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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy secluded in a Swiss village. But people visited him from all the parts of the world. He welcomed everybody whole-heartedly and helped them in solving their problems. Roy found that Rolland lived his life to realize an ideal, similar to that of Terence, the Roman poet. Terence's ideal was: “I am a man, I count nothing human indifferent to me."17
Rolland attained greatness in his life because he was always open to the influence of great people on him. He admired, as Roy lists, Sophocles, Euripides, Beethoven, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Shakespeare, Rabidranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Russell, Einstein, Lenin and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. He wrote biographies of some of these great persons too.
In addition, his love for Indian spiritual heritage and great seekers after truth was almost boundless. Dilip Roy saw the French translations of the Gita, the Upanishads and books on Buddhism in his library. He told the author that Hindu philosophy had ever been a source of inspiration to him. He yearned to visit India once, but his yearning remained unfulfilled. In one of his letters to Tagore, he wrote:
“Dear Friend, how much I would like to come and see you in India? All the movements of my mind tend towards that direction. I fear I shall not be able to carry out this plan this winter. But I hope for voyage to Asia and a stay at Santiniketan. I have so much to learn from you! And I believe that I shall have there a mission to fulfil, a predetermined duty till the end of my life. The union of Europe and Asia must be, in the centuries to come, the most noble task of mankind. As for myself, India from now on is not a foreign land, she is the greatest of all countries, the ancient country from which once I came. I find
her again deep inside me". 18 On October 1, 1924, he wrote to Dilip Roy:
"Among the Europeans I find myself rather isolated in so far as my outlook on India is concerned. The majority here repeat blindly and stubbornly: "Asia is Asia and Europe is Europe"....And I am persuaded, friend Roy, that I must have descended down the slopes of the Himalayas along with those
victorious Aryans. I feel their blue blood in my veins."19
A few of Romain Rolland's letters printed in Among the Great express in their every line his scholarship and wisdom. They also mark the clarity and originality of Rolland's thinking. His refined style and authencity of views impress the reader very much. His genuine concern for the bright career of the author is often reflected in them.
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