Reading Diversity

Additional English Textbook

for

First Year Undergraduate Students

Department of English

Christ

Deemed to be University

Bangalore -29

2019

(For Private Circulation Only)

 FOREWORD

This compilation is an attempt by the Department of English, Christ Deemed to be

University to recognize and bring together the joy and aesthetics of Indian Writing in English
and Indian regional literatures in translation. The texts put together range from all regions of
India Pakistan and Sri Lanka for students of Additional English in the first year. This book titled
Reading Diversity aims to familiarize the students with regional literatures in translation and
other Indian Writing in English (IWE), thereby, enabling the students to learn more about Indian
and South Asian culture and ethos through writings from different regions of the Indian
subcontinent. This would help them to read the discourses and differences of a diverse India they
live in and enable them to negotiate with it.

The first semester essays begin with an excerpt from Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swarajto
familiarize the foundations of Indian civilization.The second semester has an essay by Salman
Rushdie on Mahatma Gandhi to understand the relevance of Gandhi. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s
autobiographical extractdeals with human relationships both personal and professional and
touches upon notions of integrity and respect for one another and dalit realities. The various
essays across the two semesters deal with various social, economic and political issues that are
relevant to modern day India and it helps us to negotiate with everyday situations in a more
proactive way. The various short stories and poems touch upon questions of self and identity,
human interactions and social relationships sometimes in a straightforward manner, sometimes in
an abstract way. But all of them be it in the manner of their writing or the themes they deal with
or the ideologies that govern them are quintessentially Indian in ethos, sense and sensibility,
whether written by Indians or authors from Srilanka and Pakistan

We hope all of you enjoy this edition as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you, our
young students.
 Acknowledgements

The Syllabus Committee: Dr. Ambika Sukhtankar, Dr. Abilash Chandran, Dr. Edwin
Jeevaraj, Mr. Biju I. P and Ms. Sreelatha R would like to thank the Department of English for the
support they extended in the development of this syllabus. We would like to thank, also, the
Centre for Publications for the wonderful and timely help in the printing and publishing of this
compilation.
We thank Siri Manasa Poluru (III BA EPS) for her help in typing the texts assigned to her
and submitting it on time. The contribution of each member of the syllabus committee who have
put the texts, glossary and questions to comprehend for the students are also acknowledged here.
The management of Christ Deemed to be University has always been with us in all our
attempts to develop course content for our students. We thank all of them who have stood with
us in this endeavor of bring the textbook for the batch of 2019 first year Additional English
students.

Sreelatha R for the Syllabus Committee

 CONTENTS

SEMESTER I

POETRY

1. Keki N Daruwala “Migrations”

2. Kamala Das “Forest Fire”

3. Agha Shahid Ali “Snow on the Desert”

4. Eunice D Souza “Marriages are Made”

SHORT STORIES

5. Rabindranath Tagore “Babus of Nayanjore”

6. Ruskin Bond “He said it with Arsenic”

7. Bhisham Sahni “The Boss Came to Dinner”

8. N. Kunjamohan Singh “The Taste of Hilsa”

9. Mohan Thakuri “Post Script”

ESSAYS

10. Mahatma Gandhi “What is True Civilization?” (Excerpts from Hind Swaraj)

11. Ela Bhatt “Organising for Change”

12. Sitakant Mahapatra “Beyond the Ego: New Values for a Global Neighborhood

13. B R Ambedkar “Waiting for A Visa”

SEMESTER II

POETRY

1. Jayanta Mahapatra “Grandfather”

2. Meena Alexander “Rites of Sense”

3. K.Satchidanandan “Cactus”

4. Jean Arasanayagam “Nallur”

SHORT STORIES

5. Temsula Ao “The Journey”

6. A. K Ramanujan “Annaya’s Anthropology”

7. Sundara Ramswamy “Waves”

8. Ashfaq Ahmed “Mohsin Mohalla”

9. T.S Pillai “In the Floods”

ESSAYS

10. Salman Rushdie “Gandhi Now”

11. Amartya Sen “Sharing the World”

12. Suketu Mehta “Country of the No”

13. Rahul Bhattacharya “Pundits From Pakistan” (An Excerpt)

SEMESTER I
 Migrations

Keki Daruwalla

Migrations are always difficult:

ask any drought,

any plague;
ask the year 1947.
Ask the chronicles themselves:
if there had been no migrations
would there have been enough
history to munch on?

Going back in time is also tough.

Ask anyone back-trekking to Sargodha
or Jhelum or Mianwali and they’ll tell you.
New faces among old brick;
politeness, sentiment,
dripping from the lips of strangers.
This is still your house, Sir.

And if you meditate on time

that is no longer time –
(the past is frozen, it is stone,
that which doesn’t move
and pulsate is not time) –
if you meditate on that scrap of time,
the mood turns pensive
like the monsoons
gathering in the skies
but not breaking.

Mother used to ask, don’t you remember my mother?

You’d be in the kitchen all the time
and run with the fries she ladled out,
still sizzling on the plate.
Don’t you remember her at all?
Mother’s fallen face
would fall further
at my impassivity.
Now my dreams ask me
If I remember my mother
And I am not sure how I’ll handle that.
Migrating across years is also difficult.  

Glossary:
pulsate - expand and contract with strong regular movements
Pensive - engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought
ladle out - to put liquids or food into bowls

Questions

1. Discuss the major themes Keki Daruwalla dealt with in Migrations.

2. What according to the poet, made Indian history interesting?
3. What do you mean by ‘past is frozen’?
4. Do you agree that “Migrations are always difficult”? Why?
5. Why the mother’s face is fallen?
6. Why the poet is impassive?
7. How are the physical as well as psychological migration reflected in this poem?
8. Critically appreciate the poem ‘Migrations’.

Pre-reading Activity: Define what migration is. Discuss the reasons that force the people
migrating to various places. Interpret the causes and effects of Pakistan and India Partition.

About the Author:

Keki Daruwalla is a leading figure in Indian poetry in English today. Keki Nasserwanji
Daruwalla was born in 1937 in Lahore in undivided India. In 1945 his father Prof. N.C.
Daruwalla retired from Govt. College Lyallpur (now Shah Faizlabad) and moved to Junagadh as
Tutor and Guardian to the Prince. Daruwalla’s early education was pretty chaotic, especially
because the language of instruction kept changing, the last two being Urdu and then Hindi. He
joined the Indian Police Service in 1958 (the recurrent theme of violence in his poetry has
frequently, and somewhat reductively, been attributed to his choice of profession). He had two
stints in anti dacoity operations in UP and also served in the SSB on the Indo Tibet border for
three years 1963-66. He retired in 1995. He served as Member National Commission for
Minorities (2011-2014) where he visited and enquired into practically every major communal
riot. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Observers Group for the Zimbabwe Elections
in 1980.

His first book, Under Orion was published in 1970. Nissim Ezekiel applauded his work as
“impressive evidence not only of mature poetic talent but of literary stamina, intellectual strength
and social awareness”. His latest novel Ancestral Affairs (Harpercollins, 2015) dwells on
Junagadh’s disastrous accession to Pakistan in 1947. Daruwalla’s poetry has journeyed a long
way both formally and thematically. However, it retains certain strong distinguishing
characteristics: an ironic stance, an evocation of the multi-layered contradictory realities of
Indian life, a preoccupation with diverse cultural, historic and mythic landscapes, a terse,
vigorous and tensile style, supple imagism, sustained narrative drive, an ability to segue between
metrical patterns and free verse, and a capacity to combine an epic canvas with a miniaturist’s
eye for detail. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984) and the Commonwealth
Poetry Prize (1987) for Asia. He was awarded the Padma Shri for his writing in 2014. He
returned his Sahitya Academy Award in 2015 as a protest against its reluctance to take up the
cause of rationalist writers murdered by right wing diehards, and also against intolerance of
fringe elements belonging to so called ‘cultural’ factions. He was Special Assistant to the Prime
Minister in 1979.

About the poem:

Keki Daruwala, as a government servant (IPS) through his nostalgia talks about the difficulties
and realities that the migration brings in the life of an individual as well as in the history of a
nation. Daruwala gathers all the events in his mind while talking about the metaphysical concept,
migration. According to him, the migrants have to tolerate many things such as new
circumstance, new culture, etc. He also uses the mother as well as grandmother image to describe
the role of time played in his psyche.

Themes
Partition of India and Pakistan
Migration
Physical as well as psychological migration
 Forest Fire

Kamala Das

Of late I have begun to feel a hunger

To take in with greed, like a forest fire that
Consumes and with each killing gains a wilder,
Brighter charm, all that comes my way. Bald child in
Open pram, you think I only look, and you
Too, slim lovers behind the tree and you, old
Man with paper in your hand and sunlight in
Your hair... My eyes lick at you like flames, my nerves
Consume; and, when I finish with you, in the
Pram, near the tree and, on the park bench, I spit
Out small heaps of ash, nothing else. But in me
The sights and smells and sounds shall thrive and go on
And on and on. In me shall sleep the baby
That sat in prams and sleep and wake and smile its
Toothless smile. In me shall walk the lovers hand
In hand and in me, where else, the old shall sit
And feel the touch of sun. In me, the street-lamps
Shall glimmer, the cabaret girls cavort, the
Wedding drums resound, the eunuchs swirl coloured
Skirts and sing sad songs of love, the wounded moan,
And in me the dying mother with hopeful
Eyes shall gaze around, seeking her child, now grown
And gone away to other towns, other arms."
Glossary
Pram - a four-wheeled carriage for a baby, pushed by a person on foot
Glimmer - shine faintly with a wavering light
Cavort - jump or dance around excitedly

Comprehensive Questions
1. What does “fire” symbolize in this poem Forest Fire?
2. What are the stages of life revealed by Kamala Das in Forest Fire and why?
3. How does Kamala Das express “feminine sensibility” in Forest Fire?
4. Analyze the symbols and images used in Forest Fire.
5. “Kamala Das articulates the oppression of the womanhood in her writings”. Explain this
statement with examples from Forest Fire.
6. “The sights and smells and sounds shall thrive and go on - And on and on” - Interpret
these lines.
7. “Poetic composition presupposes internalization of external reality” – Explain how it is
true in the analysis of Kamala Das’ Forest Fire.

Pre-reading activity: Make the students into groups. Ask them to discuss the major themes that
Kamala Das used to discuss in her works. Students also should be encouraged to collect and
discuss autobiographical notes of Kamala Das from her works.
About the Author
Madhavikutty wrote under the pen names Kamala Das and Kamala Suraiyya. She is an Indian
poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, nonfiction writer, autobiographer, etc. Das
has authored many autobiographical works and novels, several well-received collections of
poetry in English, numerous volumes of short stories, and essays on a broad spectrum of
subjects. Das' provocative poems are known for their unflinchingly honest explorations of the
self and female sexuality, urban life role in traditional Indian society, issues of postcolonial
identity, and the political and personal struggles of marginalized people. She has received many
awards and honors, including the P.E.N. Philippines Asian Poetry Prize (1963), Kerala Sahitya
Academy Award for her writing in Malayalam (1969), Chiman Lal Award for fearless
journalism (1971), the ASAN World Prize (1985), and the Sahitya Akademi Award for her
 poetry in English (1985). In 1984, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was
born in Punnayurkulam, Malabar district, Madras Province, British India in 31 March 1934 and
died in 31 May 2009, at Pune. (Source: (https://www.studymode.com/essays/Kamala-Das-An-
Introduction-39306547.html)

About the Poem

In Kamala Das' poem, Forest Fire, she is speaking directly about the poet's appetite for sensory
input and for taking in, soaking up, all of the experiences and images around her. With wild
abandon she 'eats' them and consumes them until they become a part of her. Her hunger and
desire to write, create a longing like a fire inside of her. Later, she will take all of these
experiences and write something and 'give birth' to it, but the child will be in other arms in many
other towns. So, the symbolism is the creative 'fire' as the poet's inspiration and desire to create,
and the created work as a child. (Source: http://www.bookrags.com/questions/english-and-
literature/Kamala_Das/in-forest-fireby-kamala-das-discuss-the-symbolism--174031#gsc.tab=0 )

Snow on the Desert

Agha Shahid Ali

“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,”   

Serge told me in New York one December night.
“So when I look at the sky, I see the past?”   
“Yes, Yes," he said. “especially on a clear day.”
On January 19, 1987,
as I very early in the morning
drove my sister to Tucson International,
suddenly on Alvernon and 22nd Street   
the sliding doors of the fog were opened,
and the snow, which had fallen all night, now   
sun-dazzled, blinded us, the earth whitened
out, as if by cocaine, the desert’s plants,   
its mineral-hard colors extinguished,   
wine frozen in the veins of the cactus.

The Desert Smells Like Rain: in it I read:   

The syrup from which sacred wine is made
is extracted from the saguaros each   
summer. The Papagos place it in jars,
where the last of it softens, then darkens   
into a color of blood though it tastes
strangely sweet, almost white, like a dry wine.   
As I tell Sameetah this, we are still
seven miles away. “And you know the flowers   
of the saguaros bloom only at night?”
We are driving slowly, the road is glass.   
“Imagine where we are was a sea once.
Just imagine!” The sky is relentlessly   
sapphire, and the past is happening quickly:
the saguaros have opened themselves, stretched   
out their arms to rays millions of years old,
in each ray a secret of the planet’s   
origin, the rays hurting each cactus
into memory, a human memory
for they are human, the Papagos say:
not only because they have arms and veins   
and secrets. But because they too are a tribe,
vulnerable to massacre. “It is like
the end, perhaps the beginning of the world,”
Sameetah says, staring at their snow-sleeved   
arms. And we are driving by the ocean
that evaporated here, by its shores,
the past now happening so quickly that each
stoplight hurts us into memory, the sky   
taking rapid notes on us as we turn
at Tucson Boulevard and drive into   
the airport, and I realize that the earth
is thawing from longing into longing and   
that we are being forgotten by those arms.
At the airport I stared after her plane   
till the window was again a mirror.
As I drove back to the foothills, the fog
shut its doors behind me on Alvernon,   
and I breathed the dried seas the earth had lost,
their forsaken shores. And I remembered
another moment that refers only   
to itself: in New Delhi one night
as Begum Akhtar sang, the lights went out.
It was perhaps during the Bangladesh War,   
perhaps there were sirens, air-raid warnings.
But the audience, hushed, did not stir.

The microphone was dead, but she went on   

singing, and her voice was coming from far   
away, as if she had already died.

And just before the lights did flood her   

again, melting the frost of her diamond
into rays, it was, like this turning dark

of fog, a moment when only a lost sea   

can be heard, a time to recollect
every shadow, everything the earth was losing,
a time to think of everything the earth   
and I had lost, of all that I would lose,   
of all that I was losing.

Glossary
cocaine - an addictive drug derived from coca or prepared synthetically, used as an illegal
stimulant and sometimes medicinally as a local anaesthetic
cactus - a succulent plant with a thick fleshy stem which typically bears spines, lacks
leaves, and has brilliantly colored flowers. Cacti are native to arid regions of the
New World and are cultivated elsewhere, especially as pot plants
saguaro - a giant cactus which can grow to 20 metres in height and whose branches are
shaped like candelabra, native to the south-western United States and Mexico.
The edible fruit was formerly a source of food and drink
Papago - Former term for Tohono O'odham (a member of a North American people of the
desert regions of Arizona and Sonora in the south-western United States and
northern Mexico)
Sapphire - a transparent precious stone, typically blue, which is a variety of corundum
thawing - the process of ice, snow, or another frozen substance becoming liquid or soft as a
result of warming up.

Comprehensive Questions
1. What are the images/objects Agha Shahid Ali brings inSnow on the Desert to recreate the
imagined past from his memories? Explain.
2. How is the theme ‘sense nostalgia and loss’ reflected in Snow on the Desert?
3. Write a short note on “The Desert Smells Like Rain”.
4. “A time to think of everything the earth, and I had lost, of all that I would lose, of all that I was
losing” – analyze the context of the these lines in Snow on the Desert.
5. What is ‘another moment’ recollected in “Snow on the Desert”. What is the significance of the it
in the poem?
6. How is identity crisis reflected in Snow on the Desert?
 Pre-reading activity: Students can be asked to discuss the political and personal background of
the poet’s life. They can also be asked to read a few poems of Shahid and try to identify the
themes repeated discussed in those poems.

About the Author:

Agha Shahid Ali was born into a very highly educated, multilingual, and liberal Muslim family.
While he was growing up, his immediate family lived in New Delhi, India; Srinagar, Kashmir;
and Muncie, Indiana, where his parents (Agha Ashraf Ali and Sufia Agha Ashraf Ali) both
completed their doctorates in 1964. English, Urdu, and Kashmiri were all spoken in his home.
Ali considered English to be his first language (it was the only language in which he wrote) and
Urdu to be his mother tongue. As a child, Ali was educated in Roman Catholic schools, but he
attended an American high school while his parents were in graduate school. Ali earned several
degrees: a B.A. from the University of Kashmir (1968), an M.A. from the University of Delhi
(1970), an M.A. (1981) and a Ph.D. (1984) from Pennsylvania State University, and an M.F.A.
from the University of Arizona (1985). Ali lectured at the University of Delhi from 1970 to 1975
before moving to the United States to teach, study, and write. At Pennsylvania State University,
he served as an instructor from 1976 to 1983, and at the University of Arizona, he worked as a
graduate assistant from 1983 to 1985.

Apart from the theme of death or loss, which becomes more legitimate and literal toward the end
of his career, Ali was also interested in demarcation. He resisted the title “U.S. citizen.” He
preferred the description “immigrant” or, better still, “exile.” He accepted titles such as Kashmiri
American, South Asian American, or Asian American. He considered himself conservative in
poetic content, form, and technique. Although conservative in art, he was not conservative in his
politics. He adhered to strict guidelines for the ghazal. In addition, Ali’s poetry is rich in allusion
to and inclusion of poetic influences from mythology to the works of his contemporary poet
friends and larger literary community. His poems are full of dedications to various people in his
life. His poems also speak to the enduring qualities of love and friendship. With elegance and
wit, they also speak to the difficulty of maintaining such relationships.''
About the Poem:
Shahid’s ‘Snow on the Desert’ was one of the poems of ‘A Nostalgist’s Map of America’
published in 1991. It had taken Shahid more than ten years to introduce this moment into the
poem. It hibernated till one day it was set off by the sight of snow in Tucson in Arizona, where
he was a graduate assistant at the university, the intense feeling of that morning and the departure
of his sister Sameetah from the local airport. That is how cities live on in the memory and works
of writers. It takes unpredictable moments to trigger an entire array of memories, a whole urban
landscape and its events and people.

Marriages Are Made

Eunice de Souza

My cousin Elena
is to be married
The formalities
have been completed:
her family history examined
for T.B. and madness
her father declared solvent
her eyes examined for squints
her teeth for cavities
her stools for the possible
non-Brahmin worm.
She's not quite tall enough
and not quite full enough
(children will take care of that)
Her complexion it was decided
would compensate, being just about
the right shade
of rightness
to do justice to
Francisco X. Noronha Prabhu
good son of Mother Church.

Glossary

solvent having more money than one owes

squints a permanent condition in which one eye does not look in the same
direction as the other
Comprehensive Questions

1. What does the narrator mean by “formalities” in the poem Marriages are Made?
2. Analyze the title and the tone of the poem.
3. Do you agree that ‘gender bias’is reflected in social practices as discussed in Marriages
are Made? Support your answer briefly.
4. Discuss any two social practices where women are subjected to numerous humiliations.

Pre-reading activity: Ask the students to discuss the practices that take place before, after
and during marriages in India. After that they can construct their argument upon this social
practice and the positions given to the people involved in this act.

About the Poet

De Souza a poet, critic and teacher was born in 1940 in Pune into a Goan Catholic family. She
did her master’s degree in English literature from Marquette University in the USA and PhD
from the University of Mumbai. She taught English at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai. De
Souza’s published her first collection of poetry Fix in 1979. Many of her poems in Fix dwelt on
her ‘Catholic Brahmin’ heritage, with De Souza skewering the pretensions and hypocrisies of the
community. Her poems also established her reputation for a keen eye and a rare combination of
irony and sympathy. In poems like Autobiographical, One Man’s Poetry and Forgive Me,
Mother, De Souza wove in details from her own life and that of her family, such as the death of
her father when she was a child — a trauma that scarred her for much of her life. She died at the
age of 77 at her home in Vakola, Santacruz (East).

About the Poem:

In the poem “Marriages are Made”, Eunice de Souza narrates about one of the phases of
marriage, happening in the Indian society. She explains ironically the processes of her cousin’s
marriage. She criticizes the society for its approaches during the process. She points out that the
girl’s role is neglected during the process rather she was considered as an object of examination
to be suitable for bridegroom and his family. Her narration also reflects that there was no space
created for the bride to voice her opinions, decision or feelings. The poem also reveals the roles
that family history, financial position, appearance and religious background play during marriage
especially in India.
 THE BABUS OF NAYANJORE

Rabindranath Tagore.

Once upon a time the Babus at Nayanjore were famous landholders. They were noted for
their princely extravagance. They would tear off the rough border of their Dacca muslin, because
it rubbed against their delicate skin. They could spend many thousands of rupees over the
wedding of a kitten. And on a certain grand occasion it is alleged that in order to turn night into
day they lighted numberless lamps and showered silver threads from the sky to imitate sunlight.

Those were the days before the flood. The flood came. The line of succession among
these old-world Babus, with their lordly habits, could not continue for long. Like a lamp with too
many wicks burning, the oil flared away quickly, and the light went out.

Kailas Babu, our neighbour, is the last relic of this extinct magnificence. Before he grew
up, his family had very nearly reached its lowest ebb. When his father died, there was one
dazzling outburst of funeral extravagance, and then insolvency. The property was sold to
liquidate the debt. What little ready money was left over was altogether insufficient to keep up
the past ancestral splendours.

Kailas Babu left Nayanjore and came to Calcutta. His son did not remain long in this
world of faded glory. He died, leaving behind him an only daughter.

In Calcutta we are Kailas Babu's neighbours. Curiously enough our own family history is
just the opposite of his. My father got his money by his own exertions, and prided himself on
never spending a penny more than was needed. His clothes were those of a working man, and his
hands also. He never had any inclination to earn the title of Babu by extravagant display; and I
myself, his only son, owe him gratitude for that. He gave me the very best education, and I was
able to make my way in the world. I am not ashamed of the fact that I am a self-made man. Crisp
bank-notes in my safe are dearer to me than a long pedigree in an empty family chest.

I believe this was why I disliked seeing Kailas Babu drawing his heavy cheques on the
public credit from the bankrupt bank of his ancient Babu reputation. I used to fancy that he
looked down on me, because my father had earned money with his own hands.

I ought to have noticed that no one showed any vexation towards Kailas Babu except
myself. Indeed, it would have been difficult to find an old man who did less harm than he. He
was always ready with his kindly little acts of courtesy in times of sorrow and joy. He would join
in all the ceremonies and religious observances of his neighbours. His familiar smile would greet
young and old alike. His politeness in asking details about domestic affairs was untiring. The
friends who met him in the street were perforce ready to be button-holed, while a long string of
questions of this kind followed one another from his lips:

"My dear friend, I am delighted to see you. Are you quite well? How is Shashi? And
Dada—is he all right? Do you know, I've only just heard that Madhu's son has got fever. How is
he? Have you heard? And Hari Charan Babu—I have not seen him for a long time—I hope he is
not ill. What's the matter with Rakkhal? And er—er, how are the ladies of your family?"

Kailas Babu was spotlessly neat in his dress on all occasions, though his supply of clothes
was sorely limited. Every day he used to air his shirts and vests and coats and trousers carefully,
and put them out in the sun, along with his bed-quilt, his pillowcase, and the small carpet on
which he always sat. After airing them he would shake them, and brush them, and put them
carefully away. His little bits of furniture made his small room decent, and hinted that there was
more in reserve if needed. Very often, for want of a servant, he would shut up his house for a
while. Then he would iron out his shirts and linen with his own hands, and do other little menial
tasks. After this he would open his door and receive his friends again.

Though Kailas Babu, as I have said, had lost all his landed property, he had still some
family heirlooms left. There was a silver cruet for sprinkling scented water, afiligree box for
otto-of-roses, a small gold salver, a costly ancient shawl, and the old-fashioned ceremonial dress
and ancestral turban. These he had rescued with the greatest difficulty from the money-lenders'
clutches. On every suitable occasion he would bring them out in state, and thus try to save the
world-famed dignity of the Babus of Nayanjore. At heart the most modest of men, in his daily
speech he regarded it as a sacred duty, owed to his rank, to give free play to his family pride. His
friends would encourage this trait in his character with kindly good-humour, and it gave them
great amusement.

The neighbourhood soon learnt to call him their Thakur Dada. They would flock to his
house and sit with him for hours together. To prevent his incurring any expense, one or other of
his friends would bring him tobacco and say: "Thakur Dada, this morning some tobacco was sent
to me from Gaya. Do take it and see how you like it."

Thakur Dada would take it and say it was excellent. He would then go on to tell of a
certain exquisite tobacco which they once smoked in the old days of Nayanjore at the cost of a
guinea an ounce."I wonder," he used to say, "if anyone would like to try it now. I have some left,
and can get it at once."

Everyone knew that, if they asked for it, then somehow or other the key of the cupboard
would be missing; or else Ganesh, his old family servant, had put it away somewhere.

"You never can be sure," he would add, "where things go to when servants are about. Now, this
Ganesh of mine,—I can't tell you what a fool he is, but I haven't the heart to dismiss him."

Ganesh, for the credit of the family, was quite ready to bear all the blame without a word.

One of the company usually said at this point: "Never mind, Thakur Dada. Please don't trouble to
look for it. This tobacco we're smoking will do quite well. The other would be too strong."

Then Thakur Dada would be relieved and settle down again, and the talk would go on.

When his guests got up to go away, Thakur Dada would accompany them to the door and say to
them on the door-step: "Oh, by the way, when are you all coming to dine with me?"

One or other of us would answer: "Not just yet, Thakur Dada, not just yet. We'll fix a day later."

"Quite right," he would answer. "Quite right. We had much better wait till the rains come. It's too
hot now. And a grand rich dinner such as I should want to give you would upset us in weather
like this."

But when the rains did come, everyone was very careful not to remind him of his
promise. If the subject was brought up, some friend would suggest gently that it was very
inconvenient to get about when the rains were so severe, and therefore it would be much better to
wait till they were over. Thus the game went on.

Thakur Dada's poor lodging was much too small for his position, and we used to condole
with him about it. His friends would assure him they quite understood his difficulties: it was next
to impossible to get a decent house in Calcutta. Indeed, they had all been looking out for years
for a house to suit him. But, I need hardly add, no friend had been foolish enough to find one.
Thakur Dada used to say, with a sigh of resignation: "Well, well, I suppose I shall have to put up
with this house after all." Then he would add with a genial smile: "But, you know, I could never
bear to be away from my friends. I must be near you. That really compensates for everything."

Somehow I felt all this very deeply indeed. I suppose the real reason was, that when a
man is young, stupidity appears to him the worst of crimes. Kailas Babu was not really stupid. In
ordinary business matters everyone was ready to consult him. But with regard to Nayanjore his
utterances were certainly void of common sense. Because, out of amused affection for him, no
one contradicted his impossible statements, he refused to keep them in bounds. When people
recounted in his hearing the glorious history of Nayanjore with absurd exaggerations, he would
accept all they said with the utmost gravity, and never doubted, even in his dreams, that anyone
could disbelieve it.

When I sit down and try to analyse the thoughts and feelings that I had towards Kailas
Babu, I see that there was a still deeper reason for my dislike. I will now explain.

Though I am the son of a rich man, and might have wasted time at college, my industry
was such that I took my M.A. degree in Calcutta University when quite young. My moral
character was flawless. In addition, my outward appearance was so handsome, that if I were to
call myself beautiful, it might be thought a mark of self-estimation, but could not be considered
an untruth.

There could be no question that among the young men of Bengal I was regarded by
parents generally as a very eligible match. I was myself quite clear on the point and had
determined to obtain my full value in the marriage market. When I pictured my choice, I had
before my mind's eye a wealthy father's only daughter, extremely beautiful and highly educated.
Proposals came pouring in to me from far and near; large sums in cash were offered. I weighed
these offers with rigid impartiality in the delicate scales of my own estimation. But there was no
one fit to be my partner. I became convinced, with the poet Bhabavuti, that, in this world's
endless time and boundless space One may be born at last to match my sovereign grace.

But in this puny modern age, and this contracted space of modern Bengal, it was doubtful
if the peerless creature existed as yet.

Meanwhile my praises were sung in many tunes, and in different metres, by designing
parents.

Whether I was pleased with their daughters or not, this worship which they offered was
never unpleasing. I used to regard it as my proper due, because I was so good. We are told that
when the gods withhold their boons from mortals they still expect their worshippers to pay them
fervent honour and are angry if it is withheld. I had that divine expectance strongly developed in
myself.

I have already mentioned that Thakur Dada had an only grand-daughter. I had seen her
many times, but had never mistaken her for beautiful. No thought had ever entered my mind that
she would be a possible partner for myself. All the same, it seemed quite certain to me that
someday or other Kailas Babu would offer her, with all due worship, as an oblation at my shrine.
Indeed—this was the inner secret of my dislike—I was thoroughly annoyed that he had not done
so already.

I heard that Thakur Dada had told his friends that the Babus of Nayanjore never craved a
boon. Even if the girl remained unmarried, he would not break the family tradition. It was this
arrogance of his that made me angry. My indignation smouldered for some time. But I remained
perfectly silent and bore it with the utmost patience, because I was so good.

As lightning accompanies thunder, so in my character a flash of humour was mingled

with the mutterings of my wrath. It was, of course, impossible for me to punish the old man
merely to give vent to my rage; and for a long time I did nothing at all. But suddenly one day
such an amusing plan came into my head, that I could not resist the temptation of carrying it into
effect.

I have already said that many of Kailas Babu's friends used to flatter the old man's vanity
to the full. One, who was a retired Government servant, had told him that whenever he saw the
Chota Lât Sahib he always asked for the latest news about the Babus of Nayanjore, and the
Chota Lât had been heard to say that in all Bengal the only really respectable families were those
of the Maharaja of Cossipore and the Babus of Nayanjore. When this monstrous falsehood was
told to Kailas Babu he was extremely gratified and often repeated the story. And wherever after
that he met this Government servant in company he would ask, along with other questions:

"Oh! Er — by the way, how is the Chota Lât Sahib? Quite well, did you say? Ah, yes, I
am so delighted to hear it! And the dear Mem Sahib, is she quite well too? Ah, yes! and the little
children—are they quite well also? Ah, yes! that's very good news! Be sure and give them my
compliments when you see them."

Kailas Babu would constantly express his intention of going some day and paying a visit
to the Lord Sahib. But it may be taken for granted that many Chota Lâts and Burra Lâts also
would come and go, and much water would pass down the Hoogly, before the family coach of
Nayanjore would be furbished up to pay a visit to Government House.

One day I took Kailas Babu aside and told him in a whisper: "Thakur Dada, I was at the
Levee yesterday, and the Chota Lât Sahib happened to mention the Babus of Nayanjore. I told
him that Kailas Babu had come to town. Do you know, he was terribly hurt because you hadn't
called. He told me he was going to put etiquette on one side and pay you a private visit himself
this very afternoon."

Anybody else could have seen through this plot of mine in a moment. And, if it had been
directed against another person, Kailas Babu would have understood the joke. But after all that
he had heard from his friend the Government servant, and after all his own exaggerations, a visit
from the Lieutenant-Governor seemed the most natural thing in the world. He became highly
nervous and excited at my news. Each detail of the coming visit exercised him greatly,—most of
all his own ignorance of English. How on earth was that difficulty to be met? I told him there
was no difficulty at all: it was aristocratic not to know English: and, besides, the Lieutenant-
Governor always brought an interpreter with him, and he had expressly mentioned that this visit
was to be private.

About midday, when most of our neighbours are at work, and the rest are asleep, a
carriage and pair stopped before the lodging of Kailas Babu. Two flunkeys in livery came up the
stairs, and announced in a loud voice, "The Chota Lât Sahib has arrived!" Kailas Babu was
ready, waiting for him, in his old-fashioned ceremonial robes and ancestral turban, and Ganesh
was by his side, dressed in his master's best suit of clothes for the occasion.

When the Chota Lât Sahib was announced, Kailas Babu ran panting and puffing and
trembling to the door, and led in a friend of mine, in disguise, with repeated salaams, bowing low
at each step and walking backward as best he could. He had his old family shawl spread over a
hard wooden chair and he asked the Lât Sahib to be seated. He then made a high-flown speech in
Urdu, the ancient Court language of the Sahibs, and presented on the golden salver a string of
gold mohurs, the last relics of his broken fortune. The old family servant Ganesh, with an
expression of awe bordering on terror, stood behind with the scent-sprinkler, drenching the Lât
Sahib, and touched him gingerly from time to time with the otto-of-roses from the filigree box.

Kailas Babu repeatedly expressed his regret at not being able to receive His Honour
Bahadur with all the ancestral magnificence of his own family estate at Nayanjore. There he
could have welcomed him properly with due ceremonial. But in Calcutta he was a mere stranger
and sojourner,—in fact a fish out of water.

My friend, with his tall silk hat on, very gravely nodded. I need hardly say that according
to English custom the hat ought to have been removed inside the room. But my friend did not
dare to take it off for fear of detection: and Kailas Babu and his old servant Ganesh were
sublimely unconscious of the breach of etiquette.

After a ten minutes' interview, which consisted chiefly of nodding the head, my friend
rose to his feet to depart. The two flunkeys in livery, as had been planned beforehand, carried off
in state the string of gold mohurs, the gold salver, the old ancestral shawl, the silver scent-
sprinkler, and the otto-of-roses filigree box; they placed them ceremoniously in the carriage.
Kailas Babu regarded this as the usual habit of Chota Lât Sahibs.

I was watching all the while from the next room. My sides were aching with suppressed
laughter. When I could hold myself in no longer, I rushed into a further room, suddenly to
discover, in a corner, a young girl sobbing as if her heart would break. When she saw my
uproarious laughter she stood upright in passion, flashing the lightning of her big dark eyes in
mine, and said with a tear-choked voice: "Tell me! What harm has my grandfather done to you?
Why have you come to deceive him? Why have you come here? Why——". She could say no
more. She covered her face with her hands and broke into sobs.
 My laughter vanished in a moment. It had never occurred to me that there was anything
but a supremely funny joke in this act of mine, and here I discovered that I had given the
cruellest pain to this tenderest little heart. All the ugliness of my cruelty rose up to condemn me.
I slunk out of the room in silence, like a kicked dog.

Hitherto I had only looked upon Kusum, the grand-daughter of Kailas Babu, as a
somewhat worthless commodity in the marriage market, waiting in vain to attract a husband. But
now I found, with a shock of surprise, that in the corner of that room a human heart was beating.

The whole night through I had very little sleep. My mind was in a tumult. On the next
day, very early in the morning, I took all those stolen goods back to Kailas Babu's lodgings,
wishing to hand them over in secret to the servant Ganesh. I waited outside the door, and, not
finding any one, went upstairs to Kailas Babu's room. I heard from the passage Kusum asking
her grandfather in the most winning voice: "Dada, dearest, do tell me all that the Chota Lât Sahib
said to you yesterday. Don't leave out a single word. I am dying to hear it all over again."

And Dada needed no encouragement. His face beamed over with pride as he related all
manner of praises which the Lât Sahib had been good enough to utter concerning the ancient
families of Nayanjore. The girl was seated before him, looking up into his face, and listening
with rapt attention. She was determined, out of love for the old man, to play her part to the full.

My heart was deeply touched, and tears came to my eyes. I stood there in silence in the
passage, while Thakur Dada finished all his embellishments of the Chota Lât Sahib's wonderful
visit. When he left the room at last, I took the stolen goods and laid them at the feet of the girl
and came away without a word.

Later in the day I called again to see Kailas Babu himself. According to our ugly modern
custom, I had been in the habit of making no greeting at all to this old man when I came into the
room. But on this day I made a low bow and touched his feet. I am convinced the old man
thought that the coming of the Chota Lât Sahib to his house was the cause of my new politeness.
He was highly gratified by it, and an air of benign serenity shone from his eyes. His friends had
looked in, and he had already begun to tell again at full length the story of the Lieutenant-
Governor's visit with still further adornments of a most fantastic kind. The interview was already
becoming an epic, both in quality and in length.
 When the other visitors had taken their leave, I made my proposal to the old man in a
humble manner. I told him that, "though I could never for a moment hope to be worthy of
marriage connection with such an illustrious family, yet ... etc. etc."

