2 THE NOVELS OF EARLY PHASE: A, SWAMI AND FRIENDS B. THE BACHELOR OF ARTS C. THE DARK ROOMCHAPTER - II THE NOVELS OF EARLY PHASE A - Swami and Friends The first phase begins with the first Malgudi novel Swanti and Friends (1935), a novel of innocence, light and gentle in its treatment of schoolboy Swaminathan. Swami’s adventures are in some respects those of any schoolboy, East or West: the eternal hostility of schoolmasters, the vagaries of parents, the rivalry of cricket and the pain of growing up. In reading Swami and Friends it is true enough to say that we are reminded at times of Tom Sawyer of Mark Twain though Narayan’s tone and texture are distinctive and original. The Indian setting, Indian middle-class family life, Indian cricket madness, the Gandhian Movement and the strike at Swami’s school give particular, strongly regional, colouring to the otherwise universal comedy and clawing of school life that Swami and his friends share with Richard Crompton’s William and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Swami and Friends has a special and poignant charm. Nothing really terrible can happen to a boy so devoted to the cult of cricket as Swaminathan. In Malgudi he can always fall back on his grandmother to take his part against the incomprehensible bad temper of father andSl schoolmaster. Adults appear quite mad to Swami. His father is liable to fly off into a rage when he finds his son wondering about the house like an unleashed donkey before the examinations are due to begin. In his first school the scripture master, Mr. Ebenezar, is a Christian fanatic who infuriates those boys who bother to listen by frenetic attacks on the private life of Shri Krishna: He then turned to Christianity. Now see our Lord Jesus. He could cure the sick, relieve the poor, and take us to Heaven. He was a real God. Trust him he will take you to Heaven; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us? 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: ‘Did our Jesus go gadding about with dancing girls like your Krishna? Did our Jesus go about stealing butter like that archscoundrel Krishna? Did our Jesus practice dark tricks on those around him?! Mr. Ebenezar tries to wrench Swami’s ear off daring to suggest that Jesus could not be a God since he was not a Brahmin because of the questions being asked by Swaminathan: “If he did not, why was he crucified?” and “If he was a God, why did he eat flesh and fish and " R.K. Narayan, Siwami and Friends, Mysore: Indian Thought Publication, 1998, pp.5-6,drink wine?"(p. 6). But though demons abound, not only frothing Ebenezar but headmaster armed with canes liable to land on Swami’s back, policemen with lathis ready to wade into Gandhi boys, and the stone-throwing neighbours of a cheating coachman who send Swami and his allies fleeing desperately from a poor malodorous quarter of Malgudi, yet the world of Swaminathan is innocent and redeemable. He suffers the odium of being called “Tail” by his old friends when he meets his hero Rajan, son of the police inspector, but soon the whole gang is united again, Somu, Sankar and the Pea and of course, Rajan and Swami determinedly wearing Khadder and shouting “ Gandhi ki Jai”, storms the school in the name of freedom and breaks the window panes, Narayan delved deep into his own life for the creation of characters, particularly the children. Swami’s experiences in the Albert Mission School seem to be based Narayan’s own experiences as a schoolboy. If one were to ask Narayan what gave him the idea of bringing the scenes from his boyhood alive before our eyes, probably his answer would be what the Headmaster states in The (English Teacher): Most of us forget that grand period. But with me it has always been there. A time at which the colours of things are different, their depths greater, their magnitudegreater, a most balanced and joyous condition of life; there was natural state of joy over nothing in particular.” If Swami’s experience in a Christian School was unpleasant, so was Narayan’s own. Besides enjoying his own childhood, Narayan closely watched the childhood of his daughter as he took her care after his wife’s death in June 1939, He not only gave her a great deal of his company in order to make up for her mother’s absence but amused her so that she did not remember her mother. It is natural, therefore, that scenes of childhood are so fresh in his writing, In his novels, one can hear the Playing, giggling, mischief-making children itching to come out of his pages. Swami, a young teenager; Somu, the monster; Mani, mighty good-for-nothing; Sankar, the most brilliant boy of the class; Samuel, the “Pea”; Rajam, the fresh arrival in Swami and Friends and Babu, Kamala and Sumati in The Dark Room ~ these children win our hearts as we see ourselves nostalgically in their mischief's. With an open Atlas, Swami tries to grasp the political map of Europe: He sat at his table and took out his Atlas. He opened the political map of Europe and sat gazing at it. It puzzled him how people managed to live in such a crooked country as Europe. He wondered what the shape of the people might be who lived in places where the outline ? RK. Narayan, The English Teacher, Mysore: Indian ‘Thought Publications, 1945, pp. 167-168.54 narrowed in a cape, and how they managed to escape being strangled by the counter of their land. And than another favorite problem began to tease him: how did those map -makers find out what the shape of country was? How did they find out that Europe was like a camel’s head? Probably they stood on high towers and copied what they saw below. He wondered if he would be able to see India as it looked in the map, if he stood on the top of Town Hall. (p. 56). Such reflections are real to the children and to their another even if they appear funny to the adult imagination. For children usually inhabit the world of elves and fairies, gins and genies, Aladin’s lamp and flying carpets and their wild, unrestrained imagination is unfettered by logie, reason and knowledge and is circumscribed by the age-old questions of possibility and probability. This kind of imagination makes the adult consider the child’s mind a devil's workshop. It takes the form of fun and frolic, mischief, childish games and activities. The entire novel dealing with Swami and his friends is full of mischief and fun. Going to house of Rajan, Swami news like a cat and Mani barks like a dog. Pieces of slips are passed in the class, such as, “ Are you a man?” or “ You are the son of dog if you don’t answer this?” (p.16).35 When given the punishment of standing on the bench, Swaminathan classifies several heads in the class: four red caps, twenty —five Gandhi Caps , and so on. When Swaminathan believes that by praying ‘o gods a cardboard box full of pebbles could be converted into coins and gets disappointed when nothing happens, it is the same wild imagination gone astray, untouched by reason or cold reality. The children in Narayan’s novel's are quite intelligent and witty in everything except in their studies. Swami shows his unwillingness to 80 to school on Monday moming and he feels unhappy when he is asked to study at home in vacation. Probably Narayan projected his own natural aversion to academic education. Children’s world is the adult world in miniature. Here Wordsworth’s concept of the child being the father of man finds expression in their daily activities. On the eve of his examination, Swami draws up a list of his needs as if it were some kind of heavy monthly or annual budget: At the end the list was corrected to: Unruled white paper 20 sheets Ruled white paper 10 sheets Black ink 1 bottle Clips %6-12 Pins 61256 The list was not satisfactory even now. After pondering over it, he added ‘Cardboard Pad One’ and ‘One Rupee for Additional Expenses’. (p. 58). Instead of dreaming of a bungalow, a car, a motorbike or a scooter, which