Chapter 7: Glory at Twilight

Satyajit has a huge list of refusals. He was working on quitting some habits like smoking. This dawned on him when he was about to smoke while travelling in a train. He gave a second thought while reaching out for cigarettes. As it was a difficult time for him, he had rationed all his habits. He was not able to afford the unrestricted luxury. He was shaken by the dark reality that fortune did not favour him.

In the story, Satyajit is completely biased in showcasing his opinions. The entire story can be presented as a diary entry. The narration here is in a continuously justifying tone. Satyajit describes himself in every situation in the story – be it a regretful feeling for not providing the forgerer with another chance or feeling happy for being considered as God by his hosts. The way he revealed how failure hits faster than success shows the broken condition of his soul and spirit. He explains the fact that the tempo of failure is faster than that of success. His thoughts to forgive a man who committed forgery, considering himself stupid for arriving at an occasion where Srinath and his family members expected money from him to get his other daughters married rather than gifting the fish pond and the house to his own family.

The entire frame of the story is well-knit by the author. He wanted to explain a common man’s elevation from a client to the Managing Director’s post. He also wanted to show how the success achieved through shortcuts is short-lived. He describes this event by considering it as the main episode and highlights how Satyajit got his promotion by the play of luck. The author describes how men reach heights through such incidents on the basis of their luck. It was a matter of luck that he got this post and hence did not have any reasons for the same. Without a solid foundation to attain what he did, his success ended in a short time. The author wants to make it clear in his story that the tempo of failure is faster than success.

The line ‘Glory was all overlaid with dark shame.’ well describes the narrator’s state of mind. He looks like a kind-hearted person who is not able to accept failure or defeat. He was completely broken and was not ready to reveal the loss of his position and wealth. He had enjoyed a superior status in society for a long time and had been glorified by all, particularly his uncle. Due to the benediction of Satyajit, his uncle’s daughters got married. It was thus not possible for the author to digest that the wheel of fortune had turned, and he possessed nothing. He makes failure sound similar to that shame. He thought the opposite of being glorious at one time was a shame in public. ‘Glory was dead’ is the last line, which reveals the author’s vulnerability and helplessness to the entire situation.