When I made clear my proposal of marriage, the old man embraced me and broke out in a
tumult of joy: "I am a poor man, and could never have expected such great good fortune."

That was the first and last time in his life that Kailas Babu confessed to being poor. It was also
the first and last time in his life that he forgot, if only for a single moment, the ancestral dignity
that belongs to the Babus of Nayanjore.

Glossary:

Insolvency: the condition of not having enough money to pay debts.

Vexation: worry or anger.

perforce: being necessary.

cruet: a container that holds smaller containers of salt and pepper etc., used when having a meal.

filigree: delicate jewellery made from twisted, especially silver, wire.

otto-of-roses: essential oil from rose petals.

fervent: beliefs that are strongly and sincerely felt.

smouldered: to burn slowly with smoke but without flames.

Tumult: a loud noise. Especially that produced by an excited crowd.

Embellishments: to add or change some details of a story, usually to make it more interesting or

exciting.

Comprehension Questions:
1. ‘Conflict is an integral part of the short story The Babu’s of Nayanjore be it the conflict

between the classes or the conflict between different generations’. Comment citing suitable

examples from the text.

2. Elucidate on the various reasons listed by the narrator for his dislike of Kailash Babu.

Elaborate on the reason his perception changes towards the end of the story.

3. ‘That was the first and last time in his life that Kailas Babu confessed to being poor’.

Elaborate on the statement and substantiate your analysis citing suitable examples.

4. ‘Through the course of the narrative Kusum emerges as an embodiment of genteel dignity and

nobility of spirit worthy of her ancestors’. Elucidate the statement and cite suitable examples.

5. Comment on the suitability of the title, The Babus of Nayanjore.

About the author:

Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali polymath who integrated Conceptual Modernism into
Bengali literature and music. He was one of the first non- Europeans to be awarded the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 1913 "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by
which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English
words, a part of the literature of the West."

He made Bengali art and literature more contemporary by spurning rigid classical forms
and using colloquial language as a medium of expression. His novels, stories, songs, dance-
dramas, and essays elucidated on a wide spectrum of topics both political and personal. Gitanjali
(Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-
known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their
lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen
by two nations as national anthems: India’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and Bangladesh's ‘Amar Shonar
Bangla’.
Introduction to the text:

Genteel poor trying to retain their veneer of respectability, the brashness of youth,
generation gap and friendship that is oblivious of the rich – poor divide are some of the major
themes represented in the short story The Babu’s of Nayanjore. The story opens with a list of all
the reasons why the central protagonist looks upon Kailas Babu with disdain and through the
course of the narrative the prejudices of the narrator emerge. It is only after his interaction with
Kailas Babu’s granddaughter, Kusum, that he realizes his erring ways and takes steps to rectify
his mistakes of the past. The culmination of the short story also echoes Rabindranath Tagore’s
philosophy of life and his vision for his motherland, an amalgamation of the ancient and the
modern ways as the only way forward for a bright future.

Themes

- Class conflict.
- Generation gap.
- Modern etiquette versus traditional.
- Friendship.
- Love.
 HE SAID IT WITH ARSENIC

RUSKIN BOND

Is there such a person as a born murderer—in the sense that there are born writers and
musicians, born winners and losers?

One can’t be sure. The urge to do away with troublesome people is common to most of
us, but only a few succumb to it.

If ever there was a born murderer, he must surely have been William Jones. The thing
came so naturally to him. No extreme violence, no messy shootings or hackings or throttling; just
the tight amount of poison, administered with skill and discretion.

A gentle, civilised sort of person was Mr. Jones. He collected butterflies and arranged
them systematically in glass cases. His ether bottle was quick and painless. He never stuck pins
into the beautiful creatures.

Have you ever heard of the Agra Double Murder? It happened, of course, a great many
years ago, when Agra was a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. In those days, William Jones
was a male nurse in one of the city’s hospitals. The patients— especially terminal cases—spoke
highly of the care and consideration he showed them. While most nurses, both male and female,
preferred to attend to the more hopeful cases, nurse William was always prepared to stand duty
over a dying patient.

He felt a certain empathy for the dying; he liked to see them on their way. It was just his
good nature, of course.

On a visit to nearby Meerut, he met and fell in love with Mrs. Browning, the wife of the
local station-master. Impassioned love letters were soon putting a strain on the Agra-Meerut
postal service. The envelopes grew heavier—not so much because the letters were growing
longer but because they contained little packets of a powdery white substance, accompanied by
detailed instructions as to its correct administration.
 Mr. Browning, an unassuming and trustful man — one of the world’s born losers, in fact
— was not the sort to read his wife’s correspondence. Even when he was seized by frequent
attacks of colic, he put them down to an impute water supply. He recovered from one bout of
vornitting and diarrhoea only to be racked by another.

He was hospitalised on a diagnosis of gastroenteritis; and, thus freed from his wife’s
ministrations, soon got better. But on returning home and drinking a glass of nimbu-pani
brought to him by the solicitous Mrs. Browning, he had a relapse from which he did not recover.

Those were the days when deaths from cholera and related diseases were only too
common in India, and death certificates were easier to obtain than dog licences.

After a short interval of mourning (it was the hot weather and you couldn’t wear black for
long), Mrs Browning moved to Agta, where she rented a house next door to William Jones.

I forgot to mention that Mr. Jones was also married. His wife was an insignificant
creature, no match for a genius like William. Before the hot weather was over, the dreaded
cholera had taken her too. The way was clear for the lovers to unite in holy matrimony.

But Dame Gossip lived in Agra too, and it was not long before tongues were wagging
and anonymous letters were being received by the Superintendent of Police. Enquiries were
instituted. Like most infatuated lovers, Mrs. Browning had hung on to her beloved’s letters and
billet-doux, and these soon came to light. The silly woman had kept them in a box beneath her
bed.

Exhumations were ordered in both Agra and Meerut.

Arsenic keeps well, even in the hottest of weather, and there was no dearth of it in the
remains of both the victims.

Mr. Jones and Mrs. Browning were arrested and charged with murder.

‘Is Uncle Bill really a murderer?’ I asked from the drawing room sofa in my
grandmother’s house in Dehra. (It’s time that I told you that William Jones was my uncle, my
mother’s half-brother.)
 I was eight or nine at the time. Uncle Bill had spent the previous summer with us in
Dehra and had stuffed me with bazaar sweets and pastries, all of which I had consumed without
suffering any ill effects.

‘Who told you that about Uncle Bill?’ asked Grandmother.

‘I heard it in school. All the boys were asking me the same question—“Is your uncle a
murderer?” They say he poisoned both his wives.’

‘He had only one wife,’ snapped Aunt Mabel.

‘Did he poison her?’

‘No, of course not. How can you say such a thing!’

‘Then why is Uncle Bill in gaol?’

“Who says he’s in gaol?’

‘The boys at school. They heard it from their parents. Uncle Bill is to go on trial in the Agta
fort.’

There was a pregnant silence in the drawing room, then Aunt Mabel burst out: ‘It was all that
awful woman's fault.’

‘Do you mean Mrs. Browning?’ asked Grandmother.

"Yes, of course. She must have put him up to it. Bill couldn't have thought of anything so—so
diabolical!’

‘But he sent her the powders, dear. And don’t forget—Mrs. Browning has since....’

Grandmother stopped in mid-sentence, and both she and Aunt Mabel glanced surreptitiously at
me.

‘Committed suicide,’ I filled in, ‘There were still some powders with her.’

Aunt Mabel’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘This boy is impossible. I don’t know what he will be
like when he growsup.’
‘At least I won't be like Uncle Bill,’ I said. ‘Fancy poisoning people! If I kill anyone, it will be in
a fair fight. I suppose they’ll hang Uncle?’

‘Oh, I hope not!’

Grandmother was silent: Uncle Bill was her stepson, but she did have a soft spot for him.
Aunt Mabel, his sister, thought he was wonderful. I had always considered him to be a bit soft
but had to admit that he was generous. I tried to imagine him dangling at the end of a hangman’s
rope, but somehow he didn’t fit the picture.

As things turned out, he wasn’t hanged. White people in India seldom got the death
sentence, although the hangman was pretty busy disposing off dacoits and political terrorists.
Uncle Bill was given a life sentence and settled down to a sedentary job in the prison library at
Naini, near Allahabad. His gifts as a male nurse went unappreciated; they did not trust him in the
hospital.

He was released after seven or eight years, shortly after the country became an
independent Republic. He came out of gaol to find that the British were leaving, either for
England or the remaining colonies. Grandmother was dead. Aunt Mabel and her husband had
settled in South Africa. Uncle Bill realised that there was little future for him in India and
followed his sister out to Johannesburg. I was then in my last year at boarding school. After my
father’s death, my mother had married an Indian, and now my future lay in India.

I did not see Uncle Bill after his release from prison, and no one dreamt that he would
ever turn up again in India.

In fact, fifteen years were to pass before he came back, and by then I was in my early
thirties, the author of a book that had become something of a bestseller. The previous fifteen
years had been a struggle—the sort of struggle that every young freelance writer experiences—
but at last the hard work was paying off and the royalties were beginning to come in.

I was living in a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill- station of Fosterganj, working
on another book, when I received an unexpected visitor.
 He was a thin, stooping, grey-haired man in his late fifties, with a straggling moustache
and discoloured teeth. He looked feeble and harmless but for his eyes which were pale cold blue.
There was something slightly familiar about him.

‘Don’t you remember me? He asked. “Not that I really expect you to, after all these
years..,’

“Wait a minute. Did you teach me at school?”

‘No—but you're getting warm.’ He put his suitcase down and I glimpsed his name on the airlines
label. I looked up in astonishment. ‘You’re not—you couldn't be...’

“Your Uncle Bill,’ he said with a grin and extended his hand. ‘None other!’ And he
sauntered into the house.

‘I must admit that I had mixed feelings about his arrival. While I had never felt any
dislike for him, I hadn’t exactly approved of what he had done. Poisoning, I felt, was a
particularly reprehensible way of getting rid of inconvenient people: not that I could think of any
commendable ways of getting rid of them! Still, it had happened a long time ago, he’d been
punished, and presumably he was a reformed character.

‘And what have-you been doing all these years?’ he asked me, easing himself into the
only comfortable chair in the room. ‘Oh just writing,’ I said.

“Yes, I heard about your last book. It’s quite a success, isn’t it?’
‘It’s doing quite well. Have you read it?’
“I don’t do much reading.’

‘And what have you been doing all these years, Uncle Bill?’

‘Oh, knocking about here and there. Worked for a soft drink company for some time. And them
with a drug firm. Myknowledge of chemicals was useful.’

“Weren't you with Aunt Mabel in South Africa?’

‘I saw quite a lot of her, until she died a couple of years ago. Didn’t you know?’
‘No. I've been out of touch with relatives.’ I hoped he'd take that as a hint. ‘And what about her
husband?’

‘Died too, not long after. Not many of us left, my boy. That's why, when I saw something about
you in the papers, I thought—why not go and see my only nephew again?’

"You're welcome to stay a few days,’ I said quickly. ‘Then I have to go to Bombay.’ (This was a
lie, but I did not relish the prospect of looking after Uncle Bill for the rest of his days.)

‘Oh, I won't be staying long,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a bit of money put by in Johannesburg. It’s just
that—so far as I know—you're my only living relative, and I thought it would be nice to see you
again.’

Feeling relieved, I set about trying to make Uncle Bill as comfortable as possible. I gave
him my bedroom and turned the window-seat into a bed for myself. I was a hopeless cook but,
using all my ingenuity, I scrambled some eggs for supper. He waved aside my apologies; he’d
always been a frugal eater, he said. Eight years in gaol had given him a cast-iron stomach.

He did not get in my way but left me to my writing and my lonely walks. He seemed
content to sit in the spring sunshine and smoke his pipe.

It was during our third evening together that he said, ‘Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a
bottle of sherry, in my suitcase. I brought it especially for you.’

"That was very thoughtful of you. Uncle Bill. How did you know I was fond of sherry?’

‘Just my intuition. You do like it, don’t you?’

‘There’s nothing like a good sherry.’

He went to his bedroom and came back with an unopened bottle of South African sherry.

“Now you just relax near the fire,’ he said agreeably. ‘I'll open the bottle and fetch glasses.’

He went to the kitchen while I remained near the electric fire, flipping through some
journals. It seemed to me that Uncle Bill was taking rather a long time. Intuition must be a family
trait, because it came to me quite suddenly—the thought that Uncle Bill might be intending to
poison me.
 After all, I thought, here he is after nearly fifteen years, apparently for purely sentimental
reasons. But I had just published a bestseller. And I was his nearest relative. If I was to die,
Uncle Bill could lay claim to my estate and probably live comfortably on my royalties for the
next five or six years!

What had really happened to Aunt Mabel and her husband, I wondered. And where did
Uncle Bill get the money for an air ticket to India?

Before I could ask myself any more questions, he reappeared with the glasses on a tray.
He set the tray on a small table that stood between us. The glasses had been filled. The sherry
sparkled.

I stared at the glass nearest me, trying to make out if the liquid in it was cloudier than that in the
other glass. But there appeared to be no difference.

I decided I would not take any chances. It was a round tray, made of smooth Kashmiri
walnut wood. I turned it round with my index finger, so that the glasses changed places.

“Why did you do that?’ asked Uncle Bill.

‘It’s a custom in these parts. You turn the tray with the sun, a complete revolution. It brings
good luck.’

Uncle Bill looked thoughtful for a few moments, then said, “Well, let’s have some more
luck,’ and turned the tray around again.

‘Now you've spoilt it,’ I said. ‘You’re not supposed to keep revolving it! That’s bad luck. I’ll
have to turn it about again to cancel out the bad luck.’

The tray swung round once more, and Uncle Bill had the glass that was meant for me.

‘Cheers!’ I said, and drank from my glass.

It was good sherry.

Uncle Bill hesitated. Then he shrugged, said ‘Cheers’, and drained his glass quickly.

But he did not offer to fill the glasses again.

 Early next morning he was taken violently ill. I heard him retching in his room, and I got
up and went to see if there was anything I could do. He was groaning, his head hanging over the
side of the bed. I brought him a basin and a jug of water.

“Would you like me to fetch a doctor?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No I'll be all right. It must be something I ate.’

‘It’s probably the water. It’s not too good at this time of the year. Many people come down with
gastric trouble during their first few days in Fosterganj.’

‘Ah, that must be it,’ he said, and doubled up as a fresh spasm of pain and nausea swept over
him.

He was better by evening—whatever had gone into the glass must have been by way of
the preliminary dose and a daylater he was well enough to pack his suitcase and announce his
departure. The climate of Fosterganj did not agree with him, he told me.

Just before he left, I said; ‘Tell me, Uncle, why did you drink it?’

‘Drink what? The water?’

‘No, the glass of sherry into which you'd slipped one of your famous powders.’

He gaped at me, then gave a nervous whinnying laugh. “You will have your little joke, won't
you?’

‘No, I mean it,’ I said, “Why did you drink the stuff? It was meant for me, of course.’

He looked down at his shoes, then gave a little shrug and turned away.

‘In the circumstances,’ he said, ‘it seemed the only decent thing to do.’

I'll say this for Uncle Bill: he was always the perfect gentleman.

Glossary:
Impute- represent (something, especially something undesirable) as being done or possessed by

someone, attribute.

Gastroenteritis - inflammation of the stomach and intestines, typically resulting from bacterial

toxins or viral infection and causing vomiting and diarrhoea.

Ministrations - the provision of assistance or care.

Gaol - a place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime such as a prison.

Diabolical - characteristic of the devil, or so evil as to be suggestive of the devil.

Surreptitiously- in a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention; secretively.

Comprehension Questions:

1. Ruskin Bonds’ short story overhauls the conventional representation of family values.

Comment.

2. Elucidate on how the narrative reads like a critique on materialistic society.

3. ‘He said it with arsenic’ with its representation of British and Anglo-Indian characters

depicts the bygone era of the British Raj. Comment citing suitable examples.

4. “It seemed the only decent thing to do.” Elucidate on the significance of the statement

and substantiate with suitable examples.

5. Justify the suitability of the title ‘He said it with Arsenic’.

About the author:

Ruskin Bond, often considered as one of India’s best – loved and most prolific writers, has been writing

novels, poetry, essays and short stories for almost half a century now. Apart from this, over the years he

has expertly compiled and edited a number of anthologies. For his outstanding literary contribution, he
was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 (for

English writing in India) and the Padma Shri in 1999.

Introduction to the text:

Using his imitable simplistic style of writing, Ruskin Bond adroitly represents lifes’ realities. He presents

a critique on the rampant materialism in society where familial love is considered inconsequential. He

also elaborates on the privileges enjoyed by the British nationals during the time of the British Raj, where

they were considered to be above the law of the land. Through his narrative he elaborates on the finer

nuances of human nature and motivation.

Themes for discussion:

- Materialism in society overpowering family values and ethics.

- Glimpse of society during the British Raj.

- Perception of an individual versus reality.

Irony and humour

BOSS CAME TO DINNER

Bhisham Sahni

Mr. Shamnath had invited his boss to dinner. Neither henor his wife could pause even to
wipe the perspirationfrom their faces. The wife, in a dressing gown, her tangledhair tied in a
knot, her makeup all smudged, and he, penciland paper in hand and smoking cigarette after
cigarette, ran from room to room, ticking off items in a long list.

By five o’ clock, they had succeeded in putting some kind of order into the arrangements.
Chairs, tables, side tables, napkins, flowers, they were all there on the verandah, neatly arranged.
A bar was improvised in the drawing room. Now they turned their attention to the bric-a-brac
in the room, either shifting them behind the almirahs or shoving them under the bedsteads.
Suddenly a problem reared up before Shamnath. What about mother? Till now neither he nor his
wife had thought of it. Shamnath turned on his heels and asked his wife in English: “And what
about mother?”

The wife, interrupting her work, did some hard thinking. “We'll send her to the
neighbours. She can stay there for the night. We'll bring her back tomorrow.” Shamnath,
cigarette dangling between his lips, screwed up his eyes and looked at her thoughtfully. “No, that
won’t do. I want to give a wide berth to that next-door hag. If mother stays the night with her,
she will again start coming to our house. I tell you what. We will tell mother to finish her meal
early and retire to her room. The guests won’t start coming before eight.”

The proposition sounded tight. But suddenly the wife said, “But if she falls asleep and
starts snoring! Then? Her room is next to where dinner will be served”. “We'll ask her to close
the door and I'll lock it from outside. Or, better still, I’ll ask mother not to fall asleep. She must
keep awake and sitting.” “But suppose she does fall asleep. You never know how long dinner
will last. In any case, you can’t leave the bar before eleven.”

Shamnath threw up his hands in irritation. “She was going to visit her brother and you
stuck yournose in. Wanted to keep up appearances before your friends. Now what do we do?”

“Ah! Why should I earn a bad name by coming between mother and son? I wash my
hands of this affair. Do as you please.”

Mr. Shamnath held his peace. This was no time for bandying words, but for cool
thinking. He turned round and looked at mother’s room. Her room opened onto the verandah.

As his gaze swept over the verandah a thought flashed through his mind. “I’ve got it!” he
said. Promptly he strode towards mother’s room. With her back against the wall, mother was
sitting on a low wooden chowki, her face almost covered with the dupatta. She was telling her
beads. Since morning she had been nervous at the goings-on in the house. The big boss from her
son’s office was coming to their house, and she was anxious that everything should go well.

“Mother, finish your meal early this evening. The guests will be here at seven-thirty.”

Mother slowly uncovered her face and looked at her son. “Son, I won't take my meal today. You
know very well I don’t eat when flesh is cooked in the house.”

“Anyway, anyway, retire to your room early.”

“All right, son.”

“And mother, I will receive the guests in the drawing room; till then you stay in the
verandah. When we move into the verandah, you will quietly slip into the drawing room through
the bathroom. For an instant mother looked at her son; then she said faintly: “All right, son.”

“One thing more, mother. Do not go to sleep early, as you do. Your snores carry far.”

“I can’t help it son,” she said, ashamed. “I have difficulty in breathing since my last illness.”

Mr. Shamnath had fixed everything. But he still felt anxious. The arrangement did not seem fool-
proof. What if the boss took it into his head to step into the verandah? There would be about ten

guests, mostly his Indian colleagues and their wives. Any one of them might like to use the

bathroom. Oh, what a nuisance! He brought up a chair and placing it by the door said, “Mother,

let’s see how you look in this chair.”

Mother nervously fingered her beads, adjusted her dupatta over her head, and sat down in
the chair. |

“He Bhagvan! No, mother, no. Not like this. Not with your feet up. It’s not a cot. It’s a
chair, a chair. Mother dangled her feet.

“And please, please mother, don’t walk about barefooted.

And don’t wear those wooden sandals of yours. One day I'll throw them away.”

Mother was silent.

“And what will you wear, mother?”

“I’ll wear what I have. I'll wear what you ask me to.”

The cigarette still hanging from his lips, Mr. Shamnath inspected his mother with half-
closed eyes, trying to decide what his mother should be made to wear for the occasion. He was a

stickler for discipline in the house; he had the final say in everything. Where the pegs should be

fixed in the walls, in what corner the bedsteads should be placed, what should be the colour of
the curtains, which sari his wife should put on, what should be the design of the tables —

Mr. Shamnath was meticulous about the smallest detail. He looked at mother from head
to foot,and said, “Better wear white kameez and salwar. Just go and dress up. Let’s see how you
look in them.”Mother got up slowly and went into her room.

Shamnath turned to his wife and said in English, “Mother is a problem! There’s no end to
her oddities. If something goes wrong and the boss is offended, you know what will happen.”

Mother came out in white kameez and white salwar. Short, shriveled, lack-lustre eyes,
only half of her sparse hair covered with the dupatta — she looked only slightly improved.
Shamnath looked at her dubiously, “That will do. If you have any bangles, put them on too,” “I
have no bangles, son, you know that. I had to sell all my jewellery for your education,”

“All right, all right! Why do you make a song about it, mother?” he said, “Why carry on
about it? Just say that you don’t have any. Why bring in the question of my education? The
jewellery was sold to good purpose, wasn’t it? I’m not a loafer, am I? I’ll pay you back double
what you spent on me.”

“May my tongue be reduced to ashes, son! Does a mother ever ask a son to pay back? I
did not mean it. Don’t misunderstand me. Had I the bangles I would have worn them all the time.
But I don’t have them.”

Now it was past five-thirty. Mr. Shamnath had to take his bath and get into his dinner
suit. His wife was getting ready in her room. Before leaving, Shamnath again instructed his
mother.

“Mother, don’t sit silent as you always do. If the Sahib comes your way and asks you anything,

reply to him properly. I'll tell you what to say, “I am illiterate, son. I can neither read nor write.

You can tell them that your mother is ignorant, if that helps.”
 As time passed mother’s heart started pounding heavily. If the boss came to her and
asked her some question, what would she say? She was scared of English Sahibs even from a
distance; and this one, they said, was an American. God only knew what sort of questions
American Sahibs asked. She felt like going away to her widow-friend, but she lacked the courage
to defy her son’s orders. She kept sitting there, dangling her legs from the chair.

Mr. Shamnath’s dinner had reached the crescendo of success. The topics changed with
every change of drinks. Everything was going superbly. The Sahib liked the Indian dishes and
the Memsahib the curtains, the sofa covers, the décor.

What more could the hosts ask for? The Sahib had shed his reserve and was regaling the
audience with anecdotes. He was as jovial now as he was strict in the office. His wife, in a

black gown, a rope of pearls round her neck, wearing a loud perfume, was a cynosure of the

women-guests. She laughed, she nodded; she was so free with Mrs. Shamnath and with the men;

as if they were old friends.

Nobody realised how time flew; it was now ten-thirty,

They came out of the drawing room, Mr. Shamnath leading the way and the boss and the
other guests following,

Reaching the verandah Mr. Shamnath stopped short. What he saw made him weak in the
legs. His smile vanished. Outside her room mother was sitting exactly as he had left her, but both
her feet were on the seat and her head swayed from side to side. She snored, heavily. When her
head fell to one side her snores became louder, and when she awoke with a jolt she again started
swaying from side to side. The end of her dupatta had slipped from her head and her thin hair lay
in confusion over the bald portion of her head. Mr. Shamnath seethed with anger. He felt like
giving her a wild shaking and then pushing her into her room. But the boss and the other guests
were standing by ~ what could he do?

The wives of the other guests tittered and the boss said, “Poor dear.”

Mother woke up, flustered. Seeing so many people around her she got so confused that she could
not utter a word. She covered her head, and getting up awkwardly she stood before them with

downcast eyes. Her legs shook; her fingers trembled.

“Mother, go to sleep. Why do you keep awake so late” ashamed, he looked at the boss.

The boss was in an expansive mood. He smiled, and said, “Namaste”.

Mother almost shrank into herself. Hesitantly she tried to fold her hands in greeting. But one
hand was inside the dupatta, with which she held her beads, and her effort looked clumsy.
Shamnath was annoyed.

The boss extended his right hand. Mother looked at it, alarmed,

“Mother, shake hands with the Sahib!”

But how could she? She was holding the beads in her right hand. In confusion, she placed her left

in the Sahib’s right hand. Someone giggled. Shamnath was furious.

“Not like that, mother! Don’t you even know how to shake hands? Your right hand,
please.”

But by now the boss was pumping her left hand saying, “How are you? How are you?”

“Mother say, I am quite well, thank you.”

Mother mumbled something. Someone giggled.

But the crisis passed. The boss had saved the situation. Shamnath’s anger started ebbing,

The Sahib was still holding mother’s hand and she standing still, utterly confused.

Shamnath said, “Sir, my mother’s from a village. She has lived in a village all her life. That’s
why she’s feeling so shy.”

“Is that so?” the Sahib said cheerfully, “Well, I like village folk. I guess your mother
must be knowing folk-songs and folk dances.” The boss nodded his head and looked approvingly
at mother.

“Mother, the Sahib wants you to sing. An old song. You know so many.”
“I can’t sing”, mother said in a weak voice. “Have you ever heard me singing?”

“Mother”, he said, “does one ever refuse a guest? If you don’t sing the Sahib may feel offended.

Look, he's waiting.” “But I don’t know any song. I know nothing of singing.”

“Come mother. Just sing a couplet or two. That pomegranate song, for instance.”

The Indian colleagues and their wives clapped their hands at the mention of this song. Mother

looked with imploring eyes, first at her son, then at her daughter-in-law.

“Mother!” The son was getting impatient. She could detect a touch of asperity in his tone.

There was no way out. She sat down in the chair in a feeble cracked voice she started singing an

old wedding song. The ladies burst into laughter. After singing two lines mother pathetically
trailed into silence.

The verandah resounded with applause. The Sahib would not stop clapping. Shamnath’s
anger suddenly changed into joy: Mother had introduced a new note into the party.

When the clapping stopped the subject suddenly veered round to village industry
products of the Punjab; the boss wanted to be enlightened on the point.

Mr. Shamnath was bubbling with joy. The sound of clapping was still ringing in his ears.
“We have so many of them”, he said enthusiastically. “I'll collect a complete set for you. I'll
bring it to the office, Sir. You'll like it, I am sure,”Mr. Shamnath thought for a moment. “The
girls make dolls, Sir and... And women make phulkari.” Mr. Shamnath inefficiently tried to
explain that a phulkari was a sort of embroidered piece of cloth and then giving the effort up as
hopeless he turned to his mother. “Mother, do we have an old phulkari in the house?”

Mother went in and returned with one.

The boss examined it with keen interest. It was an old phulkari, its threads had come off
in several places, and the cloth almost crumbled at the touch. Shamnath said, “Sir, this one is
almost threadbare. It’s useless. I'll have a new one made for you. Mother, you will make one for
the Sahib, won’t you? Make one for him.”
 Mother was quiet. Then she said, “My sight is not the same as it used to be. Old eyes feel
the strain.”

“Of course mother will make one for you,” Shamnath said, interrupting her. “You'll be
pleasedwith it.”

The Sahib nodded his head, thanked mother and proceeded towards the dining table.
Other guests followed.

When they had settled down to dinner, mother quietly slipped into her room. No sooner
had she sat down than her eyes flooded with tears. She kept wiping her eyes with the dupatta but
the tears wouldn't stop, as if the flood-gates of years of old pent-up feelings had suddenly burst
open. She tried to control herself, she folded her hands before the image of Krishna, she prayed
for the long life of her son, but like monsoon showers the tears kept flowing.

It was now midnight. The guests had departed one by one. But mother kept sitting with
her back set against the wall. All the excitement was over and the quietness of the locality had
also descended on the house.

One could hear only the rattling of plates in the kitchen. Someone knocked at the door.

“Mother, open the door.”

Her heart sank. Has she made another blunder? She was always making mistakes. Oh, why had

she dozed off on the verandah? Had her son not forgiven her for it? She opened the door with

trembling hands. Shamnath hugged her wildly. “Ammi, you have done wonders today. The
Sahib was so pleased with you, Ammi, my good Ammi.”

Her frail body looked even more small against Shamnath’s heavy frame. Tears came to
her eyes. Wiping them she said, “Son, send me to Hardwar. I've been asking you for a long
time.”

Shamnath’s face darkened. He let go of her. “What did you say, mother? Again the same
thing?” He was getting angrier. “So you want to discredit me before others so that they will say
that the son cannot give shelter even to his own mother!”
 “No, son, don’t misunderstand me. You live with your wife, in joy and comfort. I’ve
come to the end of my life. What will I do here? The few days that are left to me, I would like to
spend in meditation. Please send me to Hardwar.”

“If you go away, who'll make the phulkari for the Boss? I promised him one in your
presence. You know that.”

“Son, my eye-sight has become feeble. It can’t stand any strain. You can have the
phulkari made by someone else. Or buy a readymade one.”

“Look, you can’t let me down like this, mother. Do you want to spoil the whole thing? If
the Sahib is pleased he'll give me a raise.”

Mother was silent for a minute. Then suddenly she said: “Will he give you a lift in the
office? Will he? Did he say so?”

“He did not say anything. But didn’t you see how pleased he was with me? He said when
you start making the phulkari he'll personally come and watch it being made. If the boss is
pleased, I may get an even higher post. I may become a big official.”

Her complexion started changing and gradually her wrinkled face was suffused with joy.

“So you are going to get a lift in the office, son.”

“It's not so easy, mother. You don’t understand. If only I could please the boss... There
are others too, all wanting to get promoted. It’s all a rat-race, mother. But I’ll have a better
chance.”

“In that case I’ll make one for him, I’ll.... Ill somehow manage it, son.” Silently she prayed for
her

son.

“Now go to sleep, mother”, Mr. Shamnath said as he turned towards the door.

Translated by Jai Ratan and P. Lal

Glossary:
Cynosure: a person or thing that is so good or beautiful that it attracts a lot of attention.

Seethed: to feel very angry but to be unable or unwilling to express it clearly.

Imploring: showing in a very emotional way that you want someone to do something for you.

Asperity: the quality of being severe in the way that you speak or behave.

Improvised: to invent or make something, such as a speech or a device, at the time when it is

needed without already having planned it.

bric-a-brac: small decorative objects of various types and of no great value.

Proposition: an offer or suggestion, usually in business.

Chowki: a low wooden seat or stool.

stickler: a person who thinks that a particular type of behavior is very important and always

follows it or tries to make other people follow it.

Meticulous: very careful and with great attention to every detail.

Lackluster: without energy and effort.

Dubiously: though not to be completely true or not able to be trusted.

décor: the colour, style and arrangement of the objects in a room.

Veered: to change direction.

Comprehension Questions:
1. The Boss came to Dinner reads as a critique on contemporary, materialistic society where
family relations are considered inconsequential and secondary to professional success’.
Comment on the statement citing suitable examples from the prescribed text.

2. Elucidate on the mother – son relationship as depicted in the short story.

3. “The flood-gates of years of old pent-up feelings had suddenly burst open.” Elaborate on the
characterization of the Shamnath’s mother on the basis of the above mentioned statement.

4. Articulation change with changing times and thus ‘Mother’ changes to ‘Ammi’. Elucidate on
the statement with reference to the prescribed text.

5. Write a character sketch on Shamnath and substantiate your analysis with suitable examples.

About the author

Bhisham Sahni was born in 1915 in Rawalpindi. After the Partition he moved to Delhi where he
taught English and wrote in Hindi. He has been active in theatre. He has so far published six full
length plays, six novels, ten collections of short stories as well as a biography of his elder
brother, Balraj Sahni. Several of his works are now available in English. His ‘Tamas’ was made
into an acclaimed TV serial. He has received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamas and the
Delhi Hindi Academy Award for his novel, Mayyadas Ki Marhi. He lives in New Delhi.

Introduction to the text:

Bhisham Sahni, is probably one of the first few Indian writers to pen a ‘modern’ short
story. He presents a society that is peopled by those that still favor the wester ideals and norms.
They look down upon everything Indian until it was patronized by the American ‘Boss’. Irony is
explicitly part of the narrative as evident with the characterization of Shamnath’s mother, who
had to sell her last gold bangles to educate her son, is now being ridiculed and look down upon
by her son for being illiterate.

Like other contemporary short story writers, Bhisham Sahni presents the city as one that
is rife with hypocrisy and nepotism and where filial relations are often sacrificed at the altar of
professional success. The fact that the son wants to project an image of being very ‘cultured’
among his office peers is contrary to the reality as is evident from his interaction with his mother.
Moreover, the American boss shows more consideration for the mother than Shamnath who
seems to be oblivious of his mothers’ ill health.

Themes

 Sentiments/emotions versus rationality

 Appearances versus reality.

 Need to maintain an image in todays’ society

 Characterization of Shamnath –his prejudices and superficial attitude to filial

relationships

 Characterization of the mother who despite her advanced years continues to care and
nurture her son who doesn’t think twice before ill-treating her.

The Taste of the Hilsa.

N. Kunjamohan Singh.

The stars were blinking in the open sky. Occasionally a meteor or two fitted across and dropped

down. And the din of the waters if the Borak flowing nearby was heard, wafted by the wind.

It was not yet dawn. Not a single soul, a father and a son in a boat, could be seen stirring on the

river. The son was at the oar and the father was mending the fishing net. The father looked

around and shouted at his son, ‘Hey Mani! Why are you still dozing though the sun is about to

rise? I should rub your eyes with a hot chilli! Look here, wash your face with this cold water.’
Mani put down the oar and started washing his face. After wiping his face with the front end of

his lion cloth he again took up the oar.

The father seemed to have been moved by how his son ungrudgingly obeyed him. He took out

his bidi and a box of matches from the right pocket of his torn corduroy jacket and said, ‘Here us

a bidi-stub; get it lighted and after two or three puffs pass it back to me.’

Mani held the bidi between his lips and attempted to strike a match. Even after striking two or

three times it did not catch fire. Mani started mumbling in anger and wanted just to fling it in to

the water.

The father saw what the son was doing and said, ‘Here, let me try. Nowadays neither side of the

match-box is covered with sulphur. It is only a ruse for extracting money.’ Then he came closer

and struck the match.

The moment Mani finished a long satisfactory puff on the bidi he heard the clear and unimpaired

cry of ‘Bom Bholanath ! Jaya Shiva Sambhu!’ It was the loud morning prayer of the sadhu with

plaited hair on the opposite bank.

Everyone knew if the sadhu woke up, the morning should not be far behind. And other people

too would be seen coming down the river.

In the meantime, the father and the son steered their boat towards the deep waters of Langor

Baba. Generally, people were scared of approaching this part of the river, but it always abounded

in fish. If the river was in spate, this spot was infested with porpoises, and sometimes alligators

too appeared. Only the year before, an alligator was shot dead at that very place.
Sensing a jerk in the net down so, the father dragged it up, but nothing was found inside. Close to

the boat, a porpoise emerged with its snout as if it was mocking at him.

After casting their net once or twice the father and son found their endeavour fruitless. Then they

moved down southward.

By this time five or six boats had collected and there was clear sign of the dawn too. Drifting a

little further near the ghat of Naorem family, they hit on luck. Now in the net was seen a big

hilsa rolling and leaping, silvery white. And in an instant there was a glow on the two faces.

