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SRI AUROBINDO the SMILING MASTER SRI AUROBINDO the SMILING MASTER Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings

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SRI AUROBINDO the SMILING MASTER SRI AUROBINDO the SMILING MASTER Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings SRI AUROBINDO THE SMILING MASTER SRI AUROBINDO THE SMILING MASTER Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings What is the Divine? - An expansiveness smiling and luminous. - The Mother JUGAL KISHORE MUKHERJEE SRI AUROBINDO INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EDUCATION PONDICHERRY First published: 9 September 1995 (Typeset in 10.5/13 Palatino) ISBN 81-7058-454-X © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1995 Published by Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry 605 002 Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry 605 002 PRINTED IN INDIA J350/95/1000 O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern', every blasted thing that I never was! I groan in unAurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all you people? — SRI AUROBINDO Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence. Without it the world would have got utterly out of balance... - SRI AUROBINDO * Cheerfulnsss is the salt of sadhana. It is a thousand times better than gloominess. - SRI AUROBINDO CONTENTS The Publishers' Note Sri Aurobindo and Humour ... 1 " Humour as an Art ... 21 On the Disciples' Humour ... 66 Sri Aurobindo's Humour: An Analysis ... 88 On Matters "Medical" ... 117 On Matters "Logical" ... 142 Humour on Matters "Literary" ... 177 The Poet-Maker's Humour ... 200 Sri Aurobindo's Humour in Verse ... 227 Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Plays ... 240 Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Situation and Character ... 273 Sri Aurobindo's Wit ... 296 Sri Aurobindo's Humour-Miscellany ... 318 Sri Aurobindo's Humourous Titbits ... 355 Sri Aurobindo's Satirical Humour ... 371 Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Compassionate Understanding 391 The Smiling Master ... 418 Bibliography and References ... 439 Publishers' Note Since the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950 many research publications have seen the light of day dealing with various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's life-work and teachings. But to our knowledge no book has so far been published exclusively devoted to the study of Sri Aurobindo's humorous writings. The present book hopes to break new ground in this particular field. Apropos of Nirodbaran's Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo the Mother had once remarked: "Thanks to Nirod, we have a revelation of an altogether unknown side of what Sri Aurobindo was. It is extremely interesting and very instructive." It is the fond and humble hope of the writer of the present work that the readers will find in its pages another not so well-known bui lovable side of the Master's personality revealed in ample measure. To our happy surprise we shall meet here "not the Sri Aurobindo of Himalayan grandeur and aloofness, but the modern Shakespeare of spiritual sublimity and jollity". This is a book on humour. But, as Prof. Stephen Leacock has pointed out, "Articles and books on humour are apt to resolve themselves into a series of jokes and stories, or to take on all the appalling dullness of undiluted theory." In the present work the author has tried to strike a happy mean. Hence the sub-title, "Sri Aurobindo's Humour: An Analysis and an Anthology". The book does not reduce itself to the task of a bare 'assembling' of jokes and witty remarks made by Sri Aurobindo nor does it degenerate into an unmitigated theorising. This is avowedly a book of research analysis, an analysis of the canons and principles and art of humour; but, in each case, appropriate examples have been immediately cited to illustrate the principle discussed, followed by a full quota of Sri Aurobindo's humorous passages belonging to the genre in question. The author has followed this procedure because he has felt that a suitable example clearly showing what is meant is worth a full page of theory. While writing this book, the author has consulted, apart from all the published works of Sri Aurobindo, scores of other precious books written either by the disciples of the Master or by other scholars. An immense amount of help has been received from the books of three among the most intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo: Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Dilip Kumar. Gratitude towards all of them. For the writing of this book the two following treatises have been extensively consulted and freely drawn on: 1. Humour and Humanity By Prof. Stephen Leacock; and 2. A Book of Famous Wits By Prof. Walter Jerrold. The copies of the two books available with the writer are indeed very old and