(The winner / winners will be awarded prizes)

Last night I had to go to Windsor for a banquet there. I had never been to Windsor Castle before. I must say that I was impressed by the collection of treasure there. The rooms are very gorgeous indeed. The room we dined in contained pictures of the people who attended the Council of Vienna in 1815 to settle the fate of Napoleon. There is a story that when De Gaulle visited that room and saw all these pictures, he said : ‘What a lot of people it took to face Napoleon.’ When Bulganin and Khrushchev went into that room, they spotted immediately a big painting of Czar Alexander I and referred to him : ‘Oh, there is our national hero.’

But the most attractive part of Windsor was the library which contained fascinating old books and prints.

Suhrawardy was there. He was rather glum during dinner, partly because Mrs. Diefenbaker, wife of the new Canadian Premier, who was sitting next to him ignored him completely and was overwhelmed by Prince Philip on [her] other side. After the dinner, and no doubt during it, Suhrawardy consumed quantities of alcoholic drinks. A little before we left late at night, Suhrawardy became quite boisterous in his behaviour. Indeed, the Duke of Gloucester gently told him that he was losing control of himself.

Nevertheless, Suhrawardy is a clever man and he is being made much of here. He is out to pour out, privately at least, the most vitriolic and false propaganda about India.

Yours loving

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What a great joy your letters bring to me! They are something to look forward to, something that not only breaks the monotony, but brings a sort of light to the days. To the gloom and darkness of my mind each letter is rather like the single flower of Thurber’s parable – a messenger of hope, an assurance that something is there, even in the midst of this darkness, on which one can build anew. And then they bring you close, so close to me, as though the vast Indian Ocean were only a pond, and all the lands between just stepping stones.

Nearly every week there is a new discovery that will in course of time change our way of living. And because one never hears of the years of research and trial and failure that have gone before it, it seems rather like the waving of a fairy’s wand. At the moment I am especially excited about the stroboscope and Nylon. You have probably heard of them. The stroboscope is known as the ‘lamp that feezes motion’. Through its rays you can not only see each drop in a waterfall suspended in the air but also you can make it move backwards & upwards! Which means that no movement on earth is now too fast to be photographed and hence studied in all its details. Fascinating, isn’t it? Meanwhile ‘ersatz’ at its best. It is elastic, strong, transparent or opaque and never loses its shape unless heated above boiling point. It can be made into anything from tooth brush bristle to women’s sheer stockings. The more it’s pulled about the stronger it gets. And already stockings dresses & underwear are being made of Nylon. Furthermore, it is cheap and lasting and beautiful to look upon. Hence it is thought that it presents a very serious rival to silk and [thus] to Japan’s trade.

Yours loving

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Each generation has to solve its own problems, and that perhaps applies far more today, in this fast changing world, than ever before. For a passing generation to impose itself on a new one is bad. Yet we are always doing it, consciously sometimes, unconsciously most of the time. I have no doubt that I do it. And yet I do not want to and I would like you to help me in this. Do not therefore consider me, or what you may think are my wishes in anything, as a burden and an obstacle in your way. I have almost ceased to have any wishes about others, individually considered, though I have these wishes for large impersonal objects. I have learnt from experience that I am not wise enough to advise others. I find difficulty in deciding many questions for myself; how can I decide for others, even though they are dear to me?

In the solitude of prison I shall think of you a great deal. I shall sit here wrapped up in my thoughts and you will be a constant companion bringing joy and solace to me. So I shall not be really lonely, and the years or months that I pass here will perhaps bring peace to my mind. I shall make friends again with the stars and watch the moon wax and wane, and see the pageant of the world, with all its beauty and horror, as an onlooker from a distant place or a different world. I have worked hard during most of my life but I have worked as I wanted to, and life, in spite of many hard knocks, has been gracious to me. I suppose I have hard work still to do. There are no ways of escape from it. But at present I feel somewhat weary in mind. When I feel this way I seek refuge in poetry and the classics. What is wisdom, asks Euripides.

What then is Wisdom? What of man’s endeavour?

To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait,

To hold a hand uplifted over Hate.

And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?

Do I not betray my age and generation in what I write, and in my quotations?