form the most desired objects of the world, Swami’s consuming passion in life has been to get a simple ex-cycle wheel without tyre. This childish trait seems to have a base in Narayan’s life as he himself had a fascination for this cycle wheel and played with it after the closure of the school: All afternoon he wandered about the side streets with a gang of fiends also at a loose end. I possessed an iron hoop which I rolled about the streets, followed by my gang, my route being up Vellala Street, turn left on Audiappa Mudali Street, and then along Gangadewarer and High Road — a large perimeter, which we travelled round and round, god knows how many miles in all, with the sun beating down full blast on our heads, bare feet with dhotis tucked to the knee and loose shirts covering our backs. In our gang, one boy had a cycle rim, another one just a barrel band, and two more had nothing but just kept running with the group with their imaginary hoops rolling ahead. We were safe as long as we took care not57 to bump into cyclists, cows or jutkas: we were the fastest objects on the road, and no one minded us. Most times we imagined ourselves to be a train (the automobile notion not having become quite so pervasive, and the aeroplane not being known), and ran blindly, aware only of the road in front and the sound of the sunning hoop in gravel. Children enjoy acting like adults drugged with the sense of newly acquired possession, whether it be the possession of a room, a title or an imaginary position. Rajan poses as a big officer when he scolds and abuses the cook in order to impress his friends. Swaminathan shows himself off by entertaining his friend Rajan in his father’s room and claiming it as his own, Swaminathan, Rajan and Mani become police inspectors and hold a cart driver on the trespassing charge. When the driver fails to tell his age, they threaten to kill him. But this world of feigning and make believe crumbles to decay by the cold touch of reality from the adult world as when the cook answers Rajan back or when Swami’s father throws away the stationary list. The acquisitive of children is no better than what it would be in their adulthood. >R.K. Narayan, My Days, Mysore: Indian Thought Publication, 1975, p3158 The central event in Swami’s boyhood is his passionate love for Rajam without meaning it and merely as a victim of circumstance, he betrays his friend in his greatest need. Swami is led to his thoughtless betrayal because there is no due either at home or in the school whom he can trust. In the words of P.S. Sundaram: His teachers are callous, his father a terror, his mother indifferent, his grandmother weak and old. His lot on earth seems to be suffer perpetual bullying, by a man who looks down on his religion, one Headmaster who hates his politics and another who thinks that he is a liar and a shirker and ought to be thrashed. He is no hero; he has just enough spirit in him to wish to run away from it all. The only thing he can do is he runs. He quits first one school and then another. Since there is no third school in malgudi and he is certain that his father will not send him to Trichinopoly, he decides to go his own way." P.S. Sundaram opines that “his collapse on the road and subsequent fever make it impossible for him to take part in the cricket match. That he should imagin that he could take part in it, led into this illusion by a considerate forest officer, only adds to the pathos and *P.S. Sundaram, RK. Narayan as a Novelist, Delhi: B.R. Publishing Cor., 1988, pp. 22-23.59 horror of the final tragic discovery... grown-ups do not have much patience with the agonies and wails of childhood.”* Narayan’s understanding of child psychology is so thorough and perfect that his portrayal of the child world is as authentic as it should be. There is hardly any thing about child life, which has not been revealed here. Like Wordsworth, Narayan may also say: ‘The fullness of your bliss, I feel - I feel it all.’ It may be said in the words of Harish Raizada 5 tid, p.23. We are told about their hatred for Monday which starts the regular school work every week ... their anxious and fearfuul time inside the class rooms, their petty quarrels which appear to be very serious but which invariably end in intimate friendship ... their fear of ghosts, their rivalries and jokes, their anxieties on the eve of the examinations and their terror of their father .We learn how they these one another or laugh at the oddities of their teachers... or indulge in unrestrained revelries when the examinations are over, or move heaven and earth for possessing an ordinary thing like an iron hoop, or pity their aged grandmother when she showsignorance of cricket and its celebrated heroes or pretend to be ill when they do not wish to go to their school.® Narayan renders the people and their actions the way children see them. The child sees adults through a mind and eye unobscured by the associations we bring to the contemplation of people in later life. To the mind of the child nothing appears normal in its shape and size. It may be said in the words of David Cecil: Children are instinctive, they have strong imaginations, vivid sensation; they eve life as black or white, and bigger than reality, their enemies seem demons, their friends angels, their joys or sorrows absolute and eternal.’ Thus Narayan has drawn brilliant pictures of child life and shown an extraordinary understanding of child psychology. In the novels of Narayan the imaginative reaction of Mythological incidents and situations is discernible. The main characters of Narayan do not lay claim to heroism nor do they control the events rather they ° Harish Ralinds, RX. Normans Cie Sy of bie Wars, New Dubs Yous: Ase Publication, ily Victorian Novelists”, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1948, p. 48; quoted in Harish Raizada, R.K.Narayan: A Critical Study of His Works, New Delhi: Young Asia Publication, 1969.61 control them. Swami launches a paper-boat in a gutter with an ant seated in it: Swaminathan ran in, got a sheet of paper, and made a boat. He saw a small and moving about aimlessly. He carefully caught it, placed it in the boat, and lowered the boat into the stream. He watched in rapture its quick motions. He held his breath when the boat with its cargo neared a danger zone formed by stuck-up bits of straw and other odds and ends. The boat made a beautiful swerve to the right and avoided destruction. Tt went on and on it neared a fatal spot where the waters were swirling round and round in eddies. Swaminathan was certain that his boat was nearing its last moment But when it passed under a tree, a thick dry leaf fell down and upset it. Swaminathan ran frantically to the spot to see if he could save at least the ant. He peered long into the water, but there was no sign of the ant. The boat and its cargo were wrecked beyond recovery. He took a pinch of earth, uttered a prayer for the soul of the ant, and dropped it into the gutter. (pp. 32-33). Here Swaminathan ‘s fancy is conditioned by the memory of the fairy-tales and the myth narrated to him by his grandmother. Gods and62 demons inhabit the mental world of the child to be Propitiated or feared. For fear or retribution, he picks ups the cardboard-box which he has kicked a minute before, putting back into it the sand, the leaves and the pebbles that have been crushed. The incident is narrated in the folk-key and on the basis of the Indian folk lore and that is why it holds a considerable promise of the hidden poetry and subtle laughter in which Narayan may be said to have succeeded in locating the truth. Since in the creation of myth, the creative sensibility expresses the reality and subjectivity on the creative plane, myth becomes a key to the discovery of the unity and identity of human condition. The modern rediscovers a new meaning and pattern of life in the light of the