Unit 6: The Fight

The forest pool was very clean, cold and inviting, whereas the one in the Rajputana desert was known to be sticky and muddy, where buffaloes wallowed, and women washed clothes.

1. The other boy expected Ranji to apologize to him for entering the forest pool without seeking his permission. He wanted Ranji to leave the pool immediately.
2. He was wrong to expect and ask Ranji to leave the pool because the forest pool was open to everyone, and he did not have a personal right to the property.

The other boy actually started the quarrel between him and Ranji. This is evident from the fact that when Ranji saw the other boy in the pool, he did not try to pick a fight or say a word to him. It was the other boy who deliberately came to fight with Ranji, even when he tried to be friendly with that boy. However, Ranji was taken aback by the hostile behaviour of that boy, who strongly demanded that the pool belonged to him and that others needed to obtain his permission to use it. Soon after saying all this, he started a fight with Ranji and referred to himself as a ‘Warrior’, to which Ranji replied that he himself was a ‘Fighter’.

1. When both Ranji and the other boy fought for a long while, Ranji refused to leave the pool, and the fight continued. When that boy saw that Ranji did not accept defeat and was not listening to his words, he said that the fight between them would continue the following day.
2. Apparently, the fight did not continue on the following day as both of them had a bitter experience the previous day and were not willing to continue this fight any further. Although they thought they would continue fighting, neither of them took the initiative or interest to pick a fight again. When the other boy, named Suraj, saw that Ranji could dive into the water, he was amazed and asked him to teach him how to do it. Suraj promised that he would help Ranji to become a wrestler if he taught him how to swim and dive into the water, just like him.