THE RATTRAP by Selma Lagerlöf

1.    Rattrap is a device for catching rats using baits (like a piece of cheese or bread) to make the rat enter the trap. Once inside the trap, the rat cannot escape as the only exit of the trap gets shut.

2.    Rattrap also means a daunting situation. (daunting makes you feel slightly afraid or worried about dealing with it.)

‘The Rattrap’ is a metaphor to highlight the human predicament. Just as a rat is fooled by a bait and gets trapped, most human beings are likely to fall into the trap of material benefits. Here human beings are compared to the trapped rat which is lured by the bait. The lucrative (profitable) baits for human beings is the material benefits such as food, shelter, clothing, good life, fame, joys or anything else that attracts a human. The story upholds the belief that the essential goodness of a human being can be awakened through love and understanding.

The protagonist of the short story the Rattrap, is a ratttap peddler.

The story begins like a fairytale. The central character is a beggar and a petty thief who goes about selling rattraps of wire to make a small living. He finds it difficult to make both ends meet. It makes him reflect about his own condition and the world at large.He fancies that the whole world is nothing but a big rattrap. This thought amuses him.

One dark and cold evening, he was made welcome at a cottage and the owner was alone without a family. This loneliness made the old man share porridge and tobacco with the peddler. He even played a card game with the peddler. The old man started talking about his days as a crofter and how now he lives by selling milk for the creamery. He even shows the 3 ten kroner bills he got last month as proof.

His confidence was not respected by the peddler when he stole the money next day by smashing the window pane, to get hold of the pouch with the thirty kroners. In order to escape from the authorities, he avoided the public highway and went into the woods. He got lost in the forest and did not know the way to get out and recalled his thoughts about the world being a rattrap waiting to trap the humans with many baits. He felt he was fooled by the money which was the bait.

His gloom and despair increased as it became darker with increased dangers in the forest. He thought he would die there itself. Suddenly he heard the sound of hammer and understood that there was an iron mill nearby. He located the mill and saw that the master smith and his helper sat near the furnace and on account of the noise in the forge they did not notice the peddler entering. The peddler lay down to warm himself and sleep. He did not exchange any words with the smith.

The owner of the iron mill’s greatest ambition was to ship out good iron to the market. He had made it a habit to check the work done both day and night. When he entered the mill that day, he saw the stranger. Unlike the blacksmiths, he went and removed the hat to get a better view and addressed the fellow as Nils Olof. The peddler, in the hope of getting some money did not refuse that he was misidentified by the ironmaster.

The ironmaster took the peddler to be one of his old regimental comrades (belonging to the same military unit), misunderstood that his pathetic condition was because he had resigned from the army.

He compelled the peddler to come with him to his house but the stranger continued to refuse this offer and the ironmaster left. Some time later, the ironmaster’s daughter returned accompanied by a valet. She was not at all pretty, but seemed modest and quite shy. She introduced herself as Edla Willmansson and noticed that the man afraid and concluded that “either he has stolen something or else he has escaped from jail.” She reassured him that he will be allowed to leave them as freely as he came but requested him to stay with her and her father over Christmas Eve. The peddler accepted the invitation and was offered a fur coat but regretted taking the kroners from the crofter.

The next day at breakfast Edla told her father that she never thought that the peddler was an educated person. Te ironmaster told her that she should have patience and with a little bit of cleaning up and good clothes, the tramp will lose his tramp manners and show that he was an educated army man.

The tramp entered and he was now clean and well dressed. The ironmaster understood that he had made a mistake in taking the tramp to be one of his regimental comrades and was angry with the peddler. The peddler answered that he did not accept the ironmaster’s invitation and said that he would wear his own torn clothes and go away from the place. The ironmaster threatened him the sheriff would definitely have something against the vagabond. Now the peddler struck the table with his fist and told the ironmaster that the whole world is but a rattrap. He said that if the sheriff takes him away then one day the ironmaster himself would be baited by the world and would be caught in the trap. The ironmaster asked him to leave immediately.

Edla was very happy that morning as she had planned to make the peddler comfortable. She felt that Christmas is a time for charity and good cheer which should be shared with the needy. She argued with her father that the peddler is never welcomed anywhere at anytime. He is always afraid of being arrested and Edla wanted him to enjoy a day of peace, just one day in the whole year. She said that they had promised Christmas cheer. The father gave in to the daughter’s plea and was fed.  He slept the whole afternoon, and again after lunch he slept. He went down to have Christmas dinner and saw the decorated Christmas tree. He went around and said tank you to everyone. Edla said that the suit he was wearing was to be a Christmas present and if he wanted to send next Christmas Eve in a place where he could rest in peace and be sure that no evil would befall him, he would be welcomed back again.

