Essay About Only Son Anand And Mission School

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
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About author
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born to a Hindu family in Trinidad in 1932. He was
educated at Queens Royal College in Trinidad. After winning a government scholarship, at
the age of 18 he left his native country for England and studied at University College, Oxford
(Contemporary Writers). After completing his studies at Oxford V.S. Naipaul settled in England
and began his career as a writer. The author of numerous novels (e.g. The Mystic Masseur,
The Suffrage of Elvira, The Mimic Men), short stories (e.g. A Flag on the Island, In a Free
State) and works of non-fiction inspired by his travels in Africa (A Bend in the River), Asia
(An Area of Darkness) and America (A Turn in the South) has been awarded a number of literary
prizes. In 1990 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and in 2001 V.S. Naipaul won the Nobel
Prize for Literature (Nobelprize.org).
5 Mr Biswass Children at School
Mr Biswas sends his eldest daughter Savi and his only son Anand to mission school. Anand hates
it and tries hard not to go there, but he is always flogged. Once, after coming home Mr Biswas
finds little Anand kneeling for punishment because he messed up himself at school. And
the reason? Anand was frightened to ask the teacher permission to leave the room and then he
was afraid of using the school toilet, because it was a nasty and stinking place.
Teachers were highly respected persons and parents often sent them small gifts to gain their
favour, as Shama once sent an orange by Savi. Moreover, the naughty children were flogged not
only at school, but also at home where they scarcely found sympathy. Parents started to be
aware of the importance of education for the future of their children. “[E]veryone had to
fight for himself in a new world [] where education was the only protection” (Naipaul 436).
There were more schools in the cities, often attended even by children from the country.
The change is also quite obvious in Mr Biswass life. While he, as a little boy, was the only
literate person in his family, his sisters son and all the children in the Tulsi family go to
school.
Most families were poor and they hardly made both ends meet, so they had nothing to leave