I knew there was something that separated me from Ferdinand and the life of the bush about me. And it was because I had no means in my day-to-day lif… - V. S. Naipaul

With our cynicism, created by years of insecurity, how did we look on men? We judged the salesmen in the van der Weyden by the companies they represented, their ability to offer us concessions. Knowing such men, having access to the services they offered, and being flattered by them that we were not ordinary customers paying the full price or having to take our place in the queue, we thought we had mastered the world.

India is for me a difficult country. It isn’t my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far.

Without always knowing what we were doing we were constantly adjusting to the arbitrariness by which we were surrounded.