And, in any case, I didn’t know of it myself, till lying in bed, day after day I began thinking – of you, me, the world, my father, life, Para, getting married … Sometimes I want to chuck it all up and go into an ashram, there’s too much pain in the world.

I know you mock me about going to temple every Friday, and about working in the government and working against the government, wanting to go back to my village and yet wanting to leave it as soon as I get there, liking their love and hating their narrow-mindedness. I feel so sneaky and secretive and two-faced, know what I mean? But how could you? You are so different, so open and clean.

That’s why I am afraid for you: you give yourself wholly to a thing, to a cause, a person; you don’t doubt. And so you get taken in, cheated out of your goodness, know what I mean? It’s as if you are not your own person sometimes, but someone else’s, like the Chief’s, you are so loyal.

But then I have no loyalty at all – only duty, to you, to my father, my sister – that’s not loyalty, that’s duty. Even the so-called political things I do, I do because of duty, not commitment, duty, duty to my country. Perhaps that’s why I am my own person. But I don’t like it very much. I don’t like myself very much. That’s why I want to go into an ashram, and come to terms from myself.

And yet, I can’t bear being enclosed. I can’t bear to see even animals like that, kept in cages, caught in traps. I can’t bear to see things captive, know what I mean? I can’t bear captivity. I want so much for our country to be free … it burns me inside. Sometimes, I tell myself when the British have gone, I won’t have to be two-faced any more. But that’s not true, is it? We are what we make of ourselves, as the Gita says. Or perhaps it’s my karma, who knows?

- pg 107, with modifications.