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What Derry learnt

Illustration from the NCERT English textbook for class 12


Derry is a 14-year-old boy in Susan Hill’s short play, ‘On the face of it’. He has a terrible scar on side of his face caused by an acid burn. He hates himself because of that and that self-hatred makes him hate everyone else too. An elderly person, Mr Lamb, whom Derry meets by chance teaches him the most vital lessons of life.

You have a scar, so what? Mr Lamb asks Derry. You have everything that a normal boy has: arms and legs, brain and heart, and so on. If you want you can be a success. Let other people say what they want about your scar. We can’t make other people shut their mouths, but we can choose to ignore what they say. “Keep your ears shut,” Mr Lamb says.

Keep your ears shut when required and start looking at life squarely on the face. You can’t keep running away all the time. Life has to be faced. There was a man who kept running away from risks. He was afraid that he might slip on a banana peel and fall down, and people would laugh at him. Or that he might fall in love with a girl who would then ditch him. Or that he might be kicked to death by a donkey. So he chose to shut himself up in the security of his home. “And then?” asks Derry. A picture fell on his head and he died, says Lamb.

Derry is drawn to the old man naturally. Lamb is an enlightened man who looks at the brighter side of things. You can see beauty even in weeds if you change your perspective a bit. The buzzing of bees can be music. It is a matter of attitude.

Miracles are awaiting you if only you choose to make them happen. Miracle is a change of attitude. Change your attitude to yourself, Lamb tells Derry. You are not your scar. You are what you choose to make of yourself. No fairy will come and kiss you to make the scar disappear. You have to give the kiss to yourself and make the miracle happen: the miracle of loving yourself. And then a whole new world begins to unfold before you.

People will become your friends. Friendship is an attitude of openness. You don’t even have to know their names and personal details. Friendship is the readiness to accept people as they are.

Derry makes his choice at the end of the conversation. “If I chose…” he stops hesitantly, though. “Ah… if you chose. I don’t know everything, boy. I can’t tell you what to do.”

Derry has to choose what he should do. And he does. And the miracle unfolds before him. “I want the wold,” he says. “I want it.”

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