character sketch of all the characters of the story Bolai by rabindrnath Tagore (100 words each).
Answers
Answer:
Human being is the end-product of a long process of evolution. There are elements of birds and beasts and even plants and other living organisms in a human being.
In my brother's motherless child Bolai, plants were the dominant element.
From his very childhood, he had the habit not of running around but being still and staring at the world around him - like the plants do. When it rained, his entire body seemed to hear its pitter-patter. When the afternoon sun rays fell on the rooftop, he bared his body to it and walked about. He was not a talkative child. He had large eyes and silently looked out of them at the surrounding nature.
Once I had taken him to the hills. In front of our house there was a grassy slope going down the hillside. It thrilled Bolai. He rolled down it, as though he was part of the slope going down. As he went down, the grasses would tickle the back of his neck, and he would laugh merrily.
When it rained in the night and the morning light fell upon the tall trees of the mountains, Bolai would go and stand quietly among them in wonder.
His eyes were lost in thought. It is not that they were always looking upwards - towards the sun or the clouds. They were often cast down as if looking for something. They were keen to see the new saplings raise their heads out of the earth, and seemed to have a conversation going on with them. Perhaps the young shoots asked Bolai: "What is your name? " Or, "Where is your mother?" Perhaps Bolai replied: "My mother is gone." It hurt him when people plucked flowers from trees. He had realized that this made no sense to others and so he tried to hide it. Kids of his age threw pebbles up at trees to bring fruits down. Bolai could not say anything to them openly but he turned his face away and moved elsewhere. To tease him, his friends, while walking through a garden, would swing a stick at the flowerbeds on either side or unnecessarily break off a branch from a tree. Bolai felt like crying but was embarrassed to do so in case it was seen as madness.
The days he suffered most were those of trimming the lawn. Everyday he spotted tiny flowers among the grasses, yellow and mauve and without any names. Everyday he found new sapling shooting up from seeds that had perhaps been blown there by the wind. How pretty they were! How delicate! But because they were not fancy plants, there was no one to hear their cries as they were cut down by the ghasiara (grass-cutter).
On some days, he came and sat on his aunt's lap and put his arms around her neck as he appealed: "Kaki, why don't you tell the ghasiara not to cut off my plants."
"What nonsense you speak, Bolai", my wife would say "They are wild growth and must be trimmed."
And so Bolai had gathered that there were some feelings that were entirely his own, that he could not share wit anyone else. Bolai seemed get a message straight from nature that every blade of grass, every sapling, every bit of creation wanted to live, survive and grow. We had laughed a lot at this absurd idea.
One day I was reading the newspaper when Bolai excitedly took me to the garden. Right in the middle of the gravel path across the garden, a sapling of Shimul (silk-cotton) had shot up.
Alas, Bolai had made a mistake in calling me out and showing me the sapling. He had spotted it right from the day it had sprung up from the ground. He had watered it everyday, watched over it morning and afternoon. Silk-cotton trees grow fast - but not as fast as Bolai's keen interest in its growth. When it had grown about two feet tall, and sprouted a wealth of leaves, Bolai was struck with awe and admiratioMy sister-in-law, Bolai's mother, had died when Bolai was but a baby. My elder brother in his grief had gone abroad for higher education, leaving Bolai with us. That is how Bolai had grown up with us, his childless uncle and aunt. After a decade, my brother came back and took Bolai away from us to give him a better education, first in Shimla and then in England. Tearfully, Bolai left us to our emptiness. Two years passed by. Bolai's aunt often wept for him secretly and handled Bolai's old toys and pictures books, which she had preserved in the room that used to be his.
Explanation: