shna.
"Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You
put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god,
and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a
mystic song, how Krishna has plunged into the ocean of Rhada; how he is
there drifting, helpless and lost. Can we not save him? But no! It is
because his love is not perfect and pure. And that is why he must be
incarnated again and again in the avatars.

Are these people idolaters, these dignified old men, these serious
youths, these earnest, grave musicians? Look at their temple, and you
say "Yes." Listen to their hymns, and you say "No." Reformers want to
educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean
the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this
traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was
awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We
did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a
mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; and squatting round
the four sides children of all ages, all reciting their lessons at once,
and all the lessons different. They were learning to read and write
their native language, and that, at least, seemed harmless enough. But
parents complained that it unfitted them for the fields. "Our fathers
did not do it"--that, said my impatient young host, is their reply to
every attempt at reform. In his library were all the works of Nietzsche,
Tolstoy, Wells, and Shaw, as well as all the technical journals of
scientific agriculture. He lectured them on the chemical constituents of
milk and the crossing of sugar-canes. They embraced his feet, sang their
hymns, and did as their fathers had done. He has a hard task before him,
but one far better worth attempting than the legal and political
activities in which most young Zemindars indulge. And, as he said, here
you see the fields and hear the birds, and here you can bathe in the
Ganges. We did; and then breakfasted; and then set out in palanquins for
the nearest railway station. The bearers sang a rhythmic chant as they
bore us smoothly along through mustard and pulses, yellow and orange and
mauve. The sun blazed hot; the bronzed figures streamed with sweat; the
cheerful voices never failed or flagged. I dozed and drowsed, while East
and West in my mind wove a web whose pattern I cannot trace. But a
pattern there