Nirod-da

Nirod-da began to teach in our school after Sri Aurobindo’s Mahasamadhi. Till then he was one of the attendants of The Master. His reminiscences in “Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo” give us a first hand account of that period; his service to The Master; his relation with Him.

After 1950 December he began to teach in higher classes, He had a very serious expression I might say always a frown and somehow he gave us the impression that he resembled a great deal The great French poet Baudelaire. So whenever we didn’t want to mention his name openly we called him Baudelaire. For we were quite scared of him and he was aware of it fully. I remember once he said, ”Now let me go and show them their terror’s face.” To Sisir-da.

He definitely was a person who was affectionate, otherwise how could he take the responsibility of his nieces (Juthi, Bani & Dolly) and nephews (Dibhash, Subhash & Subash)! They lived with their maternal grand mother, (Nirod-da’s mother) and their mothers. But they were his responsibility. He was not only their parent but also their guide and philosopher.

Much have been written about him by those who knew him closely, or the occasion of his centenary. There is not much to say. I may only speak of my contact with him, which as usual was neither very close nor distant.

After Ranjit Sarkar (Namita’s elder brother) left for Europe I was asked to teach Bengali in the Primary Section of our school. Then it was Nalini-Sen da who was in-charge of the Bengali Section. After his demise Nirod-da took up the responsibility. It was then that I began to have some sort of regular communication with him.

In the early sixties and late fifties when I was a student, I studied with him English. He read in our class his manuscript of
”Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo”. He introduced us to the great essayists of English Literature; one year he taught us French and a couple of years Bengali. He made us study Madhusudan Datta’s “Meghnadvadi”. He explained to us the speciality of blank verse. I believe, we were the only students who studied French, English and Bengali with the same teacher - Nirod-da.

His relation with his students became much relaxed in years. After a decade I believe nobody was as scared as we were of him. He was approachable. After Nolini-da’s passing away he was one of the sadhaks of a very few still alive who spent years in close contact with The Master and The Mother. Thus many visitors from around the world began to approach him with their problems. Spiritual as well as worldly.

This contact I believe had a great influence on him. For Nirod-da that we knew in the fifties of the last century and Nirod-da of the last years of the same century were two very different Nirod-das. He had mellowed down a great deal.