Adriana Ponzoni¹

How can I provide an account as close as possible of the experience lived in India and, as if this were not enough, add the touching reality shared there with Indian analysts, working and exchanging ideas about our different realities, which perhaps are closer than one could imagine?

I was worried about and still worry a lot about, in addition to the transmission of such a singular experience, working in the kind of place from which one should do it. In “ Passage to India”, a film directed by David Lean in 1984 I found interesting clues to that purpose in the same way as in the correspondence started in 1921 between Dr.Girindrashekhar Bose and Sigmund Freud. Lean’s film took me to the book by Edgar M. Forster, “A Passage to India” (1924) on which it is based and from which it takes its name.

A newspaper article from “The Guardian”, of the 20th June 1924, cites the words of the author himself regarding the character of Ms Quested as follows: that he no longer attempts to examine, appreciate or question life, but rather to be examined, appreciated or questioned by it (He is “no longer examining life, but being examined by it”).

I think this phrase represents a good starting point from which to read the book, see the film, and understand India itself and to the psychoanalysis which has been developing there for more than 100 years. In addition it seems to be a good point for examining analytical experience and the exchanges between colleagues about those experiences. Finally, also helpful when reviewing the exchanges, no less passionate, between the institutions which host and maintain psychoanalysis in each city, country or region.

In this way from Lean and then to Forster, I found Walt Whitman 1819-1892) and his poem “Passage to India” which was included in the fifth edition of his book of poetry “Leaves of grass” between 1871 and 1872. Forster was inspired by this poem (and by his life, which in part was spent in India) and borrows its name as the title of his book.

Whitman was considered a humanist², a polemical author widely discussed in his lifetime, especially because of “Leaves of Grass” which was considered an obscene text.

According to Rolando Costa Picazo³ (2008)

“Whitman´s poem was the result of three events: the finishing of the Suez canal, which connected Europe and Asia by water; the finishing of the Union Pacific railway, which connected the east and west coasts of the USA; and the transatlantic cable which connected America to Europe”(2008, p.120).

An historic-epistemological leap is produced then from technological progress and the means of transport, that is, from science, to poetry, writing and cinema. Correspondence, exchanges, accesses and canals which generate relationships, openings and contacts.

And here I arrive at, or return to, the correspondence between these two men, Dr. G. Bose and Freud (Indian Psychoanalytical Society,1999)

Letters, which we could call, of a transferential passion, or a letter-novel, about the permanent construction of a psychoanalyst and psychoanalysis, – like many others which Freud left us, with different outcomes, but which are always contributing and renewing, in their singularity, a rich complexity in the re-reading of his work.

Letters which evoke other correspondences, such as that of Baudelaire or Flaubert in which we see also the construction of a writer and his work.

To what call does the unending solitary stalk of the writer respond?
Pascal Quignard

G. Bose then is the one who writes the first letter to Freud –which is presumed to be at the start of 1921since Freud answers on 29^th May of that year. Thus starts an exchange of correspondence -according to the existing records –which ends with Freud’s last letter of 26 December 1937.There are a total of 25 letters, 24 between them and one from Anna Freud to Dr. Bose.

Bose, who comes from a middle class family from Bengal, had studied medicine in Calcutta. At an early stage he became interested (like Freud) in hypnosis and later in psychology, which led to him to study for a masters in that subject.

The first letter which he sends to Freud is accompanied by his thesis “The concept of repression” published in Calcutta in 1921, and by means of which he obtained the title of Doctor of Science at that university. His letter is to introduce himself to Freud and ask him to read his thesis seeking his opinion.

In the preface to his thesis, which became a book, Bose (1921) had written:

“I had been keen on hypnotism in my early days, and had been practising it to therapeutic ends while yet a student for about nine years, before I came across psychoanalysis in 1909. By the end of that year I began treating patients with the psychoanalytical method. A want of knowledge of the German language rendered my work very difficult and I had to depend mainly on magazine articles and scrappy references for information. At that period there was no systematic description of psychoanalysis in any book in English. Many truths which I then found out from my analysis of patients, and which I accounted original, were in fact widely known findings as I discovered afterwards. This was both a pleasure and a disappointment to me”(p.V) .