past experiences. The events are seen through the eyes of Swami who is the central figure of this novel, through whom Narayan Projects his vision of life. Narayan describes a unique and disturbing experience in his protagonist's life, which lifts him out of his normal routine and throws him in the grip of some kind of fear or excitement. This fearful experience makes him realize that the world from which he has been trying to escape because of its brutality or harshness is a real one, however, illusory might project it to be Swaminathan’s reluctance to go to school on the Monday morning, after “the delicious freedom of Saturday and Sunday*(p.3) is realistically evoked. His aversion for the “dismal yellow building”(p63 3) of his school, and the ugliness and cruelty of his teachers is quite natural, Swaminathan futile experiment with the Gods, in which he asks them to convert his two pebbles into two three-pie coins, and his angry reaction when pebbles fail to convert, throws further Tight on the dangerous oppressiveness, which religions superstitions can cast on its victims, In the words of R.K. Narayan: Swaminathan stood before the Gods and with great piety informed them of the box and its contents, how he expected them to convert the two pebbles into two three -pie coins, and why he needed money so urgently. He promised that if the Gods helped him, he would give up biting his thumb. He closed his eyes and muttered: ‘Oh, Sri Rama! Thou hast slain Ravana though he had ten heads, can’t you give six pies?... Oh, Rama! Give me six pies and | will give up biting my thumb for a year. With a fluttering heart he opened the box. He emptied it on the ground, ran his fingers through the mass of sand and leaves, and picked up the two pebbles. As he gazed at the cardboard-box, the scattered leaves, sand, and the unconverted pebbles, he was filled with rage. The difference of the Gods infuriated him and brought tears to his eyes. He wanted to abuse the Gods, but was afraid64 to.... He was afraid that it might offend them, He might get on without money, but it was dangerous to incur the wrath of Gods; they might make him fail in his examinations, or kill father, mother, granny, or the baby. (pp.70-71). In his circle of his friends Swami wants to be on the right side of youth power. Somu, the monitor is more or less “ the uncle of the class.”(p.8). Mani is “ the mighty good-for-nothing” (p.8) and a sort of bully. Sankar is “the most brilliant boy of the class.” (p. 8). And his fourth friend Samuel “known as the ‘Pea’ on account of his size.” (p.9). Rajam is the son of the Deputy Police Superintendent of Malgudi. Rajam becomes an ideal friend and a hero for Swami, whose friendship he doesn’t want to lose at any cost. Swami finds life impossible in Malgudi and he decides to disappear, only to come for Rajam’s cricked match. But he loses his way in Mempi forest and his search for the right road becomes “unreal distant dream.” Narayan says it as: When he understood that the Trunk Road was an unreal distant dream, his legs refused to support him. All the same he kept tottering onwards, knowing well that it was meaningless, aimless, march. (p. 160).65 To recount his experience, Swaminathan says: “| 1 -I really can’t say. I don’t know — where I was. Some where- He recounted in this style his night of terrors and the subsequent events. (p.171). Thus, this strange and mysterious experience marked by a sense of great fear, becomes an aesthetic equivalent of an illusory world which people tries to think of as real and substantial. They forget that the only real world is the world on this earth — the world of pain and suffering, of conflicts and tensions, of joys and discoveries. The protagonist does not seem to try to understand the nature and structure of this real world.66 B — The Bachelor of Arts In The Bachelor of Aris (1937) Chandran is Swami in another skin in the University. Only with the collapse of Chandran’s hope of marrying Malathi and his subsequent migration to Madras do we have new notes of despair and agony, but these yield in their turn to normality when Chandran comes back to Malgudi and marries Susila, a girl approved of by his parents, whom he comes to love. Thus, The Bachelor of Arts deals with the protagonist Chandran’s passage from rebellious adolescence to a fairly acquiescent adulthood; from being an egocentric individualist with modern (that is, westernized) notions of love and marriage, to becoming a fairly well-adjusting and authentic member of his social community, with some sense of duty to family and adherence to age-old customs and mythic beliefs. From the moment of Chandran’s introduction, the reader is made aware of his desire to avoid commitments to others. The thought of assuming any kind of social responsibility frightens Chandran, because he sees in it a threat to his individual selfhood, having formed as yet no concept of balance. Thus, at college, when he is forced to assume extracurricular responsibility by being appointed secretary of the historical association, he feels that he is on the verge of losing his personality.67 On one of his solitary river ramblings after passing his B.A examinations, he espies a young girl, Malathi, and becomes infatuated with her. Despite his desire to be bold and indifferent to the public’s observation and criticism Chandran is unable to approach the girl and introduce himself, although with the help of an old college friend, Mohan, he is at least able to find out her family’s name and caste. Having done this, he blurts out to his parents his desire to marry the girl. The first reaction of Chandran’s mother is a hysterical no, since the girl is too old to be eligible (she is all of sixteen years!). However, when Chandran remains unhappy, his parents come around to the extent that they are willing to consider the match if, according to custom, the proposal comes from the other side. Chandran’s rebellious, if predictable, response to this is the somewhat ludicrously phrased statement “ To the dust ~pot with your silly customs.” Voicing of such modern sentiments has very little effect on Chandran’s mother, who replies that she “ at any rate belonged to generation which was in no way worse than the present one for all its observances; and as long as she lived she would insist on respecting the old customs” The rest of the book describes the process by which Chandran is brought around to a more traditional way of thinking. When his prospects for marriage with Malathi are thwarted by a mismatching of68 their horoscopes, and Chandran learns she is to be married else where, he has a minor breakdown of sorts. When he recovers, he asks his parents to send him off to Madras for a change. His father gives him some money and worse to Chandran’s uncle in Madras to fetch Chandran from the train station and look after him; this is Chandran’s chance to escape from an “oppressive” family system that had sought to confine him to outdated customs. He can now at last, have a taste of the “ freedom” he has so long yeamed for. Chandran’s first stop in Madras is a hotel where he stays for a few days. Here around town, when the latter offers Chandran a drink, he refuses, on the grounds that he had made a vow never to touch alcohol in his life. ‘Thus, without knowing it, Chandran is very much a product of certain customs from which he cannot disassociate himself, and that this adherence to traditional symbols is good and confirmed by the pathos of Kailas’s response that mother is a sacred object. He further says that if he had his mother he should have been studied in a college and become a respectable person.” Chandran still wishes to remain far from Malgudi because of its associations with astrologers, horoscopes, and unsympathetic Mother. He still has to learn the value of home and of social custom, and interestingly enough, it is his dabbling with the tradition