Esha's recollections of some episodes of her life, as narrated to Nirodbaran in Bengali, who translated it in English. This is presented here in form of a book.
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Nirodbaran on Esha's story : Esha, the late Dilip Kumar Roy's niece, was a little girl visiting the Ashram when I came to know her through my niece Jyotirmoyee with whom she had become very friendly. She wanted to settle in the Ashram, but her mother did not want it as she was still a minor. When after many years she came to the Ashram again and stayed with Sahana Devi, I became more closely acquainted with her. By that time she had already married and obtained her divorce and had decided to settle here. I came to her help and made all possible arrangements for the purpose. Since then I have come to know her well and listened to her narration of the incidents of her life. As I found them interesting I began to note them down and was thinking of publishing them in Mother India when somehow she got wind of it and strongly objected to it. As I felt I had Sri Aurobindo's sanction for it, I did not listen to her. In spite of my disregarding her objection, luckily she did not stop recounting her saga. Of course she narrated it in Bengali and later I put it down in English as faithfully as I could. When the story began to appear in Mother India, she insisted more than once that I should stop it. My answer was that I believed it could be helpful to many readers and that Sri Aurobindo seemed to support me.
THEME/S
My son by my side, I was driving my car along a Calcutta road. He was quite young. I was teaching him how to drive. Calcutta streets are well known for their heavy traffic; from every side cars keep rushing on. Suddenly we heard big bells ringing from behind: it was a fire-engine! All cars gave way but I was nonplussed. I could neither drive nor move the car out of its way: it was stuck in the middle. My hands and feet were as if frozen. My son cried out, "What are you doing, Ma, drive on!" But no use, I simply let go and began to weep. All eyes were on us in consternation; the bells of the fire-engine had no effect. Somebody came forward and said, "Madam, what are you doing?" But still no response. Then the fire-engine just passed by me and going over the footpath swept away. I don't know when and how I came to my senses. The vehicle could quite justifiably have knocked me down. Somewhere there was a fire; they had to rescue people! Those several lives were more precious than a few others!
That was my last feat of driving.
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