Question

What is the significance of the title of Dhumketu's Story "The Letter"?

Answer 1

The significance of the title 'The Letter' is quite deep. This chapter is not only about Ali's wait and longing for a letter from his daughter, Miriam. This chapter is much more than just a letter. Dhumketu wants to tell a very important lesson that we don't live in a chaotic and unorganized universe where our deeds go unrecorded! He wants to teach us that each and every thought we think, each and every word we speak, and each and every action we do, there is a reckoning done automatically. And this reckoning is done here and now on this earth, during our present lifetime; not in the distant future. We are accountable for our actions. For instance, the postmaster in the story 'The Letter' behaves quite unsympathetically and rudely with Ali, who is already sad and sorrowful for his past misdeeds and separation from Miriam. The same postmaster has to repent for his rudeness when his own daughter falls ill. He realizes how it feels being separated from daughter. So all sins are punished here by the Providence. Ali was punished for inflicting pain on innocent partridges and hares; and later on the postmaster was punished for being insensitive to Ali's pain!