A Passage to India

By E.M. Forster

First published in 1924, “A Passage to India” is E. M. Forster’s classic tale of prejudice and misunderstanding in colonial India. Widely considered to be one of the best novels of 20th century English literature, “A Passage to India” was based on Forster’s own experiences in India while it was under the rule of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement was gaining in popularity. The novel centers around the tensions between the native people of India and the prejudices of the British ruling class. The central character is Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, who befriends several English visitors, against the advice of his Indian friends. Dr. Aziz is kind and helpful to the young Adela Quested and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, who are visiting India from England. He offers to take them sightseeing at a famous cave and a terrible misunderstanding ensues, which results in the innocent and trusting Dr. Aziz being accused of a terrible crime against Adela. Forster’s depiction of Dr. Aziz’s fight for his freedom and his reputation, against the prejudices and misconceptions fostered by the British rule of India, has made this novel a timeless masterpiece of racial tension and oppression. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: May 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781420968873

E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) was an English novelist. Born in London to an Anglo-Irish mother and a Welsh father, Forster moved with his mother to Rooks Nest, a country house in rural Hertfordshire, in 1883, following his father’s death from tuberculosis. He received a sizeable inheritance from his great-aunt, which allowed him to pursue his studies and support himself as a professional writer. Forster attended King’s College, Cambridge, from 1897 to 1901, where he met many of the people who would later make up the legendary Bloomsbury Group of such writers and intellectuals as Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and John Maynard Keynes. A gay man, Forster lived with his mother for much of his life in Weybridge, Surrey, where he wrote the novels A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature sixteen times without winning, Forster is now recognized as one of the most important writers of twentieth century English fiction, and is remembered for his unique vision of English life and powerful critique of the inequities of class.

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A PASSAGE TO INDIA

By E. M. FORSTER

TO

SYED ROSS MASOOD

AND TO THE SEVENTEEN YEARS

OF OUR FRIENDSHIP

A Passage to India

By E. M. Forster

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6886-6

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6887-3

This edition copyright © 2020. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of Buddhist caves, Adjunta, by Sir John William London Kaye, c. 1867 / © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Part I. Mosque

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Part II. Caves

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Part III. Temple

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Biographical Afterword

Part I. Mosque

Chapter I

Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank, scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely. There are no bathing-steps on the river front, as the Ganges happens not to be holy here; indeed there is no river front, and bazaars shut out the wide and shifting panorama of the stream. The streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest. Chandrapore was never large or beautiful, but two hundred years ago it lay on the road between Upper India, then imperial, and the sea, and the fine houses date from that period. The zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth century, nor was it ever democratic. There is no painting and scarcely any carving in the bazaars. The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving. So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life.

Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sallow hospital. Houses belonging to Eurasians stand on the high ground by the railway station. Beyond the railway—which runs parallel to the river—the land sinks, then rises again rather steeply. On the second rise is laid out the little civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place. It is a city of gardens. It is no city, but a forest sparsely scattered with huts. It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river. The toddy palms and neem trees and mangoes and pepul that were hidden behind the bazaars now become visible and in their turn hide the bazaars. They rise from the gardens where ancient tanks nourish them, they burst out of stifling purlieus and unconsidered temples. Seeking light and air, and endowed with more strength than man or his works, they soar above the lower deposit to greet one another with branches and beckoning leaves, and to build a city for the birds. Especially after the rains do they screen what passes below, but at all times, even when scorched or leafless, they glorify the city to the English people who inhabit the rise, so that new-corners cannot believe it to be as meagre as it is described, and have to be driven down to acquire disillusionment. As for the civil station itself, it provokes no emotion. It charms not; neither does it repel. It is sensibly planned, with a red-brick club on its brow, and farther back a grocer’s and a cemetery, and the bungalows are disposed along roads that intersect at right angles. It has nothing hideous in it, and only the view is beautiful; it shares nothing with the city except the overarching sky.

The sky too has its changes, but they are less marked than those of the vegetation and the river. Clouds map it tip at times, but it is normally a dome of blending tints, and the main tint blue. By day the blue will pale down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a new circumference—orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple. But the core of blue persists, and so it is by night. Then the stars hang like lamps from the immense vault. The distance between the vault and them is as nothing to the distance behind them, and that farther distance, though beyond colour, last freed itself from blue.

The sky settles everything—not only climates and seasons but when the earth shall be beautiful. By herself she can do little—only feeble outbursts of flowers. But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chandrapore bazaars or a benediction pass from horizon to horizon. The sky can do this because it is so strong and so enormous. Strength comes from the sun, infused in it daily; size from the prostrate earth. No mountains infringe on the curve. League after league the earth lies flat, heaves a little, is flat again. Only in the south, where a group of fists and fingers are thrust up through the soil, is the endless expanse interrupted. These fists and fingers are the Marabar Hills, containing the extraordinary caves.

Chapter II

Abandoning his bicycle, which fell before a servant could catch it, the young man sprang up on to the verandah. He was all animation. Hamidullah, Hamidullah! am I late? he cried.

Do not apologize, said his host. You are always late.

Kindly answer my question. Am I late? Has Mahmoud Ali eaten all the food? If so I go elsewhere. Mr. Mahmoud Ali, how are you?

Thank you, Dr. Aziz, I am dying.

Dying before your dinner? Oh, poor Mahmoud Ali!

Hamidullah here is actually dead. He passed away just as you rode up on your bike.

Yes, that is so, said the other. Imagine us both as addressing you from another and a happier world.

Does there happen to be such a thing as a hookah in that happier world of yours?

Aziz, don’t chatter. We are having a very sad talk.

