Chapter-one

Introduction
Rashipuram Krishna swami Narayan, popularly known as R.K. Narayan, was born in
1906 in Madras, India; died in 2001,Madras . Narayan is now regarded as one of the
greatest of Indians writing in English. He is the most artistic of the Indian writers, his
sole aim being to give aesthetic satisfaction, and not to use his art as a medium to serve
some social purpose .The novelist was never a good student. He failed both in the High
School and Intermediate examinations. He could not get his degree only when he was
twenty-four years old. These failures at school and college have him shy, reserved and
diffident, and introvert and not an extrovert. It is said that once he even tried to commit
suicide .Ever since he has been reserved and modest, rather too modest.

Narayan was one of the most successful Indo-Anglican writers, best known for his
works set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He is now regarded as a pure
literary artist, especially when one compares him with his two great contemporaries,
Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand. He has been compared to William Faulkner. His sole
aim is to give aesthetic satisfaction and his is art for arts sake. He does not write to
propagate his ideas on social or political issues, though when he started his literary
career, Indian was passing through the crucial period of her struggle for independence
under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Three of his novels Swami and Friends, The
Bachelor of Arts, and The Dark Room were published in quick successions and they
proved very popular. His published works are The Guide, The English Teacher, The
Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, Lawly Road.

Background of the topic:

Realism is an approach of life that means dealing with the way things are. Realism is
the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the visual appearance of
scenes and objects. Realism is the sense is also called naturalism, illusionism. Realistic
art was created in many periods, and it is in large part of matter technique and training.
The development of increasingly accurate representation of the visual appearances of
things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the accurate depiction of
the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance, and detailed
effects of light and color.

The realist movement began in the mid-19 th century as a reaction to Romanticism and
History painting. In favor of depictions of real life the Realist painters used common
laborers and ordinary people in ordinary surroundings engaged in real activities as
subjects for their works. Realism or naturalism as a style meaning the honest,
unidealizing depiction of the subject can of course be used in depicting any type of
subject, without any commitment to treating the typical or every day.

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Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without
artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, supernatural elements. Realism has been
prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of avoidance of
stylization.

Broadly defined as the faithful representation of reality, Realism as a literary movement

was based on objective reality. It focused on showing everyday activities and life ,
primarily among the middle or lower class society, without romantic idealization .The
romantic era was also a reaction against the values of the Industrial Revolution, realism
in its turn a reaction to romanticism, for this reason it is also commonly referred as
traditional bourgeoisie realism.

Statement of the topic:

Realism is the belief that reality lies outside of the human mind; it is the focus on things
that can be observed. Realism refers the quality or fact of representing a person or thing
in way that is accurate and true to life. This attitude or practice of accepting a situation
as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly. It refers the representation of
how things really are, or being practical and facing facts.

The question realism is so controversial that no brief account of it will satisfy all those
with a stake in the debates between realists and non-realists. This article offers a broad
brush characterization of realism, and then fills out some of the detail by looking at a
few canonical examples of opposition to realism. There are two general aspects to
realism, illustrated by looking at realism and in the second place; a defense of
perceptual realism must include some indication as to how the risk of error can be
minimized. The term realism has appeared in print with increasing frequency over the
past few decades. Generally, accuracy in the portrayal of life or reality, or
verisimilitude; a recurring goal of literature, often seen in contrast to the aims of
romanticism, impression, and expressionism. Realism is also the name of a literary
movement in Europe, particularly France-America, and England in the nineteenth
century that established the novel. The nineteenth-century realists included novelists as
diverse in outlook.

This title, realism is sometimes confused with naturalism, a movement that grew out of
realism but not supplant it. Naturalism, is an expression of the philosophy of
determinism, showed characters who were trapped by forces of heredity and
environment they could not control. It is influenced by a greatly expanding middle-
class readership, these realists wrote about the problems and conflicts of characters
with whom they and their readers could easily identify.

