Discussion Topic
Reasons Guru Nayak couldn't recognize the astrologer in "An Astrologer's Day"
Summary:
Guru Nayak couldn't recognize the astrologer because it was nighttime, and the astrologer had altered his appearance since their last encounter. Additionally, their previous meeting occurred under traumatic circumstances, which obscured Nayak's memory of the astrologer's face.
Why couldn't Guru Nayak recognize the astrologer in "An Astrologer's Day"?
Guru Nayak does not recognize the astrologer for two reasons. One is that the astrologer has changed his appearance. The other is that the light is not only dim but undependable.
His forehead was resplendent with sacred ash and vermilion....The power of his eyes was considerably enhanced by their position placed as they were between the painted forehead and the dark whiskers which streamed down his cheeks....To crown the effect he wound a saffron-coloured turban around his head.
His entire forehead was colored ash and vermilion, and he had grown dark whiskers. This would have been an effective disguise, along with the turban. Furthermore, he does not even have a light of his own, and it is fairly late at night when Guru Nayak appears.
The place was lit up by shop lights. One or two had hissing gaslights, some had naked flares stuck on poles, some were lit up...
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by old cycle lamps, and one or two, like the astrologer's, managed without lights of their own. It was a bewildering criss-cross of light rays and moving shadows.
The astrologer is packing up his "professional equipment" to go home when Guru Nayak arrives.
The nuts vendor blew out his flare and rose to go home. This was a signal for the astrologer to bundle up too, since it left him in darkness except for a little shaft of green light which strayed in from somewhere and touched the ground before him.
The astrologer depends upon the light of a flare above the groundnut-vendor's nearby heap of nuts. Once the groundnut-vendor closes up for the night, the astrologer has no choice but to do the same. So there is no likelihood that Guru Nayak would recognize the astrologer when he agrees angrily and skeptically to consult him. The astrologer does not recognize Guru Nayak at first either.
The astrologer sent up a prayer to heaven as the other lit a cheroot. The astrologer caught a glimpse of his face by the matchlight.
This is the crux of the situation. The astrologer knows who Guru Nayak is, but Guru Nayak doesn't see that the astrologer is the very man he has been trying to track down and kill. The astrologer is able to astound his difficult customer with precise information about him, including his name. This bit of information so astonishes Guru Nayak that he loses his belligerent and intractable attitude. He has obviously consulted other astrologers before during his quest for the man who nearly killed him. But this astrologer--who is probably more of an imposter than any of the others--has knowledge that is absolutely uncanny. Guru Nayak now becomes putty in the astrologer's hands. He accepts the astrologer's word that the man he is seeking is dead and accepts his advice to go home and remain in his village.
"Why should I leave home again?" the other said reflectively. "I was only going away now and then to look for him and to choke out his life if I met him." He shook his head regretfully. "He has escaped my hands. I hope at least he died as he deserved." "Yes," said the astrologer. "He was crushed under a lorry." The other looked gratified to hear it.
We learn at the end of the tale that there is another reason why Guru Nayak did not recognize the man he was seeking. When the astrologer gets home around midnight he tells his wife something about his dangerous encounter. He says that he had to run away from his village many years ago because he thought he had killed a man "when I was a silly youngster." So the astrologer's appearance would have changed with age and with the hardships he has experienced over the intervening years.