The hookah had been packed too tight, as was usual in his friend’s house, and bubbled sulkily. He coaxed it. Yielding at last, the tobacco jetted up into his lungs and nostrils, driving out the smoke of burning cow dung that had filled them as he rode through the bazaar. It was delicious. He lay in a trance, sensuous but healthy, through which the talk of the two others did not seem particularly sad—they were discussing as to whether or no it is possible to be friends with an Englishman. Mahmoud Ali argued that it was not, Hamidullah disagreed, but with so many reservations that there was no friction between them. Delicious indeed to lie on the broad verandah with the moon rising in front and the servants preparing dinner behind, and no trouble happening.

Well, look at my own experience this morning.

I only contend that it is possible in England, replied Hamidullah, who had been to that country long ago, before the big rush, and had received a cordial welcome at Cambridge.

It is impossible here. Aziz! The red-nosed boy has again insulted me in Court. I do not blame him. He was told that he ought to insult me. Until lately he was quite a nice boy, but the others have got hold of him.

Yes, they have no chance here, that is my point. They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do. Look at Lesley, look at Blakiston, now it is your red-nosed boy, and Fielding will go next. Why, I remember when Turton came out first. It was in another part of the Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have driven with Turton in his carriage—Turton! Oh yes, we were once quite intimate. He has shown me his stamp collection.

He would expect you to steal it now. Turton! But red-nosed boy will be far worse than Turton!

I do not think so. They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter. And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are exactly alike. Do you not agree with me?

I do not, replied Mahmoud Ali, entering into the bitter fun, and feeling both pain and amusement at each word that was uttered. For my own part I find such profound differences among our rulers. Red-nose mumbles, Turton talks distinctly, Mrs. Turton takes bribes, Mrs. Red-nose does not and cannot, because so far there is no Mrs. Red-nose.

Bribes?

Did you not know that when they were lent to Central India over a Canal Scheme, some Rajah or other gave her a sewing machine in solid gold so that the water should run through his state?

"And does it?

No, that is where Mrs. Turton is so skilful. When we poor blacks take bribes, we perform what we are bribed to perform, and the law discovers us in consequence. The English take and do nothing. I admire them.

We all admire them. Aziz, please pass me the hookah.

Oh, not yet—hookah is so jolly now.

You are a very selfish boy. He raised his voice suddenly, and shouted for dinner. Servants shouted back that it was ready. They meant that they wished it was ready, and were so understood, for nobody moved. Then Hamidullah continued, but with changed manner and evident emotion.

But take my case—the case of young Hugh Bannister. Here is the son of my dear, my dead friends, the Reverend and Mrs. Bannister, whose goodness to me in England I shall never forget or describe. They were father and mother to me, I talked to them as I do now. In the vacations their Rectory became my home. They entrusted all their children to me—I often carried little Hugh about—I took him up to the Funeral of Queen Victoria, and held him in my arms above the crowd.

Queen Victoria was different, murmured Mahmoud Ali.

I learn now that this boy is in business as a leather merchant at Cawnpore. Imagine how I long to see him and to pay his fare that this house may be his home. But it is useless. The other Anglo-Indians will have got hold of him long ago. He will probably think that I want something, and I cannot face that from the son of my old friends. Oh, what in this country has gone wrong with everything, Vakil Sahib? I ask you.

Aziz joined in. Why talk about the English? Brrrr…! Why be either friends with the fellows or not friends? Let us shut them out and be jolly. Queen Victoria and Mrs. Bannister were the only exceptions, and they’re dead.

No, no, I do not admit that, I have met others.

So have I, said Mahmoud Ali, unexpectedly veering. All ladies are far from alike. Their mood was changed, and they recalled little kindnesses and courtesies. She said ‘Thank you so much’ in the most natural way. She offered me a lozenge when the dust irritated my throat. Hamidullah could remember more important examples of angelic ministration, but the other, who only knew Anglo-India, had to ransack his memory for scraps, and it was not surprising that he should return to But of course all this is exceptional. The exception does not prove the rule. The average woman is like Mrs. Turton, and, Aziz, you know what she is. Aziz did not know, but said he did. He too generalized from his disappointments—it is difficult for members of a subject race to do otherwise. Granted the exceptions, he agreed that all Englishwomen are haughty and venal. The gleam passed from the conversation, whose wintry surface unrolled and expanded interminably.

A servant announced dinner. They ignored him. The elder men had reached their eternal politics, Aziz drifted into the garden. The trees smelt sweet—green-blossomed champak—and scraps of Persian poetry came into his head. Dinner, dinner, dinner… but when he returned to the house for it, Mahmoud Ali had drifted away in his turn, to speak to his sais. Come and see my wife a little then, said Hamidullah, and they spent twenty minutes behind the purdah. Hamidullah Begum was a distant aunt of Aziz, and the only female relative he had in Chandrapore, and she had much to say to him on this occasion about a family circumcision that had been celebrated with imperfect pomp. It was difficult to get away, because until they had had their dinner she would not begin hers, and consequently prolonged her remarks in case they should suppose she was impatient. Having censured the circumcision, she bethought her of kindred topics, and asked Aziz when he was going to be married.

Respectful but irritated, he answered, Once is enough.

Yes, he has done his duty, said Hamidullah. Do not tease him so. He carries on his family, two boys and their sister.

Aunt, they live most comfortably with my wife’s mother, where she was living when she died. I can see them whenever I like. They are such very, very small children.

And he sends them the whole of his salary and lives like a low-grade clerk, and tells no one the reason. What more do you require him to do?

But this was not Hamidullah Begum’s point, and having courteously changed the conversation for a few moments she returned and made it. She said, What is to become of all our daughters if men refuse to marry? They will marry beneath them, or— And she began the oft-told tale of a lady of Imperial descent who could find no husband in the narrow circle where her pride permitted her to mate, and had lived on unwed, her age now thirty, and would die unwed, for no one would have her now. While the tale was in progress, it convinced the two men, the tragedy seemed a slur on the whole community; better polygamy almost, than that a woman should die without the joys God has intended her to receive. Wedlock, motherhood, power in the house—for what else is she born, and how can the man who has denied them to her stand up to face her creator and his own at the last day? Aziz took his leave saying Perhaps… but later…—his invariable reply to such an appeal.

