1,142 words
New Delhi
26 July 1974
Dear young comrade,
This note I am writing in utter worry over the fate of my humble birthday present to you, sent from here — unfortunately by surface mail; I do wish I had sent the parcel “air mail” in spite of its weight! — in February 1974. Apparently it has not reached you — or you would have acknowledged it by now, especially as it was . . . something you told me you wanted, and all I had of its kind: a copy of my Gold in the Furnace — the only one I had — and a copy of A Son of God, also the only one I had. Now I have written to several friends trying to get two copies of each, in order to send you one of each again (but this time surely by air mail, whatever the weight may be!). I enquired at the post office and was told the books were sent all right. (I have been moreover given a receipt of the registration.) Some . . . “amateur” of books difficult to find, say . . . must have “pinched” them (excuse the slang!) somewhere on the way.
I feel utterly upset about it, as I had tried to do my best . . . and have the most unpleasant feeling of having failed (as I often have in practical matters). Three times — once some fifteen years ago, and twice since I am in Delhi — I have had my purse stolen in a bus; the first time with all my month’s pay in it! Three (or rather four) times I have had thieves breaking into my room — on 9 April 1936 in Calcutta, when I saw in the moon-shine the two half-naked men approaching my bed at about 2 a.m., one holding a knife . . . and I could only scream when they were nearly on me, so frightened I was; another time, on 16 May 1938, also in Calcutta, when all my lovely saris — sixty in all (I haven’t so many now; and nothing like as beautiful ones: can’t afford it) were stolen in broad daylight, between 3 and 5 o’clock p.m. I found the door broken open as I came home at about 5. The police suspected some men “working” on behalf of the inmates of . . . a nearby house of ill fame (whose very existence I never had suspected) but never managed to recover the goods (any more than the Delhi police could catch the thief that robbed me of everything I possessed in gold on 1 March 1974). And a third time in Calcutta, when half-a-dozen men kept banging and banging at my door at 3 a.m. or so, also in 1939, but could not break in. (Serves me right for not having listened to Mr. Mukherji when I first met him in Calcutta on 9 January 1938 and having left straightaway for Germany to meet him who was — in Mr. Mukherji’s own words — “truly Life and Resurrection”! The fool I was — thinking myself “useful” in my faraway field of action, with my lectures in Bengali and Hindi on “the eternal Aryan values”!
And this 1st of March 1974 I told you about (it also serves me right for not putting my trinkets in a safe deposit as Mr. Mukherji had told me to in September 1973, when he came to pay me a visit). Now I regret that I did not send the books to you by air mail — even though the one is cloth-bound and fairly heavy. But be assured that if I can manage to get other copies I shall do so.
I hope you are well and getting on fine in your business — now “your own.” I feel you should, if dealing with rich Jews, apply to them the Talmudic instructions on the ground of which they make utmost “use” of all people that are not of their race and faith. I’ve often said — and written: if we Aryans had some of the qualifications of the Jews — sticking together (as “they” do, coming three times to the rescue of any Jew in fear of bankruptcy), recognizing marriages only among our own kind, and fiercely repelling any (even good intentioned) attempt of people of other races to set any kind of grip upon any one of us — there would be (and never would have been) any “Jewish problem.” As two Jewish officials told one of our comrades in Linz (who had to “take them around” by order of his government, and used the opportunity for reproaching their people for having, through Christianity, stamped their mark upon the whole of Western civilisation): “If you walk along a path without looking where you are putting your feet, and stumble into a ditch, is it the ditch’s fault . . . or yours? Why did your princes — Chlodwig and the others — ever accept Christianity in the first place . . . to win power over people of their own kin through the growing Church?”
These Jews spoke the truth. What do you say to it?
I am better — thank the Heavenly Powers! The weather is cooler. It is the rainy season. And I have the hope of teaching six hours a week — i.e., earning something like 50 dollars a month — at the Alliance Française (except of course during any holidays. Even one day’s pay is “cut off” the “local staff” if that day be a holiday). But I am losing my one private pupil: she is doing for three months on a holiday “home,” i.e., to Austria. That is a loss to me, even if she took only two hours tuition a week. The “India Tourism Development Corporation” — a government body — for which I occasionally do very badly paid translations, owes me some 300 rupees, which I don’t know when will be paid to me. (There is no stingier and slower payer than the Indian government.) The printing of my book has been, all these months held up for lack of money. . . . But thank goodness I am stronger — and regained my normal weight (44 kilos) after sinking to . . . 38 kilos.
I am rereading Johann von Leers’ wonderful history book: Odal — extremely difficult to get nowadays. (I got it years ago and paid 50 marks for it.) He also wrote a Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus which I do not possess (could not find it) and which I should be glad to have of course. All these books have been wantonly destroyed by the thousands, in post-war Germany — as the Führer’s beautiful dwelling in Obersalzburg has been blown up and its traces wiped out. But here, on the roadway, in Delhi, one can freely buy My Struggle — by Adolf Hitler. The one thing I like in India in spite of irritating drawbacks is . . . freedom (for our enemies, surely — which I deplore — but for us also. Which is something).
No more for today
If my present ever reaches you, do tell me at once. I am so worried about its fate.
With all the best, and the everlasting greeting of the faithful
Yours sincerely,
Savitri Dêvi Mukherji