The Vanity of the Rat by Y. T. Pyun (Criticism)

The Vanity of the Rat reflects the tradition of Korean arranged-marriage. In order to have a better future and benefactor, the parents are the one prospecting for the daughter’s fiance. It is quite interesting, and a bit humoristic, that a rat would want to pair his daughter to someone not of their kind.

– Ferdinand Babaran

Reena’s parents are so materialistic and shallow-minded and upon seeing her parents’ attitude Reena should really be embarrassed of them. After the search for a rich and powerful husband for Reena, her parents were gullibly led to arrange her marriage to another rat. Reena’s parents were so hell-bent finding an absolutely powerful husband for her but ends up arranging with another of their kind.

– Erickson Diano

Once upon a Time by Gabriel Okara

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed
they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

So show me, son,
how to laugh; show me how
I used to laugh and smile
once upon a time when I was like you.

Once upon a Time (Criticism)

The poem talks about the youth of the old man, his ‘glory days’ and how it was during his times. It also shows the hospitality of the townsfolk during those times, and how the father became who he was now, talking to the son. The poem was good, detailed and inspiring.

– Ferdinand Babaran

The poem narrates that people changed because the people used to be kind with warm hearts but, as time passes, they became hypocrites and takes advantage of others. People became different than they used to be and became wicked and corrupt.

– Erickson Diano

My Thai Cat by Pratoomratha Zeng

Sii Sward was our Thai or Siamese cat in my hometown, Muang, a northern village in Thailand. She was a gift to me from my father when I was five years old. She had piercing blue eyes and delicate brown fur which she constantly cleaned with her tongue. I was completely devoted to her. She was also very popular with my entire family, an later was to be well – known in the whole district.

During the drought in 1925, our Sii Sward was a heroine; she had the great honor of being elected the Rain Queen.

We had been without rain for three months that summer. It was hot and dry. Our public well was reduced to mud; the river was at its lowest ebb.

Then someone suggested that we perform the old Brahmo – Buddhist rain ceremony called the Nang Maaw, the queen of the cats. This ceremony had been performed by the peasants since immemorial.

That day my father approached me and my cat seriously. He patted Sii Sward’s head gently and said to me, “Ai Noo (my little mouse), the villagers have asked me to help in the ceremony for the rain. I promised them to use our cat- your Sii Sward.”

I was stunned. How could they use my cat to get the rain? I thought of those chickens that the Chinese killed and boiled during the Annual Trut – Chine, the Chinese ritual days for sacrificing to and honouring the memory of their ancestors. To have my cat killed and boiled like a chicken? Oh, no.

I almost shout to protest, “Oh, no Father, I cannot let anyone kill my Sii Sward rain or no rain. I don’t care.”

In the Thai family, the father is the sole absolute authority of the house; to deny his wish is sinful and inexcusable. My father however, was very understanding man. He looked at me coldly and said calmly: “Son, no one is going to kill Sii Sward. Instead of doing that, an because our cat is the most beautiful and cleanest of all the cats in the village, she was elected by the people to be the Rain Queen of our district. This is a great honor to her and to our family.”

I was reluctant to consent until Father said, “ We can take Sii Sward back home as soon as the ceremony is over.”

Two artists built up a big bamboo cage and the people fastened flowers and leaves to it and dressed it up until it looked like a miniature castle.

At noontime, my cat Sii Sward had her usual lunch of dry mudfish and rice, then my father gave me the great honor of carrying her to the temple ground. Some old ladies brushed and sprayed sweet native perfume upon her proud head. Sii Sward protested vehemently; she struggled to get away, and I had to put her head into the adorned cage.

In spite of the heat and the sun that day, people packed into the monastery to se Sii Sward, the Rain Queen, and to pray for the rain.

In the mid – afternoon the sun was so hot that the villagers took refuge under the shade of the big mango and Po trees on the temple ground. A group of people began to chant the Nang Maaw song, softly at first, then louder an louder until everyone seemed to shout. Long native drums, taphone, began to beat in chorus.

It was a most impressive ceremony which made me feel warm and confident of the Queen’s powers.

Sii Sward slept all the way; she was not impressed by the demonstration. Before we entered the open marketplace there was so much noise; someone fired many big firecrackers. A few women who were traders in powder and perfumes approached the cage and poured cups of sweet – smelling perfume and flowers onto the poor Rain Queen. At this moment, the noise of the frantic shouting, of chanting, of firecrackers, and that perfumed water proved to be too much for the poor Sii Sward. More water and perfume water proved to be too much for the poor Sii Sward. More water and perfume were poured and splashed into the cage. Sii Swward stood up, her blue eyes at the culprits. Her brown and smooth hair was soaking wet. She began to cry and tried to find a way to escape in vain.

Seeing the whole condition going from bad to worse, I was almost crying, asking Father to rescue the poor cat. Howeer, Father said everything would be all right. After a while, everyone seemed to be satisfied giving the Rain Queen perfumes; they stopped the noise completely as if to listen to the tormented noise of the Rain Queen. At that moment Sii Sward stopped crying, too. She was soaking wet and trembling with fear.

People chanted softly as they led the procession back to the monastery, even the drummers and the two men, who ten minutes ago were chanting frantically, now calmed down.

When we reached the Vihara, the men placed the cage in front o the temple, and then all of them wento the Vihara to pray for the rain goddess again. At this moment, I saw the opportunity to help my poor Sii Sward. Having seen the last person enter the temple, I took Sii Sward out of the cage and ran home with her.

It must have been about three o’clock in the morning when a sound like a train running and a big hurricane was heard. Later there was a strong sound of thunder over the mountains, and a few minutes later, a shower, a real tropical shower, came down. Everyone on the village got up from his or her bed. We were happy. The farmers started at once to their farms. It rained for three days, and three nights, and it seemed as if the showers would never stop until the water in the sky would be gone. Our crops were saved.

But Sii Sward ignore the rain. She slept happily the whole three days. Farmers and their families dropped in to see her afterward. They patted her delicate fur and left dry fish and meat for her, her favourite food. That year, the farmers thought that Sii Sward was a heroine.

My Thai Cat (Criticism)

The story is set on a hot summer day where drought struck Muang, Thailand. In order to bring forth rain, the townsfolk will parade a cat dressed as a rain goddess throughout the village. Sii Sward was, unfortunately, chosen to be the dressed cat. This is where friendship and master-pet love comes in, where Zeng, drawn to pity for the cat, took her home and pampered her the way it should be. The ending is a bit coincidental as rain poured during the night, and the townsfolk thought that Sii Sward brought forth the rain.

– Ferdinand Babaran

During the parade, the poor cat was ‘tortured’ inside the small cage. I can sympathize with the narrator how he felt when his cat was shivering from cold because the cat hates being wet. I can really see the bond between the narrator and his cat.

– Erickson Diano

The Duel between the Elephant and the Sparrow by Panchatantra

In a dense bit of jungle lived a sparrow and his wife, who had built their nest on the branch of a tamal tree, and in course of time a family appeared.

Now one day a jungle elephant with the spring fever was distressed by the heat, and came beneath that tamal tree in search of shade. Blinded by his fever, he pulled with the tip of his trunk at the branch where the sparrows had their nest, and broke it. In the process the sparrows’ eggs were crushed, though the parent-birds further life being predestined barely escaped death.

Then the hen-sparrow lamented, desolate with grief at the death of her chicks. And presently, hearing her lamentation, a woodpecker bird, a great friend of hers, came grieved at her grief, and said: “My dear friend, why lament in vain? For the Scripture says:

For lost and dead and past

The wise have no laments:

Between the wise and fools

Is just this difference.

