Chandulal Shah
(Amal Kiran:) “Closely connected with the Soup Ceremony was a series of meetings between the Mother and a few sadhaks in the Prosperity Room before she went down. If the Soup Ceremony had an air of Divine Gravity, the Prosperity Meeting may be considered to have had about it a breath of Divine Levity. It was enjoyable beyond description. The Mother came an hour before the Soup and sat down and attended first to the chits submitted for articles from the Stores. ...
We sat before the Mother in a rough semi-circle. But there was one exception. At the Mother's feet was a stool, and Chandulal, our Ashram engineer, somehow got to lie flat in front of the Mother with his head resting against the stool, and the soles of his feet displayed to us. (laughter). ‘Bite-bite’, the cat, often came and made herself comfortable on Chandulal's chest and he would try to talk to her in the endearing way the Mother used to address cats. His attempts were extremely funny to hear. All of us and the Mother herself laughed heartily. Chandulal was full of humour and sometimes of unconscious humour, odd turns of speech, strange combinations of words. Some of his pronouncements were quite memorable. I'll give a few examples. Once we had been waiting a long time in silent suspense for the Mother to come down to the room where the evening meditation took place. The effect which her appearance produced on us was summed up by Chandulal in the sentence: “We were all aghast.” How the Mother enjoyed this freakish expression! His character-reading of the first American lady to come to the Ashram – Janet McPheeters, renamed Shantimayi, who formed part of the Prosperity group – ran: “Frivolous in the eyes but serious in the back.” (laughter) She was puzzled as well as amused, until in less original English it was explained to her that he saw a seriousness of temper behind her apparent light-heartedness. On another occasion, he was discussing the repair of the ceiling of the room below the one across whose floor Sri Aurobindo used to walk vigorously, as he had done in the room of the old ‘Guest House’, where I later stayed for 10 years. Chandulal explained to the Mother in technical language that, if he used beams of a certain thickness, the would bear the moving load only of such and such a weight! (laughter) The Mother felt very tickled and Chandulal did not know why she and all of us laughed. At last it dawned on him that he had unwittingly referred to Sri Aurobindo!”[1]
(Surendranath Jauhar:) “ “Mother, my children are too small and you know there is no proper care, environment or atmosphere at home. Was it not possible that a Hostel could be opened for the children to be kept and taken care of.”
The Mother said, “Why not? If you want I can immediately do that.”
She quickly called Chandulal, the engineer of the Ashram, and asked him by making signs in the sky, “Chandulal, you know that dilapidated building at the back of the Playground?”
Chandulal said, “Yes, Mother.”
“In how much time can you clear the debris and raise a double-storeyed building on the spot?”
Chandulal, trembling, said, “Mother, in three months!”
The Mother said in a loud voice, “Three months! I want it within fifteen days!”
Chandulal said, “Alright Mother, alright Mother.” And perhaps within a few minutes or an hour the work was started and continued day and night, for fifteen days in three daily shifts. During the night, work was carried on under the dazzling lights of the gas-lamps.
Poor Chandulal! He was alone all the twenty-four hours there. HE never went to his room to sleep. He was supervising the work standing, dozing or sleeping simultaneously, perhaps sometime in the chair. His whole anxiety and concentration was to raise the structure within fifteen days as desired by the Mother.
The structure of the building was of course ready within fifteen days.”[2]
See also
- Prosperity Room meetings
- Vasudha Shah (Chandulal's sister)