K D Sethna

7
K.D. Sethna (1904-2011): Named Amal Kiron by Sri

Aurobindo, like many Sadhak intellectuals found his Makers of Indian Literature
K.D. Sethna
true self in the Ashram at Pondicherry. He pioneered �
research in several areas and out of this endless list C
emerged Aryan invasion theory and Ancient Indian �
(D
history, Blake and Shakespeare studies, Christology,
:::r--------
Comparative Mythology, Indian systems of yoga, :::::s
international affairs, Overhead Poetry, Hellenic 0

literature and culture, philosophy, mysticism, spiritual
and scientific thought, modern physics and biology. He
touched almost all the fields available on Planet Earth
P. Raja
and they all gleamed with his light. A scholar
extraordinary he edited Mother India. Author of several
books, both creative and critical, he inspired many to
take up to creative writing.
P. Raja has 32 books for adults and 8 books for children

in English and 14 books in Tamil to his credit. Apart from
contributing special articles to Encyclopedia of Post :"'
Colonial Literature in English (London), Encyclopedia of
Tamil Literature in English, and to several other edited
...."'.
0
0
volumes, he has also written scripts for Television. He was
General Council Member of Sahitya Akademi, New
Delhi representing Pondicherry University. He is the
Editor of Transfire, a literary quarterly devoted to
translations.
ISBN 978-81-260-5283-7
Sahitya
�50/-
Akademi
L
K.D. Sethna
(AMAL KIRAN)
The sculpture reproduced on the endpaper depicts a scene where three
soothsayers are interpreting to King Suddhodhana the dream of Queen
Maya, mother of Lord Buddha. Below them is seated a scribe recording
the interpretation. This is perhaps the earliest available pictorial record of
the art of writing in India.
From: Nagarjunakonda, 2nd century A.D.
Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi

Makers of Indian Literature
K.D. SETHNA
(AMAL KIRAN)
P. Raja
SAHITYA AKADEMI
K.D. Sethna : A monograph in English on an Indian poet, scholar, writer,
philosopher and cultural critic, K.D. Sethna by P. Raja. Sahitya Akademi,
New Delhi, (2017), 50.
Sahitya Akademi
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Website: http://www.sahitya-akademi.gov.in
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Main Guna Building Complex (Second Floor) 443 (304), Anna Salai
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© Sahitya Akademi
First published, 2017
ISBN: 978-81-260-5283-7
Rs. 50
Typeset and printed at Vikas Computers and Printers, Delhi-32

Contents
Acknowledgement v
1. Between Us 1
2. Thou wast not Born for Death, Immortal Bird 6
3. The Great Search and the Unexpected Fruit 13
4. Pondicherry: This is the Place for Us 22
5. A Long Road of Shimmering Discoveries 35
6. “My Paper” 44
7. Battles Fought and Won 53
8. Do Not Be Too Upset If I Pass Away 62
9. Works By K.D. Sethna: A Bibligraphy 68
10. On K.D. Sethna : A List 73
11. Works by K.D. Sethna : In Chronological Order 75
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi for giving me

the opportunity to write about the life and works of K.D.Sethna
(Amal Kiran), for publication under its MIL series.
A big thank you to Prof. Manoj Das, Fellow of the Akademi,
for his never-ending encouragement and generous support.
Another big thank you for my friend Peter Heehs, a renowned
scholar and historian for directing me in the right path towards the
writing of this book.
A huge thank you for my friend Robert K. Zwicker (Bob),
Director of Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research Library,
Pondicherry for allowing me to go through all the available letters
of K.D.Sethna. The letters in fact revealed the real man.
I would also like to express gratitude to Parasnath, Volkar and
Debjani of Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research Library,
Pondicherry for their unstinting help.
I would remain ungrateful if I fail to mention Mr. Manoj Das
Gupta of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry for letting me have
so much time in the Archives.
1
Between Us
All poets love the ocean. The ever rolling waves trying to gain a
piece of land for themselves and the land refusing with a scowl
and forcing them to retrace their steps… Ah, what a lovely sight
the ocean makes? Who would not find time to stand and stare at
the ocean? Sometime in April 2009 by sundown a guru and his
shishya sat, the former in his wheel chair and the latter by his side
on the stain free floor of the hall in Ashram Nursing Home,
Pondicherry, staring at the Bay of Bengal through the glass walls
without disturbing each other.
The guru was so engrossed with the pranks of the waves that
he was not even aware of the shishya’s arrival. Seconds gave birth
to minute and, minute to minutes. And both were listening to the
message of the Bay with such rapt attention that the nurses who
were crossing and re-crossing the hall took them for two yogis
conversing with the Bay in silence or for two useless guys wasting
their time by simply staring at the ocean.
It was by accident the shishya cleared his throat. The noise
that emerged from his side made the guru turn his head. A smile
flashed across his face. He broke his silence.
K.D. Sethna
“Oh, it is you? When did you come here?” the guru asked
smiling a divine smile.
“I don’t know, Sir!” the Shishya told a lie. After a pause, he
asked, “How long are you here, Sir?”
“Who? Me?... I do not know. I do not know why I am still
here. I do not know what I am going to do here,” replied the guru.
The shishya was not unaware of the double-meaning the guru
gave to the word ‘here’. It almost broke his heart. Tears threatened
to trickle out of his eyes. A few seconds later the tears that
managed to find their way out and sliding on his cheeks seemed
to ask the guru on behalf of his shishya: “How can a writer like
me, a child of yours, who had the privilege of studying the art of
writing under you, ever afford to lose you?”
Perhaps the guru guessed the thoughts of the tears. He then
said, “Perhaps my name is playing hide and seek with the Lord of
Death and he is still in search of it in his mammoth register”, and
made his shishya roar with laughter. He said thus without in the
least aware that the Lord of Death would take two more years to
search and trace out his name in the register.
The guru is the hero of this book, and the Shishya, the author
of this work. And that’s me.
I still remember the day when I entered Sethna’s house (no.7,
Rue Suffren) where he last stayed before he shifted to the Nursing
Home, once and for all. I saw a few foreigners sitting around him
and having a chat with him. When I felt a bit hesitant to intrude,
he smiled and welcomed me, “Come in, Raja, and join the lit-chit-
chat.” He then introduced to me all the four foreigners who were
all women and told them, “Here is Prof. P.Raja, our star-reviewer
for Mother India and a well known writer in English.” I felt elated
for he has honoured me with such a nice certificate.
When I searched for a chair to sit in, his eyes roved all over
his well-equipped study-cum-office and finding all the chairs
2
Between Us
occupied he said without any hesitation, “No chairs! Then choose

a lap,” and sent every one of us to rib-tickling laughter.
Once when Sethna was busy in his study proof-reading the
pages of a forthcoming issue of Mother India, a monthly review
of culture from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, whose editor
he has been for more than fifty years, his telephone screamed.
Lifting the handset from the cradle, he said “Hello” and waited for
a response. “Is it Aurofood?” came a voice from the other end.
Sethna did not howl “wrong number” and bang the handset against
its cradle. Keeping cool he replied in his characteristic tone: “No!
This is Amal Drink,” and set the man at the other end roaring with
laughter, for Sethna is ‘Amal’ to the Ashramites.
Sethna was always bubbling with humour and his jokes were
not meant to hurt anyone. Every friend of Sethna always looked
for opportunities to retell the jokes he or she had heard Amal crack
and found delight in acknowledging them. I was one among those
blessed few who had the honour of laughing with Amal. And
whenever he made me laugh, I thought to myself, “What a sincere
disciple of Sri Aurobindo Sethna is!”
Was it not Sri Aurobindo, the yogi’s yogi, who said, “Humour
is the salt of existence”?
I still distinctly remember the day I first met Sethna. It was on
February 21, 1979…Mother’s birthday…Darshan day in the
Ashram. It was around eleven in the morning. Mr. George Moses,
a retired Superintendent of Police, a voracious reader and editor of
a literary journal Youth Age, introduced me to Sethna in his house
at Rue Suffren, where he lived with his second wife, Sehra. It must
be mentioned in passing that Sehra became a great fan of mine
when I began to write my creative short stories and also translated
Tamil fiction for Mother India.
But the day I met him I was only a budding writer, a
struggling writer with a very strong itch to write. I placed a
cardboard file before him and spread it open.
3
K.D. Sethna
“What is this?” he asked.

“A file of clippings…all my writings,” I answered, my hands
shaking in fear.
“Oh, I see! What do you want me to do with them?”
“Please, Sir, go through them when you find time. If my
writings could get me a chance to write in Mother India, then I
would consider myself a blessed being,” I said in all humility.
“I see,” Sethna said as he flipped through the clippings in the
folder. He then banged it shut. I was disappointed because he did
not even bother to read a single line from any of my clippings.
“Can you review a book for Mother India?” he asked, looking
at me through his thick glasses.
“Review? I have not written a book review so far.”
“Say you were not given a chance so far! Then try with this,”
he said, giving me a copy of Collected Works of Nolini Kanta
Gupta – Vol.7. It weighed heavily both in my hand and on my
mind.
“Life is full of challenges. Take this too as a challenge,” he
said and added, “Your review will speak for your literary acumen
and will help me judge your writing abilities.” He then advised me
on the art of reviewing books. I had taken heart from his short
lecture, took about a month to go through the book, wrote the
review and submitted it to him. He went through the four pages
under my very eyes, making editorial changes. He beamed with
joy and said, “I found the writer in you. You can write for Mother
India”.
I jumped for joy.
By the end of April Sethna gave me a copy of the May 1979
issue of Mother India, patted me on the back and invited me to
write regularly for Mother India, founded by no less a personality
than Sri Aurobindo.
Thus began our Guru Shishya relationship.
4
Between Us
Out of the four hundred and odd editors of magazines and

newspapers both in India and elsewhere who published my writings,
I think Sethna is the only one magnanimous enough to devote
several hundred pages for my literary effusions. Is not the writer
in me a blessed being who gained valuable experience and training
under his tutelage?
A quarter century ago when my daughter was not even two
years old, I brought her along to Sethna’s house. That was the first
time she came to his home. As we entered his study, the child saw
my guru, stood spell-bound for a minute and then whispered into
my ears, “Appa! He is god.”
“What did she say?” Sethna asked me, affectionately touching
her chubby cheeks.
I repeated what she had whispered. And Sethna alias Amal
said, “If her soul could see the god in me, then I have not lived
in vain.”
It took a very long time for me to understand his statement.
Yes. I got his message.
5
2
Thou wast not Born for Death,
Immortal Bird
The Lord of Death at last tracked the name of Sethna that was
playing hide and seek with him in his mammoth register. He sent
his angels to the Ashram Nursing Home on Wednesday, June 29,
2011 at 12:15 p.m.
When Shri Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna alias Amal Kiran
left his physical body, he was 106 years of age.
Oh, who would not shriek at the thought of death? But Sethna
was of a different mould, for he was ready for it for a number of
years. To put it in his own words: “I am doing my best to live long
both because I am happy and can give happiness and because I
want as much time as possible to go nearer to Sri Aurobindo’s
luminous Truth and the Mother’s radiant Beauty. All the same I am
ready to say ‘Hurrah’ whenever they tell me, ‘your time is up.’”
He did not live his long life in vain. It was a prayer offered
to the Divine. His was no death at all. That was because he
captivated the hearts of the visitors with his “shining complexion,
his delicate sensitive face, two ey es radiating a keen and kind glint
of intelligence and a sweet smile as innocent as that of a child,”
Thou wast not Born for Death Immortal Bird
as his friend the late Jugal Kishore Mukherjee had rightly put it.
Sethna was of the opinion that if there is no progress in life,
life is wasted. Was not Sir Walter Scott right when he said, “Is
death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.”
On November 25, 1904 a Parsi Bombayite by birth was
christened Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna. He was also called
“Cooverji’ for all official documents and, to suit the needs of day-
to-day life “Kekoo”.
Sethnas are a family from Surat. From Surat they moved to
Bombay and settled down there. Most Sethnas are lawyers, solicitors
or doctors. ‘Seth’ means master and ‘na’ means belonging to the
master. Adam and Eve, our first parents, had a third son named
Seth. Maybe they come from that ancestor.
Kaikhushru is the Persian equivalent to the Latin Cyrus.
Dhunjibhoy is literally the Gujarati word for Brother Opulence.
The boy baby’s mother, Bhikaiji Dhunjibhoy Sethna, was a
real beauty. She was an extremely emotional person, with a
spontaneous response to any suffering she might come across. The
slightest sign of suffering in anybody would draw an immediate
answer from her heart. She was extremely kind to all at home,
perhaps overkind. She was an excellent raconteur too.
His father, Dhunjibhoy Pestonji Sethna, had a zest for work.
His motto was Labor itse voluptas, which is Latin for ‘Labour
itself is pleasure’. He would find any occasion to work and do
things. A voracious reader, he could not begin a book at night
without finishing it. He read all kinds of books and when he would
be on a holiday at home, he would clean the books and rearrange
his vast collection, giving his children every chance to handle the
books. A postgraduate in medicine, he practised general medicine
only for a few years, before he became one among the three or
four specialist eye-surgeons in Bombay at that time. Apart from
his medical career, he was a bit of a writer too.
7
K.D. Sethna
Sethna, affectionately called ‘Kekoo’ by his family members,

