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 Uncle1
c/o Rao Bahadur K.B. Jadhava
Near Municipal Office
Baroda
15th August 1902
My dear Boromama,
I am sorry to hear from Sarojini that Mejdada has stopped sending mother’s allowance and threatens to make the stoppage permanent unless you can improvise a companion to the Goddess of Purulia. This is very characteristic of Mejdada; it may even be described in one word as Manomaniac. Of course he thinks he is stopping your pension and that this will either bring you to reason or effectually punish you. But the main question is What is to be done now? Of course I can send Rs 40 now and so long as I am alone it does not matter very much, but it will be rather a pull when Mrinalini comes back to Baroda. However even that could be managed well enough with some self-denial and an effective household management. But there is a tale of woe behind.
Sarojini suggests that I might bring her or have her
brought to Baroda with my wife. I should have no objection, but is that
feasible? In the first place will she agree to come to the other end of the
world like that? And if she does, will not the violent change and the shock of
utterly unfamiliar surroundings, strange faces and an unintelligible tongue or
rather two or three unintelligible tongues, have a prejudicial effect upon her
mind? Sarojini and my wife found it intolerable enough to live under such
circumstances for a long time; how would mother stand it? This is what I am most
afraid of. Men may cut themselves off from home and everything else and make
their own atmosphere 
in strange places, but it
is not easy for women and I am afraid it would be quite impossible for a woman
in her mental condition. Apart from these objections it might be managed. Of
course I could not give her a separate house, but she might be assured that
whenever a Boro Bou came, she should have one to receive her in; I daresay that
would satisfy her. In case however it does not or the experiment should be
judged too risky, I must go on sending Rs 40 as long as I can.
But there comes the tale of woe I have spoken of. We
have now had three years of scarcity, the first of them being a severe famine.
The treasury of the State is well nigh exhausted – a miserable 30 or 40 lakhs is
all that remains, and in spite of considerable severity and even cruelty in
collection the revenues of the last year amount simply to the tail of the dog
without the dog himself. This year there was no rain in Baroda till the first
crop withered; after July 5th about 9
inches fell, just sufficient to encourage the cultivators to sow again. Now for
want of more rain the second crop is withering away into nothingness. The high
wind which has prevented rain still continues, and though there is a vague hope
of a downpour after the l5th, one cannot
set much store by it. Now in case there should be a severe famine this year,
what may happen is something like this; either we shall all be put on half pay
for the next twelve months,– in other words I who can only just manage to live
on Rs 360 will have to do it on Rs 180 – or the pay will be cut down permanently
(or at least for some years) by 25 per cent, in which case I shall rejoice upon
Rs 270; or thirdly (and this may Heaven forbid) we shall get our full pay till
December and after that live on the munificent amount of nothing a month. In any
case it will be impossible to bring mother or even Mrinalini to Baroda. And
there is worse behind. The Ajwa reservoir after four years of drought is nearly
exhausted. The just-drinkable-if-boiled water in it will last for about a month;
the nondrinkable for still two months more. This means that if there is no rain,
there will be a furious epidemic of cholera before two months are out and after
three months this city, to say nothing of other parts of the Raj, will be
depopulated by a water famine. Of course the old 
disused wells may be filled up, but that again means cholera in excelsis. The
only resource will be for the whole State to go and camp out on the banks of the
Narmada and the Mahi.
Of course if I get half pay I shall send Rs 80 to Bengal, hand over Rs 90 as my contribution to the expenses to Khaserao and keep the remaining 10 for emergencies; but supposing the third course suggested should be pursued? I shall then have to take a third class ticket to Calcutta and solicit an 150 Rs place in Girish Bose’s or Mesho’s College – if Lord Curzon has not abolished both of them by that time. Of course I could sponge upon my father-in-law in Assam, becoming a ghor jamai for the time being, but then who would send money to Deoghur and Benares? To such a pass have an allwise Providence and the blessings of British rule brought us! However let us all hope that it will rain.
Please let me know whether Mejdada has sent any money by the time this reaches you. If he has not, I suppose I must put my shoulder to the burden. And by the way if you have found my MS of verse translations from Sanscrit, you might send it to me “by return of post”. The Seeker had better remain with you instead of casting itself on the perilous waters of the Post-Office.
