NOTE Sri Aurobindo started learning Bengali, his mother tongue, in England, as a probationer for the Indian Civil Service. After his return to India he began a serious study of the language with a view to acquiring proficiency in reading, writing and speaking. During his stay at Baroda he wrote some poetry in Bengali, attempting even a long poem called “Usha-Haran Kabya”. It is to this poem that his brother, Manmohan, himself a poet, refers in his letter to Rabindranath Tagore, dated October 24, 1894. We quote from it the following extract: “Aurobinda is anxious to know what you think of his book of verses1, but I h.ave explained to him how busy you are just now; and that you will write later when you have a little more leisure to do justice to his book. I myself think that he is possessed of considerable powers of language and a real literary gift, — but is lacking in stuff and matter, perhaps in warmth of temperament. But those pieces on Parnell2, consisting of fine philosophic reflection, show, I think, that he might do great things. Unfortunately he has directed (or rather misdirected) all his energies to writing Bengali poetry. He is at present engaged on an epic (inspired I believe by Michael Madhusudan) on the subject of Usha and Aniruddha.” He wrote several articles for the earlier issues of Yugantar, a Bengali revolutionary weekly started by his brother Barin and others under his guidance in March 1906. But not a single copy of this journal has so far been traced.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 09:51:00 +0000
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