You mustn’t put off what you think right, said Hamidullah. That is why India is in such a plight, because we put off things. But seeing that his young relative looked worried, he added a few soothing words, and thus wiped out any impression that his wife might have made.

During their absence, Mahmoud All had gone off in his carriage leaving a message that he should be back in five minutes, but they were on no account to wait. They sat down to meat with a distant cousin of the house, Mohammed Latif, who lived on Hamidullah’s bounty and who occupied the position neither of a servant nor of an equal. He did not speak unless spoken to, and since no one spoke kept unoffended silence. Now and then he belched, in compliment to the richness of the food. A gentle, happy and dishonest old man; all his life he had never done a stroke of work. So long as some one of his relatives had a house he was sure of a home, and it was unlikely that so large a family would all go bankrupt. His wife led a similar existence some hundreds of miles away—he did not visit her, owing to the expense of the railway ticket. Presently Aziz chaffed him, also the servants, and then began quoting poetry, Persian, Urdu, a little Arabic. His memory was good, and for so young a man he had read largely; the themes he preferred were the decay of Islam and the brevity of Love. They listened delighted, for they took the public view of poetry, not the private which obtains in England. It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed them with the cool night air, never stopping to analyse; the name of the poet, Hafiz, Hali, Iqbal, was sufficient guarantee. India—a hundred Indias—whispered outside beneath the indifferent moon, but for the time India seemed one and their own, and they regained their departed greatness by hearing its departure lamented, they felt young again because reminded that youth must fly. A servant in scarlet interrupted him; he was the chuprassi of the Civil Surgeon, and he handed Aziz a note.

Old Callendar wants to see me at his bungalow, he said, not rising. He might have the politeness to say why.

Some case, I daresay.

I daresay not, I daresay nothing. He has found out our dinner hour, that’s all, and chooses to interrupt us every time, in order to show his power.

On the one hand he always does this, on the other it may be a serious case, and you cannot know, said Hamidullah, considerately paving the way towards obedience. Had you not better clean your teeth after pan?

If my teeth are to be cleaned, I don’t go at all. I am an Indian, it is an Indian habit to take pan. The Civil Surgeon must put up with it. Mohammed Latif, my bike, please.

The poor relation got up. Slightly immersed in the realms of matter, he laid his hand on the bicycle’s saddle, while a servant did the actual wheeling. Between them they took it over a tintack. Aziz held his hands under the ewer, dried them, fitted on his green felt hat, and then with unexpected energy whizzed out of Hamidullah’s compound.

Aziz, Aziz, imprudent boy… But he was far down the bazaar, riding furiously. He had neither light nor bell nor had he a brake, but what use are such adjuncts in a land where the cyclist’s only hope is to coast from face to face, and just before he collides with each it vanishes? And the city was fairly empty at this hour. When his tyre went flat, he leapt off and shouted for a tonga.

He did not at first find one, and he had also to dispose of his bicycle at a friend’s house. He dallied furthermore to clean his teeth. But at last he was rattling towards the civil lines, with a vivid sense of speed. As he entered their arid tidiness, depression suddenly seized him. The roads, named after victorious generals and intersecting at right angles, were symbolic of the net Great Britain had thrown over India. He felt caught in their meshes. When he turned into Major Callendar’s compound he could with difficulty restrain himself from getting down from the tonga and approaching the bungalow on foot, and this not because his soul was servile but because his feelings—the sensitive edges of him—feared a gross snub. There had been a case last year—an Indian gentleman had driven up to an official’s house and been turned back by the servants and been told to approach more suitably—only one case among thousands of visits to hundreds of officials, but its fame spread wide. The young man shrank from a repetition of it. He compromised, and stopped the driver just outside the flood of light that fell across the verandah.

The Civil Surgeon was out.

But the sahib has left me some message?

The servant returned an indifferent No. Aziz was in despair. It was a servant whom he had forgotten to tip, and he could do nothing now because there were people in the hall. He was convinced that there was a message, and that the man was withholding it out of revenge. While they argued, the people came out. Both were ladies. Aziz lifted his hat. The first, who was in evening dress, glanced at the Indian and turned instinctively away.

"Mrs. Lesley, it is a tonga," she cried.

Ours? enquired the second, also seeing Aziz, and doing likewise.

Take the gifts the gods provide, anyhow, she screeched, and both jumped in. O Tonga wallah, club, club. Why doesn’t the fool go?

Go, I will pay you to-morrow, said Aziz to the driver, and as they went off he called courteously, You are most welcome, ladies. They did not reply, being full of their own affairs.

So it had come, the usual thing—just as Mahmoud Ali said. The inevitable snub—his bow ignored, his carriage taken. It might have been worse, for it comforted him somehow that Mesdames Callendar and Lesley should both be fat and weigh the tonga down behind. Beautiful women would have pained him. He turned to the servant, gave him a couple of rupees, and asked again whether there was a message. The man, now very civil, returned the same answer. Major Callendar had driven away half an hour before.

Saying nothing?

He had as a matter of fact said, Damn Aziz—words that the servant understood, but was too polite to repeat. One can tip too much as well as too little, indeed the coin that buys the exact truth has not yet been minted.

Then I will write him a letter.

He was offered the use of the house, but was too dignified to enter it. Paper and ink were brought on to the verandah. He began: Dear Sir,—At your express command I have hastened as a subordinate should— and then stopped. Tell him I have called, that is sufficient, he said, tearing the protest up. Here is my card. Call me a tonga.

Huzoor, all are at the club.

Then telephone for one down to the railway station. And since the man hastened to do this he said, Enough, enough, I prefer to walk. He commandeered a match and lit a cigarette. These attentions, though purchased, soothed him. They would last as long as he had rupees, which is something. But to shake the dust of Anglo-India off his feet! To escape from the net and be back among manners and gestures that he knew! He began a walk, an unwonted exercise.

