Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2110

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

May 26, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

Guru, your theories are irrefutable, Sir! O wonderful, they are! I have hitched, I have pitched, I have hooked and dishooked!

But that is not a theory. It is a fact.

You take a fancy to hook me on to some “insight” and “inspiration” at very little expense of your Force and “golden sprats” are caught! Then suddenly you cut off the threads from below or above and my net is gone!

Excuse me – did nothing of the sort. It was you who got dissatisfied with the sprats because of the sameness in the shine of their eyes, fins, tails and other accessories.

Showing me a future possibility, you shut partially at least, the opening. Now I knock and knock – nothing!

Not at all! It is you have started tunnelling in another direction.

Can’t make things so damn cheap, that’s your idea, I suppose.

I don’t “make” anything cheap or dear. They are so by nature. These, sir, are the usual vicissitudes of the poetic career and unless you are a Dilip or a Harin writing away for dear life every day with an inexhaustible satisfaction and producing tons of poetic matter, you can’t escape the said vicissitudes.

How far does this poem go in the hooking business?

Much better. Only one stanza hookless.

Now a little about my prose [property]. Doraiswamy said that the mere fact of the property being in my name is not enough; for though the joint family is now disjointed, the other partners can claim a share in that property unless they have allotted it to me...

But what was the understanding when it was put in your name?

You see a tangled business. I don’t think then even a pie will come to me. I don’t know why creditors are not taking up the property. Has it not been allotted to me then?

You will have to get reliable information as to what is the real situation.

If it is left, it will simply be swallowed up by zamindars for nothing. If sold at least the creditors will get some amount and my “fair name” not fouled!

Certainly, to sell is the only thing – only your right of property in it must be put beyond doubt. There is no profit in letting the zamindars get hold of it – except of course the profit to the zamindars. But why should you be philanthropic to that now much abused class? Get what you can out of it; even if it is only for your creditors.

Engineer (Mr. Sammer) has hardly had any motion for some days. No pain or mucus. Free purging by salts would have done good, perhaps, but I held off, giving a simple mild laxative. Enema not effective, he says.

[Mother:] Yet it is only “guimauve” enema that would do him good. Laxative is not advisable as he is working hard and must not be weakened. It must be due to exposure to the midday sun.¹

¹ In the construction work of Golconde.

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