imbibed all the good qualities of his mother and faithfully followed
his father’s motto, only to bloom as a writer. The cacoethes
scribandi, the itch to write, he caught from his father made the
latter very proud.
In his Autobiographical Note written in 1951 Kekoo records
his moment of birth in a typical humorous vein, the hallmark of
Sethna’s writings: “The moment I was born the big lamp in our
drawing room flared up. My father had to answer the frightened
servant’s cry and run from my mother’s side to prevent a fire. The
English lady doctor in attendance on my mother took the flaring
lamp as an omen and said: ‘This boy will be a great man’. It seems
to me that she went beyond her data and should have confined
herself to saying: ‘This boy will be a fiery fellow!’ I displayed
from the beginning a very hot temper and the fury with which I,
as a baby, yelled and grew red in the face was worthy of a Riza
Shah Pahlevi. And it is quite on the cards that I might have
become a soldier or at least a man of action if misfortune had not
dogged my steps in my third year. In the literal sense, my steps
were dogged by misfortune, for a severe form of infantile paralysis
attacked my legs.”
Kekoo spent his childhood days along with his two sisters and
a brother in the Hill Station of Matheran near Bombay. His
younger sister was born just twenty days before the eldest sister
died and she was just twelve. The elder sister was older than
Kekoo by two years and the other was younger than him by nine
years.
A very healthy, vigorous and active child Kekoo became
crippled by polio at the age of two and a half. It was quite a blow
to his family. Some repair work was going on in the house and he
romped as usual among lime and things that lay pell-mell there…an
immediate exposure he could think of for the fatal blow that gave
8
him a crutch for life. He went to bed at night as a healthy child

and in the morning when his father came to look at him, he saw
Kekoo’s leg. The heel of his left foot had been drawn up, and
could not touch the floor. Being a physician his father at once
guessed that it was polio. Kekoo had to put his hand on his left
knee and press the whole leg down so that the heel might touch the
floor. He walked that way for a little more than three years, when
his father realized that if he went about in that posture he would
suffer in the course of time permanent spinal curvature.
And so he began to try all sorts of things in Bombay to cure
Kekoo of his deformity before he resolved to take him to London
and get corrective operation done. On his way to England with his
parents on a French boat his eyes got glued to two good-looking
girls on that boat. Both were French. One had a sharp kind of face
and the other a general pleasing kind of countenance. One was
called Marie Sainte and the other Mercedes. Little Kekoo was in
a dilemma. He did not know whom to choose. He looked at his
father standing nearby. His eyes too were set on those two girls.
They were real beauties. So he asked his father: “If you had to
marry, whom would you choose?” He replied that it would be a
difficult job. Then the son asked his father, “Can’t you marry both
of them?” “Huh! That would be still more difficult,” came the
reply. And that was his first romance. His taste was more or less
universal and not restricted at all, for one of the two girls was a
brunette and the other a blond.
The fact that Kekoo fell in love when he was only six and that
too with two girls older than him by two or three years shows how
romantic he was. His first attempts in the field of writing were all
inspired by those two lovely girls whose memory he carried into
his grave. No wonder he was prolific, for is not the adage ‘Love
teaches even asses to dance’ true to every syllable?
9
K.D. Sethna
The polio operation had put him in bed in London for three
months. The doctors there made him walk straight, though with a
slight limp.
Sethna had the privilege of having his early education at St.
Xavier’s School and College, a Roman Catholic Institution in
Bombay managed by very competent foreign Jesuit priests. It was
only during this period he began to lisp in numbers. Originally, the
impulse was competition. A cousin of his, who was many years
older than him, used to come from college to dine in Kekoo’s
house, because he had his residence in a suburb. He used to boast
before Kekoo the many number of lines of poetry he had composed,
rather light-hearted romantic verse about a girl called Katie. And
when once he said that he had composed 200 lines, Kekoo thought
he could compose more than that and compete with him and beat
at his own game. That was how he started.
He found an outlet to his thoughts only in English, for English
was practically his mother tongue. He could not be very articulate
in Parsi Gujarati, a language spoken in his house. And the general
practice was that after every three or four words in Parsi Gujarati
an English word would rush in. And so English was the only
language open to him, a language favoured by his father all the
time.
In his school days, he had tried his hand at fiction writing. He
wrote nearly twenty little novels and gleefully bound them himself.
All kinds of stories were there and each had an alliterative title
like “The Sign of the Serpent’, “The Mayor of Madrid”. He had
attempted detective stories too. Sethna was such a talented tale-
teller that his Hindu private teacher in Mathematics, who used to
come to his home, on the fourth floor of his family house in
Bombay took a keen interest in his fiction that instead of teaching
him mathematics, read the stories w ith him. And when anybody
10
came into the room, they used to cover up that stuff with the
arithmetic book.
Once a detective story was so intriguing and the criminal was
so hidden away that the tuition master could not guess who it
could be. Sethna, the author, told him to keep the problem
revolving in his mind. So when he was going down the stairs and
revolving the problem in his mind he missed a step and tumbled
from the fourth floor to the third. After that fall he never came
again to teach Sethna.
In school he developed admiration for the Jesuit priests for
their unstinted hard work. He liked also two Indian teachers, one
for his literary taste and the other for his capacity to tell stories.
He found a true friend in a Parsi classmate, who admired Sethna
and threw open his heart by saying, “If you had been a girl, I
would have fallen in love with you and married you.” Perhaps he
admired Sethna’s brains.
It is no wonder that as a collegian, Sethna won in his
intermediate Arts Examination of Bombay University the Hughlings
Prize in English and the Selby Scholarship in logic. He passed his
B.A. (Hons) in Philosophy and won the Ellis Prize in English,
which a student not of philosophy but Literature should have
taken.
While still in college, he began his literary career as a book-
reviewer to the Bombay based newspapers and magazines. At this
time something untoward has happened in his life. His father
suddenly died. As a faithful son to his father and to cherish his
memory forever, Sethna dedicated his first book Parnassians to
him that made its appearance sometime in 1924, when its author
was still in his teens. Sethna’s grandfather, Pestonji Cooverji
Sethna, who played a major role in the upliftment of his career,
was rich enough to finance the book.
11
K.D. Sethna
Parnassians is a collection of four essays that Sethna wrote on

the works of H.G.Wells, G.B.Shaw, G.K.Chesterton and Thomas
Hardy. As a voracious reader of world literature, he considered
these authors the four outstanding denizens of Mount Parnassus,
home of the Muses. He regretted to have given that title to his
book, for he understood at a later stage that the term ‘Parnassians’
referred to a school of poets in France. A.S.Wadia, the Parsi
author, knew Wells personally well that he posted the book to him.
Wells, perhaps after reading the section devoted to him, wrote
back: “Your young man will go far”.
12
3
The Great Search and the
Unexpected Fruit
When Sethna was a boy his father put two ideals before him,
rather he took for granted that he was all the time living up to
these ideals. He told his son: “You will never tell a lie. And you
will not have any fear.” As for the first one, he confessed in his
reminiscences that he did not live up to his expectation. But he
tried his best to put a bold face as regards everything.
Once his father asked each of his three children to go to the
end of a long passage, which was quite dark. Sethna’s sister and
brother failed to do it, perhaps afraid of the nocturnal creatures
lurking there to catch children and gobble them up. Sethna was
full of fear but still, trembling though he was, he walked up to the
end of the dark tunnel with dark worries and gloomy speculations
and came back with a white yet triumphant face.
In the matter of courage, Sethna could compliment himself on
having done several things, which a person with his polio leg
would not have dared to do… Riding horses, for instance. He
could make the horse go at a gallop or canter. Trotting he could not
K.D. Sethna
do for it involved getting up and down in the saddle. Galloping,

of course, is the most dangerous thing. Still he did it.
Sethna has got a record regarding his horse riding that is good
enough to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Once he
went on horseback from Dehradun to Mussoorie, a height of 8000
feet by a winding path skirting the precipice. This was the biggest
feat of horsemanship by a disabled person so far.
While still a student of the M.A. class, Sethna came across a
friend who had done Pranayama. He told Sethna that Pranayama
gave him an abundance of energy, an energy, which could be used
in any way he liked…And there was no question of strict
brahmacharya or spiritual objective. What he said struck the
young man as very fascinating and helpful. Therefore, he started
reading books on Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga in particular. While
he was doing this, he got interested naturally in the works of
Swami Vivekananda. And Vivekananda gave him a greater
perspective. Yoga, he understood, is a means not just to amass
energy, which one can throw about as one likes but to gather
energy to concentrate on a certain aim which would lead one to the
true self within one.
Sethna had a girl friend and she talked to him of a Bengali
saint called Pagal Harnath (meaning ‘Mad Harnath’, mad with
love for Lord Krishna) whom she had known and who was still
alive. Previous to his interest in yoga, Sethna had been a scoffer
and denier of all traditional values. And his aim in yoga too was
originally not spiritual. To meet this mad old man seemed to him
just a curious thing to do. Still in order to please his girl friend he
consented.
Together they went to see the saint, who used to come to
Bombay and be the guest of some rich Gujarati. There was a big
hall in a posh house and the old man was sitting lost in meditation.
There was a semi-circle of his disciples, all the time watching him.
14
The Great Search and the Unexpected Fruit
And when he was in a certain posture and a finger of his seemed

to point to somebody, they all looked at that person to find some
meaning in his involuntary gesture.
Cheekily Sethna went and sat almost next to the saint. And
when the latter at last opened his eyes and looked around, he saw
a new face there. Everybody prompted Sethna to ask a question.
Therefore, he asked him: “Since the universe is governed by fixed
laws, what is the need of a Creator or a God to govern it?” The
saint at once answered: “If there are laws, there has to be a law-
giver.”
The answer was rather simplistic. Ordinarily Sethna would
have mustered up an array of arguments to counter it. Somehow he
fell silent, impressed by the way the old man spoke. To Sethna, he
seemed to speak not from his head by way of an argument but
from some depth of actual touch on things beyond our ken, from
some sort of realization. So Sethna did not argue further. That was
the first time in his student days that somebody could silence him.
Argumentative that he was, he was surprised at himself. He
became faintly aware of something within him, which was beyond
the mere argumentative intellect. It must have been this something
which had fallen silent, most unusually and to his own surprise.
After that, he began to take more and more interest in things
beyond human understanding.
In the course of a few more months, Sethna read in a
newspaper that a Maharashtrian Yogi had come to town. With his
girl friend, he went to meet the Yogi. Seeing Sethna dressed
wholly in the English style, an old man who was the Yogi’s host
asked him to show the right palm before going into the inner room
where the Yogi was to be met. After glancing at the palm, the old
man shook his head and said, “You are destined to have three
children. Why are you bothering ab out Yoga?” Sethna pleaded,
15
K.D. Sethna
“Not one has come out. Let me go in.” Rather disgustedly the old
man grunted, “All right”, as if he meant, “go and be damned!”
In the inner room, Sethna and his friend sat down with the rest
of the people. After a while the Yogi went round touching each
one’s head. When he touched Sethna’s head, Sethna felt a sort of
electric current run down his spine. Towards the end of a brief
meditation session, Sethna requested the Yogi, “I want to do
something which would take me beyond my ordinary consciousness.
Give me some practical hint for it.” The Yogi advised, “When you
are alone, lie in your bed and try as it were to pull your
consciousness, right up from your feet…up…up…up to your head
and try to feel that you are on the top of your head. When you
succeed in doing so, you will see a ring of light above it. Then try
with your consciousness to leap into that ring and you will be in
what is called Samadhi.”
It looked interesting and so night after night Sethna practised
this exercise of lifting his consciousness up and up. He never got
to the top of his head but one night something startling happened.
Sethna found that he was not in his body. He was high up in
the air and he was floating in the room pushing against one wall,
going to the other wall, pushing against that and coming back to
where he had started from. He could see his own body lying in
bed. And so he was really surprised that he could be out of his
body like that, free from physicality and still perfectly
conscious…not dreaming. He could voluntarily do things. And he
had a subtle body with all the needed parts. All of a sudden, a
doubt rose in him. He asked himself how he could ever be like
that. It looked impossible.
As soon as Sethna turned a Doubting Thomas and attempted
to analyse his condition, Sethna lost it and came back rushing into
his reclining body, with a sort of warmth near the heart region.
And when he came back his usual body was utterly immobile.
16
Only his eyes could see things. Then gradually life seemed to flow
back into him. He was normal again, and said to himself: “No
materialist can now convince me that I am only my body. I have
gone out of it and still lived consciously. So materialism is wiped
out.” Sethna had been inclined to both materialism and atheism.
After that experience, he started looking out for passing
sannyasis or yogis in Bombay. He found one and requested the
yogi to impart something spiritual. The yogi said, “Dig a hole in
your floor and light a fire there.” For Sethna, that was impossible
to do. His grandfather would shout and get angry if he did
anything of that kind. “You light a fire and then I will give you a
mantra to repeat. Then ultimately a Goddess will appear to you.
You may ask her a favour…whatever you want.” However, Sethna
had to rule out this whole practice of invoking supernatural
powers. So he just kept quiet.
It was during that period of his life as a spiritual seeker that
he met a theosophist plus art-critic who had paid a visit to Sri
Aurobindo in Pondicherry. Seeing the bundle of various qualities,
even contradictory ones, in Sethna, he said: “A complex person
like you will be satisfied only with Sri Aurobindo. I could see that
Sri Aurobindo had the cosmic consciousness. He could feel even
the grass grow! He could know everything within the universe as
if it were his own consciousness.” That interested Sethna. But
things rested there.
Then one day he went to Bombay’s Crawford Market to buy
a pair of shoes. The shoes had been put in a box and the box was
wrapped in a newspaper sheet, and a string ran around the sheet.
He brought his purchase home and as soon as he took off the
string, the newspaper sheet fell open in front of him.
A headline in very bold type attracted his attention. It read:
“The Ashram of Sri Aurobindo Ghose.” To Sethna, it looked like
a divine call.
17
K.D. Sethna
At once he read the article and felt that Sri Aurobindo’s