He was an athletic little man, daintily put together, but really very strong. Nevertheless walking fatigued him, as it fatigues everyone in India except the new-corner. There is something hostile in that soil. It either yields, and the foot sinks into a depression, or else it is unexpectedly rigid and sharp, pressing stones or crystals against the tread. A series of these little surprises exhausts; and he was wearing pumps, a poor preparation for any country. At the edge of the civil station he turned into a mosque to rest.

He had always liked this mosque. It was gracious, and the arrangement pleased him. The courtyard—entered through a ruined gate—contained an ablution tank of fresh clear water, which was always in motion, being indeed part of a conduit that supplied the city. The courtyard was paved with broken slabs. The covered part of the mosque was deeper than is usual; its effect was that of an English parish church whose side has been taken out. Where he sat, he looked into three arcades whose darkness was illuminated by a small hanging lamp and by the moon. The front—in full moonlight—had the appearance of marble, and the ninety-nine names of God on the frieze stood out black, as the frieze stood out white against the sky. The contest between this dualism and the contention of shadows within pleased Aziz, and he tried to symbolize the whole into some truth of religion or love. A mosque by winning his approval let loose his imagination. The temple of another creed, Hindu, Christian, or Greek, would have bored him and failed to awaken his sense of beauty. Here was Islam, his own country, more than a Faith, more than a battle-cry, more, much more… Islam, an attitude towards life both exquisite and durable, where his body and his thoughts found their home.

His seat was the low wall that bounded the courtyard on the left. The ground fell away beneath him towards the city, visible as a blur of trees, and in the stillness he heard many small sounds. On the right, over in the club, the English community contributed an amateur orchestra. Elsewhere some Hindus were drumming—he knew they were Hindus, because the rhythm was uncongenial to him,—and others were bewailing a corpse—he knew whose, having certified it in the afternoon. There were owls, the Punjab mail… and flowers smelt deliciously in the station-master’s garden. But the mosque—that alone signified, and he returned to it from the complex appeal of the night, and decked it with meanings the builder had never intended. Some day he too would build a mosque, smaller than this but in perfect taste, so that all who passed by should experience the happiness he felt now. And near it, under a low dome, should be his tomb, with a Persian inscription:

Alas, without me for thousands of years

The Rose will blossom and the Spring will bloom,

But those who have secretly understood my heart—

They will approach and visit the grave where I lie.

He had seen the quatrain on the tomb of a Deccan king, and regarded it as profound philosophy—he always held pathos to be profound. The secret understanding of the heart! He repeated the phrase with tears in his eyes, and as he did so one of the pillars of the mosque seemed to quiver. It swayed in the gloom and detached itself. Belief in ghosts ran in his blood, but he sat firm. Another pillar moved, a third, and then an Englishwoman stepped out into the moonlight. Suddenly he was furiously angry and shouted: Madam! Madam! Madam!

Oh! Oh! the woman gasped.

Madam, this is a mosque, you have no right here at all; you should have taken off your shoes; this is a holy place for Moslems.

I have taken them off.

You have?

I left them at the entrance.

Then I ask your pardon.

Still startled, the woman moved out, keeping the ablution-tank between them. He called after her, I am truly sorry for speaking.

Yes, I was right, was I not? If I remove my shoes, I am allowed?

Of course, but so few ladies take the trouble, especially if thinking no one is there to see.

That makes no difference. God is here.

Madam!

Please let me go.

Oh, can I do you some service now or at any time?

No, thank you, really none—good night.

May I know your name?

She was now in the shadow of the gateway, so that he could not see her face, but she saw his, and she said with a change of voice, Mrs. Moore.

Mrs. — Advancing, he found that she was old. A fabric bigger than the mosque fell to pieces, and he did not know whether he was glad or sorry. She was older than Hamidullah Begum, with a red face and white hair. Her voice had deceived him.

Mrs. Moore, I am afraid I startled you. I shall tell my community—our friends—about you. That God is here-very good, very fine indeed. I think you are newly arrived in India.

Yes—how did you know?

By the way you address me. No, but can I call you a carriage?

I have only come from the club. They are doing a play that I have seen in London, and it was so hot.

What was the name of the play?

"Cousin Kate."

I think you ought not to walk at night alone, Mrs. Moore. There are bad characters about and leopards may come across from the Marabar Hills. Snakes also.

She exclaimed; she had forgotten the snakes.

For example, a six-spot beetle, he continued. You pick it up, it bites, you die.

But you walk about yourself.

Oh, I am used to it.

Used to snakes?

They both laughed. I’m a doctor, he said. Snakes don’t dare bite me. They sat down side by side in the entrance, and slipped on their evening shoes. Please may I ask you a question now? Why do you come to India at this time of year, just as the cold weather is ending?

I intended to start earlier, but there was an unavoidable delay.

It will soon be so unhealthy for you! And why ever do you come to Chandrapore?

To visit my son. He is the City Magistrate here.

Oh no, excuse me, that is quite impossible. Our City Magistrate’s name is Mr. Heaslop. I know him intimately.

He’s my son all the same, she said, smiling.

But, Mrs. Moore, how can he be?

I was married twice.

Yes, now I see, and your first husband died.

He did, and so did my second husband.

Then we are in the same box, he said cryptically. Then is the City Magistrate the entire of your family now?

No, there are the younger ones—Ralph and Stella in England.

And the gentleman here, is he Ralph and Stella’s half-brother?

Quite right.

Mrs. Moore, this is all extremely strange, because like yourself I have also two sons and a daughter. Is not this the same box with a vengeance?

What are their names? Not also Ronny, Ralph, and Stella, surely?