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Realism coincided with Victorianism, yet was a distant collection of aesthetic principles
in its own right. The realist novel was heavily informed by journalistic technique, such
as objectivity and fidelity to the facts of the matter. Realism is a signifier of an
irrefutable truth, as suggested by certain school of thought, becomes highly problematic
in literature since it is a linguistic system whose possibilities of meaning are always in
a process.

Objectives:
Objects, or more generally entities, provide the basic theoretical building blocks for
critical realist explanation and can be such things as organization, people, relationships,
attitudes, resources, management information systems (MIS), ideas and so on. This
conceptualization suggests that there are two alternative ways in which MIS can be
treated theoretically. Entities stand in contrast to the idea of variables that dominates
most social research traditions. Variables are measures of things and not the things
themselves.

1.The objective of realism is an effort to replicate the true nature of reality in a way that
novelists had never attempted.

2.There is the belief that the novels function is simply to report what happens, without
comment or judgment.

3. Seemingly inconsequential elements gain the attention of the novel functioning in the
realist mode. In contrast to what came before, the realistic novel rests upon the
strengths of its characters rather than plot or turn of phrase.

4. The characters that the realistic school of novelists produced are some of the most
famous in literary history, from Jamess Daisy Miller to Dostoyevskys Raskolnikov.

Significance of the research:

A research or thesis represents an investment with an uncertain return. Many
researchers are concerned with the choice between a quantitative and a qualitative
methodology. A core issue for researchers is not related to acknowledgement of the
research paradigms. The main aim of this paper is to explain how realism research can
be designed to build knowledge about the external reality of marketing. In particular,
procedures relating research design and data analysis and reporting require explicit
acknowledgement, although none appear to exist. Critical realists further distinguish
themselves from other schools of thought in terms of the way that they believe that the
process of research should be conducted.

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 A thesis or research statement is a strong statement that one can prove with evidence. It
is not a simple statement of fact. A thesis statement should be the product of ones own
critical thinking after completing some research. This research statement will be the
main idea of the entire project.

Research question:
Any enterprise towards locating what is realistic or what constitutes realism sets in
motion a machinery of enquiry which seeks to discover an identifiable site of
knowledge or perception shared as authentic within a complex geography of human
experience. Gideon Rosen opines that we may epitomize the realists stance by saying
that to be a realist about a region discourse is to regard it as describing a genuine
domain of objective fact. But what, we may ask, really defines this phenomenon called
objective fact? Is it temporal, geo-spatial, racial, cultural, classic or gendered? Is it
rather political, religious or individual? Realism thus become a problematic semiotic
which may as well convey the irreal claiming a place in the realm of reality. Realism
was a19th century movement but its influence continued into contemporary literature.

Research that describes what is, describing, recording, analyzing, and

interpreting conditions that exist.

Involves some type of contrast and attempts to discover relationships between

non-manipulated variables.

Research that provides and accurate portrayal of characteristics of a particular

individual, situation, or group.

Used as a means of discovering new meaning, describing what exits,

determining the frequency with which something occurs, and categorizing
information.

The systematic investigation of relationships among two or more variables, without

determining or interpreting cause and.

Justification of the Research:

Realism coincided with Victorianism, yet was a distinct collection of aesthetic
principles in its very nearly replicate the daily tribulations of being human. The realist
novel was heavily informed by journalistic techniques, such as objectivity and fidelity
to the facts of the matter. It is not a coincidence that many of the better known novelists
of the time had concurrent occupations in the publishing industry. The idea of novel-
writing as a report grew out of this marriage between literature and journalism.
Another fair comparison would be to think of the realist novel as an early form of

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docudrama, in which fictional persons and events are intended to seamlessly reproduce
the real world.

*Evoking a sense of common life for the reader. The desire to hold up to reality
exaggerated in literature.

* Creating the impression that the characters might exist in reality.

* Describing events as a matter of ordinary experience.

Methodology of Research:
Research in education used many concepts from methodology. If researchers want to
communicate their findings to an audience of other researchers, they can assume with
the concepts.

