Born in Kerala, a southwestern state of India, Krishnan Varma have experienced the Indian people’s life and witnessed the hard life of the poor. In his story “The Crass-Eaters”, the character whose name is Ajit Babu represented the poor in India. Though the surroundings are not satisfactory, Babu still can enjoy his life with optimism.
During the whole story, Babu moved his home for several times. Firstly, Babu lived on a footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue. The footpath is surrounded with the atmosphere of death. It sounds terrible that Babu paid one ear for his mistake. Under these circumstances, human beings are so fragile that it is easy for anyone to be faced with the threat of death. Living in such a place, there is no guarantee for security. However, Ajit Babu was so optimistic that he didn’t complain for the hard life, furthermore he was so pleased that he survived even if he lost one ear.
After the experience of the footpath, Babu and his wife moved into an abandoned-looked freight at the railway terminus. For normal people, it is incredible that human can live in freights. Nevertheless, Babu did. He did moved into the freights and felt satisfactory for the new house. They did nothing but opened shut the doors for a full hour. At that moment, Babu is very happy, there is no more extra need and complaints for life though the fact that Babu and his wife were still living unstable lives.
There are many times when they went to bed in Culcuth and woke up in another place. This kind of life style is unbelievable for many other people, but Babu beard it, enjoyed it and described it as an intensely thrilling experience. As a matter of fact, Babu lived his happy life with whatever he had and owned.
As far as parents are concerned, children are the cores of their lives. There is no exception for Babu. To prepare for the birth of the forth children, Babu moved his home to a pipe where there is possible for his family to live a stable life. After that, with the help of Misrilal, they moved to a roof. Babu is happy because the roof can offer his baby enough room to play. However, Prodeep also went away, which made Babu very sad. Babu and his wife missed the baby terribly. There is no doubt that the death of the children will be a great shock for parents. As the father of four children, Babu lost all his children. The four children all past away, because of their poor living conditions. Babu did want to have babies and had expected much for them to take care of him when he got old. Life seems unfair for Babu. But he survived and enjoyed the life. With his optimism, Babu only focused on the advantages not the disadvantages. When he lost his baby, he believed that it is not that bad, for the reason that they don’t need to wear clothes.
“The events, of course, were not always pleasant. But, does it matter? We have survived them.”
In my opinion, the Babu was not born with optimism. Because of much terrible experience, there is no use complaining for the poor life, which can also make conditions worse. As a result, Babu chose to be optimistic. Ignore the ache of the poor life and enjoy whatever available and meaningful in their life. At last, they made their decision on their life style. They lived very quietly, content to look at the passing scene.
