Skip to main content

Book Review: The Eyes Have It by Ruskin Bond

This is a very popular story by Ruskin Bond about two blind persons who happen to meet on a short train journey. The story is a great example of irony as both persons, a young man and a young girl, are blind but they show as they aren’t. This story is also known by other names like – The Girl on the Train and The Eyes are not Here…



The narrator is a young man – he was alone in the compartment till Rohana, well then a young woman boards the train and with her comes her parents who instruct her what to do and what not to do while traveling on a train. As the train chugs out of the station, the young man sitting opposite her by the window side strikes conversation with her. She politely replies to all his questions and he shows off as he is not a blind chap.

First they talk about nature and the young man in between compliments that she has a beautiful face. Upon this the girl says that this is a very common remark she often gets. The train is bound for Dehradun. The girl says that she will get down at Saharanpur where an aunt of her coming to receive her.  The girl feels envious when the man says that he is going to Mussoorie. The girl loves to be in the mountains.

At Saharanpur she gets down, next a male passenger boards the train. The new passenger says that it would be disappointing for him as he is not that beautiful like the previous passenger. The blind man asks about the girl, the new passenger says that her eyes were beautiful but useless as she was blind. This revelation almost shocks the young man and he laughs on the co-incidence.

The main themes of the story are kindness, independent nature and of course desire. In fact the prominent theme in the story is desire, because both persons are blind but still they pretend as they are full-sighted and enjoy the colours of life like other normal people. Another great aspect is independent nature of both the characters, as both are blind but they are traveling alone, thus it shows how brave they are on practical grounds. Kindness is reflective through their conversations, as they both are strangers to each other, but still talk like they know each other for years. It shows how humble both characters are. Despite all themes, the biggest theme of the story is irony of fates. Both people blind but it never comes out. This is classic stuff by Ruskin Bond.

Enjoyed reading this story! Here is your chance to read 30 best stories by Ruskin Bond - https://goo.gl/uBeMY6

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 15, 2021 at 8:23 AM

    It was great
    Thx a lot for the review
    Hope you have a great day
    Bye!

    ReplyDelete

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