Holding on to the scaffolding

Dr. Prema Nandakumar: It’s an interesting story. My father, Professor Srinivasa Iyengar, the first biographer of Sri Aurobindo, loved Savitri and taught me the poem from an early age. My PhD thesis was the first academic thesis on Savitri and, on Mother’s wishes, it was published in 1962 by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. By then, I was married and had had my first child. At that point, I had to make a decision as I had offers to take up academic work at college. My father said, you cannot serve too many gods. Once you are married and have children, your family comes first.

I agreed to this: the only good thing I have done in all my life is I have never said no to what my father wanted of me! However, I had my typewriter and so, in addition to my family and household duties, I became a writer and journalist.

My journalism career began like this. My father was a very close historian of events and used to discuss many things with the family. One day we had a very hot discussion. Nehru had said something that I considered uncomplimentary about C. Rajagopalachari – the first Governor-General of India – a man who I very much respected. My father said, if you feel so passionate about it why not write a letter to the editor? I wrote a longish letter and it was published as an article. You can imagine my excitement.

My father said, your first article has been published, what about a second? So I began writing on political matters. During the Emergency, I wrote an article for a newspaper opposing the imposition. But the editor said he couldn’t publish it because of censorship. Instead, he suggested I write about art, literature, and culture. This is how I began writing on other topics, like dance and drama.

So my phase of political journalism died automatically.

Of course, I knew about Sri Aurobindo’s political life. I also knew that everybody thought he had retired from politics when he came to Pondicherry. Father would speak often of the Bande Mataram essays as great literature, though the subject was politics.

How did he come to write Sri Aurobindo’s biography?

He was a teacher of English literature. Madame Sophia Wadia, editor of the Indian P.E.N., asked him to write a small book on Indian writers in English. While he was collecting material, he came across two or three poems by Sri Aurobindo. He was surprised because he had only known of him as a political activist. However, the Correspondent of the college where he was teaching, Sri Shankar Gowda Patil, who used to go to Pondicherry for darshan, gave him the 1942 edition of Sri Aurobindo’s Complete Poems and Plays.

My father went home, started reading, and was stunned. My mother often used to recollect how my father did not sleep the entire night, and by the time he had to go to college the next morning, he had written a whole chapter on Sri Aurobindo. Sri Patil took it to Sri Aurobindo who read it and made some corrections, and then said it could be published.

Sri Shankar Gowda Patil now said that my father should write a biography of Sri Aurobindo and gave him enough material to do this. He also took father to Pondicherry and introduced him to several sadhaks, like Nolini Kanta Gupta and Dilip Kumar Roy.

But hadn’t Sri Aurobindo discouraged a would-be biographer with the warning “The attempt is bound to be a failure, because neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see.”

Yes, but in this case Sri Aurobindo gave permission because at the time there were wild rumours flying around that Sri Aurobindo was some kind of magician, practising levitation and so on.

In spite of the efforts of your father and yourself, Sri Aurobindo is still not well known or understood in India. Should he be taught in Indian schools?

Of course, that was my father’s passion also. However, it is very difficult to get Sri Aurobindo on to the syllabus prescribed in Colleges and Universities.

Actually, I believe it is very easy to teach Mother in schools because of her simple mode of expression and ability to tell stories. As far as Sri Aurobindo is concerned, I would start with the simpler texts, like the shorter poems (The Tree, Who?) and brief statements as in Thoughts and Aphorisms.

But the way to do it is not to begin by explaining a poem line by line. You should relate it to a story, an experience. For example, if you want to explain his poem, The Meditations of Mandavya, you should first go to the Mahabharata story of Mandavya. You catch the students first with the story, then you go to the text.

This is how our culture has been kept alive in India, through story-telling.

Isn’t one of the general perceptions about Sri Aurobindo that he forsook the world once he came to Pondicherry, and so his insights cannot be applied in everyday life?

Yes, sadly some people do feel so. But this is not the truth. My father said very strongly that you must live in the world and apply what Sri Aurobindo has said there. In this, Savitri became my touchstone. I like the story so much because it is a book that relates to our everyday life: it gives you the clue to solving difficult problems or to seeing things in the right perspective. Yesterday, when I was asked to say a few words on Auroville fifty years after its inauguration, I remembered looking at the photographs of the young people at Auroville’s inauguration in 1968 and the words “the omnipotent’s flaming pioneers” spontaneously entered my head. As a housewife, I have not been in any big battle, but bringing up the children and looking after the household while seeking guidance from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother became my sadhana. This is why, when I’m asked how I can be a conventional housewife and an Aurobindonian, I tell them I don’t see any separation. In fact, I have written an article on The Mother as the supreme housewife because she had to manage so many people and problems!

Discipline is the key to success in sadhana. Dr. Karan Singh’s close friend, Sri Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon), had a small ashram near Almora. One day, someone who knew of his background as an English graduate from Cambridge University saw him performing rituals in a simple dhoti in the Himalayan winter. He said, “You are so talented. Why are you living like this?” Sri Krishnaprem replied: “For one thing, I believe that any self-imposed discipline, external or internal, is rather a good thing in the present age when every kind of social and individual restraint is in process of being hurled out of the window. Also, quite simply, this happens to be the path laid down by those who have gone before me and reached the goal. Who am I, just entering the path, to say, I’ll do this, and not that, accept this discipline but not that? I accept the whole.”

This gave me a clue to be proud of what I am doing as a housewife, attending to the religious practices of my ancestors. This is why, when I am asked how I would like to be introduced to a new audience or readership, I don’t say as a writer or translator, but simply as a ‘housewife’. Only one person has dared to do this so far!

I even wrote an article on the topic of discipline. I quoted Sri Aurobindo from his Foundations of Indian Culture where he says that just as you need scaffolding to build a spire, so you need religious discipline for spiritual attainment. Once your spiritual attainment is complete, the religious scaffolding automatically falls away.

I’m not yet spiritual, so I still want to hold on to the scaffolding!

You’ve had a long association with Auroville. What does becoming a member of the Governing Board mean to you?

The nomination came as a total surprise. When I was told, my first thought was they had mistaken me for someone else. Even when I knew there was no mistake, I had no idea what it meant; I come here quite often but there has never been any need for me to know about Auroville’s administration. Now this great honour has been bestowed upon me, I will surely draw closer to the Auroville community.

I know my life has always been shaped and guided by a maternal power, and so I’m happy to be here. It is Mother’s Grace.

I have followed Auroville’s growth and early struggles. But I never lost hope for Auroville because of my father’s firm conviction that what Mother said about Auroville will come true. And I have always followed in his footsteps.