Chapter - 4

Social Concern

Literature is the mirror of an era which reflects not only the

external features of that time but also its inner face. There is no

better yard-stick to measure the culture of a nation than its

literature which is an expression of society. The novelist in

modern India whether in English or in regional languages is so

much a part of his own cultural pattern and reflects her image.

The Indian social scene has always an inexhaustible plenitude of

themes to offer. Its inequalities, problems and privations have

produced some of the best writing in Indo-Anglian fiction.

In twentieth century, there were many problems in the

society of India. It was divided into castes and sub-castes. The

people who belonged to the first three castes came within the

fold of caste Hindus. Others outside this fold are regarded

untouchables. Brahmins are regarded as the topmost class. They

enjoyed the privileges of their class. Anyone who posed to be a

Sadhu and Sanyasi, immediately won the respect of the common

man. Among the sadhus there were some scoundrels of the first

water. The conditions of Hindu women in those days were

untoward. There were child marriages and other type of unequal

marriages. The husband had the liberty to exercise every kind of

cruelty on the wife and she had most helplessly to submit to her

husband’s eccentric behaviour. Educated unemployment and

dowry system were also the problem of that time. People got

high education but failed to get a suitable job. The parents

wished to receive more and more dowry in the marriage of their

children. The craze for money was brought in everyone in the

wake of the Second World War and for becoming quickly rich

they used the dubious ways also. It is true that society doesn’t

make man but man makes the society and it is the man who has

produced such evils in the society.

R.K. Narayan is a writer of social novels, he sees South Indian

as a fundamentally conservative Hindu society which he

realistically presents in most of his novels and stories with the

lower middle class common man as his base. The imaginary

town that he creates and calls Malgudi has all the qualities of a

society R.K. Narayan dwells in, as he depicts it with a family

observant eye.

R.K. Narayan is not a social critic as such nor is he interested

in propagating any ideas. But the stories of his Malgudi novels

reveal that R.K. Narayan makes his common man hero aware of

his talents and potentialities which help him rise above so-called

destined role in the society, and falls back to his former position

that has roots in Hindu culture which has so great an impact that

neither R.K. Narayan nor his characters have been able to shake

themselves off the irrational social customs. They cannot stand

the collective force of the society as a whole.

R.K. Narayan started his career as a writer with Swami and

Friends. It is a classical school-boy story “of a child written with

complete objectivity with a humour strange to our fiction, close

to Chekhov than to any other English writer with the same

underlying sense of beauty and sadness.”1 This novel attempts

to identify some of the cross-cultural stresses and problems that

students and young householders face living in colonial Malgudi,

and to examine the ways of education children were getting in

the Missionary Schools.

Swaminathan, the protagonist is a young boy from a South

Indian middle-class background. R.K. Narayan presents the

relationship between Swami and his grandmother. These two

belong to the same extended family, but their social-cultural

foundations are considerably dissimilar. One of the main causes

of this difference is obviously the kind of education to which

Swami has been exposed. Swami cannot be regarded as an

individual who has been heavily westernized, but the English

education that he is receiving at Malgudi’s prestigious Albert

Mission School. It has brought him into contact with certain

areas of non-traditional experience and knowledge particularly

with Cricket and luxury cars which fascinate the boys of his age.

When the cricket loving Swami got the title ‘Tate’ by his friends,

he proudly tells his grandmother about his highly

complimentary nickname but it is totally meaningless to his

grandmother because she has not heard of cricket. Swami is

aghast at this piece of illiteracy and proceeds to deliver to his

grandmother “a short speech setting forth the principles, ideas,

and the philosophy of the game of cricket.”2

Swami is able to assume the role of guru in relation to his

grandmother because his connection with the world of the

English Mission School has imparted to him a type of non-

traditional knowledge that, owing to historical and cultural

factors, has been denied to his grandmother. Nihal Fernando

points out: “English education was that this education tended to

fracture the cohesiveness of traditional domestic life and to set

up barriers between the generation and the sexes.”3

Swami’s varied experiences with his friends at Albert Mission

School have been rendered realistically. His world comprises

Somu, Samuel, Mani, and Sankar. He meets Rajam, the Police

Superintendent’s son who is to become his best friend at school.

Rajam, first thwarted but later accepted by Swami’s circle of

friends, and even becomes the leader of the group. Soon

afterwards Swami faces problems at school and fits from school

to school. One of the most important and perhaps the most

painful from Swami’s point of view is his clash with the scripture

teacher Ebenezar. Ebenezar is presented as a type of fire-eating

proselyte. He is unrealistic as a character and has the

aggressively anti-Hindu attitude. Ebenezar makes no bones

about expressing his strong aversion to Hinduism:

Tears rolled down Ebenezar’s cheeks when he pictured

Jesus before him. Next moment his face became purple

with rage as he thought of Sri Krishna and says: Did our

Jesus go gadding about with dancing girls like your

Krishna? Did our Jesus go about stealing butter like that

arch scoundrel Krishna? Did our Jesus practice dark

tricks on those around him? (SAF 4)

Mr. Ebenezar’s references to Hindu gods are provocative. He

interprets Krishna’s reciprocation of the feelings of devotees in

relation to hugely inappropriate missionary Christian notions of

chastity and monogamy. Swami’s reaction to Ebenezar’s outburst

suggests that he is impervious to the spirit of and meaning of

Christianity as Ebenezar is to those of Vaishnavism. Swami

attempts to neutralize his teacher’s indictment by telling him

that Christ wouldn’t have been crucified if he had not been

unrighteous, and that he should not in any case have consumed

meat and alcohol. Being a Hindu and a Brahmin, Swami finds it

literally imposible to conceptualize a god who “eats flesh and

fish and drinks wine’… it was inconceivable to him that a god

should be a non-vegetarian.” (SAF 4)

People are coming from the big westernized countries in

Malgudi and children are seeing and getting the western culture

from their schools and friends. Rajam’s background is basically

more anglicized than Swami’s. Unlike Swami and others, Rajam

is not a native of Malgudi. He is the son of a senior government

servant. He comes to Malgudi from the more westernized Madras

where he had attended the exclusive Bishop Waller’s English

School, and learnt to speak English “exactly like a European.”(SAF

12) In appearance too, Rajam is more anglicized than his

Malgudian companions. They wear the traditional dhoti even on

the cricket field but Rajam usually dresses like a European boy:

“He was the only boy in the class who wore socks and shoes, fur

cap and tie and… coat and knickers.” (SAF 12)

