Question- Write a summary of 'A Passage to England' with giving an introduction of book. and describe 'The English Scene'.

Answer - 

C. Chaudhari's 'A Passage to England' is a blazing humbling book. In it, he tells us things about Britain that we never suspected before and explains things that have hitherto been inexplicable. Bernard Levin says, "I finished his book excited and disturbed; I felt a wild desire to rush out and catch Mr. Chaudhari and carry him shoulder high." In the short space of five weeks he saw more paintings, statues and words of art, more plays, fine buildings, garding and beautiful landscapes, heard more poetry and music and had a more exciting and interesting time. The material of this book is the sensation he experienced. In spite of all his best efforts to decant the ratioonative sediment, some of it remains in the final product and cannot be separated, for this reason it may taste like muddy port. In this account of England India will be found to be walking in freely. His sensations could be explained only be a comparative estimate. There were the things positively English, but there were also their shadows cost in a dark mass under the light from India. His ideas on England were earlier acquired from literature, history and geography. It had built a fairly comprehensive and homogeneous picture of the country and its people.

His record is exclusively concerned with their private life as a nation. He notices the continuity of old England more than its break. There is a permanent and basic India which is breaking all the changes. This India remains capable of dealing in its own way and time, not only with the anglicized upper middle class, but even with the lower middle class washed into the Jamund and the Ganges, the Thomes and the Hudson. But the permanent face of India and the permanent face of England are different; they wear different looks. Time has made the face of India stark, chastened and sad. The face of England remains smiling, when asked about his impression - on England, he said, "I am only carrying back exposed films. They will have to be developed before I can say any thing". He has given a panoramic view of his impressions on English scene, English people, their cultural life and the state of their nation.

Everything in England presents itself to our eyes in a manner different from visual phenomena on the plasing of India. In the East, man is either is parasite on nuture or her victim, but in the West man and nature have got together to create something in common. They live at the mercy of nature, get very little from it and take their revenge by making ceaseless war on it. The rivers of England have not only a scenie complement and contrasts of mood and emotion. The Hindus flock to the rivers to pathe and purify themselves to jettison some of the accumulation of worldliness, but they have never tried to bring human life and the river together. If anything has a bewildering variety of forms in Bengal, it is the waters. Nothing is more external to Delhi than the Jamuna a river more romanticized in Inidan literature than any other. The people in India remain in touch with the rivers through Hinduism. The West believe that the Hindus regard the world as an illusion. "The waters of England are like their own swans, wild in origin but cultivated in behaviour. The English scene is both at lits most serene and at its most communicative.

'God made the country and man made the town. One has to live in. London to sense its personality and most visitors get lost in it, not only physically but also intellectuality. In India the country towns are very much worse than the big cities. In England the poets were on the side at the country and the men of letters on that of the town.

Indians come to England with too many literary associations in their mind and are consequently disappointed. In India any landscape tends to resolve into a silhousette with side-to-side linking of its components, but in the west, it becomes a composition in depth, with an into- the picture movement. People in the east see the world in a ravefield way and the West in a corcrete way. The beauty spots of London are St. James Park, St. Paul's, the UNESCO building and so on. Delhi with all the other cities of Northern India seems to belong to an urban family which is completely different from that of Calcutta.

He then gives an impression of the collective appearance and behaviour of English people. His account is concerned with the superficial of English life. English men belonging to the different social strata and professions are very different, not only in speech and behaviour, but also in their appearance, taking it as the sum of their features, figure, expression and clothes. In England, the politicians including the ministers and the officials are dressed in the same manner. In India there are two standard dresses for the politicians and for the officials.

In India there are two kinds of people the ordinary folk who dress in 'their own way, speak their own dialeds, behave in their own way, without affectation, while the minority wear the older Hindu or Muslim aristocrate custumers, speak both English and the standard forms of Indian languages. But in cold country everbody has to wear a certain amount of clothing and that gives an impression of uniformity. The majority of the women in England appear in very ordinary clothes.