Pat came the spontaneous expression of Mani, the younger of the two, ‘How beautiful! Pabo,

how sweet it will taste!’

‘Keep quite! It is not proper to say so’, the father scolded his son. Perceiving somebody coming

down the ghat, the father turned around and saw the fat elderly head of the Naorem gazing at

them. The man called aloud, ‘Mani’s father, oh Mani’s father!’

For some time Mani’s father feigned not to hear the call, for he never felt at home with this man.

He had already construed his call as a prelude to inducing him to sell the fish. And this man

would never bid the price others would generally be prepared to pay. Rich as he was, he would

haggle over the price for centuries.

But at the persistent call, Man’s father was obliged to answer, ‘Would you like to tell me

anything, uncle?’

‘How much is your catch now?’ Said the elderly man. ‘Allow me to purchase one. We all have

suffered badly since there is no more supply of fish from Pakistan. We have borne it almost
silently as if the tongue were stuck to a piece of hard wood. And everybody’s health too is very

rundown.’

Man’s father muttered something indistinctly to himself about the elderly man’s excessive

stinginess and self-inflicted torture. Then more audibly he answered, ‘There is no other catch

than this.’

‘Well let me have that.’

‘You will please excuse us today. Since it is the only catch, we would not like to part with it.’

Seeing he was not in a condescending mood, the man did not insist any further.

But the displeasure of Mani’s father at seeing the elderly man did not abate and he said to

himself, ‘His very sight portends ill for me.’ To this his son added something of his own, ‘I too

have a great dislike for this man. The other day his son Tomal gave me a thrashing. And then

I…’

He had hardly completed his statement when his father started murmuring something seeing a

fish being trapped in the net if Rahimudding and his son, ‘What luck for them! Just see their

catch so soon after they came to the river!’

Rahimuddin adroitly disentangled the fish and putting it inside the boat called aloud, ‘O

Brother Chaoba, how much have you caught?’

‘I have not caught much. It is only one fish.’

“Even then, your labours have not got unpaid. Yesterday I was able to catch three and
disposed of all of them at four each.’

‘Yes, if I do so it may fetch some amount, but I won’t since I have already made up my mind to

invite my daughter to a meal. She is now in an advanced stage of pregnancy. And to tell you the

truth we have almost forgotten the taste of hilsa as we always dispose of what we catch. Today

we will relish it!’

When the father and the son returned home they knew from the shade cast by the leaves of the

thatched roof that the morning was well advanced. For a little while Chaoba comforted himself

sipping the black tea prepared by his daughter Tampha. At that time from outside the gate,

someone enquired loudly, ‘Chaoba, O Chaoba! Is it true you have netted a hilsa? He realised that

the voice was that of Konsom Kanhai.

A shiver ran down his spine, the moment he heard Kanhai’s voice. Suddenly he recollected the

two-and – a quarter rupees he owed Kanhai. Before Chaoba could reply, his babbling little son

came forward and said, ‘Yes, a big one has been caught.’

It was not certain whether Kanhain had heard the words or not. But Chaoba silenced his son.

‘What a sharp tongue this child has! What have you to do with that?’ said he. And then looking

towards the gate, he replied, ‘We failed to catch even a single fish. Who told you we did?’

‘Well, it does not matter if you did not catch any at all.’ Saying thus Kanhai left the place.

But little Mukta’s tongue knew no rest. He told his playmate Tomchou, ‘Today we are going to

have a good dish of hilsa at lunch. It is this big! Pabo has caught it from the river. Haveyou ever

tasted it?’ While saying this he was all gesticulation- both with his hands and eyes.
At this very moment his sister Tampha brought out the hookah for her father and gently said,

‘Pabo, we have no rice to cook. What shall we do now?’

On hearing this Chaoba kept his eyes fixed on his daughter for some time and in an

instant his appetite for the hookah vanished. Quite coincidentally, the old and dying dog of the

family, stripped of its fur and reduced to a skeleton, came tottering up the courtyard. Now, the

poor creature had to bear the brunt of all their misfortune. At the very sight of it Chaoba flew

into such a fury that he flung the wooden stool he was sitting on at the dog. Somehow it missed

the poor creature. Perhaps its innocence came to its rescue. Yelling and squealing it rushed away

towards the gate.

With anger still brewing in him, Chaoba came into the house, and listened to the groans of his

ailing wife who had been bedridden for a long time. Being unaware of the unhappy incident that

had taken place only a few moments before, she weakly said, ‘Did you hear the child say there is

no rice? What are you going to do?’

The dying embers of anger again burst into flames. ‘Hmmm I can no longer shoulder all these

hardships. You too better pass away instead of tormenting others all the time.’

He would have given greater vent to his suffering had it not been cut short by somebody’s call

from outside. He came out to inquire who it was, but finding it was none other than Thaninjao,

his countenance suddenly fell.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked.

‘The matter is this: my daughter Thaballei is coming home today. And not a single fish could be

procured for her. As I came to know of some fish caught by you, I have come to purchase that’,

Thaninjao replied.

‘Oh, it is only one fish. Come. See for yourself.’ With these words, Chaoba led Thaninjao into

the house and showed him the fish.

‘How much do you demand for this?’ Thaninjao asked.

‘I would like four. It is a hilsa of the Borak and it should be definitely tasty.’

‘Alright, I will offer you three-fifty’, Thaninjao replied and examined the fish by lifting it.

‘And you have to pay me right now for I have to fetch rice with that. ‘Yes, yes, don’t worry, you

can have either money or rice from me,’ Thaninjao said and came out with the fish slung over his

hand.

Little Mukta caught sight of him in the courtyard and called aloud, “ Pabo, our fish has been

taken away.’

Delighted, Thaninjao mockingly retorted, ’Don’t think I am taking it for nothing. I am paying for

it.’

The child was silenced. He simply stood tongue-tied, casting a long lingering look at the fish that

was being carried away.

Translated by Ch. ManiharSingh

Glossary
Ungrudgingly: being with envy or reluctance.

Ruse: an attempt to mislead by a false impression

Porpoises: a blunt- snouted usually dark gray whale of the North Atlantic and North Pacific that

typically ranges from 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 meters) in length

Spate: a large number or amount, a sudden or strong outburst.

Countenance: calm expression, face or visage.

Condescending: showing or characterised by a patronizing or superior attitude towards others.

Comprehension Questions:

1. Elucidate how ‘attaining the hilsa’ becomes a symbol of class supremacy and class difference.

2. ‘Fathers are the protectors and providers of the family.’ Compare the characterisation of

Chaoba and Thaninjao in the light of the above statement.

3. N. Kunjamohan Singh presents a slice of Manipuri life in his short story ‘The Taste of the

Hilsa’. Elaborate citing suitable examples.

4. Discuss the father- son bond as it exists between Chaoba and his sons.

5. ‘The Taste of Hilsa’ could be read as a story describing the difference between ‘need and

greed.’ Comment citing suitable examples.

About the author: N. Kunjamohan Singh is widely known as a Manipuri writer of short stories

and travelogues. His concern for the oppressed classes comes through in his stories. His

collection titled Ilisha Amagi Mahao won the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Introduction to the text

The short story provides a glimpse of Manipuri society and explores the various facets of class

difference and its manifestations in terms of attitude and behaviour patterns. With the

characterisation of Chaoba and Thaninjao, the author has represented two ends of the spectrum

in terms of wealth but they share a common bond as caring fathers wishing to nurture their

daughters. The story also maps Chaoba’s sentiments from being utterly delighted at having

caught a Hilsa, fantasising about sharing a tasty meal with his family to giving up his aspiration

when faced with the reality of empty rice sack, a hungry household and a sick wife. Moreover,

N. Kunjamohan Singh by transliterating words of local dialect and by incorporating life - like

setting and narrative style makes the entire short story very realistic.

Themes for discussion

 Class Difference

 The hilsa as a symbol of power and prestige.

 Chaoba’s attitude and psychological transition as the story progresses.

 Transliteration of ideas and phrases.

POST SCRIPT
MOHAN THAKURI

PS. In spite of the exceedingly long letter that I have completed writing, I realize that there is

something still that I have forgotten to write. This I write in strict confidence and I do not want

you to repeat it to anyone else — not even to your wife.

Premendra.

You have surely not forgotten this name.

Do you remember Premendra?

Our childhood friend. Shabya’s classmate; yours and mine too. The most decrepit in the

class and by far the least talkative. He preferred conversing only with the three of us — keeping

a safe distance from the rest. Serious. Face perpetually clouded by pain. If anyone laughed at his

deformity, he always broke into tears. No matter what we offered by way of consolation, no

matter how much we reasoned with him, the tears would not cease. Does it ring a bell?

Bimal! Why did we ever love him that way, love him so much? Why did we allow him

to grow close to us? It still defeats me. Whether he was himself attracted to us or we developed

attachment with him—I don’t know. But amongst the three of us, it was Shabya who loved him

best, who was most sympathetic towards him. This is plausible — she, a woman touched easily

by another’s suffering. But do you remember — as we grew in years, Shabya had started

developing a sort of dried up feeling towards him, a lack of interest. As we were leaving school,

it was Shabya among us who had begun to forget all about Premendra. After we finished school,

you moved on to Kathmandu, Shabya and I entered college and Premendra was left behind in the

small town of ours. While in college, I used to remind Shabya sometimes of Premendra but our

ugly, unhappy childhood friend had no special place in her heart, no hidden love. Yes, her

woman’s heart held a bit of sympathy that still clung to some of its corners.

As you know, Shabya and I got married as soon as we finished our college education.

Along with our old friends, Premendra had also come to the reception. But for some unknown

reason, he did not seem to enjoy the party. His face looked extremely sad —I had never seen him

so sad before. I had approached him and asked: “What is wrong with you? Why are you so

depressed? Are you unwell?” His large eyes had then become pools of tears. He could not say

anything for a while, his dried lips were trembling but not a word came through. I was truly
surprised. But he gained control over himself, he had said to me, “Friend! I have been unwell for

many years. I am sick at heart. I am afraid that I might never be able to reveal this immense

wound in my heart to anybody. But maybe I will tell you about it. I do not have the courage to

speak it out. But I shall have to say it one day or the other. I definitely cannot tell Shabya about

it, Bimal is away, that leaves you, the only friend — I shall tell you about it someday.” He had

tried to smile but was unable to do so.

Later, I even told Shabya about it. She thought it was mental derangement.

What did Premendra do yesterday? Do you know?

I am writing about that - he committed suicide in his own room.

You might think that an ugly man took his life, he did not do anything strange. But there

is something more to it. Before he killed himself, he had sent me a letter in the mail, which is

with me even now. He writes: “Friend, I too, have loved in my life-I could not, however, ever

express it. The only reason for this was my deformity —I do not blame anybody for this. Though

you are my closest friend, I could never tell you about it in my lifetime. I tell you now, because

by the time you receive my letter, my name shall already have found a place in obituaries. The

woman whom I declare to have loved all my life is: Shabya, your loving wife. Please inform her

that I always loved her. This is my last wish, my friend. Fulfil it, please!

Bimal, you tell me — what am I to do?

Translated by Eva Sashankar

Glossary:

Perpetually - always or very often.

Plausible - seeming likely to be true, or able to be believed.

Obituaries - a report, especially in a newspaper, that gives the news of someone’s death and

details about their life.

Comprehension Questions:

1. Comment on the depiction of ‘life and relationships’ as represented by the protagonists of

Mohan Thakuri’s ‘Postscript’.

2. Analyze the short story as a critique on the prejudices associated with the differently

abled.

3. Elaborate on Premendra’s last wish and how it presents a dilemma for the narrator.

About the author:

Mohan Thakuri was born in 1948. He has published two collections of short stories and one

collection of poems. He has also published articles. He is the recipient of Shrastha Award (1990)

and Diyalo Award (1990) for poetry. He lives in Darjeeling.

Introduction to the text:

Mohan Thakuri elaborates on the finer nuances of human relationships through his short story.

Using the postscript of the letter as a format for his narrative, he highlights the prejudices in

society associated with the differently abled. Though at first glance the story presents a

perplexing situation for the narrator when faced by a confession of unrequited love by his

childhood friend, yet with the progression of the narrative the subtext of a critique on insensitivity

of society is unfurled.

Themes for discussion:

 - Friendship and relationship.

- Prejudices associated with society about the differently abled.

HIND SWARAJ

CHAPTER XIII - What is true civilisation?

M.K.Gandhi
READER: You have denounced railways, lawyers and doctors. I can see that you will discard all
machinery. What, then, is civilisation? EDITOR: The answer to that question is not difficult. I
believe that the civilisation India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal
the seeds sown by our ancestors. Rome went, Greece shared the same fate, the might of the
Pharaohs was broken, Japan has become westernised, of China nothing can be said, but India is
still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from
the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying
to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and
Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this, India remains immovable, and that
is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilised, ignorant and stolid,
that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit.
What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust
their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty; it is the sheet-anchor of our
hope.
Civilisation is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of
duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery
over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for
civilisation means ‘good conduct’.
If this definition be correct, then India, as so many writers have shown, has nothing to learn
from anybody else, and this is as it should be. We notice that the mind is a restless bird; the more
it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions, the
more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw
that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich,
or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy.
Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries
and pleasures. We have managed with the same kind of plough as existed thousands of years
ago. We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times, and our indigenous
education remains the same as before. We have had no system of life-corroding competition.
Each followed his own occupation or trade, and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we
did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after
such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fibre. They therefore, after due
deliberation, decided that we should only do what we could with our hands and feet. They saw
that our real happiness and health consisted in a proper use of our hands and feet. They further
reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless encumbrance, and that people would not be
happy in them, that there would be gangs of thieves and robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing
in them, and that poor men would be robbed by rich men. They were, therefore, satisfied with
small villages. They saw that kings and their swords were inferior to the sword of ethics, and
they, therefore, held the sovereigns of the earth to be inferior to the Rishis and the Fakirs. A
nation with a constitution like this is fitter to teach others than to learn from others. This nation
had courts, lawyers and doctors, but they were all within bounds. Everybody knew that these
professions were not particularly superior; moreover, these vakils and vaids did not rob people;
they were considered people’s dependants, not their masters. Justice was tolerably fair. The
ordinary rule was to avoid courts. There were no touts to lure people into them. This evil, too,
was noticeable only in and around capitals. The common people lived independently, and
followed their agricultural occupation. They enjoyed true Home Rule.
And where this cursed modern civilisation has not reached, India remains as it was before. The
inhabitants of that part of India will very properly laugh at your new-fangled notions. The
English do not rule over them, nor will you ever rule over them. Those in whose name we speak
we do not know, nor do they know us. I would certainly advise you and those like you who love
the motherland to go into the interior that has yet been not polluted by the railways, and to live
there for six months; you might then be patriotic and speak of Home Rule.
Now you see what I consider to be real civilisation. Those who want to change conditions such
as I have described are enemies of the country and are sinners.
READER: It would be all right if India were exactly as you have described it, but it is also India
where there are hundreds of child widows, where two-year-old babies are married, where twelve-
year-old girls are mothers and housewives, where women practice polyandry, where the practice
of Niyog obtains, where, in the name of religion, girls dedicate themselves to prostitution, and
where, in the name of religion, sheep and goats are killed. Do you consider these also as symbols
of the civilisation that you have described?
EDITOR: You make a mistake. The defects that you have shown are defects. Nobody mistakes
them for ancient civilisation. They remain in spite of it. Attempts have always been made, and
will be made, to remove them. We may utilise the new spirit that is born in us for purging
ourselves of these evils. But what I have described to you as emblems of modern civilisation are
accepted as such by its votaries. The Indian civilisation as described by me has been so described
by its votaries. In no part of the world, and under no civilisation, have all men attained
perfection. The tendency of the Indian civilisation is to elevate the moral being that of the
Western civilisation is to propagate immorality. The latter is godless, the former is based on a
belief in God. So understanding and so believing, it behoves every lover of India to cling to the
old Indian civilisation even as a child clings to its mother’s breast.

Glossary
1. Stolid: calm, dependable, and showing little emotion or animation.
2. Anvil: a heavy iron block with a flat top and concave sides, on which metal can be
hammered and shaped.
3. Sheet – anchor: a large strong anchor formerly carried in the waist of a ship and used as
a spare in an emergency.
4. Unbridled: uncontrolled; unconstrained
5. Dissuaded: to persuade (someone) not to take a particular course of action. Discourage.
6. Encumbrance: an impediment or burden
7. Fangled: a fashion especially when foppish or silly —used with new and usually
derogatorily.
8. Votaries: a devoted follower, adherent, or advocate of someone or something.
9. Behove: befits, duty or responsibility to do something.
Questions:
1. What is the meaning of a ‘civilisation’ according to Gandhi?
2. In today’s context, do you still agree that India as a nation, has nothing much to learn
from other nations and rather is in a position to impart or teach, as propounded by
Gandhi?
3. Why does Gandhi attach importance to ‘working with one’s hands and feet only’? Do
you think the idea is still relevant in productive functioning of today’s society?
4. Explain the notion of ‘true Home Rule’ according to Gandhi?
5. What are the emblems of modern civilisation according to Gandhi?
6. Critically examine the contrast brought out by Gandhi between the western and Indian
civilisation in the essay “What is True Civilisation”. Do these notions still hold true?

About the Author:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born on 2nd October in Porbandar, was an Indian activist who
was the leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. Employing
nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for
civil rights and freedom across the world.

Non – violence, Swaraj, Stateless Democracy, Village Economy and Decentralisation were the
major ideas propounded by Gandhi. His major works include An Autobiography - The Story of
My Experiments with Truth, India of My Dreams, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule and Key
To Health.

About the text:

What is true civilisation is an excerpt from the book Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, penned
by M. K. Gandhi. A short tract first written in 1909 in Gujarati (later translated by Gandhi
himself into English), and banned by the colonial government in 1910 (although he returned to
India from South Africa only in 1914), Gandhi directly reflects on the relationship between the
self and social transformation through undertaking a critique of modern civilization. He also
reviews the place and role of laws and the legal profession in ushering in a better world. The text
is written in simple prose in the form of an imagined dialogue between a Reader and an Editor.
 Organising For Change
Ela Bhatt

I was born on September 7, 1933, into a Nagar Brahmin family in Ahmedabad. My mother,
Vanalila Vyas, was the daughter of Dr. Manidhar Prasad, who joined the freedom movement in
answer to Gandhi’s call. My grandfather had taken part in the Dandi March, also known as the
Salt Satyagraha, joining up in 1930 in one of the first teams that dared the British Empire to tax
common salt. My father’s father was a lawyer, a government pleader, not given to nationalistic
sentiment, but socially and culturally, the two families shared a great deal and a marriage was
arranged between Vanalila and Sumant Bhatt. As it turned out, the influences from my mother’s
family finally determined the choices that I made for my vocation.
I grew up in a large house in the old part of Surat. Our home was fairly close to the house of the
state Congress party president. As is well known, the Congress party was the political group that
was in the thick of the struggle to free the country from the shackles of the British Empire.
Across the street from our home was a printing press, which ostensibly published children’s
books. Much as I wanted to, I was not allowed to go there and pick up books to read or to see
what they were printing. Later I found out that the press printed pamphlets and newsletters for
those who were protesting British rule and were largely underground for fear of being arrested
for sedition. We saw quite a lot of political activity in our neighbourhood in the cause of India’s
freedom, and also its suppression by the British.
My mother had to discontinue school at an early age in order to get married. She resented that
and took every opportunity to study on her own. She also made the decision to send her own
daughters to university. My mother wrote poems and ghazals, often reciting them at poetry
reading sessions held for the public in the evenings. My father was a lawyer, as was his brother.
Our two families would spend the long summer vacations (when courts and schools were
closed), travelling to the seashore, hill-stations or forests. My father would spend long evenings
with us, encouraging us to memorise his favourite poems. I think he wanted to inculcate a love of
English literature in us, but even more earnestly, a moral education that would last us a lifetime.
Our parents were also very keen that we should do well at school. My enthusiasm to respond can
be gauged by the fact that we would buy the textbooks for the next class at the beginning of the
summer vacation, and before the school term started I would have finished reading them all!
On 15th August, 1947, India became independent. I was 14 years old and had just graduated
from high school. I got admitted to college, acquired a new bicycle and began to realise the
dimensions of my own independence. I particularly enjoyed my classes in Gujarati and English
poetry, and apart from the formal courses I learnt charcoal drawing, photography and music.
When I was in my second year of college, independent India’s first Census was about to begin.
Members of the Youth Congress were asked to help in conducting field tests in selected samples;
that is when I met Ramesh Bhatt for the first time. He was energetic and handsome, an obvious
leader. Many of us became willing followers, cycling with him to the slums of Surat where each
of us had to collect data from 65 households. I was stunned by the minimal housing and living
levels of the inhabitants. The sampling exercise for the Census was my first contact with poverty.
I did not know it then, but I can say with the wisdom of hindsight that it was a turning point in
my life.
My parents disapproved of my going into the slums and meeting families of the working class,
but they did not quite know how to curb me. In the course of working together, Ramesh and I
became fond of each other and we decided to get married. This was a shock to my parents. They
opposed the match on the grounds that Ramesh came from a poor family and was the son of a
textile worker. It was bad enough that I was always talking about the problems of the poor, but to
be so brazen as to select a partner who was not from the same economic class was something my
parents could not accept. My father asked me, “What do you know about poverty?” and I felt
that I had to have first-hand knowledge of it. As an experiment with myself, I chose to live in a
village near Surat on Rs. 60 p.m. for a whole year, to understand the experience of poverty, but
at the back of my mind was the thought that I was trying to prove to myself that I could live very
simply.
After finishing my law degree in 1955, I applied for a job with the Textile Labour Association
(TLS) in Ahmedabad. The TLA had been set up by Anasuyaben Sarabhai, Shankarlal Banker
and Mahatma Gandhi. It was an association that already had a reputation for settling disputes
through discussions. I was hesitant and nervous when I started working, but I did manage to
present some cases at court on behalf of labour. Later, TLA started a women’s wing and I was
put in charge of it. Among the first things I did was to visit the slums where the women lived. I
went everywhere on my Lambretta. In those days, it was unusual to see a woman riding scooter
so, unwittingly, I attracted a lot of attention. However, the job gave me a chance to visit the
women in their homes and to understand their specific problems.
In 1956 Ramesh Bhatt got a master’s degree both in economics and law. My parents were
impressed and finally approved of my choice. We were married on April 20, 1956. Even though
I insisted on wearing a white khadi sari with a red border and wore no jewellery except the
traditional ivory bangle, my parents had a lavish celebration. After our marriage, for two years
we lived in a house on the campus of Gujarat Vidyapith where Ramesh had a teaching job. We
lived very simply, in a Gandhian way. I continued my work at the TLA until two months before
the birth of my first child, a daughter we called Amimayi, in January 1958 and a son, Mihir, born
in November 1959. My husband and I enjoyed their early years, sharing their care and the tasks
of the household.
In 1960, Bombay Presidency was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat, which resulted in more
government jobs becoming available. I applied for the post of assistant employment officer and
was selected. I had a staff of three and my job was to set up an employment guidance bureau at
Gujarat University. I tried to find placements for new graduates and I think I succeeded. After
three years, I was transferred to the head office and given the post of occupational information
officer. I had to field test the definitions of new occupations. I watched people at work and noted
down their work operations in detail. Although it gave me a chance to travel and be out in the
real world, I found bureaucratic procedures a bit restricting, I gave up my job to help TLA
prepare for the Indian National Trade Union Congress to be held in Ahmedabad in July 1968.
Two major events propelled me into the vocation I eventually chose. The first was the closing of
two major textile mills in 1968. The men who were laid off were organising protests. Their wives
did a variety of jobs as loaders, vendors, tailors, housemaids and so on. I realised that the
informal sector had no work security, insurance or even an entry in any register as “labour”.
They were nameless and faceless as far as the state was concerned, and yet the women worked at
a variety of tasks and managed to feed the family.
The second event was a communal riot in Ahmedabad. In 1969, there was a major crisis: tension
and riots between Hindus and Muslims. At that time, TLA members were allowed to go out to
restore peace so I went with some others to affected areas. One night we saw bleeding corpses in
the curfew area. I helped to put the bodies into a military truck to be taken to the public
crematorium. It was my first contact with the horror of violent death. As part of TLA work, I
also visited women victims in the hospitals and found that many of them were Muslims. I spent a
lot of time helping women find their lost relatives and start building their lives again. Many
families had lost their homes and their jobs and were desperately poor.
In the course of my survey work, I noted that there were thousands of women recycling waste
cloth, making bidis, collecting scrap, stitching, vending vegetables and pulling carts. These jobs
went unrecognised and earned them pitiful amounts. They were constantly borrowing money at
exorbitant rates of interest, just to keep going. Just as I was feeling weighed down by the
enormous burdens that women carried in their daily lives, I got a chance to attend a training
programme in Israel, offered by their national labour union Histadrut. In Israel, banking, health-
care, transport, even the airlines, were operated by union members through their cooperatives. I
felt excited by the thought that I could begin to organise the women I had seen, unionising them
not only against someone, but also for themselves. This visit provided me with vital thrust I
needed for the next stage of my work.
My first attempt at organising was successful, possibly a matter of beginner’s luck. I found that
head-loaders were paid a pittance and I wrote an article about it in the newspaper. The merchants
stoutly denied the low wage, insisting that they were paying four times as much and printing the
supposed rates in the paper. I printed those rates on cards and gave one card to each worker.
Since they had been printed in the newspaper, the merchants could not go back to their rates.
Effectively, the wages for head-loading went up.
The next group was that of women who sold used garments. I organised a meeting with them and
they willingly paid a membership fee of Rs. 3 per year. That was the beginning of the Self
Employed Women’s Association. There were many hurdles to cross, but we registered SEWA as
labour union on April 12, 1972, with the help of TLA. To start with, we surveyed eight urban
trades, with investigators from their own communities. The survey process itself generated
leaders and organisers. I wrote up our survey data and it was published by the TLA. The core
problem became apparent: the workers did not own their tools and they had no access to capital.
The idea of having our own bank came from one of our workers, Chandaben (Chanda Papu). It
was an uphill task, but we did start a cooperative bank called Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank Ltd.
in May 1974. We created bank pass-books with photographs for identity, as many of the women
were not literate. However, many of them insisted on learning to sign their own names and thus,
banking led to literacy. Since the women found it difficult to come to the bank, our field workers
went to their work place, collected their savings and made their entries for them.
Vocabulary:
1. Ostensibly - as appears or is stated to be true, though not necessarily so; apparently.
2. Brazen - bold and without shame.
3. Lambretta - brand name of a line of motor scooters initially manufactured in Milan,
Italy, by Innocenti.
4. Exorbitant - unreasonably high
5. Pittance - a very small or inadequate amount of money.
Questions:
1. Explain the role and importance of education in Ela Bhatt’s life. Why did her father
emphasise so much on English poetry and education?
2. Derive observations about Ela Bhatt’s personality and character based on your reading
of the text.
3. Nature and nurture both play an important role in development of an individual.
Substantiate this statement with reference to Ela Bhatt’s life.
4. What according to Ela Bhatt was the turning point in her life?
5. What vocation did Ela Bhatt ultimately opt for? What were the two major events that
led her into choosing it and what was the common thread in them?
About the author
Ela Bhatt was born in 1933. An activist and Gandhian, she became a lawyer, then a
social worker and in 1968 was the chief of the women’s section of the Textile Labour
Association in Ahmedabad. In this position she became aware at first hand on the
conditions suffered by poor self-employed women in the city and elsewhere in South
and Southeast Asia. It was to address this situation that in 1972 Ela Bhatt set up the
Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). Within three years SEWA had 7,000
members and was registered as a trade union with the government – a formidable
hurdle to have surmounted. By December 1995, its members numbered 218,700,
making it the largest single union in India.
 Ela Bhatt herself was nominated by the President of India to be a member of the Indian
parliament (Rajya sabha) from 1986 to 1989. She was a member of the Planning
Commission of India (1989-91) and has been chairperson and a founder member of
Women’s World Banking since 1980. She is a member of “The Elders”, founded by
Nelson Mandela. She was conferred with Ramon Magsaysay Award (1977), Right
Livelihood Award (1984) and the Padma Bhushan (1986). In 2010 she was awarded the
Niwano Peace Prize and the first ever Global Fairness Award. In 2011, Harvard
University awarded her the Radcliffe Institute Medal for her life and work. Also in
2011, Ela Bhatt was appointed to the Board of the Reserve Bank of India. The same
year, she was selected for the prestigious Indira Gandhi Prize.

About the text:

“Organising for Change”, penned by Ela Bhatt is a remarkable investigation and

firsthand account of her life. Humble Gandhian and sservice oriented mind of hers,
goes on to talk about the importance of education, family values, up bringing and strive
for betterment in the society.

Beyond the Ego: New Values for a Global Neighbourhood

Sitakant Mahapatra

THE paper seeks to delineate the ego-centred narcissistic personality of our time, examines the
factors that have slowly led to it and its utter incompatibility with the "global village" or global
neighbourhood, which is so much a reality today.
It then goes on to examine what could be the new route out of this self-destroying personality—
the imperative journey in today's world. It concludes with a plea for a new set of values that alone can
redeem the individual and integrate him into the web of communitarian life as in earlier centuries.
Search for New Values for Our Global Neighbourhood
Call it Marshal McLuhan's global village or the new imagery of global neighbourhood the world
today is indeed, to a large extent, in our drawing room. Aldous Huxley had arraigned flew with a
hearty laugh. But today, in the new millennium, the Internet makes the citizen or netizen (or a net-
slave, if you like) and our world really too wired, too connected. The Oklahoma bombing, the Gujarat
or Kobe earthquakes reverberate in our drawing-rooms. Ecology, economics and culture have now to
be integrated. The Rio Conference, and the WTO have been followed by the discovery and
recognition of our "creative diversity" and the great imperative of mainstreaming culture in the
development process. The latter was the theme of the World Commission on Culture and
Development of which this author had the privilege of being a part. The realization has dawned that
God may be dead but as Vaclav Havel would say, man is very sick. And the roots of our sickness
none had seen more clearly than Lord Buddha. The Prince did not ask his father the King to distribute
his wealth among the poor or to preserve ecology. For he had seen at greater depth the existential
human condition. He was not an escapist to go away from home. He left home for he loved man too
much to be satisfied with palliatives.
And Buddhism in its various manifestations, particularly the shape it took in the hands of Rev.
Nichiren and the Soka Gakkai movement has striven hard to achieve human happiness and peace in
more concrete and socially-oriented ways.
Mr. Daisaku Ikeda, as president of the Soka Gakkai International and his wonderful meeting
of minds and dialogues with greats like Arnold Toynbee, Linus Pauling, Johan Galtung, Bryan
Wilson and others has, over the years, gone ahead with this relentless search for new values for our
global neighbourhood peace and human happiness. His book The Living Buddha is a tribute to the
new role that Buddhism and SGI play in the new millennium. This author has immense regard for
what he has done in this direction.
The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time
Let us have a look at what ails today’s man, the self-centred narcissistic man.Narcissism is
basically a strong and ideal metaphor of the human condition in our times. A host of social and
cultural factors have gone into the making of this state of mind which emerges out of a void within
and an inability to connect meaningfully with others. It is not just an acquisitive or authoritarian
personality. The former was the hallmark of the early stages of bourgeois capitalism that
characterized the 19th century political economy in most of Europe. Today the acquisitive spirit
does not want any acquisition as insurance against the future for the simple reason that the
existence of the future itself is doubted. Instead what is passionately desired is the immediate or
instantaneous gratification of wishes and demands. Life is sought to be lived as a never-ceasing,
restless and ever-unsatisfied flood of desires from which there is no respite. And modern
information technology and massive advertisement industry do precisely that. Descartes is turned
upside down. It is no longer cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore, I am. It is now we think therefore
you are. In fact you don’t even have to think. Researchers in multi-million dollar business have
done all the thinking for you in terms of profit-loss calculus! They have struggled hard to determine
not only what soap or shampoo you should use or what food you should take but also how you
should adjust your relationship to others and manage your life.
Secondly this personality is not an authoritarian personality which is anchored to a highly
egotistic self that arrogates to itself all knowledge or all decision making capacity. Such an
authoritarian personality that imposes its will on others at least occasionally develops a guilt-
complex. The present narcissist is not a dictatorial political-economic man. He is a troubled,
anxiety-ridden psychological man. This is perhaps the end product of bourgeois individualism.
Such a personality cannot even think of imposing his own certainties on others. In fact he hardly
possesses any certainties. He is himself unsure of any meaning in his own life and therefore regards
everyone as a rival. He has forfeited his grip on reality and his own life.
 The narcissistic personality not only does not crave for meaning; he denies the possibility of
any meaning beyond the moment, beyond possessions, beyond himself. This is the dreadful
impoverishment of the psyche from where there is no return. Tom Wolfe calls this narcissism as the
“third awakening.” It is an awakening into the terrible silence of the ego-centric self which lives for
the moment and for himself. To sum up narcissism has become the most telling metaphor of the
human condition in our time. Its twin faces are total ego-centrism with all its anxiety and
helplessness and the denial of all connectivity, all linkages to other.

The Long Story of the Broken Gestalt

Once upon a time they were intimately, almost organically, linked to each other. Man, the
individual; other man in various groups, family and community constituting the social web; the
world of nature, earth with all its ineluctable beauty, its sun-laden promises, the vast sky, the
oceans, rivers, forests, birds and animals; thirdly the ancestors who left the world of humans but yet
were interested in its welfare while the survivors remembered them gratefully; and finally the
unseen gods behind the clouds. Man was a part of this huge circle of belongingness. The vision was
holistic. In such an integral view of the cosmos the individual never felt alone. True he could seek
the blessing of the gods and ancestors through appropriate ritual offerings and worships. Some of
the gods were also malevolent just as others, the majority, were benevolent. One was also supposed
to invoke the blessings of the ancestors but the equilibrium of life was maintained by an integrated
approach to a world-view where man, other men, nature, gods and society each had a rightful place.
The birth of technological civilization has resulted in the demolition of this holistic vision of
earlier centuries so common to all primitive cultures where an isolated selfish lonely individual was
the exception rather than the rule. Modern science explored, after all, only one dimension of reality
—the physical, the biological and the psychological. The other dimensions such as the socio-
cultural, the ethical and the psychic were no doubt explored but only with limited success. We still
do not know enough of the new frontiers of the mind where para-psychology is only at the door-
steps of a vast unexplored realm. The pride in knowledge of the earlier periods is giving place to an
awareness of inadequacy. The greatest of scientists in our generation have come to visualize the
inadequacies of the scientific view of the self and the reality around us. May be we know
substantially more than our ancestors about the Universe but it appears in this knowledge there is
dearth of something which, along with the lack of humility, holistic outlook and altruism, affects
our perceptions. It is not merely the Universe as a whole but of nature, of our own psyche and of
gods, spirits and ancestors. In short, modern civilization fully backed by the gains of science had
failed to provide a valid alternative which could restore the earlier balance of holistic vision. No
doubt science has started talking of the gaps in our knowledge, of the principle of uncertainty, the
black holes and the edges of being but restoration of the integral vision that takes man out of his
ego-centric self to a higher level of integration with reality had not yet become possible. Meanwhile
Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Stephen Jay Gould and a host of other eminent scientists are
looking at the borderlines of knowledge and mystery, of technology and myth.
We are aware of the slow, inexorable process by which man got alienated from nature.
Intimacy gave place to a feeling of ownership and exploitative approach. Even the question of
inter-generational equity tended to be forgotten. The earth’s bounties, many of which are not
renewable, is after all meant for all posterity and not merely for one generation. The result:
ecological imbalance, acid rain, green-house effect, the talk of silent spring and all that led to the
Rio-Summit. All of us have heard of the Gaia hypothesis, according to which we are part of a
greater whole and our destiny inevitably and integrally linked to the living planet Gaia, named after
an ancient Greek goddess, the archetype of the Earth Mother in all cultures, all religions. In fact,
this uncaring and ceaseless exploitation of earth’s resources with the help of science and
technology has come to threaten the survival of life itself. We cannot any longer leave it to Jesus,
Mohammed or any other god to redeem the world. The eminent scientist Collin A. Russel in the
collection of his Templeton Lectures, The Earth Humanity and God, rightly emphasizes that man is
the millennial measure and he cannot refuse to bear his own cross. Technology—at all the stages of
it, the steam engine, the printing press, the computer and the information revolution—only
heightens the incoming future shock. And as the millennium comes to an end man must come to
terms with nature.
Yet another leading scientist has warned us of the likely consequence of our endless pride in
the conquest of nature. Our hubris may invite the nemesis of human civilization as we know it. Carl
Sagan in his autobiography Billions and Billions tells us how man, without being fully aware of it,
is becoming a danger to himself. The technological revolution has changed the world so much that
many people no longer feel at home in it. And then he cautions: “the dinosaurs were exterminated
to the last one after having inhabited the earth for 180 million years. Human beings have been
around only for a million years.”