Although with the emergence of national consciousness and

the impact of western thought and life, the Indian mind begins

to work under the pull of the age-old, Indian culture and values

of life and the new fast-changing European mode of life yet the

woman plays a secondary role and is traditionally sub-servient

to man. Swami’s mother, who appears only for a few times in the

novel, is shown as a homely, unlettered housewife with the only

purpose in life to bring up her children and to sub serve piously

the interests of all the family members. Beyond this, she has no

other important role to play in family affairs. The second female

character in the novel is Swami’s grandmother. She is an aged,

illiterate, kindly, helpless and non-descript archetypal

grandmother. Nobody seems to bother about her when she is

sick of stomach-ache. There seems to exist no communication

bond between her daughter-in-law and her son. Like a traditional

grandmother in a family, she is of use only to her grandchild,

Swami, during his time of leisure. To Swami his Granny is more

forgiving, large hearted and indulgent than his mother. She

prefers to have no complaint against Swami even when she has a

good reason for it. Swami feels easier and is more

communicative in his granny’s company than in his mother’s. He

shares all sorts of confidence with her and she too enjoys

recounting to him the old, happy things of her past life. Both

granny and mother are tradition bound. They belong to the same

class and confine themselves to the four walls of the house. Both

of them are satisfied with their role of a homely, submissive,

servile household lady. They represent the age-old traditional

woman of the Indian middle-class family.

In The Bachelor of Arts, R.K. Narayan has presented three

female characters, namely, Malathi, Chandran’s mother and

Susila. Malathi is not described as a person in detail. She has no

direct or active involvement in the development of the action of

the novel. She is mute throughout the course of the narrative.

Still, she is felt as an important presence almost till the close of

the novel through references and memories mentioned by the

protagonist Chandran. She is instrumental in the making or

unmaking of events that occur in the life of Chandran after

having obtained his graduation degree from Albert Mission

College. Malathi’s significance as a character lies in her all-

pervasive influence on Chandran’s course of life. Chandran’s

mother is an important character in the novel. She is a typical

example of a tradition-bound, orthodox, conservative,

conformist and homely woman. As a mother, she abounds in

love for her son. She always thinks in terms of his welfare and

well-being. In the case of Chandran’s marriage, she adheres

uncompromisingly to principles of social propriety. A departure

from accepted customs, rituals and norms is sacrilegious to her.

She insists upon observing the set code of marriage and

religious rituals. In the middle-class tradition-ridden ambience,

the role of women remains confined to the fulfilment of

interests of the family, and they act in a subservient position.

William Walsh rightly points out: “... the women rather than the

old represent ‘Custom and Reason’ and know what is and ‘what

is not proper.”4 In the basic family relationships women stand

for the maintenance of the Standards of Conventional propriety

and observance of time-tested customs. What William Walsh

writes about the role of women in R.K. Narayan’s novels is also

applicable to Chandran’s mother: “It was, as Narayan shows, the

duty of the women to translate and refine the principles of

orthodoxy and correctness into codes and etiquettes covering

the basic drives for food, shelter, sex and company.”(41)

In contrast to Malathi, R.K. Narayan presents Chandran’s

mother as a firm woman who champions the observance of

tradition-bound practices of the Hindu middle-class society. She

has direct bearing on the development of the action of the novel.

She speaks, argues and participates in the events of the novel.

Susila, a shadowy figure, appears in the closing chapter of the

novel. She lives at Talapur. Her father is a leading lawyer of the

town. She is beautiful and full of tender feelings. She can play

upon veena. A marriage proposal is received by Chandran’s

parents from Susila’s parents. Chandran agrees to consider this

proposal under the hard persuasion of his parents and his

friend, Mohan. He and his mother go to see the girl, and finally,

Chandran and Susila are married.

Chandran is a young adult and through an account of his

experiences as an undergraduate, lover, and house-holder, the

novel attempts to portray some aspects of the life of the South

Indian middle-class and to explore some of the social-cultural

problems that confronted young adults who belong to this class.

Chandran can be considered a typical westernized young Hindu

adult. He is the son of a retired District Judge who is himself

quite westernized, and Chandran like many other young men of

his class, has read subjects such as English literature at the local

university and has obtained what in British India came to be

called an English education. This education has significantly

westernized or denationalized his attitudes and sensibility and

has made him perceive certain radical limitations in Hindu

society. He evaluates the customs of his people in relation to

those associated with the west while discussing Hindu culture

with his friend Ramu and asserts that whereas “the white fellows

are born to enjoy life, our people really don’t know how to live.”5

The discussion also makes it clear that Chandran is particularly

critical of traditional attitudes towards relations between the

sexes. He complains to Ramu if a Hindu “is seen with a girl by

his side, a hundred eyes stare at him, and a hundred tongues

comment, whereas no European ever goes without taking a girl

with him.”(TBOA 15)

Malgudi is deeply traditional and caste ridden. Here arranged

marriage is a common phenomenon and horoscopes are often

compared. The traditional Hindu ethic did not legitimize pre-

marital love. On the other hand, the western lifestyle that the

British to some extent transplanted in India made allowances for

this type of love, and conceded to those who were ready for

marriage had more say in choosing their partners than did the

Hindu. Chandran’s fascination towards Malathi is at first sight

during one of his evening ramblings at the river bank. He feels

spell-bound by her green saree and by all that she does while

playing with her younger sister in the sand. He goes on making

mental conjectures about her name, age, caste and whether

married or maiden. The inability to have a vocal courtship with

the girl whom he loves so much unveils the traditional

conservative outlook of the Indian middle-class society on sex

relationships. It is a social system where there is a complete

segregation between a boy and a girl and a boy to address the

girl he has fallen in love and marriage is quite unorthodox and

entirely consistent with his westernized sensibility and he

dismisses the traditional Hindu etiquette pertaining to both

male-female relations and marriage. He resolves to marry the girl

of his choice “whatever her caste or sect might be.” (TBOA 56)

Chandran wanted to be free to arrange his life as he pleased

and his mother firmly believes that the settlement of the

marriage has to observe certain well-set procedures and

principles of social propriety. She resists tooth and nail the

intension of Chandran to send a marriage proposal to the girl’s

parents from their side. She thinks it humiliating because

according to “time-honoured practice it was the bride’s people

who proposed first.”(TBOA 70) When Chandran goes against her, she

threatens: “I shall drown myself in Sarayu before I allow any

proposal to go from here.” (TBOA 73) Her threat works, and

Ganapathi Sastrigal is brought in as a match-maker to make a

break through in the matter. Noticing Chandran’s impatience for

marriage, she exhorts him that the settlement of marriage cannot

be made so hurriedly. Before finalizing it, certain formalities

have to be gone through, as she points out: “All the same they

must invite us and we must go there formally. After that they

must come and ask us if you like the girl. And the terms of

marriage must be discussed and settled… .” (TBOA 84)

According to her, the girl’s family must be of the same status

as theirs. She has faith in the dowry system, for it is proper and

prestigious for a good marriage. About dowry she says: “It is the

duty of every father to set some money apart for securing a son-

in-law. We can’t disregard custom.” (TBOA 85) She tells Chandran that

she too brought handsome dowry while marrying his father.

