Is this Imbroglio or Falsification? Let me read along with you the preface for The Lives of Sri Aurobindo and you will see that the tone is fixed right at the start. Our young author, who also did at that time taxi-driving in the US, once chanced to visit a Yoga centre where on the wall were three pictures. He narrates that one of them was the standard portrait of Aurobindo. “I was struck by the peaceful expanse of his brow, his trouble-free face, and fathomless eyes. It would be years before I learned that all of these features owed their distinctiveness to the retoucher’s art.” Later on, in the same preface, there is a long discussion about this “heavily retouched” photo which has been published millions of times, a photo which is a “botched piece of work”. The author concludes: “It is the task of the retoucher to make the photograph accord with the reality that people want to see.” This also means that, it is the task of a meticulous historian and researcher to expose all that is made up, and debunk what is easily accepted by the gullible. That looks pretty noble, and righteous indeed. And, obviously, the Mother should be faulted for allowing these millions of botched up photos to be distributed, photos with sparkling eyes painted. So the peaceful expanse of the brow, the trouble-free face, and the fathomless eyes were after all the artifacts, the work of art, and not the realities of the subject portrayed, not the authentic things, the details which are not there intrinsically but which emanated from the retoucher's imagination and skill. It’s a pity our author was fooled by it and, not long before, arrived at the Ashram. But let it be as it is. One thing however is patent enough: in one single stroke of aggressive falsehood he dismisses all that is spiritual and yogic in Sri Aurobindo. Is that imbroglio or distortion and falsification? ~ RYD