The suggestion delighted him. No, indeed. How funny it sounds! Their names are quite different and will surprise you. Listen, please. I am about to tell you my children’s names. The first is called Ahmed, the second is called Karim, the third—she is the eldest—Jamila. Three children are enough. Do not you agree with me?

I do.

They were both silent for a little, thinking of their respective families. She sighed and rose to go.

Would you care to see over the Minto Hospital one morning? he enquired. I have nothing else to offer at Chandrapore.

Reviews for A Passage to India

[lamotamant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I can't say I'm a Forster fanatic after reading A Passage to India but I did enjoy the writing and the questions the content brought up. Not just in a racism context but, in all honesty, a general-human context even more so. From race to religion, we're so quick to classify ourselves and others. Then to set ourselves apart from various classifications as if that somehow gives us worthiness. My main view of this book is that it's excellent in it's ability to show all the idiocy for what it is, misunderstandings and the mayhem that results.

[hazelk_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I read this in my early 20s I couldn't wait to get to the chapters on the trip to the Marabar Caves and read the preceding chapters too quickly. Now, in maturer years, I can really appreciate this novel. There is much subtlety in the writing and characterisation. He neither over-romanticises India and the Indians and, though some of the British working in the colonial service are wincingly distasteful, there are balances here as well and not just with the characterisation of Fielding. Nothing is clear cut. A certain mysteriousness overlays the whole novel.

[memccauley6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I almost gave up on this one because almost nothing happens for the first 150 pages and the prose is extremely dry. The author paints a very precise portrait of racism and class-ism in British occupied India.

It is easy to see why so many people hold this book in such high regard; it was obviously groundbreaking when it was published. It will never take the place of To Kill a Mockingbird in my heart.

[macii_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know why it occurred to me to read this book . . . I think it was because I'd heard of it and I have this fascination with India. What did I discover? I like British authors from the early 20th century . . . C.S. Lewis, Tolkien (who I decided to pick up after I finished this book and I'm thoroughly enjoying), and now Forster. If you have any suggestions of contemporaries of these authors which you have found good, please comment me!This work takes place in the India controlled by Britain. It deals with racism, religious differences, and political matters. In many ways this commentary is applicable today.Forster is brilliant--he gives you a feel for two cultures colliding and each time I picked up this book, I was swept into India. I loved the personification used in descriptions of various attributes of the landscape. I could feel the oppression of the sun and the mystery of the place. The author does a marvelous job at setting the mood and feel surrounding the events of the novel.As I sit and think about the book, there are several scenes which stick out as having evoked strong emotion. First, after the intensity of the second part of the book, "Caves," Fielding, one of the main characters, returns to the west. He enters the Mediterranean-the Western culture-and it was as if my own mind cleared. Fielding, although very at home in India, came back into the familiar--what he knew and loved. Secondly, in the last part of the book, "Temple," we return to India. Forster introduces a religious festival, celebrating the birth of their God. The celebration is messy, heavy, joyous, and beautiful. I wished my own worship could be so alive. This chapter transitions and sets a tone--but you could read it as a stand alone story.Final Verdict: I LOVED this book! Read it.

[wordygirl39 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one didn't stand out for me among Forster's work, but I read it long ago in a college survey course so I probably need to re-read it. I know it's supposed to be his best, and it probably is, but for now I'll still love Room, Howard's, and Angels best.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Adventures do occur, but not punctually. Life rarely gives us what we want at the moment we consider appropriate.” ― E.M. Forster, A Passage to India The plot to this book is really a quite slender one in that a British woman Adela Quested travels to India with her prospective mother-in-law to see if she is willing to marry the British magistrate and eventually settle there. Once in India however Adela is appalled by the Anglo-Indians with their narrow minded views, and in particular the Anglo-Indian wives with whom she will have to spend time with if she marries there. Adela decides that she wishes to see India and accepts an invitation to visit the local Marabar caves with an Indian doctor. There she is attacked and unjustly accuses the Doctor of being the assailant.However despite the thin thread of plot what Forster does wonderfully is weave around it beautifully and detailed descriptions of the local surroundings, weather, caste and religious differences etc so that it becomes rather like those Russian dolls where one is stacked inside another turning a thin thread of cotton into a thick berthing hawser.The book is a pretty savage critique of Empire rule with its whites only Club and petty governance over the local population trying to squeeze all of India with all its varying religious sects, castes etc into a simple box.All the more impressive because Forster tells from first hand experience.But what the author really asks is whether or not people from different nationalities, religion and background can ever really truly become friends or would there always be an invisible barrier between them?This would have been seen as pretty revolutioary when it was first written in 1924 and many people today probably feel that the central message is obsolete, after all we know from History about the problems that Empire rule caused all over the world and we have all heard the term Multi-Culturism bandied about by politicians and News organisations. IMHO most of those people are missing the point and that the central message is still relevant today. The only difference being that it is more about people of differing nationalities settling in Britain rather than the British settling abroad.For me this was a very enjoyable and thought provoking read and I look forward to reading some of Forster's other works.

[dougwood57 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in the fictional northern India city of Chandrapore, E.M. Forster's 'Passage to India', widely regarded as an early 20th century classic, tells the tale of the troubled interactions between British India and the country's Indian inhabitants. Forster's message seems to be that the white British and the native Indians should not have tried to interact socially outside of the accepted forms because it always ended badly for all concerned. The story meanders, to put it kindly, until Part 2 when the 'event' occurs at the also-fictional Marabar Caves and Forster breathes some life into the tale. If you have an interest in British colonialism, India, or English Literature or all three, by all means read the book. Don't expect a sparkling story to go along with the fine characterizations and be ready for a dated view.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'd never read this; never even saw the movie, so I decided it was about time - and it was a nice thin book I could take on a hiking trip. Maurice, which Forster didn't want published till after his death because, I presume, he was hiding his homosexuality, is my favorite book of his, but I enjoyed this. He's a master at portraying the subtleties of relationships, and how culture and racial identity can interfere. Looking forward now to the movie to see what really happened in the cave!

