CHAPTER – 1

Introduction
R. K. Narayan, full name Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer

Narayanaswami, was an Indian writer, he was known for his works set in

the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of

early Indian literature in English, along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja

Rao.Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his

characters, and he has been compared to William Faulkner, who also

created a similar fictional town, and likewise explored with humour and

compassion the energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories have been

compared with those of Guy de Maupassant, because of his ability to

compress a narrative. He has also been criticised for the simplicity of his

prose. In a career that spanned over sixty years, Narayan received many

awards and honours, including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal

Society of Literature, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan,

India's third and second highest civilian awards. He was also nominated

to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament.Narayan's book

The Guide was adapted to film as Guide, a Hindi movie directed by Vijay

Anand. An English-language version was also released. The book was

also adapted to a Broadway play by Harvey Breit and Patricia Rinehart,

and was staged at Hudson Theatre in 1968 some of Narayan's short

stories were adapted by actor-director Shankar Nag into the television

series Malgudi Days.

Narayan's greatest achievement was making India accessible to the

outside world through his literature. He is regarded as one of the three

leading English language Indian fiction writers, along with Raja Rao and

Mulk Raj Anand. He gave his readers something to look forward to with

Malgudi and its residents and is considered to be one of the best novelists

India has ever produced. He brought small-town India to his audience in a

manner that was both believable and experiential. Malgudi was not just a

fictional town in India, but one teeming with characters, each with their

own idiosyncrasies and attitudes, making the situation as familiar to the

reader as if it were their own backyard

.R.K. Narayan is one of India's top notch writers. His novels are a

mix of human emotions and good natured humour. The best part of his

novels are that they are so close to real life behaviour that you can almost

feel that you are a part of the novel.

R. K. Narayan was born in Madras British India(now Chennai),

South India, in 1906, and educated there and at Maharaja's College in

Mysore. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his

studies at his father's school. As his father's job entailed frequent

transfers, Narayan spent part of his childhood under the care of his
maternal grandmother, Parvati. During this time his best friends and

playmates were a peacock and a mischievous monkey.

His grandmother gave him the nickname of Kunjappa, A name that

stuck to him in family circles. She taught him arithmetic, mythology,

classical Indian music and Sanskrit.[8]According to his youngest brother

R. K. Laxman, The family mostly conversed in English, and grammatical

errors on the part of Narayan and his siblings were frowned upon.While

living with his grandmother, Narayan studied at a succession of schools

in Madras, including the Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam,

C.R.C. High School, and the Christian College High School. Narayan

was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included Dickens,

Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy. When he was

twelve years old, Narayan participated in a pro-independence march, for

which he was reprimanded by his uncle; the family was apolitical and

considered all governments wicked.

Narayan moved to Mysore to live with his family when his father

was transferred to the Maharajah's College High School. The well-

stocked library at the school, as well as his father's own, fed his reading

habit, and he started writing as well. After completing high school,

Narayan failed the university entrance examination and spent a year at

home reading and writing; he subsequently passed the examination in

1926 and joined Maharaja College of Mysore. It took Narayan four years

to obtain his bachelor's degree, a year longer than usual. After being

persuaded by a friend that taking a master's degree (M.A.) would kill his

interest in literature, he briefly held a job as a school teacher; however, he

quit in protest when the headmaster of the school asked him to substitute

for the physical training master.The experience made Narayan realise that

the only career for him was in writing, and he decided to stay at home and

write novels. His first published work was a book review of Development

of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England.Subsequently, he started

writing the occasional local interest story for English newspapers and

magazines. Although the writing did not pay much (his income for the

first year was nine rupees and twelve annas), he had a regular life and few

needs, and his family and friends respected and supported his unorthodox

choice of career. In 1930, Narayan wrote his first novel, Swami and

Friends,an effort ridiculed by his uncleand rejected by a string of

publishers. With this book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that

creatively reproduced the social sphere of the country; while it ignored

the limits imposed by colonial rule, it also grew with the various socio-

political changes of British and post-independence India.

While vacationing at his sister's house in Coimbatore, in 1933,

Narayan met and fell in love with Rajam, a 15-year-old girl who lived
nearby. Despite many astrological and financial obstacles, Narayan

managed to gain permission from the girl's father and married her. [20]

Following his marriage, Narayan became a reporter for a Madras-based

paper called The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. The

publishers were thrilled to have a Brahmin Iyer in Narayan espousing

their cause. The job brought him in contact with a wide variety of people

and issues. Earlier, Narayan had sent the manuscript of Swami and

Friends to a friend at Oxford, and about this time, the friend showed the

manuscript to Graham Greene. Greene recommended the book to his

publisher, and it was finally published in 1935. Greene also counseled

Narayan on shortening his name to become more familiar to the English-

speaking audience. The book was semi-autobiographical and built upon

many incidents from his own childhood. Reviews were favourable but

sales were few. Narayan's next novel The Bachelor of Arts (1937), was

inspired in part by his experiences at college, and dealt with the theme of

a rebellious adolescent transitioning to a rather well-adjusted adult; it was

published by a different publisher, again at the recommendation of

Greene. His third novel, The Dark Room (1938) was about domestic

disharmony,[26] showcasing the man as the oppressor and the woman as

the victim within a marriage, and was published by yet another publisher;

this book also received good reviews. In 1937, Narayan's father died, and
Narayan was forced to accept a commission from the government of

Mysore as he was not making any money.

