Delhi is not far – An Excerpt

In Pipalnagar there is not exactly despair, but resignation, an indifference to both living and dying. The town is almost truly reflected in the Pipalnagar Home, where in an open courtyard surrounded by mud walls a score of mental patients wander about, listless and bored. A man jabbers excitedly, but most of the inmates are quiet, sad and resentful.
Such sights depress me sometimes. The world seems crowded with unfinished lives.
‘I wonder why God ever bothered to make men, when he had the whole wide beautiful world to himself,’ I said to Suraj one summer night. ‘Why did he find it necessary to share it with others?’
‘Perhaps he felt lonely,’ said Suraj.

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Delhi is not far, Ruskin Bond