[vesnaslav · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A significant novel of this century. Well-crafted, gripping story. One of the rare cases, however, when the film is more enjoyable and poignant than the book.

[nm3spring083c3mcbrid · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Unfortunately, I only got to read about thirty pages of this book, yet I could already tell that if I ever got into it, it would be hard to get out of til the end. I started reading it, looked at the original copyright date: 1924, and was thinking, maybe, just maybe, this would be the first "classic" that I ever finished by myself (Classic by my father's definition, means more than 50 years old. This book definitely qualifies.). Sadly, I still am yet to finish it, I had to turn it back in to the library. I will read it though! You read it too. See if it's good. Maybe get back to me on it.

[booklove2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was about time I got to this classic and a classic it is. It's so vivid and shares the perspective of both England and India so well that I'm surprised it was written so long ago. Dr. Aziz is accused of offending a British lady, Miss Quested at the Marabar Caves but there is also misunderstanding from Dr. Aziz with his friend Fielding - his only British defender at the trial. There is a lot of exploring of India here (the entire book never leaves India), though Dr. Aziz makes an interesting (yet cynical) point that the British only wish to explore India to conquer it. Dr. Aziz is somewhat open to having British friends in the beginning of the book (with certain people anyway) but that changes after the misunderstandings. The book touches on culture, class, race, religion. Dr. Aziz has to be one of the earliest fully developed Indian characters and from only a British perspective, the book may have disappeared long ago. Great characters, great settings and great writing. Yep, it's a classic.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

On the positive side, E.M. Forster's A Passage to India is populated by many complex and realistic characters. Not just main characters like Fielding, Mrs Moore, Miss Quested, and Dr. Aziz, but even rather minor characters like Godbole are fleshed out and given depth. Dr. Aziz especially is made into a fully realized character by Forster, as he not only has his virtues and vices, but numerous misfortunes and failings spring from them both so that he makes an interesting focal point for the narrative. The second half of the book would have been rendered both less entertaining and less effective if Dr. Aziz was a purely virtuous character, but fortunately for readers the narrative doesn't make Aziz anything close to an angel. It does succeed in making him feel like a real person. This realistic feel is also one of A Passage to India's main strengths. While the events that occur at around the halfway point of the book relies on an improbable series of events and coincidences, Forster still manages to write it in a way that doesn't feel artificial. Writing obviously manufactured situations that don't feel artificial is an impressive accomplishment.

On the negative side, Forster's writing is frequently boring. Even when he's writing about exciting events like a car crash or a parade or a riot he somehow manages to create a passage that is utterly without energy or tension. This is a short book, but the writing did so little to engage me that it felt like a substantial tome. Another negative is that, while I complimented the book's cast of multidimensional characters, that multidimensionalness doesn't extend to many of the British occupiers of India. Most of them are just racist buffoons, even the marginally less shallow Mr. Turton has his perspective and the reasoning behind it explained in a single sentence. Ronny is the pro-occupation character given the most development, and even he feels like a half-baked sketch. He delivers weak arguments and oscillated between "bland" and "jerk" as the story required.

On the stranger side, two things: the first is that I found it to be a strange choice for Forster to include as a plot point caves that seemingly mess with British people's brains. One cave basically turns someone into a nihilist within ten minutes when previously they seemed pretty well adjusted, another cave causes an echo to plague someone's mind for months. Strange stuff. Another thing on the stranger side to note is that while Forster was obviously trying to promote tolerance and denounce the British occupation of India with this book, it's not clear how similar he thinks European and Indian people are: Forster identifies "suspicion" as some sort of inborn quality for "orientals" and it isn't clear if he thinks that there can be true understanding between people from such different cultures.

While A Passage to India draws into question whether understanding across different cultures is possible without putting forth an answer, Forster ends the book with a clear statement that friendship between people of different cultures is possible (although such friendship may be plagued with misunderstandings). To reach true friendship, though, the occupier-occupied relationship would have to end. A good message, though I could have done without Forster spelling it out for me so bluntly. For a book that also explores understanding of different cultures but which is far more engaging I recommend The Other City by Michal Ajvaz. A Passage to India is a bit dull in comparison, though not a bad book by any means- you just have to be able to deal with the bog of Forster's prose.

[the_hibernator · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Contains light spoilers.With a backdrop of British Colonial India, A Passage to India is the story of Dr. Aziz, a Muslim Indian physician who is sympathetic and welcoming of the Brits. The story begins with Dr. Aziz meeting an elderly lady who is visiting her son with Miss Quested, a flighty priggish young woman who wants to meet a "real Indian." Dr. Aziz, in welcoming exuberance, gives a polite but insincere invitation to his house and is shocked when Miss Quested takes him up on the offer. Embarrassed by his home, Dr. Aziz instead suggests that he host a trip to the Marabar caves. But in those caves, Miss Quested gets lost, and in her fear thinks that Dr. Aziz has accosted her, when he is actually in another cave looking for her. A Passage to India was a fantastic book on so many levels. With Miss Quested's ill-advised acceptance of Dr. Aziz's invitation (among many other ill-advised behaviors from the ladies), it highlights the differences between Indian culture and British culture. Dr. Aziz is overly accommodating, and the stand-offish British are entirely unaware of his putting himself out--they take all his welcoming exuberance quite literally. The characterization was also quite deep. For instance, it showed Miss Quested's priggishness by her wish to see a "real Indian," her pronounced reserve by her interactions with her potential fiance, and her openness to suggestion by her continued accusations of Dr. Aziz (which she seemed unsure of, but which were egged on by others of the British community). The writing style was sleek and symbolic. For instance at one point, before any of the horrifying incidents unfold, Mrs. Moore sees a wasp which reminds her vaguely of Indian culture. This wasp foreshadows the horrible events that follow. And most importantly, the A Passage to India outlined the failings of British colonialism, the blindness and priggishness of the British impressions of Indian people, and the resulting hostilities. I loved this book. This is my first Forster book that I've read, and it will most certainly not be my last.

