Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters
(1890–1926)
Family Letters, 1890–1919
To His Sister1
[Baroda Camp
25 August 1894]
My dear Saro,
I got your letter the day before yesterday. I have been
trying hard to write to you for the last three weeks, but have hitherto failed.
Today I am making a huge effort and hope to put the letter in the post before
nightfall. As I am now invigorated by three days’ leave, I almost think I shall
succeed.
It will be, I fear, quite impossible to come to you
again so early as the Puja, though if I only could, I should start tomorrow.
Neither my affairs, nor my finances will admit of it. Indeed it was a great
mistake for me to go at all; for it has made Baroda quite intolerable to me.
There is an old story about Judas Iscariot, which suits me down to the ground.
Judas, after betraying Christ, hanged himself and went to Hell where he was
honoured with the hottest oven in the whole establishment. Here he must burn for
ever and ever; but in his life he had done one kind act and for this they
permitted him by special mercy of God to cool himself for an hour every
Christmas on an iceberg in the North Pole. Now this has always seemed to me not
mercy, but a peculiar refinement of cruelty. For how could Hell fail to be ten
times more Hell to the poor wretch after the delicious coolness of his iceberg?
I do not know for what enormous crime I have been condemned to Baroda but my
case is just parallel. Since my pleasant sojourn with you at Baidyanath, Baroda
seems a hundred times more Baroda.
I dare say Beno may write to you three or four days
before he leaves England. But you must think yourself lucky if he does as much
as that. Most likely the first you hear of him, will be 
a telegram from Calcutta. Certainly he has not written to me. I never
expected and should be afraid to get a letter. It would be such a shocking
surprise that I should certainly be able to do nothing but roll on the floor and
gasp for breath for the next two or three hours. No, the favours of the Gods are
too awful to be coveted. I dare say he will have energy enough to hand over your
letter to Mano as they must be seeing each other almost daily. You must give
Mano a little time before he answers you. He too is Beno’s brother. Please let
me have Beno’s address as I don’t know where to send a letter I have ready for
him. Will you also let me have the name of Bari’s English Composition Book and
its compiler? I want such a book badly, as this will be useful for me not only
in Bengalee but in Guzerati. There are no convenient books like that here.
You say in your letter “all here are quite well”; yet
in the very next sentence I read “Bari has an attack of fever”. Do you mean then
that Bari is nobody? Poor Bari! That he should be excluded from the list of
human beings, is only right and proper; but it is a little hard that he should
be denied existence altogether. I hope it is only a slight attack. I am quite
well. I have brought a fund of health with me from Bengal, which, I hope it will
take me some time to exhaust; but I have just passed my twenty-second milestone,
August 15 last, since my birthday and am beginning to get dreadfully old.
I infer from your letter that you are making great
progress in English. I hope you will learn very quickly; I can then write to you
quite what I want to say and just in the way I want to say it. I feel some
difficulty in doing that now and I don’t know whether you will understand it.
With love,
Your affectionate brother,
Auro
P.S. If you want to understand the new orthography of
my name, ask uncle.
A.