Don't exaggerate yourself

Can you remember youself in your very early childhood? A little child, as little as you had just learnt to walk a measured length and been managing to utter some words with indistinctive syllables; you were then an uncertain being. You could not think as your mind was still in its shape and its grasp was as insignificant as the measure of your walking strides. Most of the time you remained satisfied (I do not use the word 'happy') or content with you except at times of physical discomfort. You had your little world, better say, a sense-world. Can you remember what it was exactly like? It was unlike what it is now to you characteristically. Now, to you, the world and you are two different entities. But at that period of your childhood, we are discussing, you could not as yet been able to detach your surroundings off from your sense of existence. So you were comfortable with everything known, as stuck to your senses-the faces, places, sounds, and touches. Anything unknown was an adverse intrusion and it upset your balance. The centre of this tiny sense-being was your mom.

So, if for reasons, whenever you found yourself none around you in the middle of the corridor of the house –you had never been kept in before, you cried out, not out of fear but because you could not be of what you were accustomed to in your sense world. Yes, you were an ensemble of senses.

It was a justified suffering more justified than when you were afraid of a ghost in a haunted house-much later when you were enough grown-up as a boy. Unlike the child's it was a mentally constructed fear. There can be no raison d'être of such suffering. The child suffered as a part of his being was cut off, he was unshaped, reduced as less. Have you ever noticed how the tail of a domestic lizard when cut off from the body moving and fidgeting with life impulse even after the lizard has gone into hiding? It is in desperation for the body it is a part of.

You still continue to suffer. And you know it has no end. You suffer in myriad ways the types and nature of which were not known to the early Homo sapiens. It is all because you are not consciously living in unity with the real existence you are a part of. All our suffering is rooted in our ignorance in feeling us as separated from the whole. You exaggerate you when you feel alone or separated. What we require is to expand ourselves without limit.

In the last phase of her life The Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram –while doing her sadhana with the cells of her body she told once to one of her disciples that there was only one physical body in this world!

The burden of the Light

A few persons even today, fifty seven years after he left his body, are aware of what Sri Aurobindo did in his life in Pondicherry. For people of India it is not unusual. For thousands of years the sanyasins in India lived in seclusion for purpose of their sadhana. But Sri Aurobindo was not a sanyasin as he accepted life and world as real and his yoga is not for shunning this world as Maya and accepting Nirvana as the only goal. He attained Nirvana in 1908 before he left for Pondicherry in 1910. So what required him to live within the boundaries of his room for long forty years?

SRI AUROBINDO'S ROOM

His was a life of battling against ignorance of life we live in. But it is impossible to get an idea by oneself unless one believes in the possibility of a change of human nature and for that matter in oneself following the path sincerely as shown by Sri Aurobindo. His disciples wrote to him about their sadhana and sought his guidance and opinion. Sri Aurobindo, in reply, wrote hundreds of letters to them regularly. These letters are now sources of light for all who follow his path of Yoga of transformation.

The following letter is one among them and which shows partly the extent of his battle and about himself.

"I can not say that I follow very well the logic of your doubt. How does the suffering of a noble and selfless friend invalidate the hope of yoga? There are many dismal spectacles in the world, but that is after all the very reason why yoga has to be done. If the world were all happy and beautiful and ideal, who would want to change it or find it necessary to bring down a higher consciousness into this earthly Mind and Matter? Your other argument is that the work of the yoga itself is difficult, not easy, not a happy canter to the goal. Of course it is, because the world and human nature are what they are. I never said it was easy or that there are not obstinate difficulties in the way of the endeavour. Again, I do not understand your point about raising up a new race by my going on writing "trivial" letters ten hours a day. Of course not-nor by writing important letters either; even if I were to spend my time writing fine poems it would not build up a new race. Each activity is important in its own place-an electron or a molecule or a grain may be small things in themselves, but in their place they are indispensible to the building up of a world; it can not be made up only of mountains and sunsets and streaming of aurora borealis-though these have their place there. All depends on the force behind these things and the purpose in their action-and that is known to the Cosmic Spirit which is at work; and it works, I may add, not by the mind or according to human standards but by a greater consciousness which, starting from an electron, can build up a world and, using a tangle of ganglia, can make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Sprit in Matter, produce a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet either made up only of magnificent and important things? How many trivial things had to be dealt with and done before there could be produced a "King Lear" or a "Hamlet"? Again according to your own reasoning, would not people be justified in mocking at your pother-so they would call it; I do not-about metre and scansion and how many ways a syllable can be read? Why, they might say, is he wasting his time in trivial prosaic things like this when he might have been spending it in producing a beautiful lyric or fine music? But the worker knows and respects the material with which he must work and he knows why he is busy with "trifles" and small details and what is their place in the fullness of his labour.