The regret therefore of not being the “first man”, but the relief of not being alone, of not having to do the lonely journey of a pioneer.

Freud replied to the first letter and a respectful correspondence ensued, very careful and each awaiting the reply of the other. The curiosity on both sides is immediate. Freud is surprised that some of his works are being read in India.

Bose declares himself to be a fervent admirer of Freud and his work and asks him for a photograph:

“I hope you will pardon my liberty if I ask you to send me a photograph of yours. Myself, my relations and friends and a wide circle of admirers have long been eager for it. I have not as yet come across your photograph in my books, or periodical, otherwise I would not have troubled you with this request. Such a gift from your hands would have valuable association.”(1999,p.3) (second letter from Bose to Freud after Freud’s reply, 1929).

Freud puts Bose in contact with Jones in order to receive the International Journal and to publish his ideas, hoping that his papers will form part of the discussions in the psychoanalytical field. Thus Bose starts to imagine and work towards the founding of a Psychoanalytical Association of India. In January 1922 the project is ready and they apply for admission to the International Psychoanalytical Association, which application is accepted after a short time.

Meanwhile Bose still awaits receipt of Freud’s photograph and apologizes for his insistence. In one of his letters he says to Freud:

“A friend of mine, Mr. J. Sen, a celebrated Indian artist and an ardent admirer of yours, has drawn from imagination a pencil sketch which he thinks “you ought to look like”.”( Letter of 26/01/29) (p. 6).

Freud comments on this: “The imaginative portrait you sent me is very nice indeed, far too nice for the subject.”(p. 8).

Bose had already written in his preface that his encounter with the fundamental work of Freud brought him pleasure but also disappointment; he is also a discoverer and wants to be recognized as such. The interest in the photograph, to find Freud´s glance, speaks of his sensitivity, of a greediness for presence, which he recognizes and pursues with almost a certain degree of “anticipatory joy”, you could say, the image in a mirror of the one who Leclaire(1970, p.31)did not doubt in attributing a “true passion of the discoverer of enigmas”. It also speaks of his doubts…of his desire to assimilate and be assimilated⁴ and get closer to Freud, at the same time as his disquieting feelings with respect to the different other, to what is foreign. The very nature of the analytical experience writing itself and being produced in between the letters: Who is the other? “What does he want(of)me?”(“Que me veut il?”)(Lacan, J. Session of 14/11/1962, p.14)

The search for the glance.

“I am sorry I have troubled you with this long letter; my only excuse is that I want my findings to be tested in the light of your unique experience” (letter of 11 April 1929, p.18). Something about looking and being looked at, about building and being built, in the glance of the other, when he looks at me and let me look at him…in their texts, in their letters, in their photographs and in the trips which they never made: “I am too old to come over to India and very busy here. Try it the other way and come to Europe?”(letter of 1 March 1922,p.8).

Finally the long awaited photograph arrives together with a paragraph which the editor of Bose’s book had asked for to include in his next publication. Freud writes: “As my English is very deficient you are invited to change my expressions so as to fit your purpose.”

He then continues with his long awaited introduction:

“It was a great and pleasant surprise that the first book on a psychoanalytic subject which came to us from that part of the world (India) should display so good a knowledge of psychoanalysis, so deep an insight into its difficulties and so much of deep-going original thought. Dr. Bose has singled out the concept of repression for his inquiry and in treating this theoretical matter has provided us with precious suggestions and intense motives for further study. Dr. Bose is aiming at a philosophical evolution and elaboration of our crude, practical concepts and I can only wish, psychoanalysis should soon reach up the level, to which he strives to raise it” (letter of 20 February 1922,p.7)).

