676 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
state, began to cry so loudly that I had to send him back immediately. In this state I lived in the Parsi inn impersonating a Parsi. I knew that I could not long continue this impersonation as I would be discovered some day. I was therefore trying to get a State bungalow to stay in. But the Prime Minister did not look upon my request with the same urgency. My petition went from officer to officer and before I got the final reply the day of my doom arrived.
It was 11th day of my stay in the inn. I had taken my morning meal and had dressed up and was about to step out of my room to go to office. As I was picking up some books which I had borrowed overnight for returning them to the library I heard footsteps of a considerable number of people coming up the staircase. I thought they were tourists who had come to stay and was therefore looking out to see who these friends were. Instantly I saw a dozen angry looking, tall, sturdy Parsis, each armed with a stick, coming towards my room. I realised that they were not fellow tourists and they gave proof of it immediately. They lined up in front of my room and fired a volley of questions. “Who are you ? Why did you come here ? How dare you take a parsi name ? You scoundrel! You have polluted the Parsi inn ! “I stood silent. I could give no answer. I could not persist in impersonation. It was in fact a fraud and the fraud was discovered, and I am sure if I had persisted in the game I was playing I would have been assaulted by the mob of angry and fanatic Parsis and probably doomed to death. My meekness and my silence averted this doom. One of them asked when I thought of vacating. At that time my shelter I prized more than my life. The threat implied in this question was a grave one. I therefore broke my silence and implored them to let me stay for a week at least, thinking that my application to the Minister for a bungalow would be decided upon favourably in the meantime. But the Parsis were in no mood to listen. They issued an ultimatum. They must not find me in the inn in the evening. I must pack off. They held out dire consequences and left. I was bewildered. My heart sank within me. I cursed all and wept bitterly. After all I was deprived of my precious possession—namely my shelter. It was no better than a prisoners’s cell. But it was to me very precious.