Humility

As Upadhyay's short story "The Good Shopkeeper" opens, the protagonist Pramod is just beginning his downslide from arrogance into humility. He has assumed he was sitting on top of the world with his great job as an accountant for a large corporation. He was making a good salary and proving to his wife's family (who enjoyed a better economic status than his family) that he was on equal footing with them. But corporations have no heart, this story implies. So when a more qualified young man appears with more technologically advanced skills, Pramod finds himself a victim of progress. He finds that he must take advantage of his wife's connections and humble himself in front of his brother-in-law. And when that does not work, Pramod fantasizes about having money, working in a fancy office, and in his dream it is his brother-in-law who must grovel to Pramod. But...