The teacher in the story “Crime and Punishment” by R.K. Narayan is a hardworking man. He teaches 6 hours in the school and then he comes to teach the small boy in the nursery for just 30 rupees a month. He has to work for three hours in the nursery teaching a gorilla of a child. This shows the teacher is very poor. Otherwise he would not come to teach such a mischievous imp after his normal school hours.

The teacher suffered at the hands of the parents also. Every day he had to listen to the lectures of the parents on child psychology for half an hour. The father had written a thesis on infant psychology for his M.A. The mother had studied a good deal of it for her B.A. So, both lectured to him on the same lines. It seemed that the parents of the boy thought he was made of thin glass. They pampered him a lot and they wanted the teacher also to be very kind to the boy and not to annoy him in any way.

The teacher found it hard to manage the boy. The boy had a lot of love and money. His parents built the nursery for him. They bought him expensive toys. They even gave him a small pedal motor to move about in the garden. His cupboard was filled with chocolates and biscuits which he could eat whenever he wanted. He was a highly pampered, spoilt child. The teacher could lose his temper when tempted too much. He slaps the boy because the boy persisted in making the same mistake in spite of the corrections so many times. The hard slapping made a red mark on the cheek of the boy. The boy used that mark to blackmail the teacher.

He teacher had to play with the boy acting as a station master. Then the train stops running and the boy wants him to repair it. But the teacher is not at all mechanical minded and he can’t do that. Then the boy makes him tell stories. He tells the story of the tiger and the bison and the story of AN Baba and 40 thieves. The boy wants to hear the story of the tiger and bison again. When the teacher refuses the boy runs home, the teacher in hot pursuit. 

The teacher has good presence of mind. When the father asks why they are running about, the teacher says they are just playing about to keep up their spirits. The teacher can lie if there is a need! Poor teacher! He has to suffer so much for getting an extra amount of Rs.30 per month! I think he represents many teachers in our society who do not get a decent salary and have to nd others ways of making both ends meet.