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The Dreamer
The Dreamer

War
Warm-Upm-Up
Each and every one of us dreams of something or the other. People who are lost in dreams
during the day while performing other chores are called daydreamers. In “The Dreamer”,
Mulk Raj Anand introduces us to a child Devaki Nandan Pandey who dreams of becoming a
motor engineer and wants to study at the Polytechnic in Patna.

One of the urchins by the Bodh Gaya temple stood out as the ‘odd man out’. He was blind of right
eye, but seemed to have enough mischief in his left eye to make up for the absence of light in the
other one. He cocked his left eye, bent his head to one side and asked not for ten paise, but for a
cirgut. And, as I was going to refuse, he added, ‘Sahib, I will wash your car for you with a bucket full
of water.’
Certainly, the motor was dusty from the long treks in the summer of the drought year. I agreed with
a perfunctory nod of my head, specially as three of his rivals had already begun to wipe various parts

of the motor with dirty rags and I wanted to shoo them off and have the car properly cleaned.
‘What is your name?’ I asked him when he
came back with a bucket of water from the

Inspection Bungalow.
‘Devaki Nandan Pandey,’ he said in a
dramatised voice.

I thought he was showing off, with such a
rounded, respectable three-lettered name.

‘Do you go to school?’
He nodded. Then he soaked the whole of his

shirt in the water and swabbed the bonnet
all over. Pausing for breath, he added, ‘School is
closed and most children go to fetch food.’

‘And you?’
‘I don’t want to beg. My mother says one should not beg for food. One should earn it. Besides, I have
nearly finished with school. I am in fifth class.’

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