As for faith, you write as if I never had a doubt or any difficulty. I have had worse than any human mind can think of. It is not because I have ignored difficulties, but because I have seen them more clearly, experienced them on a larger scale than anyone living now or before me that, having faced and measured them, I am sure of the results of my work. But even if I still saw the chance that it might come to nothing (which is impossible), I would go on unperturbed, because I would still have done to the best of my power the work that I had to do and what is so done always counts in the economy of the universe. But why should I feel that all this may come to nothing when I see each step and where it is leading and every week, every day-once it was every year and month and hereafter it will be every day and hour-brings me so much nearer to my goal? In the way that one treads with the greater Light above, even every difficulty gives its help and has its value and Night itself carries in it the burden of the Light that has to be."

©Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust-1970

When China smiles...

The Chinese are the queer people. The Spaniards are almost what they appear externally. You can half-read their mind after ten minutes of first acquaintance. Perhaps it is almost the same with all the common people of the world. But you have to dig deep to discover the real person in a Chinese. They talk little and their smile means many things including the diametrically opposites. They are secretive and pose just the opposite of what they actually think or plan. One can understand Stalin or Hitler but it was difficult to understand Mao Zedong. Nehru was a victim of this specious political face of Mao. There was a popular slogan in India –hindi chini bhai bhai( Indians and Chinese are like brothers) mainly at the behest of Nehru after Zhou Enlai’s visit to India. So Nehru did not ever dream of making a strong and secure border with China. That was exactly what the Chinese wanted Nehru to believe before making a sudden aggression of their force deep into the northern territory of India. India is still licking her wound having lost a considerable land to China. Vietnam has lost some land to the Chinese. The crookedness of China is best exemplified in the old stories about China’s business with Vietnam. Once China offered a lucrative offer that she would pay handsomely for the tails of cats. Enamored by such offer the Vietnamese people cut thousands of tails of their cats and sold them to China. This led to alarming increase of rodent population in Vietnam as the maimed cats were not able enough to catch them. These vermin ravaged crops all over the country. Now China came to their help by selling them cheap pesticides. The pesticide worked well and within a very short time the villages were filled the dead rodents and also with the dead chickens that fed on the carcasses of the rodents. But still the number of rodents was alarming and threat to the crops continued. But the villagers were now cautious and refused to buy any pesticide from China. But China was an indomitable friend. So now they sold plastic sheets for fencing the crop fields. These sheets were too high and slippery for the rodents to climb over. In another occasion China tempted the Vietnamese people by offering to buy cinnamon roots at abnormally high prices. The poor Vietnamese in order to make fortune sold the roots to them. Soon the cinnamon trees withered. So one should be very thoughtful on occasions when China comes forward to help with a smiling face. Has India learnt a lesson from her friendship?

