In a country of 400 million people living in congested rusticity, events like births and deaths are reduced to their proper insignificance. That does not mean that the birth of a son does not occasion joy or the death of a kinsman no grief. They do. Only the rejoicing at the arrival of another infant in a family which has to live on the produce of ten acres of impoverished land becomes progressively more a matter of form than of reality. After the first child or two, births are simply looked upon as something which follows nocturnal pastimes as day follows night. Since there are no other diversions in the village and it is not easy to restrict sexual intercourse to a few messy days in the month, one child comes after another as the new year comes after the old. Its arrival is accepted with resignation as a blessing of the Almighty, Omniscient God who knows what is best. But little importance is attached to it. In the case of death, the reactions are somewhat confused. There is sorrow at the loss of a loved one; there is also relief that there is one mouth less to feed. In any case God seems to manifest His power more at death than at birth. (Human beings have a not too unimportant role in creating new life: it is only rarely that they become instruments of destruction. Killing is largely God’s monopoly. When the Lord giveth, He lets mankind have some share in the giving. But when the Lord taketh away, He does it at His own sweet will.) So deaths are accepted with even more resignation than births—and as little fuss.