In his first three books, Narayan highlights the problems with

certain socially accepted practices. The first book has Narayan focusing

on the plight of students, punishments of caning in the classroom, and the

associated shame. The concept of horoscope-matching in Hindu

marriages and the emotional toll it levies on the bride and groom is

covered in the second book. In the third book, Narayan addresses the

concept of a wife putting up with her husband's antics and attitudes.

Rajam died of typhoid in 1939. Her death affected Narayan deeply

and he remained depressed for a long time; he was also concerned for

their daughter Hema, who was only three years old. The bereavement

brought about a significant change in his life and was the inspiration

behind his next novel, The English Teacher. This book, like his first two

books, is autobiographical, but more so, and completes an unintentional

thematic trilogy following Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts.

In subsequent interviews, Narayan acknowledges that The English

Teacher was almost entirely an autobiography, albeit with different

names for the characters and the change of setting in Malgudi; he also

explains that the emotions detailed in the book reflected his own at the

time of Rajam's death.

 Bolstered by some of his successes, in 1940 Narayan tried his hand

at a journal, Indian Thought. With the help of his uncle, a car salesman,

Narayan managed to get more than a thousand subscribers in Madras city

alone. However, the venture did not last long due to Narayan's inability to

manage it, and it ceased publication within a year. His first collection of

short stories, Malgudi Days, was published in November 1942, followed

by The English Teacher in 1945. In between, being cut off from England

due to the war, Narayan started his own publishing company, naming it

(again) Indian Thought Publications; the publishing company was a

success and is still active, now managed by his granddaughter. Soon, with

a devoted readership stretching from New York to Moscow, Narayan's

books started selling well and in 1948 he started building his own house

on the outskirts of Mysore; the house was completed in 1953.

His major Works included the following-

1. Swami and Friends 1935

2. The Guide 1958
3. A Tiger for Malgudi 1983
4. The Bachelor of Arts 1937
5. The Vendor of Sweets 1967
6. The Dark Room 1938
7. The English Teacher 1945
8. Mr. Sampath 1948
9. The Painter of Signs 1977
10.Talkative Man 1986
11.The World of Nagaraj 1990
12.Grandmother's Tale 1992
13.The Financial Expert 1952
14.Waiting for the Mahatma 1955
15.The Man-Eater of Malgudi 1961

Short Stories-

1. Malgudi Days 1942

2. An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories 1947
3. Lawley Road and Other Stories 1956
4. A Horse and Two Goats 1970
5. Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories 1985
6. The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories 1994

Mythological Writings-

1. Gods, Demons and Others 1964

2. The Ramayana 1973
3. The Mahabharata 1978
 R. K. NARAYAN’S SWAMI AND FRIENDS

Swami and Friends is the story of the tumultuous friendship of

Swaminathan, his four childhood friends, and a new boy named Rajam. It

takes place in British-colonial India in the year 1930. The story begins by

introducing Swaminathan and his friends Somu, Sankar, Mani, and Pea.

Swami talks about how different all of his friends are from one another

and how their differences actually make their friendships stronger. Soon,

however, a new boy arrives, named Rajam who Swami and Mani

absolutely hate. It isn’t until the three boys confront each other that they

realize they have a lot in common, and become fast friends. After a lot of

convincing, the other three boys accept Rajam too and the six boys are

temporarily at peace.Later, a prominent Indian politician is arrested and

Swami joins a mob of protesters. He gets swept up in the fervor of the

crowd and uses a rock to destroy school property. When the crowd is

broken apart, Swami is left to face the consequences of his actions. Not

only is Swami forced to switch to a more strict and rigorous school, but
Rajam is hurt by the actions of his friend, making their friendship

unstable.

In order to fix his friendship with Rajam, Swami must atone for his

actions; he decides to partner with Rajam to create their very own cricket

team called the M.C.C. The two boys are intensely passionate about the

team, but tensions rise as Swami’s strict school and intense workload get

in the way of his commitment. Rajam threatens to never speak to Swami

again if he misses the match of the year.

Despite his best efforts, Swami is forbidden by his strict

headmaster from leaving early to go to his daily practices. In a rage,

Swami throws his headmaster’s cane out of the window. Then, terrified

of the repercussions, Swami decides to run away from Malgudi for good

and never return. While fleeing, he becomes lost and wanders aimlessly

until he is rescued. He has missed the M.C.C. match he swore to go to.

Already knowing his best friend may never speak to him again, Swami

finds out from his friend Mani that Rajam is leaving the next morning to

move to a new city with his family.

In a desperate attempt to make amends, Swami rushes to the train

station the next morning with a book he intends to give to Rajam as a way

to make peace. He nearly misses the train’s departure and looks at his

best friend through the window, who still refuses to speak to him. Mani
must hand him the book, as he would not take it from Swami. The story

ends as the train pulls away and Swami is left wondering if his friend will

write and if he is forgiven.

This book is a thought-provoking read, perfect for a child between

the ages of 7 and 12. The conflict that arises throughout the book between

Swaminathan and his friends are problems that many children face today.

