Kalpana's+Page

Week 1 - Jennings's life is unimaginable for some Indian children growing up in the USA because our children have a cohesive family that hover around the children. Our children also grow up with surplus of everything including abstract things. The children may not experience any kind of starvation, humiliation, or deprivation. Jennings's loss of "Doggie," for example, is phenomenal for Jennings because first he lost his mother and now he has to go to an unknown foster home without the stuffed animal that comforted him at times of difficulties.

Week 2 - Among the people Jennings meets at the orphanage, Mark is the most sympathetic because he understands Jennings's plight along with trying to educate Jennings about the rules of lifers and part timers (foster children). Jennings experiences the sadness that he himself underwent when Mark refuses to play with him due to the fear of attachment when Stacey begins to feel the rejection by Jennings. We all succumb to this attachment cycle without calibrating the repercussions of rejection and neglection in life. Mark is ahead of me in this sense because he understands the damaging effects of loss in an orphanage. Children in that place either stay there permanently or are transferred to a foster home just like Jennings was taken away by the Carpenters. The loss of "Doggie" inflicts pain in Jennings while the loss the Jennings creates havoc in Mark and Stacey.

Cabuliwallah by Tagore

My five-vear-old daughter Mini can't stop talking for a minute. It only took her a year to learn to speak, after coming into the world, and ever since she has not wasted a minute of her waking hours by keeping silent. Her mother often scolds her and makes her shut up, but I can't do that. When Mini is quiet, it is so unnatural that I cannot bear it. So her chattering gets quite a lot of encouragement from me.  One morning, as I was starting the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Mini came up to me and said, 'Father, Ramdoyal the gatekeeper calls a crow a kauya instead of a kak. He doesn't know anything, does he!'

 Before I had a chance to enlighten her about the multiplicity of languages in the world, she brought up another subject. 'Guess what, Father, Bhola says it rains when an elephant in the sky squirts water through its trunk. What nonsense he talks! He teases me, he teases me all day long.'

 Without waiting for my opinion on this matter either, she suddenly asked, 'Father, what relation is Mother to you?'

 'Good question,’ I said to myself, but to Mini I said, 'Run off and play with Bhola. I've got work to do.'

 But she then sat down near my feet beside my writing-table, and, slapping her knees legan to recite ‘agdum bagdum’ at top speed. The hero of my seventeenth chapter, Pratap Singh, was meanwhile taking a niL,@,ht-time plunge into the river from the high window of his prison, with the Golden Garland in his hand.

 My study looks out on to the road. Mini suddenly abandoned the ‘agdum bagdum’ game, ran over to the window and shouted, 'Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah!'

 Dressed in dirty baggy clothes, pugree on his head, bag hanging from his shoulder, and with three or four boxes of grapes in his hands, a tall Kabuliwallah was ambling along the road. It was hard to say exactly what thoughts the sight of him had put into my beloved daughter's mind, but she hailed him most enthusiastically. That swinging bag spells danger, I thought: my seventeenth chapter won't get finished today. But just as the Kabuliwallah, attracted by Mini's shouts, looked towards us with a smile and started to approach our house, Mini gasped and ran into the inner rooms, disappearing from view. She had a blind conviction that if one looked inside that swinging bag one would find three or four live children like her.

 Meanwhile the Kabuliwallah came up to the window and smilingly salaamed. I decided that although the plight of Pratap Singh and the Golden Garland was extremely critical, it would be churlish not to invite the fellow inside and buy something from him.

 I bought something. Then I chatted to him for a bit. We talked about Abdur Rahman's efforts to preserve the integrity of Afghanistan against the Russians and the British. When he got up to go, he asked, 'Babu, where did your little girl go?'

 To dispel her ungrounded fears, I called Mini to come out. She clung to me and looked suspiciously at the Kabuliwallah and his bag. The Kabuliwallah took some raisins and apricots out and offered them to her, but she would not take them, and clung to my knees with doubled suspicion. Thus passed her first meeting with the Kabuliwallah.

