Pigeons at Daybreak (Main Points and Passages for Explanation)

 

Main Points of the Story

Ø  Mr. Basu has been suffering for a number of years with a multitude of physical and emotional ailments.

Ø  His wife Otima Basu is a loving caretaker but is exhausted by the end of the day.

Ø  Along with other pieces of news, Otima reads aloud from the newspaper that there will be a planned power cut that night.

Ø  Basu responds with an asthmatic attack fearing the hot night with no electric fan.

Ø  Otima, in spite of Mr. Basu’s protests and great fuss, decides to shift his bed upon the terrace to make the hot night more comfortable.

Ø  Basu is no more comfortable there and the night is spent in great agony.

Ø  The memory of his grandson showing him the pigeon roosts on so many rooftops makes him emotional.

Ø  At daybreak as Otima goes downstairs to fetch Basu some iced water, she finds to her surprise that there was light in her flat.

Ø  She runs back to the terrace to bring Basu down so as to enable him to sleep comfortably in his own bed for a while.

Ø  Basu refuses to say it is cooler now and tells her to leave him alone.

Ø the story ends with him lying ‘flat and still, gazing up’ and the flock of pigeons hurtling upwards against the dome of the sky and disappearing into the ‘soft deep blue of the morning.’

Ø  Pigeons figure in the story as emblems of peace and liberation.

 

          Passages

 

1.      One of his worst afflictions, Mr. Basu thought, was not to be able to read the newspaper himself. To have them read to him by his wife. He watched with fiercely controlled irritation that made the corner of his mouth jerk suddenly upwards and outwards, as she searched for her spectacles through the flat. By the time she found them — on the ledge above the bathing place in the bathroom, of all places: what did she want with her spectacles in there? — she had lost the newspaper. When she found it, it was spotted all over with grease for she had left it beside the stove on which the fish was frying. This reminded her to see to the fish before it was overdone. ‘You don’t want charred fish for your lunch do you?’ she shouted back when he called. He sat back then, in his tall backed cane chair, folded his hands over his stomach, and knelt that if he were to open his mouth now, even a slit, it would be to let out a scream of abuse. So he kept it tightly shut.

 

Reference to the Context: These lines have been taken from the short story titled "Pigeons at Daybreak" written by Anita Desai, who deals with themes like family relationships and human relationships. These lines reflect the helpless situation of Mr. Basu who is old and ailing and hence is dependent upon his wife Otima for every small daily need.

 

Explanation: Mr. Basu gets perturbed when his wife takes an unbearably long time to read the newspaper to him as she is engaged in other pressing household chores of the morning. Entangled in one task after another, she first forgets her spectacles; then loses the newspaper that is to be read and on finding it, she is further reminded of the more urgent task of giving attention to the frying fish in the kitchen. All this delay becomes unbearable for Mr. Basu who struggles hard to keep his mouth closed lest it should result in undue abusing and cursing. Desai traces all expressions of her characters vividly. She draws a clear image of the husband along with the pressing responsibilities of a dutiful wife. Her prose is simple and clear and it helps bring forth the frame of mind of the characters.

 

2.      Otima soon lost the light-heartedness that had come to her with this unaccustomed change of scene. She tired of dragging around the pillows and piling up the bolsters, helping him into a sitting position and then lowering him into a horizontal one, bringing him his medicines, fanning him with a palm leaf, and eventually of his groans and sobs as well. Finally, she gave up and collapsed onto her own string bed, lying there exhausted and sleepless, too distracted by the sound of traffic to sleep. All through the night her husband moaned and gasped for air. Towards dawn, it was so bad that she had to get up and massage his chest. When done long and patiently enough, it seemed to relieve him.

 

Reference: These lines have been taken from the short story titled "Pigeons at Daybreak" written by Anita Desai, a prominent writer whose literary skills in dealing with themes like family relationships and human reactions in all kinds of difficult situations.

 

Explanation: The present lines depict an untiring sense of duty and responsibility on the part of Otima towards her ailing husband Mr. Basu. Due to a severe cut in the power supply during the night and with her husband suffering from asphyxia, she has to make frantic efforts to provide a sufficient amount of air to him. Yet Mr. Basu’s condition worsens during the night and she has to massage him towards the dawn. The sense of relief that Otima gets in serving her ill husband indicates her innate goodness and humanity. Notwithstanding the daily household pressures, she fully understands the significance of love and care in times of need and ailments. The loyalty with which Otima attends to all the real and imagined problems of her husband in addition to all her exhausting daily chores speaks of her deep commitment and sincerity towards human relationships.

Comprehension Passage

‘I’ll bring you your inhaler. Don’t get worried, just don’t get worried,’ she told him and bustled off to find his inhaler and cortisone. When she held them out to him, he lowered his head into the inhaler like a dying man at the one straw left. He grasped it with frantic hands, almost clawing at her. She shook her head, watching him. ‘Why do you let yourself get so upset?’ she asked, cursing herself for having readout that particular piece of news to him. ‘It won’t be so bad. Many people in the city sleep without electric fans - most do. We’ll manage – ’

‘You’ll manage,’ he spat at her, ‘but I?’

There was no soothing him now. She knew how rapidly he would advance from imagined breathlessness into the first frightening stage of a full-blown attack of asthma. His chest was already heaving, he imagined there was no oxygen left for him to breathe, and that his lungs had collapsed and could not take in any air. He stared up at the strings of washing that hung from end to end of the balcony, the overflow of furniture that cluttered it, the listless parrot in its cage, the view of all the other crowded, washing-hung balconies up to and down the length of the road, and felt there was no oxygen left in the air.

 

  Who offers to bring the inhaler and for whom?

 Why is there a need for the inhaler?

 What is the reason for getting so upset?

 Why does he feel that he will not able to manage?

 What makes him feel that there was no oxygen left in the air?

 

Answers:

 It is Otima who offers to bring the inhaler for her ailing husband Mr. Basu.

 The inhaler is required for Mr Basu who is suffering from asthma.

 Mr. Basu gets very upset on hearing the news of power cut during night.

 He feels that he will not be able to manage because of his imagined frightfulness related to the intense heat. He feels that given the amount of heat, it would not be possible for him to sleep without a fan.

 He begins to feel that there was no oxygen left in the air due to his imagined breathlessness advancing into the stage of a full blown attack of asthma.