For example, towards the beginning of the book, Swami and his four

original friends do a great job of seeing the positives of their differences,

but struggle to see the good in Rajam. It is important to show young

readers the importance of making new friends and adjusting to changes

that may occur among the friends you already have. Another lesson that

is present in the book is the importance of using your words to express

how you feel, rather than your actions. When Swami is upset about the

politician who was arrested, he chooses to go out and join a mob rather

than talk to his parents or a teacher to express his feelings. Even if he

didn’t start with the intention to damage school property, the power of the

mob mentality and peer pressure are evident in Swami’s actions and he is

adequately punished for what he chose to do. Similarly, at Swami’s new

school, he gets very angry at his headmaster and expresses this by

throwing his cane out the window instead of using his words to explain

his frustration. The consequence of this was the guilty feeling he got from
his actions that caused him to run away and miss the cricket game. In

both cases, children can see that Swami could have avoided a lot of

trouble if he had taken a deep breath and used his words to explain how

he felt, instead of only using actions. Finally, the ending of this book is

not what you would consider your classic happy ending. In fact, the

reader is left wondering if Rajam ever forgave Swami for the way he

treated him. While this ending may seem unsatisfying to some, I believe

that is the point and that children who read this story will have a more

accurate depiction of the world they live in after they read it. I think it is

important to show them that not every story has a happy ending and this

is one of those stories.

Swami and friends had its genesis in September 1930 on

Vijayadashami. The novel is targely autobiographical though the

incidents are so filtered that personal is universalized. It local is a sleepy

town – Malgudi, and its protagonist a lad – swami, studying in a primary

school in the British era. The novel was published in 1935, a time colored

with nationalist movements and anti – British sentiments. Swami’s life

has its little, blitzkrieg when he is fired with the Swadeshi zeal and goes

about vandalizing his school rusticated from it. The novel is a paean to

childhood - its innocence, bungling, friendship, breakups and its own non

–duplicable unique world. Narayan is the greatest Indian writer who has
marvelously crafted a world of childhood for his readers, a world to

which each one of us relates irrespective of our national trajectories.

Meenakshi Mukherjee rightly says, “R. K. Narayan successfully

achieves a universal vision through his non – metropolitan situation.

The Exposition

The novel open with unpleasant Monday routines of Swaminathan,

getting up in the morning, doing his home work, getting ready and going

to Albert mission school. Character like swami’s headmaster fire-eyed

Vedanayagam, his History teacher D.Pillai known for his kindness. And

his scripture masters Mr.Ebenezer a fanatic are introduced. It is in

Scripture class his swami’s blood is heated up, as his teacher criticizes his

religious faith in Hinduism. It was British India and so Christianity was

imposed on the students by teaching it as a subject (religious

imperialism). But the Brahmin Swami did never accept Christianity as

eating flesh and drinking wine was permitted in it, Swami’s friends are

also introduced – some the monitor, Mani the mighty, good for nothing

Shankar the most brilliant and Samuel the pea (based on his size).

Rajam and Mani

River SARAYU the pride of Malgudi is introduced. It is here

swami and his friends spend most of their leisure. Rajam anew student in
their class who spoke English Exactly like a “European” was respected

above all (English was to be feared and respected in British India). In

addition he was police superintendent’s son. Thus Rajam was rival

toMani and so swami would act as a cord of communication between

them. Soon they became good friends at the banks of Sarayu.

Swami’s Grandmother

Swami spends most of his time with his granny (which is absent in

today’s kids) and shares his admiration for his new friend Rajam. Soon

the weekend comes and swami waits for his dad to leave and then sets out

to meet his friends. He spends time at Rajam’s home with Mani. Rajam

shows his attitude as superintendent’s son.

Somu Shankar and Pea refuse to talk to swami and name him

“tail”- a long thing that attaches itself to an ass or a dog referring to

Rajam which upsets him. According ro them, ‘how can everyone be a son

of superintendent, swami’s attention But swami, being upset with his new

name considered them to be enemies and thus could not enjoy. Rajam and

Mani were absent when all this happened, Rajam had promised swami

that he would visit his house on Saturday. Swami desires to show his

attitude as a lawyer’s son. He borrows his father’s room and pleads his

mother to cook better than other days. Everything goes smoothly as he

planned. Swami entering the class finds the word ‘tail’ written on the
blackboard. A fight beings. Mani and Rajam appear and try to stop them.

Mani is infuriated as he understands the issue and starts fighting with

Somu.

A few days later Rajam invites Swami and Mani to his house

promising them a surprise house. After gathering Rajam delivers a lecture

on friendship and also warns them of the punishment for the ones who

have ‘enemies’ as mentioned in that he got for them. In this way

‘enemies’ become close friends. Swami’s mother Lakshmi is about to

give birth and stays in her room and thus swami loses her food and

attention. He sleeps with his granny. One fine day doctors and nurses

appear at his house. The new baby ultimately arrives swami being excited

shares about the ‘funny looking creature’ to his friends at school.

The final examination is about to come and everyone started

focusing on his studies. Swami’s father forces him to study (which

happens at every home even today). He missed his chat with his granny

and his fun time with his friends at the banks of Sarayu. He develops an

interest in the new member of his family.

“Now a day’s beauty is taken for granted, yet we take time to

notice it when it is uploaded to social media”. Swami was the only one

still focusing on friendship while his friends shifted their focus to studies;

Swami tries his best to study and starts practicing maps. He say “Europe
was like a camel’s head” (Europe five sense animal’ – might be author’s

voice, in British India) commenting on the shape of the content, and

questing for the origin of maps.

During the examination,swami writes short answers and complites

his exam before his friends. After the exams vacations began with the

final ‘prayer’. Students leave the campus with a lot of fun throwing ink

on each other shirt that marks the colorful beginning.

