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Yes, he was. He gives the narrator no chance at all. It is as if all those who claimed to have lost their purse were liars. Even when the narrator asks him to keep his coat, he shows no leniency. He has a lot of sadistic pleasure at the cost of the narrator while forcing him to strip. He comes out as a cruel man who has no pity at all for people with problems.

However, there is the possibility that he has turned out to be so cruel after bitter experiences. If we consider the fact that the people of that place were ready to do anything for money, we should understand that the restaurant owner might have had people duping him with a cock-and-bull story of losing the purse. Maybe over the years, he has lost his gentleness and hence goes to the extreme extent of ill-treating such people so that others wouldn’t dare come up with lies.

All said and done, the final word on the restaurant owner is that he comes out as merciless. He could have made the narrator do some work in his restaurant to make up for the eleven annas. But, he gives absolutely no chance to the narrator and humiliates him cruelly.

There is no doubt that the restaurant owner treats the narrator mercilessly. He gives the narrator no chance at all. It is as if all those who claimed to have lost their purse were liars. Even when the narrator asks him to keep his coat, he shows no leniency. He has a lot of sadistic pleasure at the cost of the narrator while forcing him to strip. He comes out as a cruel man who has no pity at all for people with problems. However, there is the possibility that he has turned out to be so cruel after bitter experiences of being cheated by people who ate at the restaurant and pretended to have lost their purse.

If we consider the fact that the people of that place were ready to do anything for money, we should understand that the restaurant owner might have had people duping him with a cock-and-bull story of losing their purse. Maybe over the years, he has lost his gentleness and hence goes to the extreme extent of ill-treating such people so that others wouldn’t dare come up with lies.

All said and done, the final word on the restaurant owner is that he comes out as merciless. He could have made the narrator do some work in his restaurant to make up for the eleven annas. But, he gives absolutely no chance to the narrator and humiliates him cruelly.

The owner of the restaurant threatened to gouge his eyes out if the money was not paid.

The narrator couldn’t pay the bill as somebody had picked his pocket and taken away his wallet.

1.  A.  down

2.  B.  take

3.  C. small

4.  B. thick

5.  A.  sell

6.  B. loose

7.  C. kind

• Rescue × abandon
• Remember × forget
• Vague × clear, definite
• Madness × sanity
• Inhabitant × foreigner
• Distant × near
• Lend × borrow
• Dirty × clean
• Expensive × cheap
• Crowded × empty
• Quiet × noisy
• Forward × backward
• Laugh × cry
• Open × close

The people in the city were professional soldiers by tradition. Some of them went to distant places and lent out money on interest. Many others served as watchmen in banks, malls, and large commercial establishments in big cities.

Many people in the big city served as watchmen in banks, malls, and large commercial establishments.

Murder, robbery, pick-pocketing (picking pockets) were the daily occurrences in the city.

To save the expenses of drinking the morning tea or eating the noon meal.

The narrator taught English to migrant labourers from nine-thirty till eleven in the night.

Fourteen rupees.

Around a thousand five hundred miles.

So that he could save the expense of drinking his morning tea and eating the noon meal.

When the narrator is at the point of removing his trousers though he has nothing inside, a blue-eyed,’ fair-complexioned six-footer, with a red turban and white trousers, intervenes and offers to pay the amount due from the narrator to the restaurant owner. He asks the speaker to go with him and when the grateful speaker asks for his name, he says he has no name. When the speaker says ‘Mercy’ must be his name, he does not react and walks on until they reach a deserted bridge.

There, after making sure that no one is around, the stranger takes out five wallets and asks the speaker which of these is his. He warns the speaker to go away without turning around and adds that the speaker should not admit to anyone that he has seen the man. He gives the wallet, which has been identified by the speaker, with the money intact and leaves the place wishing the speaker that he be helped by God. The speaker, on his part, hopes that God would help the stranger.

Thus we see that the pickpocket helps the narrator not only at the restaurant but also outside by returning the purse. This is how the act of kindness gains insignificance. First of all the pickpocket is good enough to help the man who faces humiliation as he has lost his purse; secondly, he is kind enough to return the purse; thirdly, the eleven annas that he pays is not the narrator’s money, but his own.

There was nothing exciting about the routine of the narrator in the city. He taught the migrant labourers English as they wanted to write addresses in English at the post office. As they were working people, he could teach them only in the evening. Usually, his teaching went on from nine-thirty till eleven in the night. Since he earned very little, he slept the whole day and woke up at four in the evening so as to avoid the expenses of morning tea and noon lunch.

The narrator was not ready to take off his trousers.

Fourteen Rupees.

The place was quite a big city in the valley of a mountain. The inhabitants did not have the virtue of mercy in their heart and were a cruel lot. They were ready to do anything for money. Shocking incidents like murder, robbery, pickpocketing were the order of the day. The inhabitants worked as soldiers, money lenders and watchmen in banks/mills/commercial establishments. They had no knowledge of English and it was as though they were content in their own small world of malice and meanness.

The narrator Was not ready to take off his trousers because he had nothing on underneath.

commit murder.

(a) a man with a red turban.

(a) A man with a red turban.

(b) Learning to write an address in English.

(b)  four annas.

In a very small, dingy room

Anything between one anna and four annas.

A man with a red turban and white trousers.

(c) Learning to write an address in English.

Professional soldiers.

