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"Whereas the cinema, that new little clerk of our dreams, can be bough, hired for an hour or two, like a whore.

Besides, artistes are stuck about everywhere these days, as a safety measure, with a view to our not being to bored. You have them all over every building now, overflowing with thrills, their passionate revelations trickling from floor to floor. Every door a peephole. Which of them can wriggle most, and be more blatant, more soulful, more intensely abandoned than his neighbor? Nowadays public lavatories go in for decor, and so does the slaughterhouse and the pawnshop too - just to keep you amused and distract you, and let you forget your fate." p 307 Journey to End of Night - Celine

Oct 17

Ramesh's wife was brought back from her village by his father. Keeps her face veiled by the Sari all of the time when strangers or his friends are around and will not speak in her natural voice to men other than her husband. If she speaks to her father-in-law it will be in a whisper. Ramesh's mother told him he should not introduce his wife to his friends. She is a furtive figure, hovering on the side, her face turned away, her form hidden by her sari - the purda system isolate the woman members of the family making them psychologically dependent on their mothers-in-law.

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Making them virtual slaves. Depriving them of their will. There is no love or tenderness visible between Ramesh and his wife, but then to show any publicly would be improper. He treats her most of the time as though she did not exist - and for him most of the time she does not. His father's accident which lamed him, I learned, stemmed from conflict between he and his father (Ramesh's grandfather) the grandfather was a famous wrestler and wanted his son to be one too. But his son wanted to read (study, become a teacher). When he fell off the roof, as he lay on the courtyard floor, he was muttering he would not become a wrestler, he would read. Only then that he permanently lamed himself, would his father relent and permit him to go on with his studies and forget about the ring.

He is either studying in the daytime, and at night he goes out every evening to be with his friends and roam or go to the movies. He comes home to sleep with his wife. That is the relationship.

The days are slowly returning to winter, clear sunny. Warm but cool in the shade, cool and night. The river recedes steadily. The cycle is becoming complete again. Everything returns to where it was, but we are different (corny)

The road is blocked for the celebration. Rickshaw comes from the side road unaware the way is closed. The cop tells him to turn around, the rickshaw waller does not move fast enough. The cop takes his long thick bamboo pole and strikes with a thud across one shoulder, then with a heavy blow on the other. His face is vicious, in a delight of rage as he raises his pole for another blow.