Dhanavanti Nagda: In Memoriam by Anurag Banerjee

“Whenever I recall the grandiose pose of Sri Aurobindo as I saw him during the Darshan days, with his arms out to the sides and his feet coming close together, I am reminded of the shape of India. He appeared to me like the Himalayas with his hair flowing like the rivers.” This is how Dhanavanti Nagda, one of the seniormost inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, who left her body for her onward journey on Tuesday, 1st August 2023, had described Sri Aurobindo to the present author during the course of a conversation many years ago. Many of the blessed souls who had the fortune of having the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo has recounted that Sri Aurobindo reminded them of the Himalayas but it requires the eyes of an artist—a genuine artist—to visualize Sri Aurobindo’s posture as the very shape of India. This was the uniqueness of Dhanavanti for not only was she a marvellous artist but she had the eyes of a seer and a heart of unalloyed gold.

Dhanavanti was born to Purvai and Visanji Nagda on 11 January 1934. Her father was a Jain scholar and seeker who came to know of Sri Aurobindo Ashram from a friend in the 1930s. He visited Pondicherry with his wife, eldest daughter Kusum and Dhanavanti (who was then just a year old) in 1935 and had the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In those days children were not allowed to enter the premises of the Ashram Main Building. But one could have the Darshan of the Mother when she appeared on the balcony situated at the back of the Ashram Main Building every day around six in the morning. Resting in her mother’s arm, Dhanavanti had her first Darshan of the Mother about which—she had told the present author—she had a ‘very indistinct memory’.

The Nagdas would visit Pondicherry regularly to have the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They would take a train from Chennai (known as Madras in those days) to reach Pondicherry. There was a station named Chinnababusamudhram where the French territory began (Pondicherry was a French territory till 1954) and even as a child, Dhanavanti could feel the influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as soon as the station was reached. To quote her own words as narrated to the present author in February 2009: “I started feeling the influence of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo or this Ashram; something stretching that far and touching us in such a way that we started preparing ourselves for the Darshan right from there as visitors. On landing at the station, we used to have someone to come and receive us from the Ashram. It was marvellous! Any sadhak who came to visit us was a blessing too. And then we prepared ourselves—we came right here for this Darshan. It was all the time a preparation but after coming into the atmosphere of the Ashram itself, it was a  complete  cleaning, a  complete  purity, a  peace, a  wonderful  love  that  we  felt  just  by entering the Ashram. And when we stood in front of those two Figures—well, it was finished. We were transformed. Their eyes transformed us. This word “transformation” can mean much to the mind but I would like to say that when I went and stood in front of Them, I got transformed, whatever that was. I don’t want to understand with the mind what it was because my body knows what it was and it was the greatest Grace that I have known in my life: to stand in front of those two Figures. Call them Divine or whatever adjective you can find more than the Divine. That experience was just beyond words. We lived it and that is the most I can have in my life.”

Dhanavanti’s elder sister Kusum wanted to join the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to be with the Mother. With an aunt of her who never quite agreed to any other religion apart from Jainism, she arrived at Pondicherry on 22 June 1942. After a few months, when it was time for Kusum to return to her hometown, the Mother told her father Visanji that she was not going back and that she had already kept a room ready for her. Thus, Kusum became a permanent inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and in November 1943, she was joined by her younger sister Dhanavanti who was then nine years of age. Both the sisters became the first batch of students when the Ashram School was formally started in December 1943 by the Mother.  

While recalling her recollections of Sri Aurobindo, Dhanavanti had told the present author that whenever she saw Sri Aurobindo, she felt seeing the Virat Purusha [Vast Being]. “That one human figure” she would add, “held the entire universe in Himself. He gave us that feeling of totality; the big, big embrace…You know, Sri Aurobindo has a poem, The Blue Bird, where he says: “I measure the worlds with my ruby eyes”. I think he measured us always with those “ruby eyes”, loving, compassionate eyes. His compassion was such that it transformed your little self… So that was the gaze — the gaze that told you and poured into your eyes all the strength and the perseverance you will be needing to become something more than man. But then when you stood in front of them [Sri Aurobindo and the Mother] you did feel transformed and for those few moments you were. It is now for us to find and feel them the way we did then and it is our sacred task to make of those moments become the whole life. May we take the resolve in all sincerity. THEY ARE THERE, seated on the sofa of our heart.”  

