Skip to main content

Book Review: Iswaran the Storyteller by R. K. Laxman

‘Iswaran the Storyteller’ is a short story written by R. K. Laxman. The story features two important characters: Mahendra and his cook Iswaran. Iswaran is an avid reader, thus he is also a great storyteller. He has a unique way of narrating incidents and anecdotes.


Mahendra works for a supervising firm. He is a junior supervisor there. His job is to move from one construction site to another, like coal mining, railway brides, office buildings and so on. Recently, he has been told to shift to a site where a chemical company is to be built. Because of a moving job, from one site to another, Mahendra has used to the ways of life and expects no good form of luxury in his life. He lives in shacks or small huts, well above all this he has a fixed cook with him always, and he is none other than Iswaran.

Iswaran is quite a talented person when it comes to finding vegetables and ingredients out of nowhere. Also, he is a wonderful cook. After Mahendra leaves for work, Iswaran cleans the living place (shanties or huts) and takes bath and then indulges into reading. Since they are mostly into on-field jobs, they cannot have access to TV. Nevertheless, Iswaran’s story telling fills the absence of having a TV.

Mahendra listens to his stories regardless of their credibility. One day Iswaran narrates a story about an elephant that went berserk, that time Iswaran was a student, and when the elephant entered the school premises, it was Iswaran who sent the beast into a state of numbness by hitting a plank. Upon asking how he did that, Iswaran replies that he used a Karate technique to bring down that elephant down.

One morning Iswaran asks Mahendra if he can cook something special for dinner. According to tradition they must prepare various delicacies to feed the spirits of their ancestors. At night, Mahendra feels replete after having the dinner and appreciates Iswaran on his cooking skills. At this time, Iswaran informs Mahendra that once this site was a burial ground. And Iswaran has seen human skulls while traversing through the path. He also states that this place is haunted and he has seen a female ghost with a foetus in her hands. Mahendra doesn’t believe his stories and tells him not to believe in all this stuff.

But inside his heart, Mahendra starts feeling uneasy, and every night he gets into his bed with some strange nervousness. One night Mahendra wakes up from his sleep after hearing a low moan close to his window. First he thought that it’s a cat but the sound was so guttural and it couldn’t be of a cat’s. He decides not to look outside lest he gets heart-attack. But curiosity gets better of him, and when he sees out from the window, he freezes at the sight: a dark cloudy figure clutching a bundle. He doesn’t believe himself and mutters that it could be something like illusion getting created at the back of his mind.

In the morning, Iswaran reminds him of the previous night’s moaning and asserts that this place/site is haunted. Mahendra believes him, and afterwards in the office he hands down his papers to leave this haunted place.

Well, after reading this story, you may think that it is a horror story. But in real it is mix of both – horror and superstitious beliefs that we feed into our brain.

For CBSE class 9 syllabus, read all stories summary from your Moments textbook.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should
67 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo
63 comments
Read more

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r
23 comments
Read more