The next morning, the father and daughter went to church where they came to know that one of the old crofter’s had been robbed by a man selling rattraps.

As they entered their house, the valet informed them that the peddler had already left but he was empty handed. He had left behind a package for Miss Willmansson as a Christmas present.

Inside the package the girl found a rattrap containing the wrinkled three ten kroner notes.There was also a note which said that “I do not want to you to be embarrassed by a thief. You can give back the money to the old man and the rattrap is a Christmas present from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s rattrap if he had not been raised to captain.”

It was signed “Captain von Stahle”.

The peddler experiences a change of heart after experiencing Edla’s sincere kindness and essential human goodness. He attains nobility of spirit as he ‘becomes’ Captain von Stahle.

It is the victory of human goodness.

Selma Lagerlöf’s  THE RATTRAP as a fairytale…

One of the elements of fairy tales is that they often start and end with special words like "once upon a time," "a long, long time ago," When you read those words, you know that the story could be a fairy tale.

Another element of a fairy tale is that the story often takes place in a castle, a forest, or a town. This is called the setting. The setting is where the story takes place.

Fairy tales always have at least one good character, or person, in the story. An example of a good character is Cinderella.

One of the most important elements in a fairy tale is that they always have a problem that must be solved. For example, in the Princess and the Pea, the prince wants to find a real princess to marry. His mother, the queen, helps him find a real princess by putting a pea in the bed to find out if the princess can feel it.

·         A fairy tale begins with "Once upon a time...”

·         Fairy tales have a problem that needs to be solved.

·         Fairy tales have happy endings –

·         Fairy tales usually teach a lesson or have a theme.

In the fairy tales the magic and the supernatural permeate everyday life, showing that everybody can live happily ever after, that the poor man can make a fortune and that everybody has to face some trials and overcome some difficulties in order to get a better life. In this way the fairy tales deal with real problems and there is a deep meaning in them that you must be able to catch in order to understand the human nature and better realize one's own individual history.

Although we live today in a very different world, the fairy tales' language is still alive and rich in meaning: it is true that those tales always refer to distant times (Once upon a time there was…), but the message they include - success and happiness reached thanks to one's own merits and to other people's help - is universal.

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP BEGINS AT HOME

Borders, barriers, walls have come down to allow a degree of interconnection between nations and cultures. And yet there are many more walls that are being built or that people try to build -- physical walls, political walls, mental walls. We boast of being global citizens. In a word, the global citizenship mostly refers to the idea and value. Love and harmony, co-operation and mutual support are the basic ingredients here, as in a family.

Good morning!

If we go deeper into analyzing our roots we end up being related to each other. Mahabharata is a family story telling how kings fought with relatives, neighbours and friends for a kingdom. A throne. Prince Duryodhana instantly made Karna the king of Anga so that he can be eligible to compete with Arjuna at the archery test. But when he was asked to part with five small villages as their share to Pandavas, he hesitated. Duryodhana hated Pandavas and that was the reason he did not give them their share. Surprisingly may be if Karna had asked him he might have given the entire kingdom. For having a thought of brotherhood it does not matter if we are blood related or connected genetically. What matters most is our love for others. 

Worry, despair and frustration haunt man’s personal life. His family life, once founded upon the bonds of sacrifice and temperance, love and co-operation, is now centered upon self-seeking rather than altruism, money rather than morality and cynicism rather than trust. Peace, faith and harmony are conspicuous by their absence in social life. It is said that the present age is the age of “communications”. The question arises if we are effectively and rightly connected then why so much of hatred, anguish, disharmony, violence, dissatisfaction, anarchy. We can understand diversity – geographical, climatic, cultural, political, and religious and so on. Cannot we attain unity among various diversities? Is there any way to bring man closer to man?

The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be.

It is apt to observe that for constructing a good and sustaining society, family is the basic unit which needs to be given attention. If family values are supportive and sustaining, they will surely be accepted or at least be considered by those who experience the conduct based on such values. A family value can add both negatively as well as positively to a society. If the family values are oppressive, driven by self-centeredness and disregard for others, they will add to the unrest in the society as a whole because those who experience conduct based on such values will feel subdued, and thus chaos may follow.

