Travelers by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

said it was wrong—what was the use of coming to India if all you did here was to be a tourist? Tourists don’t live, I told him, they only look—and looking is nothing, it doesn’t change you, it doesn’t help you really and truly find yourself. He pretended to be listening but he wasn’t at all, I could see that very well. His thoughts were quite different and how they made him suffer. That made me mad—that he should suffer like that and be so entangled in these feelings and making no effort to free himself. And I decided there and then that yes, I would go with Margaret. I was fed up with everything here, with all these small things that engulfed people. I didn’t want anything like that to happen to me.
    Raymond Writes to His Mother
    â€œ. . . I meet Miss Charlotte quite often now and like her very much. So would you. She would fit in very well at Hazelhurst, and I can quite clearly see her and you going for long walks together—she strides in the same way you do—and having animated discussions on life and literature, both of you shrieking in high, girlish voices. I can’t get over the way she’s so English, considering the years she’s been out here and the sort of work she’s been doing. Of course I’m very sorry about the extradition orders and am in fact trying to help her get them revoked ( not hopeful), but in a way I rather like the idea of her being back in England. You know, the gardens here are full of English flowers like larkspur and phlox and pansies and sweet peas. Whenever I see them, I get a strange feeling and wonder what are they doing here, how did they grow, and how are they managing to survive. I get the same feeling with Miss Charlotte. “I’m off tomorrow at 4 A.M. (grisly hour). My itinerary is as follows: Jaipur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and then on my way back I’ll just stop by at Agra for another look at the Taj Mahal and of course the great and glorious Fatehpur Sikri. Shyam is still hankering to come with me but I’m afraid I’m not quite grand enough to be able to travel around with my own personal body-servant. Besides, those air fares are rather prohibitive. Everyone is telling me all I’m missing by not going by car or train, and I dare say I am, but I want to be a tourist—I am a tourist—and get quickly from one place to another without having to take in great drafts of India on the way. Now, darling, please make a careful note of these addresses to which you must write and don’t get them mixed up because you know how disappointed and anxious I’ll be if I don’t find your letters waiting for me. . . .”
    Lee Writes to Asha
    â€œ. . . I think of you quite often and then I think you would be happy here too. I know it. Sometimes when you speak to me about those things you’re always speaking about I feel that really that’s not what you want at all, really it’s something else you’re looking for and this something else is the same I’m looking for and Margaret and so many others and perhaps even everyone in the world if they only knew it. Margaret keeps saying that her eyes have been opened and that’s true but only if you remember that this means the inner eyes and those of course are not only vision but all other faculties as well, including the very highest faculties we have. If only we wake up to the fact that we do have them—or are woken up to that fact, because most of us are too corrupted to find them for ourselves. Swamiji has asked me to tell him about all the people I know. It’s important for me to do this, to reveal everything to him so that I can become the new person he wants to make me and I want so much to be. When I told him about you he was very interested and he agreed that you too are a person looking for the right way. And he wants to help you and I want it too that you should come to him. If only I could give you some