playful about seeing

virginia woolf said of forster's novels that therein one always finds "struggle between the things that matter and the things that do not matter, between reality and sham, between the truth and the lie." it is of course a fair observation, but on india there always seems to be something more or beyond at stake, beauty, the spirit, if the struggle can help us see that it all really is a romance. of his own experience he writes like this:

the four of us had a pleasant morning and the car did not break down until we were returning. we walked first, along the banks of the sipra, a deep green river, haunted by sweet skipping birds. there we had an exciting and typical adventure. our train of villagers stopped and pointed to the opposite bank with cries of a snake. at last i saw it--a black thing reared up to the height of three feet and motionless. i said, "it looks like a small dead tree," and was told "oh no," and exact species and habits of snake were indicated-- not a cobra, but very fierce and revengeful, and if we shot it would pursue us several days later all the way to dewas. we then took stones and threw them across the sipra (half the width of the thames at weybridge) in order to make the snake crawl away. still he didn't move and when a stone hit his base still didn't move. he was a small dead tree. all the villagers shrieked with laughter. the young sirdar told them that i was much disappointed and displeased about the snake, and that they must find a real one. so they dispersed anxiously for a few moments over the country, after which all was forgotten.

(from forster's travel writings about india, the hill of devi)