To-Each-His-Own

Dependent upon the scenario, Agastya vacillates in his opinion regarding the idea of to-each-his-own. One of the more provocative instances where Agastya considers the implications of this statement of indifference/acceptance comes on page 221. Agastya has just entered one of his common moments of restless contemplation as he is bouncing through Madna in a jeep with John Avery and Sita. Given a different vantage of the town than he experiences daily, Agastya is sifting through the many considerations of the place and its people that he is prone to doing. He finds the town to be a hideous place, but if there is any reason for him to like Madna it is most likely for that very reason -- "greetings-from-a-cesspool-we're-all-in-it feeling." The people of the "other" Madna that Agastya rarely sees are planting their feces on or near the road like they always are in this book, and Agastya sees them as a "burgeoning" and "joyous cancer." These words can be taken in so many ways. The thought that people can be seen as a "joyous cancer" could just be a reflection of Agastya's view of humanity and our absurd existence in this world. The poverty, or even just the people of Madna as a whole, are considered a swiftly multiplying virus that for some reason or another finds happiness in their destructive relationship to the world. Crazy old Agastya. He then quotes Mahatma Gandhi about the lack of a sanitary virtue in India and ruminates on outsiders' confusion in regard to Nehru's progeny also being called Gandhis. I found this part to be especially humorous because it does always throw me off a bit. At the end of all this thinking, Agastya is reminded of the evening before when Sathe is talking about the Naxalites in Jompanna and he says that they are attempting to make the tribal people think. This thought makes him feel "that the to-each-his-own outlook was inadequate." He finds that the Naxalites are driven to intervene in the ways of others, such as the tribal people in this instance, just to remind them that they too have the ability to use their minds to change the way operate in the world. I find this consideration to come at a very odd moment. I suppose Agastya is juxtaposing this thought with his witnessing of the rural population of Madna defecating on the side of the road. With the people of Madna, he may feel that this is the way they live, and the only thing that they know (to-each-his-own). However, when he thinks about this argument in regard to the Naxalites and their attempt to change how the tribals think, he falls on the other side of the argument.