A PASSIONATE CHANTER OF SAVITRI
A humble tribute to Nadkarni-ji
Ananda Reddy
On the occasion of the second birthday celebration of the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, Pondicherry, we all fondly remember our dear Nadkarni-ji, who was the Chairperson of our Advisory Council. I can still hear loud and clear his encouragement for SACAR’s work and his vision of what it could offer to the academic world, especially in India.
A person who charmed all who came into his contact, a personality all sweet and admirable, and yet remained, deep within, a mysterious soul. He chanted the verses from Savitri and fathomed the depths of its vision, and yet remained as someone whose inner feelings could not be plumbed so very easily. His laughter and mirth were often a veil over his deep pain because of the academic world’s deep ingratitude to Sri Aurobindo. Sometimes he spoke to me of this pain in his heart, sometimes he bemoaned the status of the academia and the intelligentsia who purposely avoid the multidimensional genius that is Sri Aurobindo.
He was often bold and expressed his deep anguish in conferences in India and the US. But few were the listeners who took hint of his crusading spirit or followed his example.
Secondly, his anguish was to make Sri Aurobindo a contemporary person, that is, relevant to the present burning issues, especially in India. He loved the poetic vision of Savitri but he was at the same time a grassroots pragmatist who would ask people close to him to do research on the application of Sri Aurobindo’s vision that is etched out in Savitri and The Life Divine.
When he stood at the dais talking about or reading out in a leonine voice verses from Savitri, he became the magnet for the hundred eyes that stared at him in awe and joy at the same time. He seemed to mesmerise the audience with his rendering of Savitri’s vision. When he read out the verses in pure poetic voice and with a fervour that touched and awakened the listeners’ soul, he seemed more like a purohit chanting the Vedic hymns to the Mystic Fire. His radiant face glowed with the joy and splendour of Savitri!
His was the first voice that like an ancient chanter sang Savitri to the lovers of the epic in the corridors of universities or in the halls of Sri Aurobindo Centres all over the world. Before him people mostly read Savitri in the privacy of their homes, but he surely was the first Chanter of Savitriin the public:
He sang of the Truth that cries from Night’s blind deeps,
And the Mother-Wisdom hid in Nature's breast
And the Idea that through her dumbness works
And the miracle of her transforming hands,
Of life that slumbers in the stone and sun
And Mind subliminal in mindless life,
And the Consciousness that wakes in beasts and men.
He sang of the glory and marvel still to be born,
Of Godhead throwing off at last its veil,
Of bodies made divine and life made bliss,
Immortal sweetness clasping immortal might,
Heart sensing heart, thought looking straight at thought,
And the delight when every barrier falls,
And the transfiguration and the ecstasy.
(CWSA 34, pp. 416–7)