Trail of The Green Blazer .Lit

9.
LITERATURE READER LESSON PLANS

UNIT 1
TRAIL OF THE GREEN BLAZER
Objectives
To enjoy the humour and irony in the
story
To understand the structure of a short
story
To help the students rewrite it as a
play and enact it for a competition
Pre-reading discussion
1. Are the wicked always punished and
good always rewarded?
2. Do you know of people who escape
punishment after committing offences?
3. What about situations where people are
punished unjustly? Who are such people
usually?
Summary
Raju disguises himself as a villager and
comes to a village fair looking for someone
whose pocket he could pick (Why does Raju
feel the need to disguise himself?). A man
wearing a green blazer catches his attention.
Raju follows him at a safe distance but near
enough to hear the mans gruff voice while
arguing with a coconut vendor about the
price of a tender coconut. He makes out that
the man is quarrelsome and stingy. He also
learns that the man is tender-hearted when
he sees him buy a balloon for his motherless
son and talks about how he cannot bear to
see the child cry (How does this revelation
give us a clue to the direction of the story?).
Raju picks the mans pocket and is happy
with the money he has found in the purse,
thirty rupees and some small change. The
money would keep him from picking a
pocket for another fortnight; he could even
take his family to the movies for a treat. He
plans to give the change to beggars. (How
does the writer develop the character of the
Analysis of Structure
As is usual with short stories, this story too
develops from a single incident: Rajus pickpocketing and the unusual events that follow.
It has a beginning, middle and an end.
Beginning: Raju watches the man wearing
the green blazer with the confidence of a
professional pick-pocket.
LR LPs
pick-pocket?) He opens the empty purse to

stuff some stones into it before throwing
it into a well (Why?) when he notices the
balloon the man had bought for his son.
Raju cannot bear to imagine the childs
disappointment when his father returns
home without the balloon. (Can you predict
what Raju may do now? What could be the
repercussions?) He decides to put back the
purse with the balloon into the pocket.
As soon as he slips his hand into the pocket,
the man in the green blazer shouts that his
pocket has been picked and he beats up
Raju. Raju protests that he had only tried to
put back the mans purse. But, of course, no
one believes him, not even the magistrate,
the police or his wife. He is jailed.
Middle: The middle is in two parts, showing

how Raju is first the hunter and then the prey.
a. Raju carries out his usual act of pickpocketing successfully: he steals without
being caught.
b. Raju tries unsuccessfully to put the purse
back in the pocket: he is caught in the act.
End: Raju cannot understand why he is
being punished for doing a good deed.
Character Study
Raju is the major character and the man in
the green blazer is the minor character.
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The purpose of the story is to entertain, not to

teach a moral value and so the writer makes
Raju a likeable character though he is a pickpocket. He creates Raju as a criminal with
a soft heart. Raju starts out like a confident
hero in the way he plans and carries out the
pick-pocketing. He wins our admiration for
the ease with which he steals without being
caught. But he ends up like a comical figure;
he is not sure why he is punished when he is
caught doing a good deed.
The minor character, the man in a green
blazer, is similar to the major character. He
too is created as a person with some bad and
some good qualities. He is aggressive and
stingy, yet he is tender towards his son. The
two characters complement each other.
view is also presented in the way Raju and

his experiences are portrayed. The writer
does not judge Raju for being a pick-pocket.
He has created both the men as hard and
unconcerned in their connections with the
outside world but soft and loving as fathers.
The humour and irony is heightened when
their roles are reversed. Initially, Raju is the
hunter and the other man is the hunted but
later the other man becomes the hunter and
Raju, the prey.
Post-reading
1. Why does the writer set the story in a
village fair? Rewrite the story setting it
in a Mall and discuss why you had to
make certain other changes to the story.
2. Do you think the title should have been
something like, A Life of Crime Never
Pays? Either answer is acceptable as
long as you can justify your stand.
LR LPs
Theme
The focus of the story is on the irony in
Rajus life. Raju is caught and punished,
not when he does wrong but when he does
right. The Magistrate and the police who are
supposed to uphold justice and truth do not
believe Raju when he speaks the truth.
Form groups and rewrite the story as a play.

Let the leader of each group speak about the
parts of the story they highlighted and those
they deleted to make the play work.
Point of View
Though the story unfolds Rajus viewpoint
in the way he talks about people, the writers
UNIT 2
A FEAST FOR RATS
Objectives
To enjoy the humour in the story
To understand how the writer builds
up the sequence of events towards
the unexpected ending
To appreciate the character of the
teacher who teaches life-lessons to
the students
2. What do you know about students

ragging new teachers? What type of
teachers do they think they can rag?
3. Why do students rag teachers? How do
they expect teachers to respond?
Summary
The students of a residential school are
prejudiced against a new Sanskrit teacher
even before they meet him (Why do the
students resent the new teacher even
before they meet him?). On a train on
their way to school, they compose a poem
about the pundit and recite it to entertain
Pre-reading
1. What do you expect from a story
titled, A Feast for Rats? What kind
of a story would you write with such
a title?
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9.

LITERATURE READER LESSON PLANS

TRAIL OF THE GREEN BLAZER

pick-pocket?) He opens the empty purse to

Middle: The middle is in two parts, showing

SWBW TRP-Book 8_LR LP.indd 115

The purpose of the story is to entertain, not to

view is also presented in the way Raju and

Form groups and rewrite the story as a play.

A FEAST FOR RATS

2. What do you know about students

SWBW TRP-Book 8_LR LP.indd 116

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