16 February

The narrator has found a room in Satipur (p. 11-13)

The narrator has found a room in Satipur where Inder Lal , her landlord, sub-letted a room to her. Inder Lal, a government officer, lives with his family in that house as well.

The young English woman feels spacious and private in her room, although she has not much furniture. At all, she has not much possession with her: her journal, her Hindi grammar and vocabulary, Olivia’s letters…).

Inder Lal is very disappointed with her way of living in the room, e.g. without pictures on the wall (though, she uses the window as a picture). He also dislikes that the narrator carried her luggage on her own and didn’t want help. Self-described, the English woman isn’t like Olivia, who would probably have been a better boarder for Inder Lal, because she liked to smother her house in rugs, pictures and flowers. Moreover, the narrator tells us that she has already seen the house in which Olivia and Douglas lived.

Their house now houses the Water Board, the municipal Health Department and a sub-post office. Inder Lal’s own department is in what was the Collector’s house before (Mr. & Mrs. Crawford’s house). Both these houses have been divided and sub-divided into many parts.