Reading Log

After reading The Grass-Eaters, I was first confused about the house that Ramaniklal Misrilal (father of the spherical boy Ajit Babu taught) offered him to live in.

In the middle of the story, Mr. Misrilal said: ”Why don't you move into one of my buildings, Ajit Babu?”(58) His words gave me the impression that he will give Babu an apartment room, but the following passage showed that Babu only got a roof to live on with his wife.

I guess that it was a kind of irony, trying to tell how mean the rich people of that time can be (Owning so many houses, Mr. Misrilal only gave his son's tutor a roof) as well as how the poor suffered.

I noticed that some logs above express a respect to Ajit Babu and his wife, since they kept optimistic despite the miserable life. However, I would like to post a new aspect on this issue.

Did Babu and his wife really spend every day in a cheerful spirit, looking at the terrible things happening beside them calmly? Didn't they ever complain about all the unfairness but accept them in silence? Yes, they did celebrate when owning a door for their dwelling place. They also felt satisfactory when inhabiting in a place better than the freight wagon. However, they started to fell happy about such things which would drive most of us cry because they had suffered so much. Nothing else in their life can delight them.

A Chinese saying goes that the experience of extreme sadness kills the feeling of a person. (I don't know if I translated it right. ), which means that great agony makes a person numbed to pain. Ajit Babu and his wife's sad feelings had faded, since their life had already drained the last drop of their tears.

22.6.07 05:39