883 / 1424
883
Roger A when he comes; but I still feel exactly the same about the whole idea of it:
an unnecessary and irrelevant expense of monumental decoration, with no essential
purpose behind it…
… I know I must get myself together, as regards the work at Matrimandir. By
letting myself fall apart, I have allowed for neglect and mistakes, and I have felt so
bad about it. Now there is this difficult last row of marble to complete with Selvam,
and there is the shuttering work for the pillar extension, and it is imperative that I
clear my own atmosphere for it to go well. Otherwise I’d better hand it over to
someone who is more sincere and more capable of serving the work…
*16-10-1989, Auroville:
Dhanapal woke me up at midnight, looking for Selvam. Two youth have run away
and he thought Selvam would know where to find them. It was odd to see that
Dhanapal thought nothing of looking for Selvam here, in the dead of night, with all
lights off – it would have meant that Selvam sleeps here… While Selvam would
cringe away from such a thought!
Yesterday I have seen more clearly what has happened; my emotional vital being,
that had been kept sort of prisoner, was called out, let out, and experienced, for
the first time, what it is to be simply happy with someone else, to be interested in
it, to feel young in it; it felt accepted, and that it could love and be used and have a
place… The energy of it was alight in the body as well. And then it appeared that in
fact it wasn’t so: it could not be accepted as it is. And the pain of this realisation, of
having to return inside the prison, of being denied again, after having tasted the
possibility of freedom, was quite unbearable…
… John H said to me this morning that the past week has been so difficult for him at
all levels that it was all he could do to just hold himself together… Perhaps then we
have all been under some heavier wave?
… Selvam came with the story: his friend Ayanar who has run away with Bhooma’s
daughter Tushita, was trying to get a marriage done, because she is already some
five months pregnant; and my dear Selvam, always ready to help and be
responsible for others, without checking it out with me, got so involved that he
decided to take the girl to the hospital for an abortion, rather than letting them
marry so young… His intentions were right, but what of the risks? I reacted strongly
and blasted him, but…
*17-10-1989, Auroville:
Part of me wants to split, to move away from him. Part of me feels the deep call in
him, like the truth of him, resounding in me all the time, saying to me that I cannot
leave him… There is also something in him of an olden times’ knight…
He called me urgently from Pondy; the girl was in some critical condition and the
doctor and the staff had to be paid… When I reached there, the girl had finally
aborted, and was resting; everything was more or less alright. Selvam was
satisfied! But I fought him for two hours, over every issue between us… I asked him
what he really wanted from me. Friendship, he says; not to be alone; to be shown
another way, he says; to go on together, he says…
And his sweetness, and a kind of integrity in him, his statement of himself, do me
in again…
… I went then to visit with N in the Central prison. He was obviously very moved
and very relieved to see me. He seems to be quieter, and clearer in himself.