The Glass Palace

by Amitav Ghosh

that it would pit Indians against one another in such a way as to make victory just as undesirable as defeat.

Mahatma Gandhi has always said that our struggle for independence cannot be separated from our struggle for reform.

But having said this, let me add that we must not be deceived by the idea that imperialism is an enterprise of reform.

Develop a state of mind like the earth, Rahula, for on the earth all manner of things are thrown, clean and unclean, dung and urine, spittle, pus and blood, and the earth is not troubled or repelled or disgusted . . .

birth is sorrow, age is sorrow, disease is sorrow, death is sorrow; contact with the unpleasant is sorrow, separation from the pleasant is sorrow, every wish unfulfilled is sorrow . . .

Was it possible—even hypothetically—that his life, his choices, had always been moulded by fears of which he himself was unaware?

Everything he had ever assumed about himself was a lie, an illusion. And if this were so, how was he to find himself now?