Yours loving

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My political life and methods were such that there was little secrecy about them, though inevitably there were things I did not want to shout from the house-tops. But when it came to personal matters it was a different story. Not that there were any great secrets of mine which I wished to hide from the public gaze. But no one likes to undress his mind and soul in public. So, always, through all these long years, whenever I took pen in hand to write a letter, subconsciously I kept a check on myself, feeling that strangers would see that letter. I could write with a certain measure of clarity and even my restraint of language gave some evidence of the mind and thought behind. But that could only be a fleeting glimpse and sometimes an irritating one, for there was a suspicion of a veil hiding much.

Perhaps even before these iron bars of the censorship enveloped us and made me retire a little more into my shell, I had developed a measure of restraint in expression and behaviour. That too, I am inclined to think, was a way of self-protection against a fear I always had of being swept away by too much sentiment. You will be surprised to find me accusing myself of sentiment, for I show precious little of it and [am] much more of a hard-boiled egg, now at any rate. Yet, I fear, this hardness is only at the surface and underneath lies a sea of sentiment which has often frightened me. A lifetime of disciplined living and deliberate training of the mind and body to make them efficient instruments for the purpose I had in view, has thrown a hard shell over this turbulent mass and on the whole I feel fairly sure of myself. This has given me a certain degree of self-confidence and usually a crisis or difficulty makes me clearer – headed and calmer. Yet on occasions the shell bursts to my great discomfiture.

Apart from this fear of my own tendency to wallow in sentiment, there was another reason which induced me to fortify my shell that mighty Maginot Line which could after all be so easily turned. I realized that any slackening on my part produced far reaching reactions in others, and I was alarmed at the consequences. I could not live up to them and indeed I had no intention of doing so. Thus I caused nedless pain to others and I blamed myself for this and so again I retired into my shell and peeped out of it.

What is Papu driving at? You will say. Why all these patches of early autobiography? Well, I really do not know myself. My mind cooped up for months past is just bursting and if, by some miracle, I could transfer all those ideas and thoughts to paper suddenly, a fat volume might materialize! The ideas are not methodically arranged as they would have to be if I tried to write a book, and they just tumble over each other and the poor pen cannot possibly keep pace with them. But I am not writing a book and I do not just see myself writing a book for some considerable time. I toyed with this writing idea for weeks and months: I almost sat down to it, but I could not begin and it grows harder to do so as time goes by.

Why so? Because I cannot write superficially, unless I am writing a political or non-personal article, and even then it is frightfully difficult for a person who is an active politician. He may not say everything he wants to say, he may no discuss frankly his own colleagues or his opponents, for he has to think of a hundred consequences. Every word spoken or written has to be weighed, consciously or subconsciously. How cribbed and confined and imprisoned we are by these iron bars of the spirit!

If this is so about political matters, how much more difficult it is about personal matters. Can anyone ever be really frank about oneself, one’s own emotions and mental struggles, one’s urges and desires and those half –conscious imaginings which float, dreamlike, through the mind?

My autobiography is, I think, about as frank and truthful a document, both politically and personally, as I could make it. Probably it compares favourably with others of its kind in this respect. I poured out myself in it at a time when was going through much agony of soul. And yet, in spite of all this pouring out, all the restraints and inhibitions were there, and I suppressed much that filled my mind and heart. To that extent I was untruthful. Especially this was so in the last few chapters dealing with my personal life. It was impossible for me to lay bare my heart before anybody, much less before the world at large.

But these last six years since the autobiography was written have had a powerful effect upon me. I have suffered greatly, experienced many hard knocks in my personal, as well as my political life, saw some of my ideals become airy nothings and some of my dearest personal relations fade away. I have survived all this, hardened, matured, call it what you will. I am now just one and fifty years old. Somehow my body keeps healthy and fit in spite of everything, in spite of the hardest use of it, in spite even of a growing tiredness with it. But I feel as if I was hundreds of years old in mind and the weight of these centuries lies heavily upon me. If this is the beginning of wisdom, then I am on the threshold of Saraswat’s haven. But I would barter this wisdom and experience, so dearly bought, for the lighthearted unwisdom of my younger days.

