Summary of the childrens return by tagore
2 answers:
Answer:
The Child’s Return as a story seems too fantastic for a modern reader. Largely due to Raicharan. Are there fathers in this world who give their child willingly to others? What made Raicharan took the central step in the story?
Anukul’s son died in care of Raicharan. Raicharan was around in his late thirties by this time. He spent his entire youth — starting from the age of twelve — in caring for Anukul(who went from boyhood to lawyer) and his son, who followed. Naturally, he was emotionally bonded to both father and the son. Further as a caretaker of the child, Raicharan internalized all the blame of the child’s death. Death of a child is the toughest loss to bear. If Raicharan hadn’t gone to the Kadamba tree, maybe the child would have been still in the mortal world.
Guilt works mysteriously in hearts of noble people. As a Hebrew proverb says,
Guilt is a gift that keeps on giving.
As fate made the child fall into the flooding river, it made Raicharan’s wife deliver a boy in middle age. Raicharan being a simple person, took it as a sign of divine rebirth of the dead child. He began raising this child as if he belonged to a magistrate’s(Anukul’s) house. By sacrificing his own means, he began gifting the child with great clothes, great food and great education. When in his early fifties, he became too ill to work due to self-neglect - he finally gave his son back to Anukul. To finalize the punishment, he takes the blame of stealing Anukul’s son. Anukul’s new son gifts Raicharan back with a pension.
Therefore apart from loss of Anukul’s son, Raicharan lost his own son as well. In his gift to Anukul, he canceled the couple’s pain. As another punishment on top of his guilt, he left his own son.
On a side note, it is beneficial to see why Tagore used death of children in his stories. Are they somehow connected to death of his own children? Maybe Tagore wanted to clarify something in his own heart by writing these stories.
I hope it's helpful!
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