Ashram in Pondicherry was the place for him because life was not
denied there. Everything possible in man was sought to be brought
out, enhanced and geared to a divine purpose… by seeking
something beyond our senses, the Infinite, the Eternal, life would
be transformed. Sethna found that it suited him. He decided to go
to Pondicherry.
He and his girl friend, Daulat, wrote to the Ashram. An answer
came from a person named Purani, who was in charge of the
Gujarat side of the correspondence. He wrote that Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother had said they could come and see for themselves
the Ashram life.
But how to go there? For one thing, they did not have enough
money. Moreover, in those days an unmarried couple travelling
together for several days was not the thing done in polite Parsi
society or in any other society or community in India. Since they
were in love with each other and seeking the same goal, they
decided to marry. By getting married, they would be able to collect
a fairly good sum of money. It would make them independent and
therefore not helpless in case their parents were not in favour of
what they wanted to do.
Now, before going further, a little bit of background in relation
to Sethna’s grandfather would help. After his B.A., Sethna suggested
that he should be allowed to go to Oxford for higher studies. Had
his father been alive he would have certainly encouraged him and
helped him in all possible ways. But the orthodox old man said,
“Oh, if you go to Oxford, you will bring an English wife with you.
And that will never do. We don’t want an English woman in our
Parsi family.”
When Sethna promised his grandfather that he would not
bring back an English wife, the old man remarked, “I can see your
18
plan. You won’t bring her here. Y ou will keep her there. And
ultimately you will join her and be lost to us.”
A little later when the old man found that his grandson was
doing some very peculiar things like meditation in a particular
pose and was interested in spiritual philosophy he feared that he
might lose his grandson completely that way.
So, one day he suggested to Sethna: “Why don’t you go to
Oxford?” Evidently, according to the grandfather, an English wife
was preferable to the Divine beloved! Perhaps the old man felt that
he could tackle an English wife in some way but the Divine
Beloved would be beyond his reach. Sethna simply replied, “I am
not interested.”
The dutiful grandfather after doing a bit of spying around
found what his grandson was interested in. Sethna’s first collection
of poems Artist Love that he financed for its publication in 1925
came to his rescue. He delved deep into those poems which he
forgot to do earlier and read the mind of his grandson. He found
out that “Daulat” was the inspirer of all the poems. A known devil
is better than an unknown angel, they say. The old man perhaps
thought a marriage in Bombay would save his grandson from both
the English wife and the Divine Beloved. So, he arranged for the
marriage.
The beloved by one’s side and enough money in the coffers,
Sethna and his wife Daulat decided to go to Pondicherry after
honeymooning for about two months. But the couple saw to it that
it was not openly mentioned. The plan was to go to Calcutta on a
sort of belated honeymoon. After a short stay at the Grand Hotel
and a meeting with Tagore, the couple visited the village of
Sunamukhi where Pagal Harnath had been born and had died a
few months earlier. They were back to Calcutta and from there
started for Puri.
19
K.D. Sethna
In Puri there was an Ashram of Pagal Harnath. Two of his

devotees were running the Ashram. Sethna and Daulat stayed there
and talked of visiting the famous Jagannath temple. Daulat was
wearing a sari, so there no question of any objection to her
entering the temple. However, the man in charge of the little
Ashram told Sethna: “You can’t go because you are not a Hindu”.
So, Sethna smiled sarcastically and asked him: “What to do?
How to become a Hindu?” to which he replied: “It’s very easy.
Pull your shirt out of your pants and you become a Hindu.” Sethna
did as he was told and went into the temple and saw the great
image of Jagannath.
From Puri they got the midnight train to Madras. It was in the
middle of December and very cold. They both had their overcoats
on and when they got into the train there was no seat at all. And
so Daulat was pushed into the Ladies’ compartment and Sethna
went into the Gents’ compartment, and sat almost at somebody’s
feet. He moved his feet a little and Sethna comfortably sat on his
haunches. After half the night, there was room for Daulat to be
brought in. Then they were both together. All of a sudden she
developed severe diarrhea and vomiting. It was like cholera.
Sethna was not sure of his next step, except that he had to take
her to the toilet every five or ten minutes. She had become very
week. At one station he met the guard and requested him to send
a telegram to a doctor at the next stop. He did as asked.
The next stop was in the small hours of the night…three o’
clock or so…a doctor came along with a hurricane lantern and
mounted to the compartment. After examining Daulat, he said
gleefully: “Well! Well! Her pulse is still going on.”
Luckily at that time, the loose motions had stopped. The
doctor offered the prepared medicine but Daulat did not need that
medicine. In the morning when they reach ed Madras, she was
20
perfectly all right. They had iddlies and dosais there, in spite of
her supposed cholera at night.
From Madras Sethna sent a telegram to his grandfather:
“Visiting Picturesque Pondicherry”, and another intimating their
arrival to Sri Aurobindo Ashram before they boarded the night
train to Pondicherry.
How true were the words of H.G.Wells when he said after
reading Sethna’s Parnassians: “Your young man will go far”!
Perhaps Wells did not know that Sethna would go as far as
Pondicherry. And the shoes Sethna had gone to buy were meant to
be those of a pilgrim.
21
4
Pondicherry: This is the Place for Us
All in Bombay were puzzled. They did not know why the young
couple was moving to the little French to wn in the remote South
instead of coming home.
It was December 16, 1927. K.D.Sethna was just twenty three.
Pujalal, one of the old sadhaks of Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
received the couple. Then they mounted the famous pousse-pousse
which was in vogue at that time. It was a two-seater rickshaw with
two big wheels in front with a connected rod to guide the vehicle.
A man had to be behind it pushing it on. Later Sethna learnt that
a Frenchman, who did not want his wife to know where he was
going, invented it. So, he employed a blind man to push it. The
Frenchman could guide the carriage wherever he wanted.
On their way to the Ashram, Pujalal was talking to the
newcomers about his guru who was so wonderful and Sethna was
nudging his wife as if to tell her, “Every disciple praises his guru
to the skies. Let us see for ourselves how he is.”
They reached their destination. It was Purani’s room. Through
the north window of his room, Sethna first caught sight of the
Mother. She was walking on the roof-terrace of her house with her
hair down. She had shampooed her hair and was drying it in the
morning sun. She made such an entrancing vision of beauty that
his heart was immediately captured.
“If this is the guru we have to accept I shall be most happy,”
Sethna is said to have remarked.
Then came Amrita, another sadhak, to see the couple in
Purani’s room. When he said that the Mother was particularly
enquiring about the young lady’s health, Sethna said to himself:
“Why is the Mother enquiring after her health and completely
ignoring me?”
The mother had sensed a hostile attack on Sethna’s wife,
trying its maximum best to prevent her coming to the Ashram,
because she was extremely open and receptive. So the couple was
in the Ashram and a few days later, sometime in January 1928
Sethna having turned his back upon his old life and smartly
dressed in European style was given an opportunity to meet the
Mother in the old library room in the Ashram.
“Mother! I have seen the whole of life. Now I want only God
and nothing else,” said Sethna.
“Huh! You have seen the whole of life and now you want only
God. Great! How old are you?” asked the Mother.
“Twenty three”.
“Just twenty-three and you have seen the whole of life?”
Sethna felt that the Mother was pouring cold water on his
enthusiasm. He also felt that the Mother was not greedy to have
disciples. And so he asked the Mother if he would be permitted to
stay in the Ashram for good.
The Mother replied: “Stay here for some time, look around.
See if the life suits you. Then only make your decision that you
want only God”.
23
K.D. Sethna
It was only on Feb.21, 1928, Sethna had his first darshan of

Sri Aurobindo. When his eyes met Sri Auorbindo’s, his physical
mind came to the fore. He began examining how he looked. What
sort of a beard he had? What sort of a nose he had? What sort of
hair he had?
Sometime later, Sethna asked the Mother if Sri Aurobindo
had said anything about him? The Mother replied: “Oh, yes. He
said you have a good face”. Her words brought to his memory how
he himself scanned Sri Aurobindo’s own face at the Darshan
moments and found it “good”!
So it was time for Sethna to make up his mind. The Sri
Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry was the place for him. Once
Sethna found his gurus then everything for him began to move
smoothly and he realized that all his dreams were coming true one
after the other.
A few months passed. Sethna’s people in Bombay realized that
picturesque Pondicherry could not remain picturesque so long and
so they sensed some ulterior motive behind the whole thing.
Sethna had to explain to them they were in Pondicherry to study
spiritual philosophy. Yoga was still anathema because the Parsi
mind had all sorts of curious associations with Yoga. Sethna’s
grandfather would have even imagined that his grandson would sit
stark naked the whole day and his wife doing some strange or
weird things. After some time the grandfather accepted the fact
that the couple was studying spiritual philosophy. But Sethna’s
grandmother was upset after nine months, because no baby was on
the way. What fun there could be in the idea of marriage, if it
could not manufacture babies? That was really disappointing for
the grandmother. She had no way but to swallow it all, and keep
quiet.
24
Sethna had his second Darshan on 15th August 1928 and

offered to Sri Aurobindo a poem of his:
August 15 – Sri Aurobindo’s Birthday

I thought of a thousand marvels to implore –
Yet when I touched Thy mystery’s heart, no more
The lust came crowding: not one plea I bear
Unto Thy altar as my penury’s sign,
But bring my whole poor self to make it Thine!
Now goldenest boon hangs like a mote of air:
Deep-sunk in worship, void of puny prayer,
So large a hush of indigence is mine,
Nought save that ageless measureless charity –
Thy utter Self – can slake the abyss of me!
That newspaper article which gave Sethna an idea of what Sri
Aurobindo wanted to do with their being and of the yoga he
proposed for them led him to take interest enough to go to him
first and take the chance to see whether he could cope with his
yoga. Sethna felt that he could, though his wife was a little
doubtful because she thought that Sri Aurobindo was an intellectual
and would express a development of the thinking mind. Her worry
was set at rest when they saw the Mother. And so the couple said
in unison: “This is the place for us”.
The work done by the Ashram –Yogic work and other work
too – greatly interested the couple. It was not a passive kind of
yoga…in a way it was Karma Yoga…and much more than that.
Pondicherry, being the abode of peace, gave the spiritual
seekers what they wanted. Far from the common turmoil, they
became sadhaks ready to go into their selves. While Pondicherry
gave the mental peace Sethna wanted, the practice of the Integral
yoga of Sri Aurobindo provided him with an abundance of energy.
25
K.D. Sethna
On December 16, 1927 K.D. Sethna became an Ashramite by

joining the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry at a very young
age of twenty three. He died an Ashramite at a ripe old age of 106,
spending a very major part of his life, that is to say 83 years, in
the Ashram, all the time sincerely following the voice of his
master, Sri Aurobindo:
“We are sons of God and must be even as he
His human portion, we must grow divine.”
(Savitri, Book I, canto 4)
At the start of his life as an Ashramite, Sethna was known by
his pet name Kekoo, but on his request he was given the name of
‘Amal Kiran’ meaning ‘The Clear Ray’ by Sri Aurobindo on 3
September 1930. And his wife Daulat (meaning wealth) was
rechristened Lalita, which means beauty and refinement. And
traditionally it was the name of one of the companions of Radha,
a consort of Lord Krishna.
Sri Aurobindo is said to have remarked that his Ashram is a
“Human Laboratory” in the sense that he welcomed all types of
human beings and was not choosy about those who seemed to
have lived in a certain controlled kind of way. All kinds of people
were welcomed here, if they had a centre of sincerity in them. The
Mother’s work was for all human kind, and not for the elite
only…the Mother accepted even difficult people because through
their difficulty she could work on the recalcitrant spots in all
humanity. People of various kinds and various occupations come
here with a central harmonious aim. That would be the nucleus for
a larger consciousness, and it is here that all kinds of people can
participate and achieve unity.
Since Sri Aurobindo was of o pinion that “all life is yoga”, his
disciples invariably believed that “work is God” and practised
‘karma yoga’ to the core. In the beginning of his life in the
26
Ashram, Sethna was deputed for the care of the Ashram stores. His
letters to the Mother, who managed the entire Ashram, serve ample
testimony to the fact that he delighted in being the storekeeper
under Her divine service.
In one of the chits he had sent to the Mother, (Letter no.1637
dated 8.5.1932) he wrote:
Mother,
I had given Anilkumar a shelf some time ago. A few days back
he told me he couldn’t find room for all his books on it and so
would like to have a kind of bookcase. I have two bookcases in the
stores – one which was meant for you but rejected, – another
Rambhai’s. I have also another shelf like the one I gave to
Anilkumar. – Amal.
Here is the Mother’s reply, written on the empty space of the
same chit: “If he has too many books, why doesn’t he give them
to the library?”
When Subhadra asked through Amal for a shelf of 3 feet x
3feet x 1½ feet, the Mother commented (Letters no: 1642 & 1643,
dated 14.5.1932): “This is quite ridiculously big. It would hold a
full library. Even if you had anything of the kind, I would tell you
not to give it. But one of the biggest among Purani shelves could
be offered. I shall probably require the shelf you allowed me some
time ago – you can give it after ‘Pranam’.”
A sadhak wanted an easy chair. A voracious reader wanted to
keep the book he had borrowed from the Mother for a day or two
more. One loved to have a pre-historic desk. A sadhika wanted her
commode to be changed. Another liked her rusty trunk to be
painted. Yet another wished to have a mug in addition to a mat.
Huh…innumerable were the demands of the sadhaks and the
27
K.D. Sethna
sadhikas. Poor Amal looked after everyone’s need, of course after