* A broad based survey of Indo-Anglian writings would be made a concept of typical

Indian scenes and situation.

* Detailed critical analysis will be made on some major works or some prominent
novel with some important reference.

* The study is mainly documentary analysis. Secondary sources of data will be used for
the study. Data will be collected from different sources :books, internet, journals and
periods, seminar, and some research papers

Conclusion:
At last it defined as the faithful representation of reality; realism in the arts is the
attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic
conventions. In the late 18th-century Romanticism was a revolt against social and
political norms but 19th-century realism was in its turn a reaction to Romanticism.
Realistic fiction is often opposed to romantic fiction: the romance is said to present life
as we would have it be, more picturesque, more heroic than the actual; realism, to
present an accurate imitation of life as it is. Daniel Defoe, the first novelistic realist in
the early eighteenth century, dealt with the extraordinary adventures of a shipwrecked
mariner named Robinson Crusoe and with extraordinary misadventures of Moll
Flanders. Other authors such as Fielding, Jane Austen, Balzac, George Eliot, are
realists.

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 Chapter- two
Life and works of R.k.Narayan

Life of Naraya:
R.K. Narayan, shortened from Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, was
born in Madras, South India on October 10, 1906. Although his family moved to
Mysore when he was a child, he continued to live in Madras under the care of his
grandmother, who taught him arithmetic, mythology, classical Indian music and
Sanskrit . While living with his grandmother, Narayan studied in 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 moved to Mysore to live
with his family when his father, a school headmaster, was transferred to the
Maharajah's Collegiate High School . After completing high school, Narayan failed the
university entrance examination and spent a year at home reading and writing . In 1926,
he living
with his grandmother, Narayan studied in 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 moved to Mysore to live with his family when his
father, a school headmaster, was transferred to the Maharajah's Collegiate High School
(Narayan, 1974). After completing high school, Narayan failed the university entrance
examination and spent a year at home reading and writing (Narayan, 1974).

In 1926, he passed the entrance examination and joined Maharaja College of Mysore. It
took Narayan four years to obtain his Bachelor's degree, a year longer than usual. After
obtaining his Bachelors degree he briefly held a job as a school teacher. After quitting
the job he decided to stay at home and make a career in writing novels. Although
writing at that time did not pay much, his family and friends respected and supported
his unorthodox choice of career. He managed to get several contributions accepted by
The Merry Magazine (a short-lived offshoot of Ananda Vikatan in English), and by The
Hindu, where he eventually obtained a weekly slot in the Sunday edition.

Narayan met Rajam, a 15-year old girl, in 1933, while he was visiting his sister's house
in Coimbatore, and fell in love with her. Though there were many astrological and
financial obstacles, Narayan managed to overcome them and marry her in Coimbatore
on July 1,1934. After his marriage Narayan became a reporter for a Madras based paper
called The Justice. Unfortunately in 1939 Rajam died of typhoid, leaving behind a three
year old Daughter Hemalatha. Rajams death affected Narayan deeply and he
expressed his feeling of that time in the novel The English Teacher. This bereavement
brought about a permanent change in his life and it took him a long time to overcome
his grief. In 1945 Narayan emerged from the period of darkness and his work went to a
new direction. He died on May 13, 2001 in Chennai at the age of 94.

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Works
Most of Narayans novels are based on his own experience in life. His first three novels
Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher are considered
autobiographical. These works depict the story of Narayans life from childhood to
adulthood.

Swami and Friends

Narayans first novel Swami and Friends was published on October 24, 1935 in
London for which Narayan got a cheque of 15 pounds and 10 shillings (Ram & Ram,
2006:159). It took Narayan two years to complete this novel. Swami and Friends is the
story of a tens year old name Swami, a boy full of innocence, wonder and mischief, and
his experiences in the fictional town of Malgudi, which is similar to Narayan s own
childhood.