“That is good doctrine,” said the hen-sparrow, “but what of it? This elephant curse his spring fever! killed my babies. So if you are my friend, think of some plan to kill this big elephant. If that were done, I should feel less grief at the death of my children. “Madam,” said the woodpecker, “your remark is very true. For the proverb says:

A friend in need is a friend indeed,

Although of different caste;

The whole world is your eager friend

So long as riches last.

“Now see what my wit can devise. But you must know that I, too, have a friend, a gnat called Lute-Buzz. I will return with her, so that this villainous beast of an elephant may be killed.”

So he went with the hen-sparrow, found the gnat, and said: “Dear madam, this is my friend the hensparrow. She is mourning because a villainous elephant smashed her eggs. So you must lend your assistance while I work out a plan for killing him.”

“My good friend,” said the gnat, “there is only one possible answer. But I also have a very intimate friend, a frog named Cloud-Messenger. Let us do the right thing by calling him into consultation. For the proverb says:

So all three went together and told Cloud-Messenger the entire story. And the frog said: “How feeble a thing is that wretched elephant when pitted against a great throng enraged! Gnat, you must go and buzz in his fevered ear, so that he may shut his eyes in delight at hearing your music. Then the woodpecker’s bill will peck out his eyes. After that I will sit on the edge of a pit and croak. And he, being thirsty, will hear me, and will approach expecting to find a body of water. When he comes to the pit, he will fall in and perish.”

When they carried out the plan, the fevered elephant shut his eyes in delight at the song of the gnat, was blinded by the woodpecker, wandered thirst-smitten at noonday, followed the croak of a frog, came to a great pit, fell in, and died.

“And that is why I say:

“Woodpecker and sparrow

With froggy and gnat,

Attacking en masse, laid

The elephant flat.”

The Duel Between the Elephant and the Sparrow (Criticism)

The fable talks on revenge and how small creatures can bring down a giant problem. It teaches us never to underestimate the power of teamwork. It also applies the quotation “vengeance is a dish best served cold” as the four animals cold-heartedly killed an  elephant who almost died of heatstroke in the first place.

– Ferdinand Babaran

The story was a little too shallow and have no clear value but mainly on revenge. It showed poetic justice in  how the elephant was killed by the cooperation of the characters in the story.

– Erickson Diano

Karma by Khushwant Singh

Sir Mohan Lal looked at himself in the mirror of a first class waiting room at the railway station. The mirror was obviously made in India. The red oxide at its back had come off at several places and long lines of translucent glass cut across its surface. Sir Mohan smiled at the mirror with an air of pity and patronage.

‘You are so very much like everything else in this country, inefficient, dirty, indifferent,’ he murmured.

The mirror smiled back at Sir Mohan.

‘You are a bit of all right, old chap,’ it said. ‘Distinguished, efficient – even handsome. That neatly-trimmed moustache – the suit from Saville Row with the carnation in the buttonhole – the aroma of eau de cologne, talcum powder and scented soap all about you ! Yes, old fellow, you are a bit of all right.’

Sir Mohan threw out his chest, smoothed his Balliol tie for the umpteenth time and waved a goodbye to the mirror.

He glanced at his watch. There was still time for a quick one.

‘Koi Hai !’

A bearer in white livery appeared through a wire gauze door.

‘Ek Chota,’ ordered Sir Mohan, and sank into a large cane chair to drink and ruminate.
Outside the waiting room, Sir Mohan Lal’s luggage lay piled along the wall. On a small grey steel trunk, Lachmi, Lady Mohan Lal, sat chewing a betel leaf and fanning herself with a newspaper. She was short and fat and in her middle forties.

She wore a dirty white sari with a red border. On one side of her nose glistened a diamond nose-ring, and she had several gold bangles on her arms. She had been talking to the bearer until Sir Mohan had summoned him inside. As soon as he had gone, she hailed a passing railway coolie.

‘Where does the zenana stop ?’
‘Right at the end of the platform.’
The coolie flattened his turban to make a cushion, hoisted the steel trunk on his head, and moved down the platform. Lady Lal picked up her brass tiffin carrier and ambled along behind him. On the way she stopped by a hawker’s stall to replenish her silver betel leaf case, and then joined the coolie. She sat down on her steel trunk (which the coolie had put down) and started talking to him.

“Are the trains very crowded on these lines ?”
‘These days all trains are crowded, but you’ll find room in the zenana.’
‘Then I might as well get over the bother of eating.’
Lady Lal opened the brass carrier and took out a bundle of cramped chapatties and some mango pickle. While she ate, the coolie sat opposite her on his haunches, drawing lines in the gravel with his finger.

‘Are you travelling alone, sister ?’
‘No, I am with my master, brother. He is in the waiting room. He travels first class. He is a vizier and a barrister, and meets so many officers and Englishmen in the trains – and I am only a native woman. I can’t understand English and don’t know their ways, so I keep to my zenana inter-class.’

Lachmi chatted away merrily. She was fond of a little gossip and had no one to talk to at home. Her husband never had any time to spare for her. She lived in the upper storey of the house and he on the ground floor. He did not like her poor illiterate relatives hanging around his bungalow, so they never came. He came up to her once in a while at night and stayed for a few minutes. He just ordered her about in anglicised Hindustani, and she obeyed passively. These nocturnal visits had, however, borne no fruit.

The signal came down and the clanging of the bell announced the approaching train. Lady Lal hurriedly finished off her meal. She got up, still licking the stone of the pickled mango. She emitted a long, loud belch as she went to the public tap to rinse her mouth and wash her hands. After washing she dried her mouth and hands with the loose end of her sari, and walked back to her steel trunk, belching and thanking the Gods for the favour of a filling meal.

The train steamed in. Lachmi found herself facing an almost empty inter-class zenana compartment next to the guard’s van, at the tail end of the train. The rest of the train was packed. She heaved her squat, bulky frame through the door and found a seat by the window. She produced a two-anna bit from a knot in her sari and dismissed the coolie. She then opened her betel case and made herself two betel leaves charged with a red and white paste, minced betelnuts and cardamoms. These she thrust into her mouth till her cheeks bulged on both sides. Then she rested her chin on her hands and sat gazing idly at the jostling crowd on the platform.
The arrival of the train did not disturb Sir Mohan Lal’s sang-froid. He continued to sip his scotch and ordered the bearer to tell him when he had moved the luggage to a first class compartment. Excitement, bustle and hurry were exhibitions of bad breeding, and Sir Mohan was eminently well-bred. He wanted everything ‘tickety-boo’ and orderly. In his five years abroad, Sir Mohan had acquired the manners and attitudes of the upper classes. He rarely spoke Hindustani. When he did, it was like an Englishman’s – only the very necessary words and properly anglicised. But he fancied his English, finished and refined at no less a place than the University of Oxford. He was fond of conversation, and like a cultured Englishman, he could talk on almost any subject – books, politics, people. How frequently had he heard English people say that he spoke like an Englishman !

Sir Mohan wondered if he would be travelling alone. It was a Cantonment and some English officers might be on the train. His heart warmed at the prospect of an impressive conversation. He never showed any sign of eagerness to talk to the English as most Indians did. Nor was he loud, aggressive and opinionated like them. He went about his business with an expressionless matter-of-factness. He would retire to his corner by the window and get out a copy of The Times. He would fold it in a way in which the name of the paper was visible to others while he did the crossword puzzle. The Times always attracted attention. Someone would like to borrow it when he put it aside with a gesture signifying ‘I’ve finished with it.’ Perhaps someone would recognize his Balliol tie which he always wore while travelling. That would open a vista leading to a fairy-land of Oxford colleges, masters, dons, tutors, boat-races and rugger matches. If both The Times and the tie failed, Sir Mohan would ‘Koi Hai’ his bearer to get the Scotch out. Whiskey never failed with Englishmen. Then followed Sir Mohan’s handsome gold cigarette case filled with English cigarettes. English cigarettes in India ? How on earth did he get them ? Sure he didn’t mind ? And Sir Mohan’s understanding smile – of course he didn’t. But could he use the

Englishman as a medium to commune with his dear old England ? Those five years of grey bags and gowns, of sports blazers and mixed doubles, of dinners at the inns of Court and nights with Piccadilly prostitutes. Five years of a crowded glorious life. Worth far more than the forty-five in India with his dirty, vulgar countrymen, with sordid details of the road to success, of nocturnal visits to the upper storey and all-too-brief sexual acts with obese old Lachmi, smelling of sweat and raw onions.