[bordercollie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This 1924 classic by a friend of Virginia Woolf gave me nightmares; Dr. Aziz (Moslem), Cecil Fielding, and Adela Quested, English visitor, meet at the Marabar Caves for misunderstanding compounded upon misunderstanding in Hindu India; well written with great characterization and understanding that India cannot be understood by westerners.

[mmoj_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is not for those who want to jump in and devour a book. Mrs. Moore and Adela want to see the "real India" not just that which their government views as the most "civilised", i.e., most like British colonialism can make them. Mrs. Moore meets an Indian doctor who agrees to take Mrs. Moore and Adela to a local caves. What happens from this innocent invitation drives the story to its conclusion.

Forster's strength lies in his ability to connect us to the characters and places, perhaps he does this too well as I wanted to read idly on about those characters. Forster also does a good job of understand both the British and Indian mindsets of this time period.

[rochellejewelshapiro · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love the fairness of the satire--how the English treat the English as well as the Hindus and how the Hindus treat the English as well as each other. Also, what an opportunity to learn new words such as purlieu, pleasaunce. Now I just have to look them up :}

[schmerguls · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I finsihed reading this book on Jan 5, 1952 and said of it: I valued this book for its insight into the Indian mind, though I didn't enjoy most parts of the book. But the picture it presented of the Indian world interested me. Fundamentally, it was an illustration of the difficulty pervading a friendship between West and East. Its peculiar problem is less acute now that India is free, but the book is well-written.

[carmenere_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Comments: Very interesting novel in which east meets west (albeit not very successfully) in British India at the turn of the century. Cultures, religions and personalities clash, characters, such as, Dr. Aziz, Cyril Fielding and Adela try to be people they are not and the reader anticipates what will happen to them after a fateful excursion to Marabar Caves. I usually check out a location I'm reading about on Google Earth and was a bit surprised to find that Forster's Maramar Caves are actually the Barabar Caves and I am puzzled as to why he changed the name. If anyone knows why.........Why I read it now: E. M. Forster is the LT author of the month and I just happened to have this one languishing on my book shelf.Recommended: highly, for readers who enjoy historical novels, cultural diversity and humanitarian issues.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Forster delivers a great work of literature that both entertains and makes a social statement of racism. It explores relationships of the British and the Indian but also Christian, Moslem and Hindu. The time period is the Indian independence movement of 1920. Forster develops characters so that we can sympathize with both their positive and not so positive characters. The story starts with an older and younger woman who have traveled to India, the older woman is able to love the Indian and the younger is in love with India but not the Indian. What Forster does well is show the reader through his characters how communication and cultural differences really can be miles apart even when seemingly talking the same language. I enjoyed it, would recommend it to anyone who likes historical and political novels as well as books set in India.

[fromkin_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wonder how this book was received when published in 1924 during the stirrings of Indian independence from Great Britain. Did it accurately reflect the depicted stereotypes and prejudices of both Indians and British colonialists? Or did Forster attempt to explode those stereotypes and prejudices? I saw David Lean's 1984 film (which I, in parts, confused with "Jewel in the Crown" - understandable since both starred Peggy Ashcroft and Art Malik and both take place at the Marabar Caves), and I recall the film being a subtler portrayal of Forster's characters and events. While this is a slow, talky book, emotions, speeches, and prejudices are front and center and overly magnified. The British are cold and reserved, hotheaded when it comes to England and the sanctity of their women, superior, insecure, scornful of Muslims and Hindus alike, and wearily bearing the White Man's Burden - including the well meaning school principal who does his best to go native but remains British to the core. Indians are lazy, cunning, treacherous, noble, mean, rebellious, subservient. Muslims are poetic; Hindus are superstitious. Quite frankly, I don't know what Forster was trying to achieve, reflection of reality or explosion of stereotypes. Does the book retain whatever importance it had in 1924? I don't know, but it did not engage me fully.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A first class study of Colonial India and its effect on the rulers. The Indians are well drawn, the British as well, and the complexities of the situation are wonderfully explored. I am surprized so few Library Thingers have read it!

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In brief: When Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested travel to India, they hope to seek out the real India. Mrs. Moore makes friends with an Indian doctor Aziz. In an effort to show the two women hospitality, Aziz takes them on a journey to visit some local caves, which results in Miss Quested accusing Aziz of attacking her. The fascinating thing about this novel is how Forster shows racism as systematic. The British come to India with the best of intentions, with the aim of treating everyone with respect and politeness, if not complete equality. But as they spend more time in the country, the pressures of white society slowly molds them into that racism in order to fit in with the "right kind" of people.Forster presents the points of view of many people, including Aziz, the two women he befriends, and many others both white and Indian alike. He presents a each character as complex, with varying and contradicting thoughts and desires housed in entirely one body, and most everyone came off as sympathetic in one degree or another.I think he did fairly well with the Indian characters and their culture, though I suspect that even as he was making them interesting and sympathetic, he also accidentally slipped in stereotypes and misunderstandings.A Room with a View is one of my favorite books ever, but this one was more hit and miss. I did not love A Passage to India nearly as much, but it was enjoyable and interesting. I'd say it's a toss up.

[nero56 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Language is lyrical and wonderful!

[jfslone · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure if it was because this was my last novel of undergrad classes and I wasn't in the mood, but something certainly turned me off to this work of Forster's, from nearly the very beginning. It seems to be one of those books you need to be in a certain mood to enjoy, and I must have missed out on it. I love the other Forster books I've read, but I found myself skimming much of this one. I think I'll let my brain relax and maybe give this one another try in a year or so!