Blogs and Ads

What is a blog? It is nothing but a personal website where the person writes whatever he or she feels to write. It may be one’s personal diary. Most often one posts writings on matters of one’s choice; they may be stories, poetries, treatises, political opinions etc. Many blogs are about specific subjects or matters like pets, books, internet and as many as there are in this world. Some blogs inform links to other web pages. In simple way A blog is like an own website. You can compare it to your personal online diary or journal. You can use your blog for exchanging ideas, thoughts, experiences or simply to communicate with family, friends and readers.As per Wikipedia-“Usenet was the primary serial medium included in the original definition of the World Wide Web. It featured the Moderated News Group which allowed all posting in a newsgroup to be under the control of an individual or small group. Most such newsgroups were simply moderated discussion forums, however, in 1983-84, one exception, named mod.ber, was created, named after and managed by an individual: Brian E. Redman. Regularly, Redman and a few associates posted summaries of interesting postings and threads taking place elsewhere on the net. With its serial journal publishing style, presence on the pre-HTTP web and strong similarity to the common blog form which features links to interesting and cool places on the net chosen by the blogger, mod.ber had many of the characteristics commonly associated with the term ‘blog’. It ceased operation after approximately 8 months. Brad Templeton calls the newsgroup rec.humour.funny (which he founded) the world's oldest still existing blog.”There are more than hundred million blogs in the world now. The exact number can not be ascertained. So I am giving an approximate country-wise blog numbers.Austria: 20,000Belgium: 100,000Bosnia and Herzegovina: less than 3,000Brunei: less than 3,000Canada: 700,000China: 5 million and growingCzech Republic: 5,000Croatia: 40,000Denmark: 5,000Finland: 100,000France: 3 millionGermany: 280,000India: 100,000Ireland: 75,000Israel: 100,000Italy: 200,000Malaysia: 10,000Japan: 4 millionThe Netherlands: 600,000Philippines: 75,000Poland: 1.4 millionRussia: 300,000South Korea: 15 millionSpain: 1.5 millionUkraine: 50,000United Kingdom: 2.5 millionUnited States: 15-30 million And there are several web-hosts offering different blog-sites with different templates. The most prominent hosts among them are as given below:.Xanga: 40 millionsee note at the bottomMSN spaces: 15 millionTerra.es including 1 million users in Spain, at least 2.5 million US and approx 1.5 million in the UKBlogger: 14 million +total registered blogs: Blogger gives a unique indexed number for every new blog, the latest one I’ve observed is over 14 million.Cyworld: 11 millionSixApart: (Live Journal/ TypePad, MT): 9.5 millionI reported 8.7 million at the end of May and LJ has grown by 0.5 million in that time. I’m guessing again on the final figure because MT installs are hard to track, and SixApart haven’t release user numbers on TypePad as far as I’m awarePlanet Weblog Service: 6 millionLeading South Korean blogging providerYahoo Blogs Korea: 3 millionSkyblog: 2.5 millionGreatest Journal: 1 millionOther US Live Journal clones: 1 million Now with so many sites, the opportunity of monetizing came up and the blog-publishers were given the option to offer their sites as money making sources also. So it’s a lucrative exercise now for all the three parties involved-the blogger (as publisher), the Ad providing host and the advertiser. So the blogger finds it interesting to earn money while posting matters in the blog. But the whole matter of generating money from the Ads in the blog-pages lies with the blogger. Unlike the print media here the blog is not open to the public to have full views of the Ads. A blog may never be opened by anyone in the world as every blogger is just like an unknown man in this world and so the chance of Ads published in the blog to be viewed is almost remote. Moreover the Ads in the blog appear as a subject (however beautifully made) only and not in detail in view of space problem. So if a viewer wants to know in detail he or she must have to click the Ad front in order to open it in a full screen. Hence the publicity is effected in clicks by viewer of the blog. The blogger, therefore, is concerned with two things: a) to make the blog interesting, informative whatever the subject is b) the blog must have a large viewer- ship. Here in this matter of viewer -ship a blogger must find ways and means to reach to hundreds of persons and also while taking into account that a reader may not be interested in ads placed on the sides of blog-writing. One in a hundred may click and even then the viewer may not click all the Ads in the blog. So it’s a tough job to monetize one’s blog. To help the blogger there are many companies now who help to bail out the blogger in directing a good traffic to the blog in exchange of some charges. The main Ad hosts of the world that help monetizing the blogs are as follows:http://websense.blogspot.com/http://www.google.com/adsensehttp://www.understandingadsense.com/http://adbrite.com/http://www.sponsoredreviews.com/http://blogsvertise.com/http://crisp:/crispads.comhttp://ads-click.com/http://www.affiliatejunktion.com/http://www.smarty.com/http://www.payu2blog.com/http://www.bidvertiser.com/http://fbexchange.com/http://www.lookery.com/http://payperpost.com/http://www.pubmatic.com/http://www.text-link-ads.com/http://www.turn.com/corp/index.jsphttp://zookode.com/http://globalinteractive.com/Apart from the above sites there are also some web hosts those help the bloggers in many ways –web designing, directing traffic etc. A blogger may also visit the sites below to get the required benefits.http://adwords.blogspot.com/http://widget.criteo.com/http://www.slackermanager.com/http://technocrati.com/http://earnmoneyfromblog1.blogspot.com/http://affiliatejunktion.com/http://rncnet.com/howtopay.htmlHere are a few names of the blog-host sites:Blog.co.ukBlog.Some-Free Word Press BlogMy SpaceBloggerBlogpico.comGoogle Adsense Blog I’ll discuss elaborately in my next posts.