of Indian mysticism that brings him the necessary awareness69 Chandran now dons the garb of a sanyasi, one who has renounced the world and was untouched by its joys and sorrows. His renunciation was a revenge on society, circumstances, and perhaps, too, on destiny. Chandran’s renunciation, then, is symbolic of the supreme act of self- centered individualism, meant to inflict hurt on family and friends. It is not an act born of a desire to achieve selflessness. However, in spite of himself, Chandran does achieve a measure of selflessness and self- knowledge when he realizes he can no longer take advantage of the Kropal villagers’ simple faith in him as a saintly figure. And so Chandran decides to stop this charade and go home. Naturally his parents are delighted to see him, having been worried sick about his welfare. This theme of the reversals of cause and effect, of someone becoming sincere through being insincere, is a paradox that delight Narayan and is central to his ironic vision of life. Although such a reversal rarely implies self-transformation, it does lead to self discover, as is, obvious in Chandran’s case. What is interesting to note is that such a reversal leading to self-discovery and a measure of authenticity and sincerity occurs often in a state of mystical withdrawal. Although the outcome of such a withdrawal is often an awakening in he protagonist of a sense of sincerity to himself, leading to sincerity and responsible behavior toward others (which is the ultimate goal of70 realism), such an attitude in Narayan’s work generally results from a symbolic immersion in the rituals of Hindu mysticism and mythic beliefs. Upon his return, Chandran is a changed man. He settles down to a life of “quiet and sobriety” and decides to take up the responsibility of caring his living, instead of toying with the idea of going to England. To secure the chief agency of a Malgudi newspaper, Chandran Journeys for the second time to Madras to obtain the help of his uncle. This time around, however, Chandran journeys willingly into the world of social custom, obligations, and favors, unlike his first journey, which had symbolized a retreat from the very society he now embraces. He secures a job with a local newspaper and, through it, achieves a sense of connectedness with the world around him, His transformation from being a radical individualist to becoming a more balanced conventional social being is completed with his acquiescence to an “arranged” marriage. The marriage is arranged according to custom, with Chandran making, for the most part, a very happy bridegroom Thus, a happy balance between man as rebel and man as self- determiner has been achieved in the critical realist mode. But this happens only with the help of social customs, Indian mythical beliefsin such things as horoscopes, and the Indian tradition of ascetic mysticism. In this novel, Narayan takes up the theme of the young man’s search for a place in the society consequent upon his taking the B.A. degree The search is complicated by the various ups and down in his life as his frustration and disappointment in love , his subsequent renunciation of society and search for meaning in the garb of an ascetic, his realizations of the deception of it all his return to his home, his taking up the agency of a newspaper as a source of livelihood and then his marriage and complete absorption in the life of householder . When Chandran returns to his old college, he stands before some old group photos and muses : All. your interest joys, sorrows, hopes contacts and experience boiled down to group photos ...the laughing giggling fellows one saw about the Union now little new that they would shortly be frozen into group photos.(p. 144). He tries to remember his class fellows and ask himself: Where were all these now? He met so few of his classmates, though they had been two hundred strong for four years. Where were they? Scattered like spray. Theywere probably merchants advocates, murderers, police inspectors, clerks, officer, and what not. Some must have gone to England, some married and had children, some turned agriculturists, dead and starving and unemployed, all at grips with life, like a buffalo caught in the coils of a python....(p.145) Chandran is actively involved in college activities. He finds enjoyment in the company of his friend, Ramu, outside the college, with whom he goes to cinema: They walked to the cinema. Chandran stopped at a shop to buy some betel leaves and a packet of cigarettes. ‘Attending a night show was not an ordinary affair Chandran was none of your business-like automatons that go to a cinema, sit there, and return home. It was an aesthetic experience to be approached with due preparation. You had to chew the betel leaves and nut, chew gently, until the heart was stimulated and threw out delicate beads of perspiration and caused a fine tingling, sensation behind the ears; on top of that you had to light a cigarette, inhale the fumes, and with the tingling sensation behind the ears; on top of that you had to light a cigarette, inhale the fumes, and with the breeze blowingB on your perspiring forehead, go to the cinema, smoke more cigarettes there, see the picture, and from there go to an hotel near by for hot coffee at midnight, take some more betel leaves and cigarettes, and go home and sleep This was the ideal way to set about a night show Chandran squeezed the maximum aesthetic delight out of the experience, and Ramu’s company was most important to him. It was his presence that gave a sense of completion to things. (p. 13). When Chandran has done his B.A., everybody seems to offer him advice as to what he should now. He suffers from a feeling of persecution , and asks his father : Why should everybody talk about my career? Why can’t they mind their business?(p. 53). Chandran takes fancy for a lovely girl, Malathi, with whom he enjoys an “optical communion” every day. The horoscopes play the role of arch villains as they refuse to be matched when the matters proceed for a possible marriage. This makes Chandran decide to leave Malgudi to repair the damage done to his sensitive heart.Chandran is supposed to go to his uncle’s place in Madras. There at a hotel he is taken charge of by Kailas, the man_ having two wives. In sheer fear of74 Kailas, Chandran runs away from him, But he does not know what to do. because of taking the decision never to return to Malgudi. Suddenly it occurs to him that he should became a sanyasi: Chandran realized that he had definitely left his home. Now what did it matter where he lived? He was like a sanyasi. Why “like”? He was a sanyasi; the simplest solution, Shave the head, dye the clothes in ochre, and you were dead for aught the world cared. The only thing possible, short of committing suicide, there was no other way out. He had done with the gamble of life. He was beaten. He could not go on living, probably for sixty years more, with people and friends and parents, with Malathi married and gone.(pp.102-103). He seeks the casiest scape-route to ‘salvation’, which seems to elude him, Chandran boards a tram to Mylapore, where he reaches Kapaleeswarer temple. Chandran tells a barber, Ragavan, that: “Ragavan, help me. You will gain my eternal gratitude. You will also profit yourself. My heart is dead, Ragavan. I have lost every body I love in this world, Ragavan...."(p. 105). RK. Narayan says that:75 Chandran’s mind and spirit had become so deadened that it did not matter to him where he waited, and how long."