In “The Grass Eaters”, Krishnan Varma tells us the life of an Indian couple, who move from place and place and can not even find a suitable shelter. Though their life is miserable, they seem to be satisfied with the situation. At first, I was deeply impressed by the couple, especially Ajit Babu’s optimism. However, when I had a second thought, I realized that instead of being optimistic, they had sunk to the depth of despair.
The life of Indian people at that time was not an easy one. The poorest people had no possession, and most of them lived like refugees. Because of poverty and conflicts between different religions, the society was in complete anarchy. Most of them always had danger of being killed by others. Under such circumstances, people were easily frustrated by the reality and then lost the hope for life.
Although the title is “The Grass Eaters”, most of the time Babu was talking about their experience of finding shelters. So this has great value in explaining their behaviors and thoughts. “How can you live in a pipe?” is the reaction of Misrilal, an Indian ordinary people. This detail reveals to us that their decision to live in a pipe was not acceptable by other Hindus. This can also be proved by the fact that it was “unbelievably” being occupied, so it is obvious that even the poorest people were not willing to live in a pipe. But “with no prompting”, his wife crept into it. This detail has a major significance because it shows how desperate they were. Normal Indian people, including those the poorest, would not choose a pipe as their home, but Babu and his wife did. For them, traditions and conventions had become less important. If they were confident that they could find a better shelter, they would not live there, which even the poorest were doing. But they had lost hope and any stationary place was all right for them.
Why did they move into the pipe in such a hurry? Ajit Babu was presented in the story as a man with a calm manner. But when he heard the news of his wife’s pregnancy, he was highly delighted and even kissed her, which was rare in Indian culture. This is an interesting detail because it shows another side of Babu. He guessed the baby would be a boy. “I felt no doubt about it”. Why did he want a boy so eagerly? Was this the man that had always had little desire in life? His eagerness was not out of love but for other reasons. They were expecting a boy because they hoped that there would be “someone to look after us in our old age, to do our funeral rites when we died.” Only a boy was capable of these. Subconsciously, love was in the second place compared with the reality. They wanted a boy just because a boy had greater value than a girl for them! This reveals their uncertainty about future and also his selfishness. He did not care about whether he had the ability to raise this boy up. All their three children had died in an early age. He thought more about his old age and his funeral rites. His behavior was completely irresponsible, which showed his selfishness and coldness. From this, we were reassured that Babu was not the person he appeared to be.
They finally begun to eat grass, which was weird and crazy. It is common knowledge that human beings are not able to get energy from fiber sugar. This important detail confirms us that they were desperately for food and had gone out of their mind. Grass provided them only with a spiritual comfort, a feeling of not being hungry. It had no connection with optimism. It is not necessary for a truly optimistic person to deceive the stomach to be happy. But Babu was different from this. He needed grass to tell himself that his situation was not so bad. People in despair often are under some illusions. Babu was clearly doing the same crazy thing as these unfortunate people. Compared with them, their son finally left them to Naxalite underground. He was apparently pursuing a different life. This also showed that the couple lacked the courage to change their life.
Babu finally acknowledged that their life “together has been very eventful” and “not always pleasant”. It is true that they had survived and had no fears and anxieties. But were they leading an optimistic life? They were contented because compared with other people around them, they were enjoying a better life. Through out the story, Babu was always comforting himself and his wife, telling themselves that life had offered the best things. However, they can not be regarded as optimists. They had lost their dignity to live in a pipe, which means that they were more frustrated and hopeless than other poor people. The connection between Babu and his child was not love. They only wanted a boy because a boy was more useful for them. They needed eating grass to cheat themselves, for it gave them the feeling of eating food. On the whole, they had obviously lost hope for life and pretending to be satisfied made no difference about this fact.
They conceded defeat in the end, which meant that they had stopped struggle and lived peacefully. They could not help but sink to the depth of despair. They had nothing to pursue because they thought that it was impossible for them to get anything more. This is a much more tragic situation than just being poor. The poor can change their destiny by striving. But when a person feels that his life can not be changed, his life is over. The couples were in this despairing state in the end, quietly waiting for death. Although the narrator described all these things in a humorous tone, but what we see is a scene full of despair, which reflects the miserable and despairing life of the poorest people in India.