A Personal Tribute to Jatindranath, Indubala and Ranchi

Generally when a blogger writes something in his blog, he wants it to be read by others also, with some interest, even if the subject of his writing is just as personal diaries. So he writes on matters that may arouse some interests in the mind of his readers (though it is extremely difficult for most of the bloggers to get readership now). But it is not at all interesting for an outsider to read about the family history of a blogger. When the subject relates to personal life of the blogger in all likelihood it falls into an uninteresting meaninglessness and it can not offer anything that may lie beyond the blogger’s private mind. It’s immaterial to know where the blogger lives and with whom. It’s just like information as to what is the brand of tooth-paste the blogger uses. The brand may rise to importance if it is known that it is used by Julia Roberts or George Bush. But the importance lies with the movie-star or the President of the US, not with the brand she or he uses. Still sometimes the very personal may link us to impersonal –when it is able to be caught in the impulse of general life force. But what is a life if it is not silently personal –in the known terms of the word? The course of a life of a person is hidden to others. The external events are mere phenomenon of some truth realized only within by the owner of the life. At the end of his tale in the prison of Agra Fort it was Shahjahan, and not the historian, who was aware of the course of the deity in his life. So was Napoleon in St Helena- who knew it more than anyone in this world what in him was moved in victory, in the betrayal of his wife, in his capture by the English and his ultimate destiny in solitary life in the prison; all of these created the essence of a life that was Napoleon’s own, hidden to the world outside his physical existence. Shakespeare knew this inner course of life in King Lear. But for all a Shakespeare lives within. But notwithstanding its content the following writing is not an episode of my personal life.It's a depiction of a life through a time -now long lost. Let me retrieve very little of it for a reading in the light of modern time. There is no recorded history of the early Bengali settlement in Ranchi and none knows today Jatindranath who contributed much to organize the Bengalis in the name of Sri Ramakrishna. Ranchi was dear place to Jyotirindranath Tagore –the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore. But to establish it as a Bengali settlement Jatindranath and his friends were pioneers. In his death bed the last words of Jatindranath were that ‘It was a flower of the forest. It blossomed and withered in the forest without anyone’s knowledge of it’. It’s a tribute to that unknown blossoming. I was born in Ranchi which at that time was in the state of Bihar and not as the capital city of Jharkhand –a newly formed state with a part of Bihar. If anything of my life I remember of as most happy experience –then it was my childhood days in Ranchi. I’ll never like to visit Ranchi as it is not there not on the earth now. What now stands with the name of Ranchi is a different place with all the nuisance of modern and vulgar Indian cities. Like a sweet dream when it vanishes after waking from a sleep, Ranchi also has long vanished from my known world. Ranchi was on the southern part of the Chotanagpur which forms the eastern edge of the Deccan plateau system. The area surrounding Ranchi was endowed with immense natural bounty and it was fondly mentioned as the “City of Waterfalls”. The most popular waterfalls were Dasham, Hundru,Jonha Falls, Hirni and Panchghat- which were all active perennially. The beautiful place of Ranchi amazed me with its scenic splendour and salubrious climate while sitting comfortably at an altitude of 2140 feet above the sea level. The Tagore Hill, Ranchi Hill and the spectacular Ranchi Lake were some places in the city which took one to a world of tranquility and serenity where one seemed to get a chance to romance with the nature. My grandfather was Jatindranath Ghosh, who was born in Khulna district of East Bengal (now in Bangladesh) in a prosperous village –Maheswarpasha in 1880. They were three brothers-eldest of them was Shashadhar Ghosh. Their parents were Jahnavi Charan and Muktakeshi. Jatindranath was an enlightened person and a good student. So after passing his Entrance exam he found that he could not pursue higher education –which was only possible in Daulatpur. But there was none to bear expenses for his education there in Daulatpur. At the same time he did not like to live in a village and engage himself in managing agriculture with the lands which the brothers owned. He always felt to live in a wider world outside his village-Maheswarpasha. So he took a job in the Accountant General’s Office in Shilong. At that time the Office of the Accountant General had two other branches –one in Dacca (now the capital of Bangladesh) and other in Shilong in the north-east India under the head office in Ranchi. Jatindranath had to work also in Dacca branch of the office. Before being settled in Ranchi Jatindranath married Indubala. Indubala was the daughter of Khirodasundari, the third wife of Prabal Chandra Ray Choudhury. Prabal Chandra lived in Norail in the district of Jessore (now also in Bangladesh). Indubala was born in 1896 and so she was sixteen years younger than Jatindranath. At the age of eleven she was married to Jatindranath in 1905. Jatindranath fell in love with Ranchi. Ranchi was the native place of the tribals-mainly-Mundas. Though Mundas were the majority, there were other tribal races like