THERE is an infection, and its name is violence. Its life is long.

It has probably been long in our awareness, coming from the Bharatayudha battle scene when Bima not only kills Dursasana, but gulps the blood of the Kurawas who many years before had attempted to rape Drupadi. Or from the Old Testament, with its doctrine of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth": Or from Elektra's bitter revenge in the ancient Greek drama of Soph