Do you know what religion is? It is a revolt against death. A revolt against biology, a reaction against decay.
I am often asked: `We hear so many stories about you. Are they true?' I reply, `If they are for me, you should discount 95 per cent, but if against, the whole of 100 per cent.
When I write in English I am not writing as an Indian or an Englishman. I am just a writer. Writers know no nationality.
I would also set down, as a matter of moral obligation, that I consider Kipling to be the only English writer who will have a permanent place in English literature with books on Indian themes, and who will also be read by everyone who wants to know not only British India but also timeless India.
Salvation is never the object of religious observances and worship of the Hindus. The main object is worldly prosperity, and this absorption in the world has made the doctrine of rebirth in it the most appealing and strongly held belief among all notions put forward by them about existence of life after death. They so loved the world that they made the possibility of leaving it for good even after many cycles of rebirth as remote and difficult as possible.
