Stephen
May 18, 2007
Draft 2

Title

In The Grass-Eaters, Krishman Varma writes about Ajit Badu who does not have a decent place to live, who has to feed on grass instead of the normal food, and who undergoes many other miseries in his life. Although Badu told the story in quite a humorous way, we find in his calm statement of the miseries of his daily life the poverty in India’s education system, the housing issue, the general social order and its people’s access to food and cloth. And it is just the extreme poor life conditions that resulted in his complete desperation of the possibility of improving his life.

The shortage of the education system first appealed to me when Ajit Badu, as a retired school master, told us in the story “I could spare little from my pension for new clothes” and “I had to make do with a loin clothes to save my few threadbare clothes from further wear and tear.” It is difficult to think of a society that weights education, yet spends so little on the education fee as a retired school master could not buy the necessary cloth when he wants. Of course, there still lies possibility that Badu’s school may be a specific case—extremely poor. Yet, in that case, the fact that the rich would like to send their child to Badu still helps us to see the lack of the educational resources in India.

We read in the beginning of the story that Badu was once tutor to a spherical boy. And I assert that the boy’s family was rich, mainly for two reasons. The first reason has to do with the figures of the boy as spherical, of the father as ovoid, and the mother as cuboid—in a word, they are fat. Common sense tells us that in a poor society that people may or may not have enough to eat, fatness usually stands for richness. And the second reason is that the ovoid father once said to Badu “why don’t you move into one of my buildings”. It is clear that the father possessed several buildings, which no doubt implies his richness.

But if the family was rich, how could they send their boy to an extremely poor school if my former supposition that Badu’s school was extremely poor is true? Two possible reasons could explain this. Perhaps the couple knew Badu or someone else in that school, who they believed could tutor their boy well. But that piece of explanation is quite impossible since poor schools, without all the privileges that good schools have, could hardly hire good teachers. Then the second reason comes into my mind, as the city lacks schools. It is not that the rich were unwilling to get their boy the best education, but the fact was that there was not so much to choose from. Thus I deduce that in Calcutta, where the story took place, there were scanty educational resources. Noting that Calcutta was one of the largest cities in India, which in nature should have more educational resources, I think the author is telling us the lack of the educational resources in the whole India.

The housing problem of the India society runs through the whole story. As we begin reading the story, we find that the couple was living in a pipe and that the Chittatanjan Avenue in Calcutta was “so crowded with residents that if you got up at night to relieve yourself you could not be sure of finding your place again”. Yet, the problem is most evident when it comes to Badu’s decision to find a suitable place for his wife’s confinement. Although he “lost no time in looking for a suitable place”, the places he suggested, as if joking, were someplace like the railway station platform, the overbridge and the water tank—all those places that are unfit for an ordinary human being to reside, not to mention to give birth to a child. That means even though he seems to be serious of the problem of finding a suitable place, he may not actually take it seriously, or at least do not think that he could manage to find one in the end. But why didn’t he think of the possibility of solving the problem even at the beginning? The reason that is highly possible is due to his frequent past frustration, which may give him a hint that no matter how hard he would try, he may not be able to solve the problem—in this case, finding a suitable place to stay. And thus it all becomes nature that he would be reluctant to try to find some place to live. The issue ended as they came across a pipe and decided to live there. Sarcastically, even the pipe was said to be “unbelievably not occupied” and was “far more comfortable than any of our previous homes”, which confirms that in Calcutta, and thus in India, the poor could have great difficulty in finding a suitable place to live.

Besides the education and housing problems of the India society, the general social order regarding its transportation system, the criterion in people’s daily life and the working status of the people seems to be the most serious problem in India. The chaotic situation of the transportation system is almost obvious since in few other countries could people do what the Indians are doing as when they find the trams are crowded, they get up on its roof. What’s worse, as Badu said: “the conduct will not stop you”. The same chaotic situation fills Indians’ daily lives. “When we go out—to the communal lavatory ,…” this sentence implies that the roads and streets in the society serve as the lavatory and people piddle whenever and wherever they want. “We live very quietly, content to look at the passing scene: a tram burning, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin”, which tells us that it is common scene to spot those crimes in India. All these facts pictures a tumult India society in which there is almost no criterion that curbs people’s behavior, not to mention the existence of the force that is needed to keep a society under control.

Another problem of the social order is the people’s working status. As Badu was telling his experience in living in a wagon, he said “that was not the only time we went to bed in Calcutta and woke up in another place”. This sentence implicitly states that the couple was able to live in the wagon without being found for several times. But how could it be possible if the people who move the wagon work carefully? It could be accepted that the hammals may not find the couple for the first time or two when they transported the wagon, but if after several times, they would still fail to notice that, the only explanation could be that they were in a low working status which impeded them from finding someone who were not supposed to be in.

All the shortages in the three aspects mentioned above together with the obvious difficulty in the access to the daily needs such as the food and cloth leads to Badu’s complete desperation of the possibility of improving his life. The lack of the educational resources in India means that there is a large possibility that Badu, because of the fierce competition, may not be able to offer his child a decent education, and the lack of education invariably dims ones future. Thus Badu may not put hope on his offspring to bring improvement to the life. Just as he said: “and now, we have no fears or anxieties”, despite the fact that his son is still in Naxalite’s underground, and that the Naxalite movement aimed to change India’s social structure by liquidating estates among the rural poor. Although he may try to improve his life through his own hands, yet the frequent frustrations would finally drive the idea way, as we could see in the housing issue discussed above. But perhaps all these problems are not sufficient to put a man in the valley of despair. Yet by taking into consideration that the whole society is not in good order, we could safely deduce that Badu has complete lost hope of changing his life, because, common sense tells us that a man may be able to deal with one or two or some more difficulties in his life, but he may feel weak, incapable and frustrated when every thing around him seems chaotic. And thus, he would give in, stop trying when difficulties emerge, and abandon himself in the stream of fate. As he said in the end:

We live very quietly, content to look at the passing scene: a tram burning, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin

The incredibly calm voice is uttered through the sear throat of a man who could do nothing but accept what is happening around. It is not that he is truly content or pleasant about the criminal scene, or that in nature he is unwilling to do anything that could be of use to stop the crimes, but the sad truth is that he could not—that is he could not get the whole society into the right trace within his own efforts. And thus he quits, forces himself to feel content or accustomed to the sin around, and becomes despair about any improvement in his life.

In conclusion, it is just the extreme poor conditions of the India life in its education system, the housing issue, the general social order and its people’s access to food and cloth that drives Ajit Badu despair about the possibility of improving his life.