The story is about a blind man traveling on a train who engages in conversation with a young woman also on the train. Neither the man nor the reader of the story realize that the woman is also blind. It is only after she leaves and another passenger enters that the man learns she was blind as well. The major theme of the story is about the limits of human perception and how preconceptions and assumptions can prevent people from perceiving realities right in front of them, as in this case where neither the blind man nor the reader recognized the woman was blind too.

1. Name: Marmik Bhatt
Enrollment No.: 160210106005
Branch: Civil
Subject: Communication Skill
Guided By: Himanshu Shrivastav sir

2. Introduction
• The Eyes are not here is short story by Ruskin bound that
was originally published in Contemporary Indian English
Stories. The narrator of the story , a blind man whose
eyes were sensitive to light and darkness, was going to
Dhradun by train when he met a girl and had chit-chat
with her. It was only after she left and the another
passenger came into the compartment that the narrator
realizes the girl was blind.

3. Character in Story
• The Narrator:
He is the main character and the traveller who meets a girl
in the train.
• The Girl:
She is a passenger who travels with the narrator for while.
• The Passenger:
He is the passenger who makes the narrator realize that the
girl was blind.

4. The Story
• At the beginning of the story, a man is alone in a train
compartment simply waiting for the journey to begin. The
man is blind and can only differentiate between light and
darkness. Soon, he is joined by a young girl who is
originally accompanied by her parents. They seem extra
anxious about her well-being in that they tell her exactly
where to put her luggage, not to lean out of the window,
and not to speak with strangers. Soon, the girl's parents
leave and the man and the girl are alone in the train
compartment as the journey begins.

5. • Most of the story involves the conversation between the
two characters: the man and the girl. When the man
asks the girl if her destination is the same as his own, she
is startled, but is happy to strike up a conversation. The
girls says that she will be met by her aunt in Saharanpur
in order to be taken home. When the girl learns the man
is headed to Mussoorie, the hill country, she looks at him
in envy. The hills are beautiful at this time of year.

6. • Just before the girl exits at her stop, the man tells her that
she has "an interesting face," which the girl likes because
she is usually told she has a "pretty" one. The girl leaves
and another man enters. Through the comments from
this new passenger, the man learns that the girl, too, was
blind.

7. What is the theme of the story
• Ruskin Bond’s short story “The Eyes Are Not Here” is very
brief but is also intriguingly complex. Although most
worthwhile stories cannot be easily paraphrased or
reduced to a single theme, this story definitely seems to
deal with issues of human perception.

8. • In this tale, three people, at least, prove to be
imperceptive in various ways: the unnamed man on the
train, the unnamed woman on the train, the story’s reader,
and, perhaps, also the new male passenger.

9. • Bond’s story is the kind of tale that makes readers want to
read it immediately a second time as soon as they have
finished reading it once. Only on re-reading, in fact, does
the story reveal its full richness and complexity as a
meditation on human perceptions and perceptiveness and
how both are influenced by the assumptions we make.

10. • Thus, the young man on the train failed to perceive that
the young woman was blind, as did the reader of the
story. The young woman apparently also failed to
perceive that the young man was blind, and this may also
be true of the male who enters the compartment near the
end of the story. In a very brief tale, then, Bond has
managed to create a remarkably complex story about the
limits of human perception and perceptiveness and about
how people tend to make assumptions and then take
those assumptions for granted in ways that influence what
they perceive or fail to perceive.

11. The plot of the story
• the plot of the story is this: a man (presumably a young
man) is sitting in a compartment in a train when a woman
(apparently a young woman) also enters the
compartment. The woman doesn’t notice that the man is
blind, and he does not tell her. Instead, he asks her a
series of questions that allow him to infer certain facts
about her. She also converses pleasantly with him. After
she gets off the train at her stop, another male enters the
compartment and mentions in passing that the young
woman who just left the compartment was blind.

12. The story is re-read, the reader notices
various intriguing details and clues, including
the following:
• The girl’s parents are very concerned
about her when she gets on the train, but
both we and the young man assume that
there is nothing special about their
concern. It doesn’t occur to us that the girl
may be blind.

13. • The young woman is startled when the
young man speaks, but both we and he
assume that she is startled simply
because he is sitting in the dark. Once
again, it doesn’t occur to us that the girl
may be blind.
• The young male, commenting on the fact
that the young woman was startled, thinks
to himself,
Well, it often happens that people with
good eyesight fail to see what is right in
front of them.

14. Conclusion :
• We make an assumption, and then we perceive all the
rest of the events in light of that assumption. So, too, does
the narrator, and so the narrator’s joke at the expense of
sighted people is also a joke by the author at the expense
of the narrator. Rather than being offended by the
author’s sly trick, we ultimately appreciate all the ways in
which he tricks both us the narrator, because we (both
readers and narrator) ultimately learn a very valuable
lesson about the influence of initial assumptions on the
ways we perceive (or fail to perceive) the world and other
persons.

15. Thanks For Watching