Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 108

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

1931 (?)

I send you back the photos. The Mother says she does not find the Russian actress worse than others of her type, it is always from self-interest that they act and if a man like Suhrawardy¹ allows himself to be tempted they will necessarily exploit him and think themselves justified in doing it. His photograph is that of a man imaginative and ardent and emotional, too passionate, excessively candid, and no doubt he has high sentiments and generous impulses. But he was likely to make mistakes in life and not to perceive the actual values or to keep his steps in the right measure. I don’t know the details of his story, but, from what you say, it seems to be a common one – a confusion between the true emotional life and the sensational vital movements which were all that this woman could give, and therefore a gāchis [waste] of the life’s possibilities. Is it that he has not discovered what she is like or he still clings to her in spite of it?

¹ Sahid Suhrawardy, a Bengali poet and Dilip’s friend. He graduated from the Calcutta University with honours in 1910 and from Oxford in 1914. He became secretary to the artistic section of the League of Nations. Later on he became Nizam professor of Indian Studies at Vishva Bharati, then Bageswari professor of Comparative Arts at Calcutta University. He gave brilliant lectures from 1923 to 1943. After India’s Partition, he went to Pakistan and became Pakistan’s ambassador to Spain in 1955.

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