Questions And Answers: The Exercise Book By Rabindranath Tagore
In Tagore’s story, why does the young narrator steal the girl’s exercise book? Is it guilt, love, or the simple tyranny of a child’s boredom?
In a small, rainswept town of Bengal, there was a teacher named Mr. Chakraborty. He was old-fashioned, believing that the soul of a lesson lay not in memorization, but in the quiet spaces between a question and its answer. His prized possession was not a degree, but a frayed, yellowing copy of Rabindranath Tagore’s shortest, most haunting story: The Exercise Book .
That night, Ratan opened the new exercise book. He wrote at the top of the first page: "What does Mini do after the story ends?" In Tagore’s story, why does the young narrator
He smiled. Then he began to write.
In Tagore’s tale, a schoolboy steals a little girl’s exercise book out of sheer, inexplicable mischief—not hatred, not love, but a lazy afternoon’s cruelty. He never opens it. Later, overcome by a strange, wordless guilt, he returns it. The girl smiles, doesn’t scold, doesn’t cry. But the book has been ruined by rain, its pages now a blur of ink and pulp. The boy is left with an emptiness that no punishment could fill. Chakraborty
The next day, Mr. Chakraborty collected the sheets. Most answers were safe, shallow, correct. But when he reached Ratan’s sheet, there were no answers—only a paragraph that answered all three questions at once.
One monsoon afternoon, he handed out a single, cyclostyled sheet to his class of fourteen-year-olds. On it were three questions. That night, Ratan opened the new exercise book
He read it twice. Then he folded it gently and placed it inside his copy of Tagore’s story, like a bookmark.
In Tagore’s story, why does the young narrator steal the girl’s exercise book? Is it guilt, love, or the simple tyranny of a child’s boredom?
In a small, rainswept town of Bengal, there was a teacher named Mr. Chakraborty. He was old-fashioned, believing that the soul of a lesson lay not in memorization, but in the quiet spaces between a question and its answer. His prized possession was not a degree, but a frayed, yellowing copy of Rabindranath Tagore’s shortest, most haunting story: The Exercise Book .
That night, Ratan opened the new exercise book. He wrote at the top of the first page: "What does Mini do after the story ends?"
He smiled. Then he began to write.
In Tagore’s tale, a schoolboy steals a little girl’s exercise book out of sheer, inexplicable mischief—not hatred, not love, but a lazy afternoon’s cruelty. He never opens it. Later, overcome by a strange, wordless guilt, he returns it. The girl smiles, doesn’t scold, doesn’t cry. But the book has been ruined by rain, its pages now a blur of ink and pulp. The boy is left with an emptiness that no punishment could fill.
The next day, Mr. Chakraborty collected the sheets. Most answers were safe, shallow, correct. But when he reached Ratan’s sheet, there were no answers—only a paragraph that answered all three questions at once.
One monsoon afternoon, he handed out a single, cyclostyled sheet to his class of fourteen-year-olds. On it were three questions.
He read it twice. Then he folded it gently and placed it inside his copy of Tagore’s story, like a bookmark.