In India it happens when somebody dies – perhaps an old person nobody wanted and really everybody is happy, but nobody can show their happiness. Then the professional weepers are called in. particularly in big cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and New Delhi. They even have their own association. You just give them a call, tell them how many weepers you want, and they come – and they really weep. They can defeat any real weeper because they are technically trained people, and very efficient; and they know all the tricks. They use certain medicines, putting them just below the eyes, and that is enough for the tears to start flowing. And it is a very strange phenomenon: when tears start flowing the person suddenly feels sad.

In psychology there has been a long argument, yet undecided: “Which comes first…does a man run away because of fear, or does he feel fear because he runs away?” And there are contenders for both positions. “Fear creates running,” is one position. “Running creates fear,” the other position. But in fact it is the same point; they are both together.

If you are sad, tears come. If tears come, for any reason, even chemical tears, let us call them artificial tears – then too, just because of an instinctive heritage, you will feel sad. I have seen these professional weepers really crying their hearts out, and you could not say that they are being deceitful; they may themselves be deceived.

Tears out of love are the most precious experience. You cried, I am happy…because you could have been angry, but you were not. You could have been annoyed, irritated, but you were not. You cried, that is as it should be. But remember, I will go on doing the same again and again; I have to do my work.

As a dentist you perfectly know how much it hurts, but still you have to do it. Not that you want to hurt, but you have anesthesia; you have certain gases; you can make a local part almost insensitive or you can make the whole person unconscious.

But I don’t have anything. I have to do all my surgery without any anesthetics. Just opening somebody’s stomach or brain, and without making the person unconscious, what would happen? The pain would be too much; it would kill the person, or at least drive him mad. He would jump off the table, perhaps leaving his skull behind, and run home as fast as possible; or he may even kill the doctor. But this is how my work is. There is no possibility ever to do my work in any other way.

It has to be “apparently unjust.” But you mentioned the word apparent; that’s enough to satisfy me that although it hurts, you understand my love. Let me repeat again and again so that you do not forget: I will do it again and again!

You must have been really afraid, because you write a P.S. and a P.P.S. too, saying that, “I have never even dreamed that I would be so close to you, or that this work would be given to me. I love taking notes.” And P.P.S., “Please don’t stop this work, ever.”

He must have become afraid that I may stop, thinking that it hurts him. It hurts Ashu too, although she has not written a letter – yet. But one day she will write, I predict, maybe tomorrow.