NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Short Stories 7 : Glory at Twilight

a. Satyajit attending the village wedding was an occasion of self-realisation and pride. He was not well known in his youth. So, when he gained prestige and became a recognised person, he was happy with the fame and attention he received. The people in the village gave him looks of amazement and wonder. He liked the homage offered by the people. In the flush of prosperity, Satyajit became open-handed and started to take on an air of stature and pride. He felt that it was his benediction which paved the way for Srinath through the current daughter crisis.

b. He was thinking about how the fortune wheel keeps rotating and never helps the same person. He thought about the forgerer as he was sure of one thing. If luck helps to achieve success, one can expect failure to strike even faster. If success comes fast, failure will be even faster. Even though catching the forgerer creates a path towards promotion, glory and prosperity, he has regrets for the man. The thought which arose in his mind was the fact that he could have provided the forgerer a chance to live. This moment of his life was ironic as it was he who wanted a second chance to make his living, as he had lost everything for now.

c. Srinath and his family members had a valid reason to have eager eyes and high expectations towards the arrival of Satyajit. He was liberal in his prosperous days. He had reached a higher status due to the wealth he possessed. They were not blood relatives, but Satyajit felt pride in helping Srinath to get his other daughters married. He was happy with the attention and success, while they required only money. It was a pure give-and-take relationship.

d. Srinath possessed extremely high expectations, which he was sure would be fulfilled by Satyajit. When he said that he was present with a begging bowl in front of him and wanted Rs 2001/- to give as a dowry to the inlaws, he was confident that he would get the money. He was not very worried as he thought that a rich person like Satyajit would be carrying this money with him. He felt disappointed by the fact that Satyajit was not able to give him the amount he needed.

e. The entire story shows the mixed emotions which Satyajit experienced. At one stage, he wanted to enjoy the level of privilege and status that he got from the people at his uncle’s house. At the same time, he was conscious of doing wrong and hurting the people who needed him the most. He regretted going to the marriage and facing this crisis in life. He was not ready to give up on the situation. He then decided to listen to the ‘false echo’, which convinced him to mislead his uncle. He realised that the glory had departed, and he wanted to stay happy even though it was fake. In this state, he becomes an imposter to his uncle.

f. Satyajit had been in the limelight from the time he had got glory which made him ashamed to reveal his failure to anyone. Srinath was one among the few people whom he wouldn’t want to know the turn of fortune in his life. He was expected to be a man with lots of money and was ready to help others. He held a prestigious and high position in society. All the daughters of Srinath could be married because of the benediction of Satyajit. He was not able to reveal the tragedy of his life and was no more in a position to be called a benefactor. He was unable to expose the reality that he could no longer be called a philanthropist who helped in times of need.

Satyajit experienced many changes in his life till the time the story was narrated. He started his career as a client in a bank. He had caught a forgery and hence got promoted as a Managing Director. All these situations became a turning point in his life. At the present time, he regrets reaching huge success just by luck and not by hard work. He then realised that the tempo of failure is faster than the speed of success. In terms of wealth, job and resources, he faced a crisis. The fortune wheel had turned and finished an entire rotation by bringing Satyajit back to where he had started. After enjoying the glorious days when he had luck, he was reduced to nothing. It was Satyajit who was considered to possess the capability to finance and fulfil the requirements of people. He currently had to avoid such situations to prevent the dismay and shame that he felt at the moment.

The story describes the truth clearly – how it is very difficult for a person to get adjusted to the truth and accept his defeat after living his life as an achiever. After reaching extreme heights of success, failing all of a sudden would make it difficult for a person to accept it. Every person in the neighbourhood was aware of his success story. Hence, it is difficult to cope with failure and let people know about the tragedy.

The concept that people achieving success faster will also fail very fast holds true, according to this story. The speed of failure is faster than the speed of success. At one point, we strive hard to attain success, while it takes just seconds for failure to reach us. It is a matter of luck that a man achieves success while his failure is caused by his own actions. When success is planned accordingly and achieved by hard work, it stays for a long time. When failure hits, it is abrupt and never lets us know before coming. Hence, it can be said that the tempo of failure is faster than success.

Predicament means an unpleasant, perplexing, difficult or dangerous situation. In this story, Satyajit is stuck between the loss of his wealth and his uncle’s expectation to lend him money to get his other daughters married. He was not able to tell about his present situation due to his pride and ego, mainly after being considered a benefactor to his uncle. He was selfish and did not want to leave his Godly status he enjoyed at his uncle’s house. Revelation lightens one’s mood and unburdens one’s heart. Hence, it would have been easy for Satyajit to be honest and true about his actual state and let go of his pride.

At the beginning of the story, the author believes in the fact that he got what he was supposed to have. He found it correct to be promoted to the post of Managing Director though he did not deserve it. When the fortune turned away, he understood that he did not like the person because of whom he got his promotion. He did not like the forgerer due to whom he achieved lots of fame and glory. So now he just wants the hands of the clock to turn back so that he can forget about the person who committed the crime. He had disrespect in his heart for the person who did this crime as he was the main reason for his success, due to which he had to suffer. This was a revelation point when he got to know that time and tide wait for no one and hence, it was late to give him a chance to live.

Satyajit has a huge list of refusals. He was working on quitting some habits like smoking. This dawned on him when he was about to smoke while travelling in a train. He gave a second thought while reaching out for cigarettes. As it was a difficult time for him, he had rationed all his habits. He was not able to afford the unrestricted luxury. He was shaken by the dark reality that fortune did not favour him.

In the story, Satyajit is completely biased in showcasing his opinions. The entire story can be presented as a diary entry. The narration here is in a continuously justifying tone. Satyajit describes himself in every situation in the story – be it a regretful feeling for not providing the forgerer with another chance or feeling happy for being considered as God by his hosts. The way he revealed how failure hits faster than success shows the broken condition of his soul and spirit. He explains the fact that the tempo of failure is faster than that of success. His thoughts to forgive a man who committed forgery, considering himself stupid for arriving at an occasion where Srinath and his family members expected money from him to get his other daughters married rather than gifting the fish pond and the house to his own family.

The entire frame of the story is well-knit by the author. He wanted to explain a common man’s elevation from a client to the Managing Director’s post. He also wanted to show how the success achieved through shortcuts is short-lived. He describes this event by considering it as the main episode and highlights how Satyajit got his promotion by the play of luck. The author describes how men reach heights through such incidents on the basis of their luck. It was a matter of luck that he got this post and hence did not have any reasons for the same. Without a solid foundation to attain what he did, his success ended in a short time. The author wants to make it clear in his story that the tempo of failure is faster than success.

The line ‘Glory was all overlaid with dark shame.’ well describes the narrator’s state of mind. He looks like a kind-hearted person who is not able to accept failure or defeat. He was completely broken and was not ready to reveal the loss of his position and wealth. He had enjoyed a superior status in society for a long time and had been glorified by all, particularly his uncle. Due to the benediction of Satyajit, his uncle’s daughters got married. It was thus not possible for the author to digest that the wheel of fortune had turned, and he possessed nothing. He makes failure sound similar to that shame. He thought the opposite of being glorious at one time was a shame in public. ‘Glory was dead’ is the last line, which reveals the author’s vulnerability and helplessness to the entire situation.