English, August: An Indian Story

We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.

In his essay,Agastya had said that his real ambition was to be a domesticated male stray dog because they lived the best life.They were assured of food,and because they were stray they didn't have to guard a house or beg or shake paws or fetch trifles or be clean or anything similarly meaningless to earn their food.They were servile and sycophantic when hungry;once fed,and before sleep,they wagged their tails perfunctorily whenever their hosts passes,as an investment for future meals.A stray dog was free,he slept a lot,barked unexpectedly and only when he wanted to,and got a lot of sex.

He absent-mindedly fondled his crotch and then whipped his hand away.No masturbation,he suddenly decided.He tried to think about this but sustained logical thought on one topic was difficult and unnecessary.No,i am not wasting any semen on Madna.It was an impulse,but he felt that he should record it.In the diary under that date,he wrote,'From today no masturbation.Test your will,you bastard'. Then he wondered at his bravado.No masturbation at all?That was impossible.

I'm happy for you Agastya,you're leaving for a more meaningful context. This place is like a parody, a complete farce, they're trying to build another Cambridge here. At my old University I used to teach Macbeth to my MA English classes in Hindi.English in India is burlesque. But now you'll get out of here to somehow a more real situation. In my time I'd wanted to give this Civil Service exam too, I should have. Now I spend my time writing papers for obscure journals on L. H. Myers and Wyndham Lewis, and teaching Conrad to a bunch of half-wits.

Land is important everywhere, all kinds of land. But you have lived in cities. There you cannot sense the importance of agricultural land, its the real wealth. Each of these squares and hexagrams could be worth lakhs.

Most of us, Ogu, live with a vague dissatisfaction, if we are lucky. Living as we do, upon us is imposed a particular rhythm - birth, education, a job, marriage, then birth again, but we all have minds don't we? For most Indians of your age, just getting any job is enough. You were more fortunate for you had options before you. These sound like paternal homilies, don't they, but you've always had surrogate parents, your aunts, and then in Delhi, your Pultukaku, and we've not really spent much time together.

No one reveals himself more completely to others than to himself - that is, if he reveals himself at all.

You feel even more naked and alone, he said silently, when you reveal yourself, a gratuitous act, for the strength and comfort you look for, any of those last illusions of consolations, can finally be only within you.

It was soporific to be mindlessly shunted about in a vehicle, to succumb to marijuana, the heat, the rhythm and roar of the jeep