Submitted by: Submitted by gayatrikaran
Views: 199
Words: 428
Pages: 2
Category: Literature
Date Submitted: 02/06/2014 07:02 AM
In his essay
A Fellow Traveller,
Gardiner narrates his encounter with a mosquito on a railway journey. It leads him to reflections on the journey of life. It is humorous and thought-provoking.
One day Gardiner travelled by the last train from London. Initially it was full but after a fewstations Gardiner was the only occupant in his carriage. He had a pleasant sense of freedom aboutbeing alone as the carriage went jolting noisily through the night. He had unrestrained liberty to doanything. He could talk to himself, sing, dance, stand on his head, close or open the windows, withoutand hindrance. He could sit on any seat, lie on the cushions and break the rules. But he did notindulge in such trivial pleasures of freedom. He simply looked out of the window on the calm summernight, lit a cigarette and began to read his news paper.Suddenly Gardiner became aware of a fellow traveler. It was a mosquito which sat on hisnose. Gardiner drove it of. It flew round the compartment and sat on Gardiner’s neck. He drove it offagain. It had another merry-go-round and sat on the back of Gardiner’s hand. He got irritated. It disregarded his magnanimous warnings. It was a vagrant (wanderer). It was a public nuisance. So he decided to kill it. he gave a blow with his humiliated. He adopted cunning tactics to crush it, but all hisefforts were useless. It played with him like a matador (fighter trying to conquer a terrific bull. The tinyinsert seemed to enjoy much fun in teasing the giant-like Gardiner. He felt helpless and foolish.Then Gardiner had a strange realization about the mosquito. It was none longer an ordinaryinsect but a significant personality. It shattered Chesterton’s sense of superiority. He decided to shatter Chesterton’s sense of superiority and mercy. So salvage his death punishment to the mosquito. He developed friendly feelings towards it as a fellow—traveler. As mortal creatures, bothdid not know anything about their journey. Both came out of darkness into...