Stories of Ourselves: "A Horse and Two Goats" by R.K. Narayan

Everything is lost in translation in this comic story of a Tamil goatherd who encounters an English-speaking New Yorker.

Here are links to our lists for the short stories in Stories of Ourselves:
The Hollow of the Three Hills, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Signalman, The Happy Prince, The Yellow Wall Paper, The Son’s Veto, The Open Boat, The Moving Finger, The Door in the Wall, Sredni Vashtar, How It Happened, Her First Ball, The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, The Fly in the Ointment, The Custody of the Pumpkin, An Englishman’s Home, The Phoenix, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Prison, The Destructors, Meteor, Billenium, The Lemon Orchard, The People Before, The Enemy, Five-Twenty, A Horse and Two Goats, Report on the Threatened City, The Rain Horse, Ming’s Biggest Prey, The Village Saint, Secrets, The Stoat, Games at Twilight, The Taste of Watermelon, Journey (Patricia Grace), The Bath, My Greatest Ambition, To Da-duh, in Memoriam, Of White Hairs and Cricket, Elephant, Sandpiper, Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Um), The Third and Final Continent, Tyres, At Hiruharama, Real Time, On Her Knees, The Contest
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. grandiose
    impressive because of unnecessary largeness or magnificence
    But its size did not prevent its giving itself the grandiose name Kritam, which meant in Tamil ‘coronet’ or ‘crown’ on the brow of this subcontinent.
  2. inordinate
    beyond normal limits
    Muni laughed inordinately, in order to please the shopman, at being called ‘young man’.
  3. itinerant
    traveling from place to place to work
    Being an itinerant postman, he returned home to Kritam only once in ten days and every time managed to slip away again without passing the shop in the third street.
  4. parapet
    fortification consisting of a low wall
    He always calculated his age from the time of the great famine when he stood as high as the parapet around the village well, but who could calculate such things accurately nowadays with so many famines occurring?
  5. unobtrusive
    not undesirably noticeable
    After saying this Muni unobtrusively rose and moved off.
  6. accost
    approach and speak to someone aggressively or insistently
    He passed through the village with his head bowed in thought. He did not want to look at anyone or be accosted.
  7. crony
    a close friend or associate
    A couple of cronies lounging in the temple corridor hailed him, but he ignored their call.
  8. affluence
    abundant wealth
    They had known him in the days of affluence when he lorded over a flock of fleecy sheep, not the miserable gawky goats that he had today.
  9. pestilence
    any epidemic disease with a high death rate
    Some pestilence afflicted his cattle (he could of course guess who had laid his animals under a curse) and even the friendly butcher would not touch one at half the price...and now here he was left with the two scraggy creatures.
  10. respective
    considered individually
    During the wedding ceremony they had had to recite their respective ages and names.
  11. progeny
    the immediate descendants of a person
    Progeny, none. Perhaps a large progeny would have brought him the blessing of the gods. Fertility brought merit. People with fourteen sons were always so prosperous and at peace with the world and themselves.
  12. barren
    not bearing offspring
    Still, everyone in the village whispered behind their backs that Muni and his wife were a barren couple.
  13. caste
    a hereditary social class among Hindus
    ‘I am the poorest fellow in our caste and no wonder that they spurn me, but I won’t look at them either,’ and so he passed on with his eyes downcast along the edge of the street...
  14. spurn
    reject with contempt
    ‘I am the poorest fellow in our caste and no wonder that they spurn me, but I won’t look at them either,’ and so he passed on with his eyes downcast along the edge of the street, and people left him also very much alone...
  15. meander
    move or cause to move in a winding or curving course
    He urged and bullied the goats until they meandered along to the foot of the horse statue on the edge of the village.
  16. aquiline
    curved down like an eagle's beak
    The horse was nearly life-size, moulded out of clay, baked, burnt, and brightly coloured, and reared its head proudly, prancing its forelegs in the air and flourishing its tail in a loop; beside the horse stood a warrior with scythe-like mustachios, bulging eyes, and aquiline nose.
  17. brocade
    thick expensive material with a raised pattern
