Summary of the lesson postmaster by rabindranath tagore
Answers
The Postmaster" tells the story of a functionary of the British government from Calcutta who is sent to the countryside to set up a post office. There, he develops a close relationship with an orphan girl who he begins to teach how to read. But after falling ill, he quits his job to return to Calcutta. The orphan girl asks to be taken with him, but he callously refuses. She is heartbroken and holds out a vague hope that he'll return for her, but the postmaster effectively shrugs her off.
In one of Tagore's more explicitly supernatural stories, "The Hungry Stones," a man tells a story of being sent to Hyderabad as a tax collector, but spending most of his nights in a haunted palace where he is sent back in time 250 years every night in his dreams, taking part in a decadent and lustful royal court. The haunted palace tries to consume his soul, but the story ends before we can learn how he escaped that fate.
"Thoughtlessness" depicts a doctor who takes advantage of a friend's misfortune to enrich himself and gain a lofty bridal dowry for his daughter. When his daughter falls ill right before her wedding, the doctor begs forgiveness for his sins from his friend who he exploited, but the friend is confounded. The doctor's daughter quickly dies, and the doctor starts treating young women free of charge. The story ends when the doctor reprimands a corrupt police inspector who is a friend of his for refusing to help an impoverished man cremate his daughter, yet the doctor is ultimately held in the wrong, and has to leave the village.
Similarly, "Profit and Loss" tells the story of a bridal dowry gone awry. A man wants to marry his daughter into a family in a higher social class, but she marries before he can raise all of the money for the exorbitant dowry. She is treated terribly in her new family home, and the father lives his life in shame, constantly trying to scrounge together money to pay off his debt. He plunges his family into poverty to get the money, but his daughter is embarrassed that he thinks he can buy her dignity back. She falls suddenly ill and dies, and her mother-in-law quickly arranges a new marriage for her widower son with an even higher dowry price.