Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
Letter ID: 1002
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
May 20, 1944
I send you Khitish Sen’s translation side by side with what I hope to be improvements. I will be glad if you will advise me and correct. I have tried this as I want to include it in my forthcoming book (Tirthankar in English) to be published shortly by the Bombay publisher. I have been working hard at this and am now revising the last part. This will be included in the book if you approve: for Khitish Sen will not mind my corrections, I am sure (provided of course I improve his version).
Khitish Sen’s style and yours are very different and they don’t always mix very well. His own is a good style direct and forceful and I think that should be kept as the basic tone. Yours tends towards a certain amount of diction and sometimes to the rich and ornate. I have not seen the Bengali song while deciding, so I have made only a few suggestions of my own.
I send you the two records just received: one on Mother, the other on yourself. They say my voice has come out very well but I am not satisfied with this rendering, because (and they also agree) the boys and girls have not sung as well as they might have. They got nervous. They have invited me to sing these in Madras which I will do (subject to your approval) next July with Manju1, Sahana’s brother’s little daughter of seventeen. She has a very fine voice and I may train her up at Madras in a week as she is very anxious to learn. I miss Hashi – Manju cannot rival her of course but she may turn out very fine indeed (who knows?), if you approve of my project.
Yes, I suppose that is all right.
1 Manju Gupta, wife of Asit Ranjan Gupta, was a well-known singer.