Vacations were boring for swami without a hoop (metal part of the

cycle wheel to play with). He meets a coaching and requests a hoop and

gets cheated. In the rage, swami and his friends kidnap the coachman’s

son by showing him a colorful top (an object to play with). How he

comes out to be wise enough to run away with it.

Swami makes fun with his friends after his father leaves for the

court. Soon vacation began for his father too and he forces his son to

learn the previous year lessons It irritates swami. In the evening, his dad

takes him swami to his club as a compensation for the morning torture.

There is a protest at the banks of Sarayu against the arrest of Gauri

Shankar, a prominent political leader of Bombay. Swami’s which it is

said “let every Indian spit on England and the quantity of Saliva will be

enough to drown England (author’s voice – shows the anger thought it

appears to mean also the fact that Europe can be defeated anytime by

Indians).

Swami is admitted to Board High School, His friend Shankar

leaves the town. His friend circle Shankar and is limited to Rajam and

Mani. Rajam visits swami as he had forgiven him and inquires about his

new school. Swami talks his Muslim classmate Akbar Ali who irritates

Rajam because he is a Hindu. Rajam treats Muslims as his enemies

because they destroyed their temples and tortured them (Hindu Muslim

dispute is one of the unsolved issues till date). Rajam’s dad was a

Brahmin but his didn’tparticipate in religious ceremonies (he was in he

process of assimilating the western principles). His family did not

intervene in the political affairs as his father was a government servant.

Rajam plans to start a cricket team (imperialism, of Indians). MCC

(Malgudi Cricket club) is made the name of their team. Soon the issue of

tax comes up. “The government seems to tax everything in the world”, is

the omniscient comment in the text (Tax were collected from Indians).

They start making a list of materials that their team requires.

After meeting Rajam he runs off into a forest. Soon he feels

homesick and decides to return back home but loses his way. He really

suffers from deliried. On the other side his parents are worried and search

for him everywhere. Swami he faints, he is rescued by a traveler and is

taken to the forest officer. He doesn’t even know that it is the day of the

match.

The forest officer sends a letter to Rajam’s father, and also informs

Rajam about it but he acts indifferent towards the issue as he is worried

that his team was loosing because of swami’s absence. Soon swami is

brought back to home. All his relatives come to meet him, but swami’s

heart longs for his friends. Mani comes to meet him and it is through him

he gets to know that the match is over and their team lost. This grieves

swami because he did all this only for that match and for his friend and

now he lost both.

Swami learns from Mani that Rajam is leaving malgudi as his

father has been transferred. Swami is upset because his friend is leaving

him with anger. He sets out to meet Rajam at the railway station with a

book to gift him. The station is crowded with men in uniform. He and

Mani cannot get near Rajam. As the train starts moving swami runs with

a hope and apologizes to Rajam. Before he could utter a word the train

leaves but he succeeds in giving the gift Rajam. However he is never

fully convinced.

R.K.Narayan covered all the political issues with a safer theme of

friendship. Here lies the intelligence of the writer.

 Swami had a lot of friends but he limited himself to Rajam and

Mani.

Rajam was the guy with an endearing personality. He is smarter

and grown-up than Mani. He believes in self-respect. Rajam is very

sincere in academics. He likes assisting or helping his friends in

academics. Mani possesses a propensity for domination amongst every

one of his age but Rajat didn’t feel that within him. In fact, Rajam tries to

put forward a hand for friendship with Mani.

The character of Mani

And on the other hand, Mani never brings books to school or

submits his homework on time. He is completely opposite to Rajam in the

field of academics. In fact, he is also known for sleeping bravely in the

class. Mani always sits on the last bench of the class.

Mani reckoned Rajam as his enemy as he is jealous of his lifestyle.

Unlike Rajat, Mani comes from a very poor family. His parents hardly

afford to pay his schooling expenses. During the enmity, Swami acted as

a middleman in delivering the pieces of chats to each other. Mani is fond

of dominating the entire class of his power. He likes bullying his juniors

and also some his classmates. He is tagged as the hero of his class. Mani
is a very weak student academically. He is superstitious and believes in

ghost.

Swami’s Teachers

Vedanayakam was Swami’s class teacher. He was also the Head

Master of the school. He scourges Swami for doing arithmetic sums

wrong. This is the reason why Swami hates doing arithmetic.

Besides, he likes his history teacher, Pillai. He is portrayed as a

very kind person.

Swami once came on bad terms with the teacher of Scripture Class,

Ebenezer. He keeps on praising the holiness of Jesus. Swami felt really

exasperated for this. Moreover, he also called Krishna as the Arch

Scoundrel as he stole butter and danced with girls. In response to that,

Swami asks his teacher, on why did Jesus ate flesh and wine. The teacher

pinched Swami on his left ear for putting forward his question.

Innocence of youth

The innocence of youth is the fundamental theme of Swami and

Friends. Swaminathan and his friends are 10 years- old at the beginning

of the story, and are prone to all the typical behaviors of young children:

they are fascinated with toys; they daydream in class; they take their

families for granted, and they disdain schoolwork. Rather than ploting or
planning out their adventures with deliberate intention, these boys

participate in the risk taking and spontaneous mischief characteristic of

young children. At their youthful age, they are not yet fully equipped to

understand the world around them, the class difference that already

work to inevitably devide them, or to understand the repercussions of

their actions

Swami and Friends opens in the year 10, which is precisely

seventeen years before India gained independence from its British

administration. With this in mind R.K. Narayan’s first book is set right at

the height of British colonial rule. Mr. Ebenzar’s bigoted lectures against

Hinduism in the opening chapter are our first originals of this growing

cultural friction much like the colonial British authorities. Mr. Ebenzar is

Christian, and he berates the Hindus of Swaminathan’s Biblical scripture

class with the mocking contempt of intrinsic, colonial bias. Later in the

book this cultural friction moves from the classroom to the streets of

Malgudi when British authorities arrest the prominent Indian politician,

Gauri Shankar. In the angry violent and destructive mob scene that

follows this arrest and in Swaminathan’s own belligerent participation the

friction between colonized and colonizer not only illustrates the

established order.