Unattainable Earth And Human Values

Today life seems to be without joy, without love and therefore without passion. There is no
passion for one’s own life, for other men in society or for the intimacy of togetherness. There is no
passion for gods, for the natural world, for dead ancestors, for rivers, trees, birds, clouds, animals,
for death or another life. In short there is no passion left in loving, living and dying. No wonder life
has become dull, colorless, routinised, a burden, a boredom instead of a celebration, a release, an
ecstasy. Love has become clinical, too physical, mechanical and no longer reveals the colors of
rainbow, the nuances of feeling that involves the whole being of man—his heart, his body, his soul,
his instinct, his reason—the whole of his Being. Today Gods either do not exist or are irrelevant.
The life of man is again becoming as Hobbes thought it was; nasty, brutish and short. There is no
meaning, no significance because there is no passion. Meaning and significance are matters of
discovery by the individual mind and not “given” by some sacred text or guru. And the discovery
of significance is impossible if there is no passionate love of life; if it is looked upon either as an
organic functional graph, a robotic performance or only a whisper in the dark.
So too the passion for the world, for what Czeslaw Milos the Polish poet calls the unattainable
earth:

They are incomprehensible, the things of this earth.

The lure of waters. The lure of fruits.
And ungraspable multitudes swarm, come together.
In the crinkles of tree bark, in the telescope’s eye.
For an endless wedding.
For the kindling of the eyes, for a sweet dance
In the elements of the air, sea, earth and subterranean caves
So that for a short moment there is no death
And time does not unreel like a skein of yarn
Thrown into an abyss.

And Pablo Neruda celebrates the earth by asking:

Oh Earth wait for me

give me back your pure gifts
it does not matter to be one stone more
the dark stone, the pure stone which
the river bears away.

There is always an ineluctable magic in the life here on this planet. Behind its quotidian
routine there is a magic, an ever-recurring miracle which makes it a myth of eternal Being. We
have perhaps been dehumanized to an extent when even death has lost both its grandeur and its
moving image. Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet once felt that the question is not whether there
is life after death. The real question is whether there is life before death. It has been asserted
that one’s passion for the world is at its most intense at the moment of death and that the whole
of one’s life, the series of images that constitute one’s existence fleets through the screen of
the mind in those last moments. Death was also often sacral, the soul being supposed to begin
a new life and therefore whatever the person valued or loved were also to accompany him on
the journey that was going to begin. For others, who were in the presence of death, it was an
enactment of one of the most moving events one could be faced with. One may recall the
classic dialogue between the protagonist Dr. Bernard Rieux and the church father in Camus’s
The Plague. The father who initially thought of “the plague” as a punishment from the heavens
for the unbelievers, the heathens of the city of Oran were now face to face with the death of an
innocent child. Those moments of the child’s suffering, his writhing intolerable pain were an
eternity. And he could realize why it is said that in every death we are reduced.
Today death is only a matter of statistics, of numbers whether it is a car bomb or showering of
terrorist bullets on innocent bystanders, or a planeload of unsuspecting human beings falling
from the sky into the sea or millions being hacked to death as in Kigali or killed in sniper fire
in Sarajevo. We have got used to the number-game. Never before in human history has “life”
meant so little and “death” so devoid of significance. We are being reduced either to worms or
to inanimate objects. Where is the passion that would create revulsion, would make every
individual’s blood boil against inhumanity and provide the ultimate defense for the sacredness
of life. Life is sacred, it is magical, it is a miracle because it is evanescent, because it
evaporates like the moment. It is only passion, a degree of pagan love of life and awareness of
death that can redeem us from the ever-growing dehumanization of the Age.
For even today miracles happen. A mango tree bursts into blossom, clouds lean over the earth
and come down in life-giving rain, the sun and moon shine, children are born even on
pavements and battlefields, their joyful cry announcing that god is still not tired of this world.
Several international forums repeat the need for a new world order based on a universal
respect for human rights. Such respect can be summed up in what Albert Schweitzer the
humanist doctor working in Africa once said: “I am a Being wishing to live in the midst of
other Beings who also wish to live.” But the imperative for such-universal respect for human
rights has to come only by a new revival of values, a reawakening of the forgotten awareness
that no individual is here alone or only for himself but each is anchored to the earth and the
universe. We are an integral part of not only an intimate social web but a larger, higher any
mysterious cosmos whose laws have to respected.
What is needed, therefore is a renewal of lost integrity which was based upon an awareness of
our deeper connection to the entire universe. In fact science today has started talking more
about uncertainties in the shape of the edge of infinity and holes in space. It no longer exudes
its reaching out to the outer limits of human powers and a return to man, to his integrity and
his integral linkage to the cosmos. Many of us have heard about the “Gaia-hypothesis.” This
theory envisions that organic and inorganic portions of the earth’s surface are part of a single
system and that the earth is only a mega-organism, a living planet. Gaia, the name of the
ancient goddess is the archetypal Earth Mother.
The awareness we have just talked about is the basic voice of all religions. The recognition
that man must understand himself in relation to the world and the cosmos in the right spirit.
This recognition will give back to us the much-needed capacity for self transcendence. The
real value for a new world can emerge out of our own respect for the miracle that is life, the
miracle that is the universe, the miracle that is nature and the miracle which is our togetherness
on this planet. Only when we think of such a world and our place in it that we can respect a
universal order, participate in that order and then respect not only our fellow men but all that
lives and their rights. To believe in miracles is not a superstition. Miracles did not occur only
in some mythic past, they happen even today before our eyes if only we keep our eyes and ears
open.
A story from the 15th century Europe narrates the life of a skeptic young man who came to a
monastery inhabited by monks dedicated to a life of prayer, meditation and scripture-reading.
To the head of the monastery he has a simple question: “Are not you people bored by being
rooted to this place all your lives?” The head asked him “Dear son, do you see the tiny bird of
golden plumage sitting atop that tree?” The young man looked at the bird and felt fascinated.
The bird kept flying from one branch to another, from tree to tree as the young man kept
pursuing it and looking at it. After a long time he came back to the monastery. The erstwhile
head of the monastery was no longer there. Somebody else who had taken his place told him:
“Dear son, you took 40 long years just looking at the plumage 1 of a bird.” He could not
comprehend its meaning until somebody produces a mirror and he discovered to his utter
dismay that his hair was all gray and he had lost a few teeth. Then the head of the monastery
added: “Dear son, if you took 40 years just to look at a bird and you could not even be aware
of it, tell me how much can one see or know that one will be bored with the world or with
oneself?”
We can take another instance from our own mythology. Vishnu once wanted to test the
devotion of the sage Narada. He requested Narada to get him a pale of water as he was thirsty.
Narada went looking for water. He saw a beautiful river. A beautiful damsel was filling her
pitcher in that river. Narada fell in love with her, married her, set up a home and had children.
Once there was a heavy flood and in its swirling waters his wife and children were washed
away. Narada started weeping and then he heard the voice of Vishnu trembling from a peepal
tree “Narada, I am still waiting for you to bring me a pale of water.....”
The two instances cited above go only to prove that it is a question of seeing a miracle. Even
today is it not a miracle that some children still smile like gods? Is it not a miracle that the
flower have such colours which no one can imitate or excel, that the sun rises and sets and
rises again?
A better world can only be founded on a set of values that recognizes that we must work as if
everything depended on man but we should also pray as if everything depended on God.
We need competence and more than that humility.
Today the world is getting divided into two groups. One group would like it to be a more
efficient machine of progress, for producing more goods and services, stimulating higher
demands and meeting them. Another group would like it to be a happier, a better place to live
in. We must make our choice where we belong.

Forgiveness: Journey to Other Selves

One of the most important requirements in the long journey to cosmic consciousness—a state
when you are one with the universe—is the capacity to forgive. Since all of us sin, we will be
incapable of redemption unless we learn to forgive. We cannot remove the black stain of sin
which only God can. Therefore it is rightly said that to err is human, to forgive divine. As
Milan Kundera puts it, “Divesting a sin of its validity, undoing it, erasing it out of time, in
other words, making it into nothing is a mysterious and supernatural feat. Only God, because
he can work miracles, may wash away sin, transform it into nothing, forgive it. Man can
forgive man only in so far as he founds himself on God’s forgiveness.”
The capacity for forgiving has been beautifully brought out in the Gospel according to St.
John, and I cannot resist the temptation of quoting it at length: “And the Scribes and Pharisees
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery and when they had set her in the midst, they say
unto him, ‘Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law,
commanded us that such should be stoned but what sayest thou?’”
But Jesus did not reply, and when they continued bothering him with the same question he said
unto them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” And they who
heard it, being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one even unto the last and
Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. Jesus said unto her: “Woman, where
are those accusers? Hath no man condemned then?” She said, “No man, Lord.” And Jesus said
to her, “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.”
Besides the capacity to forgive, one needs to develop the capacity of love, compassion and
empathy. The journey away from ego-centrism to the cosmic self, which is the essence of all
religions, demands that we feel the sorrow of the entire world within our bones. Sometimes
this may even result in an apparent withdrawal from man and society. When Prince Gautama
left the comforts and luxury of the palace and his beautiful loving wife, he was not running
away from the world. In fact he was leaving the world we all prize because he was too deeply
in love with man and his happiness and had seen too deeply into the cause of sorrow which
was desire. It was thus the highest love that made him renounce the known illusions of life and
prosperity. True love makes one a true rebel and Buddha was and still remains the greatest
lover of mankind as also the greatest rebel who said “no” to the prevailing social values.
The imperative of the journey from one’s limited, self-centred, windowless monad 2 of a self, to
a gradually ascending higher consciousness becomes clear when we look at some of the most
profound statements on this matter. Teilhard de Chardin put it most beautifully and cryptically
when he said, “To be more, one must unite more fully.” Your strength, in other words, lies in
extending the borders of your awareness, of your concerns and not restricting or choking your
awareness to a narcissistic impulse. When once asked to express in one word the guiding
principle of happy life, Confucius replied, “It is altruism.” And what is altruism in its essence?
It is a total orientation away from selfishness and towards the good of others, to the sharing of
joys and sorrows of the whole world. The other becomes the justification for my being on this
earth. Albert Schweitzer working for the sick and infirm in African jungles put it this way: “I
am life wishing to live in the midst of the lives which also wish to live.” Such an authentic and
altruistic self becomes possible only when one is deeply aware of one’s failings, one’s
inadequacies. St. Augustine put it in a telling manner: si fallor sum (I err, therefore I exist).
Inside every man there are various levels of awareness corresponding to the levels of his
existence. Vidya or knowledge is not information gathered from books or manuals. Our culture
defines it as Sa vidya Ya vimuktave: that is knowledge or wisdom which sets you free. Free
from the narrow confines of ego, from one’s own lower or baser nature, from darkness, from
the prison-house of selfish desires.
At the root of this realization is the desire for a renewal, of a new dawn of awareness, of the
infinite possibilities of the self only when it is altruistic and by that very act takes in the entire
Universe, the cosmos. The cosmic self is not merely aware of the cosmos; it invokes the
universe and installs it within. Before his final madness and suicide Van Gogh painted that
wonderful piece wherein a group of human beings going round and round within a circle
inside an enclosed closed space. But there is a gate which they could open if only they wanted
to walk out into the bright moon-lit night outside. This is an image of the ego-centric self. The
tragedy is , it is a refusal to open the door, a forgotten opportunity, a choked possibility. The
journey to a higher self calls on us to open the door of consciousness to that wider realm, the
Cosmos.
Sartre once said, hell is other people. He also said, hell is the self. That is the end product of
Western existentialism3. A character in Sartre watches the snarled roots of a tree and feels as if
it is going to expand and swallow him up. This happens when the ego-centric self is
surrounded only by objects and the latter become the only true reality. It is not extending of
the borders but of constriction and choking.
Our scriptures have spoken of that knowledge knowing which you know all. Cosmic
awareness emerges from that kind of knowledge as a bright dawn from the dark night of the
soul. Knowledge is of things which are illumined by light for in darkness you see nothing. The
meaning of life and one’s intimate and universal connectivity to all that exists comes out of the
cosmic awareness. This universal presence which is the generator of cosmic awareness is
beautifully described by the Svetasvatara Upanisad:

Tadeva Agnih tat Óditya, tat Våyuh tat tu Candramåh

Tadeva Sakrah, tat Brahma, tat Apah, tat Prajåpatih
Tvam Stratvah Pumånasi, tvam Kumåra uta vå Kumari
Tvam jomou dandena vazñcasi tvam jåto bhavasi Visvato-mukhah
That, indeed, is fire. That is the sun. That is air. That is the moon. That indeed is pure. That is
Brahman. That is water. That is Prajapati. You are the woman. You are the man. You are the
boy and you are the girl too. You are old man tottering with a stick. Taking birth, you have
your faces everywhere.
The journey to the Cosmic Self is the progressive internalization of the Universe, the world of
man, nature, gods, everyone, everything. It is a journey of tirelessly pursuing the bird of
golden feathers, the ultimate dream. That is the way out of the prison house of the deluded
ego-centric self towards personal happiness, wisdom, social harmony and universal peace.

Glossary
Plumage: a bird's covering of feathers.
Monad: a single unit; the number one
Western existentialism: In one way or another all Existentialists belabor the notion that most
people do not live a real life, but some sort of pseudo-life that fails to get to the heart of a
genuine human existence. Most people, as the point is also put, fail to be truly themselves--by
thoughtlessly accepting the precepts and patterns of their native culture, by automatically
conforming to what "one" is supposed to do, by excessively busying themselves with mundane
matters and trivial concerns, or by seeking shelter from the threatening emptiness and nihilism of
modern life in some established cult or religion.
Comprehension Questions
1. Why does the author call man narcissistic?
2. How does the author change Descartes ‘I think therefore I am’, to describe the present
sad state of humanity.
3. Why does the author say there is no passion left in life? How does that lead to a lack of
significance?
4. What does he mean by science delving into the subject of uncertainties. Do you think
science is objective? Support your answer by borrowing ideas from the text.
5. The author constantly refers to life as a miracle. Discuss.
6. What is the Gaia hypothesis? Why and in what context does the author refer to it?
7. "A better world can only be founded on a set of values that recognizes that we must work
as if everything depended on man but we should also pray as if everything depended on
God." Discuss and support your answer.
8. What are the two groups the world is being divided into?
9. ‘to err is human, to forgive divine.’ Discuss the understanding and importance of
forgiveness given by the author.
10. What does he say is the essence of all religions? Describe the ways in which the author
talks about the journey from ego-centrism to a more cosmic self.
11. What is altruism according to the author?
12. What sets one free from selfishness and ego-centrism?
13. What is the problem with Western existentialism?

About the Author

Sitakant Mahapatra is a notable Indian poet and literary critic in Oriya as well as English. He was
born on September 17, 1937 at Mahanga, He is notable administrator and Educationist. He also
holds many privileges as he was the first Odian to top the IAS exam and also the Chairman of
National Book Trust, New Delhi.Apart from this he was the Ministry of Culture in India,
President of UNESCO’s World Decade for Cultural Development from 1994 to 1996. He has
received notable awards such as the Sahitya Academy Award for his anthology of poetry “Saara
Akash” in 1971.He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan awards.

About the text

His works had a quality and nature of reaction to the problems of contemporary life, and
responsiveness to changes in taste and sensibility. He remained critical of western individualism.
His work was noted to be "Deeply steeped in western literature his pen has the rare rapturous
fragrance of native soil".

Themes and Topics for Discussion

 Critique of Western individualism
 Going back to ancient pagan beliefs
 Living passionately (Life-fulness)
 Critique of modern technology
 Critique of Development

Post-reading Activity
 Discuss your understanding of what Development and Progress mean in contemporary
times. Do you think it has always been the same?
 Discuss how the narrative of science can make everything look objective. Find out a few
loopholes pointed out in scientific theories by eminent philosophers. (Clue: Works of
Kant)

WAITING FOR A VISA

India became an Independent nation on 15 August, 1947 and Babasaheb Ambedkar was
appointed as the Union Law Minister and Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee,
which was given the responsibility to write India's new Constitution
Foreigners of course know of the existence of untouchability. But not being next door to it, so to
say, they are unable to realise how oppressive it is in its actuality. It is difficult for them to
understand how it is possible for a few untouchables to live on the edge of a village consisting of
a large number of Hindus, go through the village daily to free it from the most disagreeable of its
filth and to carry the errands of all the sundry, collect food at the doors of the Hindus, buy spices
and oil at the shops of the Hindu Bania from a distance, regard the village in every way as their
home, and yet never touch nor be touched by any one belonging to the village. The problem is
how best to give an idea of the way the untouchables are treated by the caste Hindus. A general
description or a record of cases of the treatment accorded to them are the two methods by which
this purpose could be achieved. I have felt that the latter would be more effective than the
former. In choosing these illustrations I have drawn partly upon my experience and partly upon
the experience of others. I begin with events that have happened to me in my own life.
 
ONE
Our family came originally from Dapoli Taluka of the Ratnagiri District of the Bombay
Presidency. From the very commencement of the rule of the East India Company my fore-fathers
had left their hereditary occupation for service in the Army of the Company. My father also
followed the family tradition and sought service in the Army. He rose to the rank of an officer
and was a Subhedar when he retired. On his retirement my father took the family to Dapoli with
a view to settling down there. But for some reasons my father changed his mind. The family left
Dapoli for Satara where we lived till 1904. The first incident which I am recording as well as I
can remember, occurred in about 1901 when we were at Satara. My mother was then dead. My
father was away on service as a cashier at a place called Goregaon in KhatavTaluka in the Satara
District, where the Government of Bombay had started the work of excavating a Tank for giving
employment to famine stricken people who were dying by thousands. When my father went to
Goregaon he left me, my brother who was older than myself and two sons of my eldest sister
who was dead, in charge of my aunt and some kind neighbours. My aunt was the kindest soul I
know, but she was of no help to us. She was somewhat of a dwarf and had some trouble with her
legs, which made it very difficult for her to move about without the aid of somebody. Often
times she had to be lifted. I had sisters. They were married and were away living with their
families. Cooking our food became a problem with us especially as our aunty could not on
account of her helplessness, manage the job. We four children went to school and we also
cooked our food. We could not prepare bread. So we lived on Pulav which we found to be the
easiest dish to prepare, requiring nothing more than mixing rice and mutton.
Being a cashier my father could not leave his station to come to Satara to see us, therefore he
wrote to us to come to Goregaon and spend our summer vacation with him. We children were
thoroughly excited over the prospect especially as none of us had up to that time seen a railway
train.
Great preparations were made. New shirts of English make, bright beje welled caps, new shoes,
new silk-bordereddhoties were ordered for the journey. My father had given us all particulars
regarding our journey and had told us to inform him on which day we were starting so that he
would send his peon to the Railway Station to meet us and to take us to Goregaon. According to
this arrangement myself, my brother and one of my sister's sons left Satara, our aunt remaining
in charge of our neighbours who promised to look after her. The Railway Station was 10 miles
distant from our place and a tonga (a one-horse carriage) was engaged to take us to the Station.
We were dressed in the new clothing specially made for the occasion and we left our home full
of joy but amidst the cries of my aunt who was almost prostrate with grief at our parting.
When we reached the station my brother bought tickets and gave me and my sister's son two
annas each as pocket money to be spent at our pleasure. We at once began our career of riotous
living and .each ordered a bottle of lemonade at the start. After a short while the train whistled in
and we boarded it as quickly as we could for fear of being left behind. We were told to detrain at
Masur, the nearest railway station for Goregaon.
The train arrived at Masur at about 5 in the evening and we got down with our luggage. In a few
minutes all the passengers who had got down from the train had gone away to their destination.
We four children remained on the platform looking out for my father or his servant whom he had
promised to send. Long did we wait but no one turned up. An hour elapsed and the station-
master came to enquire. He asked us for our tickets. We showed them to him. He asked us why
we tarried. We told him that we were bound for Goregaon and that we were waiting for father or
his servant to come but that neither had turned up and that we did not know how to reach
Goregaon. We were well dressed children. From our dress or talk no one could make out that we
were children of the untouchables. Indeed the station-master was quite sure we were Brahmin
children and was extremely touched at the plight in which he found us. As is usual among the
Hindus the station-master asked us who we were. Without a moment's thought I blurted out that
we were Mahars.(Mahar is one of the communities which are treated as untouchables in the
Bombay Presidency). He was stunned. His face underwent a sudden change. We could see that
he was overpowered by a strange feeling of repulsion. As soon as he heard my reply he went
away to his room and we stood where we were. Fifteen to twenty minutes elapsed; the sun was
almost setting. The father had not turned up nor had he sent his servant, and now the station-
master had also left us. We were quite bewildered and-the joy and happiness which we felt at the
beginning of the journey gave way to the feeling of extreme sadness.
After half an hour the station-master returned and asked us what we proposed to do. We said that
if we could get a bullock-cart on hire we would go to Goregaon and if it was not very far we
would like to start straightway. There were many bullock-carts plying for hire. But my reply to
the station-master that we were Mahars had gone round among the cartmen and not one of them
was prepared to suffer being polluted and to demean himself carrying passengers of the
untouchable classes. We were prepared to pay double the fare but we found that money did not
work. The station-master who was negotiating on our behalf stood silent not knowing what to do.
Suddenly a thought seemed to have entered his head and he asked us, "Can you drive the cart?"
Feeling that he was finding out a solution of our difficulty we shouted, "Yes, we can". With that
answer he went and proposed on our behalf that we were to pay the cartman double the fare and
drive the cart and that he should walk on foot along with the cart on our journey. One cartman
agreed as it gave him an opportunity to earn his fare and also saved him from being polluted.
It was about 6.30 p.m. when we were ready to start. But we were anxious not to leave the station
until we were assured that we would reach Goregaon before it was dark. We therefore questioned
the cartman as to the distance and the time he would take to reach Goregaon. He assured us that
it would be not more than 3 hours. Believing in his word, we put our luggage in the cart, thanked
the station-master and got into the cart. One of us took the reins and the cart started with the man
walking by our side.
Not very far from the station there flowed a river. It was quite dry except at places where there
were small pools of water. The owner of the cart proposed that we should halt there and have our
meal as we might not get water on our way. We agreed. He asked us to give a part of his fare to
enable him to go to the village and have his meal. My brother gave him some money and he left
promising to return soon. We were very hungry and were glad to have had an opportunity to
have a bite. My aunty had pressed our neighbours' women folk into service and had got some
nice preparation for us to take on our way. We opened tiffin basket and started eating. We
needed water to wash things down. One of us went to the pool of water in the river basin nearby.
But the water really was no water. It was thick with mud and urine and excreta of the cows and
buffaloes and other cattle who went to the pool for drinking. In fact that water was not intended
for human use. At any rate the stink of the water was so strong we could not drink it. We had
therefore to close our meal before we were satisfied and wait for the arrival of the cartman. He
did not come for a long time and all that we could do was to look for him in all directions.
Ultimately he came and we started on our journey. For some four or five miles we drove the cart
and he walked on foot. Then he suddenly jumped into the cart and took the reins from our hand.
We thought this to be rather a strange conduct on the part of a man who had refused to let the
cart on hire for fear of pollution to have set aside all his religious scruples and to have consented
to sit with us in the same cart but we dared not ask him any questions on the point. We were
anxious to reach Goregaon our destination as quickly as possible. And for some time we were
interested in the movement of the cart only. But soon there was darkness all around us. There
were no street lights to relieve the darkness. There were no men or women or even cattle passing
by to make us feel that we were in their midst. We became fearful of the loneliness which
surrounded us. Our anxiety was growing. We mustered all the courage we possessed. We had
travelled far from Masur. It was more than three hours. But there was no sign of Goregaon.
There arose a strange thought within us. We suspected that the cartman intended treachery and
that he was taking us to some lonely spot to kill us. We had lot of gold ornaments on us and that
helped to strengthen our suspicion. We started asking him how far Goregaon was, why we were
so late in reaching it. He kept on saying, "It is not very far, we shall soon reach it". It was about
10.00 at night when finding that there was no trace of Goregaon we children started crying and
abusing the cartman. Our lamentations and wailings continued for long. The cartman made no
reply. Suddenly we saw a light burning at some distance. The cartman said, "Do you see that
light? That is a light of the toll-collector. We will rest there for the night." We felt some relief
and stopped crying. The light was distant, but we could never seem to reach it. It took us two
hours to reach the toll-collector's hut. The interval increased our anxiety and we kept on asking
the cartman all sorts of questions, as to why there was delay in reaching the place, whether we
were going on the same road, etc.
Ultimately by mid-night the cart reached the toll-collector's hut. It was situated at the foot of a
hill but on the other side of the hill. When we arrived we saw a large number of bullock-carts
there all resting for the night. We were extremely hungry and wanted very much to eat. But again
there was the question of water. So we asked our driver whether it was possible to get water. He
warned us that the toll-collector was a Hindu and that there was no possibility of our getting
water if we spoke the truth and said that we were Mahars. He said, "Say you are Mohammedans
and try your luck". On his advice I went to the toll-collector's hut and asked him if he would give
us some water. "Who are you?", he inquired. I replied that we were Musalmans. I conversed with
him in Urdu which I knew very well so as to leave no doubt that I was a real Musalman. But the
trick did not work and his reply was very curt. "Who has kept water for you? There is water on
the hill, if you want to go and get it, I have none." With this he dismissed me. I returned to the
cart and conveyed to my brother his reply I don’t know what my brother felt. All that he did was
to tell us to lie down.
The bullocks had been unyoked and the cart was placed sloping down on the ground. We spread
our beds on the bottom planks inside the cart, and laid down our bodies to rest. Now that we had
come to a place of safety we did not mind what happened. But our minds could not help turning
to the latest event. There was plenty of food with us. There was hunger burning within us; with
all this we were to sleep without food; that was because we could get no water and we could get
no water because we were untouchables. Such was the last thought that entered our mind. I said,
we had come to a place of safety. Evidently my elder brother had his misgivings. He said it was
not wise for all four of us to go to sleep. Anything might happen. He suggested that at one time
two should sleep and two should keep watch. So we spent the night at the foot of that hill.
Early at 5 in the morning our cartman came and suggested that we should start for Goregaon. We
flatly refused. We told him that we would not move until 8 O'clock. We did not want to take any
chance. He said nothing. So we left at 8 and reached Goregaon at II. My father was surprised to
see us and said that he had received no intimation of our coming. We protested that we had given
intimation. He denied the fact. Subsequently it was discovered that the fault was of my father's
servant. He had received our letter but failed to give it to my father.
This incident has a very important place in my life. I was a boy of nine when it happened. But it
has left an indelible impression on my mind. Before this incident occurred, I knew that I was an
untouchable and that untouchables were subjected to certain indignities and discriminations. For
instance, I knew that in the school I could not sit in the midst of my class students according to
my rank but that I was to sit in a corner by myself. I knew that in the school I was to have a
separate piece of gunny cloth for me to squat on in the class room and the servant employed to
clean the school would not touch the gunny cloth used by me. I was required to carry the gunny
cloth home in the evening and bring it back the next day. While in the school I knew that
children of the touchable classes, when they felt thirsty, could go out to the water tap, open it and
quench their thirst. All that was necessary was the permission of the teacher. But my position
was separate. I could not touch the tap and unless it was opened for it by a touchable person, it
was not possible for me to quench my thirst. In my case the permission of the teacher was not
enough. The presence of the school peon was necessary, for, he was the only person whom the
class teacher could use for such a purpose. If the peon was not available I had to go without
water. The situation can be summed up in the statement—no peon, no water. At home I knew
that the work of washing clothes was done by my sisters. Not that there were no washermen in
Satara. Not that we could not afford to pay the washermen. Washing was done by my sisters
because we were untouchables and no washerman would wash the clothes of an untouchable.
The work of cutting the hair or shaving the boys including my self was done by our elder sister
who had become quite an expert barber by practising the art on us, not that there were no barbers
in Satara, not that we could not afford to pay the barber. The work of shaving and hair cutting
was done by my sister because we were untouchables and no barber would consent to shave an
untouchable. All this I knew. But this incident gave me a shock such as I never received before,
and it made me think about untouchability which, before this incident happened, was with me a
matter of course as it is with many touchables as well as the untouchables.

Glossary:
1. Sundry: of various kinds, several
2. Prostrate: lying stretched out on the ground with one's face downwards
3. Tarried: stay longer than intended; delay leaving a place
4. Scruples: a feeling of doubt or hesitation with regard to the morality or propriety of a
course of action
5. Lamentation: crying with pain, grief, or anger
6. Wailing: the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping
7. Unyoked: release from a yoke, freed.
8. Indelible: permanent, unable to forget, enduring.
Questions:
1. Briefly describe the incident mentioned in the excerpt.
2. “Caste is a state of mind.” Substantiate this view of Ambedkar based on your reading of
the essay.
3. Critically analyse and compare the living conditions, social inclusion and economic
welfare of Dalits in 1900s and in contemporary India.
4. What kind of discriminations did Ambedkar witness as a child?
About the Author
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, popularly known as Babasaheb Ambedkar, was an Indian
jurist, economist, politician and social reformer who inspired the Dalit Buddhist
movement and campaigned against social discrimination towards the untouchables,
while also supporting the rights of women and labour. He dedicated his life to
eradicating social inequality in India. He established an India of equals, a country which
provided greater opportunities for people who were historically disadvantaged.
Babasaheb’s family was from the Mahar community and came from the Ambavade town of
Mandangad taluka in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. However, he was born in the
military cantonment town of Mhow, now in Madhya Pradesh on 14 April 1891 as his father
was then a Subedar Major with the Mahar Regiment of the Indian Army.
In 1936, Babasaheb Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party, which contested the
1937 Bombay election to the Central Legislative Assembly for the 13 reserved and 4 general
seats, securing 11 and 3 seats respectively. He served on the Defence Advisory Committee
and the Viceroy's Executive Council as minister for Labour during this period.
This is also the period when Babasaheb wrote extensively on the condition of Dalits and the
caste system in Hindu society. During this period, Babasaheb renamed his party as the
Scheduled Castes Federation which later evolved into the Republican Party of India.

About the text

Here are some of the reminiscences drawn by Dr. Ambedkar in his own handwriting. The MSS
traced in the collection of the People's Education Society were published by the society as a
booklet on 19th March 1990— ed).
 SEMESTER II

Grandfather

Jayanta Mahapatra

The yellowed diary's notes whisper in vernacular.

They sound the forgotten posture,
the cramped cry that forces me to hear that voice.
Now I stumble back in your black-paged wake.
No uneasy stir of cloud
darkened the white skies of your day; the silence
of dust grazed in the long after in sun, ruling
the cracked fallow earth, ate into the laughter of your flesh.

For you it was the hardest question of all.

Dead, empty tress stood by the dragging river,
past your weakened body, flailing against your sleep.
You thought of the way the jackals moved, to move.

Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle

in the cold mean nights of your belly? Did you see
your own death? Watch it tear at your cries,
break them into fits of unnatural laughter?

How old were you? Hunted, you turned coward and ran,
the real animal in you plunging through your bone.
You left your family behind, the buried things,
the precious clod that praised the quality of a god.

The imperishable that swung your broken body,

turned it inside out? What did faith matter?
What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold?
Uneasily you dreamed toward the center of your web.

The separate life let you survive, while perhaps

the one you left wept in the blur of your heart.
Now in a night of sleep and taunting rain
My son and I speak of that famine nameless as snow.

A conscience of years is between us. He is young.

The whirls of glory are breaking down for him before me.
Does he think of the past as a loss we have lived, our own?
Out of silence we look back now at what we do not know.

There is a dawn waiting beside us, whose signs

are a hundred odd years away from you, Grandfather.
You are an invisible piece on a board
Whose move has made our children grow, to know us,

carrying us deep where our voices lapse into silence.

We wish we knew you more.
We wish we knew what it was to be, against dying,
to know the dignity
that had to be earned dangerously,
your last chance that was blindly terrifying, so unfair.
We wish we had not to wake up with our smiles
in the middle of some social order.

Glossary

vernacular - the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or
region

cramp painful involuntary contraction of a muscle or muscles, typically caused by

fatigue or strain

frail wave or swing wildly

tress a long lock of a woman's hair

plunging falling steeply

fallow (of farmland) ploughed and harrowed but left for a period without being sown in
order to restore its fertility or to avoid surplus production.

Comprehensive Questions

1. What kind of moral dilemma does the poet discuss in Grandfather?

2. What is the compelling force referred to in the poem? List out its effects discussed in the
poem?
3. Describe the trauma of the grandfather’s inner psyche as expressed in the poem
Grandfather.
4. What is the main theme of the poem Grandfather? Explain.
5. Do you agree that poetry can be used as a tool for “sharing history”? Build your argument
based on the poem Grandfather.
6. Critically analyze the tone and setting of the poem.

About the Author

Jayanta Mahapatra, born on 22 October 1923 in Cuttack, belongs to a lower middle-class family.
He had his early education (from Kindergarhen to Cambridge classes) in English medium at
Stewart school, Cuttack. After his Master's Degree in Physics, he joined as a teacher in 1949 and
served in different Government college of Orissa. He is the first Indian poet in English to have
received the Central Sahitya Akademi Award (1981) for his work Relationship. His other
volumes include Close the Sky, Ten by Ten, Svayamvara & Other Poems, A Father's Hours, A
Rain of Rites, Waiting, The False Start & Life Sings. His translations (from Oriya to English )
bear the stamp of his originality too.

About the Poem

Grandfather has a biographical perspective. It talks about Hunger which is one the major
subjects of Mahapatra. The poet discovered a diary of his grandfather in which he had recorded
his feelings before he took the plunge. It reflects the crucial face of hunger in the 1866 Orissa
famine which the poet’s grandfather, a Hindu experiences. It discusses the grandfather’s dilemma
in which he had to choose between the dignity of dying in one’s faith or the indignity of
betraying it living. He converted to Christianity. Mahapatra in Grandfather worked out his
feelings of alienation and separateness.

Rites of Sense

Meena Alexander

In twilight as she lies on a mat

I rub my mother’s feet with jasmine oil
touch callouses under skin,
joints upholding that fraught original thing–
bone, gristle skin, all that makes her mine.
All day she swabbed urine from the floor,
father’s legs so weak he clung to the rosewood bed.
She rinsed soiled cloths, hung them out to dry
on a coir rope by a vine, its passion fruit
clumsy with age, dangling.

She lies on a mat, a poor thing beached,

belly slack, soles crossed, sari damp and white.
I kneel in darkness at her side,
her oldest child returned for a few weeks
at summer’s height.
She murmurs my name
asks in Malayalam Why is light so hot?

Beyond her spine I catch a candle glisten.

The door’s a frame for something
I’m too scared to name:
a child, against a white wall,
hands jammed to her teeth, lips torn
breath staggering its hoarse silence.

All night my voice laced through dreams

tiny eyelets for the smoke
Amma, I am burning!
I’m a voice slit from sound,
just snitches of blood, loopholes of sweat,
a sack of flesh you shut me in.

What words of passage to that unlit place?

What rites of sense?

Amma, I am dreaming myself into your body.

It is the end of everything.
Your pillow stained with white
tosses as a wave might
on our southern shore.

Will you lay your cheek against mine?

Bless my bent head?
You washed me once, gave me suck,
made me live in your father’s house
taught me to wake at dawn,
sweep the threshold clean of blood red leaves.
Showed me a patch of earth dug with your hands
where sweet beans grow coiled and raw.

Taught me to fire a copper pan,

starch and fold a sari, raise a rusty needle,
stitch my woman’s breath
into the mute amazement of sentences.