Money  value

A man with a red turban and white trousers who was actually the one who had picked the narrator’s pocket saved the narrator by paying his bill.

Quality of mercy.

The people in the city were not known for the quality of mercy

By tradition, the people of the city were soldiers.

One evening the narrator goes to a crowded restaurant to have his food and when he has to pay the bill of eleven annas, he realises that his purse with his life’s savings of fourteen rupees is missing. But, the owner of the restaurant thinks that the speaker is trying to cheat him, and threatens to gouge his eyes out. None of the others at the restaurant seem to have any kindness either. The speaker pleads with the owner to keep his coat as surety. But, the owner guffaws and makes the speaker remove his coat, shirt, and shoes.

When he wants the speaker to remove even the trousers, the speaker pleads with him for mercy saying he has nothing inside. This only invokes more laughter and the restaurant owner, along with fifty other people gathered there, forces the speaker to strip further saying mockingly, “There must be something inside.” The speaker, now resigned to his fate, starts unbuttoning his trousers, all the time imagining himself standing naked in front of others, with his eyes gouged out.

We see that the narrator is not only embarrassed but also humiliated. Since he is not a cheat, it must have been terribly embarrassing for him to have realised that he had eaten his food at the restaurant, but had no money to pay for the food. His embarrassment would have increased when the owner of the restaurant treated him as a cheat. But, to top it all, the cruel way in which not only the owner but also the people gathered there treated him would have been humiliating for the narrator.

‘Oru Manushyan’ is a short story by V.M. Basheer. The narratorspeaker is the main protagonist, who narrates the predicament of a stranger in an alien city and how a total stranger rescued him from an embarrassing situation. The narrator, before narrating a personal incident, tells the reader, “I have some vague notions about human beings”, and he includes himself also in that category. Next, he remarks that among the people around us there are good men as well as thieves and also those who suffer from various infectious diseases and from madness. This being a fact, one has to live carefully whilst living amidst such a class of people. He also opines that the world has more evil than good and generally we come to realize this only after getting hurt. The narrator then recounts an incident which would have devastated his life completely, if only a stranger who was also a thief had not come to his rescue out of sheer humanitarian concerns.

The narrator once stayed in a big city in the valley of a mountain and made his living teaching English to migrant labourers. Thus the narrator earned his daily bread as an English teacher. He used to keep his savings in a wallet in his coat pocket. One evening he had a full meal in a crowded restaurant. But, when he went to the counter and put his hand in his coat pocket to pay the bill, his wallet was not there. He started sweating profusely and told the owner that his pocket had been picked. The owner caught him by the lapels of his coat and threatened to gouge his eyes out. The narrator confesses that when he looked around him nobody appeared to sympathise with him and had the look of hungry wolves.

The narrator told the owner that he would leave his coat there and go out, bring some money and take his coat back. But the owner laughed contemptuously and got him to take off his clothes and then his shoes suspecting that he was hiding the money somewhere and was telling a lie. Next, the owner asked him to take off his trousers but the narrator told him that he was not wearing anything underneath. Everyone around him laughed. Having no other alternative, he slowly began to undo the buttons of his trousers. Then suddenly he heard someone asking him to stop removing his trousers and offering to pay his bill.

The narrator saw a fair-complexioned man, six-foot-tall, with red turban and white trousers. He came forward and paid money to the owner; then he asked the narrator to put on his clothes and follow him. When the narrator expressed his gratitude he just laughed and enquired his name. When the narrator asked his name the stranger replied that he had no name to which the narrator responded saying that his name must be ‘Mercy’. After they had come to a deserted bridge, the narrator took out five wallets from his pocket and asked the narrator to choose his wallet from among them. The narrator chose his wallet and found his money intact. The stranger asked him to leave and wished that God would help him. The narrator also said the same thing and both of them left the place.

After listening to the narrator’s story, I would like to certainly agree with the narrator. Our notions about people are really vague and in real life, people do not behave as they appear to be. Appearances are certainly deceptive. We generally tend to believe that there are two clearly demarcated categories of people – good people and bad people. But, after reading this story, I realize that we ought not to judge people based on what we see on the surface. Our judgements may not be true. In this story, the narrator tells us that, those people whom he thought were cruel and were engaged in crimes of all kinds worked as watchmen in banks, mills and large commercial establishments in big cities. He also had come to the conclusion that such people would even commit murder for the sake of money.

But the story he tells us shows how illogical and irrational we can be in our inferences and judgements. As it happens in the story, all the people believed to be virtuous, kind and good by nature were supposed to be living a normal life and hence were the ones sitting around the narrator in the crowded restaurant. But it was shocking to see their reactions when the narrator told the owner that he had lost his purse and had no money to pay. As believed by the narrator if they were good people they should have come to his rescue and should have offered to pay or request the owner to let the narrator go out and bring some money. But they belied the narrator’s opinion and did not come to his help. On the contrary, they also had wolfish looks in their eyes and joined hands with the owner in making fun of the narrator.

On the other hand, it was the thief who had stolen the wallet, who came to the rescue of the narrator. Though he stood at a distance and watched the whole drama, he was not by nature cruel and was quite human. He understood the predicament of the victim and rescued him. He also returned the narrator’s wallet. He proved himself to be the only human being amongst humanlooking wolves. That is why the writer has titled his story quite appropriately calling it ‘Oru Manushyan’.