Recollections of Dortoir

II — Recollections of Lata Jauhar

DORTOIR, 1945, January 15th

I was 12 when I came in 1944. Dortoir was opened on 15th January 1945. I was the first child of Dortoir as I moved in two days before it was officially opened. This was due to my mother’s insistence that if I did not drink milk for breakfast she would not let me enter the house. I got nervous but as I was obstinate, I did not drink milk but went and told the Mother about this. The Mother sent me to stay in Dortoir immediately. Thus I was already staying in Dortoir before it was opened.

It started with Lata, Tara, Chitra, Aruna, Kokila on the first floor and Narendra, Jyotindra, Arun Kumar, Nirakar on the ground floor. Gul-ben and Sirin-ben were in charge of the girls upstairs. Chellamma was in charge of the boys downstairs and also the kitchen. Ichcha-ben was given charge of the servants. In a few months others from different families joined the group: Urmila, Usha, Arun (their brother) and later Urmila Pandya, her brother and others. I don’t remember exactly the names and the order of joining of other members. There were Babli and Miku and many others. Many came for a short period also. Gradually, as the Dortoir got extended, Anu-ben was given the charge of getting the clothes ironed. Sabita-di was looking after the Sick Room. Ravindra-ji was in charge of the all-round organisation: food and studies etc. After Gul-ben and Sirin-ben left, Anu-ben took up the charge of upstairs work and Kusum-ben came as her assistant. The Mother explained to them in detail, how the children should be treated with lots of love and patience. They should not be woken up abruptly, as they live in other worlds in their dreams.

We had our school classes and sports activities. During the free periods we were all doing some work and quite a few of us worked with Ravindra-ji. Of course there were also timings for going to the Mother for Pranams etc. After lunch we did our homework which Ravindra-ji used to supervise. He would also give us additional work in arithmetic: calculations like multiplications, divisions and tables etc.

I went to school and in the free periods I went to work in the Ashram with Ravindra-ji. Fruits and vegetables were not available in Pondicherry in those days. Some tomatoes, carrots etc. were coming from Bangalore once a week. These we washed in potassium permanganate, wiped and arranged in trays. Mother and Sri Aurobindo took a glass of carrot juice daily. There were no refrigerators then. The carrots had to be preserved for a whole week before the next lot arrived. For this, flat earthen pots were filled with moist earth and sand and carrots were arranged underneath. The pot had to be watered like plants to keep these carrots fresh. With too much water they would rot inside. I learnt the correct dosages by practice. Even the earth had to be changed from time to time or else it would get putrid. There were no electric gadgets in those days. I used to crush the carrots in a stone mortar and squeeze out the juice from a muslin cloth and would thus fill up two small glasses: one for the Mother and the other for Sri Aurobindo. My father used to bring from Delhi a boxful of seedless grapes of Chaman, Afghanistan. They were brought by air and as they are very delicate did not last long. These I used to peel, cut in two, take out the central thread and prepare two small bowls. Similarly I used to prepare two small bowls with chikus, oranges or other fruits and carry these in a tray directly to the Mother. This is how I could see her all alone in the passage on her way to Sri Aurobindo. She always showed a lot of interest and praised the work. How happy I felt then. On weekends, I used to churn milk on a hand-machine for 40-45 minutes to prepare milk-cream and then butter. I did this work as long as Sri Aurobindo was there. After that, gradually the arrangement changed.

In addition to this work, we used to fill up the fruit bags of sadhaks with tomatoes, musambi or papaya, that is, whatever was available, and keep them ready to give personally into the hands of the sadhaks.

On Darshan days we also worked at the Dining Room Counter serving rice or vegetables and we also helped in the washing and wiping of the dishes and bowls.

After dinner, as the Mother did not like the used vessels to be left overnight without being washed, some Dortoir girls and a few non-Dortoirians like Lilou, Pushpa, Kumud, Mridula used to give a helping hand in washing and wiping and tidying up the whole place. Chandubhai was the only male member of the Ashram who used to work with us and would accompany the other girls to their homes after their work. While washing, we used to play “Antyakshari” regularly. We used to form two teams and turn by turn each team had to sing a song starting by the last letter of the song sung by the opposite team. This trained our voices and we had a whole repertory of songs in our memory.

The rules for the boarders were formulated by the Mother. We could not go to a friend’s house, neither could he come to see us. There were no birthday parties. Birthday was only going to the Mother a number of times. We were all present for Balcony Darshan at 6 a.m. regularly. We had to be home by 8 p.m. On Saturdays we could stay longer in the Ashram, but always working most of the time. Later, every Saturday night we could go to the Mother for Pranam which would sometimes take place even after midnight. Some elderly people used to tell us stories while we were waiting for the Pranam and after that we used to fall asleep in the Ashram courtyard till we were woken up to go for Pranam.

Well, over the years there were constant changes. The Mother would make us write something and she corrected our notebooks. For every little problem we would approach the Mother. As we did not like Dining Room food she got made one special potato vegetable every day only for us. We did not like even that. The Mother’s own kitchen was supplying some savouries twice a week and they were just delicious and we used to look forward to that and the quantity was never enough. Of course, gradually we were getting the tasty dishes only once a week and these too were becoming rather infrequent. Sometimes only Papad, but even that was so special, so tasty.

On 15th January the anniversary of Dortoir we would put up some programme and could invite a few friends. In the later years, when the Mother started coming out, she came to Dortoir to see our programme. For one of our Dortoir programmes she dramatised her story “Les Vertues” and guided us, teaching us how to present it for the anniversary.

Innumerable are the incidents and innumerable the changes. One can’t remember or relate everything. The only thing I can say is that it was just beautiful in those days. All work was fun and learning and everything was centred around our dear Mother who kept us in a paradise on earth. We have been a really lucky lot.