Friendship
 Friendship is the main theme in the novel Swami and Friends. He

has Swami was not an extraordinary character like all the other boys of

his age. He likes spending time with his companions’. Mani is

Swaminathan’s best friend. Swami’s family is comfortable in the sense of

finance as a lawyer. But Mani isn’t. His family lives in poverty. He is not

backbencher. Even though he is fainthearted and timid he becomes

aggressive and undisciplined at times with all his companions, Mani

stand be the strongest and Rajam’s life is the complete opposite of Mani.

He is sincere in his academics and has self-respect. The author portrayed

him with a towards Rajam as he was living a rich lifestyle and feels

Rajam to be doing showoffs. But later, Rajam solves this problem and he

forwards his hand of friendship to him. He also invited them to his home

which played a vital role in suppressing the enmity. Apparently Rajam

justifies everything with a concrete reason. On the other hand Mani was

smart enough to accept his friendship.

Cricket in life

The rest of the novel deals with cricket and the match which was

played and lost swami had to be absent in the drill class for which he

gave various excuses. When the Head master exposes him and punishes

him, Swami runs away to Madras, but collapse on the outskirts of

Malgudi. This is followed by prayers and offerings to gods if they

descend from their heights and rescues him. Finally Swami returns home.

Historical Context of Swami and Friends

Swami and Friends was written between the first and second World
Wars, a literary period of notable creative experimentation that likely
encouraged Narayan in his mission to create a uniquely personal,
comedic depiction of his remembered childhood. The historical context of
British colonial rule over India is also particularly crucial to the story, as
Swami and his friends begin to comprehend the essential oppression of
their country while simultaneously growing up loving aspects of England,
in particular the sport of cricket. Britain would continue to rule India until
the late 1940s, so Swami witnesses the stirrings of the independence
movement led by Mahatma Gandhi that would come to redefine the
nature of India in the coming years.

In “Reading R. K. Narayan Postcolonially,” for instance, Fakrul

Alam proposes a survey of Narayan’s critical reception informed by a
postcolonial approach. Positioned in this field of research, the essay
offers a close textual analysis of only Swami and Friends, seeking to
decode messages of political and cultural resistance carefully
camouflaged in a text seemingly disengaged from politics. While keeping
aware of Narayan’s ambivalence—his attraction to and repulsion from
the colonial project—the aim of this essay is to explore the strategies of
resistance employed in his narrative. The first part raises the ineluctable
debate over the legitimacy of using the colonizer’s language. The second
part reads the novel as a counter-narrative of exoticism and mystification.
And the third part reads Narayan’s navigation between memory and
history as a maneuver to politicize the self.

The debate in India over the use of the colonizer’s language may
have lost some of its urgency by now, but it still triggers cultural
apprehensions in the works of some postcolonial writers in other parts of
the world. The West Indian poet Derek Walcott, for instance, offers a
pertinent example of linguistic angst. “To change your language you must
change your life,” he writes in “Codicil” (Green Knight 7), which
displays a theme of linguistic schizophrenia that occurs in his other
poems. In “A Far Cry From Africa,” a poem about divided cultural
identities, the speaker’s anxiety bursts out as a rhetorical question: “how
choose / Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?” (Castaway
29-30). Such a debate pursues a more rigorous argument about utilizing
the colonizer’s language in a colonial context. R. K. Narayan’s Swami
and Friends was published in 1935, some twelve years before the
independence of India. In a period characterized by Gandhi’s Swadeshi
movement, calling for an indigenous identity, Narayan’s use of English
posits him as a custodian of the colonizer’s language. Yet his ironic
declaration, “it is almost a matter of national property and prestige now to
declare one’s aversion to this language, and to cry for its abolition”
(“Fifteen Years” 14), speaks of a challenging stance that he would
develop in his maturing vision of the English language.

Narayan, however, was not the only writer in the 1930s to adopt
English for his creative project. Swami and Friends was one of three
fictional works that marked a new phase in the development of the Indian
novel in English at that period. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935)
and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura (1938) were published around the same time.
Raja Rao was especially concerned to justify his use of the English
language. His foreword to Kanthapura, probably more famous than the
narrative itself, is considered now as a manifesto for the use of English in
Indian writing. Rao’s famous statement that “one has to convey in a
language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own” (vii), justified
the special use of the colonizer’s language. His foreword raises linguistic
and stylistic anxieties as he confesses that “telling [his story] has not been
easy.” Then in three distinct and straightforward sentences, he projects
his linguistic dilemma: “[w]e cannot write like the English. We should
not. We cannot write only as Indians” (vii). Rao expresses here a real
concern about the enmeshed relationship between the mimic act and the
creative gesture in the use of the English language.

