Nolini Kanta Gupta (1889 – 1984) Rajani Kanta Gupta was a leading lawyer of Nilphamari, which is now part of Bangladesh. He was a serious man, much respected and even feared in the town. He was an avid reader; in addition to his law books, he often read books on Sri Ramakrishna till late in the night. He had high expectations for Nolini Kanta, his eldest son, and hoped he would take over the responsibility of the large joint family after his own retirement. When Nolini Kanta broke the news of his planned departure for Pondicherry his father was severely disappointed and gravely replied, “It’s good, but the path is as sharp as a razor’s edge. Are you fully prepared for the hazardous trek?” Nolini Kanta left the room without answering, determined to depart soon for Pondicherry. Nolini Kanta Gupta (13 January 1889 – 7 February 1984), familiarly known as Nolini- Da, a revolutionary, linguist, scholar, poet, philosopher and mystic is well-known to all who know The Mother and Sri Aurobindo as well as practitioner of the Integral Yoga. Nolini-da was born in Faridpur, East Bengal, to a cultured and reputed family. In his 4th year at Presidency College, Calcutta he left a promising academic career and rejected a Government job to join a revolutionary group under Barindra Ghose. He, at an age of 32, was arrested at Manicktola Garden and after his acquittal worked as sub-editor for the Dharma and the Karmayogin. In November 1910 he came to Pondicherry to stay with Sri Aurobindo, who had arrived there in April 1910, and became one of the first four close inmates (Nolini, Bijoy Kumar, Moni, Saurin) and also as a member of his household. Although he went out of Pondicherry several times but settled there permanently when the Ashram was founded in 1926 and served as its Secretary for more than fifty years. He became a member of the Ashram Trust when it was formed in 1955. The Mother once remarked that he could arise at his will to the sphere of Sat-Chit-Anand. In the sixties Mother wrote on Nolini-da’s birthday card — “Nolini en route towards the superman.” The years that followed brought a succession of revelations: “Nolini, with love and affection for a life of collaboration”… “For the prolonged continuation of this happy collaboration”… and lastly, in 1973, “With my love and blessings…for the transformation. Let us march ahead towards the Realisation.” Nolini-Da’s collected works comprising of eight volumes in English and 10 volumes in Bengali shall ever remain sacred for the aspirants of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga. Here are some excerpts of the memoirs that his closed ones gathered of him and also his own deliberations which give us an outlook of his far wide vision as well as vibrant personality. - 1 - Sri Subir Kanta Gupta, the second son of Nolini-Da’s three sons, shares few reminiscences of his father and a luminous pilgrim to the Supermind. Subir Kanta Gupta (popularly known as Manju-Da in the Ashram) writes : While the Alipore Bomb Case was going on, Sri Aurobindo had around him a small group of intellectuals who spent their time discussing various topics and were, quite surprisingly, indifferent to the proceedings of the court. After the trial was over and they had been acquitted, Sri Aurobindo asked Nolini-da what he wanted to do. “I shall travel all over the country”, he answered. “Come with me”, replied Sri Aurobindo. He soon took Nolini-da on a political tour of Assam. Nolini-da related to us how on some evenings, both in Calcutta and then in the early days in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo tried automatic speech and automatic writing, meaning he acted as a medium for departed spirits who came and either spoke or wrote messages through him. One day, someone asked Sri Aurobindo to write about Nolini-da. When I asked Nolini-da if what the medium wrote was true, he answered in the affirmative. Another person suggested that some information might be given about the Mother. The Mother did not agree, and the writing stopped. On another occasion, Nolini-da told us that some spirits came and, speaking through Sri Aurobindo, narrated many historical facts. When this happened, Sri Aurobindo’s voice would change and sound hoarse. Like this, we learned from Nolini-da about events and personalities— it was our history class. There was an article that Sri Aurobindo wrote for publication in Bande Mataram called “The Morality of Boycott”. It begins with these lines: “Ages ago there was a priest of Baal who thought himself commissioned by the god to kill all who