The Postmaster
- Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore is the great figure in Indian
literature. He was the first non-European
to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He has written many Plays,
Poetries and short stories.
This short story is all about the attachment and
detachment of human souls with worldly relations. Postmaster got transfer in
the village name Ulapur. He was a citizen and suddenly his demotion from “Citizen”
to “Villager” was unbearable for him. The village’s remoteness and dirt
irritated him and his departure with his family was also hurting him. Tagore
described,
“Our postmaster belonged to Calcutta.
He felt like a fish out of water in this remote village. His office and
living-room were in a dark thatched shed, not far from a green, slimy pond,
surrounded on all sides by a dense growth.”
He had
the only company in his village life, a little orphan girl named Ratan. She was
also alone in her life without much memories of past but she was happy in the
company of Postmaster. On the other side Postmaster wanted to leave the place
and also applied for transfer but his application was rejected and he decided
to leave the job.
Ratan was very much disappointed with
Postmaster’s decision because she will lost her only relative and friend. New postmaster
arrived. Ratan was sad and told postmaster to take her with him, but he
refused. Ultimately he left with a little pain in his heart but he consoles his
pain by philosophical reflection on numberless meeting and parting in the world
and on death. There is description of postmaster’s sadness and attachment with
Ratan,
“When he got in and the boat was under way, and the rain-swollen
river, like a stream of tears welling up from the earth, swirled and sobbed at
her bows, then he felt a pain at heart; the grief-stricken face of a village
girl seemed to represent for him the great unspoken pervading grief of Mother
Earth herself. At one time he had an impulse to go back, and bring away along
with him that lonesome waif, forsaken of the world. But the wind had just
filled the sails, the boat had got well into the middle of the turbulent
current, and already the village was left behind, and its outlying
burning-ground came in sight.”
Ratan was an uneducated girl. She was not
able to understand the philosophy of Postmaster. The story seems simple at one
reading but it disturbs us a lot. Ratan was alone before the arrival of
Postmaster and she was happy also, but when she met him, her attachment has increased
and for her, her everything was Postmaster. When he left Ratan also lost her
all relations because she was unable to detach herself with Postmaster.
The point of detachment which Postmaster
is able to understand well by the concept of death, for him his world was different
and now he was going there and all villagers were now dead from his memories. Temporary
attachment leads to disaster and this has happened with Ratan. Whenever people
get in a relations with other they drawn themselves blindly in the water of
feelings without thinking much deeper, or we can say results of this attachments.
It is all about human nature as Tagore said,
“Alas for our foolish human nature! Its fond mistakes are
persistent. The dictates of reason take a long time to assert their own sway.
The surest proofs meanwhile are disbelieved. False hope is clung to with all
one’s might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it
forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of
awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the
same mistakes.”
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