Sri Parichand - A Pilgrim of the Spirit

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An Interview

[The following is the complete text together with an abridged introductory note, of the interview Parichand gave to Raman Reddy for "Golden Chain", an Ashram journal. This interview was taken unfortunately after Parichand recovered from a cerebral stroke which impaired his speech. The fluency with which he formerly spoke was sadly absent. But perhaps it was because of that impaired condition that he finally agreed to be recorded and showed us his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Otherwise, he was hardly the type to speak about himself however discreetly. It was a discipline he followed strictly, because of which he had turned down our former attempts to interview him.]

I was born in a Jain family.¹ I grew up in the atmosphere of a traditional Jain family, but, as far as I remember, I was not very enthusiastic about it because the Jain culture and customs did not appeal to me. There was no inner affinity with them. I was doing certain things against my wish. But by nature I was of a meditative disposition. I used to go to my room upstairs and find out some place where I could meditate. I used to go to a certain temple where there was generally a quiet place and meditate. It was as if I was born with it. It was not taught. I still remember, there were nine temples, and the farthest was a little out of the town. That place I selected for meditation. There was no one there except the pujari and I would spend an hour or two in the temple garden.

Another thing I want to note here is that I enjoyed all my activities. I was very much for further studies. I was very happy with my family. There was no sense of frustration. So much so that when I was invited by my colleagues to the banks of the Ganges to talk to some sadhus, sanyasis (every now and then

1. Parichand was born on 30 October 1904 in Azimganj, Murshidabad, Bengal.

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they would come there), I don't know, somehow, even at that time, when I was open to all sorts of influences, I refused to go. I told them "No, I am not at all interested to go. I enjoy my life, I enjoy all my activities and I have my family." And scrupulously I avoided contact of any sort with the sadhus.

At that time something happened. I had a playmate, our cook's son. One day our cook came and said that my playmate had been taken away by the sadhus. She took me there thinking that my playmate would come back on seeing me. I went with her. It was a little away from her place in a tent near the Ganges. The boy was attracted by them and had joined them. When he saw me he came out and told his mother, "Don't worry, i am here voluntarily. I am not coming back." I saw that this could have happened to me also, but that somehow I had been protected from the sadhus. It was as if no chance was given for any contact with them. Whenever my friends asked me to come with them I would say, "I am not going, you go. But I won't."

Then I got involved with the non-cooperation movement. I was very much attached to Rishabhchand.² It so happened that he had come to my place. He had left Calcutta. He was also born in Azimganj but he studied in Calcutta. I was in school and he was in college. It was in 1920. The non-cooperation movement had started in full force and he gave up his studies, and, under his influence, I too gave up my studies in school. He came and spoke about it and influenced me. I had respect for him, so I followed him. But I didn't know what I was doing. I gave up my studies, so there was no activity left for me. I went to Calcutta for the non-cooperation movement. I went to a certain college they had started for further studies. But that was finished within six months. I went back to my place and I remember months went by with practically no activity, no studies. My guardian told me "What will you do? You are spoiling your

2. Rishabhchand, author of His Life Unique, (a biography of Sri Aurobindo) and The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, was a relative and spiritual mentor of Parichand. Mother said that she saw Rishabhchand and Parichand always together in her consciousness and that their relation was of many lives. Rishabhchand was head of the Furniture Service of the Ashram.

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career." I was getting bored. My headmaster, who was very kind to me, told me one day, "Come back, I will take you into school. I will take you there. You just accompany me. But you should not hesitate." I was tired of not doing anything, so I went with him. He took me there and told me nothing to discourage me in the class. And I was once again deep into studies. Then there was nothing. Life went on, I matriculated from school and I came to Calcutta to join College.

Rishabhchand was not well. He was asked by his guardian to take rest and he went to Shillong, the capital of Assam. I came to know about it and I wrote to him telling him to describe the life there. He was a good writer and his descriptions were very accurate and very interesting. I simply wrote to him to give a picture of life there and I received from Shillong a 19-page long letter. He described his life in Shillong for a page and a half and the rest dealt with all the changes that had come in him as a result of his life there. It was suddenly a sort of confession of his life. I was not ready for it. I simply expected some outer activity but this came! I wrote to him that I would like to meet him after his return to Calcutta. After two or three months, he came and I took an appointment with him. I remember that day I crossed the Howrah bridge (he was in Howrah and I was in Calcutta) to go to him. I spent my whole day there. I took food with him and he told me many things which I do not re-member, because it was all new thinking for me. After spending about 7 to 8 hours, when I was about to return to Calcutta, he gave me [Sri Aurobindo's] The Yoga and Its Objects. He said "Take this", and I came away with it. My family members were all sleeping. I was awake and full of something new which I couldn't understand. I shut the door and read the whole book in two hours. It opened another chapter in my life. I understood why I did not go to the sadhus.

When I read Sri Aurobindo's book I saw that I had been protected by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from going to the path of renunciation. I saw that renunciation was not for me because Sri Aurobindo said that you didn't have to change anything in life. You have simply to surrender the whole life to

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the Divine Mother and whatever She says you have to do. I understood that there was no immediate necessity of any change. I had already got married nine days before due to family pressure. I had consented because there was no other choice. I had to do my duty. Jainism had no prospects for me. It did not give me any inner push and there was no attraction for it. If another path had been shown to me I would have perhaps taken it, but there was none. So I had to do my duty — study, earn and maintain a family. Marriage was early during our times. Rishabhchand came to know about it. He wrote to me, "You have already got married. I thought you should not have." But he had given me the book nine days after the marriage! And I repented. It-was too late but I felt that this was the path for me. This was very categoric and there was no hesitation about it. Sri Aurobindo's yoga is such that you don't have to do anything, you have simply to surrender to the Mother and do whatever She wants you to do. So there was no immediate change of programme (laughing) in the outer life. Marriage went on. Studies went on. Everything was going on. But the change came. I saw that slowly spiritual literature engrossed me and that I was losing interest in studies and secular literature. Whenever there was any chance I studied spiritual literature. There were only a few books of Sri Aurobindo at that time. Very little was published. I was going now almost daily to Rishabhchand. After the day's activity we would spend an hour or two. We first started reading The Essays on the Gita. He read out the whole book to me. And then I told you, but that was later on, The Mother was published. He asked me to buy a copy and we went upstairs after dinner, at night. There was no one there apart from Rishabhchand and myself. From ten to one we read the whole book and slept at about half past one.

