Lesson 2
The Editor
- Rabindranath Tagore
Rewrite the story ‘The Editor’ in your own words.
Introduction:
The Editor is a short story written by a Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. It is the story of a man who has lost his wife and has a daughter who seems mature beyond her years. Sensing her father's grief and his great loss at the death of her mother, she steps in and takes charge of the household and his care. He loves her but is unable to show her any affection due to the fact that he is consumed with his editorial responsibilities as he is the editor of the village newspaper. One day when his work is causing him anxiety, he is inattentive towards his daughter who comes to him while he is working but is touched by the fact that she came to him so gently and lovingly, hoping to give affection, her gesture touches him and he goes to check on her only to find that she is ill and needed him to care for her. He then puts aside all his work and focuses on caring for his daughter. The story traces the father-daughter relationship and shows the strong bond that exists between the two.
After the Death of Narrator’s wife:
Tagore mentions in the beginning of the story that he never paid attention to his daughter Probha as long as her mother was live. He used to care more for his wife than his daughter. He would sometimes pet and listen to her lisping chatter. He would watch her play and laugh. He would sometimes fondle her daughter and give her to her mother as soon as it would seem to be tiresome. However, the untimely death of his wife increased writer’s responsibility of taking care of her.
The Caring Daughter Probha:
The narrator says that it is difficult to say that whether he would care for a motherless child or the child cared for a wifeless husband. He says that the child since the age of six began to assume the role of a housekeeper. The narrator acknowledges that the child became the guardian of the father.
The narrator further says that his daughter never lets him do any work. The child does all the job for the narrator. Sometimes when the narrator would do something on his own, the child
used to feel that he had usurped her right. This way, the narrator becomes completely dependent on his daughter.
The narrator says that his daughter used to take the keenest interest in feeding him, dressing him, and even putting him to bed. The narrator would get the opportunity to summon up his daughter when he would teach her daughter arithmetic. He calls her his ‘parental authority’.
The Narrator’s Concern for Probha:
The narrator provides his daughter good education. However, the thinks of earning more money in order to be able to give good dowry to her daughter because the matter of getting her daughter a good husband always makes his worried. This concern for his daughter makes the narrator make up his mind for earning money. The narrator was too old to get a job in a government office. He didn’t have any influence to get job in private sector. Therefore, he decides to write books.
The narrator’s decision to earn money:
If one makes holes in a bamboo tube, it will no longer hold either oil or water, in fact its power of receptivity is lost. However, if one blows through it, then, without any expenditure it may produce music. The narrator feels quite sure that the man who is not useful can be ornamental, and he who is not productive in other fields can at least produce literature. Encouraged by this thought, he wrote a farce. People said it was good, and it was even acted on the stage. Having tasted of fame once, the narrator found myself unable to stop pursuing it farther. Days and days together he would go on writing farces with an agony of determination.
The Hectic Life of the Narrator:
The narrator’s life becomes very busy. Probha would come with her smile, and remind him gently that it is time for her father to take his bath. But the narrator would growl out at her and say, “Go away, go away; can't you see that I am busy now? Don't vex me.” The poor child would leave him, unnoticed, with a face dark like a lamp whose light has been suddenly blown out. The narrator becomes so preoccupied with writing that he would drive the maid-servants away, and beat the men-servants, and when beggars would come and sing at his door he would get up and run after them with a stick.
The Narrator Becomes an Editor:
The narrator gets an excellent opportunity. The landlord of a certain village named Jahirgram, started a newspaper. He sent a request that the narrator would become its editor. The narrator agrees to take the post of an editor. His writings were so strong and fiery that Ahirgram could no longer hold up its head. The narrator blackened with his ink the whole of their ancient clan and family. The narrator writes one day on the reading taste of readers. He gradually loses his fame as a good writer. In the meantime, the narrator’s admirers had quite forgotten the farces which had made him famous. He feels as if I were a burnt-out match, charred to its very end. His mind becomes so depressed that he is unable to write one line. It seems to him that he has lost all zest for life.
Probha needs her Father’s Care:
During this phase of his life, Probha grows afraid of her father. She would not venture to approach him unless she is summoned. She comes to understand that a commonplace doll is a far better companion than a genius of a father who writes comic pieces. One day Probha comes to her father when he was lost in thoughts in garden. He was busy thinking about what answer he should write to Aghiram.
When the narrator goes back to the house a little later, he sees that Probha was lying on her bed. Her eyes were half closed, and she seemed to be in pain. She lay like a flower which has dropped on the dust at the end of the day. He realised that the poor child, feeling the first symptoms of fever, had come with her thirsty heart to get her father's love and caresses, while he was trying to think of some stinging reply to send to the newspaper.
Conclusion:
He sits beside her. The child, without speaking a word, takes his hand between her two fever-heated palms, and lays it upon her forehead, lying quite still. After that, all the numbers of the Jahirgram and Ahirgram papers which the narrator had in the house he burnt to ashes. He wrote no answer to the attack. Never had he felt such joy as he did, when he thus acknowledged defeat.
SHORT QUESTIONS
1. What duty was the narrator unable to fulfil and why?
The narrator was unable to fulfil the duty of a good father after the death of Probha’s mother because he used to remain occupied in writing books and articles in newspaper. The narrator was an editor in the newspaper.
2. What worries did the father harbour regarding the future of his daughter?
The father was educating his daughter well but he was worried about getting his daughter a good husband. Worrying about her future, the father decided to earn money in order to give her dowry.
3. Why was the narrator pleased with himself?
The narrator was pleased with himself because his writings were so strong and fiery that Ahirgram could no longer hold up its head. The narrator blackened with his ink the whole of their ancient clan and family.
4. What fatal mistake did the narrator make?
The narrator, out of desperation, wrote a sermon on the necessity of good taste in literature but he found that he had made a fatal mistake. His effort at the moral betterment of his fellow-beings had the opposite effect to that which he had intended.
5. Why did Probha come to her father while he was working? How did he react?
Probha came to her father in order to remind him that it is time for him to take bath. But her father growled out at her and asked her to go away. He asked her not to vex him because he is busy.
ADDITIONAL SHORT QUESTIONS
1. What opportunity did the narrator get in the story?
The narrator got an excellent opportunity of becoming an editor of a newspaper which
was started by Jahirgram, the landlord of a certain village.
2. What message does Rabindranath Tagore convey through the story?
Rabindranath Tagore gives the message through the story that family relations and are more important than work.
3. How did Probha react when she approaches her father when he was in garden?
Probha slowly came near to her father once more. She whispered in his ear, 'Father,' but not getting any answer she had lifted his right hand, and with it had gently stroked her forehead, and then silently gone back into the house.
4. Who were the two rival landlords?
The two landlords Jahirgram and Ahirgram were each other’s rivals. There was a constant rivalry between the landlords of these two villages.
5. Who makes very ugly imputations against the narrator?
The Ahirgram newspaper made very ugly imputations leaving narrator’s employer alone for once. The newspaper had directed its attack on the narrator.
