UNDERGRADUATE    II  YEAR    SUBJECT:  English  Language  &  Poetry  TOPIC:  A  Grain  of  Mustard  Seed  –  Ellis  Peters  Duration:  24:59  min  

   

 

 

 

 

   

A  Grain  of  Mustard  Seed  

MODULE 1: THE EFFECTS OF PARTITION

What is the most important value we learn as a human being? It is love for the fellow human beings. Times have changed but human values have not. Human beings on the other hand have changed with the times. We have become more self centered, more egoistic and less accommodative. This has led to strife and conflicts within nations and between nations. What can mitigate this conflict? I think it is love; it is patience and the essential goodness that is inherent in a human being, which can help solve conflicts.

The Indian subcontinent was partitioned in the year 1947 into two states India and Pakistan. This was a cataclysmic event. What followed was intense hatred between the Hindus and the Moslems. It led to genocidal violence and large numbers of people were displaced in both the countries. The story “A Grain of Mustard Seed” traces the events that occurred during partition, it talks of the feelings of two friends belonging to both the communities and their love and respect for each other despite the partition. MODULE 2: AUTHOR INTRODUCTION: Edith Mary Pargeter, (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her pen name Ellis Peters, was a British author, she wrote in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honored for her translations of Czech classics; she is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern. She wrote the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, many of which were made into films for television. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to Literature" in the 1994 New Year Honours.

   

The Mystery Writers of America gave her their Edgar Allan Poe award in 1963 for Death and the Joyful Woman. MODULE 3: THE REFUGEES AND SUNITI’S MEMORIES: The story revolves around the time of ‘Partition’ and the movement of refugees from East Bengal to India. The story begins with a group of friends gathered in a house; they hear the sound of a refugee train pulling on to the station, they feel bad for the families who have been driven out of East Bengal after the partition. One of the friends remarks that every time the world begins to look sane, something cracks again to prove that humanity is fooling itself. Suniti who is of the friends does not agree to the statement and narrates an incident which once more reiterates the faith in humanity. She tells her story of childhood when her family lived in Lahore Pakistan. Her father was a jeweler and they were quite well off in those days. Her father had a friend who was a Moslem, his name was Mahdar Iqbal. He was a shoemaker and was older to her father by a few years. Iqbal had a wife and three children who were all nearly grown up. When the friends first met Iqbal was very poor and in debt but Suniti’s father threw more business his way by telling their friends about him because he was a good craftsman. Gradually he was able to pay off the debts and even begin to save a little. He dreamt of having a shop in the bazaar and saved 1,500 rupees towards it. In appearance both were lean and active men, in manner they were different. Her father was vehement excitable and even aggressive whereas Mahdar Iqbal was immovable like a tree. They both played chess and tried to put the whole world right and they both believed that it was possible.

   

Her father believed that God was universal and benevolent, and man was perfectible and by his very origin disposed to good. It was the time of partition and their house was burned and their shop was looted. MODULE 4: THE PARTING OF FRIENDS: It was very strange to them to have to get used to the idea that Lahore was Moslem and no longer India. Her father suffered the most because his faith on the goodness of humanity was broken. They were the last people to leave Lahore. By the time they left they had nothing left but the clothes they stood in, one or two spare garments and the last of their food. On the morning they were to leave they crept out of their house and went to the railway station. The streets were filled with Moslems, decent people who had been their neighbours all screaming and threatening them. Suniti had leaned on her mother who had never thought as highly of her fellow men as her father had. She was not terribly hurt by the behavior of the neighbors’. Her father on the other hand had lost the little flesh he had ever carried and he was very upset by their behavior. The Hindus were hit by stones and sticks; the police were there but could not contain such a large crowd. The moment they reached the platform a crowd broke the barrier and was after them. Suddenly Suniti saw Mahdar Iqbal’s face among them. They had not seen him for weeks; he elbowed his way through the press and flung himself on her father. Iqbal started yelling at her father, he called her father a dog and started searching the pockets for valuables. He raved and reviled at them like a madman. Her father stood like a dead creature, his face the color of mud, and eyes stunned and blind behind the crooked glasses. The man who was his friend pawed over the last possessions disgustedly, spat his contempt on the ground, and laughed, bundling the poor bits back again. He took her father by the shoulders and threw him back into the train, her mother with a stony face got into the train after Suniti.

   

MODULE 5: THE REALIZATION There were riots and several people died on the train but they were lucky to survive. They were crushed together and Suniti was welded to her father’s side. Her father did not speak a word he was in a state of shock. Mother tried to console him. She reasoned with him that Iqbal had to show that he was a good Moslem and good Moslems hated Hindus. Iqbal had to show the fellow Moslems that he had utterly cast them off. But father did not agree to the reasoning. He said the Iqbal could have stayed out of sight; instead he had gone mad with hate like the rest of the world. Father felt that one look of kindness from Iqbal could have made him happy. Father turned his face to the wall and Suniti heard him mutter that if hate could destroy Iqbal it could destroy any man on this earth. He came to the conclusion that Man was irreclaimable. There was no hope for him and God did not care. Suniti could not understand what her father said. If God did not care then why did Lord Vishnu come to the world ten times to help people? Why did Christ come among men? And why was Moses given the Law atop Sinai? Why did Buddha turn his back on the perfect bliss of nirvana and return to the world to show men they way of enlightenment. Suniti wanted to ease her father’s misery, she prayed to God to show her father the proof that goodness still existed and that He i.e. God came to the earth to help men. She looked at her father and saw tears in his eyes. She put her hand into the pocket of her father’s achkan and drew out the corner of the handkerchief. And something else came along with the handkerchief, it was a tight roll in a square of a tissue. It fell onto her father’s lap and they saw the crumpled edges of bank notes and a small sheet of white paper. Suniti’s mother instinctively covered the money with her hand but father was surprised to see the money because he was sure he did not have any with him. Suniti whispered into his ear and questioned him him about who else could have planted the money in his pocket. Father immediately realized that it was Mahdar

   

Iqbal and read through the note in silence at first, then again he read it aloud, and when he read the second time he was nearer to his essence, he got back his faith in mankind. “forgive me” he read “and take for my soul’s sake what I greatly need to give you, and what you need so much more than I. remember me not as I am to you today, but as I shall be always be to you in spirit. I shall never know a better man.” There were over 1500/- rupees in the role. Mahdar Iqbal had given them everything he had. MODULE 6: CONCLUSION What do we learn from the lesson? Suniti’s father believed that God was universal and benevolent, and man was perfectible and by his very origin disposed to good. Both friends believed that world could be set right with goodness which was the inherent quality of man. When Suniti’s family was displaced from Lahore her father lost all hope in humanity because his dear friend Iqbal started yelled at her father, he called her father a dog and started searching the pockets for valuables. He raved and reviled at them like a madman. Her father stood like a dead creature, his face the color of mud, and eyes stunned and blind behind the crooked glasses. The man who was his friend pawed over the last possessions disgustedly, spat his contempt on the ground, and laughed, bundling the poor bits back again. He took her father by the shoulders and threw him back into the train. Father could not believe that Iqbal could behave like this. He came to the conclusion that Man was irreclaimable. There was no hope for him and God did not care, but that was not the case, Iqbal had secretly put in a bundle of currency notes in his friends pockets and had written a note, wherein he expressed his love for his friend and asked for forgiveness. Love and friendship are above everything in this world. It is love and selflessness that can win hearts and make us more humane.