"
"Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to believe in a God,
haven't you?
"Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to believe in a God,
haven't you?
Kipling - Poems
The flaming colors of an Aquarium poster caught my
eye and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie
into the hands of the professional mesmerist, and whether, if he were
under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he did, and if
people believed him--but Charlie would be frightened and flustered, or
made conceited by the interviews. In either case he would begin to lie,
through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands.
"They are very funny fools, your English," said a voice at my elbow, and
turning round I recognized a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali law
student, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England to
become civilized. The old man was a retired native official, and on an
income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundred
pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretend
to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian
bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor.
Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed with
scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves.
But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian Government paid
for his university education, and he contributed cheap sedition to Sachi
Durpan, and intrigued with the wives of his schoolmates.
"That is very funny and very foolish," he said, nodding at the poster.
"I am going down to the Northbrook Club. Will you come too? "
I walked with him for some time. "You are not well," he said. "What is
there in your mind? You do not talk.
"
"Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to believe in a God,
haven't you? "
"Oah, yes, here! But when I go home I must conciliate popular
superstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women will
anoint idols. "
"And bang up tulsi and feast the purohit, and take you back into
caste again and make a good khuttri of you again, you advanced social
Free-thinker. And you'll eat desi food, and like it all, from the smell
in the courtyard to the mustard oil over you. "
"I shall very much like it," said Grish Chunder, unguardedly. "Once a
Hindu--always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think they
know. "
"I'll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It's an old tale to
you. "
I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder put
a question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally in
the tongue best suited for its telling. After all it could never have
been told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to time,
and then came up to my rooms where I finished the tale.
"Beshak," he said, philosophically. "Lekin darwaza band hai. (Without
doubt, but the door is shut.
eye and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie
into the hands of the professional mesmerist, and whether, if he were
under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he did, and if
people believed him--but Charlie would be frightened and flustered, or
made conceited by the interviews. In either case he would begin to lie,
through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands.
"They are very funny fools, your English," said a voice at my elbow, and
turning round I recognized a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali law
student, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England to
become civilized. The old man was a retired native official, and on an
income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundred
pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretend
to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian
bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor.
Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed with
scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves.
But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian Government paid
for his university education, and he contributed cheap sedition to Sachi
Durpan, and intrigued with the wives of his schoolmates.
"That is very funny and very foolish," he said, nodding at the poster.
"I am going down to the Northbrook Club. Will you come too? "
I walked with him for some time. "You are not well," he said. "What is
there in your mind? You do not talk.
"
"Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to believe in a God,
haven't you? "
"Oah, yes, here! But when I go home I must conciliate popular
superstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women will
anoint idols. "
"And bang up tulsi and feast the purohit, and take you back into
caste again and make a good khuttri of you again, you advanced social
Free-thinker. And you'll eat desi food, and like it all, from the smell
in the courtyard to the mustard oil over you. "
"I shall very much like it," said Grish Chunder, unguardedly. "Once a
Hindu--always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think they
know. "
"I'll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It's an old tale to
you. "
I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder put
a question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally in
the tongue best suited for its telling. After all it could never have
been told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to time,
and then came up to my rooms where I finished the tale.
"Beshak," he said, philosophically. "Lekin darwaza band hai. (Without
doubt, but the door is shut.
