Once upon a time there lived a boy named Gopal. He and his parents used to live in a small hut in a remote village of Jalpaiguri in the foothills of the Himalayas. Gopal's father was a farmer and his mother worked as a domestic help in the house of a rich man. In spite of being poor they were honest people and tried to impart the same ideology into their son.
Every morning Gopal used to go to the village school. Unlike the other boys he was not averse to studies and scored reasonably good marks in his exams.
One day their English teacher told them the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The teacher's narrative was engaging and the children listened with interest. When the story was over they clapped with enthusiasm.
But Jack's story perplexed Gopal. The more he thought about it the more confused he became. First of all he failed to understand how a weak, herbaceous beanstalk could carry the weight of a boy. Secondly, was it really possible for a beanstalk to grow to such an indefinite length? How could Jack find a castle in the empty sky? He might have landed up in the moon or some other planet, but how could he survive there without oxygen? Anyway, Gopal was ready to excuse these disparities as the imaginative qualities of a fairy tale. They were like Cinderella's glass slipper which did not vanish along with her other magical things. It remained on the staircase so that the prince could find it and later marry Cinderella.
Coming back to Jack and the Beanstalk, the factor that disturbed Gopal most was the character of the protagonist. The...