Educated unemployment is an evil of the society. It is the big

problem of the day. Children are getting high education but they

fail to obtain suitable employment. This problem is also found in

Malgudi. Even after graduation, Chandran is unable to get a

suitable job. He wants to do something in life and on the advice

of his friend, Mohan; he makes up his mind to accept the job of a

reporter of The Daily Messenger. After sometime, with the help

of his uncle at Madras, he gets the agency of the paper to

support his family. Soon Chandran prospers, and the circulation

of the newspaper increases. He works very honestly:

Every morning he left his bed at five o’clock and went to

the station to meet the train from Madras at five-thirty.

He took the bundles of papers and sent them in various

directions with the cycle boys. After that he returned

home and went to his office only at eleven o’clock, and

stayed there till five in the evening. (TBOA 142)

He plunges himself whole-heartedly in building up and

raising the circulation of The Daily Messenger, and settles in life

comfortably with his family and friends.

Woman has always been at the centre of Indian culture and

literature. The whole of ancient Indian literature celebrates the

glory of woman. Woman occupies a pivotal position in the Hindu

family. She has been extolled as a Goddess and a source of

power representing Prakriti. Yet, her place in the society has

been low. Narayan has shown great interest in the portrayal of

woman’s condition through his novels in the male-dominated

society.

Savitri in The Dark Room is an authentic picture of a

traditional Hindu housewife. She is subjected to all sorts of

autocratic, tyrannical and whimsical behaviour of her husband.

She bears all this humiliation mutely by sulking and retiring into

the privacy of the dark room of the house. Narayan himself says

in his interview with S. Krishnan: “In The Dark Room I was

concerned with showing the utter dependence of woman on man

in our society. I supposed I have moved along with the lines.”6

Savitri is one of the few women in R.K. Narayan’s novels who

is the main character providing the main point of view. He has

presented the complete picture of woman in an orthodox milieu

of Indian society of Malgudi in the later 1930 by contrasting

Savitri with a number of minor portraits of women in various

ways. Janamma and Gangu are true friends of Savitri and belong

to the traditional female society in Lawley South Extension. They

are called by the children of Savitri when she retires herself in

the dark room after the showdown with her husband, Ramani

over the beating to Babu. They help her to come out of the dark

room and to use her rights. Janamma says: “As for me, I have

never opposed my husband or argued with him at any time… .

What he does is right. It is a wife’s duty to feel so.”7 Gangu, on

the other hand, is the wife of a school teacher. Her trendy

husband claims to be a champion of women’s rights: “She left

home when she pleased and went where she liked, moved about

without an escort… . Her husband never interfered with her but

let her go her own way.” (TDR 19) Savitri is placed somewhere

between the two. She is fascinated by Gangu but like Janamma

she obeys. These three are traditional wives and are contrasted

with the ambiguous Shantabai, newcomer to Malgudi. She was

married young to her cousin who was a gambler and drunkard.

After a lapse of time she left her husband at the age of eighteen.

Her parents would not accept this and so she had to leave her

parental home, and prepared herself to achieve a self-dependent

existence. She passes graduation degree examination and moves

from pillar to post in search of a job. At last, she settles down as

a woman insurance agent in Englandia Insurance Company in

Malgudi. Her boss, Ramani, is fascinated by her physical beauty

and voice at the time of interview. She is sharp, cunning and

shrewd enough to mark her boss’s weakness towards her. Hence

she plays upon it, and exploits his good office for her selfish

motive of procuring business worth ten thousand rupees in the

first two months of her probation-period. With her idiosyncratic

moods, changing frequently from gaiety to moroseness, she

succeeds in getting a tight grip over Ramani despite him being a

father of three children. At first Savitri tries to persuade Ramani

to leave Shantabai but when she finds it impossible, she warns

her husband:

I’m a human being,” she said, through her heavy

breathing, “You men will never grant that. For you we are

playthings when you feel like hugging, and slaves at

other times. Don’t think that you can fondle us when you

like and kick us when you choose.(TDR 110)

R.K. Narayan also gives a contrast between Savitri as a high-

caste woman and Ponni as a low-caste woman. She is the only

woman character who stands out prominently with status and

individuality of her own. She, in fact, is the only one in this

novel who genuinely attempts to help Savitri to find the life of

independence what she wants. She is outspoken and

straightforward and bargains ferociously with the priest: “You

can see her, and take her in good faith and on our word, and if

you find anything wrong with her later, you can dismiss her.

There are some questions which hurt one; you mustn’t ask

them.”(TDR 175) Thus Narayan gives Ponni extra dimension of

sympathy. Ponni does not seem to suffer at the hands of her

husband, nor does she have any pessimistic outlook in her life.

She is full of life with an independent mind of her own to face

the challenges of life. The futility, the frustration is an

inescapable moral weakness that has made Savitri cry and sob,

does not touch Ponni who deals her husband with a firm hand.

Savitri has nothing but defeat in her life. She feels: “I am like a

bamboo pole which cannot stand without a wall to support it… .”

(TDR 189) This is the pathetic cry of a majority of orthodox Hindu

women even in today’s society.

The three novels Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts

and The English Teacher taken together, an odyssey of growth

in the Malgudi world of education—Swami, the school boy,

Chandran, the college student and Krishna, the English teacher

at Albert Mission College—fit in at the proper places. It is R.K.

Narayan’s art that if he describes the life of a Professor of

English, he not only describes the students, the college room,

but also gives a period in which the Professor discusses the most

dramatic passage from King Lear’s Storm Scene. Krishna has

joined the Albert Mission College as a Lecturer with a lot of

idealism. No doubt, soon this interest thins out as he feels that

he does not do any creative work except cajoling his students to

get hundred rupees a month. He is hardly thirty years old but his

life has grown very inactive and idle. He gets up at eight every

day, reads for the fifteenth time Milton, Carlyle, and

Shakespeare, looks through compositions, swallows a meal,

dresses himself and just when the second bell sounds at the

college, rushes out of the hostel where he lives. During the dull

four hours of the college time, he admonishes, cajoles and

browbeats a few hundred boys of his college so that they may

mug up Shakespeare and Milton and secure high marks.