Glossary

Callous - a thickened and hardened part of the skin or soft tissue, especially in an area that has
been subjected to friction

Fraught - filled with or likely to result in (something undesirable)

Gristle - a solidwhitesubstance in meat that comes from near the bone and is hard to chew

Slack - not tight; loose:

Slit – a long, narrow cut or opening

Comprehensive Questions
1. How does the narrator portray her mother in Rites of Sense?
2. Explain the relationship between Meena Alexander and her mother through the poem
Rites of Sense?
3. “Stitch my woman’s breath into the mute amazement of sentences” – Analyse from a
feministic perspective.
 4. Comment on the narrative technique of the poem Rites of Senses.
5. Does Meena Alexander negotiate her cultural in-betweeness in Rites of Senses? State
your reasons for your answer.

About the Author

Meena Alexander was born in Allahabad, India, raised in India and Sudan. When she was
eighteen she went to study in England. She now lives in New York City, where she is a
Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City
University of New York. Her eight volumes of poetry include the collections, Illiterate Heart
(2002), which won a 2002 PEN Open Book Award, and Raw Silk (2004). She is the editor of
Indian Love Poems (2005). Her works have been widely anthologized and translated. Much of
her works are concerned with migration and its impact on the writer's subjectivity, and
sometimes with the violent events that compel people to cross borders. Alexander has produced
the acclaimed autobiography, Fault Lines (1993), chosen as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best
Books of 1993, and got revised in 2003 to incorporate significant new material. She has also
published two novels, Nampally Road (1991) and Manhattan Music (1997); a book of poems and
essays, The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience (1996); and two academic
studies, one of which is Women in Romanticism: Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth,
and Mary Shelley (1989). She is currently at work on a new collection of poems and a volume of
notes and essays on poetry, migration and memory.

About the Poem

In Rites of Sense, Meena deals with the themes migration and memory. She metaphorically
compares the mother daughter relationship with the relationship of the root and its branches. It
expresses the inner feelings of a women dislocated. For Meena Alexander, her mother was the
source of her identity and existence.

Themes for discussion

Migration
Relationship of mother and daughter & Longings
Memory
Body & Aging
Identity
Nostalgia

CACTUS
(written and translated by K. Satchidanandan)

Thorns are my language.

I announce my existence
with a bleeding touch.
Once these thorns were flowers.

I loathe lovers who betray.

Poets have abandoned the deserts
to go back to the gardens.
Only camels remain here, and merchants,
who trample my blooms to dust.

One thorn for each rare drop of water.

I don’t tempt butterflies,
no bird sings my praise.
I don’t yield to droughts.

I create another beauty

beyond the moonlight,
this side of dreams,
a sharp, piercing,
parallel language.

Glossary
Cactus any of the many types of desertplants usually with sharpspines and thickstems for
storingwater

Comprehensive Questions
1. Explain, howSatchidanandan portrays the beauty of Cactus?
2. What does the cactus stands for? Substantiate your answers by giving examples from the
poem Cactus.
3. Analyze the tone of Cactus in the poem Cactus.
 4. Analyze the following lines from your point of view.
I create another beauty
beyond the moonlight,
this side of dreams,
a sharp, piercing,
parallel language

About the Poet

Satchidanandan has established himself as an academician, editor, translator and playwright. He
was a Professor of English and Editor of Indian Literature, the journal of the Sahitya Akademi
(India s National Academy of Literature) and the executive head of the Sahitya Akademi for a
decade. He was one of the pioneers of modern poetry in Malayalam and is well known for
articulations of sociopolitical contexts in his poetry. He resists all kinds of mass ideas and
conditioning, and celebrates his inner freedom even while respecting the real values of man and
his soul. After his early education in the village schools, he studied biology at Christ College,
Irinjalakuda and had his Masters in English from Maharajas College, Ernakulam. He obtained
his Ph.D in Post-structuralism poetics from the University of Calicut. He served as a lecturer in
English at K.K.T.M. College, Pulloot in 1968, and in Christ College in 1970 where he became a
Professor of English. He voluntarily retired from this post in 1992 to take up the Editorship of
Indian Literature, the English journal of the Indian National Academy in Delhi. In 1996 he was
nominated Secretary, the Chief Executive, of the Academy, a post from which he retired in Later
he served as a Consultant to the Indian Government's Department of Higher Education and to the
National Translation Mission. He was honored with a number of awards such as Kerala Sahitya
Akademi C.B. Kumar Award for Essays, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Poetry, Kerala
Sahitya Akademi Award for Drama, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Travelogue , Oman
Cultural Centre Award for Total Literary Contribution, etc. (. (source:
https://beamingnotes.com/2015/02/24/cactus-summary-koyamparambath-satchidanandan/)
About the Poem
The poet K Sachidananthan who always try to move away from the usual path, in this poem he
treats beauty surviving in adverse situations. Being away from imaginary world, Sachidananthan
creates a new world of poetry based on the sharp reality of life, poem about a cactus full of
thorns and unattractiveness which is its real power. Thorns are my language. The thoughts in my
mind do not project like flowers, but like thorns because of the adverse conditions outside and
my own limitations. My existence in this world is known or felt to others only through pain and
blood whoever touches or sympathizes with me is cursed by a prick from my thorns. Cactus
remembers its childhood when these thorns were flowers. She says, “I hate lovers who betray
since it is the most irrevocable sin”. The cactus criticizes the poets who praise only peripheral
beauty for they abandoned the deserts in search of the beautiful plants in garden which are
nursed by a gardener, but in a desert, bearing the hot sun, only camels and merchants travel.
They crush my flowers to dust. They do not sympathies with me. But only ruin me. I’ve been
living with the least facilities available. Leaves are reduced to thorns and one thorn for each rare
drop of water. I don t tempt butterflies. Nor any bird praises me. And I know my limitations. I
don t want them to bleed because of me. I don t yield to drought. My withstanding power is quite
appreciable beyond the boundaries of moonlight, I create another beauty. This is a world of
dreams. (source: https://beamingnotes.com/2015/02/24/cactus-summary-koyamparambath-
satchidanandan/)

Themes
Nature of Cactus
Marginalized people and their nature
Alienation
Disconnection with the society
Imagination verses reality

Nallur

Jean Arasanayagam

It’s there,
 beneath the fallen fronds, dry crackling

piles of broken twigs abandoned wells of brackish

water lonely dunes

it’s there

the shadows of long bodies shrunk in death

the leeching sun has drunk their blood and

bloated swells among the piling clouds

it’s there,

death,

smell it in the air

its odour rank with sun and thickening blood

mingling with fragrance from the frothy toddy

pots mingling like lolling heads from

blackened gibbets,

it’s there

amid the clangour of

the temple bells, the clapping hands, the

brassy clash of cymbals,

the zing of bullets

cries of death

drowned in the roar

of voices calling Skanda

by his thousand names

 Murugan, Kartikkeya

Arumugam . . . . . .

“We pray, we cry, we clamour

oh Sri Kumaran, be not like the god

who does not hear, deaf Sandesveran."

Thirtham now no longer nectar of the gods

brims over but is bitter, bitter,

and at the entrance to Nallur

the silent guns are trained

upon a faceless terror

Outside,

the landscape changes

the temples by the shore are smoking

ruins charred stone blackened,

on empty roads are strewn

the debris of warfare,

stained discarded dressings

burnt out abandoned vehicles

a trail of blood

soon mopped up by the thirsty sun

Turned away, from bloody skirmishes

of humankind, the gods are blinded

by the rain of bullets,

six faced Arumugam

all twelve eyes

close in darkness

The land is empty now

the pitted limestone

invaded by the sea

drowns, vanishes,

waves of rust swell and billow

beating into hollow caves and burial urns

filled with the ash of bodies

cremated by the fire of bullets.

Glossary

Fronds: long leaves of trees or plants, especially palms or ferns

Brackish: salty in an unpleasant way
Dunes: a small hill of sand formed by the wind near the sea or in a desert
Leeching: exploiting, something that takes away, or in this instance receding
Toddy: natural palm wine made in Southern part of India, Srilanka.
Lolling: lazing
Gibbets: gallows
Clangour: loud resonant noise
Clamour: outcry from people
Skirmishes: conflicts
Skanda: God of War in Hindu belief, also known as Kartikeya, Murugan or Arumugam.
Sri Kumaran: Another name of Lord Vishnu
Thirtham:In Hindu mythology, it is referred to as the physical holy water body associated with
a temple or deity.
Billow: become inflated
Urn: (here) container for storing ashes

Comprehension Questions
 1. How has the socio-political context influenced the writing of the poem?
2. How does the writing style - form and diction- contribute to the themes in the poem?
3. Discuss the use of religious symbolism and premonition in the poem and how it has
impacted you as a reader.
4. Discuss the narrative of suffering in the poem.
5. The poem presents a juxtaposition of contradictory ideas and imagery. Discuss.

About the Author

Jean Arasanayagam is one of the most acclaimed writers of the post-colonial Sri Lanka. She has
published several collections of poetry for which she has been endowed with wide international
acclaim. Arasanayagam’s poetry is essentially viewed as a political critique where she
deliberates on the disastrous issues of racial discrimination and political violence which were
rampant in the contemporary Sri Lanka in the context of the burning antagonism between the
Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. Born in 1931 to a Dutch Burgher family in Sri Lanka,
Jean Arasanayagam has been playing an iconic role in the podium of Sri Lankan English
Literature. The unique contribution rendered by her to fill the lacuna of Sri Lankan poetry in
English has widely been recognized both locally and internationally. Though she was a Burgher
by birth, as a result of her marriage with a Tamil she was destined to experience enormous
torture during the period of Black July 1983 which was a grave consequence of the unforgiving
racial violence prevalent in the then Sri Lanka. Just as the idiom, “every dark cloud has a silver
lining” emphasizes, her poetry made its way on a new direction with the telling social experience
she gained through this horrendous political turmoil. Anders Sjöbohm in his article, “‘Someone
Smashed in the Door and Gave Me My Freedom’: The Writings of Jean Arasanayagam”
consolidates this fact as he writes, “perhaps Jean Arasanayagam would have remained a strictly
disciplined word painter and observer if external events had not interfered and disturbed the
balance in her life and thus also her aesthetics.” In the same article, he further goes onto argue
that Arasanayagam’s poetry shows a concentration on the “essence of carnage hatred” and also
on the “impenetrability of pure evil to understanding”. To Arasanayagam, poetry seems to be an
absolute religion and she turns this enthralling genre of literature into a means of raising a sound
awareness in people regarding the heinous suffering that the innocent has to undergo owing to
ethnic violence. Arasanayagam in her poems shows an essential propensity to depict the
suffering of mankind through a religious point of view. Few poets were able to capture the
pathos of the ethnic conflict like Arasanayagam.

Background

Her celebrated the collection of poetry Apocalypse '83, first published in 1984, opens with the
much lionised poem, Nallur 1982 with its prophetic vision of the terrible events to occur as a
repercussion of the ethnic struggle between the Sinhalese and Tamils. Nallur is a highly famous
temple located in the Jaffna peninsula and it is widely regarded as the heart of Hinduism in Sri
Lanka. Through this poem, Arasanayagam invites our attention towards the Nallur festival which
is consecrated to the god of war, Skanda who is the son of Shiva, one of the greatest divinities in
Hinduism. Written in a state of preoccupation with the ethnic riots in the contemporary Sri
Lanka, Apocalypse '83 is perhaps the most pulsating collection of poetry by Arasanayagam. In
addition to the serious political upheaval in the riots of July 1983, Arasanayagam also catches the
chaos that essentially followed the run–up to that uproar in the series under review, because the
Black July 1983 was just an outburst of years of wrath and cold war between the Sinhalese and
the Tamils. The poetess' self-cognizance of the impending transformation of the national
scenario into a battlefield inspired her to contribute to an almost bold prediction of that
approaching adversity in such poems as Nallur 1982. It brings to light very felicitously the havoc
caused by the “bloody skirmishes” bringing death to mankind. It is with a dreadful picture of
mayhem and carnage while examining the devastation of Hinduism at the clutches of racial
prejudice. Nallur refers to one of the most celebrated Hindu temples on the Jaffna peninsula, a
site of terrible violence and death during the 1990’s.

Themes and Topics for Discussion

● Mass destruction, property devastation and religious deterioration which are the
immediate inevitable circumstances in a society crippled by ethnic violence.
● Significance of “It’s there”, shows the current atmosphere surrounding Nallur which is a
dark world, ravaged and dying.
● The use of imagery to highlight the darkness as well as the gory and harsh realities of
ethnic violence.
● Loneliness prevalent in a place that is a foremost religious abode supposed to be
overflowing with pilgrims.
● Death is a constant theme interspersed with religious acts. The clash between spirituality
and barbarity.
● Use of Religious symbolisms and depiction of racial and ethnic violence.
● Constant mentioning of blood in order to normalise it, depicts the brutality and
grotesqueness of the appalling political turmoil.
● Terrifying picture of the repugnance brought about by ethnic segregation and the
resultant bloodshed.
● Writing style, powers of imagination, voice of the text, bold prophetic vision or
premonition - the poem written before the actual conflict took place, based on the signs
before the turmoil.

Post-reading Activity

Discuss with the class how the three texts interact, the situation on which the narratives are based
and how the narrativization of the same situation differs in the three texts. This will help give a
better understanding of the poem and the situation.
 The Journey

Temsula Ao

The squealing of a piglet which escaped to the main room where they were sleeping
awakened the young girl. It was still dark but she was already alert because this was the day that
she was returning to her boarding school. The winter vacation of nearly two months seemed to
have gone by very quickly and she was feeling a little disturbed at the prospect of having to
undergo another drastic change of environment. She still remembered dearly each detail of the
journey which had brought her from the plains ofAssam to her village in the Naga Hills. After
the journey from her school to the foothill town of Mariani, she had spent the night in the loft of
a kindly shopkeeper. In the morning she saw the women of the group cooking rice and curry,
enough for two meals—one to eat before they set out, and another to be eaten at noon When they
reached the half-way point of their journey. The rice that was cooked came from each member of
the party because it was the custom for villagers to carry sufficient provisions which would last
them for their journey. A large common pot, big enough to cook for the group was carried by one
member and every time they had to prepare a meal, each one put in a cup of rice from the store
of rations they carried. After a cold and restless night, the young girl was hungry and ate
voraciously. She wondered if her brother, too, had brought provisions or if he had worked out
some other arrangement with a distant cousin who was with this particular group. The firewood
required for cooking meals had been gathered at the, foothills before the start of the journey.
After the morning meal, the party set off at a brisk pace in Single file; every member's basket
laden with salt, dry fish, soap, bottles of hair oil and even kerosene oil for the lamps. These were
purchased with the money they earned by selling oranges, ginger, yam and at times special sticky
rice. Such journeys were possible only during the winter months because the many hill streams
and rivers that crisscrossed the terrain could only be traversed when the water level was down,
just knee deep at points. The villages would cross in groups, holding one another's hands so that
they did not get swept away by the swift currents. It was one such group that her brother had
teamed up with when he came to escort her from her school to the village. The early start
ensured that the travelers would reach home before sunset. She remembered again how her
brother, walking behind her, would urge her to walk faster, telling her, 'Faster, faster, in the
evenings tigers roam these jungles'. In spite of the fearful prospect, she could not keep pace with
the others and when they reached the half-way mark on the banks of the Disoi river, the others
were waiting impatientlyfor their arrival. Some had even opened their leaf packets of rice and
curry, ready to start as soon as everyone arrived. Some women from the group came over to the
young girl and dropped some pieces of meat on her leaf plate. .As a result, she had a huge mound
of rice and many pieces of meat which she could not finish. When she was about to throwaway
the leftover food, her brother scolded her, 'Don't do that, pack up everything and carry it in your
bag.' After they had eaten, they entered the river. The water was knee deep for the adults but
reached up to her eyebrows! Her brother and another man hoisted her up, each putting his hand
under an armpit and safely carrying her to the other bank. Soon after crossing the river, the road
became steep, at first gradually but from a certain point, almost perpendicular. It was more than
the girl could negotiate and she sat down on one of the stone steps and began to cry. The others
had already gone quite far ahead, so they did not see this. But the brother was worried, he sat
down with her for a while and soothed her, pointing to the sun moving towards the west and
telling her once again of the dangers lurking in the jungle. He could not carry her even if he had
wanted to; he was carrying her tin trunk with a few of her belongings inside. She remembered
how she struggled over every step until, when the sun had almost set, they reached the village.
When she woke up the next morning her feet were swollen enormously and for one whole week
she could not walk properly. Now on this morning when she would have to make the same
journey again, cross the same river, and travel further either by train or bus to her boarding
school, she was full of misgivings. The racket created by the piglet had awakened her aunt and
she was trying to prod the huddled figures wrapped in torn blankets asleep on mats on the floor.
She got up first and going to her tin case, checked that her favourite dress, which her cousin was
eying all winter, was there. In no time at all a simple meal was cooked by her aunt and after
eating this, the young girl and her brother stepped out of the house to begin the journey back.
Even though it was still dark, it was imperative that they make this early start in order to get a
connecting bus or train to her school town. If the journey up the hill was difficult, she found that
climbing down the narrow perpendicular Steps cut into the hillside was equally difficult, if not
more dangerous. She was wearing a pair of shoes given to her by a senior at the school hostel
who was tired of them. This was the first decent pair of shoes she had had since her parents died
and she had been sent off to the missionary school to continue her studies there. She was
determined to leave the village in style because they were not allowed to wear shoes at school.
But she soon realised how difficult it was to walk fast in a pair of shoes a size larger than her
feet. So she took them off and tying them together with the laces, strung them around her neck
like a garland. They were now dangling at an awkward angle and adding to her woes. Seeing her
plight, a kindly woman who was travelling with them offered to carry the shoes in her basket.
Tinula was greatly relieved. After what seemed like ages, they reached the plains and the journey
became somewhat tolerable. By now the sun was up and its rays were penetrating the thick
foliage creating an unbelievably beautiful landscape. She could hear the varied tones of different
birds flitting from the branches and calling out to each other. But the travelers had no time to
stop and look or listen to anything. They had to keep up a steady pace, especially Tinula and her
brother, Temjenba, as they had to reach Mariani by four in the afternoon. At one point, after the
party negotiated a puddle by walking over a fallen log, they came across a peculiarly shaped
depression and fresh dung near it upon which the rays of the afternoon sun shone directly.
Tinula's brother exclaimed to the older woman, 'Aunty, there must be elephants here. Look at the
trees, all the bark has been eaten up. And we really have to hurry. We cannot wait here for the
elephants to pass. The woman replied, 'Do not worry nephew, they have already crossed our
route. Look at the break in the forest to your left; they have gone to the other side away from our
path. Tinula wondered how the old woman knew this because to her the forest looked the same
everywhere. Just like her journey to the village earlier, they ate their midday meal on the bank of
the almost dry river and once again Tinula was helped by her brother and another man to cross
the river. When they reached flatter land, the direct rays of the sun began to burn into the young
girl's skin making her feel thirsty and itchy. But she had to keep up with the others who had
increased their speed. Sometimes she found herself running to catch up with them, afraid that
some wild animal would spring out of the forest and devour her. The winter sun was almost
setting when Tinula and her brother reached the railway platform. There was no time to purchase
tickets; so they simply jumped onto the train and immediately it chugged out of the station. It
was one of those suburban trains which stopped at all kinds of stations, sometimes to take in a
single passenger and once or twice it stopped even when there was no one. All this while she and
her brother were standing, holding on to the window frames to keep from falling. After some
time Tinula felt a tap on her shoulder; a man was pointing to a small space beside him. She tried
to sit but the space was so small that she had to turn sideways to keep her bottom on the hard
wooden plank of the seat. No matter, she was grateful for the edge-hold and leaning her head on
the wall she began to doze off. .At one of the small stations when the train stopped for a little
longer than the earlier stops, Temjenba went out quickly and bought two singaras and two
'single' cups of stale tea. 'Single' in tea stall jargon meant half a cup served in a small earthen
kullarto make it look full. The singara was cold and the tea, too, did not taste like tea at all; but it
was some food and Tinula was grateful for that. After what seemed to be an endless jostling and
bumping, the train finally stopped at its last station called Farkating. It was the station nearest to
the boarding school. From here they had to travel still further to reach it. But it was nearly
midnight and the whole station area was deserted. Even the station master was now up his little
room of an office. Holding up a hurricanelamp, he was looking this way and that to ascertain that
everything was in order. Temjenba was greatly worried; how could they walk to the school, a
distance ofabout three or four miles in the middle of a dark winter night? He stood there for some
time wondering what to do next when, suddenly out of the darkness, a man approached him
asking where they were going. When Temjenba gave the name of the school, the man replied, 'l
am going a little father but will pass by the school. I can drop you and your sister right at the gate
of the school.' This seemed like a boon from heaven itself and so, grabbing hold ofT1nula's hand,
he followed the kind man to a waiting car. In later years Tinula was to realize that the 'big' car in
which she and her brother had sat squeezed tightly among the other passengers that night had
been an Ambassador. At the school, her brother first dropped the tin trunk over the top of the
gate, then hoisted Tinula over it, and finally jumped in himself. He then proceeded towards the
Superintendent's bungalow. After much knocking, the lady herself opened the door to her office.
She was annoyed at first for having been lay inert on her side while the girl next to her continued
heaving. She wondered momentarily whether she was laughing or crying, but she really did not
care. Today, if you ask her, Tinula cannot tell you with any certainty whether she laughed or
cried herself to sleep that night but it was a night that stayed with her as the defining moment of
a great transition. In many ways the journey from her village to the school was traumatic enough
but the veiled antipathy of Winnie's remark made her realise that the barriers of life are not only
the physical ones. If she felt any disappointment or even a little bit of jealousy when she was told
that a boy that she liked had found a new' girlfriend', she does not recall. What she recalls today
is the deliberate attempt to hurt revealed by the tone in which the news was broken to her. She
had always considered Winnie a good friend and was happy to meet her after the holidays. But
now she realized that a strange emotion had overtaken her and was forcing her to look at the
warm body lying next to her in a different way. She wanted to leave the bed and go somewhere
else. But it was late and the Superintendent had gone back to her room. Besides, what reason
could she give for her request to sleep elsewhere? So she
simply turned her back and pretended to sleep, though her body continued to shake for a long
while. Once in a while she wonders vaguely about what happened to a boy called Hubert whom
she had never met face to face. But she often remembers a girl called Winnie and that
unforgettable winter night, the girl who forced a thirteen-year-old girl to embark on a different
kind of journey.
Glossary

Grudgingly: Petty or reluctant in giving or spending

Tattered: Worn to shreds

Antipathy: A feeling of intense dislike

Comprehension Questions

1. Describe the journey undertaken by Tinula and her brother in the short story “The
Journey”.
2. How different is her life at the missionary school when compared to her life at home?
3. Despite being very different from our everyday lives, she has the same emotions and
feelings as that of anyone of us. Discuss in the light of the ignorance shown towards
the communities in North-East India.
4. Why did Hubert’s behaviour affect Tinula more than her boyfriend’s
About the Author

Temsula Ao is a poet, short story writer, ethnographer, an important activist, and commentator
on issues in northeastern India, Ao speaks movingly of home, country, nation, nationality, and
identity. She is a retired Professor of English in North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), where
she has taught since 1975. In 2013, she received the Sahitya Akademi Award for her short story
collection, Laburnum For My Head, given by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of
Literature.

Background

The short story “The Journey” is part of the anthology of short stories “These Hills called Home:
from a war zone”. Eight years of ceasefire has made Nagaland a haven of peace in the Northeast.
But this cannot obliterate memories of the harrowing times the state went through for much of
the post-Independence period. While the rest of India celebrated Independence, the Nagas sought
their own independence.

What ensued were decades of strife, guerrilla warfare, plundering and killing. A whole
community of people stood exposed to the bayonets of violence. In the process, many were
dispossessed of their land and belongings, countless young men were killed and women
ravished. It is a tragedy that can never be forgotten by those who went through the agony.

Set in the initial turbulent decades of the Naga insurgency the stories in the book are inspired by
the political turmoil that has ravaged the land with little promise of a peaceful solution. The book
makes its study specifically of the life of the Naga people, a tribal community that inhabits one
of the seven North-East states. It tells the story of everyday life of men, women and children of
the society who struggle to make their survival and see the changes taking place around them.

Themes and Topics for Discussion

 Life in war-ridden situations

 Importance of human relationships during the time of turmoil
 Life of the tribal community
 Relationship between Tinula and Hubert (lesbian relationship)
 Personal accounts of suffering have more impact on us than numbers (of deaths, victims
etc.)
Post-reading Activity

While we know what the immediate meaning of journey in the story “The Journey” is, what is
the author trying to convey when she says “the girl who forced a thirteen-year-old girl to embark
on a different kind of journey”? Write your responses and discuss with the class.

Annayya's Anthropology

A. K Ramanujan
 (translated from Kannada
by Narayan Hegde)

[Editor's note:
"A.K. Ramanujan taught in the University of Chicago's South Asian Studies department for many years.
Narayan Hegde is a professor of Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Old Westbury,
New York." -- c. j. s. wallia]

 Annayya couldn't help but marvel at the American anthropologist."Look at this Fergusson," he
thought, "he has not only read Manu, our ancient law-giver, but knows all about our ritual
pollutions. Here I am, a Brahmin myself, yet I don't know a thing about such things."

You want self-knowledge? You should come to America. Just as the Mahatma had to go to jail
and sit behind bars to write his autobiography. Or as Nehru had to go to England to discover
India. Things are clear only when looked at from a distance.

"Oily exudations, semen, blood, the fatty substance of the brain, urine, faeces, the mucus of the nose, ear wax,
phlegm, tears, the rheum of the eyes, and sweat are the twelve impurities of human bodies."
                               -- (Manu 5.135)

He counted. Though he had been living in Chicago for years, he still counted in Kannada. One,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven ... eleven ... eleven.... At first, he could
count only eleven body-wastes. When he counted again, he could count twelve. Yes, exactly
twelve. Of these twelve, he already knew about spittle, urine and faeces. He had been told as a
child not to spit, to clean himself after a bowel movement and after urinating. Whenever his aunt
went to the outhouse, she took with her a handful of clay. She cleaned herself with a pinch of
clay. As long as she lived, there used to be a clay pit in the backyard.

In the southern regions of the country, wind instruments like the nagaswara were considered
unclean because they came in contact with the player's spittle. And so, only Untouchables could
touch or play them. Thus, the vina, the stringed instrument, was for the Brahmins; and the rest,
the wind instruments, were for the low castes.

Silverware is cleaner than earthenware; silk is purer than cotton. The reason was that they are not
easily tainted by the twelve kinds of body-wastes. Silk, which is the bodily secretion of the
silkworm, is nonetheless pure for human beings. Think of that!

What a lot of things these Americans know! Whether it means wearing out the steps of libraries
or sitting at the feet of saucy pundits or blowing the dust off old palm-leaf manuscripts, they
spare no effort in collecting their materials and distilling the essence of scholarship. Annayya
found all this amazing. Simply amazing!
If you want to learn things about India, you should come to places like Philadelphia, Berkeley,
Chicago. Where in India do we have such dedication to learning? Even Swami Vivekananda
came to Chicago, didn't he? And it is here that he made his first speech on our religion.

"Of the three kinds of bodily functions that bring impurity, the first one is menstruation. Parturition/childbirth causes
a higher degree of impurity. The highest and the most severe impurity is, of course, on account of death. Even the
slightest contact with death will bring some impurity. Even if the smoke from a cremation fire touches a Brahmin,
he has to take a bath and purify himself. No one, except the lowest caste holeya, can wear the clothes removed from
the dead body."-- (Manu 10.39)

"The cow being the most sacred of all the animals, only the people of the lowest of the castes eat the flesh of the
cows cadaver. For this very reason, the crow and the scavenger kite are considered the lowest among birds. The
relationship between death and Untouchability is sometimes very subtle. In Bengal, for instance, there are two
subcastes of the people in the oil profession: those who only sell oil are of a higher caste, whereas those who
actually work the oilpress are of a lower caste. The reason is that the latter destroy life by crushing the oil-seeds and
therefore are contaminated by death." - - (Hutton 1946:77-78)

He had known none of this.

Not that he hadn't read a lot. Many a pair of sandals had he worn out walking every day to and
from the university library in Mysore.The five or six library clerks there were all known to him.
Especially Shetty, who had sat with him in the economics class. He had faded the previous year,
and he had taken the library job. Whenever Annayya went to the library, Shetty would hand him
the whole bunch of keys to the stacks so that Annayya could open any book-case and look for
whatever book he wanted.

The bunch of keys was heavy because of the many keys in it. There were iron keys which, with
much handling, had become smooth and shiny. Ensconced amidst them were tiny, bright, brass
keys. Brass keys for brass locks. Male keys for female locks. Female keys for male locks. Big
keys for the big locks. Small keys for the small locks. And there were also a few small keys for
big locks and some big keys for small locks. So many combinations like the varieties of marriage
which Manu talks about in his book. Some locks were simply too big for their cupboards and so
they were left unlocked. Others were nearly impossible to unlock. You would have to break open
the cupboard if you wanted to get at the one book that beckoned you tantalizingly. Who knew
what social-science-related nude pictures that one book contained!

When he was in Mysore, much of what he read had to do with Western subjects, and they were
almost always in English. If he read anything at all in Kannada, rare as it was, it would probably
be a translation of Anna Karenina or a book on Shakespeare by Murthy Rao, or ethnographic
studies done by scholars who, were trained overseas, in America. But, now, he himself was in
America.

"The knowledge of Brahman austerities, fire, holy food, earth, restraint of the internal organs, water, smearing with
cow dung, the wind, sacred rites, the sun and time are the purifiers of corporeal beings." - - (Manu 5: 105)

To learn about these things, Annayya, himself the son of Annayya Shrotry, after crossing ten
thousand miles and many waters, lands and climes, had to come to this cold, stinking Chicago.
How did these white men learn all our dark secrets? Who whispered the sacred chants into their
ears? Take, for instance, Max Mueller of Germany who had mastered Sanskrit so well that he
came to be known among Indian pundits as "Moksha Mula Bhatta." He, in turn, taught the Vedas
to the Indians themselves!

When he lived in India, Annayya was obsessed with things American, English or European.
Once here in America, he began reading more and more about India, began talking more and
more about India to anyone who would listen. Made the Americans drink his coffee; drank their
beer with them. Talked about palmistry and held the hands of white women while pretending to
read their palms.

Annayya pursued anthropology like a lecher pursuing the object of his desire- -with no fear, no
shame, as they say in Sanskrit. He became obsessed with the desire to know everything about his
Indian tradition; read any anthropological book on the subject which he could lay his hands on.
On the second floor of the Chicago library were stacks and stacks of those books which had to be
reached by climbing the ladders and holding on to the wooden railings. Library call number PK
32 1. The East had at last found itself a niche in the West.

"Why do your women wear that red dot on their forehead?" the white girls he befriended at the
International House would ask him. He had to read and search in order to satisfy their curiosity.
He read the Gita. In Mysore, he had made his father angry by refusing to read it. Here he drank
beer and whisky, ate beef, used toilet paper instead of washing himself with water, lapped up the
Playboy magazines with their pictures of naked breasts, thighs, and some navels as big as rupee
coins. But in the midst of all that, he found time to read. He read about the Hindu tradition when
he should have been reading economics; he found time to prepare a list of books published by
the Ramakrishna Mission while working on mathematics and statistics. "This is where you come
to, America, if you want to learn about Hindu civilization," he thought to himself. He found
himself saying to fellow-Indians, "Do you know that our library in Chicago gets even Kannada
newspapers, even Prajavani?" He had found the key, the American key, to open the many closed
doors of Hindu civilization. He had found the entire bunch of keys.

That day, while browsing in the Chicago stacks, he chanced upon a new book, a thick one with a
blue hardcover. Written on the spine in golden letters was the title: Hinduism: Custom and
Ritual. Author, Steven Fergusson. Published, quite recently. The information gathered in it was
all fresh. Dozens of rituals and ceremonies: ceremony for a woman's first pregnancy; ceremonies
for naming a child, for cutting the child's hair for the first time, for feeding the child solid food
for the first time; for wearing the sacred thread; the marriage vows taken while walking the seven
steps; the partaking of fruit and almond milk by the newly-weds on their wedding night. (He
remembered someone making a lewd joke: "Do you know what the chap is going to do on his
wedding night? He is going to ply his bride with cardamoms and almonds, and he himself will
drink almond milk in preparation for you know what!") The Sanskrit chant on love-making
which the husband recites to the wife. The ritual celebrating a man's sixtieth birthday. Rituals for
propitiation, for giving charity; purification rituals, obsequial rituals, and so on. Everything was
explained in great detail in this book.

Page 163. A detailed description of the cremation rites among Brahmins, with IIlustrations. What
amazing information this Fergusson chap had given! There was a quotation from Manu on every
page. The formulae for offering sacrifices to the ancestors; which ancestral line can be
considered your own and which not. The impurity that comes from death does not affect a
sanyasi and a baby that hasn't started teething yet. If a baby dies after teething, the impurity
resulting from it remains for one day; if it is from the death of a child who has had his first
haircutting ceremony, the impurity is for three days. The ritual concerning a death anniversary
involves seven generations: the son, the grandson, and his son who perform the death
anniversary; the father, the grandfather, and the great-grandfather for whom the anniversary is
performed. Three generations above, three generations below, yourself in the middle. The book
was crammed with such details. It even had a table that listed the number of days to show how
different castes are affected by death-related impurities. Moreover, if a patrilineal relative dies in
a distant land, you are not subject to the impurity as long as you have not heard the news of the
death. But the impurity begins as soon as you have heard the news. You have to then calculate
the number of days of impurity accordingly and at the end take the bath of purification. The more
Annayya read on through the book, the more fascinated he became.

Sitting between two stacks, he went on reading the book. All the four aspects of the funeral ritual
were explained in it. All these years, Annayya had not really seen death. Once or twice, he had
seen the people of the washerman's caste, a few streets from his own, carry in a procession the
dead body of a relative all decked up. That was the closest he had ever come to witnessing a
death. When his uncle died, Annayya was away in Bombay. When he left for America, his father
was suffering form a mild form of diabetes. But the doctor had assured him it was not life-
threatening as long as his father was careful with his diet. His father had suffered a stroke a year-
and-a-half ago. It had left his hands and the left side of his face paralyzed. Still, he was alright,
according to the letters his mother routinely wrote in a shaky hand once every two weeks. In her
letters, she would keep reminding him that every Saturday he should massage himself with oil
before his bath or else he would suffer from excessive heat. In cold countries you have to be
careful about body heat. Would he like her to send him some soap-nut for his oil baths?

When a Brahmin is nearing his death, he is lifted up from the bed and is placed on a layer of
sacred grass spread on the floor, his feet toward the South. The bed or the cot prevents the dying
person's body from remaining in contact with the elemental earth and the sky. The grass,
however, is part of the elements, having drawn its sap from the earth. It is dear to the fire. The
South is the direction of Yama, the God of Death; it is also the direction of the ancestral world.

Next, the Vedic chants are uttered in the dying person's ear. And panchagavya--a sacred mixture
made from cow's milk, curds, ghee, urine and dung--is poured into his mouth. A dead human
being is unclean. But the urine and dung of a living cow are purifying. Think of that!

Then there were the ten different items: sesame seed, a cow, a piece of land, ghee, gold, silver,
salt cloth, grains and sugar. These ten have to be given away as charity. When a man dies, all his
sons have to take baths. The eldest son has to wear his sacred thread reversed as a sign of the
inauspicious time. The dead body is washed and sacred ashes are smeared on it. Hymns invoking
the Earth Goddess are sung.
Facing the page, on glossy paper, there was a photograph. The front veranda of a house in the
style of houses you would see in Mysore. The wall in the background had a window with an iron
grill. On the floor of the veranda lay a corpse that had been prepared for the funeral.

The dead man is God. His body is Lord Vishnu himself. If it is that of a woman, then it is
Goddess Lakshmi. You circumambulate it just as you would a god and you offer worship to it.

Then Agni, the sacred fire, is lit and in it ghee is poured as libation. The dead body gets
connected to the fire with a single thread of cotton. The big toes of the corpse are tied together
and the body is then covered with a new white cloth.

There was a photograph of this also in the book. There was that same Mysore-style house. But in
this photograph there were a few Brahmins, with stripes of sacred ash on their foreheads and
arms. The Brahmins even looked vaguely familiar. But then, from this distance, all ash-covered
Brahmins of Mysore would look alike.

Four men carry the dead body on their shoulders. After tying the corpse to the bier, the corpse's
face turned away from the house, the funeral procession starts.

