1. Anil is set in a small village in India – a world that shows the influence of some
of its author’s favourite Indian novelists.
Ridjal Noor
Ridjal Noor is a relatively unknown author. He was born in 1979 and he lives in
Singapore, where, according to his blog, he runs a small design firm and is happily
married. He loves the works of RK Narayan and VS Naipaul, especially because of
their depictions of the nature of life in India.
Part 1
The story begins in the middle of a sweltering, hot night in an Indian village. A seven
year old boy, Anil, is lying awake, looking at a single star through one of the many
holes in the thatched roof of his home. All around him are asleep.
Anil is frightened to get up and go to the toilet outside in the dark (there is no inside
toilet). He thinks of scary stories about ghosts. He tries to wake his mother who is
sleeping beside him, but without success. She carries the bruises of a beating that she
has had the night before from Anil's drunken father. The father is employed as a
humble servant to the village headman but is a bully at home.
He hears noises outside and creeps to the window. Outside two men are killing an
unconscious woman by hanging her from a tree. One of the men is Marimuthu, brother
of the headman. The tree has a very frightening reputation with the local children; there
are stories of it reaching down its branches to grab and devour children. Anil witnesses
the terrible killing and cowers in the corner of his hut in terror. He eventually falls
asleep, exhausted from crying and terror.
The following morning he wakes to find the villagers gathered around the body of the
woman which now lies on the ground. It turns out that she was Marimuthu's wife and he
is loudly weeping. His brother, the headman, makes a speech to the villagers saying that
she has obviously committed suicide.
Without expecting any disagreement, he asks the villagers if they agree that she
should be buried without reporting the incident to the authorities - no need to risk
bringing trouble on the village. Although there are whispers about abuse, the villagers
agree.
But suddenly Anil whispers to Marimuthu, "You killed her. You killed your wife."And he
repeats the accusation quietly to the headman. The headman quickly leads the boy out
of the crowd and tells Anil's father to follow.
There is a sudden shift to a scene that occurs hours later. Anil and his father are saying
their farewells at a train station. The boy is being sent away from the village to have an
education, something he is 'lucky' to get. It is evident that it is being paid for by the
headman as a bribe to Anil's father to silence the child. Anil is grief-stricken and
swears not to forget the sin that the village is burying by sending him away.
As the train passes the field where the woman is being buried, the headman and his
brother exchange a smile and a sigh of relief. They have got away with their crime.

2. One of the big themes in Anil is the clash between the characters: the powerful
men who run the village and the scared men and women who work for them.
The biggest contrast, however, is between the adults and the child, Anil.
Anil
Anil is seven. Both his parents work as servants of the headman of a small Indian
village. His future is therefore likely to be very poor, with no education and no prospects.
But as he lies awake, looking at a star through a hole in thethatched roof, "he found the
star fascinating. His parents would not even stop for a second to gape at a star. But he
did. Because he believed in the magical wonders of life. Because his dreams were bigger
than him."
This tells us that Anil, as a small child, is not limited by his humble birth; he is limited
by the compromises that his parents and other adults make.
When the headman urges the villagers to agree to a cover-up of the woman's murder,
the adults whisper and mutter about the woman being abused but do not openly oppose
the authority of the headman. But star-gazing Anil finds himself openly telling the
terrible truth.
At the end of the story, when Anil is being sent away, he is confused and upset and he
cries out in protest. But his last words show that he understands what is being done.
He cries out, "I will never forget you Appa, or forget Amma. I will never forget this town
and the sin that it buries today."
In the first paragraph there is a sentence that is chilling. "In a few years, he would also
be working for the headman, though he had no knowledge of this."Does this mean that,
despite his education, despite his knowledge of the village's guilt, despite his "star" and
his dreams, he will in fact return to the village and to the cycle of servant obeying
master?
Anil's father, Ragunathan
Anil's father is a servant to the headman. Noor gives a very clear analysis of his
character when he writes that Anil's, "father was a burly man, a bully to his family and a
timid mouse to the headman."
