Discuss the concept of meeting and partings in "The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore.

Tagore is able to clearly distinguish that there is much
more emotional complexity and depth to the partings between people than the meeting
between them.  The Postmaster and Ratan meet in a sort of accidental way.  Both of them
are situated in the village with no family.  The Postmaster experiences his because of
his being relocated to the village, while Ratan's natural condition as an orphan is one
where she is naturally isolated.  Tagore simply introduces their meeting as one where he
cooks for himself because of his "meagre" salary and Ratan took care of the housework in
return for "a little food."  Their meeting is slightly random but also deliberate in
that they are both alone.  Their partings is much more designed, and reflective of the
inarticulate sadness that exists in human beings.  He requests to leave the village and
she wishes to go with him, something that the Postmaster denies quite flatly.  In this,
Tagore is indicating that there is a human tendency to not honor the accidental meetings
that take place in the partings of human beings.  The meetings that happen to emerge
between individuals help to benefit individuals, or pass the time in certain contexts. 
Yet, when the opportunity presents itself to continue these meetings when parting
presents itself, individuals do not honor these moments.  Rather, they simply move on to
a situation that benefits them.  Certainly, this is true with the postmaster, who gives
Ratan a slight thought after their parting, but undercuts it with an existential
rationalization that such partings are reflective of the word, as "there are many
separations."  Ratan, the ultimate in heroines, only is able to live with the
consequence of this parting, a situation where she only feels pain and "the snare of
delusion" that the postmaster will return.  It is here where Tagore is able to depict
the capcity for both cruelty and honor that exists in human
beings.