Soul-Squashing Problems

On page 80, there is a passage that shed a bit of light on the marginal consideration of poverty in the opening chapters of the book: "Marcus immediately made [Agastya] feel better, because Marcus seemed to have more problems than anyone else -- not the soul-squashing problems of being poor, but the exhilarating abstract problems of one immersed wholly in his self." There are multiple points of interest in this excerpt. First and foremost, Agastya has begun reading Meditations because the other books he has brought with him to Madna, which are Bengali novels, are too "remote" to provide adequate entertainment. Yet again, Agastya is struggling to identify with particularities of his background. However, the aspect of this excerpt that most interests me is the portion concerning the reasoning for Agastya's satisfaction in reading about Marcus Aurelius's problems. There is undoubtedly part of Agastya that is capable of commiserating with Aurelius because of his position as a government official whose problems are completely self-centered. Agastya's perception of reality is very rarely concerned with anything that does not directly effect his ability to muster a wink of enjoyment from his calloused perceptions. His dislocation from the outside world produces a vacuum of thought that is only capable of finding enjoyment in another human's problems. The problems of Marcus Aurelius, in Agastya's head, can only be understood when contrasted with that of the "soul-squashing" problems of the poor. He finds the problems of the egocentric to be "exhilarating" and "abstract," allowing the mind to consider possible modes of resolution without leaving the soul dismantled, which problems like starvation and disease will inevitably do. I find this single sentence to be very well representative of Chatterjee's mindset when composing Agastya's reaction to the seldom glimpses of poverty in the novel.