The Postmaster

For his first job, the Postmaster is assigned to work in the village of Ulapur. He feels sorely out of place in the village, feeling both too sophisticated as a Calcutta man amongst uneducated villagers, and needlessly arrogant to the very people.

For lack of anything better to do, the Postmaster takes to writing poetry about his scenic surroundings, Since he doesn't make much money, the postmaster cooks for himself and enlists a young orphan girl named Ratan to help him with housework in exchange for food.

One night while Ratan is preparing his hookah, the postmaster asks her to describe her family. This begins a relationship where the two share intimate details about their relationship where the two share intimate details about their families, with postmaster explaining to her that how much he misses her mother and sister back in Calcutta. One day while watching a bird in a tree, the postmaster is taken by a desperate need for female companionship, to someone whom he could express his feeling about that bird. He calls Ratan into his office and informs her that he's going to teach her how to read.

These lessons continue until the postmaster falls ill and unable and unwilling to continue., Ratan regardless practices what he has taught her. Fed up with the village and his illness Postmaster applied for his transfer and is denied.

nonetheless, he quits the job to return home and tells Ratan as much. Ratan begs her to take her with him, but he smugly tells her that it's not possible.

He promises her that the next postmaster will take care of her, but does nothing to comfort her, Upon leaving he tries to give Ratan money, but she refuses.

as the Postmaster is leaving, he is struck by feeling that he should go back and take Ratan, but concludes that life is full of separations and endings. Ratan doesn't have the same view and holds, out in anguish, for the possibility that the postmaster will return to take her to Calcutta.

At the end of the story, we get a contrast between the educated postmaster's "philosophy" and Ratan's uneducated naivete. It's a mysterious little parable that doesn't have a clear moral, but rather offers a meditation on a fundamental human tragedy that undergirds both loneliness and undesire.