The Post Office by Rabindranath Tagore

Here is my thoughts and review of the play The Post Office by one of the best Asian playwrights, Rabindranath Tagore. This is purely my opinion and in no way do I claim that this is the accurate interpretation.

  

At first read, the play felt short and utterly pointless. On the surface, this is some escapist play where the central character – a sick young boy – uses his high imagination and optimism to escape from his prison-like situation. But being aware of the fact that Tagore tends to use a lot of symbolism in his writing and the last act showed that this play is much more than that. It is packed with various symbols here and there.

The play consists of a total of two acts. In the first act we learn that Amal, a young little boy adopted by Madhav, is suffering from a terrible disease which requires him to be locked up in his room away from the so-called “autumn wind and sun” in order to cure his sickness. But Amal is a playful little boy and being confined in a room is like a prison to him. So, to escape from this, he uses his imagination and befriends different people, who happens to be passing by his window. This sounds like a simple story about children and their imagination. But it much more than that.

First off, we have the main character, Amal, whose name defines his character the best. In Bangla, the word “Amal” mean “untarnished/innocent”. Amal’s simplicity and creative and positive outlook of the world show both through his name and character. He, in the play, is a symbol of man’s innocence and purity before he is stained with the vices of the real world.

The physician plays the role of a quack externally and of the social norms or culture boundaries that binds a man away from freedom. The physician is the perfect example of a very common human behavior – reacting to or judging something before full understanding of the situation and condemning one for it. Madhav, the child’s adopted father, is somewhat similar to the physician. He doubtlessly believed the physician without much thinking and locked the child in a room to cure his sickness. His intentions were good but he was thoroughly misguided. He stands for that part of the society who undoubtedly believed anything said by an authoritative figure. He dreads the coming of the doctor and his medicine but considers himself very helpless.

Amal, continuously wanting to befriend the people passing by his window symbolizes a ton of things at once – his longing for freedom from his confinement, his innocence, his pure heart, his thirst to know the unknown and more. In fact, he was so desperate to get out of the room that he insisted a few of other young boys to play outside his room and bribed them with his brand new toys. This shows what a man can do to get free. Sometimes, he needs to make small sacrifices with hopes of achieving some greater rewards.

Now comes the center of attention of the whole play – the post office. The post office itself barely has any significance. It is Amal’s reaction to its existence that what really matters in the play as he looks at it like his ultimate road to freedom. Also it is an irony that the post office is located so close to Amal’s room. I suppose this means that freedom is very near to one’s reach. But to actually grab it, we need to break out from the confinements of prejudices and misconceptions.

The second scene finally makes some sense of the plot and gives the whole play some depth. It felt as if Tagore was preparing us for the deep final scene by being childish and clueless on the previous scene. In this scene, we see Amal, more sickly than ever and bedridden. Even in condition, he yearns for freedom.

In this scene, another character is introduced, that is, the real physician, who came from the King himself. Figuratively, the physician stood for the grim reaper and the King here is none other than the Creator himself. Amal or the human kind finally achieves the ultimate freedom via death. This particular was dramatized by the sudden introduction of the flower-girl Sudha as she brings flowers for Amal. Now, in Hindu culture, flowers are used to welcome guests as well as bid farewell to souls at funerals. So, Sudha bringing flowers depicts Amal’s end of one journey and his venture into another.

The play might be short but the message it gives is abundant. Tagore, as always, uses his masterful writing skill to convey serious messages like death and freedom under the guise of a child’s play.