Explain the undeserved reward by premchand
Answers
The narrator has a secret admiration for the district collector who is a learned man and has done research on old coins and history. However, he takes no initiative to meet the district collector. Surprisingly, one day he gets a written invitation from the district collector to meet him. His friends advise him not to go and says that district collector could have come himself. They also say that the he did not do so because he was a snob.
However, the narrator makes a logical analysis and decides that it was right for the district collector to have his ego and that visiting the narrator’s place would be inconvenient and cause a lot of expense for him. So, he decides to go and meet the district collector as requested. When the meeting took place, the author finds that the district collector was actually a person with no airs. Talks go round and rumors develop about their friendship. People approach the narrator for favors to be got through the district collector. But, the narrator turns them down.
Once the author’s childhood friend Baldev visits him. After reviving old memories, Baldev says that his son has been falsely implicated and asks the narrator to represent his case to the district collector. He does not give the narrator a chance to say no. Yet, the author does nothing in this regard and forgets about it altogether. Later Baldev comes along with his son and tells the narrator that his son has been released. He expresses his gratitude to the narrator and showers him with gifts. Although the narrator feels guilty, he takes the reward and says nothing.