Sir Mohan’s thoughts were disturbed by the bearer announcing the installation of the Sahib’s luggage in a first class coupe next to the engine. Sir Mohan walked to his coupe with a studied gait. He was dismayed. The compartment was empty. With a sigh he sat down in a corner and opened the copy of ‘The Times’, he had read several times before.

Sir Mohan looked out of the window down the crowded platform. His face lit up as he saw two English soldiers trudging along, looking in all the compartments for room. They had their haversacks slung behind their backs and walked unsteadily. Sir Mohan decided to welcome them, even though they were entitled to travel only second class. He would speak to the guard.
One of the soldiers came up to the last compartment and stuck his face through the window. He surveyed the compartment and noticed the unoccupied berth.

‘Ere, Bill, he shouted, ‘one ere.’
His companion came up, also looked in, and looked at Sir Mohan.
‘Get the nigger out,’ he muttered to his companion.
They opened the door , and turned to the half-smiling, half-protesting Sir Mohan.
‘Reserved !’ yelled Bill.

‘Janta – Reserved. Army – Fauj,’ exclaimed Jim, pointing to his khaki shirt.
‘Ek Dum jao – get out !”

‘I say, I say, surely,’ protested Sir Mohan in his Oxford accent. The soldiers paused. It almost sounded like English, but they knew better than to trust their inebriated ears. The engine whistled and the guard waved his green flag.

They picked up Sir Mohan’s suitcase and flung it on to the platform. Then followed his thermos flask, briefcase, bedding and The Times. Sir Mohan was livid with rage.
‘Preposterous, preposterous,’ he shouted, hoarse with anger.
I’ll have you arrested – guard, guard !’

Bill and Jim paused again. It did sound like English, but it was too much of the King’s for them.
‘Keep yer ruddy mouth shut !’ And Jim struck Sir Mohan flat on the face.
The engine gave another short whistle and the train began to move. The soldiers caught Sir Mohan by the arms and flung him out of the train. He reeled backwards, tripped on his bedding, and landed on the suitcase.

‘Toodle-oo !’
Sir Mohan’s feet were glued to the earth and he lost his speech. He stared at the lighted windows of the train going past him in quickening tempo. The tail-end of the train appeared with a red light and the guard standing in the open doorway with the flags in his hands.
In the inter-class zenana compartment was Lachmi, fair and fat, on whose nose the diamond nose-ring glistened against the station lights. Her mouth was bloated with betel saliva which she had been storing up to spit as soon as the train had cleared the station. As the train sped past the lighted part of the platform, Lady Lal spat and sent a jet of red dribble flying across like a dart.

Karma (Criticism)

Karma is a belief among the Indians that whatever you do will almost comeback to you in ten folds. Unfortunately for Mohan Lal, his arrogance and ignorance to both his social status and his appearance led to his downfall and humiliation. Always having the pride that he studied in London and had a British accent, he eventually met his moment of karma, in  the hands of two drunk British soldiers.

– Ferdinand Babaran

Mohan Lal’s proud and egocentric attitude plus his colonial mentality made him deserve to be left by the train. In this story, I realized the atrocity of colonial mentality and of and egocentric attitude which gives a good lesson to ponder and how justice is done poetically. The story also gave me a glimpse of a typical Indian scenario.

– Erickson Diano

The Man from Kabul by Rabindranath Tagore

My five-year-old daughter Mini can’t stop talking for a minute. It only took her a year to learn to speak, after coming into the world, and ever since she has not wasted a minute of her waking hours by keeping silent. Her mother often scolds her and makes her shut up, but I can’t do that. When Mini is quiet, it is so unnatural that I cannot bear it. So her chattering gets quite a lot of encouragement from me.

One morning, as I was starting the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Mini came up to me and said, ‘Father, Ramdoyal the gatekeeper calls a crow a kauya instead of a kak. He doesn’t know anything, does he!’

Before I had a chance to enlighten her about the multiplicity of languages in the world, she brought up another subject. ‘Guess what, Father, Bhola says it rains when an elephant in the sky squirts water through its trunk. What nonsense he talks! He teases me, he teases me all day long.’

Without waiting for my opinion on this matter either, she suddenly asked, ‘Father, what relation is Mother to you?’

‘Good question,’ I said to myself, but to Mini I said, ‘Run off and play with Bhola. I’ve got work to do.’

But she then sat down near my feet beside my writing-table, and, slapping her knees legan to recite ‘agdum bagdum’ at top speed. The hero of my seventeenth chapter, Pratap Singh, was meanwhile taking a niL,@,ht-time plunge into the river from the high window of his prison, with the Golden Garland in his hand.

My study looks out on to the road. Mini suddenly abandoned the ‘agdum bagdum’ game, ran over to the window and shouted, ‘Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah!’

Dressed in dirty baggy clothes, pugree on his head, bag hanging from his shoulder, and with three or four boxes of grapes in his hands, a tall Kabuliwallah was ambling along the road. It was hard to say exactly what thoughts the sight of him had put into my beloved daughter’s mind, but she hailed him most enthusiastically. That swinging bag spells danger, I thought: my seventeenth chapter won’t get finished today. But just as the Kabuliwallah, attracted by Mini’s shouts, looked towards us with a smile and started to approach our house, Mini gasped and ran into the inner rooms, disappearing from view. She had a blind conviction that if one looked inside that swinging bag one would find three or four live children like her.

Meanwhile the Kabuliwallah came up to the window and smilingly salaamed. I decided that although the plight of Pratap Singh and the Golden Garland was extremely critical, it would be churlish not to invite the fellow inside and buy something from him.

I bought something. Then I chatted to him for a bit. We talked about Abdur Rahman’s efforts to preserve the integrity of Afghanistan against the Russians and the British. When he got up to go, he asked, ‘Babu, where did your little girl go?’

To dispel her ungrounded fears, I called Mini to come out. She clung to me and looked suspiciously at the Kabuliwallah and his bag. The Kabuliwallah took some raisins and apricots out and offered them to her, but she would not take them, and clung to my knees with doubled suspicion. Thus passed her first meeting with the Kabuliwallah.

A few days later when for some reason I had to go out of the house one morning, I saw my daughter sitting on a bench in front of the door, nattering unrestrainedly; and the Kabuliwallah was sitting at her feet listening – grinning broadly, and from time to time making comments in his hybrid sort of Bengali. In all her five years of life, Mini had never found so patient a listener, apart from her father. I also saw that the fold of her little sari was crammed with raisins and nuts. I said to the Kabuliwallah, ‘Why have you given all these? Don’t give her any more.’ I then took a half-rupee out of my pocket and gave it to him. He unhesitatingly took the coin and put it in his bag.

When I returned home, I found that this half-rupee had caused a full-scale row. Mini’s mother was holding up a round shining object and saying crossly to Mini, ‘Where did you get this half rupee from?’

‘The Kabuliwallah gave it to me,’ said Mini.

‘Why did you take it from the Kabuliwallah?’ said her mother.

‘I didn’t ask for it,’ said Mini tearfully. ‘He gave it to me himself.’

