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Afternoon now, and the train's shadow racing behind us. Sunset, evening,
night; station after dimly-lit station. It was an Indian railway journey,
but everything that had before seemed pointless was now threatened [by the
advancing Chinese in the '62 Sino-Indian war] and seemed worth cherishing;
and as in the mild sunshine of a winter morning we drew near to green
Bengal, which I had longed to see, my mood towards India and her people
became soft. I had taken so much for granted. There, among the Bengali
passengers who had come on, was a man who wore a long woolen scarf and a
brown tweed jacket above his Bengali dhoti. The casual elegance of his dress
was matched by his fine features and relaxed posture. Out of all the squalor
and human decay, its eruptions of butchery, India produced so many people of
grace and beauty, ruled by elaborate courtesy. Producing too much life, it
denied the value of life; yet it permitted a unique human development to so
many. Nowhere were people so heightened and rounded and individualistic;
nowhere did they offer themselves so fully and with such assurance. To know
Indians was to take delight in people as people; every encounter was an
adventure. I did not want India to sink; the mere thought was painful. [--VS Naipaul, An Area
of Darkness, pp. 263, 1962-64]
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