651 words
New Delhi
19 November 1976[1] [1]
Dearest comrade,
I am sending you the end of the book — the first proofs — the 2nd are at the printers. I hope the whole will be printed before Christmas — in spite of the slowness of everything here.
I have been on the 9th of October — a little more than a month ago — operated for a “glaucoma” on my right eye — and have not yet — in spite of some progress — recovered my normal sight. True the operation was done in extremis, with 3 or 4 days delay. It should have been done at once. But I had malaria and dysentery at the same time and was lying in bed since middle September. “Kind” friends — well-meaning, but fully lacking psychology (as so many well meaning people with a love of mankind) took advantage of the fact I was delirious to drag me to hospital against my will. (I had expressed a million times my dislike of any hospitals and my determination never to be in once — especially not the “All India Institute of Medical Sciences.” That place of horror where, a couple of storeys above the wards, they perform experiments on live animals, which my conscience looks on as criminal. I don’t care what “universal conscience”, i.e., that of the conditioned masses, says: I spit on it!). I kicked up a row and left the next day.
Then the silly humanitarians, finding me unconscious a day later in my bed (at home) though it their “human duty” to drag me to another hospital (a missionary one of the “Holy Family”) where they tied me to my bed so that I could not run away. But I made so much disturbance, shouting my mind to the inconvenience of other patients (I refused any “shots,” “tranquilizers,” and such stuff I never took in my life) that finally — after the second night — they let me go home. They had examined my painful eye (which they had not done at the A.I.I.M.S.). But they were not capable of a diagnosis. Treated me for “conjunctivitis” while it was glaucoma (they did not find it out and when at last I called an eye specialist myself, at home, he told me it was a matter of hours: not operated at once I would lose my eye).
He operated on me the next day (I had called him in the afternoon) at his own clinic, and, on my request, took me back home the same morning so that I could continue feeding my cats (the home ones; the strays had to wait unfortunately). I thank him immensely — and cursed my acquaintances, “lovers of man,” for the delay they brought and the risk they made me run by dragging me to hospital. (I hope they learnt their lesson and never do it again, even if I be dying. I don’t ever want to lie in one of those places again!)
But thank the heavenly Forces I am not blind. I am just now trying to write shutting my left eye and using only [the] operated one and as you can see from these last three lines [marginal note: written only with my operated eye], I can — although I see things as though they were further away, and their outlines somewhat blurred. Doctor is giving new spectacles and hopes my eye to improve.
There is my news — alas!
But Souvenirs et réflections d’un Aryenne will be completely printed soon. The first copy (I told the printer to send me at least 10 or 20 as soon as he can have them bound) will be for you. (And you can have as many as you like — naturally.)
How are you? And your daughter? Hope you are all well.
With the best remembrances, and excuses for not sending these old proofs earlier. It was impossible.
With the greetings of the faithful,
Yours sincerely,
Savitri Devi Mukherji
Note
[1] [2] From a transcription by the recipient. Original lost.