Adam Zhang
June 19, 2007
Draft 3
Babu’s Attitude towards His Life
Among my favorite stories, “The Grass-Eaters” [1] by Krishnan Varma describes the first person a short period of the hero (Ajit Babu)’s experience in India. Babu is a typical representative of the poor in India. He had no stable residence, thus only shifting around India with his wife and did not have continuous food supply, always eating grasses instead and facing a lot of uncertainty in front of his life. And later on a warm-hearted man appeared----Ramaniklal Misralal, who helped offering Babu and his wife with a better living place----the roof of one of Misralal’s buildings. There is a question “Does Babu enjoy his present life?”
In order to answer this question, I want to clarify that this question focused on Babu’s subjective attitude towards his life rather than anyone else’s attitude. Therefore the solution should be divided into three parts to analyze. The first is the practical contrasts of Babu’s present and past living conditions because the hero’s feeling rises on the basis of the practical experiences and this is the fundamental step to figure out his attitude. The second is the analysis of the current situation of people in India because it can strongly influence the people’s mind. The third part comes with the analysis of Babu’s character which is crucial element directing his mind. Assume both an optimistic person and a pessimistic person face an accident. As is clear the two go with absolutely different minds. So quite important is it to make clear what Babu’s character is like.
First the practical contrasts are presented below:
In the Paragraph 5 the author mentioned “The first was a footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue.”(P56) “Avenue?” It is believed that people who haven’t read this story will wonder, “How can people settle down in the streets?” The truth is that the former “house” of Babu is “street”. And even the streets were crowded----“The footpath was so crowded with residents, refugees like us and locals” (P56). This sentence indicates not only Babu lived in the streets in the open air but also shared them with others. In contrast with the roof, it is worse.
After fleeing away from the footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue, Babu and his wife moved into an abandoned-looking freight wagon at the railway terminus.(P57) Here the article mentions Babu’ s thought “A whole wagon to ourselves-a place with doors which could be opened and shut” (P57), and then tells his activities “we did nothing but open and shut them for a full hour” (P57). Why was he so happy with opening and shutting a door? That’s because no door existed in the place he lived before----more exactly without a shelter place, without a stable residence. Then a cement concrete pipe near the Sealdah railway station appealed to Babu. At that time, “Unfortunately, it was not occupied and, with no prompting from me, she crept into it.”(58) “No prompting” means Babu desired strongly to settle down in that pipe at that time, implying that so low a living condition-cement concrete pipe could cater to his satisfaction. His satisfaction proves that his living place before had not a patch on this cement concrete pipe, Saying nothing of his place----building roof with more room and better ventilation later on.
In addition, there is another emotional contrast to be presented----a proof of the transformation of the hero’s feeling condition. it says “We have no fears and anxieties.”(P59) This is the most important element which satisfies Babu. It is human nature that everyone fears uncertainty most. Uncertainty makes people’s prospects unclear so no one knows what will happen in the next second and at this time the human broad imagination begins to work. Imagination creates a lot of things to happen and those things are always duplicates of the most disastrous experiences people have suffered. In the latter part, Babu has got certainty, so he would enjoy his present life.
The contrasts among different situations above are effective in providing evidence to support this view “The later-on roof was better than Babu’s past residences”. The factual evidences help prove “Babu enjoyed his life at present”.
The second step is to analyze the current society in India at the time when this story happened. The sentence “…if you got up at night to relieve yourself you could not be sure of finding your place again…”(P56) ironically pictures such an image----a lot of people slept on the streets, overlapping each other. We can see through this there were masses of poor in India, and what’s more, these people suffered from very bad situations such as no individual living space. They occupied a large proportion of the population in India. The writer mentions “Our fourth child. One died of diphtheria back home in Decca; two, from fatigue, on our long trek on foot to Calcutta.”(P57) Babu’s children’s destiny symbolizes poor Indians’ children. They have no health care and suffer bad nutrition, endangered by a high death rate. The author says on behalf of Babu that “We eat two square meals of grass every day” in an optimistic accent in the end. (P59) That expresses the happiness of the character at that time-they have staple grass meals. Of course it is square meal for in that society most people like Bijoy Babu (the person living bellow Ajit Babu) who have even no grass to eat so that he created a theory that “…if you reduce your consumption of food by five grams each day, you will not only not notice that you are eating less but after some time you can do without any food at all.”(P58) Apparently, the pseudoscience can’t make sense. That results in his tottering. Babu’s “theory” can only cheat his stomach. The prospect for this poor guy ought to be starvation. This indicates a lot suffered inadequate food supply and starvation. The above mentioned has uncovered the awfulness in Indian current society. In a bad macro circumstance, little people would have excessive requirements. So Babu must be very pleasant with his present condition--stable residence and enough room, two square meals of grass guaranteed. So he enjoys his current life.
Then into the third part comes my drawing of Babu’s character. His character is optimistic. “…it was heaven. I felt I was God.”(P56) burst out from Babu when he found the freight wagon and “We have far more light and ventilation than they. We don’t get nibbled by rats and mice and rodents as often as they do” (P56) stand for the view that Babu was very optimistic. Actually such situation is not very good but Babu could find many reasons to persuade him satisfied. This shows the qualities of optimistic people----they always find happiness which will never be found by pessimistic persons. To illustrate his character of optimism, we should refer to his religion. Babu is a Hindu who believes in “reincarnation”. Only if a Hindus lives happily and keeps a healthy attitude towards life, his soul in the next body can live a happy life. No doubt Babu is optimistic. An optimistic person always enjoys the current; never asks for more with vehemence. Therefore it is easy to conclude that “Babu enjoys his present life.”
From above, we can see that Babu—such an optimistic person—who lives better than he did before in so unstable a society, would absolutely enjoy his life later on. There is a conclusion we come to that Babu enjoyed his life. Is there anything else hidden between lines? After searching and studying the story, I find something new which deserves our thinking.
In the end, the story presents something new----something the writer wants his readers to know most. Between the lines I notices a detail----“Prodeep (Babu’s child) is not with us now; he is in the ‘Naxalite’ underground.”(58) The Naxalite movement aimed to change India’s social structure by liquidating estate and distributing land among the rural poor. Maybe Varma claims all the poor should be united to destroy that social structure, in this way getting wealth from the exploiters and improving their life. In another way the poor shouldn’t await their doom, and they must try their best to improve their life. As the saying goes “No pain, no gain!”
Note：[1] Material from “Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma in India in 1992
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