the opportunity to move to Calcutta comes up.

Phatik Chakravorti lives in a small village. He is fourteen years old, gangly, and given to some mischief. His mother describes him as “lazy, disobedient, and wild.” Phatik is the elder of two sons of a widow. His brother, Makhan, is his mother’s golden child. Makhan can do no wrong in her eyes, while everything Phatik does seems to be wrong.

One day, his mother’s brother, Uncle Bishamber, offers to take Phatik to live with him in Calcutta, where he will be raised and educated alongside his cousins.

It was an immense relief to the mother to get rid of Phatik. She had a prejudice against the boy, and no love was lost between the brothers.

Phatik is very excited about joining his uncle’s household in the city of Calcutta. His aunt, who has three sons of her own and is “by no means pleased by the unnecessary addition to her family,” makes no effort to disguise how much she resents Phatik:

It was anguish to Phatik to be the unwelcome guest in his aunt’s house, despised by this elderly woman and slighted on every occasion.

In school, things are even worse. Phatik is a village lad who does not pick up new information quickly, and his teacher canes him mercilessly when he does not understand the lessons. Furthermore, his cousins become openly ashamed of him.

The emotional neglect that Phatik experiences in his uncle’s home feels like “suffocation,” and the city is not a pleasant place. He yearns for the “glorious meadow” of his village, for the “narrow brook,” and for his “band of boy companions." We come to understand that on a very deep level, what Phatik yearns for most is to be accepted—to be loved—by his own mother.