One day he gets a letter from his father that his wife will join

him soon and Krishna starts looking for a house to make his

wife, Susila and his daughter, Leela comfortable. They live

happily and are extremely fond of each other. Krishna is lost in

his devotion to his wife and his daughter and he finds the lost

rhythm of life. But unfortunately, his blissful life is cut short by

the death of his wife and thereafter utter gloom and desolation

overtake him. Krishna resigns his job at the college and plans to

teach children at a primary school near his house. Krishna is, by

the author’s own assertion, an imaginative rendering of his own

life and experience. R.K. Narayan’s world in this novel is tragi-

comic. Krishna’s world of bliss is shattered by a sudden and

cruel blow—the death of his wife. In an interview with Ved

Mehta, R.K. Narayan gives an account of the sad and pathetic

manner of his wife Rajam’s death. In the entire range of R.K.

Narayan’s fiction pathos is never as unendurable as here. The

reason is obvious—it emanates from an intense personal

experience.

The present education system has come under severe

criticism as it is completely dominated by materialistic

consideration. Krishna expresses the views of the author on the

education: “This education has reduced us to a nation of

morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp

followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage.”8

Disgusted with the present day educational pattern, R.K. Narayan

appears to be in favour of ‘Leave Alone’ system of the ancient

times. His protagonists too have more or less the same attitude

in their life. Leela’s headmaster is a man with original and

unconventional views on education. He treats children very

sympathetically and affectionately and believes in leaving them

alone to do whatever they like. R.K. Narayan reveals his deep

sense of irony of life when he brings close to the domestic life of

the headmaster who has failed miserably in regard to his own

children’s education, that although he has a school yet he cannot

teach his children and he thinks his wife is responsible for this:

“She wouldn’t even send the children” (TET 162) to school. She is an

illiterate woman and doesn’t know the value of education. She is

a quarrelsome lady and disturbs the peace of her husband’s

mind so much that he leaves his house for good and puts the

rest of his life in the welfare of the children.

In his later novels Malgudi has slow but definite changes from

the traditional village to a progressively changing town. He has

written about the middle class. It is the class of which he was a

member and which he knew intimately from the core of his

heart. The thinking of the people is changing under the impact

of modernization. The new generation is getting the high

education and they have to work away from their parental

homes. The joint-family system is crumbling and the singal

family with parents and children only is a reality now. The

women have a better place and they are working in every field

and earning money. People prefer love marriage rather than

arranged marriage. The only steady pattern is the concern for

money which goes on unchanged with both the generations and

it is, perhaps, for the reason that money is the only security for

the middle classes whether old and new.

With Mr. Sampath one comes into the world where media

plays an important role. Srinivas is the journalist and his plans

are purely social although he adopts the profession to earn his

living. He involves himself in the work of reforming Malgudi and

he has great hopes from the weekly publications of The Banner.

One day the sincere schemes of Srinivas are torpedoed by

Sampath and with him enter the money factors in the novel.

Sampath is aware that media is a powerful emerging force in the

area. He throws all his weight behind Srinivas as there is fortune

and more money in this field. It is his desire to earn more money

and to become a popular figure of the town. He becomes a

partner of the Sunrise Pictures Studio started by Somu with

expert guiding hands from abroad. Sampath has no lofty desire

to serve the people. He has only grabbed a chance to better his

lot because the situation has opened up an avenue for him.

Now the novel announces the advent of tertiary industry in

Malgudi which will engage the attention of middle classes. This

industry has profit motive as its guiding principle and there is

no place for moral values and missions here. Every thing can be

sacrified for material gains; people can be cheated into bargains

and stories can be distorted out of all proportions for titillating

effect. Srinivas does not join it for money but his wife has some

ambitions. She says: “We must have a lot of more money to

spend” 9 Wealth appears in more devilish role in this novel where

men are either a Saleable commodity or “an economic unit.” (MS 11)

Women are playing an important role in the society today.

She is not only performing her domestic duties well but also she

is active in the economic world. Shanti, in Mr. Sampath, appears

as an actress and a dancer. She joins the Sunrise Pictures Studio

and plays the role of Parvati in the film The Burning of Kama.

She is married but she is left by her husband. Sampath, who is

playing the role of Shiva in the film, is fascinated by her beauty.

Although he has a wife and four children yet he thinks of re-

marriage with Shanti. Sampath’s wife, Kamala and Srinivas’s wife

are ordinary, home-bound and conservative women. Sampath’s

wife never goes out of her house. She is too shy to show her face

to Srinivas when she is introduced to him at home. Her

gutlessness is apparent in her utter failure to prevail upon her

husband to give up the idea of second marriage with Shanti. She

seeks the help of Srinivas’s wife in order to avert this

eventuality. Narayan has also delineated the untouchability

which is a social stigma on the Indian society. Born in a Brahmin

orthodox family Srinivas’s wife refuses to touch the food

brought from a hotel for fear of being polluted. She thinks that

in hotel the food is touched by the low caste people.

Even the minor characters leave a permanent imprint on the

mind of the reader. The old landlord is presented here who has

owned several houses in the city but stayed in a small room

which his friend has given him free of rent. He has a water tap at

his house, but he always uses the public water tap for bathing

purpose, and takes the extra charge from his tenants for the

water-tap.

Most of the protagonists of R.K. Narayan are financially well

settled, and the pangs of poverty never touch them. In fact, the

so-called middle class common men R.K. Narayan presents in his

novels belong to higher strata of the Indian society. It is the

society of a financially middle class people of orthodox Hindu

families firmly rooted in the age-old customs and traditions.

Status of man in modern society is very much linked up with

his financial position. No one shows respect or even cares for a

poor man however righteous and virtuous he may be in his life.

He cuts a sorry figure in the company of the rich. In The

Financial Expert Margayya considers the acquisition of wealth as

a pre-requisite for due status and honour in the society. When he

is hard-pressed for money, he feels:

If I have money, I need not dodge that spectacle dealer. I

need not cringe before that stores-man. I could give those

medicines to my wife. The doctor would look at her with

more interest, and she might look like other women. That Son

of mine, that Balu I could give him everything. 10

He is a kind father and wants to lead his son fairly up the

social ladder by accumulating wealth for him by giving him good

education. Margayya has a fixed notion about money. He says:

“Money alone is important in this world. Everything else will

come to us naturally if we have money in our purse.” (TFE 21) One

day he is insulted and threatened by the secretary of the Bank

for illegally possessing the loan application forms. He feels

humiliated and curses himself for his low economic position.

