The postmaster first took up his duties in the village of Ulapur.
Though the village was a small one,there was an indigo factory
near by,and the proprietor,an
Englishman,had managed to
get a post office established.
Our postmaster belonged to
Calcutta.He felt like a fish out
of water in this remote village.
His office and living-room were
in a dark thatched shed,not far
from a green,slimy pond, surrounded on all sides by a
dense growth.The men employed
in the indigo factory had no
leisure;moreover,they were
hardly desirable companions
for the decent folk.Nor is a Calcutta boy an adept in the art of associating with others.Among
strangers,he appears either proud
or I'll at ease.At any rate.the postmaster had but little company;
nor had he much to do.At times,he
tried his hand at writing averse or two.That the movement of the leaves and the clouds of the sky were enough to fill life with joy-such were the sentiments to which he
sought to give expression.But God knows that the poor fellow would have felt it as the gift 🎁 of a new
life,if some genie of the Arabian Nights had in one night swept away the trees,leaves and all,and replaced them with a macadamised road,hiding the clouds from view with rows of tall houses.The postmaster's salary was small.He had to cook his own meals,which he used to share with Ratan,an orphan girl of the village,who did odd jobs for him.When in the
evening in the smoke began to curl up from the village cowsheds,and the cicalas chirped in every bush;
when the medicants of the Baul sect sang their shrill songs in their daily meeting-place,when any poet,
who had attempted to watch the
movement of the leaves in the dense bamboo tickets,would have
felt a ghostly shiver run down his
back, the postmaster would lights his little lamp,and call out 'Ratan'.
Ratan would sit outside waiting for this call,and,instead of coming in at once,would reply,'Did you call me sir?' 'What are you doing?'the postmaster would ask.'I am going to light the kitchen fire,'would be the answer.And the postmaster would say,'Oh,let the kitchen fire be for awhile;light me my pipe first.'At
last Ratan would enter,with puffed-
out cheeks,vigorously blowing into a flame a live coal to light the tobacco.This would give the postmaster an opportunity of
conversing.'Well Ratan,'perhaps he would begin,'do you remember anything of your mother?'That was a fertile subject.Ratan partly remembered,and partly didn't.Her father had been founder of her than her mother;him she recollected more vividly.He used to come home in the evening after his work,
and one or two evenings stood out more clearly than others,like pictures in her memory.Ratan would sit on the floor near the postmaster's feet as memories
crowded in upon her.She called to mine a little brother that she had-and how on some bygone cloudy day she had played at finishing with
him on the edge of the pond,with a twig for a make-believe fishing-rod.
Such little incidents would drive out greater events from her mind.Thus,
as they talked,it would often get very late,and the postmaster would too lazy to do and cooking at all.
Ratan would then hastily light the fire,and toast some unleavened bread,which,with the cold remnants,of the morning meal,was enough for their supper.On some
evenings,seated at his desk in the corner of the big empty shed, the postmaster too would call up memories of his own home,of his mother and his sister,of those for
whom,in his exile his heart was sad memories which were always haunting him,but which he could not talk about with the men of the factory,though he found himself naturally recalling them aloud in the presence of the simple little girl.
And so it came about that the girl would allude to his people as mother,brother,and sister,as if she had known them all her life.In fact,
she had a complete picture of each one of them painted in her little heart.One noon,during a break in the rains,there was a cool soft breeze blowing;the the smell of the dramp grass and leaves in the hot sun felt like the warm breathing of the tired earth on one's body.
A persistent bird went on all the
afternoon repeating the burden of its one complaint in Nature's audience chamber.The postmaster had nothing to do.The shimmer of the freshly washed the leaves,and the banked-up remnants of the
retreating rain-clouds were sights to see; and the postmaster was watching them and thinking to himself:'Oh,if only some kinder soul were near—just one loving
human being whom I could hold near my heart!'This was exactly,
he went on to think,what that bird was trying to say,and it was the same feeling which the murmuring
leaves were striving to express.But no one knows,or would believe,that such an idea might also take possesion of an I'll-paid village postmaster in the deep,silent mid-day interval of his work.The postmaster sighed,and called out
'Ratan'.Ratan was then sprawling beneath the guava-tree,buisly engaged in unripe guavas. At the voice of her master,she ran up
breathlessly,saying:'Were you calling me dada?''I was thinking,'
said the postmaster,'of teaching
you to read.'And then for the rest
of the afternoon he taught her alphabet.