2. Tagore visits Sri Aurobindo10
Act XII, Scene 7(Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Time — 10 a.m. 29th May, 1928. Sri Aurobindo and, at a distance, the Mother.)
Sri Aurobindo had sent his secretary Nolini Kanta Gupta to receive Rabindranath Tagore on board the steamer when it was berthed before the pier, and escort him upstairs into the Darshan Room. The Poet came up the stairs and, throwing off his cap and shoes, rushed in, hands outstretched, at the sight of Sri Aurobindo standing at the other end of the room. Sri Aurobindo caught his hands and requested him to sit in a chair.
At this first look and touch, the Poet appeared overwhelmed and drawn back within himself.
TAGORE: It is eighteen years since you left Bengal. All this time I have longed, off and on, to see you. My longing is fulfilled today. But I know it couldn’t have been if you hadn’t made a special concession for me. Hence I am all the more grateful to you. As I have already written to you, I am now on my way to Europe. I ask: if they want to know of you, what shall I tell them?
SRI AUROBINDO: I too am glad to meet you. As for Europe, if they want to know of me, they are free to come here. My Ashram is open to sincere seekers from anywhere.
TAGORE: I wonder how you can run your Ashram and do your worldwide work from within your room in a corner of the earth. My wonder increases a hundred-fold when I think of my tremendous struggle and labour, in India and abroad, for the Viswabharati. Now I am out seeking help overseas.
SRI AUROBINDO: I am not troubled about the future. It’s the Divine’s work which the Divine does.
[Exit Rabindranath, quite a different man. He had come all the way upstairs, talking with Nolini Kanta, complimenting him on his literary abilities, appreciating his originality and terseness of expression of thought and wishing him to turn to short stories: in a word, he was vivacious and “social". After the interview with Sri Aurobindo he came down concentrated and silent. Returning to the steamer he shut himself up in a cabin and spent a long time alone. The Poet’s classic reaction to the interview came out in the “Modern Review” of Calcutta some time after.]11
RTM 99. This scene is from the author's full-length play entitled The Descent of the Blue, which depicts significant episodes in the life of Sri Aurobindo.)↩
RTM 99,8. Sri Chinmoy’s play The Descent of the Blue was published serially in Mother India, Sri Aurobindo Monthly Review of Culture, between 1958 and 1962. The play was first published in one volume in New York by the Sri Chinmoy Lighthouse, in 1972 (Sri Chinmoy, The Descent of the Blue, New York: Sri Chinmoy Lighthouse, 1972).↩