receiving commands from the Mother, for as Sri Aurobindo has
said:
“She was the single self of all these selves,
She was in them and they were all in her”
(Savitri: Book VII, Canto VII, Lines 219 & 220)
In several of the letters that Amal had written to the Mother
on various occasions he discussed his own problems, both physical
and mental. He had a bit of bother with his weak knee and that
continued throughout his life. In his letter (No.2039 dated 17.7.1933)
he wrote:
“Should I now make it a point to practise walking daily – I
mean, without support? Today I did so, but as the knee is still not
strong nor very flexible, I feel some strain and pain. If, however,
you think it is good to be on the move, I’ll do it all the same. The
inflexibility of the knee is due, I believe, to the little swelling
which is still there – and also of course, to the lack of practise in
moving the joint.”
To which the Mother replied: “No. On the contrary, so long as
there is swelling, walking should be avoided”.
In another letter (No.2041 dated 19.7.1933) he expressed his
pessimistic view to the Mother about his knee:
“Do you think it will be less than six months before I am able
again to walk as I used? As it is the weak knee the one which had
been operated upon, I don’t feel very optimistic. Of course, I shall
be walking in less than six months but like a snail or the older
monsieur Cornette. I want to be well soon, Mother, at least by
August 15.”
And the Mother replied “Do not put strain and it will come all
right”.
28
His bad legs were certainly a greater defect than stammering,

but it was stammering that hurt him the most. And so when Amal
came across a miracle man who promised to cure his stammering,
he addressed a letter to the Mother seeking her permission: “…it
would be such a relief to me to get rid of this cruel impediment
in speech, which, though sometimes not very much in the way, is
at times extremely annoying and disappointing” (letter No.2068
dated 3.10.1933).
To be cured of stammering meant so much to Amal. And when
the Mother wrote back to use his commonsense in such matters,
Amal penned his decision to the Mother: “…it seems to me
commonsense to do so if there is the remotest chance of a cure”
(letter No.1079 dated 9.10.1933).
But no miracle ever worked with Amal and he continued to
stammer till the day of his death. In a pathetic voice he recorded
his grievance in a lovely and admirable poem titled “A Poet’s
Stammer”:
My dream is spoken,
As if by sound
Were tremulously broken
Some vow profound.
A timeless hush
Draws ever back
The winging music-rush
Upon thought’s track.
Though syllables sweep

Like golden birds,
Far loneliness of sleep
Dwindle my words.
29
K.D. Sethna
Beyond Life’s clamour,

A mystery mars
Speech-light to a myriad summer
Of flickering stars. –
Amal’s grandfather, “the financial backbone of the family”,
like a hound was at the heels of his grandson always nudging him
to return to Bombay. Amal put an end to the old man’s dig at Sri
Aurobindo’s Yoga by posting a letter: “…kindly refrain from
arguing about the reasonableness of my yoga; I have made my
choice of life and all that is of any worth in me acclaims it as the
very best. So I hope you will respect your convictions and what is
greater than my convictions – the sacred presence I feel in my
heart. Please do not tax me with questions like why my marriage
should be no marriage and why I am not generous enough to
provide you with grandchildren. Also I have formed certain habits
of life here which I do not desire to be unnecessarily broken”
(Letter No.843 dated 24.1.1934).
Amal decided to make Pondicherry his permanent abode and
his decision was final. He found a real mother in the Mother of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram and believed that she would take care of him
in every possible and also in every impossible way. No wonder
that his letter (No.1505 dated 11.3.1934) addressed to the Mother
reads: “I have got a rather annoying cold in the nose since the
afternoon. Kindly dry it up”.
Several of Amal’s letters addressed to the Mother speak
volumes of how intimately acquainted they were. He addressed the
Mother as ‘Mother Darling’ or ‘Dearest Mother’ or ‘Mother, my
dearest’ or ‘Beloved Mother’. Here is a letter that gives a taste of
their intimacy – the intimacy between mother and child:
“Of late, especially, I think, after my seeing you on the 25 th –
I feel not quite a disappearance of passion but an automatic
30
indrawing of consciousness in the sex-organ. I have been often

surprised by it, and agreeably, but there is a lurking fear lest I
should become impotent, and something obscure wants to cling on
to the capacity of sexual excitement as if that were a precious joy.
“This afternoon during a short sleep I was about to have a
seminal emission. But there was a powerful pulling back of the
fluid so that it flowed inwards again and I could feel and even hear
it boiling and swirling at the root of the penis. Only a little of it
happened to escape out.
“I shall be glad to have a few more words from you about the
subject – and further power of self-control” (Letter No.1257 dated
9.12.1933).
Amal, in fact, was trying his best to fit himself suitably with
the Ashram life. He was trying to bid goodbye to human vices one
after the other. In an undated letter (No.1259) he sought the advice
of the Mother on a matter of serious concern: “I am troubled again
by that still urge of masturbation. I haven’t yielded. But please do
something to eradicate it completely. In what way could I best
cooperate?”
The power of self control that he gained gradually made Amal
abstain from drinking wine, his favourite pastime. Letter No.524
dated 11.10.1935 reads thus:
“…I suddenly resolved not to touch drink again; but saw some
inconveniences in the way, so withdrew the resolution in its
extreme form; yet a power for the good remained.
“Facing myself later, I perceived that I did not have any
special complex for alcohol but that I should still take care and if
it was at all necessary to drink something nice I must confine
myself to innocent cold drinks.
“Yesterday I had written that I liked wine and a cold drink
equally. Now there was a distinct desire to avoid the former.
31
K.D. Sethna
“Then I fell asleep and had a most frightfully realistic dream

in which my teeth broke off in my mouth and fell out in my hand
and on the floor. Thinking – in the dream itself – that this must be
a dream, I dreamed that I got up. But in that condition also I
discovered that my teeth came loose and I spat out quite a lot of
them. I was terribly pained to see such a thing.
“I really woke up after this and, understanding what the falling
of teeth meant, felt a great release – a fine sense all over me of
openness to you and a freedom from the old consciousness. Of
course, the thinking mind brought back certain retarding
considerations – but surely, Mother dear, something has been
done.
“I would like to have some words from you.”
To which the affectionate Mother replied with delight: “I am
happy at your resolution and I hope you will keep to it. I was
going to write to you that you must choose between seeing me and
drink – for I would not see you if you mention drinking – but I am
glad to hear that you have made the resolution already”.
Once Amal’s grandfather understood that his grandson was
moving into ascetic life, he almost gave away the very idea of
supporting him in matters of finance. As no postman knocked
Amal’s door with any money-order, he devised a simple way of
extracting money from the old man. Under the pretext of buying
a gold necklace for his wife Lalita he requested his grandfather
Petronji to send him Rs. 3000. But poor Amal had to stomach the
old man’s dig at him. The reply came: “What use will it be to you?
Daulat does not stir out of the Ashram; she cannot wear it. You
have no children and are not likely to get any. Then what do you
want it for? Only to look at it and admire it and run the risk of
having it stolen. I am sorry to disappoint you but if you calmly
consider you will admit the soundness of my views. I have talked
32
the matter over with maeji and she agrees with me” (Letter
No.1075 dated 7.1.1938).
How cleverly Amal worked at winning the old man over! How
cleverly did the old man gave him back in his own coin! Perhaps
it was a sort of tit-for-tat for not listening to his words of requests
and his great plea to return to Bombay.
How could Amal go back to Bombay once he found a foothold
in the Ashram? He realized that he was meant for that sort of life
lead in the Ashram. Where could he find a mother like the Mother
who treated Amal as her son? Where could he find a guru like Sri
Aurobindo who helped him in his literary endeavours and
advancements? The needs of an Ashramite are very limited and
Amal felt that his quest got fulfilled. A short poem he wrote during
that period serves proof enough to that fact.
Quest
Long have I sought Him
Yet never could find,
In the heart’s hollow
Or hill of mind;
Neither through lifted

Azure surmise
Nor the red darkness
Of calm shut eyes!
Will no ardour
Of solitude limn
My roving bareness
With image of Him?
33
K.D. Sethna
Dreams His hair wayward

Gossamer-light
Or a cool heavy
Hanging night?
O once I knew joy

In unborn years
Ere the mist floated
Of earthly tears!...
But sweeter than tangible

Loveliness yet,
This haloed absence
I never forget.
So under the divine care of the Mother and the masterly touch
of Sri Aurobindo Amal began his life in Pondicherry, rarely
moving out of its precincts except for a short spell to be with his
relatives in Bombay.
It was only here Amal Kiran alias K. D. Sethna began to wield
his pen. Though he bloomed as a poet, he very soon branched out
and established himself as an outstanding literary and cultural
critic, an authority on the works of Sri Aurobindo, a noted literary
detective and Historian, and above all the indefatigable editor of
Mother India with a considerable body of writing in the field of
creative journalism.
34
5
A Long Road of Shimmering Discoveries
Under the tutelage of the great master Sri Aurobindo and the
loving care of the Mother, Sethna gained valuable experience and
training, and began to feel “conscious of the high things not yet
won”. His intellectual companions in the Ashram were such great
stalwarts as Nirodbaran, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Dilip Kumar
Roy, Arjava, among others, who all delighted in being called
‘Aurobindonian School of Poets’. And Sethna came to be known
as its ‘Captain’.
Before Amal started writing serious poetry, he began to read
the master’s verse. In letter No.1518 dated 16.9.1934 he confessed
to Sri Aurobindo: “I feel a greater understanding of the poetic
‘organology’ as Carlyle would have put it, distinguishing it from
the mere ‘mechanology’ of the poetic technician”.
Reading the poetry of Sri Aurobindo showed Amal a new
pathway in writing poetry and he very much wished that every line
of what he wrote should be supervised by the master. Poems from
Amal’s inspired pen started pouring out and he sent them to Sri
Aurobindo’s room almost every day.
K.D. Sethna
On the top margin of each leaf Amal requested Sri Aurobindo

to give a critical, an all scrutinising estimate of each line of his
poem. In one such note (No.739 dt.10.11.1935) Amal wrote:
“Sri Aurobindo,
Worth anything as poetry? Please give your impression – in
some detail, judging all the elements: mood, language, rhythm
structure.”
In another (No.669 dt.12.11.1935) Amal wrote:
“Sri Aurobindo,
How do you find this poem? What plane does it come from?
I suppose the first and the last stanzas are rather obscure?”
Amal perhaps was more interested in finding out from his
master the quality of each of his poems he penned.
On each leaf of Amal’s poem Sri Aurobindo wrote ‘good’ or
‘very good’ or ‘very fine’ or ‘very beautiful’ or ‘very powerful’ or
even ‘magnificent’. The master, of course, encouraged all those
who sought his help in the field of writing but never hesitated to
call a spade a spade. Amal wanted to know why only such
comments and so he emboldened himself to ask in a letter
(No.1518 dated 16.9.1934). Here is Sri Aurobindo’s reply: “…rather
kinds than levels…the differences of mood and manner…the
various planes from which the poems come but with the same
degree of aesthetic perfection”.
Amal took the help of Sri Aurobindo for perfecting his poetry.
At the same time he was not ready to gulp down all the suggestions
that the master wrote on the margin of the leaf. He had disagreed
with Sri Aurobindo on the use of an indefinite article before
‘waterfall’ (Letter No.1225 dt.27.1.1934). He had also fought with
his master over the word ‘roar’ which he had used in a poem and
which Sri Aurobindo did not approve of (Letter No.1128):
36
“Sri Aurobindo,
Why, what’s wrong with that ‘roar’? And why shouldn’t it
mumble like an earthquake? How is that all of a sudden it has
startled you? At first the only thing that ‘struck’ you
objectionable was ‘striking’ as applied to ‘mew’, but that now
is struck off. If the ‘mew’ remains, the ‘roar’ must come in,
too – otherwise the former would be from the viewpoint of
style, a catastrophe, it must rely on a contrast for its
justification…”
Amal
18.1.1935
In spite of his difference of opinion over the choice of words,