    The horse itself was said to have been as white as a dhobi-washed sheet, and had had on its back a cover of pure brocade of red and black lace, matching the multi-coloured sash around the waist of the warrior.
  18. arid
    lacking sufficient water or rainfall
    Muni sat at the foot of the statue, watching his two goats graze in the arid soil among the cactus and lantana bushes.
  19. gainsay
    take exception to
    Having exhausted his English vocabulary, he started in Tamil: ‘My name is Muni. These two goats are mine, and no one can gainsay it – though our village is full of slanderers these days who will not hesitate to say that what belongs to a man doesn’t belong to him.’
  20. chaste
    pure and simple in design or style
    So he went on, all in the chaste Tamil for which Kritam was famous.
  21. detractor
    one who disparages or belittles the worth of something
    (Even the worst detractors could not deny that the famous poetess Avvaiyar was born in this area, although no one could say whether it was in Kritam or Kuppam, the adjoining village.)
  22. ingratiating
    calculated to please or gain favor
    ‘I am sure you know when this horse was made,’ said the red man and smiled ingratiatingly.
  23. implore
    beg or request earnestly and urgently
    Now the red man implored, ‘Please, please, I will speak slowly, please try to understand me...'
  24. peroration
    a flowery and highly rhetorical address
    Muni looked reflective at the end of this long peroration and said, rather feebly, ‘Yes, no,’ as a concession to the other’s language...
  25. concession
    a point that is yielded
    Muni looked reflective at the end of this long peroration and said, rather feebly, ‘Yes, no,’ as a concession to the other’s language...
  26. pinion
    restrain or bind
    The stranger almost pinioned Muni’s back to the statue and asked, ‘Isn’t this statue yours? Why don’t you sell it to me?’
  27. urchin
    a poor and often mischievous city child
    The old man now understood the reference to the horse, thought for a second, and said in his own language, ‘I was an urchin this high when I heard my grandfather explain this horse and warrior, and my grandfather himself was this high when he heard his grandfather, whose grandfather...’
  28. adversary
    someone who offers opposition
    This is our guardian, it means death to our adversaries.
  29. revel
    take delight in
    As he spoke of bad men the figures of his shopman and his brother-in-law assumed concrete forms in his mind, and he revelled for a moment in the predicament of the fellow under the horse’s hoof: served him right for trying to set fire to his home...
  30. pundit
    an expert who publicly gives opinions via mass media
    ‘Our pundit discoursed at the temple once how the oceans are going to close over the earth in a huge wave and swallow us – this horse will grow bigger than the biggest wave and carry on its back only the good people and kick into the floods the evil ones – plenty of them about,’ he said reflectively.
  31. incarnate
    represent in bodily form
    '...He has come many times. The first time he incarnated as a great fish, and lifted the scriptures on his back when the floods and sea-waves...'
  32. modest
    not large but sufficient in size or amount
    The foreigner said, ‘I repeat I am not a millionaire. Ours is a modest business; after all, we can’t afford to buy more than sixty minutes’ TV time in a month, which works out to two minutes a day, that’s all, although in the course of time we’ll maybe sponsor a one-hour show regularly if our sales graph continues to go up...’
  33. flourish
    move or swing back and forth
    In answer to these questions the red man dashed his hand into his pocket and brought forth his wallet in order to take immediate advantage of the bearish trend in the market. He flourished a hundred-rupee currency note and asked, ‘Well, this is what I meant.’
  34. wayfarer
    a traveler going on a trip
    Sitting here, watching the hills, he had often dreamt how he would put up a thatched roof here, spread a gunny sack out on the ground, and display on it fried nuts, coloured sweets, and green coconut for the thirsty and famished wayfarers on the highway, which was sometimes very busy.
  35. ruminate
    reflect deeply on a subject
    Perched on the pedestal of the horse, as the westerly sun touched the ancient faded colours of the statue with a fresh splendour, he ruminated, ‘He must be gone to fetch some help, I suppose!’ and settled down to wait.
Created on Thu Mar 08 10:32:38 EST 2018 (updated Tue Mar 27 14:17:02 EDT 2018)

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