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Guru Nayak
Introduced only at the end of the story, the astrologer’s wife is pleased that her husband has brought home more money than usual from his day’s work. At the same time, she is shocked to learn that her husband had tried to murder Guru Nayak before he left his village and they were married.
The Astrologer’s Wife Quotes in An Astrologer’s Day
The An Astrologer’s Day quotes below are all either spoken by The Astrologer’s Wife or refer to The Astrologer’s Wife. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
An Astrologer’s Day Quotes
After dinner, sitting on the pyol, he told her: “Do you know a great load is gone from me today? I thought I had the blood of a man on my hands all these years. That was the reason why I ran away from home, settled here, and married you. He is alive.”
She gasped. “You tried to kill!”
“Yes, in our village, when I was a silly youngster. We drank, gambled, and quarreled badly one day—why think of it now? Time to sleep,” he said, yawning, and stretched himself on the pyol.
Related Characters:
The Astrologer (speaker), The Astrologer’s Wife, Guru Nayak
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
With Guru Nayak deceived and dealt with, the astrologer returns home. His rejection of sincerity and responsibility for his past are complete. When he tells his wife of his day, he also offhandedly tells her that he tried to commit murder, and indeed thought that he was a murderer for all of the years that she had known him. He does not consider the shock that this news may be to her, realizing that the man she has slept next to and had a child with tried to kill someone.
Even she expresses her brief shock and dismay, the astrologer merely brushes it aside. He dismisses his own actions as the folly of youth, and therefore as irrelevant now, giving no consideration or admission to the fact that he changed Guru Nayak’s life forever and nearly took it from him completely. The astrologer, having now committed himself to insincerity, cannot see the gravity of his own crimes beyond their direct and immediate effect on himself. He does not recognize or care about the impact of them on his wife or Guru Nayak. He is not a holy man at all, but merely a man as concerned with self-interest as anyone else. He is certainly no hero.
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The Astrologer’s Wife Character Timeline in An Astrologer’s Day
The timeline below shows where the character The Astrologer’s Wife appears in An Astrologer’s Day. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
An Astrologer’s Day
The astrologer returns home to his wife and daughter in the dark of midnight. His wife is angry at him until she...
(full context)
