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FULLER PORTRAITS
73 Of all the four fuller portraits, he tried to draw that of Sri Aurobindo with utmost care and concentration in order to make it the most impressive of all. But often it is found that what an author consciously seeks to do he fails to achieve or succeeds only half in achieving it. His unconscious psychology acts against his conscious intentions. He may not be really loving what he claims to be loving and he may not be hating what he thinks he hates. It may perhaps not be true to say that Milton unconsciously identified himself with Satan and glorified him, looking to the total Christian pattern of the whole epic and the theme of the Fall. But it is quite well-known that Thackeray intended to make Amelia the heroine of the Vanity Fair and present Becky Sharp in villainous light. But in effect, against his wishes, he realized Becky Sharp as the central character of the novel and one of the most fascinating creatures of creative imagination in the world literature. Amelia, compared to her, looks dull and lifeless. For him, nevertheless, Amelia is the heroine. For the readers, Becky Sharp is the heroine. In creative process, thus, the impulse of the heart does not obey the command of the head.
This is what seems to have happened in the case of Dilip Roy's portrayal of Sri Aurobindo and Krishnaprem, too. Consciously he wants to prove that he loved Sri Aurobindo the most, that is; next alone to God whose deputy to him, his guru had been. He wants to portray him accordingly. Krishnaprem comes next in his conscious estimation. But, in effect, nevertheless, what we see is, that Krishnaprem's portrait is more affectionately drawn than that of Sri Aurobindo. In his regard for Sri Aurobindo, the predominant ingredient is reverence, though love is not absent from it. In his regard for Sri Krishnaprem, it seems, though reverence is not absent, it is relegated into the background, and affection rules the foreground. To Roy Sri Aurobindo looked like a distant Himalayan peak whom he could rarely meet and whose height he could never dream of reaching. Sri Krishnaprem, on the other hand, was a bird of his own feather, a fellow-lover of Krishna, with whom, he could be intimate and confiding and effusive. Naturally, love appears at its best in friendship that we find between him and Krishnaprem, between him and Subhas. Consequently, these portraits appear to be, though less elaborate than that of Sri Aurobindo, certainly, more interesting. It seems, these come entirely from the heart. The elements of head do not dilute their emotional force. But Roy would not agree were he told that he loved his friends more than he loved Sri Aurobindo.
Lytton Strachey, in his well-known biography, Queen Victoria, 133 has presented all the facts of the queen's life chronologically. But, he is completely objectve in his presentation. Any kind of the biographer's own feeling for his subject has no place in his work.
Boswell's parallel naturally comes to the mind when we read Dilip Roy, for he, too, had been, a hero-worshipper, determined to make Dr. Johnson immortal.
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