-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

                   

-037_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Mohan Ramanan The Indian Intellectual and Making of Modern India   Mohan Ramanan   I   There is a particular appropriateness in writing a piece on the relation of the literary intellectual to the spiritual traditions of our country and the links between these to the idea of India. Amal Kiran's entire life was spent in engagement with these ideas. He saw himself as 'poetic' and 'philosophic' and able through the Grace of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother to comment on the political questions of the day. For him the life of the literary intellectual, for such we may characterise him to be, was not unrelated to public affairs, more especially to political questio

Revolutionising Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity   Pradip Bhattacharya   BECOMING a poet, a political commentator, a literary critic while editing a monthly journal of culture without stirring out of an ashram in South India may not be a matter provoking comment let alone arousing wonder. But to revolutionise the very chronology of the ancient world based on minute examination of the latest archaeological findings and texts from within such confines - that, too, in the pre-internet era - could not but astonish. It becomes all the more amazing when the subject is not just the prehistory of one's own country but so dista