NK’s new poems strike me as if a new channel has opened up in him. The poems seem to become more simple and deep – psychic?Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1936
Letter ID: 1691
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
July 31, 1936
Well, Sir, what about my epic?
Splendid. This is a full-blown poem.
I notice some queer things happening in the realm of poetry between Nishikanta and myself. I wrote a line: চলছে ভেসে চাঁদের তরী ওই সুনীলের সাগরে,1 and did not follow it up. Two days later I find Nishikanta writing a poem wherein occurs the line কে ভাসালে চাঁদের তরী 2 Some time back a similar thing happened. These are about expressions; similar things are happening about chhanda also. Strange, isn’t it?
Nothing queer about that. You dropped the inspiration and did not work it out; so it went off and prodded N who let it through. That often happens.
NK’s new poems strike me as if a new channel has opened up in him. The poems seem to become more simple and deep – psychic?
Yes – he has made a big jump forward. Formerly it was all vital; afterwards vital-mental (I am speaking of the transmitting agency, not the source of inspiration or its substance), now a new element has come in. Psychic? I don’t know – perhaps psycho-mental-vital. At any rate something wanting has been filled up – a missing chord has come in.
He himself admitted that J’s poems have helped him in this direction. I think this simple mystic-symbolic touch he got from J.
It is probable.
It seems I don’t get joy in writing because I haven’t yet got my own source and am writing only by the mind. If true, don’t mental works give joy?
The mental by itself gives a kind of aesthetic রস,3 but not ভোগ4 – ভোগ comes from the excited participation of the vital, আনন্দ5 from above.
But there is such a thing as an aesthetic thrill. Why don’t I get it?
Probably the higher vital does not sufficiently participate.
D.L. has rashes. They are probably due to enema or salicylic acid.
It must be the salicylic.
1 calache bhese cāṁder tarī oi sunīrer sāgare. The moon-boat is sailing on the ocean of the blue sky.
2 ke bhāsāle cāṁder tarī. Who made it sail, the moon-boat?
3 rasa: taste.
4 bhog: enjoyment.
5 ānanda: delight.