Ravi, the youngest child in an Indian family, hides in an old shed during a game of hide-and-seek on a hot day. He wants to win the game for the first time. After spending a long time hiding alone in the dark shed, Ravi emerges to find the other children have started a new game and forgotten about him. Feeling ignored and ashamed, Ravi refuses to join the new game. The story explores themes of alienation, insignificance, and the passage of time through Ravi's experience of being left out of the game.

1. By: Constanza Martinez Cerana andVictoria Patiño

2. • The story began with a Indian family in a really hot day.The children after being
indoors all the day finally by convincing their mother went outside and started
playing "hide and seek".The youngest child, Ravi, hid in a old shed, he wanted to
win the game for the first time, he spent a long time there, he was very scared and
when he finally got out of the shed he saw the children playing another game. He
realized they forgot him and they end the game long time ago so he refused to
play a new game and stay alone.
“Please, ma, please”They begged. “We will play
in the varanda and porch-we won’t go a step out
of the porch”

3. • Anita desai born 24 June 1937 is one of the best known contemporary women
writers of Indian fiction in english. His parents were a Bengali man and a German
woman. She grew up in Delhi and she published her first novel "cry the peacock" in
1963.This work established her as a major voice in Indian literature. Since then,
Desai has steadily published novels, short stories and children's literature.

4. • Ravi was the youngest brother in his big family. He always wanted to
win the game “hide and seek” because he has never win it, especially
towards Raghu because they hadn't a good relationship. Finally when
he got out of the shed he felt ignored and ashamed because everyone
had forgotten him.
QUOTATION:
“To defeat Raghu, - that hirsute, hoarse-voiced footbal champion - and to be the winner of a circle
of older, bigger, luckier children

5. • Raghu was a typical overbearing adolescent and a bad loser because when he was
it, he protested.
QUOTATION:
“I know I have to, idiot”, Raghu said, supersiliously kicking him with his toe, “you are dead”

6. • The twilight games are connected to death and the passing of life, this is seen in
two specific moments, the first was when Ravi was inside the shed, described as a
tomb.The second moment was when Ravi reappeared and the other children
were playing another game singing a funeral song. At this moment Ravi
experiences some type of death because he realized he wasn't important and the
others didn't notice that he was upset. Finally this games happen at twilight which
is the end of the day so It can be connected to death.
QUOTATION:
“He would not follow them, he would not be included in this funeral game”

7. • We felt empathy for Ravi because we can understand that for Ravi this is more
than just a game.The technique that the author used to show this is to took us
into Ravi's mind. Another thing is that we knew what Ravi had to endure to win the
game, he stays inside a dark shed alone for a long time afraid.We felt the most
empathy at the end of the story when ravi realized that the other children had
forgotten him.
QUOTATION:
“But he had been forgotten, left out, and he wouldn’t join them
now…”

8. • Importance of the color:The Colors play an important role in the story for example
in the description of the setting because they transmit how hot the place
was. Another example is in the description of the shed because the colors are
connected with the emotion and feelings that Ravi experienced in that moment.
Finally they have an important role when Ravi got out of the shed and saw the pale
faces of the children and the darkness of the shadows of the trees that looks like
children were ghosts in a cemetery, this is connected to how Ravi felt in that
moment when he gave the impression of death to the other people who never
noticed that he was there
QUOTATION:
“Their faces were red with the effort, but their mother wouldn’t open the door”

9. • Desperate:The children were desperate to go outside to play and the mother
didn't let them go outside because of the heat on the other hand Ravi is
desperate to find a new place to hide from Raghu.
• Playful: the children' re inside the house bored and hot, they wanted to go outside
and play games.
• Frightening/scary: Ravi was very scared because the shed was very dark, full of
insects, similar to a tomb.
• Triumphant: when he was inside the shed he only think in win the game among his
brothers and sisters.
• Embarrassing/humiliation: when he got outside the shed he felt like that because
he realized that they forgot him and end the game long time ago.
• Melancholic: he felt sad because he felt ignored by his family as If he was not
important.
QUOTATION:
“Also wiith fear. It was dark, spooky in the shed. It had a muffled smell, as of graves”

10. • Fantasy vs Reality: Ravi doesn't like his reality, he lived a life where he is
insignificant and his elder brother is aggressive, when ravi is inside he dreams on
being better than Raghu by winning but when he gets out he has the sense of
reality because he sees that his family don't realise he was gone.
• Alienation And insignificant:He feels alienated because on one hand he hide far
away in an old shed and on the other hand because he refuses to play the new
game with his brothers and sisters. Insignificant because he realises that nobody
knew that he was gone so he felt ignore.
QUOTATION:
“He lay down full lenght on the damp grass, crushing his face into it , no longer
crying, silenced by a terrible sense of his insignificanse”