While she was still a student, Dhanavanti became a teacher at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. On 7 April 1954 she was informed by the Mother that there were some children who were about to join the Ashram School; as the next term of the school was still eight months away and the Mother did not want them to waste their time, she asked Dhanavanti whether she would teach them French—the medium of instruction in the Ashram School—so that they could become well-versed in it by the time the classes began. Dhanavanti readily agreed and from the very next day (8 April 1954) she started her life as a teacher of French. She was then aged twenty. Years later, she would recall: “Things were so simple in those days. The Mother wished and ordered and everyone worked to execute her wish in perfect harmony and full collaboration.”

From 1955 Dhanavanti started to teach Mathematics to the young students of the Ashram School and later became a teacher of Art, Science and English as well. For a couple of years she taught French Auxiliary which was meant for the new students who had to be prepared to start their other classes. In French Auxiliary, there were pupils at varied grade levels who had to be brought up to the appropriate level by the teachers. As there were no text books the teachers had to think of their own course work for every student. Dhanavanti found immense joy in taking up such a challenging assignment.

In 1954 Dhanavanti started to take lessons in painting and drawing from Krishnalal Bhatt and Jayantilal Parekh, both being reputed artists and senior members of the Ashram community. Although Nature provided to her a continuous source of joy and inspiration, it was the human face ‘with its ever changing expressions’ and the physical body ‘so full of grace and strength’ that fascinated the artist in Dhanavanti. That is why portraits were her favourites. Moreover, she loved to sketch from life and would ‘catch in a few lines the various moods and modes of life, the movement and the throb, to gather life in from everywhere and everyone.’ (Meditation in Colour, p. 6, 1978) But at one point of time she realized that this ‘gathering’ was no longer satisfying her. An urge to search within and find grew more and more intense. She wanted to say ‘something’ in the language of line and colour. What this ‘something’ was and how it should be expressed became clearer to her as she advanced on the path. Following a spiritual experience in 1956, she found a new meaning in art. To quote her own words:

‘It was probably sometime in 1956 when I was in such a questioning state, trying to decipher if I had gone wrong in the subtlest of my being’s movements. To be able to do that I see myself with a powerful torch in hand, flashing the light in the chamber of my heart, examining every nook and corner to see if there is an iota of dust anywhere, a spot of dirt to efface. I find none. My eyes squint to see, my mind wonders, ‘Why then?’ And the answer comes as a picture along with a voice echoing “It is all fine. It is like this.” And I see a cascade dropping from a good height, vertically down. I can hear the gushing waters, feel the fresh spray on my face, a joy welling up within. The picture of the waterfall was so clear, so throbbing that I had to paint then and there. I called it ‘Pure and Puissant’. Later when we decided to print a card of this picture, Mother called it ‘Descent of the light’. It was then I realized that it was possible to express an inner state triggered by some happening in real life, to get a pictorial answer to your question. It was indeed a revealing experience. LIFE becoming ART and ART LIFE.’ (Tapasyā: Hymns in Colour, pp. 76-77, 2008)

In 1960 Dhanavanti had another spiritual experience while she was reading the following lines of Sri Aurobindo: ‘The heavens beyond are great and wonderful but greater and more wonderful are the heavens within you. It is these Edens that await the divine worker.’ The depth and extent of the meaning of these words became a web around her slowly and silently. These experiences enabled her to go within and gradually she put on canvas what she felt.

Once, when Dhanavanti had taken her paintings to the Mother, the latter looked at them for some time and then told her while caressing her head: “My child, you have something here. But when it passes from here”—the Mother slid her hand from Dhanavanti’s head to shoulder, arm and caught her finger—“to here, something gets lost. So you have to be conscious to the tip of your fingers.” And Dhanavanti recalls that the Mother held her hands, looked into her eyes and poured all the force she required on the entire journey of her life not only to carry on but also to reach the goal.

Dhanavanti realized that to become conscious to the tip of her fingers, she had to stop thinking and establish an inner tranquility throughout her entire being so that the inner vision could express itself through her fingers. This realization ushered in a change in her paintings which became expressions of her inner experiences and visions.

In 1958 Dhanavanti, along with her parents and brother Pravin, became permanent inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Towards the end of 1963 Dhanavanti decided not to take any more classes in the Ashram School so that she could devote her time to look after her ailing mother. Following the demise of her mother in April 1964, Dhanavanti met the Mother and told her that she was now willing to accept whatever work the Mother would allot to her. The Mother asked her to work with Abhay Singh Nahar.

