“And yet one can’t help but notice,” Edwin said, “that on balance, they rather seem to prefer their own. Their own civilization, that is. They managed quite well without us for some time, didn’t they? Several thousand years, wasn’t it?” It was like being strapped to the roof of a runaway train! He actually knew very little about India, but he remembered having been shocked as a boy by accounts of the 1857 rebellion. “Does anyone want us anywhere?” he heard himself ask. “Why do we assume these far-flung places are ours?”
