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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
The elder is wiser; nor should elderliness be judged by the actual number of years. Respect for abstract standards does not permit such hairsplitting. What are a few years? They may have some significance in relation to the bodily existence. But soul is eternal. It has no age. An aunt may be young, ridiculously so, as a body; but as a soul, that is, as her real self, she must enjoy the full privilege of auntness. And wisdom superior to that of the nephews and nieces is an abstract, absolute, and inalienable attribute of auntness. Auntness! Really, by discovering this abstract idea, I am making some original contribution to philosophy. As far as my cattish information goes, the inventor of "Abstract Ideas", I mean Plato, did not conceive of it together with such brilliant specimens as horseness, appleness, treeness, so on and so forth.
Notwithstanding all these overwhelmingly convincing reasons, I forego the right to lecture human beings who are inferior to my magnificent nephew, the tiger. I have chosen a simpler, less offensive, but more effective, way of performing my mission-of contributing my share to the achievement of India's world mission. The way chosen is to tell the otherwise meaningless story of my life, lived among men, and therefore correctly reflecting them as they really are in their day to day existence. My record will be candid and courageous. I shall depict men, who have had
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