Abhay Singh Nahar (30 April 1924—14 August 2001) had joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram as an inmate in 1940 at the age of sixteen. He started working in the Atelier—the workshop of the Ashram—and in due course of time became its In-charge. One of the most able lieutenants of the Mother, she entrusted him with nineteen departments which he managed very efficiently. Dhanavanti worked in the office of the Atelier. Her first work involved arranging a big cupboard filled with various sorts of automobile parts and other related objects. Gradually other duties were allotted to her at the Atelier.

From 1964 to 1977 Dhanavanti worked in the Atelier. Following a disagreement with the Trustees of the Ashram, Abhay Singh resigned from all the departments which were under his charge. As no specific work was allotted to Dhanavanti at the Atelier after Abhay Singh’s resignation, she gradually stopped working in it.

Meanwhile, Dhanavanti continued to paint. An exhibition of her paintings was arranged in Kolkata by a Bengali gentleman. Her artistic creations won many a heart but she had stipulated that none of her paintings should be sold. Another exhibition was arranged at Brazil by a friend. Dhanavanti visited Brazil where she stayed for about three months during which she delivered talks and conducted workshops involving a fusion of painting and the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Her exhibition of paintings was also successful. She sold some of her paintings at Brazil to meet the expenses for traveling and accommodation and to give gifts to the organizers of the exhibition. The remaining sum was donated by her to Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

One of Dhanavanti’s critics had made the following observation about her paintings: ‘There is a reflection in her paintings of the consciousness of the mystical world. The source of her inspiration is the awareness of the great ether. Truly speaking there is in Dhanavanti’s paintings a colourful and beautiful manifestation of the awareness of the cosmic world, which is the world of her spiritual ideas. The way in which she has used colours betray an exceptional genius. Mystery surrounds her corn positions—ideas tending towards a beyond. Her paintings can be accepted as extraordinary works of art.’

In 1978 Dhanavanti’s first book—a collection of her paintings—was published entitled Meditation in Colour. It was followed by another book of paintings entitled Tapasyā: Hymns in Colour in 2008. In the introduction to this book, Christine Devin had aptly remarked:

‘Dhanavanti’s universe could be described by some as a world of dreams, but others will recognize it as the luminous region to which the soul can fly as soon as, freed from the net of the ego, it is at liberty to spread its wings. In this universe, beings of a golden hue coming from the far end of the cosmos dive into Life, let themselves be burnt by it, and then come out of it purified and transfigured. Fluid forms grasp the light, play with it as innocent children play with a ball, or dance around the galaxies. A divine couple, lying in the boat of the moon sails through the Milky Way. A rain of light spreads its arch of love between heaven and earth. Human arms are being extended in a great urge to grasp the infinite. All these figures are only energy, movement. They stretch to the extreme point in order to hug the round, the spiral, the totality. The sprout becomes spurt, then curve, then embrace, and finally dance. We journey through the cosmos, we swim amidst stars and comets and at the same time we penetrate deep into the innermost recesses of the human heart. The infinitely vast has met the infinitely small…

‘Dhanavanti’s paintings are mystical journeys, discoveries of the invisible, landscapes seen only by the inner eye. They constitute a unique artistic approach, because precisely it is an approach that is not only artistic. Born from meditation, they bear its serene and burning imprint. To look at them is to deepen one’s vision.’ (p. 6)

Another critic—Rolf Gelewski—had commented:

‘To speak about Dhanavanti’s paintings means speaking about the crescent manifestation of a being’s inwardness, a being’s secret worlds. Delicate worlds still in formation, growing out of soul-intuitions and experiences, visions, dreams and the awakening of mighty forgotten knowledge.

‘These are uncommon worlds, worlds of their own, peopled by the seeds, germs and youth-plants of a soul’s evolving dynamism. They spread under a love-might’s steady gaze, are moved by the smiles and rains of grace and visited by the first rays’ mercy of a rapturous sun.