Rao’s anxieties are not echoed in Narayan’s handling of the foreign

language, for Narayan never felt the need to apologize for his use of
English in his creative texts. It is in paratextual asides that he candidly
presents, rather than anxiously defends, his linguistic choice: “I was never
aware I was using a different, a foreign language when I wrote in English,
because it came to me very easily” (qtd. in Walsh 7). Narayan, who
believed that English “is an absolutely swadeshi language,” announced
unabashedly: “it is my hope that English will soon be classified as a non-
regional Indian language” (“Fifteen Years” 8). In fact, Narayan
announces here a linguistic deviation taking the form of both
“abrogation,” i.e., calling for the equality of all forms of English, and
“appropriation,” i.e., articulating indigenous concerns through the
colonizer’s language and forms of writing (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin
3). Narayan’s textual rendering of this linguistic divergence is clearly
manifest in Swami and Friends.

The novel charts the life of a ten-year-old Indian schoolboy. It

records the happiness and disappointments of a child groping his way
towards growth. More episodic than linear, the text narrates Swami’s
negotiation of a mature identity at home with a stern father, at school with
a harsh educational system, and, in the street, with a country under
colonization. Narayan couches his seemingly simple story into a very
plain style and an almost childlike language. The opening sentences
illustrate the style employed consistently in the narrative: “It was Monday
morning. Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes. He considered
Monday specially unpleasant in the calendar” (Swami 1). Shashi Tharoor
offers one of the harshest examples of criticism as he attacks “the banality
of Narayan’s concerns, the narrowness of his vision, the predictability of
his prose, and shallowness of the pool of experience and vocabulary from
which he drew” (“Comedies of Suffering”). Even though derided as
shallow and trite, the simple language Narayan uses reflects the content
of the narrative, the story of a child. This linguistic choice, however, goes
beyond its effective function as a technique of narration to embrace a
mode of deviation. Indeed, the pervasive use of a simplified language,
free of embellishment and pretense, conforms to Narayan’s call to
Indianize English. “The [English] language must be taught in a simple
manner,” he advocates in his essay “English in India,” “through a basic
vocabulary, [and] simplified spelling” (468). From this perspective,
Swami and Friends constitutes a leading literary example of appropriating
the English language in India, domesticating its structure, and
transforming the mimic act of using the colonizer’s tongue into an act of
resistance. This has paved the way to more audacious linguistic
deviations, as provided much later by Salman Rushdie’s chutnified
English. Shakespeare’s Caliban’s famous lines that announce his
subversive use of the master’s language are boldly exemplified by later
Indian writers of English: you taught me language, and my use of it is to
make it mine.¹ Narayan’s use of a personalized English is an ambivalent
act of mimicry and mockery that announces a “menace” to the colonizer
who is kept alert by the potential danger of dealing with subjects who are
“almost the same, but not quite” (Bhabha 86).

The fact that all languages are carriers of their own cultural,
literary, and religious heritage, does not seem to hinder Narayan’s project
of appropriating the English language. V. S. Naipaul explains that to
make English one’s own is to “cleanse” it, and enables narrating Indian
culture in “a correct English,” with “no strangeness, no false comedy, no
distance” (“The Master of Small Things”). The fact that Narayan does not
provide a glossary to explain Indian words further emphasizes his
linguistic resistance. Phrases like “Gandhi ki Jai,” for example, refers to
Indian history (Ashroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 3) and religious allusions
(4), which are inserted into the text without italicization, translation, or
explanation. These instances of “metonymic gaps” provide “the most
subtle form of abrogation” (122-23). In representing Indian culture in a
synecdochic way, these devices resist interpretation, and, thus, create a
gap, a distance between the writer’s culture and the colonial culture. Even
though written in the language of the colonizer, Swami and Friends
deploys strategies of retrieving the Indian culture and language. The
scriptural power of the English language is undermined by traces of
indigenous language not thoroughly erased. In an attempt to acquit
himself from charges of targeting a specific audience, mainly an English
one, Narayan claims: “When I write, I write for myself. While writing, I
don’t think of readers’ reactions” (“An Interview” 234). Even though
such a claim cannot be taken at its value, Narayan matches word to act in
his novel by providing a glossary-free text. Such a gesture acquits him
from the charge of playing the local intelligentsia, translating the East to
the West.

The role of the native intercessor is assigned to Rajam, Swami’s

newly-arrived friend, who speaks “very good English, ‘exactly like a
“European”’; which meant that few in the school could make out what he
said” (Swami 12). Narayan’s ironic use of inverted commas in this
sentence is quite significant. By encapsulating the second phrase of the
sentence in single commas, and further encasing “European” in double
quotation marks, he shows the double estrangement of a newly rising
Indian elite, a hybrid caste, as Thomas Babington Macaulay would
characterize in his 1835 “Minute on Indian Education,” as “Indian in
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in
intellect” (par. 30). The sly criticism directed towards Macaulay’s
linguistic and cultural program is elicited through the unpleasant
character of Rajam. “[D]ressed like ‘a European boy’” (Swami 182),
Rajam epitomizes the cultural transvestite, estranged both from his Indian
culture and the European set. He is represented as a character who is
neither fully Indian nor authentically English; he haunts the text and
informs its gesture of resistance. An incarnation of a western genre,
Swami and Friends narrates a story of filiation. In a deviant maneuver of
resistance, Narayan writes an India of his own.