(p. 106) Chandran realizes, having donned the garb of sanyasi, that he is: -Different from the usual sanyasi, Others may renounce with a spiritual motive or purpose. Renunciation may be to them a means to attain peace or may be peace itself. They are perhaps dead in time, but they do live in eternity. But Chandran’s renunciation was not of that kind. It was an alternative to suicide. Suicide he would have committed but for its social stigma. Perhaps he lacked the barest physical courage that was necessary for it. He was a sanyasi because it pleased him to mortify his flesh. His renunciation was a revenge on society, circumstances, and perhaps, too, on destiny. (p. 108), For Chandran, the experience of sanyasihood is a kind of psychic or emotional death, And the entire experience has been a sort of illusory dream, which has separated Chandran from the world of reality. Chandran decides to return to the world, which means _ his reconciliation to reality. After returning home, he likes the suggestion76 of his friend, Mohan, who is working as a reporter for the daily messenger. He is able to procure the agency. He puts his heart and soul into it. He is able to do quite well in his new found profession by sustained efforts and systematic planning. When he sees Susila, he surprised that there can be other girls as divine as Malathi. Susila’s horoscopes has already matched his. He madly falls in love for her. All his morose memories of Malathi are wiped off in his new-found joy. Narayan says that: Chandran return a new man, his mind full of Susila, the fragrance of jasmine and sandal paste, and the smokiness of the Sacred Fire, of brilliant lights, music, gaiety, and laughter. (p. 164). Thus according to Lakshmi Holmstrom: Narayan chooses to treat this situation as comedy Chandran never leaves the orbit of social norms: this is why he does not become a true sannyasi. He chooses sannyasa in prefer in preference to the other alternative because of the ‘social stigma’ attached to suicide; he returns to the world because he has neither earned nor deserved by virtue of spiritual worth’ the gifts of food heis given by the villagers, He is placed as a conformist and a householder, although a romantic one, and his way of coming to terms with society is to convince himself that in ordering his life from the role of student to householder, each step is his own considered decision. Each compromise is accompanied by some kind of rationalization, As a student he believes in * squeezing the maximum aesthetic delight out of an experience’. He retums to Malgudi from his wanderings as a sannyasi, deciding that this greatest striving should be for a “life free of distraction illusions and hysterics; he marries Sushila convinced of the ‘callous realism’ of his motives. His individual schemes for himself thus become a series of comic illusions.* In this novel Chandran’s rebellion against the horoscope-matching obscurantist elders results in deviation from the normal, and his return is symbolic of its restoration. The theme of illusion —awareness- disillusionment is first seen in the development of this first of Narayan’s protagonists, P.S, Sundaram says that: Lakshmi Holmstrom ,. The Novels of RK. Narayan, Calcutta: A Writers Workshop Publication, 1973, p.41.B “There is plenty of irony and satire in the novel, all of it gentle and understanding.” ‘The human tragety of horoscopes is implied in the letter of Malathi's Father: Nobody can have a greater regret than I at missing an alliance with your family then I. However, we can only proposed. He on the Thirupathi Hills alone knows what is best for us. (p. 86). Narayan shows Chandran’s awareness of Malathi as a person. In this way his emotion becomes credible: His love for the girl and his despair because he is not allowed to marry her, Thus the novel ends on an optimistic note and gives us the message of the continuity of life- of life flowing on in spite of some of the very great setbacks and shocks which threaten to block its way. Chandran who had given up all interest in life and had once thought of committing suicide, and later turned an “Sadhu’, renouncing the world and its luxuries, comes back to the world and starts living his life without any memory of the old wounds. It appears as if nothing has ever disturbed his life. Malathi who has once upset him much is now totally forgotten. The wayward, irresponsible and care-free graduate ° PS. Sundaram, RX: Narayan as a Novelist, Delhi: B.R. Publishing Cor, 1988, p. 289 of olden days is now a respectable man with a sound profession to provide him the wherewithal of life and a wife to look after his household affairs. ‘As for as man-woman relationship is concerned, it occupies an important place in The Bachelor of Arts. In this novel the affair between Chandran and Malathi is warm and romantic. It may be said in the words of Harish Raizada: Against this amusing background are brilliantly drawn a host of characters, All of them, major as well as minor are lively and convincing. There is an indulgent and simple father who acquaints his son with an offer of marriage with a sweat on his brow and a quiver on his lips...Then there is Chandran, the hero, whose plans for laborious studies are always upset by on or the other incident and who insists on marrying the girl he loves, and for her sake revolts against the age-old customs.” Chandran’s parents are affectionate, accommodative and considerate rater than tyrannical overlords of dictatorial autocracy. Even the fake Sanyas as a proxy for suicide is not an emotional upheaval of a "© Harish Raizada , RK. Narayan : A Critical Study of His Works, New Dethi: Young Asia Publications , 1969, pp. 22-23.80 socially pervasive nature. It is enjoyed as a comedy and not as a social tragedy. Chandran’s philosophy that love is an illusion is disproved when he sees Susila, the girl of his parents’ choice and falls in love with her at first sight. As he returns from her home after the bride-seeing ceremony he thinks of her continuously: For the rest of the journey the music of the word “Sushila” rang in his ears. Susila, Susila, Susila. Her name, music, figure, face and everything about her was divine. Susila, Susila-Malathi, not spot beside Susila, it was a tongue-twister he wondered why people liked that name.(p. 162) However, it is only a little later, (a few days after his wedding notice has been displayed when he thinks of Malathi again that he realizes how spiteful and immature it is of him to think poorly of Malathi now. He also realizes that Susila and Malathi are different people and that comparisons are in bad taste. (p.163). There was a radiance about Susila that was lacking in Malathi...No, no. He checked himself this time; he told himself that it was very unfair to compare and decry; it81 was a very vile thing to do. He told himself that he was doing it out of spite.... Poor Malathi! For the first time he was able to view her as a sister in a distant town. Poor girl, she had her points, Of course Susila was different. (p. 164). ‘At last Chandran learns to behave like an adult towards Malathi and the above realization finally resolves the crisis that had set into his life three years ago. With his marriage to Susila, love becomes a reality for him(not just “a foolish literary notion”) and before the book concludes, a note of resolution seems to have been struck. Chandran has a good job, which he likes, a beautiful wife whom he adores, a friend whom he trusts (though occasionally he remembers Ramu, being of the sentimental, sensitive kind). His earlier negative attitudes get replaced by more positive ones. He feels more secure now that he has learnt how to make the world of his dreams correspond to the world of reality, though not without the necessary pain and suffering. In other words, he grows up, matures into the adult world.C- THE DARK ROOM The third novel of the first phase, The Dark Room was published in 1938. In this novel Narayan seeks to project the trials and tribulations of traditional Hindu wife who nevertheless, finds courage to walk out on her tyrannical husband though it turns out to be a temporary affair, when she finds that he cannot brook any challenge, however reasonable, to his husbandly supremacy kindly given by tradition and