How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Illogical poems – like their writer. Yet they struck a true note: there cannot be a mother-land without new homes. In one poem – the only one funny old Godbole liked – he had skipped over the mother-land (whom he did not truly love) and gone straight to internationality. (3.34.6)
This passage describes Aziz's attempt to step outside his Muslim identity and celebrate all of India, including all of its religious groups. Yet the only one that strikes a chord with his Hindu friend Godbole is one where Aziz doesn't celebrate India as a nation, but India as a fundamentally international entity. They're illogical poems because they're trying to describe India as an international nation – how can a country be a single nation and international at the same time? What a muddle! But Aziz's muddled poems strike a "true note" because they are in essence trying to work with the muddle, just as Forster's novel is trying to do.