My health has not been very good recently; that is to
say, although I have no recognised doctor’s illness, I have developed a new
disease of my own, or rather a variation of Madhavrao’s special brand of nervous
debility. I shall patent mine as A.G’s private and particular. Its chief symptom
is a ghastly inability to do any serious work; two hours’ work induces a
feverish exhaustion and a burning sensation all over the body as well as a pain
in the back. I am then useless for the rest of the day. So for some time past I
have had to break up the little work I have done into half an hour here, half an
hour there and half an hour nowhere. The funny thing is that I keep up a very
decent appetite and am equal to any amount of physical exercise that may be
demanded of me. In fact if I take care to do nothing but kasrat and croquet and
walking and rushing about, I keep in a grand state of health,– but an hour’s
work turns me again into an invalid. This is an
extremely awkward state of things and if you know any homoeopathic drug which
will remove it, I will shut my eyes and swallow it.
Of course under such circumstances I find it difficult
to write letters. I do not know how many letters to Sarojini and my wife I have
begun, written two lines and left. The other day, however, there was a promising
sign. I began to write a letter to you and actually managed to finish one side
and a half. This has encouraged me to try again and I do believe I shall finish
this letter today – the second day of writing.2 The
improvement, which is part of a general abatement of my symptoms, I attribute to
a fortnight’s determined and cynical laziness. During this time I have been to
Ahmedabad with our cricket eleven and watched them get a jolly good beating;
which happy result we celebrated by a gorgeous dinner at the refreshment room. I
believe the waiters must have thought us a party of famine-stricken labourers,
dressed up in stolen clothes, perhaps the spoils of massacred famine officers.
There were six of us and they brought us a dozen plentiful courses; we ate them
all and asked for more. As for the bread we consumed – well, they brought us at
first a huge toast-rack with about 20 large pieces of toast. After three minutes
there was nothing left except the rack itself; they repeated the allowance with
a similar result. Then they gave up the toast as a bad job, and brought in two
great plates each with a mountain of bread on it as large as Nandanpahad. After
a short while we were howling for more. This time there was a wild-eyed
consultation of waiters and after some minutes they reappeared with large trays
of bread carried in both hands. This time they conquered. They do charge high
prices at the refreshment rooms but I don’t think they got much profit out of us
that time. Since then I have been once on a picnic to Ajwa with the District
Magistrate and Collector of Baroda, the second Judge of the High Court and a
still more important and solemn personage whom you may have met under the name
of Mr. Anandrao Jadhav. A second picnic was afterwards organized in which some
dozen rowdies, not to 
say Hooligans, of our
club – the worst among them, I regret to say, was the father of a large family
and a trusted officer of H.H. the Maharajah Gaekwar,– went down to Ajwa and
behaved in such a manner that it is a wonder we were not arrested and locked up.
On the way my horse broke down and so four of us had to get down and walk three
miles in the heat. At the first village we met a cart coming back from Ajwa and
in spite of the carters’ protests seized it, turned the bullocks round and
started them back – of course with ourselves in the cart. The bullocks at first
thought they were going to do the journey at their usual comfortable two miles
an hour, but we convinced them of their error with the ends of our umbrellas and
they ran. I don’t believe bullocks have ever run so fast since the world began.
The way the cart jolted, was a wonder; I know the internal arrangements of my
stomach were turned upside down at least 300 times a minute. When we got to Ajwa
we had to wait an hour for dinner; as a result I was again able to eat ten times
my usual allowance. As for the behaviour of those trusted pillars of the Baroda
Raj at Ajwa, a veil had better be drawn over it; I believe I was the only quiet
and decent person in the company. On the way home the carriage in which my part
of the company installed itself, was the scene of a remarkable tussle in which
three of the occupants and an attendant cavalier attempted to bind the driver,
(the father of a large family aforesaid) with a horse-rope. As we had been
ordered to do this by the Collector of Baroda, I thought I might join in the
attempt with a safe conscience. Paterfamilias threw the reins to Providence and
fought – I will say it to his credit – like a Trojan. He scratched me, he bit
one of my coadjutors, in both cases drawing blood, he whipped furiously the
horse of the assistant cavalier, and when Madhavrao came to his assistance, he
rewarded the benevolent intention by whipping at Madhavrao’s camel! It was not
till we reached the village, after a six-miles conflict, and got him out of the
carriage that he submitted to the operation. The wonder was that our carriage
did not get upset; indeed, the mare stopped several times in order to express
her entire disgust at the improper and turbulent character of these proceedings.