 A few days later when for some reason I had to go out of the house one morning, I saw my daughter sitting on a bench in front of the door, nattering unrestrainedly; and the Kabuliwallah was sitting at her feet listening - grinning broadly, and from time to time making comments in his hybrid sort of Bengali. In all her five years of life, Mini had never found so patient a listener, apart from her father. I also saw that the fold of her little sari was crammed with raisins and nuts. I said to the Kabuliwallah, 'Why have you given all these? Don't give her any more.' I then took a half-rupee out of my pocket and gave it to him. He unhesitatingly took the coin and put it in his bag.

 When I returned home, I found that this half-rupee had caused a full-scale row. Mini's mother was holding up a round shining object and saying crossly to Mini, 'Where did you get this half rupee from?'

 'The Kabuliwallah gave it to me,' said Mini.

 'Why did you take it from the Kabuliwallah?' said her mother.

 'I didn't ask for it,' said Mini tearfully. 'He gave it to me himself.'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> I rescued Mini from her mother's wrath, and took her outside. I learnt that this was not just the second time that Mini and the Kabuliwallah had met: he had been coming nearly every day and, by bribing her eager little heart with pistachio-nuts, had quite won her over. I found that they now had certain fixed jokes and routines: for example as soon as Mini saw Rahamat, she giggled and asked, 'Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah, what have you got in your bag?' Rahamat would laugh back and say - giving the word a peculiar nasal twang - 'An elephant.' The notion of an elephant in his bag was the source of immense hilarity; it might not be a very subtle joke, but they both seemed to find it very funny, and it gave me pleasure to see, on an autumn morning, a young child and a grown man laughing so innocently.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> They had a couple of other jokes. Rahamat would say to Mini, 'Little one, don't ever go off to your ‘svasur-bari.' Most Bengali girls grow up hearing frequent references to their svasur-bari, but my wife and I are rather progressive people and we don't keep talking to our young daughter about her future marriage. She therefore couldn't clearly understand what Rahamat meant; yet to remain silent and give no reply was wholly against her nature, so she would turn the idea round and say, 'Are you going to your svasur-bari?' Shaking his huge fist at an imaginary father-in-law Rahamat said, 'I'll settle him!' Mini laughed merrily as she imagined the fate awaiting this unknown creature called a svasur.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> It was perfect autumn weather. In ancient times, kings used to set out on their world-conquests in autumn. I have never been away from Calcutta; precisely because of that, my-mind roves all over the world. I never seem to stir from my house, but I constantly yearn for the world outside. If I hear the name of a foreign land, at once my heart races towards it; and if I see a foreigner, at once an image of a cottage on some far bank or wooded mountainside forms in my mind, and I think of the free and pleasant life I would lead there. At the same time, I am such a rooted sort of individual that if I ever left my familiar spot it would be the end of me. So to sit each morning at my table in my little study, chatting with this Kabuliwallah, was quite enough wandering for me. High, scorched, blood-coloured, forbidding mountains on either side of a narrow desert path; laden camels passing; turbaned merchants and wayfarers, some on camels, some walking, some with spears in their hands, some with old-fashioned flintlock guns: my friend would talk of his native land in his booming, broken Bengali, and a mental picture of it would pass before my eyes.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Mini's mother is very easily alarmed. The slightest noise in the street makes her think that all the world's drunkards are charging straight at our house. She cannot dispel from her mind - despite her experience of life (which isn't great) - the apprehension that the world is overrun with thieves, bandits, drunkards, snakes, tigers, malaria, caterpillars, cockroaches and white-skinned marauders. She was not too happy about Rahamat the Kabuliwallah. She repeatedly told me to keep a close eye on him. If I tried to laugh off her suspicions, she would launch into a succession of questions: 'So do people's children never go missing? And is there no slavery in Afghanistan? Is it completely impossible for a huge Afghan to kidnap a little child?' I had to admit that it was not impossible, but I found it hard to believe. People have different degrees of belief; this was why my wife was so afraid. But I still saw nothing wrong in letting Rahamat come to our house.