10 March

Developments, Indian life and Ritu (p. 52- 54)

The narrator works hard at her Hindi and begins to have first conversations with natives. She’s very happy about her success and knows about her advantage. Nevertheless Ritu, Inder Lal’s wife, is too shy to talk to the narrator. The Englishwoman gets the impression that she’s weak and mentally ill in a way (maybe because she always has to stay at home). The narrator feels very sorry for that.

She also talks about the heating up of the days and nights. First she slept indoors, but soon it became too hot for her and she pulled out her bed like everyone else does at night. The British woman also sleeps, like an Indian woman, in a sari.

The narrator wonders about the calmness at night and likes lying under the open sky. For her this is „a feeling of being immersed in space“ (p. 53, l. 17).

A few nights before the narrator heard a strange sound which came from Ritu’s bed, where Inder Lal’s mother was already sitting and holding her hand over Ritu’s mouth. Immediately the young British woman helped the mother to get Ritu into the house where they tried to calm her (the mother processes something like a “ritual”) . Afterwards, they all got out again and it seemed that nobody had mentioned that incident.