Anarchy or Chaos by Ole Birk Laursen;

Author:Ole Birk Laursen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)
Published: 2023-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

13

RETURN TO INDIA

Arriving in Bombay

Acharya’s first few weeks back after more than twenty-six years abroad proved to be relatively quiet. The British authorities had guaranteed that, ‘while no act of oblivion will be granted, he would be left in peace unless he embarks on treasonable and seditious courses’.1 He arrived in Bombay on 8 April 1935 and gave an interview to the Bombay Chronicle two days later. ‘Mr. M. P. T. Acharya, who left India nearly 26 years ago and had spent his life in various parts of the world, returned to India on Monday’, the article read.2 ‘On the continent, Mr. Acharya distinguished himself as a linguist and is thoroughly conversant with several continental languages and has also mastered the North European languages’.3 In his peripatetic travels across the world, the article continued, Acharya had ‘had intimate glimpses of the customs and manners of almost all peoples in the world. Mr. Acharya thinks that the Spanish in their temperament, outlook and ideas, resemble the Indian somewhat closely’.4 Acharya commented on the world he left behind and assessed that, ‘at present, political and economic conditions in Europe were quite unsettled’, but he was also convinced that, ‘though preparations for war and manufactures of armaments were going on at a brisk pace, it was not likely … that war would break out in the near future’.5

Acharya explained in the interview that he was planning to stay in Bombay, but he soon proceeded to Madras to visit his mother. He stayed in Madras for two weeks and made another week-long stop somewhere on his way back before he arrived in Bombay in early May 1935 and settled at 192 Hornby Road.6 Left alone by the British authorities as promised but still worried about what life would bring for him, Acharya wrote to Armand: ‘I am yet not quite free, but I am not troubled. I am, however, well received. A consolation’.7 However, reality soon set in for Acharya, and he missed Nachman terribly. ‘Since two weeks I have no news from my compagne, which makes me anxious. If I get any news of her, I shall let you know again’, he wrote to Armand in June.8 Correspondence with Nachman may have been sporadic, but in September, he sent her a photo of himself with a descriptive note of the AEG electric fan on his bedside table. The photo echoes his complaint to Armand: ‘[i]t is too hot here’.9 The heat and loneliness aside, he soon regretted returning to India. In June, he wrote to Armand that he wanted to return to Europe: ‘I am now regretting why I came here, as I have no chance of earning’.10 However, he remained in Bombay and started preparing for Nachman’s arrival. In December, two of her paintings, ‘Russian Peasant’ and ‘Oriental’, appeared in the Bombay Chronicle with a short biography of her artistic career.11 It is uncertain exactly when Nachman arrived, but according to Bernstein it was between April 1936 and January 1937.12 Though now

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.