‘Buds of purity grow, burst, bloom. Flowers blossom. And in the flower’s blossoming a hidden burning heart reveals its colours and intensities. Through soul-forests towards secret goals, figures walk in landscapes of the subtle’s regions along dreamt greens and white and golds. Whirl-concentrations and streaming shapes invoke the great Mother’s presence. Candles flame. Incense. And beings in dance-like swings and flights mirror the ecstasy of ever-sunlight heights.’ (Ibid., p. 70)

At times there were complaints from art-critics that no struggle can be observed in the paintings of Dhanavanti. The following incident was narrated to the present author by Dhanavanti. Once, when she had shown a power-point presentation of her paintings, a young man had told her: “Madam, you know nothing about life. You do not know poverty. You live in your Ashram, well protected, so you paint these flying figures.” Dhanavanti replied: “Look here, there is struggle in life, and I know there is struggle in life. So you want me to paint the struggle again and show you the struggle of life? No, I want to give two drops of joy. You accept me or reject me, I do not care. But I will give you two drops of joy. So for me art is something which is my contribution to life, it is not the struggle but the end of the struggle. Behind this flying figure there is a long walk on all kinds of terrain. And I am giving you not the walk but the result of the walk. The joy you have when you reach the top of the mountain. I want to give that happiness only. I will give only two drops of joy; accept it or reject it.”

In 1985 Dhanavanti established an embroidery production unit which produced the finest quality of work based on her designs. This venture continued for almost a decade. Afterwards, she translated several poems of Sundaram, the reputed Gujarati poet and inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, from Gujarati into English which were published by Gujarat Sahitya Academy under the title of Selected Poems of Sundaram in 2001.

The present author had met Dhanavanti Nagda for the first time in February 2009. At that time he was working on his book Sri Aurobindo As We Saw Him and interviewing people who had seen Sri Aurobindo. Kusum Nagda, Dhanavanti’s elder sister, had introduced him to her and was also kind enough to fix up an appointment with her. What began as a formal interaction between an inquisitive researcher and a senior member of the Ashram community blossomed into a very intimate relationship within no time. Her studio—which was always charged with a spiritual vibration—was a special place for him as it housed not only her paintings but also two “living” photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother placed on two chairs used by them. One evening, in February 2009, when the present author visited her apartments, he found Dhanavanti seated on a cane chair near the photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and listening to the Mother’s organ music. He quietly entered the room and sat on the floor facing the photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. There was an inexplicable atmosphere in the room. When the organ music ended and he rose up to greet Dhanavanti, she said: “Do you know what I saw? Sri Aurobindo and the Mother came out of their photographs and blessed you.” This utterance naturally led him to the seventh heaven of ecstasy but on that very night, he developed such a high fever that he was confined to his bed for the next two or three days.   

The present author was given the freedom to visit her residence whenever he wanted and eventually became her confidante. She radiated a love which could melt even a stone! Her affectionate touch was like a cool breeze which calmed down a burning heart. She was very sweet although at times she could be rigid. She would share with him not only her memorable moments with the Mother or forgotten incidents of yesteryears but also her own grievances and sorrows. She was lonely—terribly lonely—and found utmost joy whenever someone visited her.

Dhanavanti visited Kolkata in March 2014 and gave a talk at Sri Aurobindo Sakti Centre (New Alipore, Kolkata) in the evening of 20th March. She kept the audience glued to their seats for almost two hours with her fragrant recollections of Sri Aurobindo. She was quite fond of Partha Sarathi Bose, the Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Sakti Centre, whom she lovingly called “Naughty Boy”.

Dhanavanti would keenly follow and observe the various activities of Overman Foundation. She would regularly write to the present author encouraging emails expressing her appreciation of the work conducted by the Foundation. For instance, on 7 January 2013, she wrote:

‘Dear Anurag,

Thanks for your wishes for 2013.

Have been thinking of you a lot, telling you ‘Bonne Annee Anurag’ umpteen times in my mind. These words come naturally to us because Mother used to bless us that way for the new year.
Yes and I did also wish you so much else silently. Let me see if I can scribble a part of it.
From our very first meeting I always see you heading a very big organisation, something new,
absolutely original, a very conscious effort to live differently, in a manner as natural as the blooming of a flower, with not a single man-made discipline killing the bloom like a fertilising element.

‘I do strongly feel, Anurag, we need to get back to our own real nature, that which I feel we have lost in the plethora of facilities given us to acquire not knowledge (light) but information only. So much is so easily at hand that all these facilities have rather become means of escaping from our real self. We have to work to see that we do not hide ourselves from our own real self.

I do not know if I will be there to have a glimpse of what the foundation you are heading will achieve. But I do wish you a great future, a goal reached in absolute confidence and conviction, in peace, harmony—a Lila, like that of “an eternal child playing  an eternal game in an eternal garden.”
Wish you Good Luck from the deeps of my being. All my love.’