I rescued Mini from her mother’s wrath, and took her outside. I learnt that this was not just the second time that Mini and the Kabuliwallah had met: he had been coming nearly every day and, by bribing her eager little heart with pistachio-nuts, had quite won her over. I found that they now had certain fixed jokes and routines: for example as soon as Mini saw Rahamat, she giggled and asked, ‘Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah, what have you got in your bag?’ Rahamat would laugh back and say – giving the word a peculiar nasal twang – ‘An elephant.’ The notion of an elephant in his bag was the source of immense hilarity; it might not be a very subtle joke, but they both seemed to find it very funny, and it gave me pleasure to see, on an autumn morning, a young child and a grown man laughing so innocently.

They had a couple of other jokes. Rahamat would say to Mini, ‘Little one, don’t ever go off to your ‘svasur-bari.’ Most Bengali girls grow up hearing frequent references to their svasur-bari, but my wife and I are rather progressive people and we don’t keep talking to our young daughter about her future marriage. She therefore couldn’t clearly understand what Rahamat meant; yet to remain silent and give no reply was wholly against her nature, so she would turn the idea round and say, ‘Are you going to your svasur-bari?’ Shaking his huge fist at an imaginary father-in-law Rahamat said, ‘I’ll settle him!’ Mini laughed merrily as she imagined the fate awaiting this unknown creature called a svasur.

It was perfect autumn weather. In ancient times, kings used to set out on their world-conquests in autumn. I have never been away from Calcutta; precisely because of that, my-mind roves all over the world. I never seem to stir from my house, but I constantly yearn for the world outside. If I hear the name of a foreign land, at once my heart races towards it; and if I see a foreigner, at once an image of a cottage on some far bank or wooded mountainside forms in my mind, and I think of the free and pleasant life I would lead there. At the same time, I am such a rooted sort of individual that if I ever left my familiar spot it would be the end of me. So to sit each morning at my table in my little study, chatting with this Kabuliwallah, was quite enough wandering for me. High, scorched, blood-coloured, forbidding mountains on either side of a narrow desert path; laden camels passing; turbaned merchants and wayfarers, some on camels, some walking, some with spears in their hands, some with old-fashioned flintlock guns: my friend would talk of his native land in his booming, broken Bengali, and a mental picture of it would pass before my eyes.

Mini’s mother is very easily alarmed. The slightest noise in the street makes her think that all the world’s drunkards are charging straight at our house. She cannot dispel from her mind – despite her experience of life (which isn’t great) – the apprehension that the world is overrun with thieves, bandits, drunkards, snakes, tigers, malaria, caterpillars, cockroaches and white-skinned marauders. She was not too happy about Rahamat the Kabuliwallah. She repeatedly told me to keep a close eye on him. If I tried to laugh off her suspicions, she would launch into a succession of questions: ‘So do people’s children never go missing? And is there no slavery in Afghanistan? Is it completely impossible for a huge Afghan to kidnap a little child?’ I had to admit that it was not impossible, but I found it hard to believe. People have different degrees of belief; this was why my wife was so afraid. But I still saw nothing wrong in letting Rahamat come to our house.

Every year, about the middle of the month of Magh, Rahamat went home. He was always very busy before he left, collecting money owed to him. He had to go from house to house; but he still made time to visit Mini. To see them together, one might well suppose that they were plotting something. If he couldn’t come in the morning he would come in the evening; to see his lanky figure approach the darkened house, with his baggy pyjamas hanging loosely around him, was a little frightening. But my heart would light up as Mini ran out to meet him, smiling and calling, ‘O Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah,’ and the usual innocent jokes passed between the two friends, unequal in age though they were.

One morning I was sitting in my little study correcting proofsheets. The last days of winter had been very cold, with frost everywhere. The morning sun was shining through the window on to mv feet below my table, and this touch of warmth was very pleasant. It must have been about eight o’clock – early morning walkers, swathed in scarves, had mostly finished their dawn stroll and had returned to their homes. It was then that there was a sudden disturbance in the street.

I looked out and saw Rahamat in handcuffs, being marched along by two policemen, and behind him a crowd of curious boys. Rahamat’s clothes were blood-stained, and one of the policemen was holding a blood-soaked knife. I went outside and stopped him, asking what was up. I heard partly from him and partly from Rahamat himself that a neighbour of ours had owed Rahamat something for a Rampuri chadar; he had tried to lie his way out of the debt, and in the ensuing brawl Rahamat had stabbed him.

Rahamat was mouthing various unrepeatable curses against the lying debtor, when Mini ran out of the house calling, ‘Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah.’ For a moment Rahamat’s face lit up with pleasure. He had no bag over his shoulder today, so they couldn’t have their usual discussion about it. Mini came straight out with her ‘Are you going to vour svasur-bari?’

‘Yes, I’m going there now,’ said . Rahamat with a smile. But when he saw that his reply had alarmed Mini, he b*****shed his fist and said, ‘I would have killed my svasur, but how can I with these handcuffs on?’

Rahamat was convicted of assault, and sent to prison for several years. We virtually forgot about him. Living at home, carrying on day by day with our accustomed tasks, we gave no thought to how a free-spirited mountain-dweller was passing his years behind prison-walls. As for the capricious Mini, even her father would have to admit that her behaviour was not very praiseworthy. She swiftly forgot him. At first Nabi Sahis replaced him in her affections; later, as she grew up, girls rather than little boys became her favourite companions. She was not often seen in her father’s writing-room now. I became rather remote from her.

Several years went by. It was autumn again. Mini’s marriage had been decided, and the wedding was fixed for the puja-holiday. Our pride and joy would soon, like Durga going to Mount Kailas, darken her parents’ house by moving to her husband’s. . It was a most beautiful morning. Sunlight, washed clean by autumn rains, seemed to cover everything with the gold of pure love. Its radiance lent an extraordinary grace to Calcutta’s backstreets, with their tumbledown, jam-packed, unremitting dwellings. The stindi started to play in our house before night was over. Its plaintive vibrations seemed to well up from my chest, resound inside my rib-cage. Its sad Bhairavi- raga seemed, like the autumn sunshine, to fill the whole world with the grief of imminent separation. Today my Mini would be married.

From dawn on there was uproar, endless coming and going. A bevy of people worked in the yard of the house, binding bamboo poles together to erect a canopy; in the rooms and verandahs brooms swished and scratched; the shouting was continuous.

I was sitting in my study doing accounts, when Rahamat suddenly appeared and salaamed before me. At first I didn’t recognize him. He had no bag, he had lost his long hair; his former vigour had gone. But when he smiled, I recognized him.

‘How are you, Rahamat?’ I said. ‘When did you come?’ ‘I, was let out of prison yesterday evening,’ he replied.

His words took me aback. I had never confronted a would-be murderer before; seeing him made me all nervous inside. I began to feel that on this auspicious morning it would be better to have the man out of the way. ‘There’s something happening in our house today,’ I said. ‘I’m rather busy. Please go now.’

He was ready to go at once, but just as he reached the door he hesitated a little and said, ‘Can’t I see your little girl for a moment?’

It seemed he thought that Mini was still just as she was when he had known her: that she would come running as before, calling ‘Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah!’; that their old merry banter would resume. He had even brought (remembering their old friendship) a box of grapes and a few pistachio-nuts wrapped in paper – extracted, no doubt, from some Afghan friend of his, having no bag of his own now.

‘There’s something happening in the house today,’ I said. ‘You can’t see anyone.’

He looked rather crestfallen. He stood silently for a moment longer, casting a solemn ,,lance at me; then, saying ‘Babu salaam’, he walked towards the door. I felt a bit ashamed. I thought of calling him back, but then I saw that he himself was returning.

‘I brought this box of grapes and these pistachio-nuts for the little one,’ he said. ‘Please give them to her.’ Taking them from him, I was about to pay him for them when he suddenly gripped my arm and said, ‘Please, don’t give me any money – I shall always be grateful, Babu. Just as you have a daughter, so do I have one, in my own country. It is with her in mind that I have come with a few raisins for your daughter: I haven’t come to trade with you.’

