Last week your son was eating a chicken leg near Hindu College. It was cooked. The boys at Hindu College have made up their mind that consumption of meat is the only way to reach the zenith of civilization. I turned away to avoid a public confrontation—he has also become hot-headed. Eating meat excites the nerves. When he came home, I reprimanded him. He argued that if consumption of fish was okay, it was okay to eat other animals as well. I told him that we only eat some varieties of fish because of their proximity to the plant kingdom. I do not believe in specious arguments of aesthetics or the presence of scales. He did not care. I admit, in private, that he argues quite effectively. It will serve him well.

I have taken to walking around in slippers. The construction across from our house brings new earth and I cannot tell who has arrived and who has left. Subhada rubs the floors with fresh mud and water every week. Yet it is dusty within an hour.

Today, the elephants passed by. It’s bathing day for them at the river.

Mukho’s son is going to Presidency to study law. He’s a bright boy but doesn’t know Sanskrit.

The Brahmos are setting up another mission here. They condemn idolatry when there are three temples and thirty idols in our colony alone. Yesterday, your son—he is only fourteen—said, ‘I don’t believe in idols. I will become a Brahmo.’ The Brahmos write in the newspapers denouncing Durga Puja. ‘How could nature give birth to a monstrous being with ten arms and three eyes?’ they ask. Tell me, how will the poor man, with his hungry children, ill parents and the moneylender’s big stomach, worship a god he cannot see? Year after year our artists make Durga idols. Many villages specialize in them. There is dance, there is drama, there is celebration, there is the feast, there is the fair, there is the procession. Do the Brahmos want all of us to become as lifeless as the Protestants? Do they want these artists to work in factories as slave labour?

There is a cholera epidemic but nothing to worry about at home, yet.

Self-preservation is a fundamental duty. It is fundamental because it is invariant to outcomes. Self-preservation is selfish only when one does not understand what ‘self’ is. Self-preservation is distinct from individualism because it precedes individualism. Individualism is an ethic. Self-preservation is a duty. This duty transcends preservation of a group.

Yours,

Dada

18

That evening, as Pestonjee rang the doorbell of his apartment and waited for Persis to open the door, he saw the neighbour’s nameplate—A.K. Hedge.

‘Persis, have you met the new neighbours?’ he asked his wife, still at the door.

‘No. Why do you stink?’

‘Long story.’

‘Did you shit in your pants?’

‘Shhh  . No, I fell in it.’

‘Fell in shit? How can you be so—?’