There are certain stages that we must all go through to
become well-functioning adults who can live in our world and make a meaningful
contribution to society. Unfortunately, often those stages involve a certain amount of
pain and suffering as we have to learn some hard lessons about ourselves and our place
in the world. This is the essence of this tremendous short story by Anita Desai, as we
follow the protagonist, Ravi, going thorough one of these experiences. The lesson he
learns is that he is not the centre of the universe and actually he is utterly
insignificant in the face of the world and his friends. Note how excited Ravi is to find
his hiding place and how he dreams of winning the game and the glory he will
receive:
He
hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much
victory, such laurels.
He
imagines himself to be "a true winner, a breaker of records, a champion." However,
ironically, although he is completely right and he does win the game, his daydreaming
has allowed so much time to pass that the children have forgotten him completely and
moved on to other diversions:
All this time no one had remembered Ravi. Having
disappeared from the scene, he had disappeared from their minds.
Clean.
Thus, as the children
continue playing their funereal game at the end of the tale, Ravi feels he is unable to
participate as he is overwhelmed by the "ignominy of being forgotten" and he is
"silenced by a terrible sense of his insignificance." Thus Desai portrays this as a key
stage in the development of all children, when we realise how truly insignificant we all
are. However, with this humility, we are then able to mature and develop properly
without thinking we are still the most important figure in the world. This is a painful
but necessary stage for Ravi to pass through.
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