The document summarizes a short story about an Indian boy named Ravi who hides during a game of hide and seek. While hidden in a shed for hours, Ravi dreams of winning the game for the first time over his aggressive older brother. However, when he emerges, he finds that his family has started a new game without him and does not realize he was missing. Ravi feels embarrassed and insignificant to have been forgotten. The story explores themes of alienation, reality versus fantasy, and the importance of feeling included.
2. Plot
Information about the author
Description of main characters
The importance of colours
“Death” in the story
Feeling of empathy
Tones
Themes
3. Indian children were playing a game were they had to
hide. They were all from the same family, sons and
cousins, one called Ravi hid in a shed which was in the
house. He spend many hours there nevertheless
nobody went there to look at him. When he got out he
saw his broters ans cousins singing a death song, he
was embarassed and ignored because none of them
realized he was missing.
4. Anita Mazumdar Desai was born on the 26th of june of
1937, is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E.
Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted
for the Booker Prize three times; she received a Sahitya
Academy Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain,
from the Sahitya Academy, India's National Academy of
Letters. She also won the British Guardian Prize for The
Village by the Sea.
5. Ravi: Indian little boy who had
a big family. One of his
brothers was agressive and bad
with him. Ravi was one the
youngest of the family and he
never won a game. So he
wanted to win one.
6. Raghu: Indian big brother who was
agressive with Ravi. He was about
fifthteen years old. He was the elder
brother and he always win the
games, that´s way Ravi want to win
a game.
7. The colours create a mood. The setting wouldn´t be
describe without colours, where the colours play an
important role because they transmit how hot the
place was. Colours also make the story more
interesting.
8. The story explores the concept
of death describing the shed
as a tomb and when he gets
out he said that the new game
was his funeral because his
cousins and brothers were
singing a death song.
9. We feel empathy for Ravi because we can understand
that for Ravi this is more than just a game. The
technique that the author uses to show this is to take us
into Ravi´s mind.
10. The beginning of the story:
Desperate: All the children were like “dying” to go to play
outside. Their parents didn´t allow them because it was very hot
outside. Ravi was desperate to go and find a new place to hide
from Raghu.
Playful: As the children wanted to go outside, they wanted to
play hide and seek.
Ravi
11. Ravi is inside the shed:
Frightening: When he was inside the shed he was scared because
everything was dark and he could hear noises and he thought
there were spiders or another insect. And he was alone.
Triumphant: He started thinking about a strategy for winning
the game. But he didn´t realise that everyone were playing
another game and they forgot about him. His main objective is to
win, he had never won a game before. H wanted to win Raghu.
Next
12. Ravi comes out of the shed:
Embarassing: He felt humiliated because nobody
remembered about him and they were playing
another game about death. And Ravi felt dead.
Melancholic: He felt really sad because his brothers,
sisters and cousins forgot about him.
13. Fantasy vs. Reality: Ravi don´t like his reality. He lives a
life were he is insignificant and his alder brother is
agressive. When Ravi is inside he dreams on being
better than Raghu by winning, but when we get out we
love the sense of reality because he sees that his family
don´t realise he was gone.
Next
14. Allienation and insignificant: He feels allienated and
insignificant because he spend a long time in the shed
wishing to win the game and when he get out they´re
playing another game without him because they forget
about him.
15. “Their faces were red and bloated with the effort, but
their mother woud not open the door (…)”
“Ravi had never cared to enter such a dark and
depressing montuary of defunct household goods
seething with such unspeakable and alarming animal
life but (…)”
“He would not follow them, he would not be included
in this funeral game”
“He felt his hearts go heavy and ache inside him
unbearably”