Dortoir

IV — Recollections of Kusum Nagda

My Early Life in the Ashram

MY first visit to the Ashram, and therefore my first darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, was in 1935. I was then seven. Having met THEM, my future was fixed.

A date is fixed in the calendar of the Unknown.

For this fixed future to become ‘present’, I had to wait seven more years. But the day did dawn when Mother said, “Now you are mine, and all you need you will have from me.” In between, I had the good fortune of many darshans — short visits when the contact with the Mother grew closer and closer.

As I was already here when the School started in 1943, I also joined it. All we beginners stood in a row between Bula-da’s and Pujalal-ji’s room, waiting for the Mother to come onto the terrace of Dyuman-bhai’s room to see us and bless us. She came, all glorious for this grand beginning. She showered on us Her grace and love, and dropped a bouquet of flowers into the hands of one of us. Someone lifted the child up to receive it. It was an experience!

I loved the school — the study, the teachers and all; but for me it did not last long. Soon, Mother put me somewhere else. In those days much importance was given to work, and She made us grow in inner and outer perfection simultaneously through work. Her presence was very much felt.

I remember that while I was yet a student we had to write essays on what we had read in the literature classes. I would take hours over it, unable to get into it; and during all that period I was feeling far away from the Mother, and that was painful. In this regard, one day I approached the Mother, expressing my condition. She said, “It is not important. We study only to develop the mind, the rest follows.”

So I had full studies for a year and a half at most, and I did part-time work in Golconde. Anu-ben also worked in Golconde, full-time. One day, Amrita-da came there as a messenger from the Mother. He said that Mother would like to see both of us (Anu and Kusum) together that evening.

What could that be? A feeling of mingled joy and wonder! We returned to our work awaiting this happy unknown moment.

The evening came. We met Her on the staircase. It seemed as if She too was eagerly awaiting us. Somewhere there was lurking an excitement, an anticipation of something beautiful and promising that She willed to create.

She was entrusting us with a new assignment: She had created Her first Dortoir in the Ashram, and we were to look after the children. As she instructed and encouraged us, She poured Her infinite love and enthusiasm on us. The instructions were many, and seemed not easy to fulfil, but so intense was Her enthusiasm that some of it could not but filter into me too.

However, I could not meet it with excitement. There were palpitations: though not panicky or painful because She was there, yet thoughtful indeed. I was then 17 and not an extrovert, timid by nature, a lover of solitude who hardly ever spoke and whose feelings would not easily find expression. All this was tickling inside, when the Mother came out with, “This is the right age for this work.” Then again another instruction, a very touching one: “Now you will work like two bodies with one soul.” Then again, “With children you should be like children, play with them.” My nature-erected wall, that upon which I had been leaning so long, must crumble down it seemed — I must assume another nature!

There was yet another instruction which was to play a big part in our new life and work. This was: “Now nothing counts for you but the children.” We tried to fulfil this to our utmost possible; and in trying to comply with it, gradually one by one I had to drop the classes. My school career soon ended.

Our new task was not easy. It was a very very difficult one – especially if we were to follow all that She wanted.

She had said that one should not touch or shake a child to wake him up, but just call him by name, and keep on calling until he awoke. Sometimes this would take as much as half an hour. Then, in a similar way, with all tenderness, we had to see to brushing, bathing, breakfast, etc. It was not at all simple, because often the children were not willing; a lot of cajoling was necessary.

What a lesson in love and patience every day! This was the first lesson for the beginning in the ART OF LIVING!

Anger was not allowed: “Never lift your hand, my child,” were Her words, engraved in the heart.

If this was the manner of work to be followed, how could 8 hours a day be sufficient? I worked almost 18 hours, never knowing what fatigue was. Where did the energy come from? From Her smile.

Her kindly care was a sweet temperate sun.

We went to Her every morning. Every morning the greeting began with, “Bonjour, mon enfant” or “Mon cher enfant”, followed by “Ça va bien? Bien mangé, bien dormi?” — Is everything all right? Have you eaten well, slept well? If sometimes in our answer, “Yes, Sweet Mother,” She sensed some hesitation, with a few words, a caress, and Her ineffable smile, that hesitation was shaken away and the heart would burst open and feel that:

In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose
One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire,
Recover the lost habit of happiness,
Feel her bright nature’s glorious ambience,
And preen joy in her warmth and colour’s rule.

When we came away from Her, I felt uplifted, as if I could do anything She wanted, undaunted. So I worked for 18 hours untiringly, joy springing up from within.

It is also true that when She assigns some task, easy or difficult, in equal measure She gives Her help, in Her own way; and in fact that is what made anything and everything possible.

Harmony, beauty, perfection inner and outer in all we do — that was the ideal She set before us. We strove towards it. It is easier to reach when we have love for our work, and for the people around us too. Then we nourish a will to do the best, to give the best possible.

Thus when the children were asleep, or while Anu-ben was busy cajoling some child to wake up, (she certainly was better at it than I), I went down to see the maids washing clothes. They came early — by 5.30 or 6 a.m. Each washed cloth had to be lifted up and examined minutely, inside the collar, around the cuffs, to be sure that no stain was left. There were no washing machines then.

The food came from the Ashram Dining Room, but we all ate in the dining room of the Dortoir. It had the same set-up as our Dining Room: the small individual tables were set out and put away daily.

