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.
Sri Aurobindo : Contact
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
The other day, Nirod-da visited me and asked me how I was.
"I am all right," I replied. "But I had to quarrel a lot with Him. Do you remember how I threatened Him when I was a child? I wrote to Sri Aurobindo that if he didn't answer my letter, I would go away to the forest! He wrote back at once asking me how I could think of such a thing. Didn't I know that there were lions and tigers in the forest and that they would devour me? What a pity I lost that letter. How sweet and tender it was. I find even now that simple prayer and quiet surrender are not effective, at least in my case. I suffer and suffer and He doesn't seem to care."
"Yes, there is some truth in it," Nirod-da said. "Once Sri Aurobindo wrote to me that one must cry sometimes. But you are crying all the time!"
"I can't help it," I countered. "He has given me such bad health and such a weak stomach that I have been suffering from both for years and have had to complain to Him constantly. Once my Thakur Krishna told me with a smile, using the Bengali word দেহসর্বস্ব, that my body was my obsession, and that I was constantly preoccupied with my sickliness and my endless list of complaints. So I quarrelled with Sri Aurobindo after having suffered miserably for three or four days from a stomach upset, and was cured immediately."
"But if you bring on your illness by your own indiscretion, you should pay the price for it," Nirod-da remarked.
"What indiscretion?"
"I was told that you ate a lot of mangoes, and not of a very good quality."
"No, no, that isn't true! I was eating only one small mango a day. But in the end I did take a big mango of inferior quality and that was what made me sick."
"But I thought that you had obtained his permission to eat it. What is the story? I want to know it first-hand."
"As it happened," I answered, "I had abstained from eating mangoes for years lest they upset my stomach. You know how I suffered from stomach trouble in my childhood. And then my astrologer had predicted that in later life I would continue to suffer from a bad stomach. However, this time when I saw some lovely mangoes, I was greatly tempted to try them. So I bought some and, holding them before Sri Aurobindo in an attitude of prayer, I said, 'Please protect me. I have withheld my desire for so many years. Now I would like to try and eat this fruit. If nothing happens to me, I promise I will not go to Calcutta on a visit.' He asked me if I was sure, as though doubting my word, and I assured him that I was. Then I ate a small mango —although with fear and trembling. Nothing went wrong. Delighted that he had kept his promise, I took one every day —until that last day when I took the big one. It was then that the pain and diarrhoea began, and I was in for it.
"But whatever happens, the picture of my childhood Thakur always smiles at me. The other day, however, I found that it did not. Straightaway I turned to Sri Aurobindo's picture and complained about Thakur, whereupon I distinctly heard Thakur saying with a mischievous smile. 'Oh, so you are complaining to him, are you?'
"This, in fact, is my sadhana and my life: talking with my Thakur and with Sri Aurobindo through my varying moods, like a child."
Now I suppose you would like me to continue my life's story. It has, in fact, come to an interesting point, which is so unusual that many will have difficulty believing it, but it is nevertheless true.
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