Recollections

Washing The Mother's lunch tray

It was a phase in the Ashram life, which I wonder whether many of us remember. It was in mid fifties, one day we were told that Ashram was having some difficulties on monetary side and the Mother desired that all older students work in some department or other for a period of time each week. It should be noted that in those days no student was living as a mere student. All those who studied in the Ashram school were accepted by the Mother as Ashramites and naturally everyone felt the necessity to do something for the Mother and the Ashram.

Manoj-da was entrusted with the responsibility. He was to organize the students in groups to go to work in different departments.

Many went to sweep the Ashram or the school. Some went to Atelier, some to Harpagon and others to cottage Industries.

From the beginning Manoj-da went to sweep the Ashram courtyard and continued it for very many years till some unavoidable circumstance forced him to stop.

I don’t know what made me choose the fruit room of which Ravindraji was in charge. For a few days or may be a month I washed big vessels used for washing fruits for the Mother and also the butter churner. This butter was sent to the bakery for making the Mother’s bread. The day butter was prepared I had to go down across the courtyard in front of the Samadhi, cross the Meditation Hall, then by Amrita-da’s room there was a very narrow room which had a tap for hot water. Later that was altered into Amrita-da’s bedroom.

After filling the pot I had to carry it to the fruit room. There were no rooms on the western side above Prithvisingh-da’s room. They were constructed later for Ravindraji. Now there are two rooms on the first floor, in one lived Ravindraji and in the other Anuben.

But in the fifties it was an open terrace and only stairs to go up were the ones near Pavitra-da’s office which is pretty steep and to carry up a big pot of water was quite a fit.

The room in which Ravindraji initially lived was altered in a cold storage to keep fruits. Later after the Mother’s passing away it was given to the Archive section to preserve Sri Aurobindo’s & the Mother’s manuscripts.

So for a month or may be a little more I washed the big vessels and the butter churner. Then one day entering the fruit room I found Ravindraji seated. As I took up the apron he came to the sink and showing me a tray said, “Wash these,” and instructed me step by step how to do it.

It was the Mother’s lunch tray.

The tray was of medium size and there were seven or eight small cut glass tumblers and bowls of different sizes. There were also two standard size steel mugs. The small bowls and tumblers were used for serving the Mother with different fruit juices like those of apple, pineapple, grapes, pomegranates etc. and the steel ones were for flour preparation. The vegetables used to come I believe in a different tray from Her kitchen directly. After lunch this particular tray was brought into the fruit room where Ravindraji would empty all the bowls and tumblers and the mugs and then distribute them to various Ashramites as Prasad.

The vegetables and the flour preparation especially were prepared under Sanyal-da’s instruction. By mid-morning he would go to the kitchen (which is at present Grace Office) and instruct the ladies) Then he would go to the Mother.

In the fruit room I had worked may be two or three years. Kanta was the other student who worked at the same hour. One of her main tasks was to wipe those big window panes. I still remember how she straddled on a window and stretched her arm to the maximum and wiped the panes. We never saw any dust film on those windows.

Regarding the lunch tray, now and then I would go and find no tray in the sink which meant Mother still didn’t have her lunch, and it was already past one. For we began our work as in all the departments at 1pm. Sometime after waiting for a while Ravindraji or Anuben would go to see if the Mother had Her meal, if not then I would be asked to go to the school for the afternoon session which began at 2.15pm and there were only two periods of 50 mins each.

May be after three years, I stopped that work. Not because I was tired or unwilling but because something quite irritating happened. A Hindi speaking professor joined the Ashram and he was given work in the fruit room. He would be there before me and by the time I arrived my work would be done. I naturally stopped going to the fruit room. The amusing aspect is that the professor didn’t last long, after some time he left the Ashram.

After that I went to sweep the classrooms for quite a while then this work too stopped but quite a few who had joined other departments as students still work there.

Recently may be forty-forty five years after I happened to visit the fruit room and found that the whole arrangement is completely altered.

Even the sink in which we washed the Mother’s tray is replaced by a bigger one. Nothing was anymore familiar to me, where I had worked for a period of time.