himself, when Neruda met him, was completely unsympathetic to a man
he had last met in India in the 1920s as a comrade. ‘I thought perhaps,’
Neruda noted, ‘the silent man before me had in some subtle way reverted
to a “zamindar” and was staring at me with the same indifference and
contempt he would have shown one of his barefoot peasants.’^37 Whether
Neruda had met Nehru at a time when the latter was particularly cornered
and isolated in his own party is a question worth asking.168 INTERLUDE – ENVISIONING THE NEW INDIA