Song of Kali

by Dan Simmons

a dense mass of houses so old they only seem to fall, through which narrow and tortuous lanes curve and wind. There is no privacy here and whoever ventures in this region find the streets—by courtesy so called—thronged with loiterers and sees, through half-glazed windows, rooms crowded to suffocation … the stagnant gutters … the filth choking up dark passages … the walls of bleached soot, and doors falling from their hinges … and children swarming everywhere, relieving themselves as they please." He stopped, closed the book, and raised his eyebrows in polite interrogation. I had made no great objection to continuing to act as a straight man if it amused our host. "It has its relevant parts," I said. "Yes." Chatterjee smiled and held up the book. "This, Mr. Luczak, is a contemporary account of London written in the 1850s. One

It was as if only a thin wall of electric lighting protected the great cities of the world from total barbarism.

"And did you know that urine … especially human urine … is thought by many here to have strong spiritual and medicinal properties? Did you know that our current Prime Minister, Mr. Moraji Desai, drinks several ounces of his own urine each morning?" "Yes, I know that."

when the Mahatma went from village to village, the first thing he would preach would not be human brotherhood or anti-British stratagems or nonviolence, but the basics—the absolute basics—of human hygiene.