Amal very much relied on Sri Aurobindo’s verdict: “I am awaiting
your thumbs up or thumbs down”. At times he was also apologetic:
“I am very sorry if my letter showed want of gratitude for the
trouble taken by you to correct my mistakes. I don’t know if I’ll
find anything better than the suggestions you have made – and
please continue to make suggestions wherever necessary” (Letter
No.780 dt.30.1.1935).
Under the expert guidance of Sri Aurobindo, Amal was able to
write a poem a day. The master, in spite of his tight schedule,
corrected and commented on the very same leaf the poem was
written and redirected it to its author. Gradually Amal had developed
confidence and before he dashed off a poem to his master, he gave
several readings to it and strengthened two or three weak
expressions. When the last reading told him that the concluding
two lines were somehow unworthy and ineffective, he pigeonholed
it till the right sort of inspiration came and so occasionally he
delayed the poem a day.
“A real poet”, according to Sethna, “is one who has the
capacity to express himself with intensity of vision, intensity of
37
K.D. Sethna
word and intensity of rhythm. These three intensities in whatever

degree are required to make a poem a poem: otherwise it is at best
some kind of very efficient verse”. Further defining a true poem he
said: “It can be about anything but in all poetry there is a spiritual
force at work; it can work directly and it can work indirectly. Mere
belief in God will not do, your every line must move like a god.
Then whether you believe in God or do not, it does not matter so
far as poetry is concerned. You have to write from some inner
source—that is all.”
Immortality through poetry was perhaps Amal’s goal. He
worked for it each day. No wonder he is classed best among the
poets in the history of Indian Poetry in English. His poems were
gathered between covers in half a dozen volumes – Artist Love
(1925), The Secret Splendour (1941), The Adventure of the
Apocalypse (1949), Overhead Poetry (1972), Altar and Flame
(1975), Poems by Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran (1987). Later they
all joined hands along with his uncollected poems to see the light
of day in a pillow-like volume running to nearly 800 pages titled
The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems (1993), published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
Sri Aurobindo taught Amal how to concentrate on poetic
effect, exclude all sorts of expressions which were not in tune with
the central theme or the kind of spiritual poetry Amal aimed at.
The prose writings as well as the poetry were meant to bring out
the best in him on the new line he had struck and so he became
more self-critical than before. In that way, the amount of his
writing diminished at first. But it gained in quality. Sri Aurobindo
was a hard taskmaster. And his opinion Amal considered ‘super-
Coleridgean’.
38
Amal beautifully brought out in the following poem his credo

as a poet:
If I Became a Great Poet

A monument of music
Out-pyramidding all!
Seeing it none shall grieve
To see me fall –
None save the heart of you
That make no feast on fame:
What can you care for splendours
Signed with my name
If, to your sweet calling
By word or waiting lip
That monument is an answer
While the warm hungers slip
Out of my flesh for ever,
Leaving no joy to your lust
But the final hour of forgetting
My dust in your dust?
Amal’s areas of interest ranged from literature, philosophy,
mystical and spiritual as well as scientific thought to topics of
ancient Indian history and, national and international questions
that haunted the period of his stay on Planet Earth.
As in everybody’s life there were rough spots in Amal’s
marital relationships. And whenever such rough spots came, Amal
used to thank God. Otherwise he would have been seduced into
the ordinary life as the summum bonum.
In the letter No.796 dt.30.1.1937 Amal complained of his wife
to Sri Aurobindo:
“…Lalita has always expressed the regret of having fallen in
love with me. She says I brought her nothing but sorrow, uncertainty,
39
K.D. Sethna
insecurity, unfaithfulness. It is true that my past – described and

confessed to her myself – put her under a shadow of perpetual
fear–fear that I would be unfaithful to her. But there was a point
in our friendship, after which I resolved to give myself to her, to
love her only, and to the utmost of my capacity I did so. She
refuses to admit that I ever did anything worth speaking about; and
I marvel how she could forget all the solicitude, all the service, all
the sacrifice I gave, how that haunting fear induced by my past
could make her overlook the way I did devote myself to her – the
very first time in my life that I resolved and succeeded in being
faithful; the intense sacrifices I gave just for her are still vivid to
me and I cannot understand why she should not acknowledge
them, why she should make me feel that after all I have wasted the
utmost self-giving and love, I was capable of in the human way.
Am I really so mistaken in thinking that I had loved her? I feel
hurt to believe that she was so blind and is the same even now
when whatever blinding circumstances might have been then are
over and she is free from all that feverish past. I was not entirely
happy with her, though she loved me – because of the tensions due
to my past, but I cannot in justice overlook that love of hers. Why
should she deny all that I felt and did? Do you truly think I am
pretending or that I am deceiving myself? Not that the past matters
very much now; the old bondage to each other is broken; but I
want to face facts and I want to know myself…”
Amal continued his complaint in his next letter too:
“…I admit the mixture of the vital and the ego. But in what
human love is it absent? Was it absent in Lalita’s love for me?
Does pure love feel vindictive? Does it torture the beloved? Does
it insist so much on selfish possession? And yet, how can I ever
deny that in spite of everything she loved me very much. Why
can’t she be just to me also? Consider my complex and errant
nature. To have allowed it to be brought into a straight line for her,
40
to have submerged all my interests just to please her, to have felt

a self-giving which to my great regret, I have not always been able
always to repeat with the same passion even here to the Mother,
to have almost worshipped her as something more than human –
does all this mean nothing? How can the rising higher of one’s
ideal or a defensive attitude render on totally unjust? She never
denies that she loved; why then should she say: ‘After all what
Amal felt was so little. If you want to know the truth, ask Mother’.
And this was not spoken in reference to any higher ideal of love
realized here.
“I do not deny that I am a-moral and desirous of a serious
volupté in a certain part of my nature, and that she had to make a
tremendous effort to win me. But when one has definitely surpassed
oneself, risen far above all the common play and flux of feeling
and experienced a love that flung itself madly at the feet of the
beloved – don’t you think that it would hurt one to find that the
person for whom so much was felt refuses to acknowledge it,
considers it worth nothing and refers to Mother as a justifying
authority of her attitude? Did I really feel ‘so little’? I would not
bother much about things anybody said, but in this case I feel
some sort of desecration. It may well be that in me the lower vital,
the sex element, was more in prominence than in her – but at the
core, the burning centre of my emotion, and even in the outward
self-abandon of its expression, was my experience so paltry as
compared to her own that she should after ten years of mental
clarity, refuse to see anything?” (Letter No.797 dt.1.2.1937).
Sri Aurobindo was such a lovely guru that his good counsels
made Amal write a worldly wise letter on the next day itself. The
letter No.799 dt. 2.2.1937 had put an end to the misunderstanding
of the couple:
“…I do not compare the glamour of the past with the true
beauty of the spiritual present. If I were not convinced of the
41
K.D. Sethna
superiority of the latter, where would be the sense of my staying

here or originally of my coming here? What any human being ever
can give is ‘so little’ and even on the level of the dissensions I
understand why Lalita could say so. The effort she had to make so
exhausted her that when the true thing was got it hardly had any
value. What I wanted her to see was that though she could not
appreciate it, the true thing was there. I am not excusing myself
from the responsibility of having made it hard for her to appreciate.
I only wanted you to tell me whether I was mistaken about the
genuineness of my emotion. You have said that it was genuine,
especially since the psychic element was involved. Well, that’s
enough. Lalita and I have had a chat just to clear up matters. There
is no misunderstanding left now and we have agreed not to rake
up the past any more. This little bit of a confusion has helped to
relieve certain tensions and led to better consideration of the
demands of the true life here. Neither Lalita nor I will look back
to the old vital love in a spirit of enthusiastic appreciation but
there is no need to spit upon it either. We must regard it with a
detached calm now and try not to stand in the way of each other’s
progress by discussing it. Is that all right?”
To the last question that Amal asked in his letter, Sri Aurobindo
gave his answer by writing “Yes, that’s all right”. And that was the
end of it. It was not Amal who divorced Lalita but it was she who
did it. Convenience was the only reason. Both of them wanted to
be free from each other. So they got separated. But they continued
to be very good friends.
When Amal went to Bombay on a long visit, he came to know
that the girl who had been in love with him before he married
Daulat (Lalita) was still single. But he was not attached to her,
though he admired her and liked her. At that time he came to know
her, he had no idea of marrying anybody. He married Daulat
because both of them were seekers of spiritual life and they had
42
come to the Ashram together. Otherwise marriage was far from his
mind.
Psychologists are of the opinion that it is better to marry
someone who loves you rather than marrying someone you love.
Amal loved Daulat, married her and lost her. So this time he opted
for Sehra who really loved Amal and remained a spinster all the
time thinking of him. And when Amal found that she became
extremely miserable at her own place, he took her away and
married her on condition that she should be an understanding wife
since his life was set on following a spiritual goal. She agreed.
Back in the Ashram Lalita as Amal’s ex-wife and Sehra as his
current wife became very great friends. Both were very dear to
Amal while he was with them. But all through his life Amal
wanted to be as free as possible for the spiritual future. Sehra was
a frail but agile woman. It was her spiritual urge and prophetic
vision that was responsible for making Sethna what he is today.
Truly, behind every successful man there is a woman.
43
6
“My Paper”
Amal’s correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began quite early. As

a young man he had his problems. And the Master advised him to
face the Jaws of Life without flinching and that if his central being
had chosen the spiritual path there was nothing to fear. And Amal
began to bask in the sunshine of his Master’s affection and love
right from 1927.
It was only in that year he came to hear of Sri Aurobindo’s
Savitri in progress. October 25, 1936 proved to be the most
memorable day in Amal’s life. It was only from that day Sri
Aurobindo sent passages from his magnum opus to Amal to type
out. Installment after installment, day after day, reached Amal and
that went on for months till there came a lull in the composition
of the work, destined to be the first epic in Indian writing in
English.
Amal had occasionally the temerity to make suggestions if any
about Sri Aurobindo’s poetry. Why did Sri Aurobindo choose
Amal to read his Savitri? Amal was trying to write what his master
Sri Aurobindo had called Overhead Poetry. That is poetry coming
from planes or levels of consciousness beyond the thinking mind;
“My Paper”
not only behind the thinking mind as most poetry is, but beyond
it. When Amal wanted Sri Aurobindo to give him samples of that
kind of poetry the master sent his disciple the opening 12 or 15
lines of Savitri. For Amal it was absolutely overwhelming.
Fifteen or so months later Amal wrote to Sri Aurobindo: “I am
happy that you are taking up ‘Savitri’ again. Here is the whole
unfinished section after line 670. I hope you will complete it a
little before the 25 th (the date of my departure from Pondy) so that
I may have the good luck to type a fair copy for you” (Letter
no.192 dt.11.2.1938).
Amal had discussed Sri Aurobindo’s poetry in several of his
volumes: Sri Aurobindo – The Poet (1970), Overhead Poetry
(1972), The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo (1974), Talks on
Poetry (1989), The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo (1992),
Indian Poets and English Poetry (1994), Life – Poetry – Yoga –
Vol. I (1994), Life – Poetry – Yoga –Vol. II (1995), Life – Poetry
– Yoga –Personal Letters - Vol. III (1997), Aspects of Sri Aurobindo
(1995) and Inspiration and Effort (1995).
It was this great dedication to work and greater devotion to his
Master that made him take up interest in literature and its sister
subjects. The sort of work that Amal had done after becoming an
Ashramite was really amazing. Talented and courageous, he had
the gift for research and his areas were as diverse as Ancient
Indian History, Aryan Invasion theory, Blake and Shakespeare
studies, Christology, comparative mythology, Hellenic literature
and culture, Indian systems of yoga, international affairs, literary
criticism, mystical, spiritual and scientific thought, Overhead poetry,
philosophy, the English language and the Indian spirit, the structure
of thought in modern physics and biology... wow! The list is
endless!
All those who were intimate with K.D.Sethna knew that he
was always preoccupied with one project or another. People from
45
K.D. Sethna
many parts of the globe whenever they came to Pondicherry loved

to visit him after having darshan in the Ashram. He too loved to
meet people and respond to their queries. It was always ‘time well
spent’ with him. While he provided them with lot of information
in the subjects he was familiar with, he was never shy of asking
questions all with the noble intention of gathering information for
the betterment of his research.
No wonder that when the Ashram wanted to start a cultural
journal of its own, named Mother India, it chose K.D. Sethna as
its editor.
Mother India was originally an idea of Keshav Dev Poddar,
known afterwards as Nava, short for Navajata, meaning the ‘New
Born’. In 1949 he wanted to bring out a journal commenting on
current topics, both National and International, but with the
Aurobindonian view at the back of it. The journal was not
intended to be openly a mouthpiece of Sri Aurobindo. Sethna was
diffident about his own role as editor because he was not quite
conversant with political themes. Perhaps he was in a fix. As usual
he sought the help of the Mother who too knew very little about
politics. But she encouraged him saying, “There is Sri Aurobindo.
He will do everything for you.”
Sri Aurobindo jolly well did. Originally Sethna had wanted
somebody like Anilbaran, another illustrious Ashramite and a one
time political activist, to touch on political themes. But the Mother
and Sri Aurobindo insisted that he should do it himself. So Sethna,
who had little touch with the political world, came to be regarded
as almost a pundit by his friends. And people who recognized his
talents gathered around him when they saw him anywhere near the
Ashram and asked his opinion on this or that current political
topic.
Discussing Sri Aurobindo’s views Sethna found that they did
not quite chime with the current political attitudes. So when he
46
“My Paper”
wrote about Kashmir the Government of India wanted to give a bit

