as semi-intellectual propaganda work, and on probation; it would be some time before he was admitted to membership of a squad.
Willie thought, “I once unthinkingly said ‘Good question’ to Bhoj Narayan, and for a time earned his hatred. Out of old habit, when this man was talking about eating cold rice, I looked at him more mockingly than I knew. And now he is my enemy. He will want to put me down. Like Bhoj Narayan with some other people, he will want to see the mockery in my eyes replaced by fear.”
His enemy was known as Einstein, and over the next few months Willie picked up various pieces of his story, which was legendary in the movement. He came of a peasant family. A primary school teacher spotted his mathematical talent and pushed him up as far as he could in a country setting. No one in that family had ever had higher education, and immense sacrifices were made, when the time came, to send the young man to a neighbouring small town where he could go to a university. A room, more properly a space six feet by four feet, was rented in the verandah of a washerman’s house for fifteen rupees a month. The smallness of his living space and the tininess of the sums he dealt in were part of the romance of his story.
Einstein’s routine as a student in the washerman’s house was famous. He rose at five, rolled up his bedding, and cleaned out his living space (Willie, old ways clinging to him, didn’t think that could take long). Then he washed his pots and pans (he kept them separate from the washerman’s) and boiled his rice over firewood in the kitchen part of the verandah. Willie noticed in the story that there was no room in Einstein’s student timetable for the gathering of firewood; perhaps on firewood days Einstein was up at four. He ate his rice when it was ready and went to his classes. When he came back in the afternoon he washed his clothes; he had only one suit of clothes. Then he cooked some more food, perhaps rice again, and ate and went to sleep. In between chores he did his studying.
The examinations for the Bachelor of Science degree came. Einstein found that he was at sea with the very first problem of the first paper. His mind went blank. He thought he should write a letter of apology to his father for his failure. He began to write, but then, as he wrote, an entirely novel way of solving the first problem presented itself to him. The rest of the examination came easily to him, and his novel solution of the first problem created a stir in the university. Everybody got to know about the letter of apology out of which, as in a dream, the solution had come; and it began to be said that he was in the great line of Indian twentieth-century mathematical geniuses. This talk, which he encouraged, began at last to affect him. He published a mathematical paper in an Indian journal. It was well received, and he thought that it had fallen to him to correct Einstein. This soon became a mania. He lost his university job and could get no other. He published no other paper. He returned to his village, dropped all the trappings of education (trousers, shirt tucked in, shoes and socks), and dreamed of destroying the world. When the movement appeared, he joined it.
Willie thought, “This man cannot start a revolution. He hates us all. I must make my way to Kandapalli and the other side.”
Then there came to him, at the poste restante of one of the towns he regularly visited, a letter from Sarojini.
Dear Willie, Our father is seriously ill and all his ashram work is suspended. I know you will feel that this is no great loss to the world, but I have begun to have other ideas. The ashram was a creation, say what you will about it. I suppose that is the effect the prospect of death has on us. The other news, which is just as bad, and perhaps even worse from your point of view, is that Kandapalli is not well. He is losing his grip, and nothing is weaker than a revolutionary who is losing his grip. People who admired the strong man and wished to share in his strength run from the weak man. His weakness becomes a kind