Oraon , Murmu, Kol etc. But very few Biharis were found in Ranchi at that time though it was under the state of Bihar. The majority (why not almost) educated gentlemen were Bengalis. They all migrated from various places of undivided Bengal to Ranchi. In such a situation it was very natural that they became friends themselves. They purchased lands near their office, the office of the Accountant General-which was popularly called AG Office. Jatindranath purchased 15 cottahs of land (I can not tell how much it is in sq feet). Meanwhile nine children were born to Indubala and Jatindranath. They were four sons and five daughters. According to seniority they were as follows: Brajodulal, Sarama, Sushama, Mrinalkanti, Manorama, Madhusudan, Uma, Narayan and Mala. Only Manorama and Mala are surviving from those of the above. It is horrible to think of so many sons and daughters born to parents today. But it was not unusual then. But it’s difficult to raise so many children properly. But all of them grew healthy except Brajo Dulal –their eldest son. But I would have lost much of the warmth and charm of my childhood had my grandfather liked a small family. Ranchi was a town, and not a city at all in those days. The AG office was in Dorunda –which was where Jatindranath built two houses one beside the other on the land he had purchased. It was opposite to Loreto School of Ranchi. He rented one to Mr Morgan and his family and lived in the other building with his family. His neighbours, as I had said, were his friends who also built their own houses there. I was then too little to remember everything. I remember my grandfather-Jatindranath when he was already a retired person. After Mr. Morgan had left for Sheffield we shifted to the house where Mr. Morgan had stayed. It was better of the two. It was at this time- life of this family started to begin for a new chapter. The aunts were getting married one after another and settled in various places in India with their husbands. I have forgotten to tell that my father had married much earlier in 1940 when the houses had been under construction. Jatindranath and his family had lived in rented quarters then. But I was born in the house beside where Mr. Morgan lived. After the departure of Mr. Morgan the family turned to be a centre for all the aunts and their husbands and their children, who were by then started living in their own places. Whenever there were occasions like Puja festival, summer vacations etc all gathered in Ranchi. They all felt that it was their home and not the places where they were settled. Once come they did not like to return. The centre of attraction was Indubala-my grandmother. Everyone on every place of the widespread ramification of the family of Jatindranath and Indubala felt Ranchi as their home. It was delightfully queer. The ramification was so widespread that it was actually impossible for a grandchild of a daughter to be known to the grandchild of another daughter or a brother. Even the families of their in-laws, who were remotely related to the mainstream family felt Ranchi as their home. The bond with Ranchi was not ceased after the death of Jatindranath. Every year the new branches sprouted from the tree leading to a bigger Ranchi family. I called Indubala –‘thamma’. The other grandchildren both from daughters’and sons’ sides called her by different names. She loved all. And everyone reared a conviction that he or she was the dearest to Indubala amongst the others. I have never seen and read about so charming influence of a woman on her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all those related in between. I never saw Indubala speaking harshly to anyone. In the night there was competition amongst us as to who would lie beside her. Alas there can not be more than two sides! Jatindranath was a very serious and pious person. He had a deep seeking for spiritual life (but his creator wanted something else). After sometime of his marriage he went to Bagbazar in north Calcutta and got initiated by Sri Sarada-Devi –the wife of Sri Ramakrishna. Later he went with Indubala to Sarada-ma. Sarada-ma then initiated Indubala also. Jatindranath was always in conflict with his spiritual life and that of the ordinary worldly life. Once he went to Ma and requested her to initiate him in sannyas. He was determined to leave the family (sansar) and become a sannayasin. But Sarada-ma told him that his fulfillment lied in the familial and so called worldly life. Some of the friends of Jatindranath also became disciples of Sri Sarada-ma. Jatindranath and his friends collaborated with Ramakrishna Mission to found a branch of the Mission in Ranchi. Our house was a home for many sadhus and sannyasins. Jatindranath loved to serve them in all possible ways. An author once wrote that whenever three Bengalis live outside Bengal they invariably build a temple of the goddess Kali. But surprisingly –my grandfather and his Bengali friends did not build a Kali-temple notwithstanding their religious bend of mind. Perhaps it was the vibrant hours of Sri Ramakrishna and the family was caught in the fire. Gradually the whole family turned into a home of Sri Ramakrishna's religious teachings. Many of the family were initiated by different sanyasins of the Ramakrishna clan. Brajo Dulal and his sister Manorama became disciples of Swami Subodhananda (Khoka-Maharaj) –himself a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. Actually there was a presence of Sri Ramakrishna in the family. I still feel the atmosphere that surrounded me in my childhood in Ranchi. I woke up early in the morning because it was a delight to face a new day. I had a book which my