Srikanta
Whatever may have been the tree out of which it was made, mango, jack, or any other, nobody would now call it mango or jack tree. Don't you see?'
Of course, I can now say that his instance was very childish indeed. But I know at the same time that his words contained a subtle kernel of truth hidden somewhere. Now and then he would utter such naked truths. And I have often wondered where this boy, who had learnt nothing from anyone and rather defied and transgressed the established customs and beliefs, could have got those profound truths. I believe now that I have got an answer to this question. There was not a speck of insincerity in Indra; he could not conceal or give the lie to his motives in any action. Was it not possible that this innate veracity of nature, by virtue of some hidden law, could spontaneously draw the universal truths into his individual soul? His simple, unsophisticated intelligence, by refusing all allegiance to what is known as the practical mind, could see unvarnished truth face to face. Is not such unconventionalized intelligence indeed the highest and clearest intelligence? Looked at properly, the whole universe does not reveal a scrap of untruth in its constitution. What we call untruth is but the result of our faulty understanding and imperfect explanation. If you regard gold as brass or call it brass, you are no doubt guilty of falsehood; but, for all that, what does it matter to gold or brass? Your imperfect understanding cannot change the nature of either. If you hoard brass in your safe, that does not increase its value, nor can you depreciate the value of gold by flinging it contemptuously away as brass. Nobody is responsible for your mistakes but yourself, and nobody else is affected by them. So it is not strange that Indra, who had never harboured an untruth
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