Inauguration of the First Phase building 08.08.1999
Nirodbaran's talk at the inauguration of Savitri Bhavan
on August 8, 1999
 Dear
Friends, Savitri Bhavan team-members particularly..
We were very happy to receive your
invitation, and share your happiness at the completion of
the first section of the complex, your successful endeavour.
It reminds me of the year when you invited me to lay the
Foundation Stone of the Savitri Bhavan. This time the Bhavan
has become a building, and once again I have the honour
of inaugurating it ... because I was 'the scribe of Savitri'
- as it says here on the invitation. But I'm not sure what
a scribe has to do with the inauguration. The answer may
follow, if I have found the right one.
Some of you may be curious to know -
here on the invitation it mentions Dr. Nirodbaran. So what
has Dr. Nirodbaran got to do with the scribe? I remember
when I first came to meet Sri Aurobindo as a doctor, after
his accident: he said, "Nirod is no doctor to me. He
has come to serve me." Those were his very words. How
I have served, well or ill, I don't know who will judge.
But I have done my best, in spite of many pitfalls and errors.
Now we come to the next step, when I
became a scribe. It happened because, as you know, after
all his voluminous writing Sri Aurobindo's eyesight was
failing. He could not see properly, he could not see even
the big clock on the wall. So then Mother came to the rescue
as she always does and said, "Nirod will help you.
You will dictate and Nirod will write now." I
don't think she used the word scribe. So from then on, Sri
Aurobindo used to dictate, I would write down his words,
copy them, and then the mater would go to Nolinida, to make
a fair copy or to type. This was the procedure. I have written
about all this [in Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo], but
still quite a number of you may not know all these interesting
details.) And then when it was almost finished, Sri Aurobindo
asked me, if I remember correctly, "Is there anything
more to be done?" I answered, "Yes - the
Book of Death." He said, "That we shall
see later." That is the way in which, avoiding
the straight answer, he kept us in suspense. But he knew
that he would not see it again: whatever remained, remained.
 This
is what he has done. And this are the two things he has
said about me: first "He has come to serve me";
and second "Nirod is no doctor to me."
So doctoring I did, scribe I have also
been, in the best way I could. I have the satisfaction,
whatever anyone may say, that I have done the scribing to
the best of my capacity. Today you know, there is a big
storm going on in India: people are saying that the sanctity
of Savitri has been lost, because we have interfered here
and there. You know what is happening, but we don't care
for it. We have done our work, and we are responsible to
the Mother and to Sri Aurobindo. This is the way the thing
has been done. That is all I have to say.
I am very happy to see that a large
number of people have responded to the invitation from these
wonderful workers, very sincere people, who have done their
best, so that as we can see in a very short time the Savitri
Bhavan is coming up. And there is no doubt about it that
the Savitri Bhavan will go on growing, and soon we shall
all be very happy to receive again another invitation in
four or five years time. But I'm sorry, by that time my
soul will be, I hope, with the Lord. That is all I have
to say.
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