the title-pages are missing. Hence the author fails to locate the names of the publishers or the respective copyright- holders. However, the author of the present work on Sri Aurobindo's humour acknowledges with gratitude the profound insights he has gained from a careful perusal of the two books. One last word and we have come to the end of our Note. Every hour of the three months the author has spent on the composition of the present work, he has constantly basked in the heart-warming mellow sunshine of Sri Aurobindo's hu­ mour. He has felt with wonder how close and intimate Sri Aurobindo is even to us, the ordinary dwarfs, and how great is the sympathetic understanding he bears towards us, the mortals of clay! The author will feel immeasurably rewarded if the readers going through the pages of this book experience even a little of the benign and benevolent Presence Sri Aurobindo is. August 15, 1995. CHAPTER 1 Sri Aurobindo and Humour Sri Aurobindo and humour? - What a preposterous subject! And to venture to write a book of four hundred fifty pages on a theme like 'Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings'? - What a queer idea bordering on the incredible! And to try to evoke the image of a smiling Sri Aurobindo? - Is it not divorced from all facts of the case? Can one remember having seen a photograph of Sri Aurobindo, even a single one, either pertaining to his early period of sojourn in England or to his days of active youth spent in Baroda and in Calcutta or even to his last year of physical existence - the year 1950, where Sri Aurobindo is found even with the faintest trace of a smile? No, one will fail to find any. Now, contrast with this the available photographs of the Mother. Side by side with some showing a serious mien we shall find a good many of them which bless and please our hearts with the images of a sweetly smiling beaming Mother. It is not without reason, at least apparent, that Nirodbaran, one of the closest associates and most intimate disciples of Sri Aurobindo, once complained to him about his "Himalayan austerity and grandeur that takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate", and went to the extent of jocularly writing to him at the approach of a "Darshan Day": "The Darshan is coming next month and I can't remain in this condition and come to you with a glum face to see your glum face too!" Of course, pat came a witty reply from Sri Aurobindo: "I won't be glum — I shall receive you with a cheerful grunt."1 But that was not so easy for him to do. We shall presently come to that point. We were talking about the Mother's smiling face as con­ trasted with the 'smileless' appearance of Sri Aurobindo clothed in the austere snow-white grandeur of Mount Everest. Yes, 2 The Smiling Master indeed, being struck by such a contrast Nirodbaran could not but write to Sri Aurobindo: "You thrashed me for calling you grave and austere at the Darshan time. But see, when we go to the Mother, how seraphically she smiles, while your self being near, appears still far away at some Olympian height. It is difficult to discern the gravity or the jollity of a face at such a height."2 Yes, that was and still is the image of Sri Aurobindo as imprinted in the minds of most men who have come to know him either through his photographs or through his various now famous books - an image of oceanic profundity and awe- inspiring grandeur but surely not one of 'human jollity'. Nirodbaran has so aptly given expression to this widely held impression in the following words: "Sri Aurobindo, as we had come to know him..., had created in our minds a picture of him, high-poised as his Life Divine, far-moving as his Synthesis of Yoga, unapproachable, except perhaps by the gods, not at all close and intimate... or accessible to our mortal longings."3 And to associate humour with Sri Aurobindo's writings? - How incongruous it sounds! For whenever Sri Aurobindo's image as a writer flashes in our mind's sky, we invariably remember passages like the following: 1. From The Life Divine: "Our evolution in the Ignorance with its chequered joy and pain of self-discovery and world-discovery, its half-fulfilments, its constant finding and missing, is only our first state. It must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a self- finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the divinity in things in that true power of itself in Nature which is to us still a Supernature."4 2. From The Synthesis of Yoga: "Perfection is demanded of us, but not the perfection that can exist only by confining its scope within narrow limits or Sri Aurobindo and Humour 3 putting an arbitrary full stop to the ever self-extending scroll of the Infinite. Our object is to change into the divine nature, but the divine nature is not a mental or moral but a spiritual condition, difficult to achieve, difficult even to conceive by our intelligence.
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