Pepette Fogotti my neighbour
Myth making is ordinary people telling extraordinary stories about interesting people. That said, I shall proceed to narrate about a woman from Milan, who has been living in India for more than fifty years. (Let's call her Pepette Fogotti.) She was born in the peak years of Mussolini's fascist regime, in 1936. She came to India with the hippies in her prime and never returned. She may have visited Italy barely three times thereafter, since the late nineteen seventies. Pepette is 'self righteous'. She has the stern sort of ''rectitude" on the one hand and a need for freedom on the other. Perhaps she couldn't make the transition from totalitarian values into the post sixties cry for freedom. She wants freedom, but the habit of social restrictions of the fascist clamp has gripped her so tight that she can't break free. There is a conflict in her. She has said precious little to another human being that could be said to reflect goodwill. She defers on...