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook narrated by Sam Dastor.3.5*** In 1920s northern India an older British matron, Mrs Moore, arrives to visit her son, Ronny Heaslop, who is the British city magistrate of Chandrapore. She is accompanied by Miss Adela Quested, a young, naïve, somewhat repressed school teacher, who is to be engaged to Mrs Moore’s son. When Mrs Moore visits a local mosque she encounters Dr Aziz, a local Muslim doctor, and they become friendly. After a second meeting, he offers to take Mrs Moore, Miss Quested and a group of friends on a day trip to visit the famous Marabar Caves. At the caves something happens to frighten Miss Quested, with the result that Aziz is accused of a scandalous crime. This classic explores class differences and the clash of cultures. Every character seems to have a preconceived notion of how “the others” should behave (or have always acted), and each reacts based on these preconceived notions. Their strongly held opinions on how “every Indian” or “all Hindus” or “those British” behave, think, and feel color all their interactions, with the result that no one sees clearly what is really happening. Even the “good” characters fall victim to their own prejudices, frequently without realizing it. Friendships are broken, and even when a character realizes his/her mistake there seems no way to undo the damage. I have never visited India, but the novel gives me a sense of what it might have been like during the era of British Raj. Tensions are high with Indians chaffing under British rule. And yet there is a certain “romance” about the adventure of visiting this very foreign place. Sam Dastor is merely adequate voicing the audio book. The voices he uses for the women are high pitched to the point of screeching. And several of the Indians don’t sound much better. I suppose he was trying to help differentiate the characters in those long back-and-forth conversations, but it just irritated me. 2** for his narration.

[reannon_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

My book club chose this book. I was doubtful, having remembered seeing and not liking the movie many years ago, and that proved prophetic. I did not like the book, either, though there is some humor in it, and it does paint a picture of British India in the early part of the 20th century.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Okay, it's immaculately put together in that amazing way the early 20th-century Brits had (was there something in the water? Other than lead?) of taking inspiration from the classical unities, but departing from them - establishing a Greek stage, in Forster's case the caves, in the centre, and letting loose the thick oily rain of modernism all around it, with the "real people" characters being all cute and real and oldtimey with their "real problems" - but what am I describing here? It could be Fowles on a sleepy day, or DH Lawrence on autoplilot. No, what makes this book amazing is the insistent, constant unraveling of the structure above, of the impressions it creates, and the awesome intrusion of a mysticism that dilates the self and expands the universe in this incredible way. God, I wanna go to India and let those inexorable, incalculable, obscene landscapes work on me. And, incidentally, the horror that he manages to preserve in the Marabar Caves, without defining it and without making it scientific or supernatural - keeping it mystical, not just indeterminite and a venue of speculation but consisting in meaning because you don't know, because of all the things that crawl up your nose with it and set up shop in the dark corners - that's a pretty amazing accomplishment all on its own.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The 1920s were dominated by the younger modernists who rejected the older generation of writers Forster was born into so it's curious to see this work not only survive by thrive. His writing style is notably old-fashioned (enjoyably so) but the themes are very 20th century which gives it a certain air of authentic beauty. It is a mysterious and fractured novel in which we see the multiple contrasting faces of India: English/India, Muslims/Hindus, Brahmans/Untouchables (caste), clans, sects, men/women, princes/beggars, Northerns/Southerners - there is no single "India", it is a confusing, complex and fractured landscape. Can there be harmony, can order be imposed, can order even exist? Ultimately this is a spiritual question of the Universe in general: does life have meaning, the great question of all religions. In the end, when the boat sinks in the lake, for a brief moment, all the fractured elements come together in a sort of comic accidental soup - then separate and go their own way. Forster never answers the question, how could he, it is the greatest question ever, but he sets up the actors and creates the conditions to allow us to examine, ponder and wander, to "travel lightly."

[sfm13 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“A Passage to India” takes place during the early years of Britain’s colonization of the government. The Indian citizens are looked on as a lesser race in their own country! Western ways are thought to be desired by the natives … the foods, dress, etc… are copied. The white man is catered to for the wealth he brings which amounts to little more than pennies for the natives. Mrs. Moore is visiting from England with Adela Quested, a young woman, who is to marry her son Ronny, a magistrate, in the town of Chandapore. The two women are anxious to see the real India. Not the recreation of English life in an Indian setting. Not the typical elephant ride, but everyday life of common Indians. In a mosque Mrs. Moore becomes acquainted with an Indian doctor, Aziz, who offers to take her and Miss Quested on a tour of the Marabar Caves.The country is beautifully described, but the meat of the story revolves around racial conflict.At the caves, a suspicious assault on Adela takes place, and in her disoriented state she falsely accuses Aziz as her “attacker.” When the case goes to trial, Ronny sends his mother home rather than let her testify, because she believes Aziz is innocent. When Adela is called to the stand she recants her earlier testimony and denies the charge against Aziz, claiming she was and is confused about the situation. After Adela changes her story, Ronny breaks the engagement. Ronny believes the stereotype that Indian men lust after white women. Mr. Felding, an Englishman, but also a friend of the Indian doctor tries to remain loyal. Even so Aziz has lost his faith in “whites” after the ordeal he went through when held suspect for the crime.The misunderstanding of intentions can’t be avoided when considering the different beliefs of these two cultures.Forster leaves us to ponder the difficulties that mixing race and cultures can bring, as well as the danger of prejudices.I recommend that this book not be overlooked. And if you think I’ve spoiled the story by revealing too much, there are many parts not mentioned that will surprise you and keep you reading until the end.

[bodachliath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was clearly an important novel in its day, but it is difficult to enjoy it today without being clouded by memories of films and other adaptations, and to understand the history without imposing hindsight. Having read Damon Galgut's novel on Forster and the events leading up to the publication of this book recently, that inevitably clouded my judgment too. For all that, this is an unsentimental view of the Raj and its hypocrisy and misunderstandings, with a powerful human story at its core.