THE TRIBUTE

Project on English literature

fictionEnglish literature code : 101

fiction: the Tribute

Author: DASH BENHUR

Tribute stands for an act, a statement or a gift that is intended to show one’s respect or admiration to somebody. This is the story of an Indian family united with love and emotion but torn by the modern onslaughts of urban greed for money and dryness of relations.

1. Babuli. A typical city Babu, forgets all about his village, maintains no contact with the members of the family, a main of patience, keeps quite cool. A victim of circumstance, feels grateful to his elder brother, gives up his share of land in favors of his elder brother as a mark of respect and gratitude.

2. Elder brother. A responsible person, brings up Babuli, sends him to a nearby city for education, a selfless person, devoted to his work, bears no ill-will towards his brother.

The story

Characters of the Story

Babuli, the central character & the narrator is a villager who is educated in a city, works there, gets married there & lives there. his village ,which once he loved so dearly, no longer pulls him towards it. for two years now he has not visited it even once to be with his mother, brothers , bhabhis & their children. he has not even responded to his mother's letters. he keeps quiet to pretend that he is very busy. one day a letter from his elder brother brings him the shocking news that all the family property is to be divided among the three brothers following a bitter quarrel between the sister-in-law & that his presence at the village is indispensable.

THE STORY IN DETAILED

something seems to shatter inside him. he is full of remorse & guilt for neglecting his village family. he goes home & breaks the news to his wife expecting words of sympathy & consolation. his wife merely asks him "when?" as if she was waiting for the division to happen. he fells all the more upset & frustrated but does not say anything.

his wife wants him to sell off his share in the family property. she wants to buy a lot of household goods including jeweler for herself & a scooter for babuli. though initially shocked, babuli becomes normal in two days & even enquires about the different things his wife intends to buy from the market.on a Saturday afternoon , babuli sets out on a bus journey to his village . the rickety old bus reminds him of his village days & he feels himself guilty of neglecting his village family in order to be a city babu.

his elder brother comes to receive him at the village bus-stop. he takes babuli's brief-case from him & asks him to hurry up for home so that he could get some refreshment.

gripped in guilt , babuli even forgets to touch his feet. he goes down the memory lane & recalls how his brother has played a pivotal role in making him what he is today. his brother ,he feels , is unchanged even now , although he has seven children of his own to look after , besides the fields & the cattle. on reaching home, babuli is greeted by an unusual calm & stillness instead of his nephews & nieces rushing out to welcome him with“ here's uncle“ . his elder sister-in-law , his second brother & his wife do not come out to receive him .

only his mother comes out & stands near him quietly . babuli fells that there is an air of unusualness in the house-rather the stillness of the graveyard . in this abominable lull he tries to be normal with everyone.

the next day, the partition takes place quiet uneventfully. Whatever the second brother asks for the elder brother readily gives him. he even places the old blanket he had once spread on babuli on a cold winter night, as well as an old wrist-watch he had mortgaged to pay for babuli's job interview among the things to be divided.

after the partition, the elder brother takes babuli to the fields which have now fallen to the latter's share. babuli can see how the elder brother 's hard work was sparking in the fields in the form the bumper crop.

seeing all this, babuli is filled with all the more guilt, remorse & self-pity. he fells that he has not done enough for his elder brother. so he writes a message for the elder brother announcing his decision to give his share of land to the elder brother as a tribute to him for whatever he has done for babuli throughout his life. he does not have the encourage to meet his elder brother,& therefore, quietly leaves for the city..

SumMaRyOne day as Babuli reached his desk in the office, he received a letter from home. He feared some bad news in it. And he was not in the wrong., The eldest brother had written about the bitter quarrel or dispute between the two sisters-in-law. So the second brother demanded separation and division of property. He was adamant on it. Babuli, too, had a share in the land, So he was summoned to home in a week’s time to be present at the time of division. He was drenched with cold sweat after reading the letter. He felt helpless and very unhappy. In the evening, he gave the news to his wife. She was glad to know that their share of land would be worth twenty thousand. They would sell the land and spend it on a fridge and a scooter. Babuli dared not contradict her. He felt like a lamb ready to be butchered. He cursed himself for being so negligent and forgetful of his home. The wife prepared a list of things she would buy. She was impatient to execute her plan.

Babuli left for the village on Saturday afternoon. In his hurry, he hurt his knee against the door. His briefcase fell of and the ‘Prasad’ he was carrying for his mother was scattered over the ground. He took it as a bad omen. He boarded the bus wearing a shameless smile for the bus conductor and the cleaner. He found his elder brother at the village bus stop. He had come to receive him. He snatched the briefcase as usual. But Babuli forgot even to touch his feet. That had never happened earlier.

He followed his elder brother like a child silently. The bus stop was some distance from the village. He recalled the past. He himself had changed greatly, but not the elder brother, And they reached home in time for dinner.

He noticed a big change in the behavior of every member in the family. All gave him a cold shoulder. All were tense and showed no emotion. Only his mother came and stood near him. There was the stillness of the graveyard, as if the house was going to collapse finally. Babuli tried to be normal with everyone. The next day seven or eight people gathered in the courtyard to supervise the division in the presence of all the three brothers. Only mother kept away. Babuli felt as if the house was going to be slaughtered, the house which their parents had nourished for long. And the three brothers were going to take a share in the meat and run away in different directions. All the household things were helped in the courtyard. Everything was to be divided, even the family idols.

The elder brother was calm and composed. He rose from his place, took off his watch and put in on the heap. A tear flower down his cheek. Father had bought him that wrist watch when he was in the 11th class. But Babuli remembered that his brother had mortgaged the watch in order to send him money to go to Delhi for an interview. And the brother must have obtained the watch with his own earning. But he acted like a

perfect gentleman, a self-sacrificing and ideal brother doing his unpleasant duty. He showed no sign of resentment or regret. Babuli remembered another incident. Once when a boy, he was sleeping in the passage room on a chilly night. At dawn the elder brother put the blanket on Babuli and left for the fields. He was still satisfied with that old and damaged blanket. The same blanket was there in the heap. Babuli shivered with cold as well as his own ungratefulness.

The second brother proposed to buy Babuli’s share of land for Rs. 18,000. In the evening, the elder brother took Babuli to the paddy fields to show him his portion of land. Babuli felt that every inch of the land had the imprint of his elder brother’s hands and feet. He took a decision and returned home. He was to leave for Bhubaneswar the following morning. He had not the courage to face his father-like elder brother. He wrote on a piece of paper his decision about his share. Before slipping out of the house, he handed the slip to his elder sister-in-law. The slip was addressed to his elder brother. He had written that he did not need the land. He need the affection of his elder brother, and the latter should forgive him and accept the land. In this way Babuli paid his tribute to his brother.

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