father bought me and asked me to read in the morning. The name of that book was ‘Sathi’-it was in Bengali. It was a book that children read in their pre-school days in those times. The word Sathi means in Bengali -a friend. Like that book Ranchi and its ambience was my 'sathi' My father bought me another book-Robinson Crusoe. It was my first book in English. I would come out in the verandah in the early morning and sitt on a cot and read the books happily. After an hour –my grandfather would return from his morning walk. I went on reading till my mother brought me a glass of milk for my breakfast. At about 10 am I went out to play near a big pond and a slender brook that was behind our house. I had –most of the times none to play with. I wander, jump and ran just like a little animal. So far the eye went –there was no house; only a hill was there in the far. I felt delight everywhere and existence was nothing but delight. We had some ducks that stayed in a little covered place under the stair in the backyard. After finishing the glass of milk I entered the house and sought for eggs if there was any in there place. I remember, I became as delighted as someone, who by chance, discovered a hidden treasure, when my hand felt a smooth and warm touch of something which I instantaneously knew an egg. That was my first discovery. I still feel the warm touch of the egg even now in my old age. A fortune in getting a just laid egg can diminish the fortune of getting a whole world of treasure. I was so excited that I ran for an hour in the paddy-field only to realize the unexpected booty- the egg –which had been there inside the duck. Sometime Amit would come to our house in the very early morning. Amit was much senior to me and lived in a two-storied building (there was only one two-storied building in the locality) near our house. As there was none of his age he was alone. So he befriended me. I liked him and he also loved me. We two went out for the places where we could not be allowed in a broad day-light. It was full of nature. He climbed trees and dropped raw mangoes or guavas which I caught standing beneath. There were snakes and hyenas in those places. But we were never afraid of them as we were always in a spirit of discovering new places. The fresh morning air filled us with that spirit. Amit died after some years in tuberculosis like his two elder brothers had died earlier of the same disease. In the night it was like nights of the fairy tales. I was very much afraid of those who could not be seen in the day but they seemed to appear from every corner of darkness. In the chilly winter my grandmother burned pieces of dry woods in a vat in her room. We sat around the vat for warmth with grand-ma who told us such stories which made the air chillier and we were at once landed in fairy-tale worlds. In those times Ranchi was very cold in winter. Sometime the temperature dipped below zero degrees Celsius. One morning we found heaps of snows before the doors of the toilet (which was outside in the backyard) and it was impossible to enter it. It took one hour to remove the snows. I loved my uncles and aunts and none can now imagine these days how delightful it is to simply get related. But the centre of this was Indubala-my grandmother. Jatindranath was a learned man and he liked to write in Bengali and in Sanskrit. Long after he was dead and gone I discovered his manuscripts. He became unhappy when my father left a job in the AG office for trying his fate in some business-the thing which he understood little. However my father joined a bank in its Ranchi office after the natural death of his business. But what hurt Jatindranath much when my father left Ranchi after being transferred to Calcutta. We started living in Baranagar in a rented house which had an asbestos roof. It was in a typically dingy lane and peopled by those who were alien to me. I wept in the night month after month and prayed to Sri Ramakrishna for our return to Ranchi. Sometimes in summer vacations I went to Ranchi alone by Ranchi Express( Now it is Ranchi-Hatia Express). In the morning when the train chugged through the dense forest flanked by hills on both sides I smelt the burnt coal of the engine and felt the fragrance of Ranchi. As soon as I reached our house I touched the walls of the house and tears rolled down from my eyes. Indubala calmly touched me and told that it was my house. There was no personal address in Ranchi which received as many letters and articles as did the following address. Jatindranth Ghosh, “Saradalaya”, North Office Para, Dorunda, PO: Hinoo, Ranchi I believe in rebirth after death. So when I was compelled to live in Baranagar, in Calcutta, I found myself living in another world. Calcutta was a contrast to Ranchi. Calcutta appeared to me ugly and rough and if the city lacked the one most important thing of life, it was delight of mere existence.Perhaps I had to experience two lives in a single birth. I could never compromise with my life after coming from Ranchi. I felt myself most unfortunate man –a man who had lost his birth place-his motherland. Long-long after this when I began to gather myself I met the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. And I again felt the delight in a person. He was Sachindranath Chatterjee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He belongs to another tale. So from Sri Ramakrishna to Sri Aurobindo I have had the experiences of more than one birth. But it is a single being and all is merged as a single feeling as the innumerable stars in the sky above and the chirping of the crickets below are caught in the single experience of silence. I am unmoved in it.