On another occasion, while commenting on the obituaries written by the present author, Dhanavanti had written on 29 March 2014: ‘The love and labour you put into these obituaries are remarkable. There is such a lovely warmth. I witness therein a child’s open, pure heart. Keep it up Anurag, all through life. All my love.’

On 17 May 2014 Dhanavanti wrote: ‘Dear Anurag, You are very much present here since the last two days. It is nice to have u in that subtle way. But it is a palpable presence. Hope all is fine with you and all your works, enterprises are going on fine. Always with you. Do give a little note to say how is everything. Can you do that busy body? I will appreciate. Love.’

When the present author lost her mother in October 2016, Dhanavanti wrote to him several mails trying to provide solace. On 31 October she wrote:  

‘Dearest child, 

Just read the sad news.

At a certain moment words sound hollow and I will not get into a void verbiage.

All I know and understand is that Anurag true to his name will keep on marching with love, growing, imparting, disseminating wonderful messages for a life differently lived, leading  towards a better world where men and women understand each other and live in perfect harmony in tune with their innermost self.

I wish you today all the courage, perseverance and love needed to carry on and arrive.

Your mother will be showering her blessings from wherever she is and I am sure she is in peace.

All my love.’

On 1 November 2016, she wrote:

‘Dear Anurag,

I hope you are feeling a little better today. Thought of you all the time trying to guess what you may be doing and telling again and again: “Your mother throbs with every beat of your heart, flows in the veins, schemes with you in your mind for the next work and new projects, is happy when you smile…” I know right now you will need a herculean effort just to smile.  But you will do it for her sake.

You know how to drown yourself in work. That I feel is the best way for the present.

Am with you, sharing… praying intensely you can get back to your routine like before as early as possible. All my love.’

The following email she had sent on 10 November 2016:

‘Sweet One,

Was going to ring you. But I thought let me just have a look. There may be some word from Anurag. And there you were.

Wishing you all the time peace and strength to carry on with your life and works. You have a lot to do and the tough times will have to vanish and they will.

Sending you 3 lines of a poem I have recently translated from Gujarati:

“… The blood that in my veins circles up and down

Is my prayer in a rhythmic, luminous sway uttered in silence….”

Bonne Nuit Anurag. Wake up to a more smiling dawn. Love. Dhanavanti.’

On 14 November 2016 she wrote the following email:

‘Very dear Anurag,

It was nice to hear you yesterday. Your voice gave me such a respite. I am sure now on it will  be better and better.

Drown yourself into your work, totally, without the slightest reserve, leaving it all in the hands of Sri Aurobindo. And just you watch!  With what wisdom you will be lead. Abandon yourself But work we must and I know you will do it. Good luck all the way. All my love.’

Spending time with Dhanavanti rejuvenated a tired heart and an unhappy soul. The love and affection she would shower acted as a pain-reliever. She was a child at heart and with childlike simplicity and enthusiasm she would show her paintings and explain the message she conveyed through them. She never spoke ill of anyone but only one occasion, in March 2019, she expressed her anguish to the present author over an incident which had hurt her so deeply that she beseeched him to take her to Kolkata so that she could spend her remaining days there.

After the demise of Kusum Nagda on 12 May 2019, Dhanavanti began to devote time at Laboratoires Senteurs of which Kusum was the In-charge. Following the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, when the present author wrote to her inquiring about her well-being (as she had become hard of hearing, she could not hear anything over the phone), she answered on 4 April 2020:

‘Thank you for your mail.  You were forced to write it because I wrote a number of times lately without scribbling them on the computer screen. 

We are already in the new world and we can communicate without a wire and a machine…Let us try and belong to the New.

Does that tell you how I am in the pandemic situation? True, the trial the planet is going through is not at all a pleasant one. But the world did need badly a purge, a cleansing.

Nature has found her own way of a global expelling of the centuries old accumulated rotting, dying dross.  A very conscious power is working. I do hope and pray man will wake up and collaborate integrally.

I am reminded Anurag of the last lines of a poem I sent you one day.  It is from Umashankar Joshi’s poem entitled THE WORN-OUT WORLD. 

“… From the heap of the dead past,

Fashion a new brand of bold awakened men.

Let the world rejoice echoing the thunder-laugh of the Conscious ONE.”

