The Grass-Eaters Summary

The Grass-Eaters Summary

“The Grass-Eaters” written by Krishnan Varma tells the life story of a man who has never had a decent place to live in. Ajit Babu is man who lives in Calcutta and works as a tutor.

One day, the father of one of the boys he tutored asked Ajit Babu where he lived, and to the man’s surprise Ajit Babu said that he lived in a pipe. Ajit Babu and his wife, Swapna, lived in a long pipe and was no more than three or four feet across, but this home was actually even better than his previous homes. His first home was a foot path of Chittaranjan Avenue, a place he stayed at when he and his wife had just first arrived from East Bengal to avoid the killings between Hindus and Muslims that took place there. That footpath was extremely inconvenient because of the crowdedness with all the refugees, residents, and locals living there.

Ajit Babu also told about his next home which was an abandoned-lookin freight wagon at the railway terminus. They enjoyed this place because this place had doors that could be opened and shut giving them the privacy that they needed. Unfortunately, one night, they woke to find that their wagon had been connected to a freight train that took them to another place. After arriving at a train station, they hopped onto another unoccupied wagon to get back to Calcutta. Ajit Babu enjoyed this thrilling experience, however his wife did not. After finding out that the reason why his wife didn’t enjoy this lifestyle is because she is pregnant, he quickly tried to find a suitable place for them to live in.

The father of the boy offered him a place to live, which was an old building, and Ajit Babu could live on the roof by using empty old coal tar drums and a tarpaulin over them. Their family lived there with the new son, but his wife was still not content with their life because they had no new clothes and the food that they ate