Chapter (অধ্যায়): EPISTLES PAGE-5Page: 5 of 537
observations were bad and their accounts exaggerated and tortured into fantastical shapes, until they passed all recognition.
So you see, we must travel, we must go to foreign parts. We must see how the engine of society works in other countries, and keep free and open communication with what is going on in the minds of other nations, if we really want to be a nation again. And over and above all, we must cease to tyrannise. To what a ludicrous state are we brought! If a Bhangi comes to anybody as a Bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague; but no sooner does he get a cupful of water poured upon his head with some mutterings of prayers by a Padri, and get a coat on his back, no matter how threadbare, and come into the room of the most orthodox Hindu--I don't see the man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty shake of the hands! Irony can go no further. And come and see what they, the Padris, are doing here in the Dakshin (south). They are converting the lower classes by lakhs; and in Travancore, the most priest-ridden country in India--where every bit of land is owned by the Brahmins . . . nearly one-fourth has become Christian! And I cannot blame them; what part have they in David and what in Jesse? When, when, O Lord, shall man be brother to man?
Yours,
Vivekananda
III
Oriental Hotel
Yokohama
10th July, 1893
Dear Alasinga, Balaji, G.G., Banking Corporation, and all my Madras Friends,
Excuse my not keeping you constantly informed of my movements. One is so busy every day, and especially