of its mind to Sethna. He was asked to face a Press Council. He
was severely warned. He was also advised to be careful for not
being careful enough in expressing his views on the Kashmir
situation. Sethna was frank enough to tell the Council that the duty
of an editor very much rests in seeing things very clearly in their
essential truth and writing about certain things without any
reservation. The Press Council stuck to its guns and told him to be
more careful because it is the duty of every editor to think how
Pakistan would treat her Hindu minorities.
All his political articles were sent first to be read out to Sri
Aurobindo by Nirodbaran or Nolini. Only when he sent the note
‘Fully approved” they appeared in print. So, for the first year and
a half or even a year and three quarters all that Sethna wrote could
be taken as Sri Aurobindo’s own direct views on national and
international problems.
In the early days, when political opinions used to be expressed
in Mother India, somebody began to criticize some of the ideas
and when this idea was reported to Sri Aurobindo, he said:
“Doesn’t he know that Mother India is my paper?”
After Sri Aurobindo had left his body, the Mother advised
Sethna not to touch directly on politics. Later in a reply to Amal’s
letter she sent a note that tolled a death-knell: “No politics in any
of our publications” (Letter No.2302 dated 15.11.1965).
The name of Mother India was suggested by Sehra, Sethna’s
second wife. But there was a protest against it, because a book by
such name had come out which was anti-Indian, written by
Katherine Mayo, though Mahatma Gandhi dismissed the work as
‘the drain Inspector’s report”. But the couple persisted in keeping
the name so as to clear its associations, and get the right kind of
47
K.D. Sethna
thought connected with that name. When Mother India was started,
the Mother sent her blessings to Sethna: “Stick to the date, live on
faith”. Sethna, the editor of Mother India, adhered to her words till
he breathed his last.
Mother India’s policy was broad-based. Essentially it has to be
Aurobindonian. But this is not to say that every article should be
on Sri Aurobindo or on his yoga. The only demand was that it
should not run counter to Sri Aurobindo’s vision. So all kinds of
articles – literary, cultural, artistic – were invited and accommodated
in Mother India. Occasionally the situation was such that the
editor himself had to write three of four articles per issue under
different names. One was ‘Satyavan’. Sethna also ran a column of
literary tidbits called ‘The Owl’s Banquet’. The owl is the bird of
Minerva, the Goddess of Learning. Naturally the author of the
column was ‘Minerva’.
The early contributors were mostly friends and most of them
Aurobindonians. But occasionally the editor got contributions
from outside the Aurobindonian circle. He gladly published them
provided they were not against the trend of Sri Aurobindo’s
thought. The contributors were paid. The payment was Rs. 15 per
1000 words. But the journal had to stop paying its contributors
because it could not financially manage it. When Mother India
was a political voice it had a print order of 2000 copies. But when
it stopped being political the number had to be cut down. Then
there arose the question of raising the price. From Rs.12 a year to
Rs.15…just an extra three rupees… oh, that was enough for 300
Indian subscribers. They fell away. It was so saddening. But none
of the foreign subscribers had defaulted.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother contributed to the growth of the
journal. Their support was quite constant. And their confidence in
the editor was a great source of encouragement. When it was
suggested that for certain sections somebody could be the working
48
“My Paper”
editor, the Mother did not approve of it. She said he could
contribute articles but the main editorship should remain with
Sethna.
At the beginning Sethna had a co-editor, Soli Albless, a friend
of his who was by profession an architect but in whom he read
signs of a future writer of some weight. He was of great help to
Sethna, but owing to some circumstances he left the Ashram and
naturally ceased to be his helper. So after two and a half years or
so, Sethna had to carry on Mother India single-handed. It has been
a regular production though the original idea of its being a
fortnightly was given up and it became a monthly.
Mother India was distinct from the other Ashram periodicals
in that it was not directly financed by the Ashram. It had to earn
its living independently, by means of help in getting advertisements
and by occasional liberal donations.
What did Sethna achieve by editing this financially less viable
journal in all these years? When Mother India was started he had
to consciously try to put himself in complete tune with Sri
Aurobindo’s mind. So his editorship served as an additional yoga
on his part. And afterwards too he always appealed to Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother to help him in the course of doing Mother India
work. So it was a special line of contact with them which helped
also his usual literary inner communication with Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother.
Further Mother India is the magazine that groomed several
writers and reviewers, including the author of the present book,
and found its pride of place in the select list of relevant periodicals
numbering only to 31 both from India and abroad that have
contributed to the growth of Indian writing in English (Amritjit
Singh: Indian Literature in English, 1827-1979: A Guide to
Information Sources, USA: Gale Research Company, 1981, pp.496)
49
K.D. Sethna
And when Sri Aurobindo passed aw ay, Sethna expressed

certain despair about his literary work, because he always used to
turn to him for help. In fact, there were moments when he wrote
to his master: “I was thinking to stop writing poetry for sometime
in order to let the inspiration come richer through a medium of
hushed intensity” (Letter No.848 dt. 6.2.1934). Again in the Letter
No.1407 dated 24.9.1936 he wrote: “I cannot tell you how very
helpful your remarks were – I feel so much nearer the source of
mystic inspiration – I don’t mean that I shall henceforth draw
flawlessly from it but there is a certain illumination come from
what you have written about the desiderata of mystic poetry. Of
course, poets work principally by an instinct but some need
conscious perception and knowledge to foster and fulfill that
instinct – the more I know what poetry should be the closer I feel
to a capacity for it…” Here is yet another letter (No.1296
dt.21.8.1937) that he wrote when he felt himself sliding into
obsession: “I am feeling uneasy and unsettled. Aspiration seems
almost extinguished. To put it more precisely although I want to
aspire I don’t have the necessary impetus to satisfy that wish.
Tamas weighs my consciousness down – so that I don’t have the
inward energy left even to try writing poetry with sufficient effort.
Please send me inspiration and tell me if this recurring cloud of
incapacity comes as a sign that after all I am doomed to taste
nothing more than a mere drop of the yogic life. I find yoga ever
so difficult – but I am appalled by a prospect of labyrinthine
useless when I think of the ordinary life…”
At all such moments of despair, Sri Aurobindo’s words came
to Sethna like the chill cool breeze solacing his bereaved heart.
But when the Mother came to know about the note of despair
when Sri Aurobindo left his body, she held Sethna’s hand and said:
‘Nothing has changed. Ask for Sri Aurobindo’s help and you will
50
“My Paper”
always get it.” That put heart into him. He knew that the help was
always there, not only in regard to Mother India, but also in regard
to his literary ventures. For his approach to intellectual and artistic
achievements he very much relied on his Master.
Honours, awards and rewards – none of these were anywhere
on his mind when he burnt the mid-night oil in his study. He was
steadily marching in his chosen path all the time driving sense of
humour in his otherwise serious work. Yet Public honours came to
him unasked. We are given to understand that the Government of
India once approached the Sri Aurobindo Ashram authorities to
recommend someone who would be fit enough to discharge the
duties of the Consul General of Pondicherry. Both Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother chose K.D. Sethna, but he declined the offer for he
felt such a power would drag him away slowly from the direct
contact of the objects of his highest adoration.
Dr. Spiegelberg, the Founder-President of the Asiatic Society,
at California, had high regards for Sethna. He considered him an
authority on Indian philosophies and also on the Philosophy and
Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Hence he offered him the post of a lecturer
in the Stanford University. Sethna again declined the offer and
suggested the name of Sri Haridas Chaudhuri to Sri Aurobindo and
on his approval wrote to Dr. Spiegelberg about it. Dr. Spiegelberg
accepting Sethna’s recommendation said in all humility, “My
Guru’s word is a law to me.” Such incidents are proof enough to
show how Sethna spurned earthly name and fame, preferring the
close proximity of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He was really
proud of himself when he remarked: “Who cares for what the
world says when those great wide eyes, deeper than oceans, fell on
these poems and accepted them as fit offerings to His divinity?
The Lord’s look, the Lord’s smile—that is what I have lived for.”
51
K.D. Sethna
The Israel University wanted to rope in Sethna for a series of

lectures on Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy and the Indian philosophies.
When Sethna conveyed the news to the Mother, she remarked: “So
you are going?” Sethna with no second thoughts responded: “Am
I such a fool, Mother?” The sweet Mother smiled sweetly and
thereby put an end to the matter.
Several such proposals came to Sethna by and by from various
parts of the globe. But he simply brushed all such offers aside and
all such actions of his echoed only Sri Aurobindo’s words: “All is
too little that the world can give.”
52
7
Battles Fought and Won
When Sri Aurobindo left his body on December 5, 1950 Sethna

felt he had lost everything. In point of fact, his own life seemed
to get drained out of him. He always felt that Sri Aurobindo was
very unique for his vision which went beyond all thought structure
of other writers. He was very unique for his power of expression
to make that vision living to others in the form of words. The new
disciple let out his cry to his master in the following lines:
December 5, 1950
Till the fall of your body a void was my day,
You sank like a sun and made me your west:
O Deathless who died since in no other way
Could you be buried for ever in my breast!
Sethna believed that the range of Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge
and interest went beyond the range of any other Indian figure,
somewhat of comparable stature. Further he found that in Sri
Aurobindo the man and the superman were so intermixed that it
was difficult to entangle the mere m an. The human side of him
K.D. Sethna
was quite evident. The way he dealt with all his questions, yogic
as well as literary, showed a great compassion. And the way he
always encouraged Sethna in spite of his doubts as to his capacity
to do yoga was remarkable. There were times when Sethna easily
got depressed and Sri Aurobindo picked him out of the slough of
despond again and again.
Words, it is said, are poor comforters when the heart knows its
own sorrows. Yet the Mother’s assurance that nothing had really
changed and that Sethna could draw help from Sri Aurobindo just
as before, kept him going.
The knowledge that Sri Aurobindo inculcated in him and the
courage his father had instilled into him turned Sethna into a
scholar critic, ready to take up machine guns against hurdles and
troubles. He was not a pugnacious man, of course, but he was not
ready to stomach insults – insults hurled at his favourite subjects.
He always decided to conduct his own defence. He gave evidence
for the defence in every literary case he took up. It may be a point
of view which will be awfully hard to defend. Yet he was boldly
going where no man had gone before. All these became feasible
for him because of his serious study of books, men and matters.
It is good to recollect here that he was called up once before
the Press Council to defend his treatment of Kashmir and Pakistan
issue. Again when General MacArthur was dismissed by Truman,
Mother India was the only publication in the whole world which
stood by MacArthur. Sethna wrote and published an article titled
“A Defence of General MacArthur”. And even when the American
Consul, Henderson, was trying to be apologetic about certain
utterances of MacArthur at a meeting of the Press Bureau, Sethna
had to get up and defend MacArthur against the American Consul.
Sethna told Henderson that MacArthur belonged to the true
Kshatriya temperament which takes pleasure in fighting, especially
when it knows that its cause is just. And, by the way, the Mother
54
herself supported Sethna in backing MacArthur. She had a very

high opinion of his military genius. She was prepared to rank him
even with military captains like the Duke of Wellington.
What Sethna had said of MacArthur in his defence holds true
in his case too. Though a Parsi by birth he was a Kshatriya by
instinct. He couldn’t keep quiet when someone needed help in the
proper understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s writings. He had broken
many a lance with several critics. Among them he found P. Lal of
Kolkata quite a congenial person to quarrel with.
Sometime in 1951, a year after Sri Aurobindo’s demise, Prof.
Purushottam Lal, a poet in his own right and the founder of
Writers Workshop at Calcutta, mustered courage to criticize the
poetry of Sri Aurobindo, the only modern poet, in any Indian
language, to have attempted the large philosophical poem Savitri.
He wrote an essay “A Testament for Our Poets” and published it
in Sunday Standard. Therein he condemned the epic and warned
Indian poets to keep away from the Aurobindonian brand of verse
if they wish to do anything worthwhile. Again in the same essay
he wrote: “When I read any passage from Sri Aurobindo’s epic a
sick-as-stale-lemonade shiver gallops up and down my spine at a
rate impossible to compute”. He described Savitri-like verse as
“greasy, weak-spined and purple adjective poetry”, “a loose
expression of a loose emotion”. Further he cautioned that poets
like him should necessarily band together and produce a Manifesto
pledging “there is every likelihood that the blurred, rubbery and
airy sentiments of a Sri Aurobindo will slowly clog our own
poetry”. On reading such a vitriolic essay Sethna felt that Lal
betrayed his most serious lack of response to spiritual poetry. And
he was not a man to leave things at that and make Lal continue to
wallow in ignorance. He was prepared to lecture.
So Sethna responded with a strongly worded letter defending
the poet in Sri Aurobindo. He began with a remark that Mr. Lal’s
55
K.D. Sethna
essay betrayed his ignorance and had no clear idea of spiritual

poetry. It was because of this lacking of idea Mr. Lal couldn’t
show true sensitiveness to the kind of inspiration that is Savitri.
Since the epic is “spiritual philosophy as well as spiritual vision
Mr. Lal is equally at sea with poetry that fuses the philosophical
concept with mystic symbolism and revelation”. Quoting relevant
passages from Savitri Sethna proved that the epic “transposed to
the plane of spiritual vision and spiritual philosophy, illumined
and enlarged in the consciousness of a seer-sage, all that Mr.Lal
demands of a true poem is here in abundance”.
Sethna published his response to Lal’s remarks in Mother
India (October 1968) and sent a copy of it to the unjust critic.
P.Lal jumped into the fray. He wrote back: “…I am flattered that
you should think my remarks worth two lengthy pages of reply…In
spite of your many cogent arguments and very level-headed
attempt to puncture my thesis, I am still a member of the group
which cannot find pleasure in Sri Aurobindo…” But he thanked
Sethna profusely for his “stimulating criticism”.
It was this response that evidently called for a second rejoinder.
Sethna wrote: “…you represent a rather small class which has
allowed some obscure prejudice to colour its judgment. There
seems almost to be perversity at work, eager to run down somebody
who, some instinct tells one, is truly great…” Quoting the case of
C.R.M. and Tambimuthu, who “seldom let an opportunity go by of
having a fling at Sri Aurobindo’s poetry, whether earlier or later,
without ever having taken the trouble to read him sufficiently.” He
hit the nail on its head by saying that Sri Aurobindo’s usage of
words is beyond him.
P.Lal unable to withstand the arguments wrote a short letter
(December 1951) to Sethna and told him: “…it is Christmas now
and hatchets are best buried…I shall in 1952 read Savitri wit h
56
greater care, in order to cultivate a more perfect sympathy for it”,

