What a dilemma
I find this story is quite astounding for its most daily tone the author tells “his” misery life.
This one reminds me another story, the title I’ve forgotten, written by Mark Twain, which mainly depicts a train was trap in middle of nowhere, and people in the train were discussing in what order they should eat people to survive. Although it turns out to be a insane person’s thought, that story was also told in extraordinarily plain tone.
As far as I see, it’s quite a dilemma for Babu to decide what kind of inner life they should lead, whether to content with what they have or whether to be angry with how bad his life condition is. Obviously, Babu chooses the former one, which, I think, is one of the reasons why they lead such a miserable life. Dissatisfaction causes revolt, which is the only way to change their unimaginable poor living condition fundamentally. In other words, if everybody as Babu is content with their lives, then the governor will find no need to change, so they could continue putting most of the money in army racing no matter how bad their people’s basic living conditions are. So, to some degree, it’s their content attitude to the results of their poor lives.
On the other hand, if Babu chooses a different view of life, he would be agony, since he seems have no ability to make a difference. But suppose every person leads a same life as Babu would be discontent and resist to the governors, there may be other choices.
So, what a dilemma! I just hope people living in the real world could choose the better one.
Work Cited
Krishnan Varma. “The Grass-Eaters” 1985 Rpt. In The International Story: The Stories.