socio-economic realities of a male-dominated, capital-centered society, She finds to her great chagrin that in the existing social structure she cannot fend for her inability to cope with a difficult world, make her turn back to her husband’s home. But the woman who returns to her husband’s home is not the same who had ventured out of it. She has come back with the sad realization that she has no ‘right’ to call anything her own in her husband’s money. Whenever, she wishes to do something for others, she begins to think about her material non- possessiveness. She realizes that her own will and desires have no meaning outside the parameters of her husband’s will and authority. Though she herself can be an object of proud display for the husband, her own independent entity or individuality does not count, This is the only time Narayan chooses to write directly about the plight of83 (middle class) Indian woman within the traditional bond of marriage. Though he shows their pitiful condition with sympathy, he is unable to envision a better alternative for them. In this novel neither realism nor myth seems to offer any hopeful solution to the age- old problems faced by the majority of woman even in the period of so-called renaissance. Savitri, the wife of Ramani, is the protagonist of the novel. She is a typical self-effacing Hindu wife who has put up with the petty tyrannies of her husband for the fifteen old years of their married life. As she herself admits that how important she was, she thought. But she had not the slightest power to do anything at home, and too, after fifteen years of married life Thus, we see that Savitri is at the extreme of man as social phenomena. She is suffering because she is constantly attending to the needs of her husband, her children, her friends, without ever articulating her own needs and desires, let alone fulfill them. It is not surprising, then that when her husband drags her to the movies without any consideration of her wishes in the matter Savitri ends up so totally engrossed in the mythic World. The mythic world sented on the screen is so attractive that she has no desire to rept leave it and return to the mundane world of reality:The picture carried Savitri with it, and when in the end Kuchela stood in his pooja (prayer) room and lighted camphor and incense before the image of God, Savitri brought her palms together and prayed. ...,The switching, on of the lights, the scurry of feet, and a blue-coated husband yawning, had the air of a vulgar anticlimax. She loathed the dull drab prospect of changing her saree, dinning and sleeping. (p. 30). When Ramani starts an affair with one of his employes, Savitri realizes that she can no longer tolerate this indignity on top of everything else. She, ultimately, expresses her grief and anger and asks Ramani to give up “ the other woman”, telling him that otherwise she, his wife, will no longer will live with him: “Do you think I am going to stay here? We are responsible for our position; we accept food, shelter, and comforts that you give, and are what we are. Do you think that I will stay in your house, breathe the air of your property, drink the water here, and eat food you buy with your money ? No, I'll starve and die in the open, under the sky, a roof for which we need be obliged to no man.” (pp. 112-113).85 Ramani tells her that she is quite free to leave, since he will not be browbeaten by a woman into giving up anything he desires. He says : “Very well. Take your things and get out this moment."(p. 113) When Savitri says that she will also take the children with her, Ramani refuses to let her to do so, with the full force of patriarchy behind him: “ Things? I don’t possess anything in this world, What possession can a woman call her own except her body? Everything else that she has is her father’s, her husband's, or her son’s. So take these too....” She removed her diamond earrings, the diamond studs on her nose, her necklace, gold bangles and rings, and threw them at him, “How, come on, children, get up! Let us get out.” She tried to go near the children. He barred her way. “Don’t touch them or talk to them. Go yourself, if you want. They are my children.”(p.113). And Savitri once again realizes the powerlessness of her situation as an economically dependent woman: She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Yes you are right. They are yours; absolutely you paid the midwife and the nurse. You pay for their cloths and teachers. You86 are right, didn’t say that a woman owns nothing? She broke down, staring at their fidgeting forms on the beds. “What will they do without me?” (p.113). And so Savitri leaves She has no money and nowhere to go. When she tries to commit suicide by drawing, she is saved from such an end by a locksmith cum-burglar. He later helps her to get a job, at her own request, as a cleaner and helps at the village temple. It seems that mythic mode will finally come to her rescue and that within it she will be able to obtain the peace she could not within the realist mode: What more fitting life she thought, could one choose that serving a God in his shrine? A half measure of rice was more than what she deserved, she felt. She could manage very well with it, She would dedicate her life to the service of God, numb her senses and memory forget the world and spend the rest of her years thus and die. No husband, home or children. (p. 170). The promise of peace within the detached mythic mode turns out to be illusory. Not only is the priest of the temple unsympathetic and unhelpful, but Savitri herself is unable to reconcile herself to the loss of her children . Although she chides herself for her foolish yearning for children:Ah, children! She would harden herself not to yearn for them. She would pray for them at the shrine night and day, and God would protect them: they could grow, go their ways, and tackle life according as fate had ordained for each of them. What was this foolish yearning for children, this dragging attachment? One ought to do one’s duty and then drift away. Did the birds and the animals worry about their young ones after they had learnt to move? Why should she alone think of them night and day? Babu, Sumati, and Kamala were quite grown-up now; but Kamala gave no end of trouble over bath and food. Suppose she grew dirty and emaciated? Savitri dismissed this fear with a desperate effort. They were his children. He had paid for the midwife and for clothes, and for everything. He had said that she had no right to wake them up. (pp. 170-71) At last she cannot bring herself to forget them and, soon enough, decides to return to them. The novel ends her ignonimous return to her children and husband. Nothing changes. Ramani continues to treat her as before. Thus we see that once again Savitri acquiesces to the system. At the very end when Savitri is lying in the hall half asleep one afternoon, she hears88. the Locksmith’s Cry “ Locks repaired!” from the street. Though she initially becomes excited at the thought of seeing Mari again and may be offering him some money or food as thanks, she recalls the cook before he goes out to fetch him: ‘As Ranga (the cook) was about to step out she changed her mind. ‘Let him go, don’t call Him’. She thought: why should | call him here? What have I. (p. 210). And on such a depressing note, the novel ends. Neither realism, nor myth, nor any combination thereof (nor any other genres, for that matter), provides the problems of the majority of middle class Hindu housewife in Narayan’s world. Since I see genre not only as an artistic mode but also as symbolizing a particular attitude towards life. I think it quite appropriate to demand that a generic mode be a vehicle not only of conveying or describing life’s problems but also of providing some means of solving them. The ending reflects as the triumph of the mythic tradition that upholds womanly