A Letter to GodG.L. Fuentes · First Flight, Chapter 1 · CBSE Class 10
A Mexican farmer's crops are destroyed by a hailstorm. He writes a letter to God asking for 100 pesos. The postmaster is so moved that he collects money and sends it — but can only gather 70. Lencho receives it, counts it, and immediately writes to God again: the post office people, he says, are a bunch of crooks.
Author
G.L. Fuentes
Book
First Flight
Type
Short story (translated)
Central device
Situational irony
Summary — paragraph by paragraph
Lencho — the farmer who talks to God
Lencho is a hardworking farmer in a small Mexican village. He has a large family to feed and everything depends on his crops. As he watches the sky before the harvest, he is not worried — he is certain that rain is coming, and he sees rain as a gift from God. He is a deeply religious man who speaks of God the way other farmers speak of irrigation channels or weather reports: practically, confidently, and with complete trust. His faith is not poetic or philosophical. It is as concrete as the corn in his field.
The hailstorm — everything is destroyed
The rain Lencho expected arrives, but it turns into a violent hailstorm. In less than an hour, the hail strips every leaf, every ear of corn, every bean from the stalks. The field that was green and promising is now white — it looks, the story says, like it is covered with salt. Lencho surveys the destruction. His family is silent. He knows they will go hungry. But even now, Lencho does not panic or curse his luck. He has one plan: he will write a letter to God and ask for help.
The letter — 100 pesos, addressed to God
Lencho writes his letter with great care. He explains to God that his crops were destroyed by hail and asks for 100 pesos — enough to buy seeds and survive until the next harvest. He addresses the envelope simply: 'To God'. He walks to town and drops the letter in the post office box. The postmaster finds the letter, reads it, and is both amused and deeply moved. He does not want Lencho's faith to be shaken. He decides to do something.
The postmaster collects money — but not enough
The postmaster goes to his employees, friends, and contacts asking for donations to help a man of such extraordinary faith. He manages to gather 70 pesos — less than the 100 Lencho asked for, but the best he can do. He puts the money in an envelope, writes 'From God' on it, and sends it. He is proud to have helped. He expects Lencho to be grateful, even overjoyed. He has no idea what Lencho's reaction will be.
The second letter — and the terrible irony
Lencho receives the envelope. He opens it, counts the money, and his face darkens. Seventy pesos. Not 100. He is not grateful. He is angry. He goes straight back to the post office and writes a second letter to God: 'God, of the money I asked for, only 70 pesos reached me. Please send me the rest, because I need it urgently. But do not send it through the post office — the people there are a bunch of crooks.' The very people who sacrificed their own money to help him are, in his eyes, thieves. This is the story's devastating and darkly comic final blow.
Character Analysis
Lencho
Protagonist — the man of absolute faithHis faith
Lencho's belief in God is not sentimental or uncertain. He is completely sure that God sees him, hears him, and will respond. He writes his letter the way you write to a trusted friend who has never let you down. He signs it 'Lencho' — no formal prayer, no begging. He is asking a favour of someone he knows will deliver.
His simplicity
Lencho is not stupid. He is practical and knows exactly how much money he needs (100 pesos, enough to buy seeds and survive the year). But his world is divided simply: God is good and will help; everything else is uncertain. He cannot imagine that fellow human beings might have helped him.
His tragic blindness
The cruelest dimension of Lencho's character is that his absolute faith in God makes him incapable of recognising human goodness. The postmaster and his staff gave their own money — anonymously, without expectation — and Lencho accuses them of stealing. He trusts God completely but has no trust in people. This is not hypocrisy; it is simply what his kind of faith has made him.
What he represents
Lencho is the story's argument about faith — that it can be both beautiful and limiting. His trust in God is moving. But the same faith that sustains him blinds him to the goodness right in front of him. G.L. Fuentes is not mocking Lencho; he is observing something complicated about belief.
The Postmaster
Secondary character — the story's moral centreHis first reaction
When the postmaster reads Lencho's letter, he laughs — but not cruelly. He is amused by the directness of the faith, the matter-of-fact way Lencho writes 'To God'. Then something shifts. He is moved. He does not want to see this faith broken.