How can I write about these six years with any frankness and throw my naked soul before the public? And if I miss out everything that really mattered to me, what remains that is worthwhile? These six or seven years are bound up in my inner life with Kamala and you. Of course even before this period both of you played a major part in my personal and inner life. But one takes many things for granted in one’s younger days; even our struggles have a passing quality, a fire within me which burned and consumed me and drove me relentlessly forward; it made me almost oblivious of all other matters, even of intimate personal relations. I was in fact wholly unfit as a close companion of anyone except in that one sphere of thought and action, which had enslaved me. Gradually I woke up to other matters. I realized then, and I realize now even more, what an impossible person I must have been to get on with. My very good qualities, which made me an efficient instrument for political action, became defects in the domestic field. Yet I found, to my infinite joy that those I cared for above all else had gladly and willingly tolerated me and put up with my vagaries. As my awakening proceeded, I yearned above all else for those closer human contacts of the spirit with those I loved with all my heart. Unfortunately long and trying periods of jail came, year after year, and normal life and contacts were denied. It was in those days of the early thirties that I wrote those hundreds of letters to you which came out subsequently as Glimpses. That was one attempt of mine somehow to quench a little the insatiable thirst that consumed me.

Dadu was dead. He had meant a great deal to me : I was infinitely proud of him and of the traditions of our family which he had set up – the traditions of great ability, great courage, great perseverance, great sacrifice, all directed to the service of India. That tradition it was my ambition to keep alive in so far as I could.

But father was dead. Dol Amma was there, frail, ailing, enveloping me with the overwhelming love of a mother for her son. I was very fond of her but she could take no part in the life I was living. I was anxious to give her peace and comfort during her few remaining years. There were my sisters, both of whom were so much younger than me that my relation to them was partly paternal and partly brotherly. One of them had married and was, what is called, settled in life. She had lived since her marriage chiefly in Calcutta, Rajkot and other places and had lately taken a house with her family in Allahabad. Although I was very fond of her, she had largely gone out of my life and lived her own life. The younger sister was with us. The difference in our ages was so great that I had looked upon her more as a child than as a sister. Soon after she married and went away. My family life revolved and centred round two persons – Mummie and you. The others, however much I liked them, lived their own lives apart from ours, though there were of course contacts.

Ever since father’s death I felt the burden of a new responsibility : I was the head of the family and so such must look after, in a sense, my sisters and make them feel that nothing had changed in their old home.

But I cannot go on and on with this past history – certainly not now when the lights are going out. I had not intended to write all this but it is strange how the pen becomes almost an independent entity when one writes and sometimes does just what it likes.

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune….

American reviews of my book have had curious reactions on me. Pleasant of course. It is so delightful to be praised and I swell up with satisfactions. And yet all this talk about style and lucidity rather frightens me. I wrote previously without thinking of style. I had to say something and I said it as simply and effectively as possible. Now I cannot forget that I have to keep up to a certain style and standard and this continuing reminder is a nuisance.

What is this much-praised style of mine, I begin to think? A certain simplicity and a certain lucidity in short sentences, partly due to clear thinking and having something to say. But partly also, I think, to a certain rhythm and a love of the sound of words. I hate an ill-balanced sentence. It jars. Why this rhythm? I do not know. It is not just an external thing, an ear for it or an eye to balance it. It has to do ultimately with a mental rhythm, or perhaps something even deeper than that. During these past twenty years or so, while you have been growing up, slowly this sense of rhythm in life has grown within me as ideas and action fitted in, or at least approached each other. It is a soothing and comforting experience and it helps greatly in the tug-of-war of life. The shouting and cursing become unimportant and rather silly, and much of the vulgarity that surrounds us lessens in significance and effect.

It is curious how the manner of writing (even more than the manner of speaking) betrays a person. They style is the man, they say. In old China they judged people for high appointment from the style of an essay. Perhaps that is going too far, but there is a lot in it. When outside prison I get a large number of letters from strangers and I have developed a habit of drawing a mental picture of the writer from the few sentences he may have written. Sometimes just one sentence, a few words, given me an ultimate glimpse and I feel drawn to the person.

How my letters taper down to absurd topics! But, as I said, when I take pen in hand, it is the tyrant pen that is master and it goes its self-appointed way. And yet what I have written is not so absurd after all. More and more I have come to think that what is important in a person is not what he says or proclaims but what he is and does. There is something after all about these ancient civilizations, like India and China : thousands of years of a cultural continuity which has sunk deep into the racial consciousness. Even the poverty – stricken peasant in China and India has some impress of that on his face and in his manner.

