A Passage to India: Part 3, Chapter 34 Summary & Analysis

Aziz leaves the palace and runs into Godbole on the street. The Professor is still dancing in religious joy, but he manages to relay the news that Fielding may be at the European guest house. Fielding’s visit is an official one, as he is on a tour inspecting English education in the more remote regions of India. He has married, and Aziz assumes that Adela is his wife. Aziz doesn’t like thinking of Fielding, “because it disturbed his life.”

Aziz instead thinks happily about Professor Godbole, who initially got Aziz his job in Mau, and is the reason he has stayed. Aziz still has no “religious curiosity” about Hinduism, but he is very fond of Godbole now. He likes living in Mau, where the tensions are between Brahman Hindus and non-Brahman Hindus, instead of between Muslims and English. But Hinduism is just as divided as everything else in India, even though it seems so unified to outsiders. The Muslim Aziz is accepted by the community because he is so respectful.

Aziz officially works under a Hindu doctor, though he is basically the chief doctor of the Rajah’s court. Aziz has been permanently scarred by his experiences with the English, and so he originally fled to Mau to avoid them, choosing escape instead of joining committees and protesting British rule. He feels that Fielding has truly betrayed him, and they no longer speak—Fielding’s letters from Europe seemed “cold” to Aziz, and then he got the news (through Hamidullah and Mahmoud Ali) that Fielding was marrying “someone you know,” which Aziz assumes is Adela.

Since then Aziz has thrown away all of Fielding’s letters, and he feels that this is the end of a “foolish experiment.” He sometimes feels dissatisfied, remembering their old friendship and the sacrifices Fielding once made for him, but in general Aziz avoids thinking about Fielding, hates the English, and feels like a true Indian at last.

Aziz is happy in Mao, living with his children now and writing poetry. His poems generally focus on Indian women and the need to abolish the purdah, arguing that all women are necessary for India to unite and drive out the English, because “there cannot be a motherland without new homes.” Aziz is still dogged by his past trial, however, as Colonel Maggs, a local English political agent, has orders to keep an eye on him as a suspected criminal.

That night Aziz arrives home and finds a note from Fielding (passed on by Godbole) saying that Fielding, his wife, and his wife’s brother have arrived. Fielding mentions some incidents of his journey, but to Aziz the note seems similar to those all English guests seem to send: requests for special treatment and questions about schedules and advice. Aziz tears up the note, thinking angrily of Adela still trying to see “native life.” He worries that Fielding might linger for a few days because flooding has blocked many roads.