His act of goodness
The postmaster does not have to do anything. He could have thrown the letter away or shown it around as an amusing curiosity. Instead he organises a collection and sends the money. It is a genuinely selfless act — he does it in God's name, not his own, so Lencho will not feel indebted to a stranger.
The irony of his position
The postmaster never knows what Lencho thinks of him. He never learns that Lencho called him and his staff 'crooks'. He acted in good faith and will never receive acknowledgement or gratitude. This is the story's quiet tragedy alongside its dark comedy.
Themes
Unshakeable faith in God
Lencho's faith is the story's engine. It is what makes him write the letter, what makes the postmaster respond, and what leads to the final irony. The story does not mock Lencho's faith — it presents it as genuine and powerful. But it also shows what happens when faith is so absolute that it leaves no room for recognising human goodness.
Irony — the helpers called thieves
The story's central irony is devastating: the people who gave their own money to help a stranger are accused of stealing by that stranger. Lencho thanks God for the 70 pesos, assumes God would have sent 100, and concludes the difference was stolen by the post office. He never considers that the postmaster could have been the one to send it. This is situational irony — the outcome is the opposite of what would be expected.
Human goodness and selfless action
The postmaster's act is the story's moral centre. He and his staff give money anonymously, expecting nothing in return, to protect a stranger's faith. They do not want credit. In this way, their act is purer than most — done entirely for Lencho's sake, not their own. The story quietly holds this up even as Lencho fails to see it.
Man's relationship with nature
Lencho's life is entirely at nature's mercy. The hailstorm destroys in an hour what took a season to grow. His dependence on rain, his reading of the sky, his calculation of exactly how many pesos he needs — all of this shows a life built on the unpredictable. Faith fills the gap that nature's uncertainty creates.
Extract-Based Questions
These passages appear most often in board papers. Study the model answers as templates for your own.
"The house — the only one in the entire valley — sat on the crest of a low hill… From this height one could see the river and, next to the corral, the field of ripe corn dotted with the flowers that always promised a good harvest."
Q1. What does this opening image tell us about Lencho's life?
The image establishes Lencho as an isolated but hopeful farmer. The house sitting alone on a hill suggests both self-reliance and vulnerability. The ripe corn and flowers represent his entire livelihood and his hope for the coming season. The detail that he can see everything — river, corral, field — from this vantage point tells us he is a man who watches and knows his land intimately.
Q2. What does the phrase 'dotted with the flowers that always promised a good harvest' suggest?
The word 'always' is important — it suggests that Lencho has seen this promise kept before. He has reason to be confident. This makes the destruction by the hailstorm more devastating, because it is not just one year's loss; it is the breaking of a pattern he trusted.
"The field was white, as if covered with salt. Not a leaf remained on the trees. The corn was totally destroyed. The flowers were gone from the bean plants."
Q1. What does the simile 'white, as if covered with salt' convey?
The simile conveys both the visual impact and the symbolic meaning of the destruction. Salt makes land infertile — nothing will grow in salted earth. The image suggests not just present loss but a feeling of permanent damage. It also contrasts starkly with the 'ripe corn dotted with flowers' from the opening, making the devastation feel complete and absolute.
Q2. How does this description prepare us for what Lencho does next?
The total, unambiguous nature of the destruction ('not a leaf remained', 'totally destroyed', 'the flowers were gone') makes Lencho's decision to write to God feel logical rather than absurd. When every earthly resource is gone, he turns to the one source he trusts completely. The completeness of the loss makes the completeness of his faith make sense.
"Lencho showed no surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence — but he became angry when he counted the money. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested. As soon as he discovered that the money was short… he went immediately to write another letter."
Q1. What does Lencho's reaction reveal about his character?
Lencho's lack of surprise shows how completely he trusts God — receiving money was always certain in his mind. But his anger at the shortfall, and his instant conclusion that it was stolen, reveals his character's crucial limitation: he cannot imagine human goodness. His faith in God is so total that it leaves no room for the possibility that a human being helped him. He jumps to theft before considering generosity.
Q2. What is ironic about the phrase 'God could not have made a mistake'?
The irony is multi-layered. God did not send the money at all — humans did. So Lencho is holding 'God's act' to a standard of perfection while simultaneously accusing the actual helpers of theft. He trusts an abstraction absolutely while distrusting the real people in front of him. The phrase exposes how faith, when it excludes human goodness, can become a kind of moral blindness.
