Two of the new books
introduced in the latest issue of sabda e-news offer the reader quite special
experiences. Udar, an evocation in photographs, stories, and
remembrances of the life of the disciple who was formerly known as Laurence
Pinto, provides a veritable history of Ashram activities from the late 1930s to
the 1990s in which Udar played a significant role. Champaklal’s Treasures,
a collection of letters, notes, and messages written by Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother and some early conversations of Sri Aurobindo, reveals an intimate
portrait of how they gave shape and form to their sublime vision in so many
different aspects of life.
Two young men of completely
different background and education, Udar and Champaklal found themselves drawn
to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, each through his own nature. Champaklal, when
just a young man of twenty, came from his village in
Who are you?” says the adverse force. “I am the
impartial and truthful Mirror in which everyone finds his own real image.”
Later in the book is a long
section containing correspondence with early disciples that includes several
letters from Sri Aurobindo to his brother Barindra Kumar Ghose. The following
is an extract from a letter written in 1920 and translated from the original
Bengali:
Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what
I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of
One finds such interesting passages on almost every page of this book. Champaklal must have kept these different papers with him over the course of many years, and his careful and precise attitude in this helps us to understand why the Mother came to rely on him to such an extent that she once commented, “Champaklal is my memory!”
While Champaklal’s mantra
was service, Udar’s might well have been action. With the sound technical
knowledge of a trained aeronautical engineer and a head for organisation, Udar
became one of the pillars of the Ashram, called upon by the Mother to take up
many new or complicated projects. The pages of the book Udar are filled
with more than 400 photographs and numerous remembrances that clearly exhibit
Udar’s immense enthusiasm and commitment to the Mother’s work.
His involvement with the
Department of Physical Education is just one example. It was his idea to get
the first batch of gymnastic apparatus from
Even reading poetry was a
field of action for Udar. The Mother had told him that the whole of Savitri
is a mantra for the transformation of the world and that he should make Savitri
his life. He began to learn the entire poem by heart and later on, in the
1980s, started to recite and read from Savitri every day during regular
sessions attended by many friends and visitors. It is typical that he delved
deep into this work with his full energy, as he had done so often when the
Mother called upon his faithfulness and ability.
Udar: One
of Mother's Children—Edited by Gauri Pinto
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Udyog Trust,
Binding: Hard Cover
Pages: 167
Udar showing the Mother sports results (1952)