The corpse is then taken to the cremation grounds for cremation. Once there, it is placed, head
toward the South, on a pile made out of firewood. The toes are untied. The white cloth covering
the body is removed and is given away to the low-caste caretaker of the cremation grounds. The
son and other relatives put grains of rice soaked in water into the mouth of the corpse and close
the mouth with a gold coin. Excepting a piece of cloth or a banana leaf over the crotch, the
corpse is now naked as a newborn baby.

Where would they get a gold coin? These days who has got so much gold? Would fourteen-carat
gold do? Do the scriptures approve it? he wondered.

The eldest son, then, carries on his shoulder an earthen pitcher filled with water. A hole is made
on the side of the pitcher. Carrying it on his shoulder, the son trickles the water around the corpse
three times. Afterwards, he throws the pitcher over his back, breaking it.

There was a photograph of the cremation too. Looking at it, Annayya became a little uneasy
because it looked somewhat familiar to him. The photograph was taken with a good camera. The
pile of wood built for the cremation: the corpse, and a middle-aged man, the front of his head
shaved in a crescent, on his shoulder a pitcher with water spouting from it; trees at a distance,
and people.

Wait a minute! The face of the middle-aged man was known to him! It was the face of his
cousin, Sundararaya. He had a photographic studio in Hunsur. How did this picture come to be
here in this book? How did this man come to be here?

On the next page, it was a photograph of a blazing cremation fire. At the bottom of the
photograph were printed the hymns addressed to Agni, the God of Fire.
" O Agni! Do not consume this man's body. Do not burn this man's skin. Only consign him to the
world of his ancestors. O Agni, you were born in the sacrificial fire built by this householder.
Now, let him be bom again through you."

Annayya stopped in the middle of the hymn and turned the pages back to look again at cousin
Sundararaya's face. He had no spectacles on. Instead of his usual cropped grey hair fully
covering the head, the front half of the head was tonsured into a crescent just for this ritual
occasion. Even the hair on his chest had been shaved off. He wore a special Melukote dhoti
below his bulging navel. But why was he here in this book?

Annayya turned to the foreword. It said that this Fergusson chap had been in Mysore during
1966-68, on a Ford Foundation fellowship. It also said that, in Mysore, Mr Sundararaya and his
family had helped him a great deal in collecting material for the book. That is how the
photographs of the Mysore houses came to be in the book. Once again, he flipped through the
photographs.

The window with the iron grill--it was the window of his neighbour Gopi's house, and the one
next to it was the vacant house that belonged to Champak-tree Gangamma. Those were houses
on his own street. And that veranda was the veranda of his own house. The corpse could be his
father's. The face was not clearly visible. It was a paralysed face, like a face he might see under
running water. The body was covered in white. The Brahmins looked very familiar.

The author had acknowledged his gratitude to Sundararaya, his cousin: he had taken the author to
the homes of his relatives for ritual occasions such as a wedding, a thread-wearing, a first
pregnancy and a funeral. He had helped him take photographs of the rituals, interview the
people, and tape-record the sacred hymn. He had arranged for Fergusson to be invited to their
feasts. And so, the author, this outcaste foreigner, was very grateful to Sundararaya.

Now it was becoming clear. Annayya's father had died. Cousin Sundararaya had performed the
funeral rites, because the son was abroad, in a foreign land. Mother must have asked people not
to inform him of his father's death. He is all alone in a distant land; the poor boy should not be
troubled with the bad news. Let him come back after finishing his studies. We can tell him then.
Bad news can wait. Probably all this was done on the advice of this Sundaru, as always. If
Sundaru had asked her to jump, Mother would have even jumped into a well. Three months after
Annayya came to the States, two years ago, Mother had written to him that Father couldn't write
any more letters because his arms had been paralysed. Who knows what those orthodox people
have done now to his widowed mother! They might even have had her head shaven in the name
of tradition. Widows of his caste cannot wear long hair. He became furious, thinking about
Sundararaya. The scoundrel! The low-caste chandala! He looked at the picture of the cremation
again. The window with the iron grill. The corpse. Sundararaya's head shaved in a crescent. His
navel. He read the captions under the pictures again.

He turned the pages backwards and forwards. In his agitation, the book fell flop on the library
floor. The pages got folded. He picked up the book and nervously straightened the pages. The
silence there until now had been broken by the roaring sound of a waterfall, a toilet being flushed
in the American lavatory down the corridor. As the flushing subsided, everthing was calm again.
He turned the pages. In the chapter on simantha, the ceremony for a pregnant woman, decked up
like Princess Sita in the epic, wearing a crown on her head, his cousin's daughter Damayanti sat
awkwardly among many married matrons. It was her first pregnancy and the bulge around her
waist showed that the pregnancy was quite advanced. Her father, Sundararaya, must have
arranged the ceremony conveniently to coincide with the American's visit so that he could take
photographs of the ceremony. He must have scouted around to show the American a cremation
as well. And he got it, conveniently, in his own uncle's house. 'How much did the Fergusson
chap pay him?' wondered Annayya.

He looked for his mother's face among the women in the picture, but didn't find it. Instead, he
found there others whom he knew: Champak-tree Gangamma and Embroidery Lachchamma.
The faces were familiar, the bulb noses were familiar: the ear ornaments, the nose studs, the
vermilion mark on the foreheads as wide as a penny, were all familiar.

Hurriedly, he turned to the index page. Looked under V: Veddas, Vedas, Vestments. Then under
W: Weber, Westermarck, West Coast ... at last he found Widowhood. There was an entire
chapter on Widowhood. Naturally. In that chapter, facing page 233, was a fine photograph of a
Hindu widow, her head clean-shaven according to the Shaivite custom, explained the caption.
Acknowledgements: Sundararao Studio, Hunsur. Could this be his own mother in the
photograph? A very familiar face, but quite unrecognizable because of the shaven head and the
edge of the saree drawn over the face. Though it was a black and white photograph, he knew at
once the saree was red. A faded one. The kind of saree only widows wear.

Sundararaya survived that day, only because he lived 10,000 miles away, across the whole
Pacific Ocean, in a street behind the Cheluvamba Agrahara in Hunsur.

Glossary:

Ferguson - James, known for his work on the politics and anthropology of international
development, currently chair of the Anthropology, Department at Stanford University. His best-
known work is his book, The Anti-Politics Machine.

Ensconced - Settled comfortably or safely

Anna Karenina - A famous literary novel by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, written in 1878

Murthy Rao - Akkihebbalu Narasimha Murthy Rao (16 June 1900—23 August 2003) was a
Kannada author.

Max Müller - Friedrich Max Müller, generally known as Max Müller, was a German-born
philologist and Orientalist.

Obsequial - funereal

Circumambulate - Circumambulation is the act of moving around a sacred object or idol

Comprehension Questions

1. How does the author engage with the ambivalent Indian identity of a migrant Indian in US?

2. Comment on the distancing of the subject and how it contributes to the irony and pathos in the
narrative.

3. Sum up the understandings Annayya derives from his reading of Indian culture and traditions
when he is in US.

About the Author

Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan also known as A. K. Ramanujan was an Indian poet and
scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan was a poet,
scholar, a philologist, folklorist, translator, and playwright. His academic research ranged across
five languages: English Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit. He published works on both
classical and modern variants of this literature and argued strongly for giving local, non-standard
dialects their due. Though he wrote widely and in a number of genres, Ramanujan's poems are
remembered as enigmatic works of startling originality, sophistication and moving artistry. He
was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award posthumously in 1999 for his collection of poems,
"The Collected Poems".

About the text

This story is a satire on how one’s culture is known through the books in American libraries.
Annayya the protagonist learns about his own tradition, rituals and family situation through the
books in Chicago library where he pursues Anthropology. The story is known for its subtlety in
making every individual realize the importance of knowing and understanding one’s own
practices and not blindly accepting what is prescribed by someone else in the name of
knowledge.

Themes and Topics for Discussion:

Anxiety of the colonized

Homi K Bhabha’s concept of the liminality of hybridity

Post-colonial concept of the hybriduty of colonial identity

Metonymy of presence

Waves
Sundara Ramaswamy
My acquaintance expected that I would be arrested that night. The attraction he had towards me
— it is only my surmise— might be stretching the imagination thus, I thought. What is the
necessity for a non-violent insect that wanders along the sea shore be arrested? “It is not like
that”, he said again. Three days have passed after this incident (four if late night is included).
All right. On the other hand, it appeared to me that the dark days when anything could happen
were originating. Like its first attack, torturing, painful days passed. Mental tortures apart,
restless wandering, hunger and body crouching sleep: these I couldn’t withstand. My soles were
swollen. The swelling subsided in the morning and turned like bundle in the evening. The mental
visions that appeared all of sudden either without my intuition or without my assent were also
staggering me. Two or three images changed, and then in the same way... sometimes, the
outlines of kolams stamped out and disfigured, only the dots and the remnant imperfections
teemed in my mind. Visions of wild animals arriving in herds in the night vandalizing the crops
of the peasants who raised them spending days and nights, and leaving the scene calmly during
dawn appears intermittently. There was this tenuous sensation in me that anything could happen
any time. But I was not aware of the simple fact that the evolving disarray might solidify on me.

I had decided that after midnight I should start walking and before the sun grew hotter, reach the
next village. “That is exactly the wrong move” said my acquaintance emphatically. “There is no
proof or evidence that you had said about your journey to any one”, said he. “It would sound as
if you escaped from the arrest”, he continued. His logic didn’t strike deep in my mind. However
there was one pointer in his words that could not be ignored. The world of the officers were
strange. Their world was filled with proofs, traces, and witnesses. Some times while the
compulsions of measuring the psyche’s aberrations through logic makes defeat resemble relief
and consolation. Even penalization would appear a kind of peace. I gave up my journey. I felt
that the very news that I might be arrested had restricted my wanderings. 

I would have laughed if someone had told me two days ago that a situation like this would
precipitate. I had arrived here after relinquishing everything. I had wandered in unknown places
bewailing to death to accept me. I couldn’t just put up with my teeming thoughts I did not know
how to avoid their hovering and picketing me. Only sleep was giving me an interval-rest-
liberation. However, I could not realize that rest sans any needling had escaped me in my sleep.
This dawned on me only after it had passed off. In point of fact, I had great desire to breathe in
the relaxation at least for a few moments. However I prayed and practised austerities, it may not
materialize for me at all. So thoughts ran. The sadhu I met by chance in the sanctum of Malabar
temple explained to me stretching both his hands towards the sky: “ The veshti can be dipped in
saffron dye in a moment. To dip the mind? Parameswara!” When I had believed that I shall be
immersing my mind in saffron this incident occurred like a surprise ambush. 

As usual, by evening, I was sitting on the mound of sand. That part of sea lay a bit away from the
town. Previously it was peaceful without the crowd’s chatter. Lately this spot had become
famous as a vantage point for viewing the sunset and had started attracting crowds. Now here too
was a messy crowd. Unusually the sky was free of clouds. You can’t rely on it. At the last minute
a shred of a cloud would arise and hide the sun as if obeying a spell. At times the hiding cloud’s
action will be innocent and cute like the action of little children hiding their dear play things. The
sun shone through the obstruction also looked magnificent. The sun didn’t set in the same
manner twice: I formed this as a sentence in my mind and felt pleased. 

The sun set. The next instant the crowd fizzled and started thinning. The scattering crowd acted
as if it was a sin to view at the sky without the sun and as though the crowd had pressing duty
that couldn’t be postponed for an instant. On the mound that faced the sea, the movement of the
crowd looked very funny. People appeared to have been packed tightly together on a colossal
stage and tied by a string and the governing string was being pulled. 

The survival for the amount of the light that lingers after the sun set is brief. Moment after
moment the darkness would penetrate and blacken. Then the sea would look a little sad: the sea
would be subjected to an inexpressible grief. Sharing mentally in that sorrow was my liking. 

As if from the sea’s depth giant clubs beat the blobs, the waves will struggle to free themselves.
Upper surface shakes and vibrates. The waves that cling to the wind reach towards the shore. The
cavalry of the serpent warriors approach us jumping. From the sides and from places we didn’t
expect, and at unspecified moments, the other vessels of weapons joining the long line making it
more magnificent will reach the front. When we ruminate how the idiotic moist sand will
retaliate, the army reduced to shambles on the shore will withdraw. Nothing is more beautiful
than this, their rise and their momentary life. I had calculated and failed how the rising waves in
a particular height with such commotion will touch and make the shore moist at this particular
spot. Failing again and again like this had given me pleasure. 

Then I heard a snapping voice from above the sand mound. Only if somebody had strained his
lower abdomen and shouted he could emit such a sound amid din of waves. The words did not
register properly in my ears. The newly married couple who had been standing on the wet sand
and drenching their feet in the surf like me, hurriedly turned and climbed up. Again the voice
was heard. The woman untangling her hand from her husband’s waved at me, saying “you”. I
turned back. On the sand mound four or five khaki-clad policemen shouted: “Climb up the shore!
Climb up the shore!” They waved their hands with inordinate jerk and signalled to me. When I
saw them, I felt like laughing within me. They looked like clowns peeping from a dance stage or
from the school kids’ drama, where the kids themselves mimicked like soldiers, or the life-given
police mud dolls giving a slip and standing there with just an hour of prescribed life. Thoughts
like that swarmed in me. “Why do you laugh? Climb up the shore” shouted one constable. While
I am on the shore how am I to reach the shore? I stood there blinking excessively in a willful
manner. Suddenly my mind was immersed in sadness. Thirty or thirty-five years ago my mother
had brought me here for the first time. The fear and sudden seizures of bewilderment and the
way I cried struck my memory. I also recollected incidents after that, to this day, on several
occasions when sea had toppled me off the guard, drenching me all over and how I had chucked
the sticky sand grains from my hand and thighs. From that day to this, the sea with whom I had
formed an intimate relationship and not even the moment allowing myself the simple pleasure of
offering my soles to it.... On my barren back I felt the tip of a stick and turned back. I saw a
khaki-clad policeman with a lathi in his hand. Why did you nudge me? Before I could ask, “Are
you hard of hearing?” asked the policeman.

“No”, I replied. This forthright answer made his blood boil in his head. It showed in his face. The
other policemen also closed in on me. Standing there without being afraid became very
embarrassing to all of them, and they stared at me with anger. The imagining that in a couple of
minutes they would turn into mud dolls spread traces of smile on my face. 

The policeman who stood before me raised his head, folded both his hands like a megaphone and
shouted towards the sand dune: “He refuses to come up”. The officers started descending the
sandy slope towards me. In their hurried floundering they had been inscribing their boot prints. I
could not remember how many there were. Just the imagistic feeling of more than four persons.
Their chief, a slight fat man had an unsteady gait. His cap looked different. Waving his hands
and his baton extravagantly he had been moving his body strenuously. Slumping in the chair,
restless when the fan stopped, crossing and striking off with a red pen on documents, shouting on
the phone he had been managing his office and presently he had ventured out for special reason.
So I thought. A few yards away he shouted at me: “What?.... What?.... What?....” For every
“What?” The policemen became stiff while staring at me. After getting my answer what the
officer would pronounce would be carried out by them in an instant. This was obvious from their
stiffness. 

“Nothing” I said. 

“Then why is it that you refuse to come to shore?” 

“I just had a desire to stand for a while”. 

 “Push him” yelled the officer. The policemen immediately zoomed in on me, lifted me
like a bundle up the shore and dropped me on the earth with a thud.

I stood up patting the sand from my hands, right cheek, and ears and started walking
towards the sand dune. I casually strode without any sense of shame. Then looking at the
sky, and in feigned wonderment, turned to the policemen I said: “What a beautiful
moon?” One officer rushed at me and punched me on my back. “Kill him”, yelled
another officer in English. 

Beyond the sand mound where the coastline joined the tar road, the place looked quite
contrary to what it was a little while ago. The place looked like the drama’s new act, the
backdrop, setup, characters had changed in a tumultuous manner. Policemen with lathis
could be seen in many places. Cars, jeeps, and the higher officer’s vans with silk screens
were parked around the place. Approximately one jeep arrived in an interval of two
minutes whipping up the dust. Before the vehicles could stop officers jumped from the
back door and as soon as their feet touched the land, started saluting stiffly. They all
looked like mechanical toys controlled by someone else. An officer in his forties, very
tall, accepted the salutations of the policemen with pomp. Thisplace was where the tar
road joined the portico of an ancient hotel. The chief officer was seen with other
functionaries. In some kind of order, policemen captured their positions. I couldn’t guess
the trait of their mental arithmetic. Only because their mental maps mutually
complemented each other that they didn’t collide with the others and the orderliness was
possible. All of them seemed to be getting ready for the arrival of a high level officer. All
their eyes were pointed towards the sand mound with an air of expectation. The silence
that ensued and their stiffness combined to a stagnant moment where even a tiny
movement or a small noise would be out of tune. The crunching of sands under the boots
 also had stopped. After this it would be impossible for anyone either to clear his throat or
adjust his feet unsteadily placed. Those who had such needs should have completed them
before a couple of minutes. Or they should put up with the unease for a while. 

Now a group of persons moved forward from the sand mound. First the heads surfaced
and then their full features could be seen. A few of them, with a synchronization that
didn’t confine to a form, as though they had cast off their bodily weight on the air,
shoved up without the least effort. It was easy to tell that the man in the middle could be
the high level officer. Like a film hero he looked very attractive. He wore spectacles that
gave the impression of a learned person. He had very dense hair. His garments were very
fine, and of a pure white kind. The feeling that he got promoted straight to the higher
cadre showed in his face. The policemen who had been waiting for this small gathering to
approach, stiffened further, clicked their boots and saluted. It looked as though their
strung nerves could snap off any moment. Even when the sounds of salutation subsided it
seemed to reverberate. Because of this and the sounds of the boots I felt I heard
thousands of birds flapping their wings suddenly above the sky. In reality, there were
neither trees nor birds. 

Then the officer who drove me out from my point at the sea, went closer to the high level
officer and mumbled something, pointing his fingers towards me. When the high level
officer waved a signal to come towards him I went near him. 
“The person who just left is the top ranking officer. A genius”, said the high level
officer. 
“Pleased”, I said. I felt ashamed for pronouncing a nonsensical word. 

From his innuendo I realized that the officers below him due to their lack of tact, had
worsened the relationship between me and them and if approached in conducive manner I
could unite the knots. “A week ago the sea had swallowed a woman. When the Chief had
come something untoward should not happen. That is why”. 

I remained silent. “You are sorry for your action. Aren’t you? I don’t like fussing things”
I didn’t reply. “It is not shameful to ask forgiveness from us. It is the magnanimous act of
bowing your head before the law”.

I stood like a stone pillar. 

“You are not a simple person as I guessed.” His voice and expression on his face had
changed. 
A policeman moving forward two or three feet, stiffened up and saluted then clicked his boots
and became still stiffer. His face showed that he had frozen, and it would be impossible to the
stirring of life in him.

The officer raised his face in a questioning gesture. “Yesterday evening he spoke to me
disobediently. When I reprimanded him for having swum to the Rock of Death , he ridiculed
me”. 
“Is it true?” 
“Yes. Laughable words, if you have sense of humour”. 
“Do you mean to say that we don’t have sense of humour?” 
“I am unable to generalize. However, you— I mean — your people in your department are afraid
of laughing. Don’t you have the freedom to laugh? Do you still believe that laughter and
discipline cannot coexist?” 
“Why did you go to the Rock of Death?” 
“I was bathing in the Rock of Death. On the other side the Rock of Death resembles a valley. A
friend had told me. There the wavelets and swirls.... the beauty of the foam breaking and
dribbling from the rocks, the prismatic splendour they create in the crevices of the rocks are
ineffable. A marvel. Some inexplicable sadness engulfs the mind and a clear sky would unfold in
the heart, making us feel what we worry about are all the meanest of things. Mind feels
extremely light. You will feel like bending down to kiss the little plants growing from the rock’s
crevices”. 
“Were you aware that it was a prohibited place?” 
“No I wasn’t.” 
“After you were stopped?” 
“I thought it was some vain restriction. Does the law prevent one from swimming in the sea?” 
The high level officer continued to stare into my face and that moment was weighing heavy on
everybody’s heart. 
“Get off from here!” Yelled the high level officer in English. I moved away from the spot.

Events started happening from that very early morning in such a manner as to confirm the
suspicion of my acquaintance. Once a while someone came to me to enquire about the
happenings. They asked, “Why for?” and “What for?” I couldn’t answer them in the way they
could comprehend. Everything seemed to be like black magic. I had a suspicion whether they
were all my hallucinations. 

The afternoon heat was subsiding. Lying on the mandap of the Rock of Death I was observing
the sea. The sea seemed asleep or awake lazily dangling its legs. As though so far hiding beyond
the steps, a policeman sprang up and tapped his lathi on the steps. 

He informed that the high level officer wanted to meet me. Floating in the air, like a prophet, his
dress fluttering in the wind, his form moved with brightness filled my mind. I felt happy that I
was going to meet him again. I asked myself the reasons for my reaction. It was sure that things
were brewing up to ruin my peace of mind. 

When his eyes were drawn towards me his face lit up like a triggered lamp. The radiant
whiteness from his teeth seemed to spread all over his face. The butler who was standing at the
rear entrance saw the officer, disappeared and came back with a cup of tea which he placed it
before me.

The officer glanced at me and said: “Take your tea”. “ Why have you stopped talking?. It was
extremely absorbing”. The officer continued his dialogue with a sanyasin seated in front of him. 
Getting the full-hearted appreciation from the officer the sanyasin had forgotten where he
paused. His head was closely shaven. He should have had his tonsure a day before. He was
youngish. He had shining chubby cheeks that made him look like a doll. He was very fair and
handsome. The way his left pupa moved for the word gave him the dullness and inability to
grasp what was being said to him. 

“You were narrating how the swamiji had reached this spot..”, the officer gave the cue. 

“Yes. Yes” Nodding his head forcefully, the sanyasin started again enthusiastically. “I don’t
remember the year. What would have been his age at that time? May be 25 or 26. Young age. All
over India, just on foot. Stretching himself wherever it was possible... Eating whatever came into
his hands.. Begging alms... Wandering. From one town to another. Sheer wandering...? 

“What a moving thing?” Exclaimed the officer. “How many days he stayed there, where and
with whom and how—nothing is clear. Three days of meditation on the rock. No. Two days.
Nothing to eat or drink. How did he reach the rock? One group says he used the boat. The other
argued that he swam the sea.” 

“No, No. He swam and reached the rock.. He did really swim..” Said the officer thumping his fist
on the table and in a louder tone: “I have read it. I remember it perfectly well”, thundered the
officer.

Hearing about the officer’s reading the sanyasin became very surprised and exclaimed: “Oh!
Have you read? Have you read?”. The swamiji should have swum the sea, said the sanyasin. He
continued: “What a courage! What adventure!”

The weighing silence made the atmosphere of the room heavy. The officer cleared his throat and
turned his face towards my side. 
“You look like an educated person. Why all the confrontation with the officers?” 
“I didn’t confront” I replied. 
Pointing his fingers towards me, the officer told the sanyasin: “This man swum to the Rock of
Death. When our men intervened he had retorted with his words”. 
“He went to the Rock of Death swimming?” the sanyasin mouthed it like a pronouncement and
laughed. The officer also laughed. Suddenly, in an unexpected moment the sanyasin’s face
turned like the officer’s—irritable and red. 

“That is wrong. Not at all the right thing”, the sanyasin spoke in English. He seemed to be
adding unnecessary strength to his voice. Slightly lowering his voice and with an admonishing
tone he said: “You should have cooperated in m maintaining the law and order. That was
expected of you”. 
“I don’t have faith!” 
“In what?” 
“In your law and.. in your order....”
“All right. Then tell me what is your faith? Everybody can act as he or she wishes...” 
“Please don’t ask me anything. I am a bundle of confusion... Nothing is clear and lucid to me.
The two of you, on different levels seem to know what is wrong what is right. You are too clear
cut. Your clarity is very obscene. How can you talk without the slight oscillation, with clarity
and without feeling abashed?”

“You seem to be talking too much”, said the officer. “You seem to be talking with an ego that
you are the all-knowing person”.
“No, I am not egotistic. I am just a hole. Emptiness. I have nothing to contain in me. Through me
everything is pouring out. Allow me to wander. Do not bother me. Please... Please.....Please”. I
had started shouting at the top of my voice. 
“His mind is sick’, said the sanyasin. “He should be sent for psychiatric check-up”. 
“No, No”, I shouted again. “Wandering is the only activity that gives me pleasure. Don’t make
that impossible for me”. 
“ I am arresting you”, pronounced the officer. His thumb pressed the bell on the table. 
Translated from Tamil by Rajaram Brammarajan 
Glossary:

Kolams: Kolam generally meansdecorative patterns drawn (usually in front of the house) with
white- or other-colored flour. Here they are used as a metaphor for mental impressions.

Veshti - Dhoti

Parameswara - Lord Shiva

Mandap - a temple porch

Comprehension Questions

1. What could be possible reasons for the protagonist fearing arrest and the unexpected manner
in which he is finally arrested by police?

2. Discuss the symbolism in the story in terms of sea and waves. How do the symbols make
sense in terms of the political dimension of the story – the Emergency?

About the Author:

Sundara Ramasamy (1931-2005) is a Tamil writer and novelist, from Thazhuviya Mahadevarkoil
from Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu. Known as one of the founding fathers of Tamil
modernism, Sundara Ramasamy` began his literary career at the age of 20 with the publication of
his first short story “Muthalum Mudivum”, and with the translation of Thakazhi Sivasankara
Pillai's Malayalam novel Thottiyude Makan into Tamil. His most prominent work is “Oru
Puliamarathin Kathai”, (The story of a Tamarind Tree), his first Novel published in the year
1966. This book has been translated into English, Malayalam and Hebrew.

Background

“Waves” is one of the popular and most literary stories of Sundara Ramasamy. In his typical manner, he
uses a deeply poetic, concise descriptive language, such that the fictional landscape is crowded with
philosophical observations, metaphors and symbols. Typical of Sundara Ramasamy is also the inter-
weaving of the political satire into such philosophically evocative story. A loner, an outsider, an
intellectual on the margins of society, running away from the mob and from even the police state for
unstated reasons is expected to be arrested. The circumstance here of irrational police oppression to instil
fear in the masses is reminiscent of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. In this sense it is similar to another
popular story of his – “Palanquin Bearers”.

The story also has a resonating existential tone – the man is faced with the choice of avoiding arrest by
running away; but since he cannot find a justifiable reason for doing so, he stays back. He doesn’t court
arrest but rather realizes the absurdity of the choice in front of him and refuses to acknowledge the
authority or its threat to his freedom. So when the police come to arrest for the silliest of reasons, he can
only laugh at his existential crisis. As an existential text, it is similar of Sartre’s “The Wall”.

Symbolism: Sundara Ramasamy wrote poems under the pen name Pasuvaiyya. In his poems sea and
waves are persistent images. Referring to them B. Jeyamohan claims that “sea is the extension of eternity.
In Pasuvayya’s poems sea is time or the death which is the messenger of time. That is how his
subconscious always interprets sea. One finds such an evocation in stories like “Waves”” (from “Naveena
Thamizh Ilakkiya Arimukam”).

Themes and Topics for Discussion

Emergency and state oppression

Suspension of civil liberties

Absurdist movement and existentialism

Symbolism of the immenseness of time and the absurd human attempts to define and restrict time, life
and the flight of thoughts of an individual

Post-reading Activity:

Discuss the trends and themes in modernist literature in general. Ask students to recollect some of the
modernist authors they could be familiar with. Also discuss the following:

The history and impact of the State of Emergency (1975-77) declared by the then prime minister Indira
Gandhi

The symbolism of sea of time, the beyond-life experiences, the waves of thought and the eternal search
for meaning as evoked in the story.

Read out Sartre’s “The Wall” and discuss the story in comparison.
 Mohsin Mohalla

Ashfaq Ahmed

No one could remember when Master Ilyaas had begun to rent the small room in their
neighbourhood. However, everyone seemed to know that Master Ilyaas was an immigrant and
that he came from some part of Ambala; the dialect he used was spoken around Ambala and
Patiala. Master Ilyaas lived in the rented room, and the boys from the neighbourhood came to
him for help with their maths and multiplication tables and to practise their writings on wooden
slates.

Master Ilyaas owned two fighter quails and one purebred rooster. The quails remained
locked up in their cages, but the rooster stayed just outside the door of his room. Master Ilyaas
had put a copper ring on one of his legs and tied a strong string to it; the other end of the string
was tied to a nail he had hammered into his doorframe. Master Ilyaas was respected by everyone
in Mohsin Mohalla and they never failed to greet him when they passed his door. They were sure
Masterji worked, but no one knew exactly what he did. Perhaps he was bookkeeper for
tradesmen in the vegetable market in another neighbourhood, or he laboured for daily wages in
some factory or the other; whatever it was he did, they knew he barely managed to get by on
what he earned.

As it happened, Master Sahib was a simpleton who didn't know how to look out for
himself in a metropolis like Lahore. His plain looks inspired little love or compassion, and his
manner of speaking little confidence. Since he did not lie or cheat or exaggerate, or boast or try
to bully others, no one believed what he said, and his speech was so full of grammatical and
linguistic errors that his listeners would abandon his company in frustration. So guileless, so
undemanding was he that he did not appear to belong to the human species. And because no one
likes to associate with such people, he did not have any friends. His presence had become a
burden to the neighbourhood and to its societal structure. And, ironically, that is precisely
why ,the people of the mohalla respected him; bowed and said their 'salaam’ before moving
on when they passed by his door. One winter evening, Master Ilyaas's landlord castigated him
loudly. Using harsh language, he threatened to throw out all his belongings if he didn't pay the
rent he owed him for the past six months within three days. Masterji froze with fear; he didn't
have the required one hundred and eighty rupees. He had only forty rupees. Heattached to it a ten
rupee note from his wallet to add it up to fifty. Up until now, the landlord had accepted the
twenty, thirty, forty or fifty rupees that Masterji handed over each month and had extended the
rent deadline. This time, however, he appeared to be adamant about getting his money. Flinging
the fifty rupee bundle, tied with thread, in front of the rooster, he shouted: 'Bugger off! I will
not accept this. Give me the full amount; the one hundred and eighty rupees you owe. Master
llyaas picked up the' bundle of notes from the floor and put it in his pocket. Since he was
unaccustomed to showing his emotions, he was not able to weep. He went to his charpai and sat
down on it despondently.
 At the end of three days, the landlord removed Masterji's belongings from his room; he
placed Master Sahib's charpai behind the two transformer poles near the sidewalk and the rest of
his possessions around it. He clamped a new Chinese lock on the door and, climbing onto his
scooter, rode away. The landlord's house was at some distance from this mohalla, but he visited
it each month in order to collect the rent due to him from the rooms he had let out. Master Sahib
managed somehow to pass the night under the transformer. The next day he went to the haveli of
Sheikh Karim Nawaz to request a loan of two hundred rupees. Knowing him for the simple and
docile fellow he was, Karim Nawaz brushed him off; lending money to the likes of him was not
a good idea. Then Master Sahib went to Ismael the merchant and, reducing his request to one
hundred and fifty rupees, asked him for a loan.The merchant, too, turned him down. Master
Sahib approached everyone: the barber, butcher, doctor, lawyer, baker, but was disappointed by
each in turn. They all told him the same story; faced with inflation, they did not have anything
leftover to lend him.

Master Ilyaas spent eight nights in the open, beneath the flimsy shelter of the transformer,
before going to the homeopathic doctor to have his pulse taken. The doctor examined him with
his stethoscope and announced: ‘Jabbar’s bakery to buy hot milk. He drank the milk and,
showing his racing pulse to Jabbar, begged the baker to loan him two hundred rupees. Jabbar
began to laugh: nobody in his right mind would lend such a fool a rupee and here he was asking
for two hundred! The thought was so preposterous that even Jabbar, who rarely laughed, could
contain himself.

With a quilt wrapped around his head like an igloo, Master Ilyaas sat on his charpai for
three consecutive days. Those who passed by greeted him and remarked: ‘Getting some sun,
Masterji?’ and from inside his quilt, in a muffled voice, Masterji would reply, ‘Yes, I am feeling
a bit cold.’

On the fourth day, at dawn, around the time of Fajr prayers, Masterji died. Every
inhabitant of Mohsin Mohalla was deeply grieved by his death. After breakfast, they gathered
outside and, wrapped in silence and sadness, stood in the sun. Masterji’s quail were given a bowl
of birdseed and his rooster was fed flour and sugar balls. Sheikh Karim Nawaz Sahib came out of
his haveli to sit under the transformer. A big rug was spread on the ground and somebody placed
two or three newspapers on it. People gathered around the rug.

Sheikh Karim Nawaz took out two hundred-rupee notes, and giving them to Saeed and Bilal,
sent them off on their scooters to arrange for the grave. He gave three hundred rupees to Babu
Jalal to go with Rehmat to arrange for the white burial shroud, incense, rose water and flowers.
Jabbar the baker prepared a big pot of tea and served it to the gathering of mourners. People
started collecting money for the Qul ceremony and before long the residents of Mohsin Mohalla
had collected eight hundred and eleven rupees to hand over to Sheikh Karim Nawaz.

Translated by Shaista Parveen

Glossary

Quails: a small or medium-sized New World game bird, the male of which has distinctive facial
markings.

Guileless: devoid of guile; innocent and without deception.

Charpai:Urdu word for a traditional woven cot.

Haveli: Urdu word for a mansion

Comprehension Questions

1. Why were the people of Mohsin Mohalla reluctamt to loan money to Masterji? Was this
act of theirs contradictory to the feelings they had for him?
2. Comment on the irony in the story.
3. Elucidate the contrast in the behaviour of the people before and after Masterji’s death.

About the Author

Ashfaq Ahmed was a writer, playwright and broadcaster from Pakistan. He authored several
books in Urdu. His works included novels, short stories and plays for television and radio. He
was awarded President's Pride of Performance and Sitara-i-Imtiaz for meritorious services in the
field of literature and broadcasting. In 1962, Ahmed started his popular radio program, Talqeen
Shah [The Preacher] which made him immensely popular among the people in towns and
villages. He was appointed director of the Markazi Urdu Board in 1966, which was later
renamed as Urdu Science Board, a post he held for 29 years. He remained with the board until
1979. He also served as adviser in the Education Ministry during Zia-ul-Haq's regime. In the
1960s, he produced a feature film, Dhoop aur Saaei [Shadows and Sunshine], which was not
very successful at the box office.

Background

The context of the story resembles a typical village scenario in Pakistan. The landlord in the
story is a representation of the zamindari system that was prevalent in the society.

Themes and Topics for Discussion

 Value of the man after his death

 Irony - the amount of money after his death is triple of what he had asked in order to
survive
 Money more valued than the man himself when alive
 Soft spoken man not taken seriously considered a fool
  Loved and respected but not enough to lend money to save his life.

Post-reading Activity

The class can be divided into groups. One group can be assigned this short story and they have to
put an analysis as well as initiate discussion on the class blog. This can be followed for other
texts as well.