and thereby put an end helplessly to the arguments.
Who is this C.R.M. that Sethna talked about to P.Lal? He was
an Irishman who edited the Illustrated Weekly of India. In his
regular column “Books and Comments” he reviewed (July 31,
1949) K.D. Sethna’s work The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo.
A note about this book would help. In his book Light and
Laughter, a series of talks Sethna delivered in Pondicherry, he
recorded the importance of his book. He concluded his ‘Talk Two’
in the following manner: “…the matter of keeping Savitri a secret
was a difficult job. In those days Nolini was Sri Aurobindo’s
postman. He used to bring the letters for everyone; we used to wait
for him in the morning. And he knew that some special
correspondence was going on between Sri Aurobindo and me,
because the Mother might have been giving him the folded letters
to put into the envelopes. Each time he handed me my letter he
lifted his eyebrows. I looked very innocent and took it and waited
for him to go away before opening it. He would hesitate for a
minute or two and then go away. It happened like that 3 or 4 days
and then it got on my nerves. So I wrote to Sri Aurobindo: “What
should I do? I think Nolini is going to ask me. Then Sri Aurobindo
very blandly replied, “Let us hope he won’t.” But still the silent
inquisition of the lifted eyebrows did not cease! Then I wrote in
desperation to Sri Aurobindo: “I am sure it is going to happen now.
Please tell me what to do. Can I take him into the secret or not?”
Then Sri Aurobindo said: “All right but only him.” So this secret
remained a secret between Nolini and me for 10 years. Only in
1946, when I began to write a book on Sri Aurobindo’s poetry, I
divulged Savitri to the world – with Sri Aurobindo’s approval.
Savitri came out in excerpts for the first time in that book of mine,
The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards the Ashram
published it in fascicles and then as a volume…”
57
K.D. Sethna
Now to the review of C.R.M. After calling Sethna’s book

interesting, he made a very sweeping statement: “…for Mr. Sethna,
Sri Aurobindo’s Muse is a case of ‘this side idolatry’, and then I
am not so sure that genius is so rampant as he claims. The merits
seem to me to consist of a high level of spiritual utterance,
abundant metrical skill, and a sound poetic sensitivity based on the
classics and much akin to that of many of the more conservative
masters. Sometimes it is as if Sri Aurobindo had taken the cream
of Milton, Wordsworth and Tennyson and stirred it to boiling point
in the cauldron of his Muse.”
It was this remark that drew Sethna’s fire. And C.R.M. had no
way but to burn in Sethna’s fury for “his rather cursory acquaintance
with Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and a certain haste in making up his
mind”. He wrote a long rejoinder, winding up the letter with the
following lines: “May I hope that C.R.M. whose writings are often
acute as well as charming, will give my book a closer reading and,
instead of being in a hurry to pass judgment, open himself more
sensitively, more discerningly, to the Aurobindonian inspiration?”
C.R.M. who had the shock of his life refused to publish the
letter on the pretext that there was no correspondence column in
the Weekly. But since Sethna felt that the editor was a gifted writer
of considerable popularity and his readers might accept his estimate
of Sri Aurobindo, it was necessary that he should voice in Mother
India (September 3, 1949) what was originally meant for the
Weekly.
Dr. Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo’s physician and amanuensis,
had raved about the critical acumen of his ‘cherished friend’
Sethna thus: “…and the master has left us. But before leaving, he
commanded: ‘Stick on’…Also, before leaving, Sri Aurobindo saw
to it that, among those he had initiated into poetry with so much
special care, one of us at least would be able to follow the path he
58
has opened and I must say that my friend Amal has admirably
fitted himself to that task, and is capable too of taking us along…I
can say without fear of contradiction that he is the best exegete of
Sri Aurobindo’s poetry…I can go further and claim that in the vast
field of English and European poetry Amal can stand on a par, not
only in India but everywhere with the best of critics”.
Well! That was Sethna. What Nirodbaran had said of Sethna,
“the best exegete of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry” and “on a par with
the best of critics” holds water when we read Sethna’s best known
works in Literary Criticism, viz., Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare,
Sri Aurobindo— (The Poet, The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo,
“Two Loves” and “A Worthier Pen”, The Obscure and the
Mysterious: A Research in Mallarme’s Symbolist Poetry, Blake’s
Tyger – A Christological Interpretation, Talks in Poetry, The
Inspiration of Paradise Lost, “A Slumber did My Spirit Seal”: An
Interpretation from India, Adventures in Criticism, The Thinking
Corner, Classical and Romantic: An Approach Through Sri
Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo and Greece.)
Among the battles he fought and won, another memorable one
that should by all means go down the history of Indian writing in
English was the one with Ms. Kathleen Raine.
It all began with William Blake’s poem “Tyger”. Sethna
published a long essay on this poem. Sir Geoffrey Keynes was
kind enough to read and then pass it on to the eminent English
poet and critic Ms. Kathleen Raine for scrutiny. The discussion
began. The correspondents exchanged not only their collection of
poems – Miss Raine her Collected Poems and Mr. Sethna The
Secret Splendour— but also the insights into each other’s poems.
In her letter dated 5.8.1961, Miss Raine after giving general
remarks on the poems of Sethna, concluded thus: “Only one thing
troubles me: Why do you write in English? You write of the land
59
K.D. Sethna
of India, subtilised, in an almost physical sense, by the quality of

life that has been lived there; is not the same thing true of
language? Have you not, in using English, exiled your poetic
genius from India, to which it must belong, without making it
native of England, for English learned as a foreign language can
never nourish the invisible roots of poetry. I feel this even about
Tagore, and so did Yeats. I do not believe that we can – or if we
could, that we have the right to – write poetry in a language other
than our own.”
Miss Raine’s comment sparked off the discussion on whether
Indians can write genuine poetry in English. The correspondence
on these lines between the poet-critics continued and led to the
publication of two scholarly volumes – (The English Language
and the Indian Spirit and Indian Poets and English Poetry.)
Sethna argued: “What evidently is necessary for poetic success
in English is an intimacy somehow won with the language…If a
notable command of the English language and a thorough
knowledge of English poetical technique could be at the disposal
of Indian inspiration, I see no reason why memorable English
poetry should fail to be produced.” When Raine commented: “I
have read no poetry by an Indian that does not seem to an English
reader to be written by a foreigner. This I find even with Tagore,
certainly with Sri Aurobindo, and also with most of your poems:,
Sethna refuted that criticism and finally counter argued thus: “If
you didn’t see an Indian name under a poem, would you infallibly
know that its English was not by an Englishman?”
After many arguments and counter arguments, Kathleen Raine
withdrew from the discussion by saying: “Of course if India is
determined to adopt the English language nobody can stop you.
The blame lies with the English, who as a ‘ruling race’ for two
hundred years impressed India with the power and prestige of our
brief moment of material supremacy.”
60
K.D. Sethna gave Kathleen Raine the impression that he liked

her Collected Poems and that he had made elaborate marginal
notes. Hence she urged him again and again to write something on
her poems. And here is K.D.Sethna in the last and final letter: “But
repeatedly I wonder why you want my views. Am I not as an
Indian whose mother-tongue is different from yours, unfitted in
your eyes to appreciate a creation like English poetry, which is
your language at its subtlest?”
From the arguments and counter-arguments found in his books
it is quite clear that it is dangerous to argue with K.D.Sethna.
Boswell’s remark about Dr. Johnson may be true of him if
modified a little to show a multiple resource. He can use his pistol
not only to fire but also knock you down with the butt-end of it.
61
8
Do Not Be Too Upset If I Pass Away
K.D.Sethna was a yogi to the core. He had been single-minded

about his quest all his life. To achieve his goal the Mother gave
him very generously all the support he needed. Behind this
successful man there were two women. Besides the Mother, Sehra
his wife gave all the help he needed. It was she who made his
house a home.
In 1981, Institute of Human Study, Hyderabad brought out a
collection of K.D.Sethna’s essays, letters, poems, short stories in
a single volume under the title The Sun and the Rainbow. The
dedication he wrote for his book speaks volumes about Sehra’s
love and affection he enjoyed. The dedication reads as follows:
To
beloved SEHRA
(9.9.1909 – 24.4.1980)
ever-attentive wife for 36 years,
devoted disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
at their Ashram from 1954.
The ever- affectionate Mother left her body in 1973. The ever-
attentive Sehra left her husband for the heavenly abode in 1980.
Sethna told his heart, “…grieve not that the face most dear/ has
robbed you of its sight!” Death did not disturb him, for he was a
yogi and yogis know what death is. To them it is only a deep sleep
gone out of control. How can one expect Sethna to sit and brood
over the death of the two who were intimate to him? And that too
when he himself had a brush with death, on two occasions!
Once he took a monstrous overdose of a stimulant drug forty-
eight times the normal quantity. He nearly passed away. He had to
call for the help of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to keep him
going. He felt that there was a hand under his heart sustaining it,
keeping it up and making it go on. And that folly of his brought
him occasional spells of a collapsing feeling for several years. So
drastic was the attack brought on himself by his rashness.
The second one came in a small natural way, when he was
researching in the thought structure behind modern physics. He
was climbing up tall ladders in libraries, looking at old books. And
when he reached home he could hardly breathe properly. He
slumped into his chair. Absolutely bathed in cold sweat, he felt a
sinking feeling all the time in the centre of his chest. He called his
wife and his mother and in his characteristic calm tone told them,
“Don’t be too upset if I pass away”. Then instead of his dying, the
sinking seemed to burst open some obstruction between the outer
and the inner being and he began to see things in a different light
altogether. The pieces of furniture in his room looked like Gods
and Goddesses. He got up from his chair and bowed down to
them. The whole universe seemed to become a divine being. And
on that same night, he could see things with his eyes shut. He
could also see lines of poetry running in front of him. He tried to
jot them down in the darkness on the blank front and back pages
of the book he was reading. In the morning he tried to reconstruct
those things and they ultimately formed the beginning of the book
which was later called The Adventure of the Apocalypse.
63
K.D. Sethna
Since he felt death twice and saw death at close quarters twice
in his life, he never felt that he was lonely in his house, though his
wife was physically missing. Blessed is he who is always
surrounded with books that are more than friends in human form.
Moreover, he who is gifted with an auriferous pen makes himself
extremely busy round the clock.
Fiction writing did not appeal to Sethna, though he wrote two
short stories after joining the Ashram. Sri Aurobindo, whose short
stories can be counted on one’s fingers, liked them very much.
About “The Hero” he wrote: “It seems to me that what you have
written has very distinct qualities as a story (idea, building, writing
out) and also narrative power”. And about the second story “A
Mere Manuscript”, he commented: “It is very good both in
language and form and its substance and idea”.
Apart from numerous studies on the problems of Indian
history, Sethna had very persuasively put the Rig-Veda anterior to
the Indus-Valley civilization of c.2500 -1500 B.C. in his two major
books on History – (The Problems of Aryan Origins and Karpasa
in Pre-historic India.) It was Sri Aurobindo who was the first to
dismiss in the course of his writings the theory of an Aryan
invasion but did not pause to substantiate the dismissal thoroughly.
Sethna’s massive work on the subject – Ancient India in a New
Light - fortifies the new revolutionary outlook. The International
Institute of Indian Studies based in Ottawa, Canada gave him the
Devavrata Bhisma Award for 1994 for this work.
Well! Sethna did not restrict himself with Indian history. He
spread his tentacles of quest far and wide. He took up the much
read and more translated book The Bible and probed into both the
Old Testament and the New Testament. And the result was the
publication of two books – Problems of Early Christianity and
The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian Tradition. In these
books Sethna dealt with the hypersentitive issues of Immaculate
64
Conception, the question of Jesus’ historicity and whether it was

a resurrection or a resuscitation that Jesus underwent. In writing
these two books he drew much from the writings of Sri Aurobindo.
The remarkable aspect of Sethna was that he never took any
statement at face value. He tested every claim against all possible
evidence till he found the light of truth at the end of the tunnel. It
would not be an exaggeration to say that he sailed to uncharted
territories in quest of knowledge none dared to explore before.
The researcher who made use of the available archaeological
evidence to tell the truth about the origin of the Aryans, the
wrestler who tried hard with historiography, used his Holmesian
talent to indentify the great mysterious figures – the dark lady, the
youth and the rival poet – in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. In spite of all
the investigations done by researchers and scholars solving the
enigmas continued to remain horse’s horns. But in his book “Two
Loves” and “A Worthier Pen” Sethna succeeded in identifying
them through a new method which he called “internal chronology”.
In mustering evidence all in support of his own case for the
enigmas, he also tried to answer all possible objections set up in
favour of alternative solutions.
Author of more than fifty books K.D.Sethna is really a multi-
faceted genius and his works are a rare treat for all those lovers of
literature, poetry, yoga, science and history. His profound erudition
as well as his wonderful sense of humour serve as a real feast for
all those who love to read a book most of the time smiling or
laughing. Here is a sip from his ever gurgling cup of Light and
Laughter:
“When I was young I was considered a writer of poetry. I
believe I am still a poet though very few know it and my face can
hardly show it.
“At times I am a bit of musician too: as you have just seen,
I can blow my own trumpet.
65
K.D. Sethna
“Poets, musicians, painters – all artists – are credited with a

very lively imagination. But by no stretch of imagination can I
figure myself as still young and therefore, as having the right to
talk to you with a sympathetic spirit.
“In this age of dynamic disrespect for old fogeys, I could not
help wondering why I had picked on to address you. I asked
myself: ‘Am I fit to do so?’ Then I remembered Oscar Wilde. He
does not exactly appear to be a writer coming naturally to the mind
of an aspirant to spirituality. But, in the first place, we are in old
French India, and in the French language the word ‘spiritual’ –
which is ‘spirituel’ on French lips – most often means ‘intellectually
sparkling’. Oscar Wilde was surely that. And, in the second place,
the memory of Wilde came to me in the form of his epigram: The
only way to remain young is to go on repeating the follies of our
youth.” Well, I committed one great folly in my youth – or so it
was considered. And I have been repeating it for years and in that
way I can certainly claim to be still a young man.
“…(My grandfather) said Yoga was a great folly. It was a folly
I wholeheartedly committed and, on the strength of its persistence
even now, I can qualify by Oscar Wilde’s standard to address
you…”
One of the foremost sadhaks of the Aurobindonian community,
a painter and cartoonist in the early days of the Ashram, Amal
Kiran who had pledged his “whole life to the great Beyond and the
deep Within and longed to live in the wide Without with the ego-
swamping light from on high and the ego-refining warmth from
the secret psyche”, captivated the hearts of all his visitors. In fact
everyone wished him a long life and the divine had blessed him
with not only a long but also fruitful life.
Amal Kiran spent his last years in the Ashram Nursing Home
cared by the ever-attentive doctors and nurses. His room was the
most crowded one during the visitors’ hours. His smile lighted up
66
his room and the laughter of men and women who stood round his
cot flowed out and filled the Home brightening up the faces of the
inmates. Even when the age was in, his wit was never out.
What Amal Kiran alias K.D.Sethna wrote of his wife after her
death in his lovely poem “Voice from Within” can be said of him
too:
Your work is ended, your time over.
Look now for all your bliss beyond.
67
9
Works By K.D. Sethna:
A Bibliography
Poetry
Artist Love (Bombay: Author., 1925)
The Secret Splendour (Bombay: Author., 1941)
The Adventure of the Apocalypse (Bombay: Sri Aurobindo Circle.,
1949)
Poems of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (Pondicherry: Sri
Aurobindo Ashram., 1954)
Overhead Poetry (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo International Centre
of Education., 1972)
Altar and Flame (U.S.A.: Aspiration., 1975)
Poems by Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram.,1987)
The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1993)
Literary Criticism
Parnassians : Essays on Wells, Shaw, Chesterton & Hardy (Bombay :
Author., 1924)
Works By K.D. Sethna: A Bibligraphy
Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare : (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo

