'Bharati'⁷⁰

Poet, patriot, savant, awakener of Tamil Nad — Bharati is all these. When his political life fell under the shadow of danger, he fled in 1908 to Pondicherry, then a French settlement. For some time he was lost to the public eye, and his life was poverty-stricken.

In 1910 occurred a stroke of Providence. Aurobindo Ghose of Bengal was no more in the vortex of politics. The presiding Deity of Pondicherry housed the fiery apostle of Indian Nationalism not only peacefully but also cheerfully.

The opportunity was too good to be missed. For years, when the sun would go down, Bharati would go to Sri Aurobindo's place to bask in the sunshine of his affection. Under that great influence, his head began to teem with national songs which brought him, in after years, transcendental praise. Sri Aurobindo taught him how to vision the country as the Mother personified. Bharati saw that, while mankind was engrossed in the immediate, Sri Aurobindo was devoted to the Ultimate. It was Sri Aurobindo who so very kindly helped him to launch into the Vedic mysteries, and made him at home in ancient literatures. Let us listen to Prema Nandakumar, an authority on Bharati and a student of Sri Aurobindo, describe the relation between the two: "…a spellbinder, an inspiration, a veritable Krishna to the neophyte Arjuna."