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Every year, about the middle of the month of Magh, Rahamat went home. He was always very busy before he left, collecting money owed to him. He had to go from house to house; but he still made time to visit Mini. To see them together, one might well suppose that they were plotting something. If he couldn't come in the morning he would come in the evening; to see his lanky figure approach the darkened house, with his baggy pyjamas hanging loosely around him, was a little frightening. But my heart would light up as Mini ran out to meet him, smiling and calling, 'O Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah,' and the usual innocent jokes passed between the two friends, unequal in age though they were.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> One morning I was sitting in my little study correcting proofsheets. The last days of winter had been very cold, with frost everywhere. The morning sun was shining through the window on to mv feet below my table, and this touch of warmth was very pleasant. It must have been about eight o'clock - early morning walkers, swathed in scarves, had mostly finished their dawn stroll and had returned to their homes. It was then that there was a sudden disturbance in the street.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> I looked out and saw Rahamat in handcuffs, being marched along by two policemen, and behind him a crowd of curious boys. Rahamat's clothes were blood-stained, and one of the policemen was holding a blood-soaked knife. I went outside and stopped him, asking what was up. I heard partly from him and partly from Rahamat himself that a neighbour of ours had owed Rahamat something for a Rampuri chadar; he had tried to lie his way out of the debt, and in the ensuing brawl Rahamat had stabbed him.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Rahamat was mouthing various unrepeatable curses against the lying debtor, when Mini ran out of the house calling, 'Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah.' For a moment Rahamat's face lit up with pleasure. He had no bag over his shoulder today, so they couldn't have their usual discussion about it. Mini came straight out with her 'Are you going to vour svasur-bari?'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> 'Yes, I'm going there now,' said. Rahamat with a smile. But when he saw that his reply had alarmed Mini, he b*shed his fist and said, 'I would have killed my svasur, but how can I with these handcuffs on?'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Rahamat was convicted of assault, and sent to prison for several years. We virtually forgot about him. Living at home, carrying on day by day with our accustomed tasks, we gave no thought to how a free-spirited mountain-dweller was passing his years behind prison-walls. As for the capricious Mini, even her father would have to admit that her behaviour was not very praiseworthy. She swiftly forgot him. At first Nabi Sahis replaced him in her affections; later, as she grew up, girls rather than little boys became her favourite companions. She was not often seen in her father's writing-room now. I became rather remote from her.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Several years went by. It was autumn again. Mini's marriage had been decided, and the wedding was fixed for the puja-holiday. Our pride and joy would soon, like Durga going to Mount Kailas, darken her parents' house by moving to her husband's. . It was a most beautiful morning. Sunlight, washed clean by autumn rains, seemed to cover everything with the gold of pure love. Its radiance lent an extraordinary grace to Calcutta's backstreets, with their tumbledown, jam-packed, unremitting dwellings. The stindi started to play in our house before night was over. Its plaintive vibrations seemed to well up from my chest, resound inside my rib-cage. Its sad Bhairavi- raga seemed, like the autumn sunshine, to fill the whole world with the grief of imminent separation. Today my Mini would be married.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> From dawn on there was uproar, endless coming and going. A bevy of people worked in the yard of the house, binding bamboo poles together to erect a canopy; in the rooms and verandahs brooms swished and scratched; the shouting was continuous.