"Do not send me the rest by mail, because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks."
Q1. Why is this line considered the climax of the story's irony?
This line is the story's most ironic moment because the post office employees are the very people who made the money possible. They gave their own money — selflessly and anonymously — to help a stranger. Lencho's accusation is not only wrong but is directed at the kindest people in the story. The phrase 'a bunch of crooks' applied to the story's moral heroes creates a painful and darkly comic reversal.
Q2. What does this line suggest about the limits of Lencho's faith?
Lencho's faith is entirely vertical — between himself and God. He has no corresponding faith in people. His letter shows that he has divided the world into 'God (trustworthy)' and 'humans (untrustworthy)'. Ironically, the only goodness he experienced in this crisis came entirely from humans — which he cannot see. This suggests that faith without trust in fellow human beings is incomplete.
Short-Answer Questions (3 marks)
Write 3–4 sentences. Each answer should be specific — not vague generalisations.
Q1. Why did the postmaster decide to help Lencho?
The postmaster was deeply moved by the simplicity and sincerity of Lencho's faith. He did not want this extraordinary belief in God to be shaken. He felt that a man who could write such a letter with such complete trust deserved to have that trust honoured. He organised a collection among his staff and used his own salary to send Lencho as much money as he could gather.
Q2. How much money did Lencho receive, and what was his reaction?
Lencho received 70 pesos, while he had asked for 100. He was not grateful — he was angry. He immediately concluded that the remaining 30 pesos had been stolen by the post office employees. He wrote a second letter to God asking for the remaining amount but warning God not to send it through the post office because the staff were 'a bunch of crooks'.
Q3. What does the story suggest about the postmaster as a human being?
The postmaster represents the best of human goodness. He goes out of his way to help a stranger, gives his own money, and does so anonymously — pretending the money came from God so Lencho will not feel indebted to a human. He asks for nothing in return and will never know that Lencho accused him of theft. His act is generous, selfless, and quietly heroic.
Q4. How does G.L. Fuentes use irony to create the story's effect?
The story's central irony is that the people who helped Lencho are accused by him of stealing. He trusts God completely but has no trust in the humans who, in practice, were God's instruments of help. The second irony is that the postmaster's act of goodness — meant to protect Lencho's faith — leads directly to Lencho calling him a thief. Good intentions produce an outcome that looks, to Lencho, like a crime.
Long-Answer Questions (5 marks)
Write 8–10 sentences across 3–4 paragraphs. The marking note tells you what the examiner looks for in each mark.
Q1. What does 'A Letter to God' say about faith? Is Lencho's faith admirable or misguided? Discuss.
G.L. Fuentes presents faith in 'A Letter to God' not as something simply good or bad, but as something complicated — capable of sustaining a person through disaster while simultaneously blinding them to the goodness around them.
Lencho's faith is admirable in several respects. When the hailstorm destroys his entire harvest, he does not despair or give up. He turns to God with complete confidence, writing his letter as a practical request, not a prayer of anguish. This is the faith of a man who genuinely believes he is not alone. It gives him direction when others might collapse.
But the same faith has a damaging limitation: it leaves no room for human goodness. Lencho divides his world into 'God' (who is reliable) and 'the world' (which is not). When the money arrives, he cannot imagine that a human being sent it — because humans, in his mental model, are not to be trusted. So he accuses the very people who helped him of stealing.
This is the story's central irony and its moral argument. The postmaster and his staff performed a genuinely selfless act — they gave their own money, anonymously, to protect a stranger's faith. They are the story's true moral heroes. But Lencho, because of his faith, is blind to them.
In the end, the story suggests that faith without corresponding trust in fellow human beings is incomplete. Lencho's devotion to God is sincere and moving, but it produces an unjust accusation. True goodness, the story implies, requires us to see the divine not just in the sky but in the people around us.
Marking Breakdown
5 marks: 1 for the complication of faith as theme, 1 for Lencho's admirable qualities, 1 for the limitation of his faith, 1 for the postmaster as moral centre, 1 for the story's final argument.
Grammar in this chapter
Board editing and transformation questions often use sentences from this story. These are the grammar topics to know.