By Team ClassWork Hero is an extracted lesson from “Swami and his Friends”written by R.K. Narayan who is widely considered to be one of the greatest Indian English novelists, who is known for simple and unpretentious writing style.
At the beginning of the lesson we come across a newspaper report about a village lad who had fought bravely against a tiger, while he was returning home by the jungle path. The news was read by swami’s father. Swami argued that a boy could not fight a tiger, he had to be a strong, grown-up person. His father disagreed by saying that courage was more important. Swami was not ready to accept his father’s opinion. His father then challenged him to show his courage by sleeping alone in his office room that night.
Due to the challenge of his father, Swami was filled with fear and tried desperately to make his father change his mind. He told his father that he would sleep alone from the first of the next month. But his father did not agree. At the evening of the same day Swami went early to sleep near his granny, pulled the blanket over his face and pretended to be fast asleep. However, his father soon came there and pulled him out of bed. Swami tried to appeal to his mother and granny but not successful. Then Swami told his father that office room was full of dusty and scorpions were there. Swami’s father didn’t leave him but made him sleep in the office room at that same night. Swami inevitably had to sleep in the office room.
Swami crept under the bench, shut his eyes light and covered himself with the blanket. Soon he fell asleep. He began to have a nightmare that a tiger was chasing him. He tried to escape. He groaned in despair. He put his hand out to feel his granny’s presence, but he touched wooden leg of the bench. He moved to the edge of the bench Then he saw something moving in darkness. He thought that his end had come and the devil had come to carry him away. Finally as an attempt for survival he hugged it with all his might, and used his teeth as mortal weapon on it. It was not the devil but the burglar who cried with agony and fell amidst the furniture with a bleeding ankle. The notorious house breaker of the district was arrested by the police. The police were grateful to him. His classmates looked upon him with respect, his teacher patted him and his headmaster appreciated that he was a true scout. Thus unknowingly Swami became a ‘hero’ overnight.