selflessness and sacrifice. The ending scarcely glorifies Savitri’s return. On the contrary, the reader is made to feel pity for this woman who had no alternative but to return. Thus, we see that neither the mythic not the realistic mode has been seen to be capable of providing any satisfactory solutions to Savitri’s plight.89 ‘The theme of the novel is disharmony created between Savitri and her husband Ramani, who is the office secretary of Engladia Insurance Company, by the arrival of a beautiful. In order to reveal the character of Shanta Bai, Narayan has depicted her romance with Ramani and has brought them also in focus to highlight their relations. This is the reason that Savitri dominates the scene of action in the first four chapters of the novel and the story is told with her viewpoint. There is a sudden shift in the narrative perspective Chapter Five when the interview for the selection of a woman probationer is held in the Malgudi office of Engladia Insurance Company. The author uses the neutral omniscience point of view to describe the conversation between Pareira, the office Manager and Kantaiengar, the Accountant of the Company as they react to the interview. Lator on we see gossip about Ramani’s growing infatuation for Shanta Bai who has been selected as the lady canvasser for the Company: “Out- side, Pareira told Kantaiengar, “I shall have to fix up nuptial chamber in the office, lengar.” ‘The early part of Chapter Six describes how Ramani stops at Shanta Bai’s room in the night while returning from the club and then takes her first on the river bank and later on to witness the picture, brings the two characters and their romance in full perspective. Chapter Seven deals with the reverts to Savitri point of view and describes her90 break up with her husband again. In Chapter Eight, however the focus saves Savitri as she throws herself into the river to end her life. In Chapter Nine we get a view of Ramani’s house in the absence of Savitri and learn about the anxious inquiries of her children Babu , Sumati and little Kamala about their mather. In the end the novel deals with Ramani visits to Shanta Bai and to the latter's display of her incorrigible mood of romantic depression. The writer uses the scene with a view to describe Savitri’s revolt on the self willed Ramani. In Chapter Ten the focus shifts alternately to Savitri and persons of he village Sukkerdocile Mari, his domineering wife Ponni and the greedy priest of the village temple in whose contact Savitri comes after leaving her husband, Chapter Eleven deals with the sorrows and anaxeity for the safety of their mother to the dispair of agitated Ramani. The novel ends with Savitri’s return to her house. The theme treated by Narayan in this novel involved the list of different characters who cannot be depicted adequately by limiting the point of view to anyone of them, This is the reason why Narayan adopts the neutral omniscience point of view in this novel . Narayan’s characters come quite close to those Chaucer and Dicckens as for as their quaint behaviour , exaggerated traits of their temperamant and clumsy habits are concerned . But whereas the9 oddities seen to have been appended to the adult characters of Chaucer and Dickens from outside, they go so well with Narayan’s Children. The world of Children is also the world of fears. We see in the novel the fear of parents, particularly of father , of teachers, of policeman, of ghosts and evil spirits and even of other stronger children. For example- Swaminathan is always afraid of his father, his school teacher, his headmaster and even some of his friends in. Swami and Friends. Sumati in The Dark Room is afraid of anyone in a dark room with her face to the wall. She and her sister Kamla are also afraid of their cook's eyes, believing that they could convert anyone into a stone. According to. M.K. Naik, ''the rustic couple, Mari and Poni , to whom Savitri turns for support after she has left her husband, provides a sub-plot in which Narayan is as sure about his purpose as he is confused about his stance in the main plot. Here is a frankly ironic picture of a marriage in which it is the wife that wears the pants in the house. Ponni has a clear-cut philosophy of husband —management which she expounds to Savitri: Naik , The Tronic Vission , A Study of the Fiction of R.K. Narayan , New Delhi Sterling, Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 1983, p. 22.92 Keep the men under the rod, and they will be all right. Show them that you care for them and they will tie you and treat you like a dog, (p. 140). Here in Ponni’s evaluation of her own husband rounded off with a striking generalization: He is splendid boy, but sometimes he goes out with had friends who force him to drink, and then he will come home and try to break all the pots and beat me . But when I know that he has been drinking, the moment he comes home, I trip him up from behind and push him down, and sit on his back for a little while; he will wriggle a little, swear at me and then sleep, and wake up in the morning quiet as a lamb, I cannot believe any husband is unmanageable in this universe. (p. 14). M.K. Naik has remarked on the man-woman relationship in The Dark Room in these words: It is difficult to sympathies fully to with Savitri and the same is true of the two other sides of the love triangle Ramani the husband, and Shanta Bai, the “other woman’. Ramani is an insufferable cad, an utterly self centered and self indulgent man, a little dictator who makes his93 whole family dance to his tune. His treatment of his wife swings between the two extremes of blandishment and browbeating, depending upon his ever changing moods. Shanta Bai must be said to be one of the least realized characters in Narayan’s fiction. All that we know about her is that she is a bold, self-possessed and educated woman who has left her husband because he ill-treated her. But there is no attempt to project a serious contrast between the traditional housewife (Savitri) and the new woman (Shanta Bai). There seems to be a halfhearted attempt to present shanta Bai as a romantic figure also. She tells Ramani that she can not “exist without a copy of the Rubaiyat.... His person who would have understood the secret of my soul. No one tries to understand me; that is tragedy of my life”. (p. 156). This is not workedout adequately however, and the upshot is that Shanta Bai remains a pale sketch." It seems that novelist has intends to use double-edged irony by presenting the name of Savitri as the prisoner of the Dark Room. For, while her mythological namesake had wrested her husband’s house as a gesture of protest against what she might legitimately construe as a * id, p.2194 violation of the sacred marriage vows by her husband who had been bestowing his fervour and favours on another woman. While the mythological Savitri was an embodiment of wifely duties enjoined on her by the Hindu Dharmashastras, Narayan’s Savitri is a modern woman who is on the lookout for her dependent human identity, because she does not wish to remain content with her status as a mere appendage or slave to her husband . It may safely be claimed that our modern Savitri cannot totally free herself from the dead weight of a blind tradition. When she realizes that her search for independence and personal dignity does not lead her anywhere because the dice is heavily loaded against her. She accepts her fate with calm resignation though an inexpressible despair seeps into her soul Sayitri’s journey from her accepted role as a submissive wife and a doting mother to her rebellious learning of her husband’s home, to her search for the meaning of life, to her delightful realization of the sweet fruits of independence, to her terrifying awareness of the futility and frustration of a lonely woman’s life, to her final return home, with a part of her being dead and an