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> I was sitting in my study doing accounts, when Rahamat suddenly appeared and salaamed before me. At first I didn't recognize him. He had no bag, he had lost his long hair; his former vigour had gone. But when he smiled, I recognized him.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> 'How are you, Rahamat?' I said. 'When did you come?' 'I, was let out of prison yesterday evening,' he replied.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> His words took me aback. I had never confronted a would-be murderer before; seeing him made me all nervous inside. I began to feel that on this auspicious morning it would be better to have the man out of the way. 'There's something happening in our house today,' I said. 'I'm rather busy. Please go now.'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> He was ready to go at once, but just as he reached the door he hesitated a little and said, 'Can't I see your little girl for a moment?'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> It seemed he thought that Mini was still just as she was when he had known her: that she would come running as before, calling 'Kabuliwallah, O Kabuliwallah!'; that their old merry banter would resume. He had even brought (remembering their old friendship) a box of grapes and a few pistachio-nuts wrapped in paper - extracted, no doubt, from some Afghan friend of his, having no bag of his own now.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> 'There's something happening in the house today,' I said. 'You can't see anyone.'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> He looked rather crestfallen. He stood silently for a moment longer, casting a solemn ,,lance at me; then, saying 'Babu salaam', he walked towards the door. I felt a bit ashamed. I thought of calling him back, but then I saw that he himself was returning.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> 'I brought this box of grapes and these pistachio-nuts for the little one,' he said. 'Please give them to her.' Taking them from him, I was about to pay him for them when he suddenly gripped my arm and said, 'Please, don't give me any money - I shall always be grateful, Babu. Just as you have a daughter, so do I have one, in my own country. It is with her in mind that I have come with a few raisins for your daughter: I haven't come to trade with you.'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Then he put a hand inside his big loose shirt and took out from somewhere close to his heart a dirty piece of paper. Unfolding it very carefully, he spread it out on my table. There was a small handprint on the paper: not a photograph, not a painting - the hand had been rubbed with some soot and pressed down on to the paper. Every year Rahamat carried this memento of his daughter with him when he came to sell raisins in Calcutta's streets: as if the touch of that soft, small, childish hand brought solace to his huge, homesick breast. My eyes swam at the sight of it. I forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I was a Bengali Babu. I understood then that he was as I am, t at e was a father just as I am a father. The handprint of his little mountain-dwelling Parvati reminded me of my own Mini.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> At once I sent for her from the women's quarter of the house. Objections came back: I refused to listen to them. Mini, dressed as a bride - sandal-paste on her brow, red'sarl - came timidly into the room and stood before me.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> The Kabuliwallah was confused at first when he saw her: he couldn't bring himself to utter his old greeting. But at last he smiled and said, 'Little one, are you going to your svasur-bari?' Mini now knew the meaning of svasur-bari; she couldn't reply as before - she blushed at Rahamat's question and looked away. I recalled the day when Mini and the Kabuliwallah had first met. My heart ached.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Mini left the room, and Rahamat, sighing deeply, sat down on the floor. He suddenly understood clearly that his own daughter would have grown up too since he last saw her, and with her too he would have to be reintroduced: he would not be able to greet her as he had always done before. Who knew what had happened to her these eight years? In the cool autumn morning sunshine the sanai went on playing, and Rahamat sat in a Calcutta lane and pictured to himself the barren mountains of Afghanistan.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> I went out and gave him a banknote. 'Rahamat,' I said, 'go back to your homeland and your daughter; by your blessed reunion, Mini will be blessed.'