I hope I have not been too long. I have written what my being in the depths is experiencing. Good Luck to all humanity.

With love. Dhanavanti.”

On 15 April 2020, Dhanavanti sent to me the following email: ‘When I try to understand the way things and events are unfurling, I feel there is a silent, secret purpose and all of us have to be very vigilant, open to it. To make the best of the situation, we have to learn to really collaborate, not with any particular person or a particular cause, but with THAT which is working behind. Touch THAT and proceed. A wonderful opportunity for Sadhana. Your service to the underprivileged was a ‘…touch THAT and proceed’. Congratulations.’

When it was announced that Sri Aurobindo’s room would reopen after two years for the Darshan of 24th April 2022, the present author visited Pondicherry. When he inquired about Dhanavanti, he was informed that she had become somewhat disoriented. He met her at the Ashram Nursing Home on the day before her brother Pravin, who was also admitted there, passed away. It seemed that she could recognize the present author for a fraction of a second and then began to speak incoherently. It was evident that she had begun to lose her memory.

In August 2022, when the present author visited Pondicherry for the Darshan of 15th, he saw Dhanavanti on a wheelchair near the Ashram Playground. When he visited her apartments at the Atelier on 14th August to meet her, he was informed by her attendant that following a bad fall some weeks ago, she can hardly walk and had stopped recognizing people. She was talking all the time in Gujarati and sometimes in English but whatever she said made no sense at all. But that smile of her—that radiant smile which could eradicate all grief in an instant—was still there and her eyes still radiated the same old sweetness.

The author visited Dhanavanti at her residence in February 2023 with a friend. By that time, she was bed-ridden and slept most of the time. When he sat at her bedside and began to massage her legs gently, a smile appeared on her sleeping face. Evidently, she liked her legs being massaged. After about twenty minutes the author took his leave with the certainty that it was his last meeting with Dhanavanti. And he was not wrong. On Tuesday, 1 August 2023, Dhanavanti left her physical body.

The Mother had told Dhanavanti that she ought to be conscious to the tip of her fingers. This advice, Dhanavanti had once said, was not only a lesson for a lifetime but also for a number of lives to come. To quote her own words: “I am sure I will carry it beyond this physical frame of mine, re-remember and live, even as I have tried to in this life. My soul is a chirayatri, eternally on pilgrimage, from life to life and when on earth, from day to day, moment to moment. Everything I do here is to lay a road for that ‘nameless immaculate’. My paintings are my footsteps, my journey.’

Dhanavanti-ben—as she was lovingly called—would continue to live in her paintings and in the hearts of those who loved truly her.

_____________

The Mother on 6 January 1952 after inaugurating the Centre of Education. Also seen in this photograph: with the Mother are Sumitra Nahar, Amrita, Suprabha Nahar, Lilou, Sujata Nahar, Krishnakumari, Sisir Kumar Mitra, Norman Dowsett, Pavitra, Chandrakant, Udar Pinto, Dakshinapada Bhattacharya, Shanti Doshi, Dyuman, Jyotin, Vishwanath Lahiri, Soli Albess and Dhanavanti Nagda (the one with plaits standing in front).

Same as above. Also seen with the Mother are: Udar Pinto, Sisir Kumar Mitra, Lilou, Amrita, Suprabha Nahar, Sumitra Nahar, Sujata Nahar, Tara Jauhar, Parul Chakraborty, Krishnakumari, Nolini Kanta Gupta, Shane, Norman Dowsett, Dakshinapada Bhattacharya, Shanti Doshi, Usha M, Ajji, Dhanavanti Nagda, Dyuman, Bibhash, Sunil Bhattacharya, Narendra Jauhar, Arun, Mrityunjoy Mukherjee, Soli Albess, Bubu Ganguli, Jhumur Bhattacharya and Dhanavanti Nagda (standing extreme left).

From left to right: Anurag Banerjee, Late Chitra Bose (erstwhile Principal of Sri Aurobindo Bal Mandir and Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Sakti Centre, New Alipore, Dhanavanti Nagda and Partha Sarathi Bose, present Principal of Sri Aurobindo Bal Mandir and Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Sakti Centre.

Anurag Banerjee with Dhanavanti Nagda

A selfie with Dhanavanti Nagda on 29 November 2018

A selfie with Dhanavanti Nagda on 10 March 2019

Dhanavanti Nagda on 14 August 2022

A Few Paintings of Dhanavanti Nagda: