Class X: Fiction: The Letter by Dhumaketu

Synopsis:

Coachman Ali, who once upon a time used to be a hunter, is now leaving alone after his daughter left him after her marriage. The only thing he does every day is to get up before dawn and to go to post office for endless wait of his daughter’s letter. Workers in the post office makes fun of him, shouts at him, and shoos him away, but Ali as a devotee visits his pilgrimage every day. The Postmaster, who once insulted Ali for being ‘a pest’, is worried because of no news of his ill daughter. There he realizes the suffering Ali has been suffering since five years. In the end, he hallucinates Ali coming to post office. The story is of guilt consciousness of human being, love and faith.

Questions – Answers:

1.    Who was Ali? Where did he go daily?

Ans: Ali was an old man, in the evening of his life. He was a good hunter in his youth and was now known as "Coachman Ali" by the post office officials. He used to go to the post office every day, hoping to receive a letter from his only daughter Miriam who was married five years ago and was living in the Punjab regiment with her soldier husband.

2.    "Ali displays qualities of love and patience". Give evidence from the story to support the statement.

Ans: For solitary Ali it was impossible to follow a strenuous routine but the strength of patience and hope borne of his daughter helped him to do so. His daily attendance to the post office and taking a seat at the corner of the post office with a innumerable patience avoiding the sarcasms of the post office officials and other peons reflects his patience for the apparently triflingletter. His daily return in empty hand bearing the harsh and extreme weather and his collapsing figure shows his love for his daughter.

3.    How do you know Ali was a familiar figure at the post office?

Ans: Ali was a familiar figure at the post office. He always occupied a particular seat in a particular corner of the building. The postmen had begun to poke fun at him. When Ali did not come to the post-office for a few days, the postmen were curious to know what had stopped him. 

4.    Why did Ali give up hunting?

Ans: Ali’s only daughter Miriam had married and left him to be with her husband in the Punjab. He had no news of her and felt life had no meaning anymore. He could no longer enjoy the pleasures of hunting at this stage of life when he was old and lonely. 

5.    What impression do you form of the postmaster after reading the story 'The Letter'?

Ans: The character of the postmaster is a transmission of experience into innocence. The haughty, cold, indifferent post master ultimately changed into a touchy, mild, kind, sympathetic father. His evaluation about coachman Ali to be pest and declaring him to be a mad ultimately changed with the realization of the fatherly pain under a pitiable circumstance. At the end of the story we find the postmaster reproaching himself for failing to understand the ache of the fatherly heart of coachman Ali.

6.    The postmaster says to Ali, "What a pest you are, brother!" Do you agree with the statement? Give reasons for your answer.

Ans: I do not agree with it. But given the temperament of the postmaster at this point of the story, he behaves as he should. This speaks of the irresponsible and indifferent attitude of those in power towards the common people. In fact, the postmaster must have shown sympathy to Coachman Ali. Ali had been coming steadily to the post office for some solace from his own daughter Miriam.

7.    "Ali came out very slowly, turning after every few steps to gaze at the post office. His eyes were filled with tears of helplessness, for his patience was exhausted, even though he still had faith." Why were Ali's eyes filled with tears of helplessness? What had exhausted his patience but not his faith?

Ans: After the absence of several days Ali had turned up to post office with a special cause. He wanted to make sure his letters presence to him either dead or alive. When he asked for his daughter’s letter to the postmaster, the Postmaster being annoyed behaved rudely with Ali. This maltreatment had hurt Ali painfully and he could not hold his anger.

Ali’s decreasing physical energy, decaying physique, continuous hopelessness and maltreatment exhausted his patience but could not curb his faith i.e. receiving his daughter’s letter.

8.    "Tortured by doubt and remorse, he sat down in the glow of the charcoal sigri to wait." Who is tortured by doubt and remorse? Why? What is he waiting for?

Ans: The purified postmaster is tortured by doubt of remorse. He is utterly in the morose state.

The daughter of the postmaster was critically ill in the next town and on receiving no answer from his daughter his fatherly heart had the same feeling of coachman Ali i.e. the feeling of remorse. In the early dawn the postmaster experienced an uncanny incident, but on knowing the news of Ali’s death he was in complete dilemma about the credibility of the incident. So he was in doubt.

He is waiting for his daughter’s letter. His daughter is ill in the next town.

Extra Questions:

·         The writer carefully creates an atmosphere of loneliness and grief in the story. Write the sentences or instances from the story which symbolizes grief or sadness.
Ans.
1-........for whose sake alone he dragged along a cheerless existence.
2-But loneliness had come into his life since the day Miriam had gone away........
3-There was no one with enough sympathy or understand to guess the reason .........
4-Ali was never seen again ..........
5-But when the evening of his life was drawing in ..........
6-....... the young partridges bereft of their parents
7-........grief of separation is inescapable
8-.....weft bitterly
9-........went away empty-handed
10-But he doesn't get many letters
11-when I am here
12-His eyes were filled with tears of helplessness
13-To the grave
14-Today is my las day ;my very last, alas !
15-There were tears in Ali's eyes

·         Question:    What did Ali do in his youth? What made him leave his old ways?

Answer:    In his youth, Ali was a very skilled Shikari. He could trace and obtain the earth-brownpartridge from a bush, even when the dogs had failed to detect it. Ali was also a very skilled points man. Besides being a shikari, he would often go out fishing with his friends. He left his old ways became he had now grown old and there was no one to bring his rewards to. He also realized how much pains the animal or bird was going through, being parted from its loved ones so reflecting on all this, he gave up hunting.

·         Question:    Why did Ali go to the postmaster one fine day? How was he received by the postmaster?

Answer:    Ali hadn't been to the post office for several days. One fine day, breathing with great difficulty he went straight to the postmaster. Ali requested him to note down his address in case his letter came when he was not there. The postmaster lost his temper and calling him a pest, asked him to go away. He coldly told Ali that no one was going to eat his letter. Ali felt every humiliated at that and with tears of helplessness turned away.

·         Question:    How was Ali looked upon by the post office officials?

Answer:    Ali had been visiting the post office every single day, at five in the morning, expecting a letter from his only daughter Miriam. The officials at the post office poked fun at him by sometimes calling out his name, making him jump, thinking it was a letter from his daughter. They also called him "a mad man" who worried them everyday sitting for hours at the post office.

·         Question:    In the story, 'The letter' is the title appropriate. Substantiate your answer with instances from the story.

Answer:    The story is about Coachman Ali, once a clever shikari, waiting for a letter from his daughter, Miriam, for five long years. His daughter had got married and left him. He then understands the meaning of love and separation and gives up hunting. He waits for a letter from Miriam with boundless faith and patience tolerating the insults and teasing of the clerks in the post office. It is the arrival of Miriam's which changes the insensitive Postmaster's heart. His encounter with Ali's ghost come to collect Miriam's letter, leaves him absolutely shocked. The postmasters attitude towards letters changes. He beings to perceive them as containing a warm beating heart. He discover the essential human worth of a letter. Hence the title is appropriate as it sensitizes the reader to the importance of a letter and the promise of happiness, hope and emotion it carries with it.

Writing Skills:

Tortured by doubt and remorse, the postmaster sits in the glow of a charcoal sigri that night, waiting for news of his daughter. As he sits, he writes his diary. As the postmaster, write a diary entry in about 150 words outlining your feelings about the day’s events.

Ans:

12^th January, 1962

1:30 A.M.

Dear Diary,

I know now the value of each letter. It is a warm, beating heart; priceless to the receiver. I realize what Ali must have gone through, waiting anxiously for a letter that came, but came too late. Here I am now, waiting for one more night for my daughter’s letter, assuring me that all is well with her and that she sends me her love. Ali lived for five long years and died in the hope that his Miriam will write to her. But I had seen Ali this morning, with my very eyes. He was stooped double with age, yet when he lifted his eyes to look at me, I was shocked at the unearthly light that shone in them. And then he had vanished. Ali had indeed died three months back. I put the letter on his grave myself. Oh, how I wish that I had been more patient and understanding with him on his last day instead of brushing him aside with impatience. I am grateful to God that he gave me the opportunity of delivering Miriam’s letter to Ali with my own hands. I am sure now that Ali is at peace in Heaven. His letter, for which he has waited patiently for five years at the post office, finally arrived. I pray that God forgive me for my sins and take care of my own daughter and indeed, all the daughters in the world. Let no separation be so painful that the medium of a letter cannot bridge the gap between two loving hearts.