Swami and Friends, as well as the major bulk of Narayan’s oeuvre,

is set in a fictional town named Malgudi. While Malgudi has made the
fame of Narayan, it has often been ascribed to the universal side of his
narratives. Malgudi is not only a metaphor for colonial India, but also of
“everywhere” (Walsh 6) or of “the world” (Pousse xiii). Narayan’s own
answer to the often-asked question, “where is Malgudi?” is “it is
imaginary and not to be found on any map” (qtd. in Thieme 176). Despite
being an imaginary, a nonexistent spot on the map, Malgudi is related to
India through two symbolic spaces: the Sarayu River, signifying an
umbilical cord relating Malgudi to history; and the railway station,
standing for Malgudi’s connection to a broader space. In Swami and
Friends, Malgudi is located in time, the 1930s, as well as in space, South
India. The narrative presents characters arriving in Malgudi from
recognized places and leaving it to other mapped spaces of India. A
whole chapter, “Broken Panes,” describes a violent demonstration in
1930 against the colonial economic policy at work in India. Hence the
conclusion that Narayan’s imaginary town constitutes part of his strategy
of resistance.

Malgudi announces a gesture of cultural and political opposition. It

is through a town of his own that Narayan can regain India. Indeed, while
narrating an imaginary space, he disrupts the colonial power of mapping
and control. In a significant episode of the narrative, the young Swami
has to grapple with the map of Europe: “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” (Swami 56). Swami then has to copy
the map of Europe to revise his geography. What is significant here is the
child’s complete alienation from a foreign geography imposed on him at
school as a major subject. While studying the colonizer’s geography,
Swami is estranged from his own geography. Malgudi, then, can be read
as a corrective move which, while resisting the foreign, creates a space
outside the cartographic custody of the colonizer.

Narayan’s resistance to regimented space is reinforced by

countering the exotic narrative of India. Indeed, the India presented to the
reader is an India narrated from the inside. Malgudi offers a counter-
space, a dissenting geography which undermines the English literary
construction of India. The “Romantic playground of the Raj” (Greene,
“Discovering”), as offered in Kipling’s India, or the unexplainable
“muddle” (71), as presented in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, are
destabilized by a real India narrated by its people.
 Malgudi in Narayan’s novel is the playground of Indian children,
while the simple story aims at demystifying India. As he empties his
space of English characters who become “peripheral” and “hopelessly
unimportant” (Greene, “Discovering”), Narayan brings to the fore Indian
characters who re-appropriate both history and geography. The only
English character in Swami and Friends is the nameless Headmaster of
Albert Mission school whose “thin long cane” (1) serves as a reminder of
violent colonial intervention.

In addition, the novel presents clear elements of the

bildungsroman, even though it covers a relatively short span of time. The
structure of the novel clearly marks a shift away from the happy
innocence of childhood to the anxious experience of growth. The episodic
first chapters, paralleling the detached life of children, turn into a linear
narrative exploring the psychological growth of the protagonist. The story
of Swami unfolds in two years during which the young boy amasses
several experiences: he protests against his scripture teacher’s offending
remarks against Hinduism; he receives his first shock of being excluded
by his friends; he participates in a violent strike; he challenges the
Headmaster, refusing to be beaten and leaves school; he forms a cricket
team; and he escapes home. All of these episodes combine to shape
Swami’s consciousness and identity. Feroza Jussawalla argues in “Kim,
Huck and Naipaul” that the growth of Swami is metaphorically paralleled
to India’s coming of age (30). It is through the eyes of a rather rebellious
child that the reader perceives a nascent nation oscillating between
tradition and modernity, colonialism and nationalism, and mimicry and
mockery.

To condemn Swami and Friends as shallow and banal betrays a

narrow reading of the text, one that concentrates on what seems to be its
center. Yet the baffling nature of a narrative that mocks interpretation
invites another strategy of decoding. The whole narrative is anchored in
an ambivalent attitude towards colonization. “Far from being politically
innocent,” John Thieme believes the novel to offer “a subversive
response to the colonial ethic and to the educational curriculum that was
one of its lynch-pins” (180). A more rewarding reading of Swami and
Friends is to be found in an ensconced layer of the text: the simple story
of Swami hides the intricate history of India. The text navigates between
the private and the public as it starts from the personal to encompass the
political.

Without being openly autobiographical, the novel weaves personal

episodes into the tapestry of the text. One recalls here that the young
Narayan was educated in a mission school. In his essay “When India Was
a Colony,” Narayan recollects an episode which he faithfully renders in
the first chapter of Swami and Friends:

Swami’s scripture teacher, Mr Ebenezar, is a replica of the young

Narayan’s. He, too, is a “fanatic teacher” who starts his lessons with “O,
wretched idiots! . . . why do you worship dirty, wooden idols and stone
images?” (Swami 3). He equally abuses Krishna: “Did our Jesus go
gadding about with dancing girls like your Krishna? Did our Jesus go
about stealing butter like that arch-scoundrel Krishna?” (4). Narayan’s
drawing on his childhood memories and narrating what seem to be trifles
is, truly, an act of politicizing the self. The unhindered childhood
memories function as a cultural mirror. The whole text, therefore, comes
to serve as an archive, documenting India of the 1930s.