did not bow the knee to him. All men, terrified by the power and ferocity of the priest, bowed down before the idol and pretended to be his servants; and the few who refused, had to take refuge in hills and deserts. At last a deliverer came and slew the priest and the world had rest. The slayer was blamed by those who placed religion in quietude and put passivity forward as the ideal ethics, but the world looked on him as an incarnation of God.” The whole essay so impressed Nolini-da that he read it again and again, memorised it, and would often recite it when he was alone. “These lines,” he commented, “I should like to say, have an epic quality about them, and were written by the greatest writer.” Sri Aurobindo would come forward in defence of Nolini-da whenever needed. Once, a sadhak of the Ashram sarcastically asked Sri Aurobindo, “Is Nolini doing sadhana?” Sri Aurobindo’s reply was brief but telling: if Nolini was not doing sadhana, then who here was? Once, Mother called Nolini-da and X to her. She had two raw eggs in her hand. Mother asked Nolini-da to open his mouth and then she broke the egg and put it in his mouth. When she turned to X he said, “No, Mother, I shall vomit it out.” Mother said, “All right.” This incident may not be worth mentioning but that it sheds light on the character of Nolini-da. Our father was a very good football player. In the early days, he had regularly played for Cercle Sportif, a local team, where he was known as “Roy”, because he had first come to Pondicherry under the assumed name of Manindranath Roy. (In later years, Benjamin, our club president, introduced me to all the officials of different clubs as the “fils de Roy” (son of Roy).) One day, after all inmates had come back from the football ground, they took bath and went to have their food. Much to their surprise, the bowl of meat, which they had earlier prepared for their dinner, was empty! Just then Sri Aurobindo came in and said that he had already taken his food—he had eaten what was in the bowl. The young men looked at each other, mouths agape. That bowl was kept a long time as a memento, and afterwards our mother, Indulekha, handed it over to the Ashram authorities. Nolini-da did an outstanding translation into English of Tagore’s famous Bengali play Natir Puja [“the dancing girl’s worship”]. He also did English translations of some beautiful poems by well-known Bengali poets. Nolini-da’s translations were so admired by Rabindranath Tagore that he invited Nolini-da to settle at Shantiniketan among a galaxy of stars: Pramathanath Bishi, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, and others. Nolini-da did not accept the invitation. Sri Aurobindo moulded him in his own way. He was Sri Aurobindo’s manas putra. He translated Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri into Bengali. In addition to these achievements as a translator, I might add here that as a critic of foreign literature he held a very high place among Indian writers. - 2 - A very well-known Disciple remembers Nolini-Da with a cherished memory and narrates: In Sri Aurobindo’s Thoughts and Aphorisms, in the section on “Bhakti”, there is the following aphorism : After I knew that God was a woman, I learned something from far- off about love; but it was only when I became a woman and served my Master and Paramour that I knew love utterly. Aphorism 411, CWSA, Vol. 12, p. 481 Once someone asked the Mother: What does Sri Aurobindo mean…when he says: “After I knew that God was a woman...”? The Mother had replied: I cannot answer because, while he was in his body, he never told me anything about this. If anyone knows the exact date on which he wrote this, it might be an indication. Perhaps N could tell you when this was written, or whether Sri Aurobindo told him anything about it. The disciple with an inspiration that the N must surely be Nolini-da read out just the aphorism to him and asked him what it meant. In response the usual Silence greeted him. He reminded him that it was the Mother who had actually suggested that one may ask N, and that he believed that it was Nolini-da. In a solitary moment, Nolini-da answered to the disciple, saying: “You see, the Vedantic experience is essentially a masculine experience: Brahman is Anandamaya but not Premamaya. The masculine experience goes up to the level of the heart, up to even the soft and subtle emotions of the heart. But that is not Love. The origin of Love is from a centre behind the heart. “In this universe the possibility of Love begins with the Parashakti—The Divine Mother.