Yours loving

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During the past few months I have read many books on mountaineering in India – almost always among the Garhwal mountains. This has been fascinating reading. I was surprised and pleased to find that there is complete agreement among those Englishmen & Americans who have taken part in these expeditions that Garhwal has the most beautiful mountains and valleys in the world. The men who give this opinion were widely traveled and knew what they were talking about. This really applies to the higher regions of Garhwal and not to the dusty and rather bare valleys and hillsides below. In these upper regions there is an extraordinary and enchanting mixture of magnificent snow peaks, thick forests and valleys carpeted with lovely flowers. Indeed of one such valley, appropriately named the Valley of Flowers, it is said that it has no rival anywhere.

I have been to Garhwal only once for a few days. It is not easily accessible as even roads are lacking, except bridle paths for pilgrims. I only visited some of the towns in the lower regions. I had a glimpse, however, of the whole vast area and beyond from the air. For we took a plane from Hardwar and flew right over Badrinath till we seemed almost to collide against the huge snow wall of the mountain barrier which separates India from Tibet. That flight lasted a few hours only – thee and back – and I carried away vivid impressions which endure. Two impressions especially: the snowy range, with its mighty peaks, majestic and fiercely beatufiul, and the silver thread of the Alaknanda river, winding its way deep down below through the mountains. The Alaknanda, as perhaps you know, is one of the principal source streams of the Ganga.

You and I, in our respective abodes, are on the verge of Garhwal. I can see the Garhwal foothills from here and a longish walk will take you to the district boundary. The knowledge of this surpassing beauty, so near us and yet so far from this warring world, so peaceful and unperturbed by human folly, excites me. Those strange people who were our ancestors in the long ago felt the wonder of these mountains and valleys and, with the unerring instinct of genius, yoked this sense of awe and wonder to man’s old yearning for something higher than life’s daily toil and conflicts offered, something with the impress of the eternal upon it. And so for two thousand years or more, innumerable pilgrim souls have marched through these valleys and mountains to Badrinath and Kedarnath and Gangotri, from where the baby Ganga emerges, so tiny and frolicsome, but to grow and grow in her long wandering till she becomes the noble river that sweeps by Prayag and Kashi and beyond.

Shall I ever go wandering again in these mountains and pierce the forest and climb the snows and feel the thrill of the precipiece and the deep gorge? And then lie in deep content on a thick carpet of mountain flowers and gaze on the fiery splendour of the peaks as they catch the rays of the setting sun? Shall I sit by the side of the youthful and turbulent Ganga in her mountain home and watch her throw her head in a swirl of icy spray in pride and defiance, or creep round lovingly some favoured rock and take it into her embrace? And then rush down joyously over the boulders and hurl herself with a mighty shout over some great percipience? I have known her so long as a sedate lady, seemingly calm but, for all that, the fire is in her veins even then, the fiery vitality of youth and the spread out over vast areas.

I love the rivers of India and I should like to explore them form end to end, and to go back deep into the dawn of history and watch the processions of men and women, of cultures and civilizations, going down the broad streams of these rivers. The Indus, the Bramaputra, the Ganga, and also that very loveable river of ours – the Jamuna.

Eigh ho! How many things I would like to do, how much there is to see, how many places to go to! What wonderful dreams we can fashion out of the past and out of the unknown future that is still to be! Men come and men go but man’s dreaming and quest go on, and when failing hands can no longer hold the torch, others, more vigorous and straight, take hold of it, and they in their turn pass it on to yet others still.

How I begin musing when I write to you.

Love,

Yours loving

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I have been reading, in the Reader's Digest, a condensation from the book Flowering Earth by D.C. Peattie. I am sure it would fascinate you, as it did me. It is the story of green life - the plant kingdom - upon the earth. Is it not wonderful, the oneness of life? It is ever a source of marvel to me how intrinsically the fates of all living things are bound together and how dependent on one another they are. It makes one humble and awed and proud all at once to feel that fundamentally this life which keeps us breathing is the same as the life in psilophyton, which was no more than the 'dim beginning of an idea for a plant' - 350,000,000 years ago. Or maybe we could go back yet another half a billion years & more to the very earliest form of life - the iron bacteria! Humble to feel how very minute and negligible one is in the midst of insignificant, that one is an organic part of this great Wonder, that one does contribute to making this world what it is, in spite of everything, more marvelous and beautiful than even our tiny brains can grasp. And one's mind, D.H. Lawrence says, 'has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of sun on the surface of the waters'. He goes on to say : 'So that my individualism is really an illusion. I am part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched.' Again,

Yours loving

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