Later, when the headman draws him aside to discuss Anil's future, Noor writes,"And
Ragunathan, the illiterate, uneducated father, the person with little dreams, the mouse
of a man who was ever ready to serve his employer, nodded agreeably."
When the headman proposed to the villagers that they cover up the death,"Anil's father
was one of the first to agree with the headman's decision."
Ragunathan is also very willing to please his employer by sending Anil away. As he
sends him off on the train, he tells the seven year old boy "Don't be silly. Men don't cry."
But, although Noor's presentation of Ragunathan is generally harsh, at the end
there is some sympathy for him. Anil's father is a poor man who would never
normally be able to educate his son. Noor says, "He was ashamed..." "Was it wrong that
he sacrificed the truth and justice for his son's only chance out of an otherwise dreary
life like his?"

3. What he has done is wrong but it was possibly not an entirely selfish decision. And at
the end Ragunathan suffers: "In the distance, he saw his father fall to his knees, a
bent, despaired figure that had just let go of his only son."
Anil's mother
Anil's mother is fat, wheezing and asleep when we first see her. She sleeps through her
little boy's attempts to wake her. Like her husband, she has lost her"star". She is beaten
by her husband, is a servant of the headman, and seems to take no role in the sending
away of Anil at the end.
There is a suggestion that she is a somewhat neglectful parent. Whereas even
Ragunathan tries to shield his son from seeing the body, she merely"placed a hand on
his head and kept chatting away" to the other village women.
Marimuthu
Marimuthu is the brother of the headman. He takes part in the murder of his own
wife but is not the principal murderer; the mysterious other person says to
him, "Marimuthu, don't you chicken out now! Come here!"
It is obvious that he is somewhat reluctant to take part. But the fact is, that he does
help to murder his own wife.
During his marriage he seems to have been involved in abuse of his wife. We hear
of "whispers of the woman having been abused by Marimuthu." But he pretends to be
deeply upset by his wife's death and acts the part of the grieving husband the morning
after the murder.
Anil is so overcome by this hypocrisy that he is moved to accuse him.
At the end of the story Noor gives us a glimpse of Marimuthu at the funeral of his wife.
He writes, "Marimuthu, a husband caught in his heartbreaking sorrow, his eyes hidden in
his hands, heard the train." Has Marimuthu really repented? Was he 'forced' to kill his
wife by the other murderer?
It seems unlikely that Noor intends this. The act is too terrible for there to be an excuse.
The last sentence of the story suggests, in fact, that he is relieved to have got away
with the crime.
The headman
During the night of the murder, we have no idea of the identity of the second killer. But
it is pretty obvious by the end of the story that it is the headman. He is Marimuthu's
brother and it is suggested that he may be involved in the earlier abuse of his sister in
law, and certainly in its cover-up. "He heard whispers of his family abusing the woman."
He is the main agent in the killing. The other killer "hisses" and "half snarls" at him and
demands that Marimuthu helps him to lift her up.
Noor's sentence about Ragunathan makes it very clear what the headman has done: "he
was ashamed for helping the headman to hide the truth about Marimuthu's wife's
death".
When the villagers are gathered around the dead woman, he announces that she has
clearly committed suicide and proposes that they bury her without informing the
authorities of the circumstances of her death. It is obviously in his interests not to

4. have an investigation. There are already whispers that his family had abused the
woman.
In the last paragraphs of the story, the headman sees the train carrying Anil away. "The
headman put his hand around Marimuthu's shoulder. Marimuthu turned to his brother
and saw the shadow of a smile on his lips." This makes clear how guilty he is of the
crime, but he is unrepentant and pleased to have used his power to get away with
the crime.
Anil deals with some big themes such as power and injustice, fear and guilt. It’s
about the 'man's world' of hypocrisy and compromise and how hard it is to
escape.