Ashram., 1965)
Sri Aurobindo the Poet (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo International
Centre of Education., 1947)
The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram., 1947)
“Two Lovers” and ‘A Worthier Pen” (Delhi: Arnold Heinemann.,
1984)
The English Language and the Indian Spirit: Correspondence
Between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna (Pondicherry: Sri
The Obscure and the Mysterious: A Research in Mallarme’s
Symbolist Poetry (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo International
Centre of Education., 1987)
Blake’s Tyger — A Christological Interpretation (Pondicherry: Sri
Talks on Poetry (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo International Centre
of Education., 1989)
Indian Poets and English Poetry: Correspondence Between Kathleen
Raine and K.D. Sethna (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.,
1994)
The Inspiration of Paradise Lost (U.S.A.: The Integral Life
Foundation., 1994)
“A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal’: An Interpretation from India
(U.S.A.: The Integral Life Foundation., 1995)
Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation.,
1995)
Inspiration and Effort : Studies in Literary Attitude and Expression
(U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation., 1995)
Adventures in Criticism (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation.,
1996)
69
K.D. Sethna
The Thinking Corner (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation., 1996)

Classical and Romantic: An Approach Through Sri Aurobindo
(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram., 1997)
Sri Aurobindo and Greece. (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation,
1998)
On Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – Part 1 – Essays (Pondicherry: Clear
Ray Trust., 2010)
On Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – Part 2 – Collected Comments
(Pondicherry: Clear Ray Trust., 2012)
Philosophy
Teilhard De Chardin and Sri Aurobindo (Varanasi : Bharatiya
Vidya Prakashan, 1973)
The Spirituality of the Future : (A Search Apropos of R.C.
Azehner’s Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard De Chardin)
(New Jersey: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1981)
The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Mother
India., 1968)
Life - Poetry - Yoga (Vol.1) (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation.,
1994)
Life - Poetry - Yoga (Vol. 2) (U.S.A: The Integral life Foundation.,
1995)
Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation.,
1995
Mandukya Upanishad (English version, notes and commentary)
(U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation., 1995)
Life - Poetry - Yoga - Personal Letters (Vol. 3) (U.S.A: The
Integral Life Foundation., 1997)
70
Works By K.D. Sethna : A Bibligraphy
History and Culture

Evolving India (Bombay: Hind Kitabs Ltd., 1947)
The Folly of Recognising Red China (Pondicherry: Mother India.,
1950)
The Indian Spirit and the World’s Future (Pondicherry: Sri
Light and Laughter (Some Talks at Pondicherry) (Pondicherry : Sri
The Problem of Aryan Origins (Calcutta: S & S Publishers., 1980)
Karpasa in Prehistoric India ( Delhi: Biblia Impex Pvt. Ltd., 1981)
The Sun and the Rainbow (Hyderabad: Institute of Human Study.,
1981)
Ancient India in a New Light ( Delhi: Aditya Prakashan., 1989)
The Beginning of History for Israel (U.S.A.: The Integral Life
Foundation., 1995)
India and the World Scene. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Society,
1997)
Problems of Early Christianity (U.S.A.: The Integral Life
Foundation, 1998)
Teilhard De Chardin and our Time (Pondicherry : Clear Ray Trust,
2000)
Problems of Ancient India (Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000 ).
The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian Tradition (U.S.A.: The
Integral Life Foundation, 2001)
Is Velikovsky’s Revised Chronology Tenable? A Study of four
Fundamental Themes (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation,
2002)
71
K.D. Sethna
Miscellany
The Passing of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Mother India., 1951)
The Mother : Past - Present - Future (Jaipur, Kamal Gambhir.,
1977)
Our Light and Delight : Recollections of Life with the Mother of
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Pondicherry : Author., 1980)
Science - Materialism - Mysticism (U.S.A. Integral Life Foundation,
1995)
A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo:
Correspondence Between Bede Griffiths and K.D.Sethna
(Pondicherry: Clear Ray Trust., 1996)
The Development of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual System and the
Mother’s Contribution to it. (U.S.A.: The Integral Life
Foundation, 2003)
72
10
On K.D. Sethna
A List
Books
Nirodbaran & R.Y. Deshpande (eds): Amal-Kiran : Poet & Critic,
(Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994)
Jugal Kishore Mukherjee : The Wonder That is K.D. Sethna alias
Amal Kiran, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994)
Sachidananda Mohanty (ed): K.D. Sethna (Amal Kiran) — A
Centenary Tribute, (USA: The Integral Life Foundation,
Nov. 2004)
P. Raja: K.D. Sethna : An Introduction Through Interaction
(Pondicherry: Busy Bee Books, August 2005)
Articles & Interviews

Dilip Chakraborty, A Poet in His Guru’s Mould: K.D. Sethna - An
Appreciation, Indian Book Chronicle, Jaipur, April 1992.
Gordon Korstange : An Interview with Amal Kiran, Collaboration,
Berkeley, California, Summer 1994.
P. Raja: “Talks with K.D. Sethna of Sri Aurobindo Ashram”,
Bhavans Journal, Aug. 15, 31; Sept. 15, 30; Oct. 15, 1995
(A serialisation in five parts).
K.D. Sethna
P. Raja : “Life is Great Fun at Ninety”, The Sunday Statesman,

Nov. 5, 1995.
P. Raja : “The Man and Superman Were So Intermixed”, Sabda
Newsletter, December 1995.
P. Raja : “Viewpoint: K.D. Sethna in Conversation with P. Raja”,
The Scoria, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1996.
P. Raja : “Musings of an Ascetic”, Deccan Herald (Sunday), May
19, 1996.
P. Raja : The Story of Mother India: Straight From the Horse’s
Mouth, Mother India, Feb - Mar. 1999.
74
Works by K.D. Sethna
In Chronological Order
1) 1924 Parnassians
2) 1925 Artist Love
3) 1941 The Secret Splendour
4) 1947 Evolving India
5) 1947 The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo (Rep.1974)
6) 1949 The Adventure of the Apocalypse
7) 1950 The Folly of Recognising Red China
8) 1951 The Passing of Sri Aurobindo
9) 1953 The Indian Spirit and the World’s Future
10) 1954 Poems on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
11) 1965 Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare (Rep. 1991, 2000,
2010, 2015)
12) 1968 The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo (Rep.
1992)
13) 1970 Sri Aurobindo - The Poet (Rep. 1999)
14) 1972 Overhead Poetry
15) 1972 Light and Laughter: Some Talks at Pondicherry
K.D. Sethna
(Rep.1974, 2004)
16) 1973 Teilhard De Chardin and Sri Aurobindo
17) 1975 Altar and Flame
18) 1977 The Mother: Past - Present- Future (Rep. 2004)
19) 1980 Our Light and Delight (Rep. 2003)
20) 1980 The Problem of Aryan Origins (Enlarged ed.
1992)
21) 1981 Karpasa in Pre-Historic India
22) 1981 The Spirituality of the Future
23) 1981 The Sun and the Rainbow
24) 1984 “Two Loves” and “A Worthier Pen”
25) 1986 The English language and the Indian Spirit
26) 1987 Poems by Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran (With Sri
Aurobindo’s Comments)
27) 1987 The Obscure and the Mysterious: A Research in
Mallarme’s Symbolist Poetry
28) 1989 Ancient India in a New Light
29) 1989 Blake’s Tyger (A Christological Interpretation)
30) 1989 Talks on Poetry
31) 1993 The Secret Splendour (Collected Poems)
32) 1994 Indian Poets and English Poetry
33) 1994 Life - Poetry - Yoga (Vol. 1)
31) 1994 The Inspiration of “Paradise Lost”
32) 1995 “A Slumber did My Spirit Seal”: An
Interpretation from India
33) 1995 Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (Rep. 2000)
34) 1995 Inspiration and Effort
35) 1995 Life - Poetry - Yoga (Vol. II)
36) 1995 Mandukya Upanishad
37) 1995 The Beginning of History for Israel
38) 1995 Science - Materialism - Mysticism
39) 1996 Adventures in Criticism
76
Works by K.D. Sethna In Chronological order
40) 1996 The Thinking Corner

41) 1996 A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri
Aurobindo
42) 1997 Classical and Romantic: An Approach Through
Sri Aurobindo
43) 1997 Life - Poetry - Yoga - Personal Letters (Vol. Ill)
44) 1997 India and the World Scene
45) 1998 Problems of Early Christianity
46) 1998 Sri Aurobindo and Greece
47) 2000 Problems of Ancient India
48) 2000 Teilhard de Chardin and Our Time
49) 2001 The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian
Tradition
50) 2002 Is Velikovsky’s Revised Chronology Tenable?
51) 2003 The Development of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual
System and the Mother’s Contribution
52) 2010 On Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – Part I (Essays)
53) 2012 On Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – Part II (Collected
comments)
77

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7

K.D. Sethna (1904-2011): Named Amal Kiron by Sri

international affairs, Overhead Poetry, Hellenic 0

P. Raja has 32 books for adults and 8 books for children

From: Nagarjunakonda, 2nd century A.D.

Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi

First published, 2017

Typeset and printed at Vikas Computers and Printers, Delhi-32

I would like to thank Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi for giving me

occupied he said without any hesitation, “No chairs! Then choose

“What is this?” he asked.

Out of the four hundred and odd editors of magazines and

Sethna, affectionately called ‘Kekoo’ by his family members,

him a crutch for life. He went to bed at night as a healthy child

Parnassians is a collection of four essays that Sethna wrote on

do for it involved getting up and down in the saddle. Galloping,

And when he was in a certain posture and a finger of his seemed

At once he read the article and felt that Sri Aurobindo’s

In Puri there was an Ashram of Pagal Harnath. Two of his

It was only on Feb.21, 1928, Sethna had his first darshan of

Sethna had his second Darshan on 15th August 1928 and

August 15 – Sri Aurobindo’s Birthday

On December 16, 1927 K.D. Sethna became an Ashramite by

sadhikas. Poor Amal looked after everyone’s need, of course after

His bad legs were certainly a greater defect than stammering,

Though syllables sweep

Beyond Life’s clamour,

indrawing of consciousness in the sex-organ. I have been often

“Then I fell asleep and had a most frightfully realistic dream

Neither through lifted

Dreams His hair wayward

O once I knew joy

But sweeter than tangible

On the top margin of each leaf Amal requested Sri Aurobindo

In spite of his difference of opinion over the choice of words,

word and intensity of rhythm. These three intensities in whatever

Amal beautifully brought out in the following poem his credo

If I Became a Great Poet

insecurity, unfaithfulness. It is true that my past – described and

to have submerged all my interests just to please her, to have felt

superiority of the latter, where would be the sense of my staying

Amal’s correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began quite early. As

many parts of the globe whenever they came to Pondicherry loved

wrote about Kashmir the Government of India wanted to give a bit

And when Sri Aurobindo passed aw ay, Sethna expressed

The Israel University wanted to rope in Sethna for a series of

When Sri Aurobindo left his body on December 5, 1950 Sethna

herself supported Sethna in backing MacArthur. She had a very

essay betrayed his ignorance and had no clear idea of spiritual

greater care, in order to cultivate a more perfect sympathy for it”,

Now to the review of C.R.M. After calling Sethna’s book

of India, subtilised, in an almost physical sense, by the quality of

K.D. Sethna gave Kathleen Raine the impression that he liked

K.D.Sethna was a yogi to the core. He had been single-minded

Conception, the question of Jesus’ historicity and whether it was

“Poets, musicians, painters – all artists – are credited with a

Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare : (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo

The Thinking Corner (U.S.A: The Integral Life Foundation., 1996)