Justified and ancient

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JUSTIFIED AND ANCIENT

Justified and Ancient is a British short story written by Simon Lewis and published in 2000. It is a story, which takes place in India. Lee goes to see the president of a village near Delhi. Right from the beginning it is obvious that Lee, who is an unemployed Englishman, has no respect for the Indian mentality and the Indian people. He ignores when Punjee, his guide, warns him about the holy buildings. The only thing he thinks of is having something to eat and getting to see the president of the village. Lee seems both a little nervous and impatient. This is proven by the way he eats all the time but also by the way he plays with his lighter. Lee normally lives in the modern part of the world where the way of living is different. Therefore he has a pony-tail and he explains that he lives with a woman who allready has a child with another man.
When Lee enters the cottage where the president of the village lives he does not show him any respect either. He is untidy and he does not want to talk to the president at all. He just wants to discuss the price of the cannabis, which he is about to buy. Either Lee is used to buying this stuff or he is aware that he can negotiate the prize because he is not willing to give the prize that the president demands.
Lee also turns out to be a hypocrite. Leaving the cottage he gives his bisquits, which he does not like anyway to some hungry children, but when they ask for money he panicks: “No! said Lee. Don’t touch me! You shouldn’t touch”! (Line 139). Now he just wants to leave the village as soon as possible.
Punjee, Lee’s guide, is an Indian. He is a good friend of the president. Apparently he has some kind of agreement with the president because it is Punjee, who brings the foreigners to his cottage.
The president is a clever man. He knows that he can make a fortune selling cannabis to foreigners and he knows that he can earn even more money if he tells his knowledge to the police commissioner, Ram, who can then catch the criminal person. The woman of the village realizes this when she sees Lee at the end of the story: She knows that when Lee enters the town in the valley where Ram works Lee will be captured. So behind Punjee’s and the presidents talk about holyness and so on there is only a desire of making money. The president wants to modernize his village and he does not care how many people’s lifes he destroyes this way. In that way, Punjee and the president are just as hypocritical as Lee. This is also one of the themes of the story: It is all about money no matter what part of the world you are living in.
The title of this short story also indicates a theme. “We are justified and ancient. And we drive an ice cream va-an” (Line 36-37) a boy sings. Justified and ancient is a famous Western song and it proves the Western world’s entry in the third world. The line about the ice cream van only throws this into relief.
A Danish proverb explains another meening of this story very well: The wise person fools the less wise person. Lee arrives at this village convinced that he as a Western person will be able to fool the Indian people but he does not realize their methods.
In this way a theme is also prejudices. The Western people are convinced that other parts of the world only consist of naïve people who are easily fooled. As this short story proves this is not the case.





TRANSLATION

Five hundred years ago people did not know much about health and sanitation. In the densely populated towns you could see rats and flies that gorged themselves with all the mud and filth, that the streets were filled with. People drank water from rivers, which were used as sewers. Therefore it was not especially surprising that diseases were spread quickly.
Often the combating of diseases was left to the local barber and the treatment could be extremely brutal. Not until the introduction of effective anaesthetic the treatment became more human.

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Hejsa igen!! Mange gange tusind tak, det var sgu lækkert at få svar! Det er en af de sidste stile, og min kreativitet er helt i bund.. så jeg er meget taknemmelig!