But I had to study for my college. So there was a tug-of-war: on one side the attraction for spiritual literature and, on the other side, the textbooks of college. Somehow I did very well in college. I got good marks and I took honours in B. A. I could have done even better had not my attention been divided. I joined M.A., the course was of two years, and as I studied for M. A.,

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I saw that I was not meant for it. I lost all enthusiasm. Even so I tried to keep a balance to do my work but there was no push and life was becoming slowly dull. So I told Rishabhchand that if I tried to continue my studies I might even fail. I could proceed no farther. At that time he came to my help. He said, "Why don't you join me?" He had already built up a sufficient business and there were prospects. That was what I needed. I needed his association. The question of money was also there. 1 had to maintain my family. So we started a sort of partnership business. He gave me some amount for the partnership....

Rishabhchand joined the Ashram in 1931. He didn't tell his family about it. Neither me, though I anticipated it. At that time, he was not really prepared for it because his parents were there. He had to struggle a great deal to take up this life. He was very devoted to his father, very devoted. He used to massage him daily as in the olden days, and he was very dutiful even though he practised the yoga. I received a letter from Rishabhchand after he settled down here. He said it was a very painful experience to leave his father. I think he was not at all ready to take the decision then. But I was ready when my time came to go. Actually, he prepared me on this path. So for nine years, from 1926 to 1934, I struggled.

Rishabhchand came to the Ashram in 1931 and correspondence was going on between us. In 1934 I had almost decided to come here in spite of having a family. One thing I had decided that unless there was a drastic change in me, I didn't need to go because this was not for sight-seeing. It was for the practice of yoga and unless something happened (I was thinking of a change of consciousness) there was no use going to Pondicherry. So I said, "I must prepare myself." Certain other things happened very mysteriously. I had already two daughters and a son who was ten months old. I saw that the boy today or tomorrow would take up the burden of my family. Luckily there was no difficulty in finance; the family was not stranded on the street. I did not have to struggle for that. There was sufficient money and, in this, Udaysingh³ was of utmost help. Otherwise

3. Udaysingh Nahar, another old timer, was Parichand's brother-in-law.

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it would have been a little difficult. He was my elder brother-in-law. The day I took permission he said he would look after my family. He was also on the path and was preparing himself. But that's another story.

I came here in 1934 on 18^th November with Udaysingh, Chandradeep⁴ and Raghunandan. Five days later was the Darshan. Probably three or four days after the Darshan, I wrote to Sri Aurobindo about my decision to stay here in a five-page letter, explaining what were my responsibilities. Not only I had the responsibility of my own family but also of my brothers, Umirchand⁵ and Kesarichand. We were all staying together. I wrote saying that these were my responsibilities, that now I was giving up all connections and had decided to stay here. Nolini told me why not go there once or twice to settle matters. But I was not ready for that. I had already decided and there was no meaning in going back. So I wrote to Sri Aurobindo saying that my decision was final. He wrote to me saying that Mother had permitted me to stay on. Then I was admitted into the Ashram....

In the beginning I was given the work of gate duty for 3 hours and cataloguing the Library books under Premananda for an hour and a half daily. Then one day, I will tell you how the garden work started. I was put up in the filter water house called Cycle House. There were some pots there and the sadhak in charge of them was Benjamin.⁶ He left the watering of the plants to the workers. At that time, I didn't have sufficient work. So I asked Benjamin to allow me to water the pots because the worker under him was not doing it properly. And immediately he told me that I could write to Mother and take up the whole charge of the garden. I told him, "But I need your help. I have no experience." He said, "I will guide you." So he asked Mother's permission

4.Chandradeep later translated several works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother into Hindi.

5.Umirchand (Sumantra's father) had already settled in the Ashram, in August 1934. What Parichand means is that he was responsible for Umirchand's family which the latter had left behind when he went away to the Ashram.

6.Benjamin, a local Tamil sadhak was in charge of the Cycle Dept. of the Ashram. He also taught French to the beginners.

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and She gave me Her sanction. I was given charge of the whole garden and I began to grow some flowers with his and Jyotin's help.

There were about 30 pots and I was sending flowers to the Mother and She would send back some flowers and there was the joy of sending and receiving them from Her. So it was going on and suddenly Manubhai left the Ashram and Purushottam⁷ took charge of the Ashram garden. He asked Mother to give him one helper for an hour. One day Mother told me in an interview (I used to have a weekly interview with the Mother), "You are doing some gardening work, isn't it?" I said, "Yes." "Could you give another hour to this garden? Purushottam needs help for an hour." I said, "I have plenty of time." So that's how I started supervising the garden in the Ashram. Then, slowly, work increased, both theoretical and practical. Finally I had to give it all my time.

7. Purushottam was in charge of Prosperity until he left the Ashram. The responsibility then devolved on Duraiswami Iyer who then passed it over to Harikant Patel, the erstwhile Managing Trustee, who died recently in April 2002.

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