The Bachelor of Arts

On March 15, 1937 Narayans second novel The Bachelor of Arts was published. It
tells the story of a young man name Chandran s transition from adolescent through
experience into adulthood. Chandrans experience in college and his experience of first
love are similar to those which Narayan experienced in his own life. This novel is the
sequel of his first novel Swami and Friends.

The English Teacher

The English Teacher is the story of Krishna the protagonist, an English teacher, and his
wife Susils and his quest towards achieving inner peace and self-development after his
wifes death. Krishnas anguish after his wifes death is similar to what Narayan
himself suffered after his wife Rajams death. This novel was published in late
September 1945.

My Days: A Memoir
The term autobiography was first used by Southey in 1809 for an account of a person s
life by himself. Dr. Johnsons opinion is no man is better qualified to write about his
life than he himself. Certainly Narayans only memoir My Days: A Memoir is an
important account of his life experiences. It is an interesting revelation of his life and
experiences. In a frank and truthful manner, Narayan shares his life story, his dreams
and fears, his feeling about.

Malgudi
Narayan is the creator of the fictional town Malgudi, which is the setting of all his
novels . Malgudi is supposedly a small town in South India, which is situated on the
bank of a river. Khatri says that Narayans Malgudi represents south Indian semi-urban
life, people and culture. In Khatris opinion Narayan has deliberately created a town for
his novels, a semi-urban locale that has both the qualities of urban and rural India
because Narayan is familiar with this location. He notes that Narayan drew a vivid
picture of Malgudi with its past, present and a growing Malgudi which became a part of
living tradition, a representation of the whole of India. Narayan says about Malgudi:

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I wanted to be able to put in whatever I liked, and wherever I liked a little street or
school or a temple or a bungalow or even a slum, a railway line, at any spot, a
minor despot in a little world.

Collage Life

In this novel Narayan portrays college life through the eyes of Chandran, a final year
student of history and introduces many characters with new name from his own past
(Ram & Ram, 1996). In his fictional account of college life, Narayan introduces,
behind new names, several figure from his own experience. Professor Rollo becomes
Professor Brown, a distinguished scholar, whose drama classes are acclaimed and who
is endowed with a first rate sense of humor. Professor Raghavachari is the combination
of Narayans history professor Krishna and Venkateswara Lyre. Like them Professor
Raghavachari was also a formidable teacher in classes and used to wear a turban and
long black clock. Narayan fails in his entrance exam and spends one year at home,
reading and taking long walks. This life style was replicated in The Bachelor of Arts, as
Chandran after completing his B.A. spent a year in similar fashion. Unlike the hero,
Narayan did not graduate in his first attempt. He failed his history exam and was
required to re-sit the exam, which left him free to travel.

Narayan has to confront the question of his future like Chandran after he passed the
exam. There were many suggestions that he pursue law or the career of a minor civil
servant. For a while he considers obtaining a M.A. degree in English literature and
became a tutor in English in Maharajas collage. In The Bachelor of Arts Chandran
experience similar feeling after his graduation. In the novel Chandran decide to wait a
year and go to England.

First Love

Narayan fell in love many times. He has projected the feelings of young love through
Chandran in The Bachelor of Arts. Narayan once fall in love with a girl in a green sari
who lived in a neighboring street. Chandran in The Bachelor of Arts also falls in love
with a girl in a green sari
.
"One evening he came to the river, and was loafing along it, when he saw a girl
about fifteen years old, playing with her younger sister on the sands."

He meets her in the bank of the river, and thinks her to be the most beautiful girl in the
world. He starts daydreaming about her. After inquiring from his friend Mohan, he
comes to know that the girl is named Malathi, is of marriageable age and also belong to
the same caste as his own. Narayan met his wife Rajam in similar fashion. One day he
saw a fifteen years old girl drawing water from the street tap and immediately fell in
love with her. Like Chandran he was also unable to talk to her. Rajam, like Malathior
further studies.

