410 words
New Delhi
29 Oct. 1979
Dearest Comrade,
I hope you are well. I have not yet been operated for my cataract (on both eyes, now, but with the left I can still read, with the help of a magnifying glass of course). I saw an eye specialist lately: I am still to wait. Even the right eye is not quite “ripe” yet, the left far from it.
A second edition of my The Lightning and the Sun [1] — with, unfortunately, an ugly picture of mine: a picture of my old face 1978, while the book was begun in 1948 and ended in 1958 (it was written in bits, especially up to 1953). I should have preferred no picture at all (as I have none of 1948 or even 1950). When I see that picture, I remember the words of a French author: “le seul vrai péché pour une femme, c’est de vieillir” [the one true sin for a woman is age]. How true! (I am just now going in for 75.)
Which does not mean that I do not deplore other things I did (or did not) in my life. For instance, having the conceit in 1938 of thinking myself “useful” in India, with my quotations from Mein Kampf (translated into Bengali and into Hindi), during my public lectures in Bengal, Bihar, and Assam; and not going back at once to Europe, on the advice of Mr. Mukherji (who was introduced to me in January 1938). That also was a sin on my part: Ignoring excellent advice. (I would then surely have been killed in 1945 — along with so many others better than me — and all would have been over for me.)
Must I say: “Destiny”?
I am sending you two copies of this second edition (in which the other pictures are not also in the order I put them in the first Calcutta edition) and they added many pictures of course which is OK.
This edition is due to “Samisdat,” [address omitted].
If you want more, I could send you some when I get my little pension (due on the 1st of September I have not got it yet. I don’t understand why. The French “National security” that sends it to me for the nine years I worked in France as a teacher (1960-69) wrote and told me they sent it on time – 20th of August (and we are on the 29th of October). Strange.
My best regards to your daughter.
With the ritual greetings of the faithful,
Yours sincerely,
Savitri Dêvi Mukherji