Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Calcutta, August 23^rd, 1907

Part Four. Bande Mataram under the Editorship of of Sri Aurobindo (28 May – 22 December 1907)

In Melancholy Vein

The Englishman is in melancholy mood. Swaraj and Justice Saroda Charan Mitter have been too much for our gentle contemporary’s nerves, and he is full of sorrow and care-worn longings. He wants “to wipe out an unpleasant world and create a new and beautiful one to live in,” where there is no Swaraj, and no High Courts, and no diminishing cotton imports, and no Anglo-Indian editors to telegraph home denying his blood-curdling visions, and the agitator is not abroad. He wants “like the Hindu ascetic considering all this as Maya to retire into existence of solid imagination”. We shall find it hard to believe that there is any lack of imagination in Hare Street existence, but this new-born desire to turn the imagination from the gaseous into the solid state is a hopeful sign. Our contemporary anticipates all sorts of curious and pleasing results from his new departure, and even breaks out into irregular blank verse in his ecstasy. “Then comes again the care-free heart of youth, the lines of trouble fade from the face, the empty pocket, like that of Virgil’s traveller, becomes a cause for song, or like that of the schoolboy, a hoarding place for curious and assorted treasure.” We are sorry to hear that the Englishman’s pocket is empty, but we think he goes too far in expecting people to write poetry about his diminishing sale and circulation. As for his alternative hope, the Englishman’s pocket whether empty of cash or not, is full enough of Golden Bengal Mare’s nests, Newmaniac effusions and other curious and assorted treasure. Finally our contemporary announces his intention of dismissing “mean-souled malice” – of the Statesman and Empire and others – with a “vacant stare” – which is evidently preferable to the Barisal stare. Our contemporary wishes to practise the art of detachment as a substitute for furlough and hypophosphites. We would suggest to him that it might be better to take the furlough and the hypophosphites – especially the furlough – to restore his scattered system, and try the detachment as an additional sedative. That, to adapt the language of the Abbotabad Magistrate, will be the best for the Englishman and will satisfy everybody else in India.

This work was not included in SABCL, vol.1 and it was not compared with other editions.