my path, pointed to the yogashram Himself staying as guru and companion in my little abode of retirement and spiritual discipline. The British prison was that Ashram… the only result of the wrath of the British Government was that I found God” (p.1).
This passage highlights Sri Aurobindo’s attitude towards his prison life, for indeed he found God there. Normally prison life is associated with a lot of suffering on the physical as well as the mental level because typically the physical and the mental torture are very much a part of prison life. With Sri Aurobindo things were not so difficult. It is not that he was given special privileges in the prison but because his attitude towards the suffering was entirely different. In Tales of Prison Life he has mentioned many of the inconveniences he had to face and has also stated the way in which he was able to overcome them. The external details of his prison life are rather presented with an unfailing wit. The material object, the prisoner, the sentry, the doctors looking after the prisoners, the cleaner, the British officials, the superintendent of police and even the court scene during the trial have been described by Sri Aurobindo in great details but keeping the humour intact.
This humour and wit is obvious at the very outset when Sri Aurobindo writes about the way he was arrested. When the authorities came to his house on May 1st, 1908 early in the morning, “[t]hey all came running like heroes, pistols in hand as though they were besieging, with guns and cannon, a well-armed fort” (p. 3). This was the way the superintendent and his police force came to catch hold of a man who was quietly sleeping in his room unarmed! While taking him away the superintendent also tried to argue and convince Sri Aurobindo about his own political views. Sri Aurobindo speaks amusingly of how he had to suffer this, “But may I ask, one knows physical torture to be part of the traditional police strategy, but does such inhuman mental torture also fall within the purview of its unwritten laws?” (p. 5).
Sri Aurobindo’s prison life began on May 5, 1908. During the solitary confinement he was uneasy in the beginning, “but after three days of prayer and meditation an unshakable peace and faith again overwhelmed the being” (p. 11). He was confined to a solitary cell which was nine feet long and five feet in width with no windows, and in front of which there were iron bars. And this cage was his “appointed abode”. The material things which were provided to the prisoners tell their own story. Sri Aurobindo writes:
“One plate and bowl used to adorn the courtyard. Properly washed and cleaned, my self-sufficing plate and bowl shone like silver, it was the solace of my life. In its impeccable, glowing radiance in the ‘heavenly kingdom’, in that symbol of immaculate British imperialism, I used to enjoy the pure bliss of loyalty to the Crown. Unfortunately, the plate too shared in the bliss, and if one pressed one’s fingers a little hard on its surface it would start flying in a circle, like the whirling dervishes of Arabia. … but more dear and useful than the plate was the bowl. Among inert objects it was like the British civilian. Just as the civilian ipso facto is fit and able to undertake any administrative duty, be it as judge, magistrate, police, revenue officer, chairman of municipality, professor, preacher, whatever you ask him to do he can become at your merest bidding- just as for him to be an investigator, complainant, police magistrate, even at times to be the council for defence, all these roles hold a friendly concourse in the same hospitable body, my dear bowl was equally multipurpose. The bowl was free from all caste restrictions, beyond discrimination: in the prison cell it helped in the act of ablution; later with the same bowl I gargled, bathed; a little later when I had to take my food, the lentil soup or vegetable soup was poured into the same container; I drank water out of it and washed my mouth. Such an all-purpose priceless object can be had only in a British prison. Serving all my worldly needs the bowl became an aid in my spiritual discipline too” (p. 16).
