Sri Parichand - A Pilgrim of the Spirit

1

Sri Parichand: A Biographical Sketch

(1904-1991)

The Mother once said to Parichand, "Yours is the straight path" as opposed to the "zigzag path" of another sadhak. Her words reflect the man who followed this straight path. Tall and erect, taking long strides on the beach road, his dhoti flapping in the wind, the kurta carelessly left unbuttoned, long white hair, big bushy eye-brows and deep creases of wisdom running across his face — that was Parichand as we saw him in the eighties, the sadhak in charge of the garden in the Ashram main building. He would go about his work with utmost seriousness — pruning the plants, arranging the flower pots, supervising the workers watering the garden. Outwardly, the work was unimportant, but the endeavour behind it was great and onerous. For the Yoga was not over and the work of transformation had begun after half a century of service to the Mother. When somebody claimed after a few years of stay in the Ashram that his psychic transformation was over, Parichand read out to him a passage on it from The Life Divine. "It is not so easy as people think," he said to me. "It takes a long time." He recounted how Sri Aurobindo had written in reply to his first letter in May 1931, "The sadhana is a difficult one and time should not be grudged." Parichand never forgot those first instructions of the Master.

In the same letter, Sri Aurobindo wrote to Nolini about Parichand's letter addressed to him,

"The letter is an extremely intelligent one and shows considerable justness of mind and discriminating observation both as to the nature of the sadhana and its obstacles and the movements in him. You had better correspond with him and encourage him...."

This intelligence and discrimination Parichand carried all

Page 1

through his long Ashram life as a gardener. The intellect was as if almost forcibly subdued to the more important work of physical sadhana. Once he complained to the Mother that he had no time to read Sri Aurobindo's books because of his work during the day, followed by Group in the evening, after which he was too tired to concentrate on anything. Mother told him to snatch the intervals in between to read Sri Aurobindo instead of stopping Group activity as he had proposed. So that is how he followed his favourite pastime of reading Sri Aurobindo's books.

Another principle which he strictly followed was never to talk about sadhana, especially his own. Sri Aurobindo had warned him in 1932 that it led to tapakshaya (loss of tapas or spiritual energy). It was only after the Mother's passing away that he seems to have relaxed the rule and began informally answering questions on life and yoga to a few persons who enjoyed his confidence. There also, the guidance was impersonal though full of affection and concern, taking care not to attract public attention. Towards the end of his life, in the mid-eighties, he mellowed further and spoke even about his own sadhana. I recall Parichand coming to our house one day during this period. He was like a ripe mango, just sufficiently ripe to bestow the sweetness of his soul on others. He talked about the early part of his life and the days when the solid foundations of the Ashram were laid by the first generation of sadhaks to which he belonged. The words flowed naturally and every word rang true — his eloquence had at last been freed from years of self-imposed silence. When I asked if I could record him on tape, he flatly refused because that was forbidden. He had already crossed the bounds of spiritual discretion by speaking on himself. Later, he did concede an interview and allowed himself to be recorded but, by then, it was too late. He had suffered a stroke which impaired his speech. The mango had become over-ripe. After six months, he suffered another massive stroke which confined him to bed. During this period, his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was serialised in the Bulletin and people came to know his true worth. He spent about a year and

Page 2

a half at the Ashram Nursing Home, attended diligently by the nursing staff and Sumantra, his nephew, before passing away on 27 August 1991.

Here is a brief outline of his life.

Parichand Kothari was born on 30 October 1904 in Azimganj, Murshidabad, Bengal in a family observing strict Jain traditions which never really appealed to him. As a young boy, he loved to meditate in solitary places, but instinctively avoided the sadhus who camped on the banks of the Ganges, and weaned away boys to the path of renunciation. He enjoyed life, his studies, his family and "there was never any sense of frustration". Inspired by Rishabhchand, his relative and mentor, he joined the non-cooperation movement in 1920 but went back to college after the movement fizzled out in six months. In January 1924, he received a nineteen page long letter from Rishabhchand who was recuperating in Shillong after a severe illness. The latter had been profoundly influenced by Sri Aurobindo and his letter expressed the new turn in his life. Parichand, deeply impressed by the letter, took an appointment with Rishabhchand as soon as the latter returned to Calcutta. He later recalled:

"I remember that day I crossed the Howrah bridge (he [Rishabhchand] 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 remember, 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 The Yoga and its Objects [by Sri Aurobindo]. 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."

Ironically, the enlightenment came nine days after he had been married. Had he received the book nine days earlier, Parichand

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

said, he would never have got married. His interest in spiritual literature grew and soon he found his college textbooks dull and distasteful. He managed to secure good marks in B.A., but simply could not proceed further with his M.A. At this point, invited by Rishabhchand whose association he cherished, he joined the latter \s cloth business in Calcutta. Rishabhchand, who was in a similar state of spiritual incubation, had started The Indian Silk House in 1926. Several people connected with the shop eventually settled in the Ashram: Anilkumar, the painter; Rishabhchand. the writer; Umirchand of the Building Service; Parichand, the gardener and Raghunandan, of the Ashram Press. Parichand spent the next nine years serving his family and preparing himself inwardly to settle in the Ashram. When he came to the Ashram on 18 November 1934, he had made up his mind and knew he would not return. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother admitted him in the Ashram after a brief period of probation. His wife and one of his daughters came to Pondicherry to plead their case, but he remained unmoved, for a new phase of life had begun. His family — he had two daughters and a son — was soon taken care of by his relatives and the wherewithal arranged for their maintenance.

In the Ashram, Parichand was at first given gate duty and the work of cataloguing books in the Ashram Library under Premananda. He also took a few English classes for younger sadhaks such as Nagin Doshi and Deviprasad. His gardening career began with watering a few pots kept in the Cycle House under the charge of Benjamin. When Manubhai left the Ashram in 1938. Purushottam took over from him the charge of the garden in the Ashram main building and Parichand became his assistant. After Purushottam left in 1939, Parichand seems to have taken over the supervision himself. There were other gardens and gardeners in the Ashram because of which a centralised "Garden Service" was formed by the Mother around 1938. Parichand was its office-bearer and had to face the typical problems of maintaining harmony and co-ordination until the committee was dissolved. Meanwhile, as the gardening work increased, he devoted his full time to it and left all other work

Page 8

previously assigned to him. In 1965, the Maret garden along with Rassendren's garden, came under his charge after the passing away of Atal Chaudhury, another old timer who had settled in the Ashram in 1928. Every other day, Parichand, dressed in sparkling white dhoti and kurta, royally cycled 5 km through the narrow backlanes of Colas Nagar to take a shortcut to the two gardens in Uppalam. Those were the days when there were few motorcycles and cars in the Ashram. Later, he had assistants with vehicular conveniences and even a small Mitsubishi tiller.

Parichand's gardening career lasted a pretty long time — fifty years — from 1938 to 1988. The work was surprisingly mundane for those who expect the Mother to have taught occult action on plants to the sadhaks. His garden reports are full of Mother's practical and down to earth instructions such as not to over-manure or over-water plants, or to keep them in sun or shade, according to the species to which they belonged. The information came from Mother's own experience in France or from magazines on gardening. Seeds were regularly procured from outside Pondicherry with wonderful results. It was plain, solid and successful gardening which earned a lot of admiration for the Ashram. The deeper element of sadhana was a supporting matrix with the stress on the never-ending work of transformation with the help of the Mother's force. The most occult of all Yogas along with the most physical aspect of material life. In both the fields, he grew flowers out of the mud.

Raman Reddy

Page 9