A Horse and Two Goats

A Horse and Two Goats

By R.K. Narayan

The short story takes place in India in a small town called Kiritam.

One day a traveller from New York is visiting the town. At his visit in Kiritam he sees a statue shaped as a horse while travelling along the countryside. A statue left alone nearly forgotten by the local inhabitants. The statue makes a big impression on the American. And he would like to buy the statue in thoughts of taking it back to America.

At the same day an old man is drowsing nearby the statue watching his two goats graze.

The American traveller politely says hello, and asks how he is doing. The old man responds at some of the questions. But during the conversation the traveller understands that the old man has a low knowledge about the western world and has seriously big problems of understanding English. At first the old man thinks the red-faced man is a police officer, probably because the he is described as a red-faced man with a khaki-coloured shirt and shorts. Local police officers often wore such clothes, and were English at that time of period. He also realises that the old man has practised a conversation, in case if a police officer should ask him questions about a resent murder.

Every time the red-faced man asks a new question he gets back another weird answer. After several misunderstandings the traveller tries to show that he wants to buy the horse by showing some money to the old man. Finally the old man seems to understand that the red-faced man wants to buy the horse. But actually the old man think he wants to buy his two goats. The old man gets really satisfied. His dream of a lifetime was about to be realised: the red-faced man was making him an offer for the goats. The old man gets his money and leaves leaving the two goats behind for the red-faced man. And the red-faced man settles down and waits in thoughts that he left to get some help.

In the preface of the story you can see that the traveller managed to bring the statue home to America. The statue has been fixed and repainted and probably is a statue in New York.

The story is about misunderstanding between two persons with two different cultures.

An all-knowing person