Then he put a hand inside his big loose shirt and took out from somewhere close to his heart a dirty piece of paper. Unfolding it very carefully, he spread it out on my table. There was a small handprint on the paper: not a photograph, not a painting – the hand had been rubbed with some soot and pressed down on to the paper. Every year Rahamat carried this memento of his daughter with him when he came to sell raisins in Calcutta’s streets: as if the touch of that soft, small, childish hand brought solace to his huge, homesick breast. My eyes swam at the sight of it. I forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I was a Bengali Babu. I understood then that he was as I am, t at e was a father just as I am a father. The handprint of his little mountain-dwelling Parvati reminded me of my own Mini.

At once I sent for her from the women’s quarter of the house. Objections came back: I refused to listen to them. Mini, dressed as a bride – sandal-paste on her brow, red’sarl – came timidly into the room and stood before me.

The Kabuliwallah was confused at first when he saw her: he couldn’t bring himself to utter his old greeting. But at last he smiled and said, ‘Little one, are you going to your svasur-bari?’ Mini now knew the meaning of svasur-bari; she couldn’t reply as before – she blushed at Rahamat’s question and looked away. I recalled the day when Mini and the Kabuliwallah had first met. My heart ached.

Mini left the room, and Rahamat, sighing deeply, sat down on the floor. He suddenly understood clearly that his own daughter would have grown up too since he last saw her, and with her too he would have to be reintroduced: he would not be able to greet her as he had always done before. Who knew what had happened to her these eight years? In the cool autumn morning sunshine the sanai went on playing, and Rahamat sat in a Calcutta lane and pictured to himself the barren mountains of Afghanistan.

I went out and gave him a banknote. ‘Rahamat,’ I said, ‘go back to your homeland and your daughter; by your blessed reunion, Mini will be blessed.’

By giving him this money, I had to trim certain items from the wedding-festivities. I wasn’t able to afford the electric lights I had planned, and the military band did not come. The womenfolk .were very displeased at this; but for me, the wedding was bathed in a kinder, more beneficent light.

The Man from Kabul (Criticism)

The story displays fatherly love and friendship at the same time, both between the protagonist’s daughter and the merchant from Kabul. Fatherly, to the fact that he sees his daughter in Mini’s persona. The plot is good, and the ending is a bit eye-teary, that the Kabuliwalla Rahman forgot that his own daughter is already a lady, and Tagore, though run short for his charity, has helped a man find his way back to his country.

– Ferdinand Babaran

Rahman was a good father and a good man because he keeps his daughter’s hand print and the way he befriended Mini and gave her gifts. He is also fond of children and likes to talk to Mini whenever he visits. He was driven by poverty, thus committed a criminal act when he attacked a man who refused to pay him. Mini and Rahman’s meeting after his release from prison is a very melancholic sight, for their friendship did not last long.

– Erickson Diano

My Lord, the Baby

I

Raicharan was twelve years old when he came as a servant to his master’s house. He belonged to the same caste as his master, and was given his master’s little son to nurse. As time went on the boy left Raicharan’s arms to go to school. From school he went on to college, and after college he entered the judicial service. Always, until he married, Raicharan was his sole attendant.

But, when a mistress came into the house, Raicharan found two masters instead of one. All his former influence passed to the new mistress. This was compensated for by a fresh arrival. Anukul had a son born to him, and Raicharan by his unsparing attentions soon got a complete hold over the child. He used to toss him up in his arms, call to him in absurd baby language, put his face close to the baby’s and draw it away again with a grin.

Presently the child was able to crawl and cross the doorway. When Raicharan went to catch him, he would scream with mischievous laughter and make for safety. Raicharan was amazed at the profound skill and exact judgment the baby showed when pursued. He would say to his mistress with a look of awe and mystery: “Your son will be a judge some day.”

New wonders came in their turn. When the baby began to toddle, that was to Raicharan an epoch in human history. When he called his father Ba-ba and his mother Ma-ma and Raicharan Chan-na, then Raicharan’s ecstasy knew no bounds. He went out to tell the news to all the world.

After a while Raicharan was asked to show his ingenuity in other ways. He had, for instance, to play the part of a horse, holding the reins between his teeth and prancing with his feet. He had also to wrestle with his little charge, and if he could not, by a wrestler’s trick, fall on his back defeated at the end, a great outcry was certain.

About this time Anukul was transferred to a district on the banks of the Padma. On his way through Calcutta he bought his son a little go-cart. He bought him also a yellow satin waistcoat, a gold-laced cap, and some gold bracelets and anklets. Raicharan was wont to take these out, and put them on his little charge with ceremonial pride, whenever they went for a walk.

Then came the rainy season, and day after day the rain poured down in torrents. The hungry river, like an enormous serpent, swallowed down terraces, villages, cornfields, and covered with its flood the tall grasses and wild casuarinas on the sand-banks. From time to time there was a deep thud, as the river-banks crumbled. The unceasing roar of the rain current could be beard from far away. Masses of foam, carried swiftly past, proved to the eye the swiftness of the stream.

One afternoon the rain cleared. It was cloudy, but cool and bright. Raicharan’s little despot did not want to stay in on such a fine afternoon. His lordship climbed into the go-cart. Raicharan, between the shafts, dragged him slowly along till he reached the rice-fields on the banks of the river. There was no one in the fields, and no boat on the stream. Across the water, on the farther side, the clouds were rifted in the west. The silent ceremonial of the setting sun was revealed in all its glowing splendour. In the midst of that stillness the child, all of a sudden, pointed with his finger in front of him and cried: “Chan-nal Pitty fow.”

Close by on a mud-flat stood a large Kadamba tree in full flower. My lord, the baby, looked at it with greedy eyes, and Raicharan knew his meaning. Only a short time before he had made, out of these very flower balls, a small go-cart; and the child had been so entirely happy dragging it about with a string, that for the whole day Raicharan was not made to put on the reins at all. He was promoted from a horse into a groom.

But Raicharan had no wish that evening to go splashing knee-deep through the mud to reach the flowers. So he quickly pointed his finger in the opposite direction, calling out: “Oh, look, baby, look! Look at the bird.” And with all sorts of curious noises he pushed the go-cart rapidly away from the tree.

But a child, destined to be a judge, cannot be put off so easily. And besides, there was at the time nothing to attract his eyes. And you cannot keep up for ever the pretence of an imaginary bird.

The little Master’s mind was made up, and Raicharan was at his wits’ end. “Very well, baby,” he said at last, “you sit still in the cart, and I’ll go and get you the pretty flower. Only mind you don’t go near the water.”

As he said this, he made his legs bare to the knee, and waded through the oozing mud towards the tree.

The moment Raicharan had gone, his little Master went off at racing speed to the forbidden water. The baby saw the river rushing by, splashing and gurgling as it went. It seemed as though the disobedient wavelets themselves were running away from some greater Raicharan with the laughter of a thousand children. At the sight of their mischief, the heart of the human child grew excited and restless. He got down stealthily from the go-cart and toddled off towards the river. On his way he picked up a small stick, and leant over the bank of the stream pretending to fish. The mischievous fairies of the river with their mysterious voices seemed inviting him into their play-house.

Raicharan had plucked a handful of flowers from the tree, and was carrying them back in the end of his cloth, with his face wreathed in smiles. But when he reached the go-cart, there was no one there. He looked on all sides and there was no one there. He looked back at the cart and there was no one there.

In that first terrible moment his blood froze within him. Before his eyes the whole universe swam round like a dark mist. From the depth of his broken heart he gave one piercing cry; “Master, Master, little Master.”

But no voice answered “Chan-na.” No child laughed mischievously back; no scream of baby delight welcomed his return. Only the river ran on, with its splashing, gurgling noise as before,–as though it knew nothing at all, and had no time to attend to such a tiny human event as the death of a child.