Dreams versus the loss of dreams
The opening paragraph shows a village full of people who are fast asleep and dreaming
about very limited ambitions: "dreaming their dreams that rarely amounted to
anything." Anil, on the other hand is wide awake and gazing at a star.
The star that Anil gazes at through the hole in the roof is a symbol of his being in
touch with nature, in touch with "the magical wonders of life." Unlike his parents or
any of the other adults in the story, who are all involved in lies of one kind or
another, Anil looks at the simple truths around him.
Childhood innocence versus adult guilt
While the adults take part in the headman's cover up, Anil cannot stop himself from
stating the simple truth of what he saw. The adults know that there is more to
this than a simple suicide (they whisper about abuse of the woman within her family).
However, "Anil's father was one of the first to agree with the headman's decision (and)
the rest of the villagers piped in, gesturing their agreement with the headman's wise
decision."
Anil's father compromises the truth because he is employed by the headman.The
villagers, no doubt, also depend on the headman's goodwill and are sufficiently
frightened of him to take part in the cover up.
Darkness and Fear - ghosts and the tree
Like many children, Anil is frightened of the dark and the ghosts ("Peyi. Pesase.
Ghosts.") He thinks these lie in wait "out there". He is too frightened to get up and go
outside to the toilet. He and his friends are also frightened of "the large, ghostly tree
that grew in front of the hut, the tree with thick vines hanging from it." There is a
horrible story about it reaching down its branches to snatch children up and eat
them. Anil is frightened of these things.
Strangely, he is not frightened to tell the simple truth about the crime that he has
seen committed.
Unlike Anil, the adults are frightened of this truth and take part in a cover up. Of
course they have jobs to hold on to and they understand the 'power' of the headman.
Anil, with no job to hold on to, perhaps doesn't understand this power.

5. The story shows that what is frightening "out there" is very different for children and for
adults. The really frightening things in life are not alien powers like ghosts or child-eating
trees but rather your local headman.
Power and the abuse of power
The headman has economic power over Anil's father and, no doubt, over the
other villagers too. For this reason they agree to the cover-up.
On the other hand you might say that they give him power by being frightened. If they
were to stick to the simple truth, like Anil, they might overthrow him. He relies on their
fear to get away with the crime.
The headman abuses his power in three ways:
 by murdering his sister in law
 by persuading the villagers not to involve the authorities
 by persuading the villagers not to involve the authorities, and by silencing the
child, Anil, by bribing his father with an education for the child in a far-off city
Preparation
Before you start, gather together all the notes you have made about the story: its
context, plot, characters and themes. Re-read them, then have a go at the question.
Part 1
Section 1 - Introduction:
 introduce the broad differences between the child, Anil, and the adults
Section 2 - The first difference - dreams:
 the adults' limited dreams of possessions
 Anil's waking dreams of the magical wonders of life
Section 3 - Anil's parents and their lack of dreams:
 the mother
 the father
Part 2
Section 4 - Anil's childhood fears and fearlessness:
 his fear of ghosts and the child-eating tree
 his fearlessness of telling the truth about Marimuthu
Section 5 - The villagers' fears of the headman:
 Anil's father
 the other villagers
Section 6 - Truth and lying - adult and child contrasted:
 Marimuthu's and his brother's lies
 Ragunathan's lies to his son; Anil's blunt statement of the truth

6.  the lie of the woman's funeral brings the story to an end
Once you have completed your own essay, compare it with ours...
Sample answer - part 1
Ridjal Noor's story shows a very strong contrast between the child, Anil, and the adults
in the village. There are three main differences between them. The first is that, whereas
Anil looks up to the stars and has dreams, the adults do not. The sec ond is that the
child's fears are very different from those of the adults. The third is that the child tells
the simple truth whereas all the adults are involved in some form of lying.
In the opening paragraph of the story the adults are all fast asleep and"dreaming their
dreams that rarely amounted to anything". One is dreaming of having a new cow,
another of having a new sewing machine, but they are all very limited dreams; dreams
about possessions and material wealth. Anil, however, is lying there wide awake. He is
gazing up at a star that he can see through a hole in the roof of the poor hut that he
lives in. This suggests that he is looking beyond the limits and poverty of his village. He
has dreams of far more than acquiring a few possessions. "He believed in the magical
wonders of life. His dreams were bigger than him."
