well impart something of that idea to you; sin