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> By giving him this money, I had to trim certain items from the wedding-festivities. I wasn't able to afford the electric lights I had planned, and the military band did not come. The womenfolk .were very displeased at this; but for me, the wedding was bathed in a kinder, more beneficent light.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 14px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: center; vertical-align: 150%;">   **Dead Men's Path**     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 14px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: center; vertical-align: 150%;">    Chinua Achebe <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 3px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   Chinua Achebe     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 10px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">    (born 1930)     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 18px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">    Chinua Achebe [che noo'a a cha'ba], a Nigerian, is one of Africa's best-known fiction writers. A member of the Ibo [e'bo] tribe, Achebe grew up in the vil-lage of Ogidi, where his father taught at the local school. At the University Col-lege at Ibadan, Achebe majored in Eng-lish literature and soon decided he wanted to become a writer: "At the uni-versity I read some appalling European novels about Africa . . . and realized that our story could not be told for us by anyone else." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   In 1958 Achebe won fame with his first novel, Things Fall Apart; like much of his fiction, it explores the traumatic effects of African contact with Western ways. A decade later, after Nigeria had gained independence from England, Achebe was one of many Ibos who grew disillusioned with the new government and attempted to establish a separate nation called Biafra. As chairman of the Biafra National Guidance Committee, he traveled abroad with other writers, seek-ing support for the Biafran cause. The collapse of Biafra in 1970 prompted Achebe to retire from political life and devote most of his time to writing and teaching. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 30px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   Nigeria and the Ibo     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 9px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">    The West African nation of Nigeria is the homeland of more than two hundred different native tribes. The largest of these are the Hausa and Fulani, who live mainly in the north; the Yoruba, in the southwest; and the Ibo, in the southeast. Each group has its own language, but their com-mon language is English, reflecting close to a century of British rule that ended in I960. Chinua Achebe, though flu-ent in the Ibo language, usually writes in English. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Most Nigerians are Moslems or Christians, although an-cient tribal beliefs still persist. The Ibos, for example, tradi-tionally believed in a god so powerful that he had to be approached through lesser deities, each affiliated with a dif-ferent Ibo village. Today most Ibos are Christians; however, especially when Achebe was growing up, many Ibo villagers still showed respect for their local deity. Sometimes, as in the upcoming story, the old ways came into conflict with new Western ideas. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 14px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   **Dead Men's Path**     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 14px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">    Chinua Achebe <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 1px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Michael Obi's hopes were fulfilled much ear-lier than he had expected. He was appointed headmaster of Ndume Central School1 in Janu-ary 1949. It had always been an unprogressive school, so the Mission authorities decided to send a young and energetic man to run it. Obi accepted this responsibility with enthusiasm. He had many wonderful ideas and this was an op-portunity to put them into practice. He had had sound secondary school education which desig-nated him a "pivotal teacher" in the official rec-ords and set him apart from the other headmas-ters in the mission field. He was outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often less-educated ones. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "We shall make a good job of it, shan't we?" he asked his young wife when they first heard the joyful news of his promotion. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "We shall do our best," she replied. "We shall have such beautiful gardens and everything will be just modern and delightful. . . ." In their two years of married life she had become completely infected by his passion for "modern methods" and his denigration of "these old and superannu-ated people in the teaching field who would be better employed as traders in the Onitsha2 mar-ket." She began to see herself already as the admired wife of the young headmaster, the queen of the school. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   The wives of the other teachers would envy her position. She would set the fashion in every-thing. . . . Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that there might not be other wives. Wavering between hope and fear, she asked her husband, looking anxiously at him. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "All our colleagues are young and unmar-ried," he said with enthusiasm, which for once she did not share. "Which is a good thing," he continued. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   "Why?" <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "Why? They will give all their time and en-ergy to the school." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Nancy was downcast. For a few minutes she became skeptical about the new school; but it was only for a few minutes. Her little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband's happy prospects. She looked at him as he sat folded up in a chair. He was stoop-shouldered and looked frail. But he sometimes surprised people with sudden bursts of physical energy. In his present posture, however, all his bodily strength seemed to have retired behind his deep-set eyes, giving them an extraordinary power of penetration. He was only twenty-six, but looked thirty or more. On the whole, he was not unhandsome. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "A penny for your thoughts, Mike," said Nancy after a while, imitating the woman's mag-azine she read. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "I was thinking what a grand opportunity we've got at last to show these people how a school should be run." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Ndume School was backward in every sense of the word. Mr. Obi put his whole life into the work, and his wife hers too. He had two aims. A high standard of teaching was insisted upon, and the school compound was to be turned into a place of beauty. Nancy's dream-gardens came to life with the coming of the rains, and blossomed. Beautiful hibiscus and alla-manda hedges in brilliant red and yellow marked out the carefully tended school com-pound from the rank neighborhood bushes. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   One evening as Obi was admiring his work he was scandalized to see an old woman from the village hobble right across the compound, through a marigold flower-bed and the hedges. On going up there he found faint signs of an al-most disused path from the village across the school compound to the bush on the other side. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "It amazes me," said Obi to one of his teach-ers who had been three years in the school, "that you people allowed the villagers to make use of this footpath. It is simply incredible." He shook his head. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "The path," said the teacher apologetically, "appears to be very important to them. Although it is hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "And what has that got to do with the school?" asked the headmaster. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "Well, I don't know," replied the other with a shrug of the shoulders. "But I remember there was a big row3 some time ago when we at-tempted to close it." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "That was some time ago. But it will not be used now," said Obi as he walked away. "What will the iiovernment Education Officer think of this when he comes to inspect the school next week? The villagers might, for all I know, decide to use the schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 1px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at the two places where it entered and left the school premises. These were further strengthened with barbed wire. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 25px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Three days later the village priest of Ani4 called on the headmaster. He was an old man and walked with a slight stoop. He carried a stout walking-stick which he usually tapped on the floor, by way of emphasis, each time he made a new point in his argument. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   "I have heard," he said after the usual ex change of cordialities, "that our ancestral foot-path has recently been closed. . . ."     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">    "Yes," replied Mr. Obi. "We cannot allow people to make a highway of our school com-pound." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "Look here, my son," said the priest bringing down his walking-stick, "this path was here be-fore you were born and before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ances-tors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born. . . ."     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">    Mr. Obi listened with a satisfied smile on his face. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 1px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "The whole purpose of our school," he said finally, "is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "What you say may be true," replied the priest, "but we follow the practices of our fa-thers. If you reopen the path we shall have noth-ing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch." He rose to go. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "1 am sorry," said the young headmaster. "But the school compound cannot be a thor-oughfare. It is against our regulations. I would suggest your constructing another path, skirting our premises. We can even get our boys to help in building it. I don't suppose the ancestors will find the little detour too burdensome." <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 1px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 15px; vertical-align: 150%;">   "I have no more words to say," said the old priest, already outside. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Two days later a young woman in the village died in childbed.5 A diviner6 was immediately consulted and he prescribed heavy sacrifices to propitiate ancestors insulted by the fence. <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">   Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work. The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down. . . . That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state of the premises but more seriously about the "tribal-war situation developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the mis-guided zeal of the new headmaster."

<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 4px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   **STUDY QUESTIONS** <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 4px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   **Recalling**     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">    1. Why have the Mission authorities decided to send a "young and energetic" man to run the Ndume Central School? About what is the new headmas-ter, Michael Obi, "outspoken"? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">   2. What does the path through the school compound connect? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">   3. What explanation for closing the path does Mr. Obi give the village priest? After the priest explains the path's significance, what does Mr. Obi say about "the whole purpose" of the school? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">   4. What does the visiting supervisor write about the new headmaster after villagers damage the school grounds? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 11px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   **Interpreting**     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">    5. Contrast Mr. Obi's attitudes with those of the vil-lage priest. Which character shows more toler-ance toward the other's attitudes? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">   6. What does the story suggest about the way people should treat the beliefs of others? What does it suggest about the way people should go about making changes? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: -2px; vertical-align: 150%;">   7. Based on the priest's remarks, what can you infer about traditional Ibo attitudes toward their ances-tors and their heritage? <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 11px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; vertical-align: 150%;">   **Extending**     <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 76px; text-align: left; text-indent: 14px; vertical-align: 150%;">    8. Can the clash of new ways with the old be resolved non-violently? How? Give examples from your own experiences.