Office of 'Karmayogin'

4, Shyampukur Lane served as the office for 'Karmayogin', a weekly journal in English and 'Dharma', a weekly journal in Bengali, both edited by Sri Aurobindo during the period 1909-1910.

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Departure to Chandernagore

Sri Aurobindo one night at the Karmayogin office received information of the Government's intention to search the office and arrest him. While considering what should be his attitude He received a sudden command from above to go to Chandernagore in French India. He obeyed the command at once, for it was now his rule to move only as He was moved by the Divine guidance and never resist and depart from it; he did not stay to consult with anyone but in ten minutes was at the river ghat and in a boat playing on the Ganges, in a few hours he was at Chandernagore where he went into secret residence.

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After his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb case, Sri Aurobindo launched Karmayogin, a weekly English journal conceived as 'A Weekly Review of National Religion, Literature, Science, Philosophy, &c.,'.

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Dharma

Sri Aurobindo also launched 'Dharma', a weekly Bengali journal and its first issue came out on 23.Aug.1909.

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Facts of departure

These are the facts of that departure. I was in the Karmayogin office when I received word, on information given by a high-placed police official, that the office would be searched the next day and myself arrested. (The office was in fact searched but no warrant was produced against me; I heard nothing more of it till the [Karmayogin Sedition] case was started against the paper later on, but by then I had already left Chandernagore for Pondicherry.) While I was listening to animated comments from those around on the approaching event, I suddenly received a command from above in a Voice well known to me, in the three words; "Go to Chandernagore." In ten minutes or so I was in the boat for Chandernagore. Ramchandra Majumdar guided me to the Ghat and hailed a boat and I entered into it at once along with my relative Biren Ghosh and Mani (Suresh Chandra Chakrabarti) who accompanied me to Chandernagore, not turning aside to Bagbazar or anywhere else. We reached our destination while it was still dark and they returned in the morning to Calcutta. I remained in secret entirely engaged in Sadhana and my active connection with the two newspapers ceased from that time. Afterwards, under the same "sailing orders", I left Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry on April 4th 1910.

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Sri Aurobindo's Sense of Humour

About this period Sri Aurobindo had been studying Tamil. A South Indian gentleman used to come to this Shyampukur house and gave him his Tamil lessons in one of the office rooms. I remember how one day, after he had finished his lesson, he came back and said to us full of glee like a schoolboy of fourteen, "Do you know what is Pirentir Nat Tatta-kopta?" We were of course all left speechless in our ignorance. Then he explained, "That is Birendranath Datta-gupta in Tamil." Tamil has only the first and the last letters in each of the first five groups of Sanskrit consonants and does not seem to recognise in its alphabet the existence of the other three, nor does it have the conjunct consonants. Hence in Tamil Birendra can be Pirentir, Nath became Nat, Datta develops into Tatta. But Gupta need not have become Kopta but for Sri Aurobindo's sense of humour.

Extract from: Disciples > Nolini Kanta Gupta > Reminiscences > Appendix > Pg 134

Assassination of Shamsul Alam

The startling assassination of Deputy Superintendent Shamsul Alam on Monday in the precincts of the High Court, publicly, in day-light, under the eyes of many and in a crowded building, breaks the silence which had settled on the country, in a fashion which all will deplore.... All we can do is to sit with folded hands and listen to the senseless objurgations of the Anglo-Indian Press, waiting for a time when the peaceful expression and organisation of our national aspirations will no longer be penalised. It is then that Terrorism will vanish from the country and the nightmare be as if it never had been.

Birendranath Datta Gupta was a revolutionary who had shot dead Deputy Superintendent Shamsul Alam in broad daylight. Shamsul Alam happened to be the prime investigator in the Alipore Bomb Case.

Durga Stotra 

'Durga Stotra' in Bengali was published in Dharma newspaper, No. 9, in October, 1909. It was translated in English as 'Hymn to Durga'.

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