In the Flood

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai

Temple was the highest point in the village. But, there the god stood neck-deep in
water. Water. Water everywhere. The villagers had all left for dry land. Those who owned boats
had left a few behind to guard the houses. There were sixtyseven children huddled up in the three
rooms in the attic of the temple. There were also three hundred and fiftysix men, as well as dogs,
cats, goats and fowls. All living together in great unity. No quarrels. For two nights and a day
Chenna Paraya had been braving the flood alone. He had no boat. It was now three days since his
landlord deserted him to save his own skin. Chenna had made a raised platform in the hut with
coconut husks and poles, at the first sight of the surging waters. He stayed indoors for two days
hoping that the waters would recede. How could he leave the place so soon! In the plot were a
few trees of banana and a hay-stack, and leaving the place would certainly mean leaving these at
the mercy of pilferers.
Now the water had risen above the platform. It had sunk a portion of the thatched roof
too. Chenna called out from inside. But who was there to hear him? His woman who was
pregnant, four kids, a cat and a dog: these formed his dependents. And he knew that his and their
end was near as it would not take longer than a few hours for the whole hut to be submerged in
water. It had been raining heavily and incessantly for three days now. Chenna got out of the hut
bybreaking open one row of the thatched roof and looked around. At some distance in the north
was a catamaran. Chenna cried out aloud to the boatmen. Luckily they heard him and started in
his direction. He quickly pulled out his woman and kids as well as the cat and the dog through
the crack in the roof. By then the catamaran had drawn close. The kids were getting on to the
catamaran. "Chenna-cha,poohey", Chenna heard someone shouting to him from the west. He
turned around. "Come on, here."
It was Madiyathara Kunhappa calling from his rooftop. Chenna hustled his wife on to
the catamaran. The cat also leaped on board in an instant. No one took notice of the dog who was
still sniffing around in the western end of the hut. The catamaran started moving. Now it was in
mid-water again. The dog came back to the spot where he expected the family to be. Chenna's
vessel was now at some distance away from the house. He could see it flying away. He started
howling in great alarm, making sounds that resembled the cry of a hapless human being. But
who was there to hear him! He ran around the house from end to end, sniffing and whimpering.
A frog perched on the rooftop was frightened by all this unexpected noise. It dived 'splosh' into
the water in front of the dog. The dog started. A shiver ran down his spine. He stood there for a
long time staring in fear at the ripples the frog had created. Then, again, he started sniffing
around here and there. Maybe he was searching for food. Another frog leaped into the water after
micturating into his nostrils. This made him very restive and he started sneezing and coughing
violently. Then he wiped his face clean with one of his forelimbs.
The torrential rain started again. The dog huddled himself up and suffered it through.
His master had by then reached Ambalapuzha. Night. A huge crocodile floated past that house,
gently brushing the half-submerged roof. The dog lowered its tail in fear and started barking. But
the crocodile just floated by, unaware of anything. The hunger-tormented animal howled from
the rooftop peering out into the dark and cloudy sky. His plaintive cry reached places far off. The
sympathetic wind god took it to distant lands. And those few on guard of the houses, the soft-
hearted among them, must have said, "Ayyo, a dog is left alone on the housetop!" His master
must now be eating his supper from the seacoast. At the end of the supper, as is his wont, he
might still keep his share for the dog. The dog cried aloud continually for a long time. Then the
cry grew feeble and died into silence. From some house in the north, the man on guard was
chanting the Ramayana. For some time the dog turned westward, as though listening to the chant.
And then, after a while, he started groaning again and making loud throat-rending noises.
The silence of the night was rent again by the melodious recital of the Ramayana. Now
once again, the dog remained silent, a little longer this time, to listen to the mellifluous chant Of
the Ramayana. The gentle music was merging away into the whiff of a cold breeze. Now nothing
was to be heard except the roar of the wind and the beating of the waves. On the roof Chenna's
dog lay down, its breath heavy on itself, occasionally muttering something to itself in despair. A
fish popped up and the dog got up and barked. A frog leapt up at which the dog whimpered. It
was early morning. The dog started groaning in low tones. He was elaborating the notes of a raga
fit to melt the hearts of the listeners. Frogs stared at him in amazement. He in turn watched them
swishing past him and sinking under water after swimming across in an angle. He surveyed the
thatched roofs remaining above the water level. They were his hopes, though all were desolate.
No fire burned anywhere. He mouthed the fleas biting his body. And occasionally scratched at
his chin with his hind legs in order to drive them way. The sun shone for a while. He dozed off in
the sunlight. He jumped up and barked when the shadow of the banana leaf swaying in the
breeze fell on the rooftop. Then the clouds swallowed the sun. It was dark once again. The wind
stirred the water. The carcasses of dead animals floated around in the waves. They moved about
freely afraid of nothing. The dog looked at all that with longing. He growled. A small boat was
moving swiftly at some distance away from the house. The dog saw it, and got up wagging his
tail. He watched it move till it disappeared into the grove of palms. It started drizzling. The dog
sat down on his hind limbs pinning himself on his forelimbs and gazed around. There was
helplessness writ large in his eyes. The drizzle stopped.
A small boat came from the house in the north and stopped near the palm tree. The dog
wagged his tail, Sighed and growled. The boatman picked a tender coconut from the palm, broke
it and drank the juice. He then rowed off. A crow perching on a tree at a distance swooped down
on the rotting carcass of a huge bull. Even as the dog was barking at it lustily, the crow put its
beak deep into the rotting flesh and started eating at it with an air of unconcern. After some time,
having had its fill, the crow flew off. A green bird twittered from the leaf of the banana tree near
the house. The dog became restless and barked. The bird too flew away. A colony of ants afloat
on water was washed on the rooftop. The ants were saved. The dog kissed them, thinking
perhaps that they were edible. At this he sneezed again and again, his face turning red and puffed
up. In the afternoon men came that way in a small boat. The dog barked gratefully and wagged
his tail.
He spoke to them in a language close to human speech. He stepped into the water, all
set to jump onto the boat. "See, there is a dog", said one of the men. The dog moaned in
gratitude, as though he could see the man's sympathy. "Let it be there", said the other. The dog
opened his mouth, as if he was chewing something, and made some inarticulate sounds. He
prayed hard and tried to jump into the boat. The boat moved off. The dog groaned once again.
One of the boatmen turned back. "Ayyo"The cry came not from the boatman. It was from the
dog. "Ayyo" That weak and anguished cry dissolved itself into the wind.
There was nothing to be heard after that except the endless sound of the waves. No one
turned back thereafter. Only the dog stayed, peering at the boat till it disappeared from sight.He
climbed on the rooftop once again, growling, as if bidding farewell to the world outside. Perhaps
he was trying to say that never again would he love a human being! He lapped up the flood
water. And then he looked at the birds flying above. He saw a water snake frolicking in the
waves move towards him. The dog swiftly jumped on to the rooftop. The snake sneaked in
through the crack in the roof left open by Chenna and family. The dog peeped inside through the
crack and started barking gravely. Then he growled. A growl filled with fright for life and
hunger. It communicated itself to the speaker of any language, even, maybe, to a resident of
Mars. A universal language. The night was terrible with heavy rain and storm. The roof started
tottering in the waves. The dog almost fell off from the rooftop twice. Then there emerged a long
head from under the water. It was that of a crocodile. On seeing it the dog started barking in
great fear. There was also the sound of fowls wailing together from somewhere nearby. "Where
is the dog barking from? Haven't the people here moved out?" It was from a boat carrying loads
of hay, coconuts and bananas that stopped near the banana tree. "Boy, the dog is likely to leap
down."And then the dog leapt down from the rooftop and the man who had scrambled up went
straight down into the water. The Other guy helped him into the boat. By then the dog had swum
back to the roof. He shook himself 4ry and continued barking with renewed fury.
The thieves took away all the bananas in the plot. "You will be sorry for this later",
they said to the dog who was barking his head off. Then they loaded the boat with more of hay.
At the end, one of them climbed on to the rooftop. The dog was not to spare the chance and bit
him hard on the leg. He got a mouthful of flesh. The man shrieked in pain and threw himself
back into the boat even as his friend gave the dog a blow on his belly with a wooden pole. The
dog's wail tapered off into a faint whimper. The man bitten by the dog was crying in the boat.
"Keep quiet", the other fellow said, as he rebuked and consoled him. Both of them then left the
place. It was quite some time before the dog barked again, his face directed at the way in which
the two had left. It was close on midnight. The dead body of a huge cow was washed atop the
house. The dog was watching it from the roof. He didn't go down immediately. The cow was
being moved gently by the flood water. The dog growled. He tore Open the roof thatch and
slowly went down. He bit at the moving body to bring it closer to himself. Here was plentiful
food to meet his hunger. He started eating at it with great relish. "Tschum"! It was a resounding,
unexpected blow. The dog disappeared. And the cow floated off after a jerk and a dip. There was
no sound after that except that of the storm that was howling away and the croaking of the frogs
and the clamor of the waves. Otherwise it was quite silent. The soft-hearted guard did not hear
the groan of the dog after that. Rotten corpses floated across the water here and there. Some were
being eaten quietly by crows. There was no sound to breach the quiet. There was no let-up in the
work of the thieves either. It was all void. After some time the hut collapsed and sank. Nothing
could now be seen above the vast stretch of water. The loyal dog had guarded his master's house
till the very end. Now he too was gone. The house stayed above water until the dog's capture by
a crocodile.
It was as if the house didn't go down before because Of him. NOW that he too was
gone, it went full down under the water. Now the flood water was receding. Chenna came back,
swimming to his hut in search of his dog. He found the body of the dead dog under a coconut
tree, being gently swayed by the ripples. Chenna turned it from side to side with his toe and
examined it. He wondered if that was his own dog. One ear had been bitten off. Its colourcould
not be identified since the body was all rotten.
Glossary

Gluttonously: Given to excess in consumption of especially food or drink

Nonchalantly: In a composed and unconcerned manner

Comprehension Questions

1. Do you agree with the view that “In the Floods” depicts tragedy of the loftiest kind?

2. “The dog wailed again the voice which fully expressed its hunger and its fear for its life.
A speaker of any language or even an inhabitant of Mars would understand its meaning.
It was a language comprehensible to all”. Discuss.

3. “In the Floods” testifies that great works of literature need not always be about human
beings.
About the Author

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (17 April 1912 – 10 April 1999) was a novelist and short story writer of
Malayalam language. He is popularly known as Thakazhi, after his place of birth. He focused on the
oppressed classes as the subject of his works, which are known for their attention to historic detail. He
wrote several novels and over 600 short stories. His most famous works are Kayar (Coir, 1978) and
Chemmeen (Prawns, 1956). Pillai, a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, was awarded India's highest literary
award, the Jnanpith in 1984 for the epic novel Kayar.

Background

The period between 1930-and 1950 is known as the “pink decades” in Malayalam literature. This
was the time when Marxism was rapidly gaining ground in Kerala. Like some other states of
India, Kerala became the hotbed of “progressive” writing, informed by a kind of social realism
portraying the class struggle and the plight of the downtrodden.

One practitioner of this school of writing was Balakrishna Pillai, the editor of the periodical,
Kesari. With the degree of influence that he then exerted on the “Trivandrum intelligentsia” and
on the up-and-coming writers in Malayalam literature, Pillai remains one of the prime movers of
socialist realism in Kerala.

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, popularly referred to as “Thakazhi”, was one of his disciples. Born
in 1912 in a Nayar family in the Alleppey district of Kerala, Thakazhi was drawn to Pragati
Sahitya or the Progressive Literature Movement at a very early age.

Being a farmer’s son, Thakazhi’s was no studied sympathy for the toiling masses who live below
the poverty line. The short stories that he wrote mostly before the publication of his novel,
Chemmeen (“The Shrimps”), represent a curious blend of orthodoxy and rebelliousness.

The stories are generally located in Kuttanadu, an area around Thakazhi’s village. For Thakazhi,
Kuttanadu was much more than a geographical backdrop for his stories. The observation of the
chequered and dynamic modus vivendi of Kuttanadu with its conflicting values did in fact
breathe life into Thakazhi’s literature. In the background of the great flood, Thakazhi portrayed
not only the tragic elements of a dog, but also the tragedy made by the flood of ’99(occurred in
Malayalam era 1099 and Christian era 1924) in Kuttanad.

Thakazhi usually works with a thin storyline and only a handful of characters. The narrative
technique is also simple and straightforward, in keeping with the realistic mode of narration.

But Thakazhi’s forte lies in the subtle intermingling of narrative voices and in quiet shifts of
focus that bring out the inner tension of the story with telling effect. In the stories where
Thakazhi’s purpose is to cause moral outrage, like a master raconteur, he blurs and shifts his
points of focus repeatedly, until the last moment when the main focus zooms towards the object
with a vengeance.

Themes and Topics for Discussion

  Universal grammar of pain
 Faithfulness of the dog (towards its master) till the end
 The language and imagery used
After-reading Activity

Since Thakazhi often wrote to depict social reality, can ‘The Flood’ then be looked at as an
allegory? Do a small research of the period in which the story was written and discuss with the
class the nature of the story.

Gandhi, Now
Salman Rushdie

A thin Indian man with not much hair and bad teeth sits alone on a bare floor, wearing nothing
but a loincloth and a pair of cheap spectacles, studying the clutch of handwritten notes in his
hand. The black – and – white photograph takes up a full page of the British newspaper. In the
top left - hand corner of the page, in full color, is a small rainbow-stripped apple. Below this,
present-day power of international big business. Even the greatest of the dead may summarily be
drafted into its image campaigns. Once, half a century ago and more, this bone man shaped a
nation’s struggle for freedom. But that, as they say, is history. Fifty years after his assassination,
Gandhi is modelling for Apple. His thoughts don’t really count in this new incarnation. What
counts is that he is considered to be ‘on-message’, in line with the corporate philosophy of the
Mac.
The advertisement is odd enough to be worth deconstructing a little. Obviously, it is rich in
unintentional comedy. M. K. Gandhi, the photograph itself demonstrates, was opponent od
modernity and technology, preferring the pencil to the typewriter, the lion-cloth to the business
suit, the plowed field to the belching manufactory. Had the word processor been invented in this
lifetime, he would almost certainly have found it abhorrent. The very term “word processor”,
with its overly technological ring, is unlikely to have found favour.
“Think different”, Gandhi, in his younger days a sophisticated and westernised lawyer, did
indeed change his thinking more radically than most people do. Ghanshyam Das Birla, one of the
merchant princes who backed him, once said, “Gandhi was more modern than I. But he made a
conscious decision to go back to the Middle Ages.” This is not, presumably, the revolutionary
new direction in thought that the good folks at Apple are seeking to encourage. What they saw
was an “icon” , a man so famous that he was still instantly recognisable half a century after his
assassination. Double click on this icon and you opened a set of “values”, with which Apple
plainly wished to associate itself: “morality”, “leadership”, “saintliness”, “success” and so on.
They saw “Mahatma” Gandhi, the great soul, an embodiment of virtue to set beside, oh, Mother
Teresa, the Dalai Lama, the Pope.
Perhaps, too, they found themselves identifying with a little guy who vanquished a big empire.
It’s true that Gandhi himself saw the independence movement as a kind of Indian David
struggling against the Philistines of the empire – on – which- the- sun-never – sets, calling it “a
battle of Right against Might.” The struggling Apple company, battling with the cohorts of the
all – powerful Bill Gates, wished perhaps to comfort itself with the thought that if a “half-nude
gent” - as a Brittish Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, once called Gandhi – could bring down the Brits,
then maybe, just maybe, a well – flung apple might yet fell the Microsoft Goliath.
In other words, Gandhi today is up for grabs. He has become abstract, a historical, postmodern,
no longer a man in and of his time but a free floating concept, a part of the available stock of
cultural symbols, an image that can be borrowed, used, distorted, reinvented, to fit many
different purposes, and to the devil with historicity or truth.
Richard Attenborugh’s movie Gandhi struck me, when it was first released, as an example of this
type of unhistorical Western saint-making. Here was Gandhi – as – guru, purveying that
fashionable product, the Wisdom of the east, and Gandhi-as-Christ, dying (and, before that,
frequently going on hunger strike) so that other might live. His philosophy of non-violence
seemed to work by embarrassing the British into leaving; freedom could be won, the film
appeared to suggest, by being more moral than your oppressor, whose own moral code would
then oblige him to withdraw.
But such is the efficacy of this symbolic Gandhi that the film, for all its simplification and
Hollywoodization, had a powerful and positive effect on many contemporary freedom struggles.
South African anti-apartheid campaigners and democratic voices all over South America have
enthused to me about the film’s galvanising effects. This posthumous, exalted “International
Gandhi” has evidently become a totem a real, inspirational force.
The trouble with the idealised Gandhi is that he’s so darned dull, little more than a dispenser of
homilies and nostrums (“an eye for an eye will make the world go blind”) with just the od flash
of wit (asked what he thought of the Western civilisation, he gave the celebrated reply “I think it
would be a good idea”). The real man, if it is still possible to use such a term after the
generations of hagiography and the reinvention, was infinitely more interesting, one of the most
complex and contradictory personalities of the century. His full name, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, was memorable – and literally – translated into English by the novelist G. V Desani as
“Action-Slave Fascination-Moon Grocer”, and he was a rich and devious a figure as that glorious
name suggests.
Entirely unafraid of the British, he was nevertheless scared of the dark and always slept with a
light burning by his beside.
He believed passionately in the unity of all the peoples of India, yet his failure to keep the
Muslim leader Jinnah within the Congress fold led to the partition of the country. (His opposition
denied Jinnah the presidency of the Congress, which might have kept him from assuming the
leadership of the separatist Muslim League; his withdrawal, under pressure from Nehru and
Patel, of a last-ditch offer to Jinnah of the prime ministership itself ended the last faint chance of
avoiding Partition. And for all his vaunted selflessness and modesty, he made no move to object
when Jinnah was attacked during a Congress session for calling him plain Mr. Gandhi, instead of
the more worshipful Mahatma.)
He was determined to live the life of an ascetic, but as the poet Sarojini Naidu joked, it cost the
nation a fortune to keep Gandhi living in poverty. His entirely philosophy privileged the village
way over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the support of industrial
billionaires like Birla. His hunger strikes could not stop riots and massacres, but he also once
went on hunger strike to force his capitalist patron’s employees to break their strike against their
harsh conditions of employment.
He sought to improve the conditions of India’s Untouchables, yet in today’s India, these people,
now calling themselves Dalits, and forming an increasingly well-organised and effective political
grouping, have rallied round the memory of their own leader, Dr. Ambedkar, an old rival of
Gandhi’s. As Ambedakar’s star has risen among the Dalits, so Gandhi’s stature has been
reduced.
The creator of the political philosophies of passive resistance and constructive non-violence, he
spent much of his life far from the political arena, refining his more eccentric theories of
vegetarianism, bowel movements, and the beneficial properties of human excrement.
Forever scarred by the knowledge that, as a sixteen-year old youth, he’d been making love to his
wife, Kasturba, and the movement of his father’s death, Gandhi foreswore sexual relations but
went into his old age with what he called brahmacharya experiments...
He and he alone, was responsible for the transformation of the demand for independence into a
nationwide mass movement that mobilised every class of society against the imperialist; yet the
free India that came into being, divided and committed to a program of modernisation and
industrialisation, was not the India of his dreams. His sometime disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru, was
the arch-proponent of modernisation, and it is Nehru’s vision, not Gandhi’s, that was eventually
– and perhaps inevitably – preferred.
Gandhi began by believing that the politics of passive resistance and non-violence could be
effective in any situation, at any time, even against a force as malign as Nazi Germany. Later, he
was obliged to revise his opinion, and concluded that while the British had responded to such
techniques, because of their own nature, other oppressors might not. This is not so different from
the Attenborough movie’s position, and it is, of course, wrong.
Gandhian non-violence is widely believed to be the method by which India gained independence.
(This view is assiduously fostered inside India as well as outside it.) Yet the Indian revolution
did indeed become violent, and this violence so disappointed Gandhi that he stayed away from
the Independence celebration in protest. Moreover, the ruinous economic impact of World War
II on the United Kingdom, and – as the British writer Patrick French says in Liberty or Death –
the gradual collapse of the Raj’s bureaucratic hold over India from the mid – 1930s onward, did
as much to bring about freedom as any action of Gandhi’s, or indeed of the nationalist movement
as a whole. It is probably, in fact, that Gandhian techniques were not the key determinants of
India’s arrival at freedom. They gave independence its outward character and were its apparent
cause, but darker and deeper historical forces produced and desired effect.
These days, few people pause to consider the complex character of Gandhi’s personality, the
ambiguous nature of his achievement and legacy, or even the real causes of Indian independence.
These are hurried, sloganising times, and we don’t have the time or, worse the inclination to
assimilate many-sided truths. The harshest truth of all this is that Gandhi is increasingly
irrelevant in the country whose ‘little father’ – Bapu – he was. As the analyst Sunil Khilnani has
pointed out, India came into being as a secularised state, but Gandhi’s vision was essentially
religious. However, he ‘recoiled’ from Hindu nationalism. His solution was to forge an India
identity out of the shared body of ancient narratives. “He turned to legends and stories from
India’s popular religious traditions, preferring their lessons to the supposed ones of history.”
It didn’t work. The last Gandhian to be effective in Indian politics was J. P. Narayan, who led the
movement that deposed Indira Gandhi at the end of her period of Emergency rule (1974 – 77). In
today’s India, Hindu nationalism is rampant, in the form of the BJP and its thuggish sidekick, the
Shiv Sena. During the present elections, Gandhi and his ideas have scarcely been mentioned.
Most of those who are not seduced by sectarian politics are in the thrall of an equally potent,
equally anti-Gandhian force: money. An organised crime, too, has moved into the public sphere.
In Gandhi’s beloved rural heartland, actual gangsters are being elected to office.
Twenty – one years ago, the writer Ved Mehta spoke to one of Gandhi’s leading political
associates, a former Governor – General of independent India, C. Rajagopalachari. His verdict
on Gandhi’s legacy is disenchanted, but in today’s India on the fast track to free – market
capitalism, it still rings true: “the glamour of modern technology, money, and power is so
seductive that no one – I mean no one can resist it. The handful of Gandhians who still believe in
his philosophy of simple life in a simple society are mostly cranks.”
What, then, is greatness? In what does it reside? If a man’s project fails, or survives only in
irredeemably tarnished form, can the force of his example still merit the supreme accolade? For
Jawaharlal Nehru, the defining image of Gandhi was “as I saw him marching, staff in hand, to
Dandi on the Salt March in 1930. Here was the pilgrim on his quest of Truth, quiet, peaceful,
determined, and fearless, who would continue that quest an pilgrimage, regardless of
consequences.” Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, later said “More than his words, his life was
his message.” These days, that message is better heeded outside India. Albert Einstein was one of
the many to praise Gandhi’s achievement; Martin Luther King, Jr. the Dalai Lama, and all the
world’s peace movements have followed in his footsteps, Gandhi who gave up cosmopolitanism
to gain a country, has become, in his strange after-life, a citizen of the world. His spirit may yet
prove resilient, smart, tough, sneaky, and – yes – ethical enough to avoid assimilation by global
McCulture (and Mac culture, too). Against this new empire, Gandhian intelligence is a better
weapon than Gandhian piety. And passive resistance? We’ll see

Glossary:
Vanquished: people who have been completely defeated in a competition, war, etc.
Galvanised: to make somebody take action by shocking them or by making them excited.
Nostrums: a medicine that is not made in scientific way, and is not effective.
Hagiography: a book about the life of a person that praises them too much; this style of writing
Ascetic: not allowing yourself physical pleasures, especially for religious reasons, related to
simple and strict way of living.

Comprehension Questions:
1. Discuss the relevance of Gandhi as an icon today.
2. How has he perceptions and perspectives about Gandhi changed over the time?
3. Why does Rushdie say that Gandhi today is up for grabs? Discuss.
4. How do you perceive Gandhi in the current day scenario? Discuss with relevant
examples.
5. How has Gandhi become “a citizen of the world”? Explain with relevant examples.
6. Do you agree with Salman Rushdie’s perspective on Gandhi today? Discuss with
relevant examples.
About the Author

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, (born June 19, 1947, in Mumbai) Indian-born British writer whose
allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters,
brooding humour, and an effusive and melodramatic prose style.

His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to
be "the best novel of all winners" on two separate occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th
anniversary of the prize. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He combines
magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections,
disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations.
His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the subject of a major controversy, provoking
protests from Muslims in several countries. Death threats were made against him, including a
fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader
of Iran, on 14 February 1989.

The British government put Rushdie under police protection. In 1983 Rushdie was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the UK's senior literary organisation. He was appointed
Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999. In June 2007, Queen
Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to literature.

Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in
Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. In 2012,
he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over
The Satanic Verses

About the Text:

Gandhi is known for his method of resistance and peace. Rushdie highlights the importance and
benefits “Gandhian intelligence”. The texts is rooted in the identification of the complex
character of Gandhi’s personality, the ambiguous nature of his achievement and legacy, and the
real causes of Indian independence.

Sharing the World

Interdependence and Global Justice
Amartya Sen

Justice, it has been argued, should not only be done, it must also be ‘seen to be done.’ Or, more
explicitly (as Lord Hewart put it in his famous judgement in 1923), justice ‘should manifestly
and undoubtedly be seen to be done.’ It is useful to think of this requirement of justice when
assessing the pros and cons of globalisation in general, and the particular role of interdependence
in making globalisation a success. There are good reasons to argue that economic globalisation is
an excellent overall goal and that it is making a very positive contribution in the contemporary
world. At the same time, it is hard to deny that there is some difficulty in persuading a great
many people — making them ‘see’ — that globalisation is a manifest blessing for all, including
the poorest. The existence of this confrontation does not make globalisation a bad goal, but it
requires us to examine the reasons for which there is difficulty in making everyone see that
globalisation is ‘manifestly and undoubtedly’ good.
The critical assessment of globalisation has to go hand in hand with trying to understand why so
many critics, who are not moved just by contrariness or obduracy, find it hard to accept that
globalisation is a great boon for the deprived people of the world. If many people, especially in
the less prosperous countries in the world, have genuine difficulty in seeing that globalisation is
in their interest, then there is something seriously challenging in that non-meeting of minds. The
underlying challenge involves the role of public reasoning and the need for what John Rawls, the
philosopher, calls ‘a public framework of thought,’ which provides ‘an account of agreement in
judgement among reasonable agents.’ Rawls’s own analysis of critical assessment was largely
confined to issues of justice within a country, but it can be extended to global arguments as well,
and certainly has to be so extended if we are trying to assess the ends, and also the ways and
means, of appropriate globalisation. The goal of globalisation cannot be concerned only with
commodity relations, while shunning the relations of minds.
Distribution of benefits
When, a year ago, the General Assembly of the United Nations requested the Secretary-General
to prepare a report on ‘globalisation and interdependence’ to ‘forge greater coherence,’ they were
opening the door not only to conventional questions of ways and means, but also to questions
that deal with the transparency of assessments and the discernability of benefits. We have to ask,
in particular, how global economic relations may be assessed in a way that the consequent
understanding can be widely shared.
Having started this essay at the level of some generality, let me now take a plunge in the interest
of brevity to an exercise of assessment. The achievements of globalisation are visibly impressive
in many parts of the world. We can hardly fail to see that the global economy has brought
prosperity to quite a few different areas on the globe. Pervasive poverty and ‘nasty, brutish and
short1’ lives dominated the world a few centuries ago, with only a few pockets of rare affluence.
In overcoming that penury, extensive economic interrelations as well as the deployment of
modern technology have been extremely influential and productive.
It is also not difficult to see that the economic predicament of the poor across the world cannot
be reversed by withholding from them the great advantages of contemporary technology, the
well-established efficiency of international trade and exchange, and the social as well as
economic merits of living in open rather than closed societies. People from very deprived
countries clamour for the fruits of modern technology (such as the use of newly invented
medicines, for example for treating AIDS); they seek greater access to the markets in the richer
countries for a wide variety of commodities, from sugar to textiles; and they want more voice
and attention from the rest of the world. If there is scepticism of the results of globalisation, it is
not because suffering humanity wants to withdraw into its shell.
In fact, the pre-eminent practical issues include the possibility of making good use of the
remarkable benefits of economic connections, technological progress and political opportunity in
a way that pays adequate attention to the interests of the deprived and the underdog. That is, I
would argue, the constructive question that emerges from the anti-globalisation movements. It is,
ultimately, not a question of rubbishing global economic relations, but of making the benefits of
globalisation more fairly distributed.
How fair is the share?
The distributional questions that figure so prominently in the rhetoric of both anti-globalisation
protesters and pro-globalisation defenders need some clarification. Indeed, this central issue has
suffered, I would argue, from the popularity of somewhat unfocused questions. For example, it is
often argued that the poor are getting poorer. This, in fact, is by no means the standard situation
(quite the contrary), even though there are some particular cases in which this has happened.
Much depends, in any case, on what indicators of economic prosperity 2 are chosen; the answers
that emerge do not speak in one voice. Furthermore, the responsibility for failures does not lie
only on the nature of global relations, and often enough relate more immediately and more
strongly to the nature of domestic economic and social policies. Global economic relations can
flourish with appropriate domestic policies, for example through the expansion of basic

1 Author refers to Thomas Hobbes’ memorable description of natural state of mankind being “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short”
2 Reference to Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach (Developmental Economics).
education, health care, land reform and facilities for credit (including micro-credit). These are
good subjects for public discussion — for the exercise of minds — since economic
understanding can be greatly hampered by uncritical and over-rapid attribution of alleged
responsibility.

To rebel against the appalling poverty and the staggering inequalities

that characterise the contemporary world, or to protest against unfair
sharing of the benefits of global cooperation, it is not necessary to
show that the inequality is not only very large, but it is also getting
larger

On the other side, enthusiasts for globalisation in its contemporary form often invoke — and
draw greatly on — their understanding that the poor in the world are typically getting less poor,
not (as often alleged) more poor. Globalisation, it is argued, cannot thus be unfair to the poor:
they too benefit — so what’s the problem? If the central relevance of this question were
accepted, then the whole debate would turn on determining which side is right in this mainly
empirical dispute: are the poor getting poorer or richer?
But is this the right question to ask? I would argue that it absolutely is not. Even if the poor were
to get just a little richer, this need not imply that the poor are getting a fair share of the benefits
of economic interrelations and of the vast potentials of globalisation. Nor is it adequate to ask
whether international inequality is getting marginally larger, or smaller. To rebel against the
appalling poverty and the staggering inequalities that characterise the contemporary world, or to
protest against unfair sharing of the benefits of global cooperation, it is not necessary to show
that the inequality is not only very large, but it is also getting larger.
The central questions have been clouded far too often by over-intense debates on side issues (to
which both sides in the dispute have contributed). When there are gains from cooperation, there
can be many alternative arrangements that benefit each party compared with no cooperation. It is
necessary, therefore, to ask whether the distribution of gains is fair or acceptable, and not just
whether there exist some gains for all parties (which can be the case for a great many alternative
arrangements). As J.F. Nash, the mathematician and game theorist, discussed more than half a
century ago (in a paper from Econometrica 1950, which was among his writings that were cited
by the Royal Swedish Academy in awarding him the Nobel Prize in economics), the central issue
is not whether a particular arrangement is better for all than no cooperation at all (there can be
many such alternatives), but whether the particular divisions to emerge are fair divisions, given
the alternative arrangements that can be made. The criticism that a distributional arrangement
from cooperation is unfair cannot be rebutted by just noting that all the parties are better off than
would be the case in the absence of cooperation: there can be many — indeed infinitely many —
such arrangements and the real exercise is the choice among these various alternatives.

The phantom chase

I can try to illustrate the point with an analogy. To argue that a particularly unequal and sexist
family arrangement is unfair, it does not have to be shown that women would have done
comparatively better had there been no families at all. That is not the issue: the bone of
contention is whether the sharing of benefits within the family system is seriously unequal in the
existing institutional arrangements. The consideration on which many of the debates on
globalisation have concentrated, to wit, whether the poor too benefit from the established
economic order, is inadequately probing —- indeed it is ultimately the wrong question to ask.
What has to be asked instead is whether they can feasibly have a fairer deal, with a less unequal
distribution of economic, social and political opportunities, and if so, through what international
and domestic arrangements. That is where the real issues lie.
This is also why the so-called ‘anti-globalisation’ protesters, who seek a better deal for the
underdogs of the world economy, cannot be sensibly seen — contrary to their own rhetoric — as
being really anti-globalisation. Their search has to be for a fairer deal, a more just distribution of
opportunities in a modified global order. And that is also why there is no real contradiction in the
fact that the so-called ‘anti-globalisation protests’ are now among the most globalised events in
the contemporary world. It is a global solution they must ultimately seek, not just local
withdrawals.
But can the deal that different groups get from globalised economic and social relations be
changed without busting or undermining these relations altogether, and in particular without
destroying the global market economy? The answer, I would argue, is entirely in the affirmative.
Indeed, the use of the market economy is consistent with many different ownership patterns,
resource availabilities, social opportunities, rules of operation (such as patent laws, anti-trust
regulations, etc.). And depending on these conditions, the market economy itself would generate
different prices, terms of trade, income distributions, and more generally diverse overall
outcomes. The arrangements for social security and other public interventions can make further
modifications to the outcomes of the market processes. Together, they can radically alter the
prevailing levels of inequality and poverty. All this does not require a demolition of the market
economy, but does demand alterations of the economic and social conditions that help to
determine what market solutions would emerge.
The central question is not — indeed cannot be — whether or not to use the market economy.
That shallow question is easy to answer, since it is impossible to achieve much economic
prosperity without making extensive use of the opportunities of exchange and specialisation that
market relations offer. Even though the operation of the market economy can be significantly
defective (for example because of asymmetric — and more generally imperfect — information),
which must be taken into account in making public policy, nevertheless there is no way of
dispensing with the institution of markets in general as an engine of economic progress. Using
markets is like speaking prose — much depends on what prose we choose to speak.
The market economy does not work alone in globalised relations — indeed it cannot operate
alone even within a given country. It is not only the case that a market-inclusive overall system
can generate very distinct and different results depending on various enabling conditions (such as
how physical resources are distributed, how human resources are developed, what rules of
business relations prevail, what social security arrangements are in place, and so on), but also
these enabling conditions themselves depend critically on economic, social and political
institutions that operate nationally and globally. As has been amply established in empirical
studies, the nature of market outcomes is massively influenced by public policies in education,
epidemiology, land reform, micro-credit facilities, appropriate legal protections, etc., and in each
of these fields there are things to be done through public action that can radically alter the
outcome of local and global economic relations. It is this class of interdependencies which we
have to invoke and utilise to achieve greater prosperity, more equity and fuller security.
Indeed, there can be a very positive role for the critical voice that the protest movements provide,
but the voice has to aim at real problems, not phantom ones. It is certainly true that global
capitalism is typically much more concerned with expanding the domain of market relations than
with, say, establishing democracy, or expanding elementary education, or enhancing social
opportunities of the underdogs of society. Mere globalisation of markets, on its own, can be a
very inadequate approach to world prosperity. In keeping that recognition constantly in focus,
scrutiny and protest can play a constructive part.
Sharing global justice
The injustices that characterise the world are closely related to various omissions and
commissions that need to be overcome, particularly in institutional arrangements. Global policies
have a role here (for example in defending democracy, and supporting schooling and
international health facilities), but there is a need also to re-examine the adequacy of global
institutional arrangements. The distribution of the benefits in the global economy depends,
among other things, on a variety of global institutional arrangements, including trade
agreements, medical initiatives, educational exchanges, facilities for technological dissemination,
ecological and environmental restraints and fair treatment of accumulated debts, often incurred
by irresponsible military rulers of the past.
In addition to the momentous omissions that need to be rectified, there are also serious problems
of commission that must be addressed for even elementary global justice. These include not only
inefficient as well as inequitable trade restrictions that repress exports from the poorer countries,
but also patent laws which can serve as counterproductive barriers to the use of life-saving drugs
— vital for diseases like AIDS — and can provide inadequate incentive for medical research
aimed at developing non-repeating medicine, such as vaccines.
Another global ‘commission’ that causes intense misery as well as lasting deprivation relates to
the involvement of the world powers in the globalised trade in arms. This is a field in which a
new global initiative is urgently required, going beyond the need — the very important need —
to curb terrorism, on which the focus is so heavily concentrated right now. Local wars and
military conflicts, which have very destructive consequences (not least on the economic
prospects of poor countries), draw not only on regional tensions, but also on the global trade in
arms and weapons. The world economic establishment is firmly entrenched in this business: the
G-8 countries have been responsible for more than four-fifths of the international export of arms
and armaments for many years. The United States alone is responsible for about half the world
export of arms to other countries — nearly two-thirds of it to the developing countries. Indeed,
the world leaders who express deep frustration at the irresponsibility of anti-globalisation
protesters lead the countries that make the most money in this terrible trade.
If there is some difficulty in seeing that justice is being done in the global world, this is not just
an optical illusion. The task of global justice is a shared responsibility. It is a constructive
exercise that calls for political and social reforms as well as economic engagement. The market
mechanism is as good as the company it keeps.
Notes:
This essay is based on the author's address to the General Assembly of the United Nations 
on October 29, 2004.
 
1. This is discussed more fully in Development as Freedom, Knopf, New York, 1999.
2. J.F. Nash, 'The Bargaining Problem', Econometrica, 18 (1950)

Glossary:
Obduracy: stubborn
Discernability: distinctness that makes perception easy. Legibility, distinctness, sharpness.
Brevity: Transience, shortness (of time), concise and exact
Penury: Extreme poverty
Clamour: A loud and confused noise, especially that of people shouting.
Underdog: A person who has low status in society. Competitor thought to have little chance of
winning a fight or contest.
Appalling: causing shock or dismay; horrific, awful.
Epidemiology: the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible
control of diseases and other factors relating to health.

