chennaicentral

Again continuing from my musings on language and words...

(gosh this looks like a literary week for my posts - "kaaviya vaaram" as SunTV may say in its inimitable way :-)), I was really fascinated by what was called "Non-detailed" in my school years in India. This was a subject under the general category of English and what we mainly dealt with in this was short stories (from around the world). It was our diversion after a gruelling day of other "tough" subjects like maths, physics and chemistry and we looked forward to eagerly diving into this lovely world of strange characters and their experiences.

I particularly loved stories with a "twist in the tail" (tale?) - the ones that had an unexpected ending and there were several of them. Two of those stories clearly stand out in my mind. One is called "Dusk" by the famous author Saki (H.H.Munro) and the other is called "The Refund" by a relatively unknown but excellent author, Fritz Karinsky. I am going to narrate (not the whole story but) a synopsis of both the stories with a highlight of the lines in them that caught my fancy. Some of you may have already read both the stories but I am recounting this for those that may not have read them and am sure will enjoy them (my comments are in italics):

Story 1: "DUSK"

Norman Gortsby (the protagonist) sat on a bench in Hyde Park on a March evening around the time of DUSK (sunset). All around him while there was frenzied activity, there was also an air of gloom as if to signify that "dusk" was an hour for the defeated and those whose looks of loss and despair could go unnoticed as they could also come out unrecognized at that hour, with long shadows obscuring their tired faces. Sitting beside him on the park bench was an elderly gentleman who looked like he belonged to the same category of brooding people who had nothing to look forward to. After a while, the old man left the bench and was immediately replaced by a young man who swore as he flung himself on the seat, in a manner of expecting Norman to ask him what his problem was.

Norman also played along and asked the young man what was bothering him to which the young man replied that he had come into the city to stay at a designated hotel. Upon reaching there, he found that it had been pulled down to make way for a theater and based on the taxi driver's suggestion, he had checked into another hotel. Since he hated using hotel soap, he had taken a stroll thru the streets and after buying his brand of soap at a chemist's, he had wanted to retrace his steps to his hotel, when he realized that he did not know the way nor the address. Although he had wired his family his contact details from the hotel, he could not call them to ask for the address since it would be a day before they got it and with barely any money in his pocket, he did not know where to go for the night.

After saying this, the young man asked Norman if he thought his story was not believable. Norman said that he too went thru a similar experience in a foreign city and since there were two of them at that time - he and his friend, they were able to make their way back to the hotel because they remembered that it was near a canal and so they asked for directions to the canal. So, he said that the young man's story was plausible but he told the young man that the missing piece of his story was the cake of soap. The young man made a gesture of searching for his soap in his overcoat and muttered angrily that he must have lost it, upon which Norman remarked that "to lose a hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests wilful carelessness" (this is the line in the story that I liked).

But the young man was already on his feet and scurrying from the park. Norman thought to himself that he was almost fooled and if only the young man had also produced a soap, then he would have completed the act perfectly. With that reflection, as he got up to go, he gave a cry of surprise since he found a cake of soap under the park bench and it looked sealed as though fresh from a chemist's shop. He thought it must have fallen when the young man flung himself on the seat. Norman began to hurry after the young man and met him at a traffic light as he was about to cross and gave him some money, apologizing for suspecting him and handing him the soap, saying that it had come to his rescue that day. The young man gave a look of surprise and after muttering a quick thanks to Norman, disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians on the street.

Norman walked back thru the park on his way home thinking about how quickly he had judged someone wrongly and making a mental note to be more careful when evaluating people in the future. As he passed thru the bench he was sitting, he found the same old man who had sat before the young man looking under the park bench for something. When Norman asked him if he had lost something, the old man said "yes sir, a cake of soap".

Story 2: "THE REFUND"

The Refund is an unusual story. A student who was a bad performer in school comes back to the school as a young man and wants a refund of all the fees that he paid. He jeers his professors, calling them names and tells them that they were as much "good for nothings" as he was and since he did not derive any value from them, it is only rightful that he be paid back all his tuition. He also threatens the school with legal action if they don't return his money. The Principal is livid, but the Maths teacher sizes up the situation quickly and proposes a solution.

She says that each of the teachers would administer an oral quiz to him and if he gets even one question right, then he is deemed to have passed all his exams and so he will not be entitled to any refund, otherwise he can be given a refund if he fails to answer ALL of the questions correctly. According to her plan, every professor should ask him two questions - one easy and the other hard. The young man agrees to this proposition since he is determined to get his money and so he looks forward to answering every question incorrectly even if he knows the right answers to some or all of them. So, one by one, the teachers quiz him - the Biology professor, the English professor, the Chemistry professor and the Physics professor but he answers all of them incorrectly and is quite delighted at the progress he is making. The Principal feels uneasy but the Maths professor assures her that she can handle it. Finally it is the turn of the Maths professor. She says she is going to ask him the easy question first.

Her first question is (and this is a question that is so funny that I remember it to this day, 25 years after reading this story):

"If we represent the speed of light by X and the distance of the star Sirius from the Sun by Y, what is the circumference of a one-hundred-and-nine-sided regular polyhedron whose surface area coincides with that of the hip-pocket of a state railway employee, whose wife has been deceiving him for two years and eleven months with a regimental sergeant major of hussars".

The young man is flummoxed with this question but recovers quickly and says "28 apricots" as the answer. There is tension in the air as the Principal and other Professors look expectantly in the direction of the Maths Professor, who coolly says that it is the wrong answer and that the correct answer is 27 apricots. The young man is greatly relieved and looks extremely happy in flunking this quiz. The Maths teacher turns around to the horrified Principal and coolly says that the young man is right about asking his fees back and that the school should refund him.

The Maths teacher turns to the young man and asks him how much the school owes him. Overjoyed at the prospect of getting some money, the young man goes over each year and the fees for that year in detail and comes up with the final amount the school owes him. All along as he is counting mentally and saying what is due to him, the Maths teacher writes the figures down on a piece of paper and calculates the total. Finally the teacher acknowledges to the young man that his mental arithmetic adds up correctly. The young man says that they can bet on it since he has it all worked out.

That is when the Maths Professor drops the bombshell that her asking him what the school owed him was her "hard" question and that since he got it right, he has now passed his course with flying colors and so the school doesn't owe him anything now. That is when the young man realizes that he has been tricked and as he prepares to leave the school in disgust, he is mocked at by each of the professors in turn (as a return favor for his poking fun at them). END OF STORY.

Both these stories have the "twist in their tail" and make for absorbing reading. The advantage for our batch of students in those days was that the Non-Detailed lessons contained stories from around the world and so we could understand and appreciate the works of different authors. Not being in touch with the school syllabus either here in America or in India now, I wonder if an entire generation of kids are growing up without having a chance to savor these delightful stories. I know that I had a good time with them :-)

posted by thennavan @ 2:49 PM