515 words
New Delhi
18 July 1975[1] [1]
Dear Comrade,
How many times have I begun a letter to you, all these months — and never finished it! Specifically at the time of the last fights in Cambodia (where I had a French friend, a teacher of the history of art at the Phnom-Penh University) and in Vietnam, I thought of you a lot. I thought that you must have been thinking as I did — i.e., “Why on earth did the U.S.A. allow themselves to become the ‘glorious allies’ of the Communists (of Russia) during World War II? Had they taken the contrary attitude — or even had they remained out of it altogether — there would be no ‘Communist danger,’ and in particular no ‘Red China,’ no ‘Red Khmer,’ nothing of the kind, today.” But history (be it of the world, be it of individuals) is a mathematical network of causes and merciless consequences. Nobody can alter that iron Law of life.
I hope you are well, and your daughter also. If ever circumstances bring you and her to India, don’t forget to pay a visit to my humble tiny flat. Your daughter will be delighted to see my four cats laying about on the bed and chairs — happy, purring (if they are not out, wandering over other people’s terraces). (You told me she loves animals.)
My book is slowly, very slowly getting printed. Whenever I can scrape 1,400 rupees (about $200) together, I enable the printer to set and print two formas more. Forma 13 is now being set. (I believe the last time I wrote it was forma 7 or 8.) So you see there is progress — although slow (I can’t help that).
The Alliance Française School is opening again on the 4th of August — thank goodness. I hope they’ll give me a class or two (i.e., that there will be enough students for ones like me — “local staff,” not sent from France — to be served also. Since May (school shuts 15 May) I have only had one pupil.
One of the reasons I did not write was that I feel bad to talk about my personal troubles. (It’s all my fault. Had I not been such a fool as to believe myself “useful” here in India, and had I gone back to Europe in 1938 — when I first met Mr. Mukherji [in Calcutta] and when he told me to go — I would have [probably] had the honor of a glorious death in 1945, and all problems would have been solved for me.) Another reason was . . . the heat. I could finish no writing. But stayed lying under the fan, half asleep, subdued by the depressing temperature, the fan moving burning air above me. Now, thank goodness, the rains have started — sometimes too much rain. But the temperature went down by 20 to 25 degrees (Centigrade). So I write this letter, without having to soak the paper in sweat.
Anyhow, you know I don’t forget you — how could I ever, after all your kindness to me? — even if I don’t write.
With the greetings of the faithful,
Yours sincerely,
Savitri Devi Mukherji
Note
[1] [2] From a transcription by the recipient. Original lost.