For the greater part of the way home she was
brooding indignantly over the memory of it and once her feelings so much
overcame her that she tried to upset us over the edge of the road, which would
have given us a comfortable little fall of three feet. Fortunately she was
relieved by this little demonstration and her temper improved wonderfully after
it. Finally last night I helped to kidnap Dr. Cooper, the Health Officer of the
State, and make him give us a big dinner at the Station with a bottle and a half
of sherry to wash it down. The Doctor got so merry over the sherry of which he
drank at least two thirds himself, that he ordered a special-class dinner
for the whole company next Saturday. I don’t know what Mrs. Cooper said to him
when he got home. All this has had a most beneficial effect upon my health, as
the writing of so long a letter shows.
I suppose you have got Anandrao’s letter; you ought to
value it, for the time he took to write it is, I believe, unequalled in the
history of epistolary creation. The writing of it occupied three weeks,
fair-copying it another fortnight, writing the address seven days and posting it
three days more. You will see from it that there is no need to be anxious about
his stomach: it righted itself the moment he got into the train at Deoghur
Station. In fact he was quite lively and warlike on the way home. At Jabalpur we
were unwise enough not to spread out our bedding on the seats and when we got in
again, some upcountry scoundrels had boned Anandrao’s berth. After some heated
discussion I occupied half of it and put Anandrao on mine. Some Mahomedans,
quite inoffensive people, sat at the edge of this, but Anandrao chose to
confound them with the intruders and declared war on them. The style of war he
adopted was a most characteristically Maratha style. He pretended to go to sleep
and began kicking the Mahomedans, in his “sleep” of course, having specially
gone to bed with his boots on for the purpose. I had at last to call him off and
put him on my half-berth. Here, his legs being the other way, he could not kick;
so he spent the night butting the upcountryman with his head; next day he
boasted triumphantly to me that he had conquered a foot and half of territory
from the intruder by his brilliant plan of campaign. When the Boers rise once more against England, I think we shall have to send them
Anandrao as an useful assistant to Generals Botha and Delarey.
No rain as yet, and it is the 15th of August. My thirtieth birthday, by English computation! How old we are all getting!
Your affectionate nephew
Aurobind Ghose.
P.S. There is a wonderful story travelling about Baroda, a story straight out of Fairyland, that I have received Rs 90 promotion. Everybody seems to know all about it except myself. The story goes that a certain officer rejoicing in the name of Damn-you-bhai wanted promotion, so the Maharaja gave him Rs 50. He then proceeded to remark that as this would give Damn-you-bhai an undue seniority over Mr. Would-you-ah! and Mr. Manoeu(vre)bhai, the said Would-you-ah and Manoeu(vre)bhai must also get Rs 50 each, and “as Mr. Ghose has done good work for me, I give him Rs 90”. The beautiful logical connection of the last bit with what goes before, dragging Mr. Ghose in from nowhere and everywhere, is so like the Maharaja that the story may possibly be true. If so, it is very satisfactory, as my pay will now be – Famine permitting – Rs 450 a month. It is not quite so good as Mejdada’s job, but it will serve. Rs 250 promotion after ten years’ service does not look very much, but it is better than nothing. At that rate I shall get Rs 700 in 1912 and be drawing about Rs 1000 when I am ready to retire from Baroda either to Bengal or a better world. Glory Halleluja!
Give my love to Sarojini and tell her I shall write to her – if I can. Don’t forget to send the MS of translations. I want to typewrite and send to England.
1 15 August 1902. Jogindranath Bose, the recipient of this letter, was Sri Aurobindo’s eldest maternal uncle (baḍa māmā)
2 I didn’t after all.