India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
Whence it is easy to see that mere men of the flesh who would create a
tumult must fare badly at the hands of the Supreme Government. And they
do. There is no outward sign of excitement; there is no confusion; there
is no knowledge. When due and sufficient reasons have been given, weighed
and approved, the machinery moves forward, and the dreamer of dreams and
the seer of visions is gone from his friends and following. He enjoys the
hospitality of Government; there is no restriction upon his movements
within certain limits; but he must not confer any more with his brother
dreamers. Once in every six months the Supreme Government assures itself
that he is well and takes formal acknowledgment of his existence. No one
protests against his detention, because the few people who know about it
are in deadly fear of seeming to know him; and never a single newspaper
"takes up his case" or organizes demonstrations on his behalf, because the
newspapers of India have got behind that lying proverb which says the Pen
is mightier than the Sword, and can walk delicately.
So now you know as much as you ought about Wali Dad, the educational
mixture, and the Supreme Government.
Lalun has not yet been described. She would need, so Wali Dad says, a
thousand pens of gold and ink scented with musk. She has been variously
compared to the Moon, the Dil Sagar Lake, a spotted quail, a gazelle, the
Sun on the Desert of Kutch, the Dawn, the Stars, and the young bamboo.
These comparisons imply that she is beautiful exceedingly according to the
native standards, which are practically the same as those of the West. Her
eyes are black and her hair is black, and her eyebrows are black as
leeches; her mouth is tiny and says witty things; her hands are tiny and
have saved much money; her feet are tiny and have trodden on the naked
hearts of many men. But, as Wali Dad sings: "Lalun _is_ Lalun, and when
you have said that, you have only come to the Beginnings of Knowledge."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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