Children’s games and leisure activities offer another cultural

element of great significance to the text. The fact that Narayan originally
entitled his first novel “Swami the Tate,” a direct reference to the English
cricketer Maurice Tate (1895-1956), testifies to the importance of cricket
in Indian culture. Feroza Jussawalla contends that Indian “colonials and
postcolonials were steeped in cricket” (“Cricket” 117). She shares Fakrul
Alam’s postcolonial reading of the novel’s undecided attitude towards
English culture in general and cricket in particular. Alam stipulates that
“Swami may be growing up in a self-sufficient ‘Indian’ world, but he
cannot escape some amount of Anglicization in his outlook” (112). In the
same vein, Jussawalla affirms that “Swaminathan is ambivalent about
things English, despite his great admiration for them” (“Cricket” 122).
Indeed, “the novel’s attitude to cricket is complex” (176), announces
Thieme in “The Double Making of R. K. Narayan.” Such an
ambivalence, however, veers more towards repulsion than attraction.

Other Books Related to Swami and Friends

Swami and Friends is the first of Narayan’s many novels set in the
fictional town of Malgudi, all of which deepen and expand the themes
and locations introduced in this novel. In particular, this work is often
considered the first in a trilogy of Malgudi coming-of-age novels, the
second and third of which are The Bachelor of Arts and The English
Teacher. Although the second two books in the trilogy concern different
characters and do not extend Swami’s story, they are nonetheless closely
linked thematically. Swami and Friends also shares characteristics with a
wide range of novels about groups of friends attending boys’ schools and
struggling for autonomy in the face of domineering authority figures. One
notable example is Rudyard Kipling’s story collection Stalky and Co.,
which Narayan’s friend and advocate Graham Greene saw as a parallel to
Narayan’s early stories about Swami. Finally, Narayan was one of the
earliest Indian novelists to write exclusively in English about everyday
life in India, thus paving the way for generations of Indian writers to do
the same. These later writers include Arundhati Roy, a contemporary
Indian novelist who gained fame for her novel The God of Small Things,
which was based partly on Roy’s childhood in India and won the
prestigious Man Booker Prize in 1997.

CONCLUSION
 In the preceding chapter an attempt has been made to analyse the

typology of the characters that R.K. Narayan has created in his novels. In

the process, this study has traced the evolution of the writer and his

genius in character portrayal. It is noted that although Narayan enjoy a

general critical consensus as a comic – ironist, his critics often register a

note of dessent as regards his unchanging and undeveloping characters. It

is also pointed out that the Forsterean terms (flat and round) the other

western parameters and even the existing Narayan criticism, although

helpful to a certain extent, remain inadequate to fully deal with the

preordained conceived and traditionally realized Narayan characters.

It is also underlined that the undevelopin gprotagonists in

Narayan’s novels unmistakably suggest the growth in their

consciousness, especially as they seem to realize the illusory nature of

their existence (at the end of the novel they are seen returning to the

world of normal life). This subtle growth, mainly realized on the mental

or spiritual plan of meaning, may not be measured by the parameters

mentioned earlier. It is at this that the present typological approach comes

into being as a framework, primarily conceived to realize the typical

characters in Narayan’s novels.

The character – oriented approach considers four major types of

the Narayan character formed on the basis of their overall nature. It may
also be noted that the typological grames – innocence, rebellion,

eccentricity and sanyasa – seem to accommodate most of the major and

minor characters in Narayan’s novels. It may also be stressed that

although the types focused in the present study show an unmistakable

kinship with the well known types considered by Ben Jonson, Forster,

scholes and killog and Northrop Frye, they basically have a typically

Narayanesque stamp or realization. It may be worthwhile to underline the

characteristic feature of each typological operation to see how far it fulfils

the three tier purpose and finally to deduce certain overall conclusions

emerging out of it.

R.K. Narayan’s novels are known as the Magludi novels beacouse

all the characters find their existence in Malgudi and human relationships

are presented by Narayan within the limits of Malgudi. The locale

Malgudi in Narayan’s fictional corpus remains the element of great

importance and it is the real force in the presentation of his characters.

Malgudi is ceaselessly presented in the novels by R.K. Narayan and

becomes a real character of blood and flesh. The place Malgudi watches

the sudden rise and fall of its heroes and heroines. According importance

to natural landscapes and natural beauty R.K.Narayan values the human

emotion and passion.

 The important places in Malgudi town are linked with characters

and action of the novel. In the early novels i.e the river Sarayu is on the

local level just like of the hole river Ganga because it is believed that the

river is born of a scratch made by Rama’s arrow on his way to Lanka.

The mythological story mentions that Goddess Parvati had jumped into

the fire and water arose from the spot. On the banks of the sacred river

Sarayu, friendships are made in ‘The Swami and Friends’.

In the final analysis, these approaches to the handling of the setting

will establish the fact that Malgudi is the only character that grows,

changes reacts to time and circumstances and constitutes the real essence

or the spirit of the novel as practiced by Narayan. The place Malgudi in

Narayan’s fiction is given a new dimension and significance and it has

become necessary element of Narayan’s novels. The spirit of place thus,

seems to reveal itself not merely as the locale, setting, background or

socio-geographical feature but also as the living presence in the meliece,

the pattern of structure, the treatment of the themes, the presentation of

characters and the expression of the world view of the novelist.

 WORK CITED

I. Alam, Fakrul. “Reading R. K. Narayan Postcolonially.” Journal of

Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 21.1-2 (1998): 9-34. Print. Ashcroft,

Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Studies: The Key

Concepts. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print. Bateman, Anthony. Cricket,

Literature and Culture: Symbolizing the Nation,

II. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Print.

Chattopadhyay, Sobha. “R. K. Narayan and Graham Greene.” R. K. Narayan:

III. Graubard, Stephen R., and Narayan, R. K. “An Interview with R. K. Narayan