Fired by insults and humiliation he undertakes prayers and fasts

to propitiate Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth, and acquires a huge

wealth.

One day he comes across Dr. Pal and bargains to buy Pal’s

manuscript The Bed Life. It makes him a rich man but his lust

for money does not satisfy. Dr. Pal helps him to establish his

financial edifice largely based on credit. He pays up to twenty

percent interest and the people withdraw cash from banks and

entrust it to Margayya. He carries it in big bags and stacks it in

his house. He tells Guru Raj: “Money is the greatest factor in

life… . People don’t know how to tend it, how to manure it, how

to water it, how to make it grow, and when to pluck its flowers

and when to pluck its fruits. What most people; now do is to try

and eat the plant itself.” (TFE 132)

Margayya is so much involved in earning money that he has

lost his food and sleep. He now forgets his own self and his wife

and son. His former days when he used to help the poor

peasants in acquiring loans from bank, are gone. Margayya is

now eccentric, overambitious and completely obsessed with

money. He forgets that the Goddess Lakshmi always remains on

the tip of her toe, ever ready to turn and run away. It is an irony

that Dr. Pal, who once made Margayya’s fortune, acts as an

instrument of his ruin when he quarrels with Dr. Pal. He

scandalizes Margayya by spreading the rumour that his

bankruptcy is imminent. The creditors, who deposited their

amount in Margayya’s bank, come rushing to him to take back

their money and he comes back to his former position.

In The Guide, Raju, is the most engaging and complex

character like Margayya. Both of them are obsessed with money,

and it is money that matters for them. Raju has a shop at the

railway station in Malgudi but he is not satisfied with his income

and he becomes a tourist guide. With this job he comes into

contact with various types of people. One day he meets a

married couple Marco and Rosie. Marco is a scholar and he is

working on the caves of Mempi Hill in Malgudi. He has no time

for his wife, Rosie. He spends all his time in the caves. On the

other hand, Rosie represents a new class of women who have the

opportunity to be freed from domestic confinement to join

colleges and universities. Her education enchants her against the

society and the awareness of her individuality. She aspires to

become a classical dancer. She is a victim of circumstances

caused by her introvert husband’s total disregard and

indifference to her innate taste for dance and his self imposed

utter self-isolation enable Raju associate with her. She leaves her

husband and comes to live with Raju in his house.

In R.K. Narayan’s novels, two different roles of women—

tradition and modern—are available. In this novel Raju’s mother

like many other female characters of R.K. Narayan is an ordinary,

homely and religious lady whose world resolves round her

husband and son. When Rosie comes to stay with Raju, her

orthodox thinking that a woman should not move out of the

house unescorted makes her feel amazed at the ways of modern

girls who move freely. She says: “Girls today! How courageous

you are! In our days we wouldn’t go to the street corner without

an escort. And I have been to the market only once in my life,

when Raju’s father was alive.” 11

She applies persuasive methods through the narration of

anecdotes and parables the departure of Rosie back to her

husband. Her logic is conventional that a married woman’s place

is by her husband’s side only; however, unjust or undesirable he

may be. When she fails in her attempts, she leaves home and

starts living with her brother rather than subjecting her to such

an unconventional spectacle. Raju is possessed with greed so he

helps her and soon she rises on the peaks of glory. Raju is no

doubt successful as an impressario but his motives are

questionable; his eyes are on the cheques that Rosie brings from

every dance performance. In his greed for money he scarcely

cares for her personal feelings. He makes her work like a

machine and allows her no time for a little sight-seeing.

In modern society, corruption has become widely rampant,

and Malgudi is no exception. Raju has become a man of high

status in the society, of course through Nalini’s dance concerts.

He buys a new house for the celebrity and tries to establish his

monopoly over her in all respects. He grumbles when other

artists stay with her for longer period of time. His influence

spreads to the public offices and no body could dare annoy him.

He says:

Through my intimacy with all sorts of people, I know what

was going on behind the scenes in the government, at the

market… . I could get, a train reservation at a moment’s

notice, relieve a man summoned to jury work, reinstate a

dismissed official, get a vote for a co-operative election,

nominate a committee man, get a man employed, get a boy

admitted to a school, and get an unpopular official shifted

elsewhere.(TG 196-197)

Money works miracles and corrupts the man. Raju becomes

caddish, possessive and jealous. While money comes to him in

cheques, he goes on leading a reckless life, drinking and

gambling and squandering money till Rosie laments: “I feel like

one of those parrots in a cage taken around village fairs, or a

performing monkey.”(TG 203) Raju’s desire for money has no limits

and he ruminates: “We need all the money in the world. If I were

less prosperous who would care for me?”(TG 195)

He dreams of becoming a big man by using her talent to heap

wealth. Ignorant of Raju’s dream and plans, Rosie worships art

like a priestess and practices it with a rare devotion. She is

satisfied when garlands come her way and Raju keeps his eyes

glued to cheques.

Although R.K. Narayan has depicted middle class society in

his novels but against such social background he has also

presented the neglected caste of South India in Waiting for the

Mahatma. With this novel, R.K. Narayan has delineated the

untouchables of Malgudi who create the real picture of

untouchables of that era. He has described the Untouchable’s

Colony which was situated on the bank of a river:

It was probably the worst area in the town and an

exaggeration even to call them huts; they were just hovels,

put together with rays, tin sheets, and shreds of coconut

metting all crowded in anyhow, with scratchy fowls cracking

about and children growing in the street dust.12

This is the untouched colony of untouchables, filthy and

disgusting. Untouchables were forced to live in this sort of

colonies without any facility. R.K. Narayan has depicted the

crude reality of untouchables’ lives. Because of the lack of

education and better understanding of the way of living life,

they were living in horrifying lifestyle. R.K. Narayan describes:

“These men spent less than a tenth of their income in food or

clothing, always depending upon mendicancy in their off hours

for survival.”(WFTM 37)

Mahatma Gandhi called them Harijans and he had started

Harijan Sevak Sangh to change upper-castes’ attitude towards

untouchables. R.K. Narayan has nicely plucked out this point in

this novel. It depicts the pre-independent era, when Gandhiji

visits Malgudi and speaks about untouchability and caste

system; Sriram becomes reflective for the first time and realizes

that there must be a great deal in what Gandhi says. Narayan has

discovered Sriram’s social and family background. He is from

the orthodox Hindu family and he is living with his Granny. His

Granny is very rigid and orthodox and she is not ready to accept

any change.