emotional void shaping all her vitality. Her return to her husband’s house in joyless. Accompanied, as it is by a feeling of absolute helplessness end despair. Thus, Savitri is not only the protagonist of the novel but the guiding spirit of its theme.95 In the words of Harish Raizada'* realism which governs Narayan’s approach to the problem of women’s resurgence, finds its best expression in the faithful description of South Indian household in the novel . One finds here one of the rare vignettes of an Indian household. The picture is both delightful and informative. Almost effortlessly he unfolds scene after scene thoroughly enjoyable incidents of human life - a mother’s anxiety for the welfare of her children, an eccentric husband's ruthless caprices and autocratic ways, wife’s fear of her husband and concern for his comfort, son’s pretence of illness to escape classes , father’s thrashing of children at their mischief's, mistress’s ire at the late arrival of servant and servant's angry and mute grudges, quarrels between husband and wife and among younger brother and sisters. We are told how the atmosphere in the house is peaceful and pleasant if the master is in good humour and heavy and irksome if he is annoyed and anger. We also learn how a helpless woman expresses her anger against her husband by lying hungry in a dark room and how her husband and children react to herself-inflicted torture. The various problems of household life which are often faced and witnesses by all of us in our own life, have been rendered very faithfully and artistically by novelist, * Harish Raizada, R.K . Narayan : A Critieal Study of His Works, New Delhi : Young Asia Publication , 1969, pp. 28-29,96 RK. Narayan’s characteristic genial humour provides an additional charm to these trivial and commonplace incidents of human life. It transforms them into highly interesting and engaging anecdotes. Though owing to its somber theme, The Dark Room is not so tich in humour as are his other novels, yet even here the incongruities, the hypocrisies and vanities of human life provide sufficient scope for the author’s diversion. Whenever there is a situation such as an angry husband’s cajoles and false show of love towards his devoted wife, (p. 15), or a coquette’s flirtations designed to exploit her easy victim,(p. 83), or the women’s vain show of their superiority over their neighbours, (p. 23), he uses his Comic Muse to expose the hypocrisy and affectation in human nature and relationships. Though sparing in the use of satire, Narayan is an expert in the use of irony and provides many quips at the cost of his characters. Ramani laughs at his son Babu when the latter absent himself from his classes under the false pretext of'a headache: “Listen”, Ramani said to Savitri, “Bear this in mind There is a golden law of headaches. They come in time for school and leave in time for cricked.” (p. 16). Similarly when Ramani’s wife casually remat y sister says that she is expecting her eighth child in a few month.” he retorts humorously: “So your sister has gone far ahead of you?” (p. 100).97 Savitri and Shanta Bai represent two different types of women often portrayed by Narayan in his novels. The former is his typical heroine. She is a model Indian wife-docile modesty obedient, gentle religious and loving. Her only anxiety is the welfare of her husband and children and her only happiness is their happiness. Generally she is satisfied with her environments and has no desire to break away from it. But if circumstances compel her, as they do in her case and she is forced to leave her house to assert her personality and turn over a new leaf in her life, she fails miserably in her efforts and is ultimately led to return to her own cage. This homely and domestic type of woman is a great | favorite of Narayan and is found in almost every one of his novels. Shanta Bai is a butterfly type of woman such as is becoming very common in modern India in the wake of the western civilization. With his keen insight, Narayan discerns every subtle and varying pose in the temperament and manners of this most wanton of his female characters. According to Lakshmi Holmstrom’ Savitri’s tragic situation in the novel is counter pointed by the many pictures we get of the other women here, their comic illusions and their solutions. The contrast “Lakshmi. Holmstrom, The Novels of RK. Narayan , Caleutta : A Writer Workshop Publication , 1973, pp. 45-46.98, between Savitri and Shantabai is implicit throughout the book, Sahntabai is an educated and self-made, woman a stranger to Malgudi society. Unlike Savitri, Shantabai has questioned the ideals of her society: she has judged her husband, found him wanting, and has left him; she speaks of no moral difficulty in any of this. Shantabai finds it difficult to maintain her economic independence, but she enjoys her emotional freedom. This is exactly the reverse of the situation in the book comes from Shantabai’s Theatrical display of hysterics: I can’t exist without a copy of The Rubaiyat; you will always find it under my pillow or in my bag. His philosophy appeals to me Dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow. * What, without asking whither hurried hence and so on. The cup of life must be filled to the brim and drained; another and another cup to drown the impertinence of this memory. In this world Khayyam is the only person who would have understood the secret of my soul. No one tries to understand me; ‘into this Universe and why not knowing,” etc. I am as wind along the waste. (p. 113) On the other hand, Ramani, it is clear, is deeply moved by all this and contrasts it with his wife’s ‘crude sulking in the dark room... that was99 why, he felt, women should be educated; it made all the difference. (p. 66). The situation between Savitri, Ramani and Shantabai is finely balanced; it is never resolved. At the end of the novel things go on as before; Savitri returns to her routine within the family, the hall bench is still at the office in Shantabai’s possession. On the other hand, in The Dark Room, the domestic situation has never been really threatened, as it will be in Mr. Sampath and The Guide. M.K. Naik says in his The Ironic Vision’? that Narayan tries to tell a serious tale of silent suffering and temporary rebellion ending in object surrender Savitri, a middle-class housewife, finds her husband Ramani infatuated with Shanta Bai, his new office assistant and leaves him in a fit of desperation only to realize the bitter truth that a traditional Hindu wife of her class ultimately pockets her pride and returns, broken, defeated and sullenly acquiescent, to her still unrepentant husband. ‘The central theme here is evidently the plight of the traditional Hindu wife and it could have been treated effectively, employing one or more from among a number of possible and equally valid modes including the tragic, the pathetic, the ironical, the satirical and even "MLK. Naik, The Ironic Vision: A Study ofthe Fiction of R.K. Narayan , New Delhi: Sterling Publisher Pvt, Ltd. , 1983, pp. 18-19.100 the propagandistic. Narayan, however, appears to be strangely indecisive about his approach to his theme here and adopts no clear- cut strategy. If the title “Dark Room” is to be considered ironically symbolic in view of the fact that the protagonist is Savitri (literally, “She of the Sun’) and that sulking in the ‘dark room’ in the house is her only answer to her predicament, the novel provides little justification for any interpretation along these lines. Savitri is named after the ancient Hindu archetype of the constant wife whose legend appears in the Mahabharata, The Savitri of the ancient legend is a paragon of virtue and courage who confronts even Death to save her husband Satyavan and is finally victorious in the encounter, She could have provided the novelist with either a serious ot an ironic parallel here.