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Marriage Customs

Narayan portrays a truthful picture of the conventions of the marriage customs

followed at the time. The bride and groom then did not have any say in their marriage.
At that time love marriage was very rare. A girl had to be of appropriate age which
means that she should be younger than fifteen years of age. If a girl was unmarried till
sixteen it was considered that there was something wrong with her. Rajam was fifteen
years old when Narayan married her. Chandrans mother highly objects to her sons
marriage when she learns that the bride is sixteen year old.

Marrying out of caste was not acceptable then. Both the bride and groom has to belong
to the same caste, community etc. A marriage would not be tolerated even between sub
sects of the same caste. Chandran knew that his father would through him out if he tried
to marry out of caste. The marriage proposal always comes from the bride's parents,
anything contrary was not accepted by society. Narayan diverted from this custom
when he took the bold step of declaring his feeling for Rajam to his future father in law.
Then came the dowry arrangements where the brides parents had to appease the
grooms family. The horoscopes are another crucial matter in marriage, as they had to
match perfectly. The bride and grooms future happiness depends upon it. Narayans
own difficulty with the incompatibility of horoscopes while marring Rajam is similar to
the experience of Chandran in The Bachelor of Arts (Ram & Ram, 1996). Like
Chandran, Narayans father also has no faith in horoscopes but for social purpose
horoscopes are exchanged and Mars is found to occupy the Seventh House of the
prospective bridegrooms life document.

Journalism

In The Bachelor of Arts Narayan has described his experience of his career as a
journalist thro-gh Mohan, a poet friend of Chandran. Narayans brief experience from
1934-35 as a Maysor city reporter for a small newspaper The Justice and its effect and
his frustration is clearly revealed in the process. Narayans financial obligations had
forced him to take up a career as a journalist. The daily routine of a city reporter left
little time for creative writing. Mohan becomes the Malgudi correspondent of a
Madras-based newspaper, The Daily Messenger to support himself. Much of his days
are spent news hunting, which left little time for his literary work. Later, this exposure
to various situations provided him with material for his fiction. Like Narayan his
remuneration is three and a half rupees per column of twenty-one inches. In practice,
the process of pruning reduces this to paltry sums. Narayans columns were also
heavily pruned and his copy was occasionally rejected. He was also indifferent of the
matter of editorial policy like Mohan. Unlike Narayan, Mohan eventually prospers in
his profession. The Daily Messengers circulation soars, unlike that of s. Under new
management it become a prosperous paper, accepts
more columns from Mohan and even publishes his poems in the weekly magazine.
Narayan sent his resignation the day he knows that his first novel was going to be
published. Narayan has given his reason for resignation through Mohan.

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I took up this work as a stop-gap till I should get a footing in the literary world..
.Reporting has swallowed me up... I hardly have any inclination to write a
single line of poetry.

Mohan is a bachelor who lives alone in a mess, unlike Narayan who had a joint family
to support and a wife to take care of.

Awards and honors:

Narayan won numerous awards during the course of his literary career. His first major
award was in 1958, the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide. When the book was
made into a film, he received the Filmfare Award for the best story. In 1964, he
received the Padma Bhushan during the Republic Day honours. In 1980, he was
awarded the AC Benson Medal by the (British) Royal Society of Literature, of which
he was an honorary member. In 1982 he was elected an honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in
Literature multiple times, but never won the honour.

Recognition also came in the form of honorary doctorates by the University of Leeds
(1967) the University of Mysore (1976) and Delhi University (1973). Towards the end
of his career, Narayan was nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament for a
six-year term starting in 1989, for his contributions to Indian literature. A year before
his death, in 2001, he was awarded India's second-highest civilian honour, the Padma.