Untouchables though they clean the upper-castes’ dirt, they

were worst treated by them. Sriram’s granny bullies and ill-treats

the scavenger who comes to sweep the backyard of the house.

She does not allow the scavenger to come nearer than ten yards

thinking that he will pollute her.

Mr. Natesh, the Municipal Council Chairman, makes elaborate

preparations to receive Mahatma Gandhi in his house, but

Gandhiji refuses to stay in his luxurious house and prefers the

small hut of a city sweeper. He says if the people of Malgudi

want to hear him, they have to come to the bank of river Sarayu

where untouchables are living. He preaches brotherhood, that

the high caste people should not think them as their fellow

brethren and they should not practice untouchability towards

these low caste people. The grandmother of Sriram shockingly

reacts to Mahatma Gandhi’s preaching: “For her the Mahatma

was one who preached dangerously who tried to bring

untouchables into the temples.”(WFTM 62) In society they could

never live with respect. It was inculcated in their minds that

begging is their birthright, so they always live on others mercy

and maintains the slave mentality. It is not only Narayan’s

imagination but also the crude reality of Indian society.

Undoubtedly, human beings are the powerful and intelligent

creation of God in this universe. There are many violent animals

like tiger but clever man can take them under his command by

using some tricks, and can use them as a medium of earning. In

the novel A Tiger for Malgudi Narayan has discovered the

earning mind of Captain. He works in Dadhaji Grand Circus in

Poona. After some time, the owner of the circus, Dadhaji dies

and he sells all the property of his and comes to Malgudi. There

he establishes his circus under the title, Grand Malgudi Circus.

For the purpose to set up his name in Malgudi, he left his bed at

four o’clock in the morning and gave most of his time to the

animals. This attitude is never admired by his wife. Her envy for

animals is clear in this conversation with Captain:

All our animals from the performing mongoose to the

tusker are in excellent condition, “he boasted at

breakfast. “Yes,” said his wife, “they are tended better

than your family.” “You must say something unpleasant

otherwise you are never happy.”

Your beloved animals may also have something to say if

they could speak… .13

Once, Captain comes in the contact with some villagers who

are troubled by a tiger, Raja. The animal Raja strays into their

habitation and raids regularly on the cattle. Here man is himself

responsible for this trouble. Raja used to live happily with his

family making a cave his home but one day the tigress and the

cubs are shot dead by cruel men. The tiger passes the following

lines on human nature: “A tiger attacks only when he feels

hungry unlike human beings who slaughter one another without

purpose or hunger.”(ATFM 117)

There is no end to man’s desire. His appetite of earning more

and more money is never satisfied. If a man has one source of

earning, he tries to do better for earning more money. Now the

Captain’s mind becomes busy in making plans to captivate the

tiger, as soon as he hears about him because tiger is a source of

making more money for him. He gets success in his plans and

captures Raja. He starves the tiger for several days: “For days

they kept me without food and water. Only the Captain with his

companion would come to observe me, and then comment, and

leave. I lost all my strength and could hardly stand up, much

less pace around my cage.”(ATFM 84)

The intelligent Raja soon learns the tricks of circus and wins

the admiration of the Captain. Raja becomes the chief attraction

of the circus which is profitable to the Captain. But his hunger of

making more money is never satisfied. He can do anything for

money which becomes harmful to him. A film producer agrees

with him about the proposal of making money with the tiger.

The scene which the producer wanted to act by Raja was beyond

his understanding but the Captain compels him for the same.

Captain does not know the way on which he is going, it might

end his life. Once on a film set when the pain inflicted by the

electric metal gadget becomes unbearable to the tiger, it warns

the Captain to keep himself away from him, but as a greedy

person, he persists in subduing the tiger with the dreadful

weapon. The tiger kills him in an act of defence. Thus, the

hunger of wealth becomes the cause of death of the Captain.

R.K. Narayan’s novel The Man-Eater of Malgudi is also an

attempt on the theme of money and rank. Vasu, the terrible

example, is the enemy of the animals. He is the producer of all

that is worst in the bourgeois world. Before arriving Malgudi,

Nataraj’s life was going on calmly. Vasu enters into this calm and

placid world. His vagary and self-will activity cast the cloud of

gloom over the lives of people and animals of Malgudi. This

illustration discloses the selfish reason of his arrival to Malgudi:

“Know this, I’m here because of Mempi Forest and the jungles in

those hills. I’m a taxidermist. I have to be where wild animals

live.”14 After his arrival no creature was safe. It is by sheer luck

that they escape from his eyes. He has filled his house with the

skin of dead animals. One day, he saw a little pet of Nataraj’s

neighbour and killed it just then. He becomes mad after hearing

the presence of the tiger and leaves even the work of his hand:

“When he hears about a tiger, he forgets everything else. Now

he’ll be right in the jungle following the pugmarks… .”(TMEOM 37-38)

Money is everything for him and he can go anywhere for his

profit. He is in Malgudi because Malgudi serves as a conveninent

hide-out for his export business of stuffed carcasses. Whether

there is an elephant or a bird, he kills them for his selfish

reason. He considers the celebration of festivals, “a waste of

national energy,” (TMEOM 169) and counts numerically how a dead

elephant is more valuable than a living one: “I can make ten

thousand out of the parts of this elephant… . Every bit of it is

valuable. I’ve already several inquires from France and Germany

and from Hong Kong.”(TMEOM 171-172)

Vasu is one of the terrible examples of Narayan. In Vasu,

Narayan seems to predict the present day greedy spirits who

renounce all scruples to earn money and get a cherished rank for

them in the society.

The role of money in Malgudi fiction is quite central as it

provides the sheet-anchor to the middle class desire for security

and status. Although R.K. Narayan’s protagonists have no

financial worry and they are well-settled yet they want to go

ahead in the race of earning money. In The World of Nagaraj,

Nagaraj is born in a well-to-do family. Money has given a distinct

personality to Nagaraj. He enjoys the privilege of his birth in a

rich middle class family and he marries Sita simply because of

her family reputation. He plans to write a book on the sage,

Narada for being famous but he is not as greedy as his elder

brother, Gopu is. After the death of their father they share the

property. Nagaraj is happy with what Gopu gives him, but Gopu

is not refined like Nagaraj. He takes the corner rice fields with

the help of his family lawyer because he finds a better scope to

grow and flourish there. Nagaraj does not like his brother’s

attitude and says: “Thank God, I don’t have to think of money.

