‘Oru Manushyan’ is a short story by V.M. Basheer. The narratorspeaker is the main protagonist, who narrates the predicament of a stranger in an alien city and how a total stranger rescued him from an embarrassing situation. The narrator, before narrating a personal incident, tells the reader, “I have some vague notions about human beings”, and he includes himself also in that category. Next, he remarks that among the people around us there are good men as well as thieves and also those who suffer from various infectious diseases and from madness. This being a fact, one has to live carefully whilst living amidst such a class of people. He also opines that the world has more evil than good and generally we come to realize this only after getting hurt. The narrator then recounts an incident which would have devastated his life completely, if only a stranger who was also a thief had not come to his rescue out of sheer humanitarian concerns.
The narrator once stayed in a big city in the valley of a mountain and made his living teaching English to migrant labourers. Thus the narrator earned his daily bread as an English teacher. He used to keep his savings in a wallet in his coat pocket. One evening he had a full meal in a crowded restaurant. But, when he went to the counter and put his hand in his coat pocket to pay the bill, his wallet was not there. He started sweating profusely and told the owner that his pocket had been picked. The owner caught him by the lapels of his coat and threatened to gouge his eyes out. The narrator confesses that when he looked around him nobody appeared to sympathise with him and had the look of hungry wolves.
The narrator told the owner that he would leave his coat there and go out, bring some money and take his coat back. But the owner laughed contemptuously and got him to take off his clothes and then his shoes suspecting that he was hiding the money somewhere and was telling a lie. Next, the owner asked him to take off his trousers but the narrator told him that he was not wearing anything underneath. Everyone around him laughed. Having no other alternative, he slowly began to undo the buttons of his trousers. Then suddenly he heard someone asking him to stop removing his trousers and offering to pay his bill.
The narrator saw a fair-complexioned man, six-foot-tall, with red turban and white trousers. He came forward and paid money to the owner; then he asked the narrator to put on his clothes and follow him. When the narrator expressed his gratitude he just laughed and enquired his name. When the narrator asked his name the stranger replied that he had no name to which the narrator responded saying that his name must be ‘Mercy’. After they had come to a deserted bridge, the narrator took out five wallets from his pocket and asked the narrator to choose his wallet from among them. The narrator chose his wallet and found his money intact. The stranger asked him to leave and wished that God would help him. The narrator also said the same thing and both of them left the place.
After listening to the narrator’s story, I would like to certainly agree with the narrator. Our notions about people are really vague and in real life, people do not behave as they appear to be. Appearances are certainly deceptive. We generally tend to believe that there are two clearly demarcated categories of people – good people and bad people. But, after reading this story, I realize that we ought not to judge people based on what we see on the surface. Our judgements may not be true. In this story, the narrator tells us that, those people whom he thought were cruel and were engaged in crimes of all kinds worked as watchmen in banks, mills and large commercial establishments in big cities. He also had come to the conclusion that such people would even commit murder for the sake of money.
But the story he tells us shows how illogical and irrational we can be in our inferences and judgements. As it happens in the story, all the people believed to be virtuous, kind and good by nature were supposed to be living a normal life and hence were the ones sitting around the narrator in the crowded restaurant. But it was shocking to see their reactions when the narrator told the owner that he had lost his purse and had no money to pay. As believed by the narrator if they were good people they should have come to his rescue and should have offered to pay or request the owner to let the narrator go out and bring some money. But they belied the narrator’s opinion and did not come to his help. On the contrary, they also had wolfish looks in their eyes and joined hands with the owner in making fun of the narrator.
On the other hand, it was the thief who had stolen the wallet, who came to the rescue of the narrator. Though he stood at a distance and watched the whole drama, he was not by nature cruel and was quite human. He understood the predicament of the victim and rescued him. He also returned the narrator’s wallet. He proved himself to be the only human being amongst humanlooking wolves. That is why the writer has titled his story quite appropriately calling it ‘Oru Manushyan’.
