In this little book we also find how Sri Aurobindo’s deep insights about the most ordinary things, like the smallness of his cell, got a touch of his remarkable sense of humour that didn’t leave out even a witty reference to deepest spiritual truths. For example, regarding the small room in which he had to stay he writes -- “here the walls of the room seemed to come closer, eager to embrace one, like the all-pervading Brahman” (p. 23). Imagine sitting in a small cell where most people would begin to experience
claustrophobia, Sri Aurobindo is contemplating on the all-pervading Brahman eager to embrace him!
The description of the food that was given to the prisoners also is fortunate to have a witty touch of Sri Aurobindo. As he had complete faith in God the loneliness and the food and the inconveniences in the prison were unable to disturb him. He writes -- “Even the strange spectacle of prison diet failed to disturb my attitude – coarse rice, even that spiced with husk, pebbles, insects, hair, dirt and such other stuff; tasteless lentil soup heavily watered; vegetables and greens mixed with grass and leaves. I never knew that food could be so tasteless and without any nutritive value. Looking at its melancholy black visage I was appalled; and after two mouthfuls with a respectful salaam I took leave of it” (p. 24).
A detailed description of the kind of food served to the prisoners provides another remarkable example of Sri Aurobindo’s ‘spiritual’ humour. The breakfast was made up of boiled rice and water called ‘lufsi’. Sri Aurobindo describes –
“A trinity, it takes three forms. On the first day it was lufsi in its Wisdom aspect, unmixed, original element, pure, white Shiva. On the second, it was the Hiranyagarbha aspect, boiled along with lentils, called khichuri, a yellowish medley. On the third day lufsi appeared in its aspect of Virat, a little mixed with jaggery, grey, slightly more fit for human consumption. I had thought the Wisdom and the Hiranyagarbha aspects to be beyond the capacity of average humanity and therefore made no efforts in that direction, but once in a while I had forced some of the Virat stuff within my system and marvelled, in delightful muse, about the many splendoured virtues of British rule and the high level of western humanitarianism” (p. 27).
Sri Aurobindo a great observer as he was, not only of the material arrangements in the prison but also of the people around him, the Britishers and especially the jail authorities could not escape his attention. The prisoners had to go to the court for trials at regular intervals. This was looked upon by Sri Aurobindo as a play that was enacted on a “stage in some world of fiction”. He says -- “the star performer of the show was the government counsel, Mr. Norton. Not only the star performer, but he was also its composer, stage manager and prompter - a versatile genius like him must be rare in the world” (p. 51). Commenting upon the legal information of Mr. Norton Sri Aurobindo writes -- “I cannot say whether Mr. Norton had been the lion of Madras corporation, but he certainly was the king among the beasts at the Alipore court. It was hard to admire his depth of legal acumen -- which was as rare as winter in summer” (p. 51). The way Norton conducted himself in the court was a matter of amusement to the people who could understand what he was up to. Sri Aurobindo is reminded of the greatest of the dramatist while he observes Mr. Norton in the court. He says, “Mr. Norton happened to be the Shakespeare of this play. I, however, noticed a difference between Shakespeare and Mr. Norton: Shakespeare would now and then leave out some of the available material, but Mr. Norton never allowed any material true or false, cogent or irrelevant, from the smallest to the largest, to go unused; on top of it he could weave such a wonderful plot by his self-created and abundant suggestion, inference and hypothesis that the great poets and writers of fiction like Shakespeare and Defoe would have to acknowledge defeat before this grand master of the art” (p. 55).
Mr. Norton’s plot, however, hovered around Sri Aurobindo himself. In the words of Sri Aurobindo -