I’m not greedy, that’s why I am happy. Even after the division of

property, I get a thousand rupees from the bank deposits left by

my father.”15

Gopu settles on rice fields in the village and proves to be a

good educated farmer. Once he comes to Malgudi and tells

Nagaraj: “We were the first to utilize the facilities government

offered in the shape of pesticides and fertilizers, machinery and

above all the gas plant. I hope we shall soon acquire tractors

too.”(TWON 41) He is very much proud of his financial condition and

thinks nothing of his brother. He is not a good father. He has not

the spare time for his son, Tim. All the day he remains busy in

earning money so one day Tim leaves his house and comes to

Nagaraj. Nagaraj sends Tim to Albert Mission School but Gopu

speaks with the wisdom of a middle class farmer: “He must

share my labour and assist me, a grown up boy must make

himself useful.”(TWON 42) As a father he has no care of his son’s

future, he is only worried about his money, status and rank.

Jagan in The Vendor of Sweets is a curious mixture of

hypocrisy and sincerity. He professes Gandhism but is a rich

man and makes profits and hoards money. As a follower of

Gandhi he weaves cloth to cover his body and wears sandals

made of leather of an animal which has died of old age. He tries

to maintain maximum purity in business by using pure ghee and

keeping the price low. Narayan also discloses Jagan’s ambitions

and aim of unlimited profit motive. He has his own way of

evading income tax by keeping double accounts. He keeps free

cash in his house and “did not like his cash to be watched.”16 His

idea is of free cash, as “a sort of immaculate conception, self-

generated, arising out of itself and entitled to survive without

reference to any tax,”(TVOS 14) although this is against the ideals of

the Gita. He does not enter the sale in his ledger which comes

after six o’clock and he calls it free cash. He keeps the free cash

in his house and never counts it.

Jagan has earned much money till he reaches his mature age

and now he is not ready to take any risk with it. His son Mali

comes back from America with his new plans and thinking of

earning money. He does not want to be a sweet-vendor like his

father but he makes plan to start his business of manufacturing

story-writing machines with American collaboration. He expects

fifty one thousand dollars from his father and puts the name of

his father in his business partnership. On the other hand, Jagan

can never throw his future in this sort of crazy enterprise and

becomes less and less approachable to his son. He also changes

the venue of his free cash so that Mali cannot get success in his

old game of pocketing it silently. He starts to use the back door

for entering the house because he does not want to come before

Mali. When Mali hints him at his daily income in thousands, he

replies: “I am not growing over-fond of money, but I’m not

prepared to squander it.”(TVOS 82) Jagan refuses to finance the

project of Mali but he offers him the management of the shop

which Mali scorns. Jagan is hurt deeply and thinks that it is the

same business that provided money for his American trip.

According to R.K. Narayan, the fiscal attitude of grown up

sons or nephews differs from that of parents or gardians. They

want to be prosperous in a short time. Mali wants to be a writer

because he thinks that there is more money in this field and

goes to America for learning this art, where he gets the new ways

of earning and returns to Malgudi. He is sure to find a high rank

for himself in Malgudi with his education, and the property he

will inherit.

R.K. Narayan’s female characters in his later novels represent

the newly-emergent, modernized and liberated Indian women.

They share some common traits which distinguish them from

the ordinary, domestic, home-bound and unflichingly orthodox

women. Grace is unique among Narayan’s female characters. She

is born and educated in the foreign country, i.e, America and

meets Mali who has gone to America to learn the art of fiction

writing. Having promised an Indian style marriage, he returns to

Malgudi with Grace. Instead of fulfilling his word of honour, he

betrays her and throws her away unsheltered in the streets of

Malgudi. Her traits of modesty, sincerity, adaptability and

expertise in house-keeping enable her to develop close human

ties with Jagan, who starts reposing confidence in her which is

missing between him and his son. Grace’s forte lies in the

fortitude and courage with which she faces the piquant situation

of utter helplessness and desperation caused by Mali’s deceit

and treachery. She does not succumb to this sudden,

unexpected, unfortunate turn of events; rather she establishes

herself independently in the unfamiliar, tradition ridden

ambience of Malgudi. She does not go back to her native country

like a jilted woman. Contrary to it, she settles down in this exotic

place and secures an employment in a woman’s hostel.

Now the women are benefited by modern education. They are

aspirant, active, conscious, enlightened and replete with a spirit

to establish an independent economic identity. Home and

hearth, bearing and rearing up of children as an end in itself do

not suit the imaginary world of their taste, liking and

individuality. They are not like dumb-driven cattle under the

monopolistic and exploitative regime of men; they strive to

equal them or supersede them or exercise control over them.

The modern influences induced by education, industrialization

and commercialization result in opening new, unexplored vista

of vocational avenues, career, unorthodox norms of thinking and

behaviour and a continuously complex matrix of family

relationships constituting the smallest unit of the social fabric of

the Indian society. They refuse to take men’s social supremacy

for granted, and intend to compete with them in all walks of life.

In The Painter of Signs, Narayan has visualized through

Daisy, the model of woman who would be prospering after the

woman’s Lib-Movement. The novel highlights the change in

human outlook, their ideals and values. The ideals of family

obeisance and reverence to elders in the family are gradually

coming down for the sake of keeping one’s own individuality

intact. Daisy refuses to pay obeisance to her would-be-in-laws,

and Raman too considers it odd to fall at anybody’s feet.

Narayan himself explained in an interview with S. Krishnan:

In The Dark Room I was concerned with showing the utter

dependence of woman on man in our society. I suppose I

have moved along with the times. This girl in my new novel

is quite different. Not only is she not dependent on men, she

actually has no use for them as an integral part of her life. To

show her complete independence and ability to stand by

herself I took care not to give her a name with any kind of

emotional connotation, I am calling her simply Daisy. She is a

very strong character. 17

Daisy is educated and single. She likes to live all alone and

independent that is why she leaves her home and hearth and

engages herself fully in the national cause of Family Planning.

Narayan has raised, in this novel, the problem of birth control.

Daisy comes to Malgudi as a head of the Family Planning Centre.

There she meets Raman who is the painter of signboards for

business purpose. She starts a tour with Raman in the villages

around Malgudi. Raman is with him for painting the slogan of

family planning. She endures risks, embarrassments, physical

hardships and inconveniences while working in far-flying

villages of Malgudi. She is single–handedly and unswervingly

dedicated to the cause of population control. She is also

determined to preserve an independent individuality. She never

pats a child and considers marriage as subordination of woman

to man. She discusses with the ignorant villagers on the subject

of birth control but they think that children are the gift given by

God. Her encounter with the priest of the Goddess of Plenty is an

important and significant event. The priest stops Raman to paint

the slogan of birth control on the wall of the temple and says:

“Our Shastras say that the more children in a home, the blessed

it is. Do you want to dispute it?”18 All the villagers are with the

priest, they do not agree with Daisy and Raman. Daisy is shown

utterly helpless before the priest and the villagers.

