POSTMASTER By Tagore
this essay is about the human relationships. The post master considered one of his best, depicts the human condition in various forms.the story revolves around a postmaster and an uneducated girl Ratan, who share a comman ground in their lonliness.
The workers in the nearby factory work so much that they have no time to befriend anyone. Besides, they are not especially good company for “decent folk.” In addition, people from Calcutta are not particularly good at socializing. They can appear to be arrogant or uncomfortable. In any case, the postmaster has few companions, and he does not have many activities to keep him occupied.
His wages are not great; he must do his own cooking, but he shares his suppers with “Ratan, an orphan girl of the village, who did odd jobs for him.” In the evening, when the village is filled with appealing sights and sounds—the kind that would inspire poets—the postmaster lights his lamp and calls for Ratan.
The postmaster, however, typically tells her to wait a while and let him smoke his pipe, which Ratan then always lights for him. After this nightly ritual has been completed, the postmaster usually talks with Ratan. He asks her whether she remembers her parents, discovering that she has fonder memories of her father than of her mother. She can even recall a little brother, with whom she would playfully fish. Often her conversations with the postmaster last a long time—so long that the postmaster doesn’t cook and Ratan instead prepares a very hasty light meal.
Sometimes in the evenings, the postmaster himself recalls his home, his mother and sister, and others whom he misses. He cannot share these thoughts with the local workers, but he feels comfortable discussing them with the innocent young girl. Eventually Ratan begins speaking of the members of the postmaster’s family as if they are members of her own and as if she has long known them. In her heart, she can vividly imagine how each of them looks.
The postmaster summons Ratan, who has been lying beneath a guava-tree, determinedly eating immature guavas. Ratan quickly responds to the summons, asking the postmaster, whom she now calls “Dada,” if he has been calling for her. He replies by saying that he has been considering the possibility of teaching her how to read. For the rest of the workday he tells her about the alphabet. Quickly, Ratan begins to learn about double consonants.
Ratan now no longer seems a child. She resembles a mother. She notifies the local doctor, makes sure the postmaster takes his medications at the proper time, sits near him all night, prepares his food, and occasionally asks “Dada” if his health is improving. Eventually the postmaster is able to arise from bed. He decides that he can no longer endure rural life.
postmaster informs her that his appeal for reassignment has been turned down, so he has quit his current job and is returning to Calcutta.
she abruptly asks him if her “Dada” will take her with him to Calcutta. The postmaster laughs and dismisses the suggestion as if it obviously makes no sense, but he fails to tell her his reasons for thinking so.
tells her that she has no reason to worry about his return to Calcutta, since he will instruct the new postmaster to take care of her. He surely intends this remark to seem kind, but a woman’s heart is mysterious. Ratan had never complained when he had scolded her, but she cannot cope with his kindly statement. She suddenly begins crying and tells him that he doesn’t have to tell anyone a thing about her. She says that she no longer wants to “stay on here.” The postmaster is mystified. He has never previously witnessed Ratan in such a state.
he summons Ratan and offers her almost all of his salary for that month. He tells her that he hopes it will help her for a while. She begs her “Dada” to keep the money and not to trouble himself about her, and then she runs off. The postmaster sighs, grabs his luggage, picks up an umbrella, and walks, alongside the man bearing his tin trunk, toward the awaiting boat. As he enters the boat and his journey.
Thus the postmaster, swept along on the river, contemplates philosophically the countless “meetings and partings going on in the world.” He also contemplates death, the final parting, from which no one comes back.
But Ratan lacks any philosophy. She moves around in the post office, weeping heavily. Perhaps she still faintly hopes that her “Dada” will come back; perhaps this is the reason she cannot bring herself to leave the shed.
People often doubt facts that seem certain and undeniable. We strongly hold onto our deluded desires until eventually such optimism dries out the heart, breaks free of its confines, and leaves.
Same thing happened with ratan as a poor village girl she couldnt hold to herself that she post master is never goung to return even though she kept loitering there in front of post office as she could only revert to memories, hope he would come back, as such hope and thoughts were only in vain.
The Postmaster,” a story by Rabindranath Tagore, concerns an unnamed postmaster who is assigned to a remote post office in a small rural Indian village. The village is near a factory, and the owner of the factory, who is English, manages to have the post office created. The narrator of the story seems to be a resident of the village, since the narrator refers to “our postmaster.” The postmaster is from the huge city of Calcutta and feels out of place in such a distant rural village. The post office seems to contain only two rooms: the office itself, and the postmaster’s living quarters. These are located in a “thatched shed” near a stagnant pond circled by thick foliage.
One dark morning, Ratan waits for the postmaster to summon her. When no summons comes, she gently enters his room, where she finds him laid out on his bed. Assuming that he is napping, she begins to leave the room but he abruptly calls to her. When she asks “Dada” if he has been sleeping, he pleadingly responds by saying that he feels sick.
Who have established the post office in ulapur?
In ulapur there was a factory, of british which employed several workers and required small post office, thenan english man got a posy office established.
Who was ratan?
Ratan was a poor orphan girl who got no one in that village she took to cooks job for postmaster who used to share food at evenings, and both used to gossip and spend time and girl used to call post master dada in bengali as postmaster was belonged to calcutta, a cordial relationship existed as ratan used to attend postmasters kitchen.
Why do postmaster applied for transfer?
Post master grew home sick being away from his family memebers made him think constantly for memories and reflections of home, so thought the sleepy village will not soothe his anguish, compared to eating at his home and comforts of home wouldnt be available in village so he applied for transfer from the place.
Why was postmaster was described as fish out of water.
Postmaster got his job as an indigo factory owner got post office at ulapur, postmaster belonged to calcutta who need to put up his job leaving family and belongings and stay at ulapur in shed and most of the time theres no thing there in sleepy village to replace his home even his shed is bit far from populated place of ulapur. And considered as fish out of water, means taken away from his native land.
4. Why did postmaster think of ratan as mother earth.
Postmaster made up his mind to leave Ul apar forever he didn't give a thought to who could ratan take this decision, as ratan was emotive considered postmaster as her own brother and even postmaster tried to convince her about his exile, he gave his salary to her as a pleasantry but ratan wasn't obeyed to take it.
Describe the girl in the story Ratan?
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