Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary

Chapter 12 opens with the narrator describing the difficulties of the disparity between his physical and inner development. Too mature looking to be admitted to kindergarten and too immature intellectually to succeed in advanced classes, he had to be home schooled. After going through a quick succession of male tutors, he met Dilly Hormuz, a twenty-five year old woman who succumbed to his manly exterior while feeding his still-forming mind. He describes their affair circumspectly and reports, in the interests of full disclosure, rumors that his mother and sisters had abused him as a baby, providing a proclivity for such activities.

The source of these rumors was his nanny, Jaya Hé. The narrator describes his relations with this moralistic, judgmental old woman, who frequently took him on outings around Bombay; and her husband, Lambajan, a former bare-knuckle boxer, who taught him...