March 21, 1964
(About a letter from the “doctor,” who had gone to the U.S.A. for a brain operation: “The operation was torture for four hours; it is done under local anaesthesia but not effective. They cut and scraped my skull and drilled it without any anaesthesia…. Nursing is not so good, my [nurses] are far better. They have no feeling and do not do things honestly…. Surgeons are also slack….” It may be noted that the doctor was himself a surgeon of repute in Calcutta.)
… And they want to come here to teach everything to the poor Indians who know nothing!
It’s disgusting.
If they cure him, it’s all right, but I have my doubts..
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… Those Americans are nothing but bluffers – they bluff, bluff, bluff for everything. They come with grand airs, they will right all wrongs, correct all mistakes, enlighten all minds – and they’re just at ground level.
Those doctors, when you fall into their clutches …
(silence)
And here he kept complaining that his nurses weren’t up to the mark – now he’ll understand! At least, after that experience, he will understand that what’s here is exceptional – they always have to go outside to have this experience, they aren’t sensitive enough to feel that here there is something that isn’t found elsewhere. In order to compare they have to go elsewhere, and then be “tortured” a little.
It’s too bad – that’s the way the world is, it needs to be tortured to understand that there is something else.
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