We loved the children, and wanted to make some extra dishes for them too; but we did not have much knowledge of cooking, nor the ingredients. What we had was love, and love of service. I have observed that these can serve as very good intuitive prompters to guide you in obtaining, inventing, creating something beautiful out of what is available.

This helped us to manage something out of Dining Room rice: rice altered into another kind of rice. The children cherished it and jokingly called it ‘bhat ka chaval’, meaning ‘rice of rice’.

Guided by the Mother, we made some sweet dishes out of bread too. One day I made some bhajis out of rice and sent them to the Mother — whatever we made was sent to the Mother, and She returned it in the evening as prasad. When She returned this plate to me in the evening, as She was giving blessings standing on the staircase, She put a couple of them in Her mouth and praised them. You can well imagine how I felt! I never saw Her doing this before. The good intention and sincere aspiration behind the work, even though it lacked absolute perfection, always met with Her deep appreciation and encouragement to do better and better.

Servants were there for the rough work, but all the finer details had to be attended to by us. Until the children went to school, we were with them; then there was all the household work, the careful dusting of the furniture, and many other tasks; then the food, and preparing the dining room with the tables set out ready so that when the children came in hungry they did not have to wait.

After that was the time for some homework, studies, or rest — whatever the children needed to attend to and make ready for the next session of the school. When they left, I ironed the clothes. This took two to three hours. At 4 p.m. the children would return for tiffin: bread with a bit of butter, some cut tomato and cucumber, milk, or lemon juice with lethene. Lethene was very popular then, loved by the children more for its effervescence than its taste.

When the Mother received from France some chocolate, tinned olives, or cookies She would send them for the children’s tiffin.

Then we had to prepare the children for the Playground. While they played, we prepared the dinner; and when they returned there was again bathing, dressing for the night, and eating.

Some time was spent with them for their homework; if there was enough time to spare, some amusement for them with Anu-ben’s dancing. She was a very good dancer, a pupil of Uday Shankar, the only one then in the Ashram. She was now Rama, now Ravana, now Sita, now the deer — oh! it was thrilling. Anu-ben was excellent at narrating stories, and the children listened simply spellbound.

Then a lovely-sounding gong tolled. The Mother had instructed us how to strike it. There was one way for waking up, and another for bed-time. This was the bed-time gong — it was 9 p.m. All rushed to their beds. We went round to spend some moments with each of them with a story, a song, a prayer or recitation, as befitting. Soon their eyes started closing and with a soft caress we left them to enter the dream-world.

Then came a quiet moment free of interruptions. This was when we started looking into the cupboards, sorting out the clothes they would wear the next day, wrapping each set in their individual towels so each child could recognise his own and pick it up as he made his way to the bathroom in the early morning. Once this was over, we mended what needed mending, or took up some embroidery so that there would be surprises ready for approaching birthdays.

All through the day the consecration was felt. The energy, skill, inspiration, came through little communications with the Mother and Her love, and on our part, an utter willingness to serve. Her prayer had taken deep root in the being:

Le corps est Ton instrument
Cette Volonté Ta servante
Cette intelligence est Ton outil
Et le tout n’est que Toi-même

And then who works? Not we — and so

All grows beautiful because Thou art.

I learned everything through work and life, and found there the best book and a real guide for how to live. Of course the guide was the Mother – she had to do a lot of shaping and chiselling. Bearing in mind that

All can be done if the god-touch is there

it was easy to throw oneself headlong to where

She wrestles with danger and discovery
In the unexplored expanses of the soul.

As long as it was the Dortoir, where I worked for 7 years, and then Golconde for 8 years, not having gone up to Knowledge for studies and having little education did not bring in any complexes because what these two demanded could be answered to by my knowings; but then came Senteurs: from where to where!

Perfume-making involved measuring ccs., mls., litres, chemistry, costing, selling, discounts, correspondence, packing, phones! To start with, I did not even know how to pick up the phone. The Ashram in those days was very different from the present one. I knew nothing, nothing at all of all this, I had never learnt any of all this. I think that in those days, with the fond love of the Mother, and with Her children’s zeal in serving Her, one did not doubt very much the fulfilment of the task set. She gives the work, one accepts it, and as if understood, it all gets done.

The news that I was to take charge of Senteurs was delivered to me by Udar Pinto. He had taken a list of names to the Mother, mine amongst them, and it was to this name that She pointed. I was still working in Golconde, so I would have to take care of two departments. I sensed the difficulty and wrote to Her, “Mother, I accept with joy, and at the same time I offer it to You to take the charge. With You I can do all, but without You, I can do nothing. Your help will be extremely necessary to be able to accomplish these two tasks.”

She wrote back, “Je suis toujours avec toi dans ton travail et tu peux toujours compter sur mon aide qui ne te manquera jamais”.

Innumerable instances, day to day, hour to hour, year to year, all throughout my life, bear testimony to this: “compter sur mon aide qui ne te manquera jamais” — and in all walks of life, under crushing circumstances, it has been tangible and made the walk a sunlit path even when it meandered through darkest dark.

However difficult or easy, I walk the path and enjoy it. Where and when I arrive is Their concern. To fulfil Their will is my aim. Sri Aurobindo wrote in a sonnet

I do thy works and pass

Remembering this, I march on . . .