Bose protests, saying that he also writes from an empirical point of view, from his experience. The discussion becomes passionate, and for this very reason it opens it up and tenses. The exchange of articles and points of view on the same subject continues.

Further on, in a letter of 31 January 1929 Bose says: “I would draw your particular attention to my paper on Oedipus Wish where I have ventured to differ from you in some aspects”(p.14)

And Freud answers:

“You directed my attention on the Oedipus Wish especially and you were right in doing so. It made a great impression on me. In fact I am not convinced by your arguments. Your theory off the opposite wish appears to me to stress rather a formal element than a dynamic factor. I still think, you underrate the efficiency of the castration fear. It is interesting to note that the only mistake that I could discover in your popular essays relates to the same points (…) On the other side I never denied the connection between the castration wish with the wish to be a female nor that of the fear with the horror of becoming a female. In my “Passing of the Oedipus Complex”, I tried to introduce a new metapsychological possibility of destroying a complex by robbing it of its cathectic charge which is led into other channels besides the other idea of repressing it while its cathexis is left undiminished.
But I confess I am by no means more convinced of the validity of my own assumptions. We have not yet seen through this intricate Oedipus matter. We need more observations.” (Letter of 9 March 1929, p.16– the dark lettering is mine).

It seems to me important to stop at this point in the exchange of correspondence, far from a posittion of conviction, like a valuable pearl to maintain alive to continue advancing in our area of work. And not only in what refers to discussions on different notions of our theory but also as to what the “technique” refers to. An attempt to be closer to a less categorical and more open form of speaking, which maintains and represents the always precarious character of the analytical experience.

A correspondence which introduces one to a respectful and gradual exchange, but probably one which is problematical, which does not disguise the discrepancies or hide the differences, but rather puts them to work.

At the same time, Bose’s response to this letter talking about the “Oedipus wish”, the “wish to be a female”, the fear of castration and the “symptoms of castration”, provide very interesting ideas for the current debate about the place and importance of Oedipus in our theory, but which exceeds the purpose of the present work.

I translate:

“…Of course I do not expect that you would accept off-hand my reading of the Oedipus situation. I do not deny the importance of the castration threat in European cases; my argument is that the threat owes its efficiency to its connection with the wish to be a female. The real struggle lies between the desire to be a male and its opposite the desire to be a female. I have already referred to the fact that castration threat is very common in Indian society, but my Indian patients do not exhibit castration symptoms to such a market degree as my European cases. The desire to be a female is more easily unearthed in Indian male patients than in European. In this connection I would refer you to my paper on Homosexuality where I have discussed this question in greater detail”… (letter of 11 April 1929,p.17)

Freud’s reply does not take long to arrive:

“Thank you for your explanations. I am fully impressed by the difference in castration reaction between Indian and European patients and promise to keep my attention fixed on the problem of the opposite wish which you accentuate. This latter one is too important for a hasty decision, I am glad I have to expect another publication of yours. I wonder what the relation of the opposite wish to the phenomena of the ambivalence “may be”.”( letter of 12 May 1929,p.19).

They continue exchanging ideas, and in a letter of 1 Jan 1933, more than ten years after the start of their correspondence Freud writes:

“As regards my own judgment which you ask for, I can only give you first impressions, which are of no great value. It needs more time and effort to overcome the feeling of unfamiliarity when confronted with a theory so different from the one professed hiherto and it is not easy to get out of the accustomed ways of thinking (…) But I am not ready yet to stand up for my own objections. I am still bewildered and undecided”. (my highlights).(p.24)

These words of Freud remain with me, of the time and effort to overcome this disquieting strangeness –but I would also add how inspiring it is to go outside what is familiar to us in order to approach, not only other viewpoints on theoretical concepts in our discipline, but also to the rich legacy of legends, myths, religions and philosophies which India offers us.

As heirs of Freud we know how his dialogue with literature, philosophy, myths and religions enabled him to create and develop his ideas. I think therefore that approaching what India has to offer us in this sense can enrich the analytical experience and further develop its grounds.