People who live in the tropics are susceptiable to the texture and colour of cotton and silk, but can not easily detect the elegance of woolen garments in India physical beauty is largely associatal with a fair complexion. The majority of handsome women in India are very self-conseious. Their relatively dark complexion makes lipsticks rough and other aids to natural beauty more obtrusive than on the faces of the western woman. All women in India or more especially those who have presentations to fashion are comparable to those to be found in painting or sculpture. The Europeans have made art the expression of the spiritual in man.

Thin he refers to the public behaviour of the English people. He complains about the silent habits of the English people. In India noise is an essential condition of cheerfulness as the warmth of the sun. Life in London seems to be like a film of pre-talkie days. "The eternal silence of these infinite crowds frightens me." Even the clubs are the most silent places of all.

Transport system in Delhi is very illuminating in this respect. There will be pleasant conversation on public and private affairs, with pretty jokes interspersed in between them. All sorts of incidents happen which make the bus in Delhi a microcosm of our national life. This craving for sympathy in widest communalty spread makes persons recoil from the dreariness of the public behaviour of the English people. Then Nirad Chaudhari passes on to the private behaviour of the English people. In the University of the parental habit of saying Don't do this, that or the other thing India exactly resembles England.' They are proud of the appearance of their country. The wives are not only familiar with their husband's work and problems, but also interested in them. People who are endowed with the power to provide employment and recognition in india incapable of seeing any merit in a man without having it dinned into their cars. Even in regard to Hinduism most Hindus prefer to go to an English book.

Indian parents who send their children to England are as worried about the weather as English parents who had sons in India used to be about our snakes and tigers Day-light in Delhi will have a hard glare but no brightness. To complain about weather has become a national past-time. His absorption in small things, lends an extra ordinary test to an Englishman's life. English weather has fastered a pronounced degree of sensitiveness to nuances and makes both & men and things more mellow.

He next refers to their economic condition and problems from moral standpoint. They do not have God or Geoddess of money but they are devoled to normal Christian worship. India has become on Fl Dorado for every kind of economist from every part of the world. Indians call upon the Gods to help them in their economic and technological ventures. For instance when the great dom at Bhakro was formally opened there were vedic rites to ensure its success.

The banks and shops in England are very trustful spending is the positive erge urge of the English people and saving the correction. To live in style and be careless about money has in the past been privilege of the English upper classes. They believe that the best use of money is to spend it on the good things of life.

Love sams to be a primary motivation of human beings in England. It makes Englishmen forget their dignity and Frenchmen their Intelligences. The Westerrers cannot understand the Indian system of marriage and Indians do not understand their. Indians are unorthodox in their political views and orthodox in their relation of men and women.

He next gives an account of their manners. They live a lonely and at times very unhappy life, grumbling about everything from food to social customs. They are proud, cold and even snobbish people English social life is still English social like. All Indians get a poor impression of the english man's socialility. He has not seen much of the English working classes but in India every rise in status is accompanied by a in status is accompanied by a progressive dimination of physical labour but, it is not so in England leisure is a torture to the English people in selecting a career, the Englishman takes his main interest in life into account but in india, it is just a drift. The rush of the intellectuals from the universities to the secretariat is one of the most stiking carrer-drifts seem in India.

Chaudhari then refers to the cultural life of the English people Shakespeare is amusement in England but it is culture in India. They have not degraded the old playwright, actor and stage manager into a mere author. English people remain pasically Elizabeth and have always been so another amusment of the English people is the growing habit of visiting the country house. European civilization remains as much of the present as of the past. India is a land of ancient and massive civilization English people put forward the economic excuse for neglecting culture. The world of English culture has become divided between a kindergarten in the showrooms and a pedagogy in the bookshops religion and culture have always intermingled in England.

Religion and civilization are also inter woven with each other in England. There the so-called upper classes are more religious than the common people, while in India the situation is exactly the opposite. The upper classes in India are losing, and have largely lost their capacity for faith.

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