A Passage to India

On the drive to the club, Adela reflects on how much Ronny’s character has changed since she knew him in England. His patronizing, rationalizing, and inexperience annoy her. “It was the qualified bray of the callow official” (86) that Ronny most often spoke with. When told of their plans to see the Marabar Caves with Aziz, Ronny first makes fun of Aziz, then forbids them from spending time with any Indian. Mrs. Moore asks to be dropped off at home; Ronny and Adela proceed to the polo match at the club.

Adela feels guilty for talking about leaving India and confronts Ronny with their need to talk things through. She explains that she has decided against marrying him. He is hurt by the news but behaves so well that Adela feels ashamed for hurting him. They promise to remain friends. They begin talking about a nearby bird, trying to guess its species, when the Nawab Bahadur offers to take them on a scenic drive to sate Adela’s notorious curiosity. They agree, though Adela finds herself suddenly disinterested. She realizes that there “had been a factitious element” (93) to her curiosity about India.

During their drive, they get into an accident with what is guessed to be an animal. Miss Derek, driving along the same road, offers a ride to Adela, Ronny, and the Nawab Bahadur, but not the servant, who is left alone with the damaged car. The adventure turns Adela’s emotions; by the time they return home, she tells Ronny that she’d like to marry him after all.

At home, they announce their engagement to Mrs. Moore, who immediately considers how quickly she can get back to England and her younger children. Ronny apologizes for his rashness and says the women can visit the caves and socialize with Indians if they wish. He leaves to look over his work files and the women play the card game Patience. They talk about the accident, and Adela asks Mrs. Moore why her first thought was that there had been a ghost.

Nawab Bahadur likewise believes a vengeful ghost was the cause of the accident. Aziz is consulted and replies that “Moslems simply must get rid of these superstitions, or India will never advance” (107). 

Aziz feigns illness after being overworked. While in bed, he hears church bells outside and thinks of the religious multiplicity in Chandrapore, drawing strength from his own devotion to Islam. He considers how to ask Major Callendar for several days’ leave to visit Calcutta and the harems there. He directs his servant, Hassan, to get rid of the flies in his bedroom before returning to thoughts of women. Aziz is baffled by “the pedantry and fuss with which Europe tabulates the facts of sex” (110).

Aziz is visited by several friends who spread the rumor that Professor Godbole is sick, possibly with cholera. The threat of the approaching summer makes Aziz and his friends anxious. Dr. Panna Lal attends Godbole, whom Aziz dismisses as being Hindu and therefore incompetent. The men praise their Muslim religion, and Aziz recites poetry until Dr. Panna Lal arrives and he must resume acting sick. The doctor is accompanied by Mr. Ram Chand and given orders from Callendar to assess Aziz’s sickness.

Dr. Panna Lal sees that Aziz is pretending but goes along with the ruse in the hopes that he may someday pretend sick and have Aziz corroborate his story. They discover the rumor of cholera to be untrue and fall to bickering. This is broken by Mr. Fielding’s arrival, who has come to check on Aziz.

The men begin questioning Mr. Fielding, first about his atheistic tendencies and then his justification for the British occupation of India, since they consider there to be no moral or religious support for imperialism. Mr. Fielding says with honesty that the average man doesn't have an excuse for being in India. 

The narrator gives an overview of Chandrapore’s society as the heat of summer begins its approach, emphasizing the inconsequential nature of humanity as compared with the vastness of the animal and natural worlds: “It matters so little to the majority of living beings what the minority, that calls itself human, desires or decides” (123). The pettiness and struggle for power exemplified in the characters of Chandrapore are made insignificant.

Summer, and its accompanying heat, fearfully anticipated by the locals. They play to migration to the cooler areas of the mountains and caves. The narrator concludes this descriptive overview by levelling the sun’s importance with the rest of humanity and nature, so that each entity is on a horizontal plane of importance.

Fielding is the last friend left in Aziz’s home. Aziz apologizes for the poor state of his home, then invites Fielding to look at the only picture he has of his late wife. Fielding becomes the first and only Englishman that has encountered the image of Aziz’s wife. Fielding is touched by this gesture of friendship, to which Aziz replies: “‘All men are my brothers, and as soon as one behaves as such he may see my wife’” (125). They discuss Mrs. Moore and Adela, whom Aziz considers won’t last long in India given the other English women he has known.

Aziz has trouble understanding why Fielding remains unmarried and childless; perpetuating one’s family name is essential to his culture. Fielding tells Aziz that Adela is now engaged to Ronny, which Aziz takes as a sign that he won’t have to entertain the women at the Marabar Caves. By remaining unmarried, Fielding believes that he has secured for himself a degree of freedom in his daily life, but Aziz is too deeply “rooted in society and Islam” (131) for him to ever fully renounce convention.

Before Fielding leaves, Aziz requests that he come to him if he ever needs help. Their friendship solidifies.