As the evening passed by Raicharan’s mistress became very anxious. She sent men out on all sides to search. They went with lanterns in their hands, and reached at last the banks of the Padma. There they found Raicharan rushing up and down the fields, like a stormy wind, shouting the cry of despair: “Master, Master, little Master!”

When they got Raicharan home at last, he fell prostrate at his mistress’s feet. They shook him, and questioned him, and asked him repeatedly where he had left the child; but all he could say was, that he knew nothing.

Though every one held the opinion that the Padma had swallowed the child, there was a lurking doubt left in the mind. For a band of gipsies had been noticed outside the village that afternoon, and some suspicion rested on them. The mother went so far in her wild grief as to think it possible that Raicharan himself had stolen the child. She called him aside with piteous entreaty and said: “Raicharan, give me back my baby. Oh ! give me back my child. Take from me any money you ask, but give me back my child!”

Raicharan only beat his forehead in reply. His mistress ordered him out of the house.

Artukul tried to reason his wife out of this wholly unjust suspicion: “Why on earth,” he said, “should he commit such a crime as that?”

The mother only replied: “The baby had gold ornaments on his body. Who knows?”

It was impossible to reason with her after that.

II

Raicharan went back to his own village. Up to this time he had had no son, and there was no hope that any child would now be born to him. But it came about before the end of a year that his wife gave birth to a son and died.

All overwhelming resentment at first grew up in Raicharan’s heart at the sight of this new baby. At the back of his mind was resentful suspicion that it had come as a usurper in place of the little Master. He also thought it would be a grave offence to be happy with a son of his own after what had happened to his master’s little child. Indeed, if it had not been for a widowed sister, who mothered the new baby, it would not have lived long.

But a change gradually came over Raicharan’s mind. A wonderful thing happened. This new baby in turn began to crawl about, and cross the doorway with mischief in its face. It also showed an amusing cleverness in making its escape to safety. Its voice, its sounds of laughter and tears, its gestures, were those of the little Master. On some days, when Raicharan listened to its crying, his heart suddenly began thumping wildly against his ribs, and it seemed to him that his former little Master was crying somewhere in the unknown land of death because he had lost his Chan-na.

Phailna (for that was the name Raicharan’s sister gave to the new baby) soon began to talk. It learnt to say Ba-ba and Ma-ma with a baby accent. When Raicharan heard those familiar sounds the mystery suddenly became clear. The little Master could not cast off the spell of his Chan-na, and therefore he had been reborn in his own house.

The arguments in favour of this were, to Raicharan, altogether beyond dispute:

(i.) The new baby was born soon after his little master’s death.

(ii.) His wife could never have accumulated such merit as to give birth to a son in middle age.

(iii.) The new baby walked with a toddle and called out Ba-ba and Ma- ma. There was no sign lacking which marked out the future judge.

Then suddenly Raicharan remembered that terrible accusation of the mother. “Ah,” he said to himself with amazement, “the mother’s heart was right. She knew I had stolen her child.” When once he had come to this conclusion, he was filled with remorse for his past neglect. He now gave himself over, body and soul, to the new baby, and became its devoted attendant. He began to bring it up, as if it were the son of a rich man. He bought a go-cart, a yellow satin waistcoat, and a gold- embroidered cap. He melted down the ornaments of his dead wife, and made gold bangles and anklets. He refused to let the little child play with any one of the neighbourhood, and became himself its sole companion day and night. As the baby grew up to boyhood, he was so petted and spoilt and clad in such finery that the village children would call him “Your Lordship,” and jeer at him; and older people regarded Raicharan as unaccountably crazy about the child.

At last the time came for the boy to go to school. Raicharan sold his small piece of land, and went to Calcutta. There he got employment with great difficulty as a servant, and sent Phailna to school. He spared no pains to give him the best education, the best clothes, the best food. Meanwhile he lived himself on a mere handful of rice, and would say in secret: “Ah! my little Master, my dear little Master, you loved me so much that you came back to my house. You shall never suffer from any neglect of mine.”

Twelve years passed away in this manner. The boy was able to read and write well. He was bright and healthy and good-looking. He paid a great deal of attention to his personal appearance, and was specially careful in parting his hair. He was inclined to extravagance and finery, and spent money freely. He could never quite look on Raicharan as a father, because, though fatherly in affection, he had the manner of a servant. A further fault was this, that Raicharan kept secret from every one that himself was the father of the child.

The students of the hostel, where Phailna was a boarder, were greatly amused by Raicharan’s country manners, and I have to confess that behind his father’s back Phailna joined in their fun. But, in the bottom of their hearts, all the students loved the innocent and tender-hearted old man, and Phailna was very fond of him also. But, as I have said before, he loved him with a kind of condescension.

Raicharan grew older and older, and his employer was continually finding fault with him for his incompetent work. He had been starving himself for the boy’s sake. So he had grown physically weak, and no longer up to his work. He would forget things, and his mind became dull and stupid. But his employer expected a full servant’s work out of him, and would not brook excuses. The money that Raicharan had brought with him from the sale of his land was exhausted. The boy was continually grumbling about his clothes, and asking for more money.

Raicharan made up his mind. He gave up the situation where he was working as a servant, and left some money with Phailna and said: “I have some business to do at home in my village, and shall be back soon.”

He went off at once to Baraset where Anukul was magistrate. Anukul’s wife was still broken down with grief. She had had no other child.

One day Anukul was resting after a long and weary day in court. His wife was buying, at an exorbitant price, a herb from a mendicant quack, which was said to ensure the birth of a child. A voice of greeting was heard in the courtyard. Anukul went out to see who was there. It was Raicharan. Anukul’s heart was softened when he saw his old servant. He asked him many questions, and offered to take him back into service.

Raicharan smiled faintly, and said in reply; “I want to make obeisance to my mistress.”

Anukul went with Raicharan into the house, where the mistress did not receive him as warmly as his old master. Raicharan took no notice of this, but folded his hands, and said: “It was not the Padma that stole your baby. It was I.”

Anukul exclaimed: “Great God! Eh! What! Where is he ? “Raicharan replied: “He is with me, I will bring him the day after to-morrow.”

It was Sunday. There was no magistrate’s court sitting. Both husband and wife were looking expectantly along the road, waiting from early morning for Raicharan’s appearance. At ten o’clock he came, leading Phailna by the hand.

Anukul’s wife, without a question, took the boy into her lap, and was wild with excitement, sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping, touching him, kissing his hair and his forehead, and gazing into his face with hungry, eager eyes. The boy was very good-looking and dressed like a gentleman’s son. The heart of Anukul brimmed over with a sudden rush of affection.

Nevertheless the magistrate in him asked: “Have you any proofs? “Raicharan said: “How could there be any proof of such a deed? God alone knows that I stole your boy, and no one else in the world.”

When Anukul saw how eagerly his wife was clinging to the boy, he realised the futility of asking for proofs. It would be wiser to believe. And then–where could an old man like Raicharan get such a boy from? And why should his faithful servant deceive him for nothing?

“But,” he added severely, “Raicharan, you must not stay here.”

“Where shall I go, Master?” said Raicharan, in a choking voice, folding his hands; “I am old. Who will take in an old man as a servant?”

The mistress said: “Let him stay. My child will be pleased. I forgive him.”

But Anukul’s magisterial conscience would not allow him. “No,” he said, “he cannot be forgiven for what he has done.”

Raicharan bowed to the ground, and clasped Anukul’s feet. “Master,” he cried, “let me stay. It was not I who did it. It was God.”

Anukul’s conscience was worse stricken than ever, when Raicharan tried to put the blame on God’s shoulders.

“No,” he said, “I could not allow it. I cannot trust you any more. You have done an act of treachery.”

