Short Stories - 7. Glory At Twilight

Satyajit was attending the village wedding just to maintain his dignity among the villagers as in earlier days he was not having that much wealth and name in the market but with the passage of time, he got so much of fame and respect from the people and also offered great homage. And day by day Satyajit was becoming a person of prosperity and thought that he was the only one who can pay for Srinath’s daughter in her marriage to in-laws.

He was looking at the time when he started as a clerk and then manager and now nothing as this was pretending like a circle which brought him back. This all lessons of the life has taught him that if anyone got success too early then failure will also come too early. If anyone got success by chance or with help of others then that he will have to pay in other form but definitely will lead to failure. He was going on the path of glory, prosperity but without any hard work. And at the end, he was living a life who had no choice what to do next because had lost everything.

It is not shocking thing that Srinath and his family members’ have eager expectations of Satyajit’s arrival because as Satyajit was living life full of success and achieved a lot which increased his value and respect in the eye of villagers also being a money oriented guy wants to gain attention in the marriage of Srinath’s daughter so he was ready to help Srinath and he also wants some money so expectations of the Srinath was right.

Disappointment is the case of expecting more someone, the same thing happened with the Srinath as during marriage time a situation came when he had to give money to his in-laws then he expected that a very wealthier or rich person never deny for the small amount of money which is Rs 2001 which is like 25p in front of 1 lac rupees but the expectations turned into disappointment when he acknowledges that Satyajit did not have that much amount of money at that time.

The story depicts the two-sided man in the Satyajit’s character at one side he was too happy with glory, the treatment he was getting but on the other side he was conscious of doing the wrong thing and did not remember the people who helped him to promote from the clerk to manager. He has also regret of attending marriage as Srinath has expected that Satyajit was high profile man and can help us terms of money but at that time he was going through a losses which he could not reveal to public because he did want to let the respect and all glories to go and enjoyed his life with false truth and still try to shine in the dark time of his life. This is where he becomes an imposter even without knowing.

Satyajit was now becomes the public talks since he attained so much of prestige in the society, also the public attention and now feeling ashamed of revealing his secret of the situation which destiny brought to him so that he could learn lesson of failure and he was not capable of telling the truth to society and especially to Srinath to whom he was like a God because he helped him in his daughter’s marriage and was type of person who has a lot of money and lives a very luxurious life. He did not want to tell all of them that he was now no more any wealthier personality and could not help anybody in matters of money. He could not reveal this secret to all and even his uncle.

The life of Satyajit had experienced many changes. He was not a rich person in initial condition but worked as a clerk in the bank and got promoted to the very higher post of Manager in the bank. All these successes was gained by him suddenly and this increase his respect in the surroundings and become turning point in his life but after reaching to great height success, he was not happy as this was not because of his hard work but by help of others and he also started to dislike the people who helped him to reach that height but soon this success turned into a great failure which brought him under that condition which restricted him to enjoy his earlier luxury life and fear of sharing the truth to his uncle and to maintain his prosperity in village he also not shared his tragic loss of wealth and the person earlier who was giving money to people for their help is now in opposite condition. And he came back to starting position again. This lesson of life taught him that tempo of failure is faster than his success.

This is the rule of the life when you go up then on someday you will go down. After achieving great success in the life and if he/she falls then it is very difficult for the individual to attain that position again. A person should have so much of trust in himself, patience to move on from the sudden falls in the life.

Failure and Success are the two sons of the same father. And both sons follow the same path that is the path of life. Without failure, success is not possible. For success hard work is mandatory and failure can still come despite so much of hard work and is necessary too. Success is sometimes mattered of chance but failure will always come there is no chance that failure will never come in the life. The life of success depends on our hard work but failure can come any time without any letter or any other info. In the life, it is not necessary that only positive things can inspire sometimes negative things required to learn the lessons of the life. This seems like failure had a tempo faster than success.

Satyajit was a type of man full of pride and ego. This type of person never tells their problems to anyone due to their fame in the market. And in the story, the same situation comes under which Satyajit was unable to discuss his problems and this types of situations which can be dangerous to us is called predicament. On one side there was his uncle’s daughter and other side his name and respect in eye of people in between which there was tragic loss of wealth and due to uncle’s expectations and peoples love he can’t tell truth to anyone which would adversely affect his personality and it might be easier to be honest to his uncle so that this type of sandwich condition can never come.

In the story, the author believed that what he got till now was made for him only without thinking much about the person due to which he managed to reach there. Here is a case of comparison between deserving and non-deserving personality as if anybody got some work but to non-deserving and the same thing happened in the story as the author got the position of managing director in spite of fact that he was non-deserving for that. After fortune turned away from him he started disliking the fake glory and name and also the person due to whom he had to suffer a sudden cause. He wants to take the tide and time back but he understood that these things are not in anyone’s hand.

Satyajit’s started denying the things gradually. He has also started to change his habit. I remember when we were in a train he went out to smoke but on time of taking out cigarettes he thought twice and this shows he was going through a difficult situation and can’t afford luxury life. And this all shows the reader the financial crash of Satyajit.

The narrator wrote the story in a way to explain the importance of failure and success in our life. He represented Satyajit as two-sided character man one who was front of everyone and another one was in his mind. The life of him taught beautiful lessons which he never will ignore. He tries to explain himself at every point in the story whether it is a time of promoted manager, the time of marriage of Srinath’s daughters, the fraudulent impression on public pretending to be rich but at that time he was in a great loss. He has helped many persons rather than his family. He was regretful too for having that much attention but without any hard work and that he had paid at the time of loss. The joyful life was now a regretful life. This regretful character of him represents the broken soul and heart of him. This all made him understood the fact that tempo of failure is faster than success.

The author has represented the Satyajit’s career very well with an episode of bank theft as he showed that how a common man got the position of Manager from earlier of the clerk by making it as a key episode of the story. He also showed that speed of success is less than the speed of failure coming he got a high post by chance then destiny will teach him a lesson of failure with very fast speed. Some people got success by luck but not due to hard work same as Satyajit got the position of Manager has no values in real term. Hence this type of success ends in short time and thus author wants to explain that success through real hard work will be fruitful.

The line ‘Glory was all overlaid with dark shame. Glory was dead’ explains a lot about the author who was type of person who wants to be on top always and never want to face failure. But failure is never a relative to anyone for it and this is clearly explained in the story as Satyajit faced a great loss in his life and still he did not want to public his loss and wanted to live a life with fake respect and prestige in the society and even he did not tell his uncle of whom daughters marriage was possible due to him only but the real fact is that that massive richness has been on its knees and he can’t believe that fact. The superiority and glory of Satyajit were turned into a shame. ‘Glory was dead’ meant that the author was feeling hopeless and helpless under the situation and did not have any control over it.