R.K. Narayan contrasts Daisy’s modernity with the villagers

traditional life and religion. She is an embodiment of the

culmination point of Women’s Liberation. In the end, she rejects

Raman’s marriage proposal and leaves Malgudi forever on her

mission of birth-control in rural areas of Nagari. Thus Daisy

symbolizes a confident, fully developed feminine consciousness,

independent of man. She demonstrates the changed scenario of

the reversal roles wherein woman is dominant and domineering.

Now the woman is working in every field. She, no longer,

remains a decorative, depersonalized commodity owned by man.

She is his equal or competitor in all walks of life. Commandant

Sarsa in Talkative Man, more or less comes close to Narayan’s

self-respecting woman. The modern culture of working woman is

reflected in her sincere devotion to her official duties as

Commandant of the Home Guards Women’s Auxiliary stationed

at Delhi. As she serves her official duty with loyalty, the same

she has moral consistency in pursuing her lecherous and

deceitful husband, Dr. Rann. Her husband is a wanderer coming

in contact with different types of women. He is in the habit of

abandoning them right and left. Once he comes to Malgudi and

there impresses a young girl. The Talkative Man meets him in

the library and impressed by this powerful stranger, he takes

him to his house at Kabir Street. When he meets Sarsa and she

claims that she is the wife of Dr. Rann. She also discloses his

past life before the Talkative Man. In the last she succeeds in

catching hold on her husband with the help of the Talkative Man

but again he ditches her and disappears with a nurse. She is

shocked by his duplicity and elusive ways. She is a courageous

lady and again maintains herself and accepts the things as they

are.

In Grandmother’s Tale Narayan describes the story of a wife

who suffers long for getting her husband back. Bala, in her early

age of seven, is married to Viswa who was senior only three

years in age. One day, soon after their marriage, Viswa comes to

bid her a hasty goodbye, telling her clandestinely over the rear

wall of the backyard of her parent’s house: “I am going away,

keep it a secret… .”19 He joins a group of pilgrims going to

Pandaripura, chanting a bhajan. Many years roll by but there is

no sign of Viswa. Everyone thinks him dead while Bala believes

that her husband is alive. One day she leaves her house and

manages to reach Poona and succeeds to get a job in the house

of her husband.

Money plays an important role in this novel too. In his early

age Viswa runs away from his house to try his luck and reaches

Poona. There he is employed by a rich merchant and soon Viswa

becomes his most trusted servant. Viswa elopes with his

master’s daughter, Surma and marries her in the temple of

Triambaka. After some time, the old merchant dies and Viswa

lives comfortably in his spacious bungalow. His first wife, Bala,

who works in his house as a maid-servant, recognizes him and

compels him to return to his native village, Kumbakonam. Viswa

does not want to leave his comfortable life and money so he

says: “I can’t give up my trade.”(GT 55) But before the firm

determination of Bala, he has to go with her to their native

village. He starts there his business and grows rich. He buys a

real estate and has a good bank balance. After the death of Bala,

he comes with his son to his house but after a lapse of time he

comes back to his old house. He lives there with the caretaker

woman and her young daughter who “had their eyes on his stock

of precious stones… . He also had enough cash… .”(GT 91) Viswa

marries the seventeen year old daughter of his caretaker woman.

Now his wife and mother-in-law constantly nag him to transfer

all his money to them. After that one day he dies under

mysterious circumstances. Thus his own money becomes the

cause of his death.

R.K. Narayan has described the true vision of society in which

he was living. His novels have little reformative or didactic

purpose, though a moral profound vision is always there. His

novels are not vehicles of mass propaganda but they depict the

breakdown of feudal society and express the changed ideas

concerning the family. Being a product of Hindu culture he

simply could not avoid the impact of the culture surroundings

around him. Conservative South Indian society that Narayan has

presented with all its irrational customs induces a sense of

futility amongst the people of later generation.

Notes and References:

1Graham Greene, Introduction, The Bachelor of Arts. By R.K.

Narayan, (London: Pocket Book Edition, 1951.) 7.

2R.K. Narayan, Swami and Friends (Chennai: Indian Thought

Publications, 2006) 129; hereafter cited in the chapter.

3Nihal Fernando, “Between Cultures: Narayan’s Malgudi in

Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts”, A Sense of Place in

the New Literatures in English, ed. Peggy Nightingale (Australia:

Queensland University Press, 1986) 77.

4William Walsh, R.K. Narayan: A Critical Appreciation

(New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1984) 36; hereafter cited

in the chapter.

5R.K. Narayan, The Bachelor of Arts (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006)15; hereafter cited in the chapter.

6S.R. Ramtake, R.K. Narayan and His Social Perspective (New

Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1998) 17.

7R.K. Narayan, The Dark Room (Chennai: Indian Thought

Publications, 2003) 59; hereafter cited in the chapter.

8R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2004) 178; hereafter cited in the chapter.

9R.K. Narayan, Mr. Sampath:The Printer of Malgudi,

(Chennai: Indian Thought Publications, 2005) 96; hereafter cited

in the chapter.

10R.K. Narayan, The Financial Expert (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2005) 29; hereafter cited in the chapter.

11R.K. Narayan, The Guide (Chennai: Indian Thought

Publications, 2005) 141; hereafter cited in the chapter.

12R.K. Narayan, Wating for the Mahatma (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 37; hereafter cited in the chapter.

13R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 37; hereafter cited in the chapter.

14R.K. Narayan, The Man-Eater of Malgudi (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 18; hereafter cited in the chapter.

15R.K. Narayan, The World of Nagaraj (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 4; hereafter cited in the chapter.

16R.K. Narayan, The Vendor of Sweets (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2003) 11; hereafter cited in the chapter.

17S.R. Ramtake, “R.K. Narayan: A Novelist Committed to the

Hindu Ideals and Beliefs”, Studies In Indian Writing In English,

ed. Rajeshwar Mittapalli (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2000)

19; hereafter cited in the chapter.

18R.K. Narayan, The Painter of Signs (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 70; hereafter cited in the chapter.

19R.K. Narayan, Grandmother’s Tale (Chennai: Indian

Thought Publications, 2006) 22; hereafter cited in the chapter.