Raicharan rose to his feet and said: “It was not I who did it.”

“Who was it then?” asked Anukul.

Raicharan replied: “It was my fate.”

But no educated man could take this for an excuse. Anukul remained obdurate.

When Phailna saw that he was the wealthy magistrate’s son, and not Raicharan’s, be was angry at first, thinking that he had been cheated all this time of his birthright. But seeing Raicharan in distress, he generously said to his father: “Father, forgive him. Even if you don’t let him live with us, let him have a small monthly pension.”

After hearing this, Raicharan did not utter another word. He looked for the last time on the face of his son; he made obeisance to his old master and mistress. Then he went out, and was mingled with the numberless people of the world.

At the end of the month Anukul sent him some money to his village. But the money came back. There was no one there of the name of Raicharan.

My Lord, the Baby (Criticism)

My lord, the Baby displays a love that a father gives his son, like what Raicharan gave to Anukul and Phailna. After being blamed for the lose of his master’s son, Raicharan thought that its time to say goodbye to his son, Phailna, for he could no longer provide for him, and it would make Anukul’s wife happy and relieved.

– Ferdinand Babaran

In this story, I appreciated the mutual relationship between Anukul and Raicharan as master and servant, seeing that Anukul forgave Raicharan even after he accidentally lost Anukul’s child. Raicharan showed an unconditional love for his son and for Anukul because he gave him Phailna for he can no longer support for the child and to end the grieving of Anukul’s wife. Raicharan is really a faithful and good-hearted servant.

Savitri’s Love

Now, there was a king in India, whose name was Aswapati (As-wa-pah-tee), and his people loved him, for he gave help to all in need, and he served the shining gods in prayer and sacrifice.

But he had no son or daughter in whom his name and line could live on, when the time came for him to die, and his heart was grieved, and he fasted oft, and said hymns to the shining gods, and burned offerings on their holy altar, and hoped they would grant him the gift he asked. When sixteen years had thus passed, his prayer was heard. In the red fire of the altar he beheld a Iady of fair Iook and ways, and she said to him:

“Thy faith hath pleased me, 0 Raja, and if thou wilt say thy desire, it shall be given thee.”

“Goddess,” replied the king, “my wish is to have a child to live after me.”

“The Lord of heaven,” she said, “will grant thee what thou hast prayed.”

She was gone and the Raja saw only the red flame.

A babe was born a girl, with bright eyes, bright like the lotus lily, as the Indian people say and she was the glory of her mother and father. She grew to be so sweet a maid that her father made sure that kings would come from far and near to seek her as a wife. But none came, for she the lotus-eyed had a soul that seemed too great for even kings, and her serious ways and speech kept men in awe.

Now, one day, this maid of grace Savitri (Sah-vee-tree) by name had knelt at the altar of Agni, god of the red flame, and had laid there an offering of cakes and drink. Then she took up a bunch of flowers in the holy place, and came and gave them to her sire, Aswapati. He gazed upon her with tender eyes and said:

“Daughter, it is time you should be wed after the manner of high-born Iadies, lest folk should think that I am at fault in not choosing a husband for you. And since no man comes to pay suit to you I pray you go where you will and choose for yourself.”

So she bowed herself before her sire, and took her leave, and rode in a splendid car along with elders and wise men, whom the king had told to go with her up and down the land. The car passed through forests and along the streets of great towns, and among the hamlets of the hills, and wherever she went the princess gave alms to the poor and greetings to the high and low, and the people blessed her.

At last she came back and the Raja was on his

throne, and the wise man, Narad, sat at his side.

“Father,” she said, “I have done as you bade, and I have found my choice. It is the Prince Satyavan. Prince he is, yet he dwells not in a royal house.”

“Wherefore,” asked the Raja.

“He has no kingdom, and lives in a cottage in the woods with his father and mother. A noble pair are they, but sad is their lot. The old man is blind, and he and his queen have had their home many years, ever since their son was a babe, in this jungle, for enemies drove them from their kingdom, and took from the king his rightful throne. My prince is noble, and his name shows what he is, for at his birth the Brahmans called him Truth lover. Gay and strong is he, and a rider of horses, and his hand has a gift for painting horses in pictures that are a wonder to see.”

“What think you?” asked the king of Narad, the wise.

“Alas!” answered Narad, “ill has she, chosen? The old king indeed is a just man, and the Prince Satyavan is a noble youth, but there is a dark fate that waits for him, for it has been shown to me by the shining gods that in a year from this very day he shall die.”

“Hear you that, my daughter?” cried the king. “0 choose some other, choose some other, for the Lord of Death, even Yama, will come in a year and claim your husband for his own. Choose some other.

“I can choose none other, father dear,” said the maid. “To Satyavan alone is my heart given, and though Death will take him in a year, yet him only will I wed.”

“Let it be so, child,” sighed the Raja. “Strange will your bridal be. You will have your home in the wilderness, and in twelve months be Ieft a mourner.”

The king and his courtiers and priests set forth to the woods, carrying with them much treasure, and they found the blind old king seated on a grass mat beside a sal tree.

Be seated, sir!” said the blind Raja, when he knew that a king had come to see him.

So Aswapati sat on the grass mat, and the blind king offered him water from a jar, for he was poor, and had neither wine nor silver cups. And the two kings agreed upon the marriage, and soon the prince and the maid were wed in the forest, and when she was made lady of the little cot among the trees of the jungle, her sire kissed her with many tears, and her friends said farewells, and they departed. As soon as they were gone, she took off her jewels and sparkling dress, and she put on a plain robe made of bark of trees, and a cloak of yellow cloth. Her queenhood was not in her jewels or her dress, but in her kind soul and the sweet service she did to the blind old king and his wife, and in the love she bore to the prince of her choice.

So passed the happy year, and only four days more would go by ere the Shadow of Death would glide into the forest kingdom of her Iord, and take him from her arms. For three days she fasted and she had no sleep, and her heart was in pain at the dread of that which was to come. But Satyavan, the noble prince, knew naught of the fate that waited for his life.

On the morning of the last day rose Satyavan, in blithe mood, and he took his woodsman’s axe for felling trees, and said, smiling:

“Dear wife, I go forth to hew down trees, and at set of sun, I shall be home again.”

Her heart smote her at the words, for she knew that the black-robed Yama would lay his thin hand upon her love and take him hence.

“I will go with you this day,” she said.

“Nay,” he cried, “the ground is rough for your feet, and the way will be long, and you will be faint.”

“Let me go, Satyavan,” begged the princess in the robe of bark.

He said her nay no more, and they walked to the distant spot where grew the trees he meant to fell, and the wild fruit that she would gather in her basket.

The hour of noon had passed, and the dusk was creeping upon the great forest. The sound of the axe echoed in the grove. Basket in hand, Savitri plucked ripe berries from the shrubs, but often and often she paused and she looked at the woodcutter, and she looked again…

“Oh, wife,” he called.

She ran to his side and set her basket down.

“My head, my head! A pang shoots sharp through my brain. Hot is my blood. I must lie down.”

She sat beneath a tree and laid his head upon her lap, and fanned his face. His eyes were closed, his pulse was slow, and now it was still.

The year had flown.

Before her stood a tall shadow that had the shape of a man, and its robe was black, and a red light was in its eyes, and a crown was on its head.

“Are you one of the holy gods?” she asked in a low voice.

“Lady,” it said, ” I am Yama, the Lord of Death, and I am come for the prince you love.”

He lifted his hand, and in it was a cord, and he flung the cord, and lo!it caught the life of the prince in its noose, and drew it from his bosom, and Satyavan was dead, and Death turned its face towards the south, for the south (so the Indian fables tell) was its kingdom.

Dark was the jungle.

Strong was Death.

But the woman was brave.

