It occurred to me then that the mad in India are not the mentally ill, they are, simply, mad. They have no other identity. Here, everyone was mad. They had lost their hair so that the institution could keep them free of lice. They had lost their clothes because their families had abandoned them, and they had lost their lives because they had lost their families. They were now free, in a bizarre sort of way. They were also alone except for the shoulder in front and the touch of the fingers of the person following behind.