Comprehension Questions:
1. What according to Sen do the terms ‘justice’ and ‘globalisation’ imply? How has he
interrelated the two concepts in the essay “Sharing the World”?
2. How according to Amartya Sen can the outcome of globalised economy and social
relations be distributed without destroying the global market economy?
3. Why according to Sen is mere globalisation of markets an inadequate approach to
world prosperity?
 4. “Using markets is like speaking prose — much depends on what prose we choose to
speak.” Critically assess this analogy used by Sen. Does it hold true in the prevailing
socio – economic political conditions?
5. With reference to the essay, highlight the pros and cons of globalisation. What
according to the author is the “intense misery” that should be avoided in the realm of
globalisation?
6. What do you understand by “global justice”? What are Sen’s views on it?
7. As a reader, and global citizen, critically examine the essay “Sharing the World” and
opiniate your agreement or disagreement with it.

About the Author

Amartya Sen, (born November 3, 1933, Santiniketan, India), Indian economist who was awarded
the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social
choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen was best
known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions
for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food.

Sen was educated at Presidency College in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He went on to study at
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. (1955), an M.A. (1959), and a Ph.D.
(1959). He taught economics at a number of universities in India and England, including the
Universities of Jadavpur (1956–58) and Delhi (1963–71), the London School of Economics, the
University of London (1971–77), and the University of Oxford (1977–88), before moving to
Harvard University (1988–98), where he was professor of economics and philosophy. In 1998 he
was appointed master of Trinity College, Cambridge—a position he held until 2004, when he
returned to Harvard as Lamont University Professor.

About the Text:

Sen tackles globalisation from his unique vantage point as an economist. Warning against the
temptation to view globalisation as a one-sided movement, Sen brings out the implications of
globalisation on a more positive note while knitting in the problems of poverty, justice and
distribution.

The Country of the No

(Excerpt from Maximum City)
Suketu Mehta

The Country of the No “Can I get a gas connection?” “No.” “Can I get a phone?” “No.” “Can I
get a school for my child?” “I’m afraid it is not possible.” “Have my parcels arrived from
America?” “I don’t know.” “Can you find out?” “No.” “Can I get a railway reservation?” “No.”
India is the Country of the No. That “no” is your test. You have to get past it. It is India’s Great
Wall; it keeps out foreign invaders. Pursuing it energetically and vanquishing it is your
challenge. In the guru—shishya tradition, the novice is always rebuffed multiple times when he
first approaches the guru. Then the guru stops saying no but doesn’t say yes either; he suffers the
presence of the student. When he starts acknowledging him, he assigns a series of menial tasks,
meant to drive him away. Only if the disciple sticks it out through all these stages of rejection
and ill treatment is he considered worthy of the sublime knowledge.
India is not a tourist-friendly country. It will reveal itself to you only if you stay on, against all
odds. The “no” might never become a “yes.” But you will stop asking questions. “Can I rent a
flat at a price I can afford?” “No.” Coming from New York, I am a pauper in Bombay. The going
rate for a nice two-bedroom apartment in the part of South Bombay where I grew up is $3,000 a
month, plus $200,000 as a deposit, interest-free and returnable in rupees. This is after the real
estate prices have fallen by 40 percent. I hear a broker argue on the phone with another broker
representing a flat I am to see. “But the party is American, holds an American passport and
American visa; everything, he has. His wife is British visa. . . . What? Yes, he is originally
Indian.” Then he speaks apologetically to me. “It is for foreigners only.” As another broker
explains it, “Indians won’t rent to Indians. It would be different if you were one hundred percent
white-skinned.” At least this is one sign that my passport changes nothing. I am one of the great
brown thieving horde, no matter how far I go.
In Varanasi I was refused admittance to the backpackers’ inns on similar grounds: I am Indian. I
might rape the white women. The earth is round and you go all over it, but ultimately you come
back to the same spot in the circle. “Look everywhere but, I guarantee you, you will be living in
Dariya Mahal,” my uncle predicted. It is not a flat I wanted, after the first immediate rush. The
second time I came back to see it I didn’t like it. But I feel as though I could never live anywhere
else in Bombay. The universe is teleological. I grew up in the third building around the palace.
My grandfather lived in the first. Now I have come back to live in the second, completing the
trilogy. The ghost time and the present have no boundaries. Here is where I got beat up by the
bully, here is where I saw my true love on Holi, here is where the men made the pyramid to get
at the pot of treasure, here is where the mysterious caravan Nefertiti always parked. I am afraid
that one of these days I’ll meet myself, the stranger within, coming or going. The body, safely
interred in the grave, will rise and, crouching, loping, come up to me from behind.
The clerk in my uncle’s office, who grew up as our neighbor in Dariya Mahal 3, tells me that
Dariya Mahal 2 is “cosmopolitan.” This is how the real estate brokers of Nepean Sea Road
describe a building that is not Gujarati-dominated. For a Gujarati, this is not a term of approval.
“Cosmopolitan” means the whole world except Gujaratis and Marwaris. It includes Sindhis,
Punjabis, Bengalis, Catholics, and God knows who else. Non-vegetarians. Divorcees. Growing
up, I was always fascinated by the “cosmopolitan” families. I thought cosmopolitan girls more
beautiful, beyond my reach. The Gujaratis I grew up among conformed to Nehru’s stereotype of
a “small-boned, mercantile” people. A Gujarati family’s peace rests on the lack of sexual tension
within it; it is an oasis from the lusts of the world. It is the most vegetarian, the least martial, of
the Indian communities. But it is easygoing. “How are you?” one Gujarati asks another. “In good
humor” is the standard reply, through earthquakes and bankruptcy. We have a meeting with the
owner of the flat, a Gujarati diamond merchant, to negotiate the contract. The landlord is a
Palanpuri Jain and a strict vegetarian. He asks my uncle if we are too. “Arre, his wife is a
Brahmin! Even more than us!” my uncle replies. And this is where we get our vegetarian
discount: 20 percent off the asking rent. But in my uncle’s words is evident the subtle contempt
with which the Vaisyas—the merchant castes—regard the Brahmins. The Brahmins are the
pantujis, the professors, the straight people. Not good in business. Eager to come home at
funerals for food. Whatever the reasons for my ancestors’ change of caste centuries ago—from
Nagar Brahmin to Vaisya—it has served us well. Change of caste is a mechanism for
evolutionary survival. Brahmins in a god-fearing age; Vaisyas in one where money is god. And
we are in a naturally capitalistic city—a vaisya-nagra—one that understands the moods and
movements of money.
My father has one rule for selecting a flat to live in: You should be able to change your clothes
without having to draw the curtains. This simple rule, if followed, ensures two things: privacy
and a sufficient flow of air and light. I forgot this dictum when putting down my deposit for the
second-floor flat in Dariya Mahal. It is hemmed in by large buildings all around. People walking
below or standing on their balconies in the buildings opposite can peep into every corner of my
flat, watching us as we go about cooking, eating, working, sleeping. There are twenty floors in
the building and ten flats on each floor. Each flat will have an average of six residents and three
servants; their allocation of incidental support staff (watchmen, construction workers, sweepers)
will be one per flat. That makes two thousand people in this building. Two thousand people live
in the building adjoining this, and another two thousand in the one immediately behind. The
school in the middle has two thousand pupils, teachers, and staff. That makes eight thousand
human beings living on a few acres of land. It is the population of a small town. The flat we have
moved into was designed by a sadist, a prankster, or an idiot. The kitchen window ventilates only
the refrigerator—or, rather, heats it—since there is no provision for curtains and the sun beats
down on it. When I turn on the fan in the dark recesses of the kitchen, it blows out the gas flame,
since the space for the range is directly underneath the fan.
The only way we can get air in the living room is to open the study window, to let the sea air in.
But this also brings in a sand dune’s worth of thick, black, grainy dirt from outside, along with a
spectacular array of filth. (We found a plastic ice-cream cone inside the bedroom once, with a
film of syrup and cream still inside it.) We also receive used polyethylene milk bags, the betel-
stained plastic cover of a pan, and, once, a shit-stained diaper. The air outside is a rain of thin
plastic bags, which has replaced the parrots I grew up with. By five o’clock the living room is
dark, since we’re on such a low floor. We need the air conditioner and the lights on all the time;
so our electricity bills run into monstrous figures, the necessary price of keeping the environment
out.
The flat is furnished in diamond merchant luxe. Diamond merchants have a certain vision of the
good life. It is not exactly vulgar, because these diamond merchants are mostly Jains: reticent,
sober, vegetarian, tee totaling, and monogamous in their personal lives. They will be seen at a
party, if they go to parties at all, holding glasses of Coke and wearing white shirts and dark
trousers. They do not have mistresses, they stay married to their wives all their lives, and they are
good to their children. But a certain extravagance might manifest itself in the furniture they
choose. So the furniture in my flat erupts upon the eyes like a weather phenomenon. An
enormous porcelain lamp dominates the living room, engraved with three semi-nude Greek
nymphs frolicking, each one with a hand cupping one breast of the nymph immediately
proximate to her, their heads shaded by a shower of illuminated crystal leaves. The glass dining
table, which is interleaved with real gold ornamentation, is flanked by two more lamps, one a
giant yellow pear and the other a giant pink strawberry, which, when a switch is flicked on, shine
from within with fructuous life. A chandelier with pink leaves looms over our heads when we sit
on sofas upholstered in bright red, with golden tasseled ropes hanging from them, which my
children promptly yank off. The master bedroom continues in this arboreal vein, with a pair of
golden branches on the ceiling whose giant leaves shield 100-watt bulbs; vines run up and down
the closet doors, painted in a vivid shade of green. Throw open a closet door and your vision will
be flooded by a cascading waterfall painted on the inside. Across the giant mirror, a sun with one
eye open casts its tendrils across the glass. The mirror in the other bedroom explodes in a galaxy
of blue stars; glass stained with blue, red, and green waves covers the small windows. The
furniture makes a terrifying din, all day and all night. The house takes shape, slowly. The owners
have not removed all their belongings. The flat’s closets yield many gods, Jain and Hindu. We
put them away in the drawers. We put our own up on one shelf of the study. We remove, over
the objections of our landlord, the pink chandelier and the Greek lamp. He is wounded when we
tell him about the lamp. “When you took down the chandelier I didn’t say anything, but when
you removed the statue, that I didn’t like.” I hasten to assure him that it is not his taste I am
questioning; rather, I am protecting the masterpiece from the evil designs of my young children.
Every day the flat gets cleaned and scrubbed. We learn the caste system of the servants: the live-
in maid won’t clean the floors; that is for the “free servant” to do; neither of them will do the
bathrooms, which are the exclusive domain of a bhangi, who does nothing else. The driver won’t
wash the car; that is the monopoly of the building watchman. The flat ends up swarming with
servants. We wake up at six every morning to garbage, when the garbage lady comes to collect
the previous day’s refuse. From then on, the doorbell rings continuously all through the day:
milkman, paperboy, knife sharpener, waste-paper-and-bottle buyer, massagewali, cable man. All
the services of the world, brought to my door, too early in the morning. The mountain moves, a
millimeter at a time. Three-pin plugs are put in. Cable television and American-style phone lines
are installed. Soon we will have curtains and then we can move about the house naked, the final
test of making a place home. An account with a coconut seller has been established; he will bring
fresh coconut water every morning. The elements of a luxurious life are being assembled. In the
mornings we will drink coconut water and in the evenings wine. The first night I make the
kitchen work I produce from it an Italian dinner: farfalle with mushrooms and sun-dried
tomatoes and a salad of peppers, spring onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We accompany it with
a white wine from the Sahyadris, a passable chardonnay. What makes the meal is the Sicilian
olive oil I have brought from a pasta shop on East 10th Street, the biggest item in my luggage
coming home.
FOR THE MONTH after my family arrives, I chase plumbers, electricians, and carpenters like
Werther chased Lotte3. The electrician attached to the building is an easygoing fellow who
comes in the late afternoons, chats with me about the wiring in the flat, which he knows well
from multiple previous visits, and patches up things so they work only for a little while, assuring
multiple future visits. The one phone line on which I can make international calls stops working.
A week ago it was the other one. Most people who can afford it have two lines, because one is
always going out. Then the phone department has to be called and the workmen bribed to repair
it. It is in their interest to have a lousy phone system.
As for my plumber, I want to assassinate him. He is a low, evil sort of fellow, with misshapen
betel-stained teeth. He pits the occupants of the flats against one another, telling the people
above and below me that I should pay to fix the numerous leaks coming into and going out of my
bathrooms, then telling me I should convince them to pay. The geyser to heat water, the light
switches, the taps, the flushes, and the drains all fail. Large drips of brown water start coming
down from the ceiling. The president of the building society explains it to me: All the pipes in
this building are fucked. The drainage pipes that were meant to be on the outside have been
enclosed. The residents make their own alterations, and they don’t let the building plumber in to
fix leaks. The pipes in the building don’t run straight; every time people make renovations,
which is a continuous process, they get freelance plumbers to move the pipes out of the way
when they’re inconvenient. This blocks the natural flow of sewage and clean water, mixing them

3Characters from The Sorrows of Young Werther novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
up. So if you were to follow the progress of drain water from the twentieth floor to the first, it
would make as many zigs and zags and diversions as a crazy mountain road. At each bend, a
clump of dirt accumulates, which blocks the flow. The municipality enforces none of the rules
about unauthorized alterations. Sewer water is constantly threatening to rise up into my
bathroom, as it has in other flats in the building. The arteries of the building are clogged,
sclerotic. Its skin is peeling. It is a sick building. Meanwhile, I am paying rent every month to my
landlord for the privilege of fixing his flat.
We also have to learn again how to stand in line. In Bombay, people are always waiting in line:
to vote, to get a flat, to get a job, to get out of the country; to make a railway reservation, make a
phone call, go to the toilet. And when you get to the front of the line, you are always made
conscious that you are inconveniencing all the hundreds and thousands and millions of people
behind you. Hurry, hurry; get your business over with. And if you’re next in line, you never
stand behind the person at the head of the line; you always stand next to him, as if you were
really with him, so that you can occupy the place he vacates with just one sideways step. All this
takes most of our waking time. It is a city hostile to outsiders or nostalgia-stuck returnees. We
can muscle our way in with our dollars, but even when the city gives in, it resents us for making
it do so. The city is groaning under the pressure of the 1 million people per square mile. It
doesn’t want me any more than the destitute migrant from Bihar, but it can’t kick either of us
out. So it makes life uncomfortable for us by guerrilla warfare, by constant low-level sniping, by
creating small crises every day. All these irritations add up to a murderous rage in your mind,
especially when you’ve come from a country where things work better, where institutions are
more responsive. Long before the millennium, Indians such as the late prime minister, Rajiv
Gandhi, were talking about taking the country into the twenty-first century, as if the twentieth
century could just be leapfrogged.
India desires modernity; it desires computers, information technology, neural networks, video on
demand. But there is no guarantee of a constant supply of electricity in most places in the
country. In this as in every other area, the country is convinced it can pole-vault over the basics:
develop world-class computer and management institutes without achieving basic literacy;
provide advanced cardiac surgery and diagnostic imaging facilities while the most easily
avoidable childhood diseases run rampant; sell washing machines that depend on a nonexistent
water supply from shops that are dark most hours of the day because of power cuts; support a
dozen private and public companies offering mobile phone service, while the basic land
telephone network is in terrible shape; drive scores of new cars that go from 0 to 60 in ten
seconds without any roads where they might do this without killing everything inside and out,
man and beast. It is an optimistic view of technological progress—that if you reach for the moon,
you will somehow, automatically, span the inconvenient steps in between. India has the third
largest pool of technical labor in the world, but a third of its 1 billion people can’t read or write.
An Indian scientist can design a supercomputer, but it won’t work because the junior technician
cannot maintain it properly. The country graduates the best technical brains in the world but
neglects to teach my plumber how to fix a toilet so it stays fixed.
It is still a Brahmin-oriented system of education; those who work with their hands have to learn
for themselves. Education has to do with reading and writing, with abstractions, with higher
thought. As a result, in the Country of the No nothing is fixed the first time around. You don’t
just call a repairman, you begin a relationship with him. You can’t bring to his attention too
aggressively the fact that he is incompetent or crooked, because you will need him to set right
what he has broken the first time around. Indians are craftsmen of genius, but mass production,
with its attendant standardization, is not for us. All things modern in Bombay fail regularly:
plumbing, telephones, the movement of huge blocks of traffic. Bombay is not the ancient Indian
idea of a city. It is an imitation of a western city, maybe Chicago in the twenties. And, like all
other imitations of the West here—the Hindi pop songs, the appliances, the accents people put
on, the parties the rich throw—this imitation, too, is neither here nor there.
THE NEXT BIG STRUGGLE in the Country of the No is getting a gas connection. The
government has a monopoly over the supply of cooking gas, which is delivered in heavy red
cylinders. When I go to the designated office for Malabar Hill and ask for a cylinder, the clerk
says, “No quota.” The Five-Year Plans of the country have not provided for enough cooking gas
for everybody. “When will there be quota?” “Maybe August.” This is May. We will eat
sandwiches till then. Various people advise me to try the black market. I go driving around with
my aunt to try to kidnap a gas delivery man; we see one bicycling along Harkness Road. My aunt
jumps out and asks him how much he will take to give me a cylinder. He explains that the
cylinder is not a problem but the connector is; he promises to call after he finds a black-market
connector. My friend Manjeet tells me to take her mother to another gas office. She knows the
ways of Bombay. We walk in, and I tell the clerk, “I need a gas cylinder, please.” I explain the
problem with the other office, their lack of quota. “Do you know a member in the Rajya Sabha?”
the clerk asks, referring to the upper house of parliament. “No. Why should I?” “Because if you
did, it would be easy. All the Rajya Sabha MPs have a discretionary quota of gas cylinders they
can award.” At this point Manjeet’s mother steps in. “He has two children!” she appeals to the
female bureaucrats. “Two small children! They don’t even have gas to boil milk! They are crying
for milk! What is he supposed to do without gas to boil milk for his two small children?” By the
next morning we have a gas cylinder in our kitchen. My friend’s mother knew what had to be
done to move the bureaucracy. She did not bother with official rules and procedures and forms.
She appealed to the hearts of the workers in the office; they have children too. And then they
volunteered the information that there was a loophole: If I ordered a commercial tank of gas,
which is bigger and more expensive than the household one, I could get it immediately. No one
had told me this before. But once the emotional connection was made, the rest was easy. Once
the workers in the gas office were willing to pretend that my household was a business, they
delivered the cylinders every couple of months efficiently, spurred on by the vision of my two
little children crying for milk. But the gas cylinder, which is supposed to last for three months,
runs out in three weeks. Somewhere in the chain of supply, most of it has been siphoned off and
sold on the black market. What this means to us is that it runs out the morning of the day we
have invited ten people to dinner. The only way to ensure a continuous supply of cooking gas is
to have two cylinders. Everyone runs a scam so they have two cylinders in their name; they
transfer one from an earlier address or bribe an official to get a second one. Bombay survives on
the scam; we are all complicit. A man who has made his money through a scam is more
respected than a man who has made his money through hard work, because the ethic of Bombay
is quick upward mobility and a scam is a shortcut. A scam shows good business sense and a
quick mind. Anyone can work hard and make money. What’s to admire about that? But a well-
executed scam? Now, there’s a thing of beauty!

Glossary:
Vanquishing: Defeat thoroughly
Sublime: of very great excellence or beauty.
Horde: A large group of people
Teleological: relating to or involving the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they
serve rather than of the cause by which they arise
Nefertiti: Neferneferuaten Nefertiti was an Egyptian queen and the Great Royal Wife of
Akhenaten, an Egyptian Pharaoh. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious
revolution, in which they worshiped one god only, Aten, or the sun disc.
Loping: characterized by long, bounding strides.
Cosmopolitan: including people from many different countries.
Dictum: a short statement that expresses a general truth or principle
Hemmed: surround and restrict the space or movement of someone or something.
Reticent: not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily.
Teetotalling: of or relating to, advocating, or pledged to total abstinence from intoxicating drink
Greek nymphs: A nymph in Greek mythology is a supernatural being associated with many other
minor female deities that are often associated with the air, seas or water, or particular locations or
landforms.
Frolicking: play or move about in a cheerful and lively way.
Interleaved: insert pages, typically blank ones, between the pages of (a book).
Flanked: be on each or on one side of.
Fructuous: profitable
Upholstered: provide (furniture) with a soft, padded covering.
Cascading: (of water) pour downwards rapidly and in large quantities.
Farfalle: small pieces of pasta shaped like bows or butterflies' wings.
Chardonnay: Chardonnay is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine.
Sclerotic: becoming rigid and unresponsive; losing the ability to adapt.
Destitute: extremely poor and lacking the means to provide for oneself.
Leapfrogged: surpass or overtake another to move into a leading or dominant position
Siphoned: draw off or transfer over a period of time, especially illegally or unfairly
Complicit: involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong.

Comprehension Questions:
1. Based on your reading of the excerpt, justify the title “The Country of the No”
 2. “I am afraid that one of these days I’ll meet myself, the stranger within, coming or
going.” What does the author mean by this statement? Explain.
3. How has the Mehta defined ‘cosmopolitan’ from the eye of a Gujarati?
4. Highlight the caste notions brought into light by the author.
5. How according Suketu Mehta is change of caste a means of evolutionary survival?
6. What are the problems the author faces at his home?
7. Interrelating with his day to day experiences and observations, what are the major
problems the author identifies in the country of India? Who do you think is responsible
for this problematic state?
8. What are the author's views on the education system of India?
9. Elaborate upon the inefficiency of institutions and administration in India the author
brings out with his experience of “gas cylinder struggle”. How do corruption and scam
find their place in it?

About the Author

Suketu Mehta is a writer based in New York City. He was born in Kolkata, India, to Gujarati
parents and raised in Mumbai where he lived until his family moved to the New York area in
1977. He has attended New York University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

His autobiographical account of his experiences in the city of Mumbai, Maximum City, was
published in 2004. The book, based on two and a half years research, explores the underbelly of
the sprawling city. It was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist

Suketu Mehta also co-wrote the screenplay to the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir with novelist
Vikram Chandra. His next book This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto, will be
published in June 2019.
Suketu lives in Manhattan. He is currently working on a book about the New York City
immigrant experience. He joined the New York University journalism faculty in 2008

About the Text:

Country of the No is an excerpt from Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Mehta’s first
book. He describes Bombay unspooling before him, his experiences and encounters with the
procrastinating, caste – minded Indian neighbours and workers. The passions and secrets of the
throbbing megapolis come alive as Mehta steps into its black alleys, fantasies, institutions and
drawing rooms. It is the biography of the city that never sleeps.

Pandits from Pakistan (an excerpt)

Rahul Bhattacharya

A warm lullaby wind blew the afternoon Saad and I travelled out in Shaukat’s taxi. This was the
twenty – third of March, the second gap – day between the last two one – day internationals. It
happened to be also, Pakistan Day, the anniversary, the sixty - third now, of the Lahore
Resolution, wherein Jinnah’s Muslim League first made their demand for a separate Islamic
Republic culled from the British India.
We drove along the canal, which then stayed by our side for most of our way. Past the
contribution of Lahore, families picnicked by its grassy banks, youngsters pushed one another in.
The canal – network was a legacy of the Raj, and the scholars are still debating whether it built
the economy of Punjab more or ruined its ecology. The canals were a symbol, also, of the few
things at which the two governments had managed reasonable and sustained co-operation, the
sharing of waters.
Every now and then we passed small settlements, canal colonies, fronted on the highway by a
dhaba. Behind, the fields yawned away into a shining golden horizon, the flatness broken only by
occasional brick kilns.
I asked Shaukat what fields these were. He replied: “Pakistan ke hain, India ke nahin” (they are
Pakistan’s, not India’s). Immediately he looked embarrassed. He had misunderstood my
question. I told him I meant what was being grown on them. He said wheat, though it well could
have been mustard. His face fell.
Soon we passed Batapur, a factory village. The logo – red, italicised running-hand font – was
incorporated into the village name and splashed on the signboards everywhere. Pakistanis, I had
found, like Indians, assumed Bata was theirs. In fact it is Czech.
Thirty minutes into our drive, the milestones for Wagah, spelt on the side as Wagha, began to
appear ever more frequently till there was one every kilometre.
The long horizontal banner above the gate was sponsored by Dawn Bread. Welcome to JCP
Wagha, it said. There was a dhaba outside the Joint Check Post too, and a number of cigarette
and cold drinks stalls. I looked for a visible sign of border on the field. I could not make out any.
I was told there was a fence; a low, non-electric fence, as I found later in a photograph of
Tendulkar, who was granted permission to stand with a leg on either side.
There was an awful lot of dusty activity at the JCP. And a montage of sounds: the impatient buzz
of the waiting, growing beyond a buzz now, the high-pithced electronic crackles of the Walls
ice-cream cycle boys; the afternoon, asr, call to prayer from the mosque across the dhaba.
A set of Rangers guarded the gate. This gate, I came to understand, was a valve; the arena of the
ceremony, as it were, was more than half a kilometre beyond, and already packed with people.
The area leading up to the gate was patrolled by a pair of Rangers, whips in hand, atop chestnut-
brown horses.
Slowly, but discernibly, a certain bedlam was beginning to set in. Nobody knew the criteria for
getting through the valve. Besides, the wait for many, it was clear to see, had been for hours. The
crowd was much bigger than usual, I was told, because this was a national day.
Every now and then, a wave of people would attack the gate. The foot Rangers would brandish
their lathis. A few would squirt through. The men on horses would swing into action, backing the
rear of the animal into the wave, making everyone run backwards, resulting, sometimes, in a
domino-fall. It was a wonder there wasn’t a full scale stampede.
The crowd kept swelling. There was a large number of families, many of them with children.
There were several bedraggled groups who had the feel of refugees, as at the visa counters at
Delhi.
There was a collection of sightseers: a few Indians, an orange-haired Japanese twenty-something
with a videocam. The Ten Sports crew had arrived to shoot a sight-and-sounds clip, but, for the
moment, was not being let through. Khalid Ansari, the founder chairman of the Mid Day group,
came with a couple of Pakistani friends, who were meant to have been granted easy access. They
were not.
Meanwhile, the waves go stronger and more frequent. If both horses were pressed into action on
the left, there would be a compensatory attack from the right. Children would begin crying, and
women shrieking, half out of fear, half out of fun, whenever the horse’s bum approached.
Suddenly the horse might turn, revealing large glistening eyes, cavernous nostrils, and a silver of
frothy spirit. I got tail in my eyes.
And so the game continued. The masses swayed to and fro, going to the gate one minute, running
away from the grunting horses the next. Except for those in government vehicles, the number of
people squeezing through the valve kept reducing. The dust, kicked up by the wave-game, flew
into his eyes, it blurred the vision; hundreds of people coughed together.
People began to get hurt; an elbow in face here, a hoof on a foot there. One of Mr. Ansari’s
companions turned out to be a friend of Saad’s father. In one horse-induced retreat, he was
thrown backwards and might have been badly injured and trampled upon had Saad not, quite
heroically I must say, caught him in his arms a few inches before he hit the ground. It was all
getting rather ugly. We could have turned back at this point, taken a stand against the indignity.
But we were desperate. I could not fully comprehend my desperation. But I was desperate.
Wagah is the only point along India’s 2900 – odd km boundary with Pakistan where crossing is
permitted. I was not sure of it back then, on the twenty-third of March, but the cross-border
movement of Indians during the cricket tour was the greatest there had been since the early years
after Partition. Indians came on cricket visas, tightly configured visas, valid for no longer than
two or three days after the match ended, and valid, in name at least only for the venues of the
matches applied for. Crucially, they bore the stamp ‘Exempted from Police Reporting’, meaning
there was to be no presenting oneself to the cops first thing on arrival as is required of casual
visitors to each other’s countries.
How many crossed? We must hope that one day the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, from
where all visas were issued, makes the information public. Till then we are down to guesswork.
What we can be certain of it is that the figure was more than the 8,000, as was initially declared
by Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, and less than 20,000, which Shaharyar, a former foreign
secretary repeatedly claimed after the tour. Ringing, writing, and generally haranguing the High
Commission for months on end brought either evasion, or throwaway, often contradictory,
numbers. On request, a journalist better connected than your author was told that 11,000 was
probably an accurate number, with approximately 5,000 for Lahore one-dayers. After piecing
together fragments of information obtained from the Northern Railways, the Border Security
Force, Indian Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Delhi Transport Corporation and the
attendances at the matches, that is also the estimate I’m inclined to accept.
There seems to be an agreement that the great movements would have also been on occasion of
cricket, and those from east to west. Ten thousand, according to A Corner of a Foreign Field,
attended the Lahore Test of 1954-55, but those were times when the border was still fairly
porous. Reports in The Times of India during the significant series, in 1978-79, suggest that not
more than a couple of thousand crossed.
So this was it, then, the single biggest window there had been in almost fifty years, the single
biggest window for a people to talk to another. We talked pretty well I think. And in the name of
a contest.
A last-gasp bout of violent opportunism saw us through the valve, not without a volley of lathi
hits, five minutes before the ceremony was to begin.
A fanatical cheering became audible as we approached an imposing brick archway. The archway
was flanked by white minarets, from which curbed out a semi-circular amphitheatre. One half
was reserved for ladies and children. We tried to get up into the other section, but it was
occupied almost twice over. The guards sent us back down. We tried to make our way through
the archway, and to the side of the road up which the soldiers were to march, but there too people
had lined up, seven and eight deep. The guards won’t let us through. Every place we tried to
squeeze into, a guard with a rifle was there to stop us. Finally, I played the Indian card. ‘Achcha,
India ke hai? Pehele hi bol dete...’ (Oh, from India? You should have told me earlier...) He let us
pass, with a smile. Saad grimaced.
We found a spot on the sidelines. Chants rented the air. Pakistan Zindabad. Allah-u-Akbar. A
cheerleader who had almost knocked over Saad with his flag at the stadium was running up and
down, waving his crescented cloth, urging the masses on like coach at tug-of-war. The flag had
been designed by Jinnah so that – I quote from Pakistan government website – ‘the white and the
dark green field represents Minorities & Muslim majority, respectively. The crescent on the flag
represents progress. The five-rayed star represents light and knowledge.’ It was a striking
creation, and powerful symbol.
Barely had we taken our spot than the crowds erupted into a delirious roar: a guard had begun
marching towards a gate, some 50 metres past the brick archway. Marching is a euphemism. He
stomped so hard as if to create holes in the earth, a severely built man in immaculate uniform, a
magnificent turban, boots of gleaming black, and wearing hate on his face as he had been told to.
Even amid the chanting and hooting and clapping, the clamping down of hobnailed boots could
be made out. And since I sat cross-legged on the road up which he marched, I could feel the
vibrations through my body.
The guard powered on till the gate, where he spread his hands like a performer, maintaining the
hate on his face, and shaking his head vigorously in the manner one does after drowning a Patiala
Peg; high on induced hate. The hands were lowered to the sides in a series of theatrical gestures.
Another guard followed, and another. Sometimes they went in twos and threes. As they reached
the gate, one after the other, and played out their hate, the crowd was stirred to a frenzy. A
depravity hung in the air.
The Pakistani gate was an intricate iron work of green, with a large white crescent and star. Ten
minutes or so beyond that was a cream Indian gate. A thick white line – the line – ran between
these gates, an arrow from each gate pointing to the line.
Beyond the cream gate, in Bharat, a similar process seemed to be underway. I could not be sure.
I read somewhere that the Indians had decided to tone down the posturing from their end. I read
somewhere else that the commanders of both forces were to meet and agree on softening the
gestures. What I do know is the last time I contacted the Border Security Force, six months after
the tour, I was told the ceremony was just the way it was, without any softening.
Amid a blast of bugles there ensued a rigorous confrontation between a pair of Indians and
Pakistanis on the thick white line. High stepping, goosestepping, the crisscrossed each other
fiercely, the Pakistanis in olive-black, the Indians in khaki, to a crescendoing noise.
A chronicle by a visiting westerner likened the ceremony to a European football game. This was
ironic, instructive. Where Orwell had liked sport to war minus the shooting, here was wilfully
calibrated war minus the shooting – shadow-boxing, in uniform, at the border – being likened to
sport.
At last a pair of guards from either side shook hands, and the flags were gently lowered. This
signified the closing of the border for the day. Both gates were slammed shut together, with
immense force. There was a sudden, shocked silence, and in the silence of the moment, the metal
rang in ears. The silence continued for several seconds. The silence was a lot of things: a brief
mourning, the acknowledgement of attachment, of a shameful history; it was a symbolic
reconciliation; I think it was, in large part, embarrassment at the preceding depravity.
I have read that at this point people from both sides are allowed to run up till the gates and look
across for a couple of minutes, into one another’s eyes, into one another’s countries, that some
broken families fix this as a meeting point. There was such a great spilling out of crowd, from
the sidelines, from the amphitheatre, thousands pouring out on to the road up which the soldiers
marched, that I could not tell for sure.
Suddenly music blared out from the speakers, pop songs, honouring Pakistan, ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’
and others, catchy tunes, and they imparted a carnival atmosphere. A group of boys removed
their shirts and wet themselves in fountain on the lawn, dancing. A gaggle of girls clapped hands
and sang gaily. Soon, the guards began herding everybody back, back inside Pakistan. The show
was over. We walked back out the archway, and towards the valve, the sound of songs receding.
Even now I shudder at the mesh of emotions at that scene at the border on March twenty-third.
The faces of some wore a disturbed look. Some looked distraught. Some chanted. Some looked
fragile, shattered, tears in eyes. Some looked plain entertained. Some, like Mr. Ansari, were
furious, furious with the jingoism the ceremony was designed to generate. Saad and I discussed
things with passionate angst. It was a confusing time. Two buses made their way past the
returning masses against the setting sun, replica-blue sleeves waving out as they drove by. They
waved out and the Pakistanis waved back, spontaneously, heartily. It was a Delhi Transport
Corporation bus: it was Tuesday, India’s turn. The following day VVS played.
Glossary:
1. Brick kiln: a type of large oven used for making bricks and clay objects hard after they
have been shaped.
2. Bedlam: a scene of uproar and confusion
3. Brandish: wave or flourish (something, especially a weapon) as a threat or in anger or
excitement.
4. Bedraggled: untidy, messy
 5. Haranguing: lecture (someone) at length in an aggressive and critical manner
6. Delirious: acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and
incoherence; affected by delirium. A wild state of excitement
7. Hobnailed: boots with hobnails (nails inserted into the soles of the boots)
8. Calibrated: carefully assessed, set, or adjusted
9. Jingoism: extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign
policy
Questions:
1. What are the narrator’s ideas on partition? Discuss in the light of the excerpt.
2. What do the “canals” symbolise?
3. What was the Indian card that the author had played? Why and how did it help achieve
author’s objectives?
4. “…people from both sides are allowed to run up till the gates and look across for a
couple of minutes, into one another’s eyes, into one another’s countries, that some
broken families fix this as a meeting point” explain these lines based on your
understanding of the text and historical event of Partition.
5. What were the various kinds of emotions author witness at the border on 23rd March?
What does it signify about the process and decision of partition?
6. There is an evident paradox highlighted in the excerpt from the book “Pandits from
Pakistan”. Explain, based on your reading of the text.
7. Why are the people at border “shameful” of their history?

About the Author:

Rahul Bhattacharya is a writer, journalist and editor. He was born in Bombay in 1979 and lives
in Delhi. His first book, Pundits from Pakistan, a cricket tour book, was published in 2005. It
won the Crossword Popular Book Award in India, and was shortlisted for the Cricket Society
Award, UK. In 2010, it was voted a top 10 cricket book of all time by The Wisden Cricketer,
UK. The Sly Company of People Who Care, his first novel, was published in 2011. It won the
Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in the UK and the Hindu Literary Prize in India. It
was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize and the
Economist Crossword Book Award, and was a Kirkus fiction Book of the Year in the US. He is
an editor at The Cricket Monthly.

About the Text:

Pandits from Pakistan is a book on cricket. It covers the Indian cricket team’s tour of Pakistan in
the year 2004. While the book is largely about cricket, it also tells of how the tour had an impact
that went far beyond sub-continental cricket in terms of goodwill and sense of bonhomie it
created between the people of the two countries. It questions the idea of partition and the
relevance of it.