She rose up and followed in the steps of Deatn. Presently the black god, hearing her footsteps, turned and spoke:

“Go back. You have come far from home. Go back, and do those sad rites in which mourners show their sorrow for the dead.”

“I must go,” she replied, “where my husband goes. That is my duty. The wise men say that to walk seven steps with another makes them friends. So Iet me walk more than seven steps with you. And the wise men also say that the best road to walk is that of right.”

“Well have you convinced me,” said the Lord of Death, “and in return for the good words, I promise that, except the soul of Satyavan, I will give you what you will.”

“Then give me a gift for my prince’s father, and Iet the eyes of the old king once more behold the light of day, and let his strength be as the strength of the sun.”

“It shall be done,” said Death; “but now you must turn back, for you have far to go ; and my way leads only to Doom.”

“I shall never be weary of the way that my husband goes. There is no sweeter fruit on earth than the company of those we love.”

The black god smiled, for her words were good and precious.

“Once again, I wiII give you a gift, except the soul of Satyavan.”

“Thanks again, 0 Death; and now I will ask that the kingdom of the old Raja shall be restored to him, so that he may have his Iand as well as his sight.”

“Lady, it shall happen as you wish. And now go back. The forest is wide, and home is distant.”

“Master of Death, hear me once more. What is the goodness of the good man? Is it kindness to all things in earth, air or sea? It is indeed, and even if the enemy seeks help, the good man will be ready to grant him aid.”

“Fair is your saying, princess; and for these blessed words I will promise yet another boon. Speak.”

“0 Death, I would be mother to noble children, and teach them to walk in the steps of their dear father, Satyavan. Give me my prince.”

Then Yama, King of Death, shook the cord that he held in his hand.

“Lady, your husband shall reign long years with you, and your sons shall reign after you.”

The dark shade that wore the crown had floated into the gloom of the jungle.

With quick feet she ran. Breathless, she flew. And when she reached the tree under which the body of Satyavan lay, she knelt, she placed the head on her lap, she watched; and the eyes opened, and the lips said :

” I have slept a long time. Just as I was falling into slumber, I seemed to see a vision of a shadow that seized my very life in a magic noose, and bore it away I know not where.”

“It was Yama, Lord of Death. But he is not here. Rise, Satyavan, for it is night, and we must go home.”

“Ah!” he said, “now I call to mind that a sharp pang shot through my brow.

“Tomorrow let us talk of what has happened today. Let us go.

“The night is dark. We could not find the path.”

“Look!” she said, “some way off a fire has been burning today in the forest the work of the blazing sun at midday, perhaps. I will fetch a brand, and we wiII wave it as we walk, so as to scare away the beasts of the jungle. Or, if you will, let us stay here till your pain is all gone.”

“It has gone, Savitri. I am strong again. My father and mother will grieve at our absence.”

As he thought of his blind father (ah! but was he blind now?) the prince’s eyes filled with tears.

So he sprang to his feet, and brushed off the dry leaves that clung to his clothes.

“There is your basket of fruit,” he cried.

“Fetch it tomorrow, Satyavan. We have enough to do to find our way in the dark. But I will carry the axe.”

She carried the axe in her left hand, and her right arm was about his waist; and his left arm was about her neck; and so they wended their way through the jungle; nor did bear or tiger harm them.

The sky was becoming grey when they reached the hamlet where the old king and queen and their few companions lived. They heard voices crying eagerly. A shout arose when the prince and princess were seen.

“My children!” cried the king.

“Father!” exclaimed Satyavan. “How is this? You were able to see me?”

“My son, my eyes can see once more. I know not how the marvel came about, but I do know I can see my son. And you, dear Savitri, for the first time can I now look upon my faithful daughter!”

After he had held them for some moments, and gazed at them both with joy, he asked:

“And where have you been all the night? Tell me, Satyavan, what kept you so long?”

“Father,” said Savitri, “he does not know all that took place in the night. Let me tell the tale.”

So they sat down king, queen, prince, princess, and their comrades and loyal friends, and the soft voice of Savitri told :

How they wandered in the forest;

How the curse had been foretold by Narad, the sage, and how it must be fulfilled at the end of the year;

How Satyavan died;

How Death came;

And how she had followed Death and what had been said.

Now, while the king and his friends thus listened, and their hearts were moved by the story, a great noise was heard in the forest. Along the glade they saw a crowd of people approach soldiers, officers, citizens.

“News, good news!” the people cried. “The tyrant who took the throne by unjust means and cruel power has been overthrown. Come back to us, dear king. Blind though you are, you shall at least know that we gather round you in true service.”

“Thanks be to the shining gods, my people,” said the old king, ” I can see you all; and I will go with you, and see my kingdom once again.”

Savitri’s Love (Criticism)

The story justifies a woman’s love for his husband, a vow that “’till death do us part” cannot reach. After walking with Yama and treating him kindly, Savitri was granted of her wishes, which of all is the return of his beloved Satyavan from the dead. The story is both entertaining and inspiring at the same time, giving a hint that not even death can take away a loved one from the other.

– Ferdinand Babaran

Savitri’s love and devotion to his husband was extraordinary because even after the death of Satyavan and Yama was about to take him to his kingdom, Savitri followed even though she struggled to keep up with him. Savitri also showed her wits when she talked to Yama, keeping him amazed of her wits and will. I also admire her intelligence, faithfulness and love for her husband.

– Erickson Diano

The Spider’s Thread by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

The Spider’s Thread by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

One day, the Buddha was strolling along the brink of the lotus pond of Paradise. His eyes fell on a man named Kandata who was squirming with the other sinners in the bottom of hell. This Kandata had done so many evil things his lifeline but he had to his credit one good action. Once, while on his way through a deep forest, he had noticed a little spider creeping along beside the road. He was about to trample it to death when he suddenly changed his mind and spared the spider’s life.

Now, as he looked down into hell, the Buddha remembered this good deed and thought he would like to deliver Kandata out of hell. Looking around he saw a spider of Paradise spinning a beautiful silvery thread on the lotus leaves. The Buddha took up the spider’s thread in his hand and let it straight down to the bottom of hell which held Kandata securely with the other sinners in the Pool of Blood on the floor of hell.

On this day, Kandata lifted his head by chance and saw a silver spider’s thread slipping down toward him from the high heavens. Kandata grasped the thread tightly in his two hands and began to climb up and up with all his might.

After climbing for a while, he was finally exhausted and could not ascend an inch higher. He stopped to rest and looked below him. What he saw filled him with fear. For, below on the thread, countless sinners were climbing eagerly after him up and up, like a procession of ants.

Kandata blinked his eyes at them with his big mouth hanging foolishly open in surprise and terror. How could that slender spider spider’s thread which seemed as if it must break with him alone, ever support the weight of all those people? If it would break in mid air, even he himself would have to fall headlong back to Hell.

So Kandata cried out in loud voice. “Hey, you sinners! This thread is mine. Who gave you permission to come up it? Get down! Get down!”

At that moment, the spider’s thread broke with a snap t the point where Kandata was hanging. Without even time to utter a cry, Kandata shot down and fell headlong into the darkness, spinning swiftly around and around like a top.

The Spider’s Thread (Criticism)

The story is about a bandit named Kandata who was given the chance to redeem his soul from hell but eventually been denied after he refused to share the thread from heaven to his fellow sinners. The story teaches about moral values and is fitted for audience of mixed age brackets.

– Ferdinand J. Babaran

The story is inspiring and full of priceless lessons. The story reflects the culture of the origin of the story. It emphasizes the forgiveness of a god because even though he is a very wicked criminal, with only a small good deed, he was pardoned by Buddha and let him climb up to heaven using a spider’s thread. But his selfishness contributed to the weakening of the thread and eventually, put him back to hell where he deserved.

– Erickson Diano

Kandata climbing up to heaven, followed by other sinners. 

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