Global citizenship lies in practicing values which is true at home and in turn would reflect in the society as well. This would make us truly global citizens. At home to make a happy family I think certain family values are to be practiced. They are:

Belonging, Flexibility, Respect, Honesty, Forgiveness, Generosity, Communication, responsibility and tradition are the most important values that one should follow at home. Global citizenship relates to the principle of universality. i.e.  Applying the same standards to yourself as you do to others. It's a moral truism that should apply to all relationships, from personal to international. If you apply the values of Belonging, Flexibility, Respect, Honesty, Forgiveness, Generosity, Communication, responsibility and tradition on others around, beginning at home, all of us would be global citizens.

If there is love, there is hope to have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost... no matter how much material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue. The XIV Dalai Lama says”When you love a member of your family or a compatriot, let it be with a ray of the Infinite Love! Love that person, whether he is of your family or of another. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a Sanskrit phrase  that means that the whole world is one single family. Everyone has their own worldview which is quite often different from person to person. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam means respecting this difference. Do it at home. Respect the difference between family members, husband-wife, brother-sister, uncle-aunt. Understand and appreciate that each other’s uniqueness and contribution towards your own growth. This attitude will automatically be translated into every person’s psyche in becoming a susscessful global citizen.

interschool quiz competition 2013

ISA Magical Experience

“There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” ― Robert Frost
 

The ISA programme gave the much needed prod that I needed to come out of my complacency and routine classroom teaching.

"In order to be a teacher you've got to be a student first”  ― Gary L. Francione

Every teacher knows this and as teachers we do appreciate the fact that we learn every moment of our life. But the learning that one gets from ISA programme is globally relevant. This learning gives a teacher global insight, tolerance, empathy, thinking out of the box, greater awareness of the wide world, less stereotypical views about others. A caring, co-operative and open outlook on the classroom experience, and core concerns- finding out about all the cultures of other countries are what I gained as a teacher involved in the ISA programme.ISA has opened the floodgates of global perspective to the way of approaching everything we teach and how we teach it. It broadens horizons and encourages exploration of all subjects from a global perspective. It contributes to the whole curriculum and enhances our understanding of the world.

My life can now be divided into two eras. Before ISA and After ISA. I have been a teacher for the past two decades and consider myself to be a good teacher, popular among students.

After ISA, I have got another dimension added to my persona. I am no longer just a three dimensional personality, teaching and enjoying it passionately. The fourth dimension is given to me by my experience as an ISA team member. The changes I have acquired are positive and my perspective has become global.

Teaching is an art – but effective teaching consists of a set of skills 
that can be acquired, improved and extended. The set of skills provided by ISA opened new vistas and widened horizon. Internet is no longer just social networking sites and cursory research portal. It is now a magical well with never ending wealth of global experiences. ISA has shown me what I can do with the internet. I am now able to guide my students into putting their IT skills beyond social networking.

Before ISA I considered myself computer savvy. After ISA, the computer department of the school acknowledges my enhanced computer knowledge and the new ways that I can use IT skills to improve teaching learning experience. Being one step ahead of the present generation of tech savvy students is the skill I have improved upon and extended.

International exposure with our partner school across the globe has given me insight that teachers and students are more or less the same. Students thirst for knowledge and when given it is given to them in new exciting forms, they are ready to lap it all up. Teachers are ready to experiment and add on to their vast experience and only wait for the opportunities. When opportunities knock, like ISA, the globe becomes a small place which could be held in the palm of one’s hands. One can reach  any corner of the world – to use a very popular cliché – with the click of a button. The whole world is waiting to be explored.

ISA can only be appreciated with experience. Without experiencing what gateways it opens up in our minds, one cannot truly appreciate its value.

While appreciating the ISA experience as an exceptional one, I acknowledge that all things positive has come out of this experience. As a part of the ISA team, I take this opportunity to thank the ISA co-ordinator, and my ISA team mates.

Dharamshala - a memorable trip : Part I

a beautiful view

A Trip to Dharamshala with students - it was indeed an enjoyable one. Dharamshala is in Himachal Pradesh, a mini Tibet with abundance of Tibetan monks. with lot of greenery, Dharamshala has a pleasant weather with frequent showers. Take an umbrella if you do not want to get drenched or better still, one can purhsase umbrellas of different sizes and hues to suit your style and pocket.

Students who came along made the trip memorable. one becomes young with the exuberant energy of the students. Lovely girls and gallant boys with only one motto - enjoy and have fun - that is what we had in the trip.

This is just a teaser. More about the trip in my next post. See ya...

energy and colour captured in a lens