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Strange, how the human race can elevate the vilest of men to positions of all-powerful tyranny and then take an equal pleasure in dragging them down into the dust. Even good men can be destroyed if they excite the envy of their fellows.
suppose most writers, to a greater or lesser extent, base their fictional characters upon real people. Mine come very close to the reality. It is my own response to them that varies. The most fictional of all my characters is myself.
belonged to the hot sunshine and muddy canals, the banyan trees and the mango groves, the smell of wet earth after summer rain, the relief of a monsoon thunderstorm, the laughing brown faces. And the intimacy of human contact—that was what I had missed the most in England. The orderly life, the good sense and civility were all admirable, but they did nothing for the soul. I missed the freedom to touch someone without being misunderstood; the freedom to hold someone’s hand as a mark of affection rather than desire, but also to show desire without reserve and find fulfilment. I missed being
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She was always singing to herself, or to the sheep, or to the grass, showing me how much I still needed to learn about contentment. What’s all the running around for, she seemed to say. Sit down, stop chasing, and the words will come, and maybe love, too.
Sometimes it is good to fail; to lose what you most desire; to come second. And the future is too unpredictable for anxiety.
This is the evening of a long and fairly fulfilling life. And it is late evening in Landour. A misty, apricot light suffuses the horizon. Down in the villages the apricots are ripening. A small boy brought me the fresh fruit this morning—still very sour, very tangy, but full of promise. And if apricots could take precedence over missiles, the world would be full of promise too. I’m afraid science and politics have let us down. But the cricket still sings on the window-sill.