In contrast, "His parents would not even stop for a second to gape at a star."His mother
is described unflatteringly as she lies asleep beside him. She is physically unattractive
(fat, bathed in sweat, and she wheezes) and she is totally unresponsive to her child's
appeals. She is very far from being a 'dream' mother.
His father seems worse. He has beaten his wife in his drunkenness and Anil is frightened
of him. "His father was a burly man, a bully to his family and a timid mouse to the
headman." They are people who have been reduced almost to an animal existence.
Ragunathan, for example, is compareed to a mouse. When the headman meets Anil's
father and tells him he wants to talk to him about the boy, Noor writes,"And
Ragunathan, the illiterate, uneducated father, the person with little dreams, the mouse
of a man who was ever ready to serve his employer, nodded agreeably." This is clearly a
heavy judgement upon the father. He doesn't attempt to protect his son but readily
agrees with the headman about silencing Anil. He is a man with "little dreams" as
opposed to his son.
Sample answer - part 2
Anil is terrified by thoughts of what is out there in the dark. He is frightened of ghosts
and of a tree that devours kids, as an adult villager (albeit a madman) has told the
children. He is full of childhood fears. By contrast with the adults of the village, however,
he is not frightened of the power and authority of the headman during daylight hours.
When the headman's brother, Marimuthu, weeps in public over the body of his wife, Anil

7. is moved by the man's hypocrisy to say to him the blunt and shocking truth, "You killed
her. You killed your wife."
When Noor writes, "Anil suddenly found himself whispering to Marimuthu" the
phrase "suddenly found himself" suggests that it was less of a conscious decision to
speak out than an irresistible and spontaneous need to speak the simple truth. He
speaks in the same way, directly and fearlessly, to the headman even when the latter
puts his hand warningly on Anil's shoulder. "The headman's hand came onto Anil's
shoulder. Anil looked up at him and repeated his words, 'He did it. I know he did. I saw
it."
The adults are entirely different in their reactions to the headman and his family. When
the headman suggests that they do not inform the authorities they comply even though
it is clear that they know it is a cover-up. "Anil's father was one of the first to agree with
the headman's decision." This is almost certainly because, as his servant, he depends for
a job on the headman's goodwill. He is willing to cover up the truth in order to keep his
job. "The rest of the villagers piped in, gesturing their agreement with the headman's
wise decision." They too probably depend on his goodwill and are ready to betray the
truth. It is evident from their whispers that they suspect or know the truth. The
headman "heard whispers of the woman having been abused by Marimuthu. He heard
whispers of his family abusing the woman."
Marimuthu is heavily involved in lying. His crying and grief over his dead wife are a lie.
And his brother, the headman, is the principal liar in the village. He has in fact been the
main actor in his sister in law's murder but he presents it to the village as a suicide. He
is the furthest of all from the dreams of the magical wonders of life, the innocence and
the truth telling of the child, Anil.
In the final section of the story, Anil is being sent away by his father. It is probably the
dream of every poor Indian parent to be able to send a son to school and university. The
final lie that Ragunathan is involved in is the pretenceto both himself and his son that
this is why Anil is being sent away. "You are very, very lucky to have this chance." Again
Noor shows a huge contrast between Anil and the adult. The boy cries out the simple,
terrible truth: "Are you sending me off because I saw him do it?"
The final two paragraphs show the headman and his brother at the scene of the
"suicide's" funeral - Noor uses the words "woman who had committed suicide" to
underline the continuing lie that they are involved in. Marimuthu continues to weep but,
when "the shadow of a smile" appears on his brother's lips, "he heaved a sigh of
relief." They have got away with the murder. The lie, the opposite of Anil's "dream of
magical wonders of life", is complete.