271 It is called Blank. It has "lots of pictures and things," few words (p. 87). Its publisher explains it (by far the longest speech in the play; pp. 89-90): Let me put it this way. We live today in one world. We are all human, even the communists. Yet we are all divided and unhappy. What is the chief cause of division and unhappiness? Thinking. If we discourage thought, we shall decrease unhappiness. Modern technology has made it necessary for everybody in the world to live without thinking. Real living, the living that matters, is living by doing. The more we do the happier we are. But we cannot be doing all the time. Sometimes we relaxe We watch television^ We listen to radio or the record-player. We read magazines. Unfortunately these media, which were originally used to abolish thought or to decrease it, are often used to provoke ite As long as people think, they will come to different conclusions. These different conclusions are the true cause of division among human beingSo When humanity doesn't think, it is peacefulo Thinking divides humanity into warring groupSc In my magazine, there is no thoughto We only describe. We don't say something is good and something else is bade We merely report it« We present it. We tell our readers what is going on. They can be up-to-date, without thinking. The very latest in everything is reported, what is, what doeSo We flow along. We are happy or at least contentedo We eat, we drink, we see, we hear, we touch» Life is happening all the time, and we happen with it. We don't analysOo We don't separate one thing from another We don't make any distinction between what is important and what is unimportanto That makes for discomforto Everything that happens is important and unimportant. They merge, they become one. We merge with ito We are with it, we swing along. We happen., In that way we discourage ideas. The Hindi writer suggests that his stories "are perfectly suitable" for the magazine, as, "My critics say that they are totally without thought." Someone esle observes that "a magazine without thought will be popular with Indian women." The professor points out that it is an Indian ideal "to transcend thought, to reach a state of mind where thought is unnecessary," to which the American publisher replies, "We Americans find that too high for us. We prefer to be below thought, not above it." Perhaps the crux of this and the other plays is expressed by the American publisher when asked his magazine's central technique (po 91): "The person is depersonalized, treated as a thing, something to which something happened." It is the situation " or, as in Nalini, some "force" -- that depersonalizes, results in thoughtless types; man becomes a thing, "something to which something happened." Yet it is man's hollowness, thoughtlessness -- literally -- that makes the situation. While he may appear a mere cog, it is by his own, and his fellow's, doing.