List of works:
Novels

Swami and Friends (1937)

The Bachelor of Arts (1937)

The Dark Room (1938)

The English Teacher (1945)

Mr. Sampath (1948)

The Financial Expert (1952)

Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)

The Guide (1958)

The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)

The Vendor of Sweets (1967)

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 The Painter of Signs (1977)

A Tiger for Malgudi (1983)s

Talkative Man (1986)

The World of Nagaraj (1990)

Grandmother's Tale (1992)

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Non-fiction

Next Sunday (1960)

My Dateless Diary (1960)

My Days (1974)

Reluctant Guru (1979)

The Emerald Route (1980)

A Writer's Nightmare (1988)

A Story-Teller's World (1989)

The Writerly Life (2002)

Mysore (1944)

Mythology

Gods, Demons and Others (1964)s

The Ramayana (1973)

The Mahabharata (1978)

Short story collections

Malgudi Days (1944)

An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories (Lawley Road and Other Stories)(1947)

A Horse and Two Goats (1970)

Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)

The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories(1994)

Narayan's writing technique was unpretentious with a natural element of humour about
it. It focused on ordinary people, reminding the reader of next-door neighbours, cousins
and the like, thereby providing a greater ability to relate to the topic. Unlike his national
contemporaries, he was able to write about the intricacies of Indian society without
having to modify his characteristic simplicity to conform to trends and fashions in
fiction writing. He also employed the use of nuanced dialogic prose with gentle Tamil
overtones based on the nature of his characters. Critics have considered Narayan to be
the Indian Chekhov, due to the similarities in their writings, the simplicity and the
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gentle beauty and humour in tragic situations. Greene considered Narayan to be more
similar to Chekhov than any Indian writer. Anthony West of The New Yorker
considered Narayan's writings to be of the realism variety of Nikolai Gogol.

Chapter-three
Discussion on the major works of R.K. Narayan

The Financial Expert:

The Financial Expert narrates the story of Margayya, a financier. As his name
indicates he 'shows the way' for illiterate, poor peasants to draw loans from the bank
and from each other. He conducts his business in front of the Central Cooperative
Bank, under the shade of a banyan tree with his "tin box, a gray, discoloured, knobby
affair", in which he carried his entire equipment consisting of an ink bottle, a pen, a
blotter, a small red covered register and the most important of all, loan application
forms. Despite warnings from the bank's secretary not to indulge in illegal possession
of the application forms, Margayya continues with his financing. To him, "money alone
is important in this world. Everything else will come to us naturally if we have money
in our purse". In his view "If money was absent men came near being beasts".

He often reflected on the power of money: "people did anything for money. Money was
man's greatest need like air or food. People went to horrifying lengths for its sake, like
collecting rent on a dead body -- it left him admiring the power and dynamism of
money, its capacity to make people do strange deeds" . Obsessed with the thought of
money, Margayya falls victim to its overbearing influence. His immediate concern was
to attain material benefits, such as unlimited affluence, foreign studies for Balu, his
only son, his possible marriage with a judge's daughter, and the realization of the next
generation of aristocrats in his family, filled his mind night and day. His only salvation
lay in acquiring the riches he coveted. The best way to fulfill his desire, he presumed,
would be to consult the temple priest. Margayya sought the priest out and waited
patiently for an opportunity to confide in him. The atmosphere in the temple on that late
evening swayed his mind towards the mysterious and awesome superiority of gods and

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goddesses of his culture. As Milligan says, "people are thoroughly influenced by the
society in which they have grown up. The complicated net work made out of the
consequences of individual decisions becomes a map of the moral attitudes of a
society" . The priest tells Margayya the significance of Puja (ritual worship conducted
to appease the Hindu pantheon of gods or goddesses) to obtain one's aims and
objectives. Margayya, as he sat in the sanctorum, reflects on the image of

Hanuman, the God of power, the son of Wind. According to tradition this God had
pressed one foot on the very spot where the shrine now stood, sprang across space and
ocean and landed in Lanka.., there to destroy Ravana, a king with ten heads and twenty
hands, who was oppressing mankind and had abducted Rama's wife Seetha.

Even the legends and myths, as contained in the puranas are mere illustrations of the
moral and spiritual truths enunciated in the Vedas each forms a part and parcel of a total
life and is indispensable for the attainment of a four- square understanding of existence
The characters in the epics are prototypes and moulds in which humanity is cast, and
remain valid for all time. When Margayya refuses to drink the tumbler of milk, the
priest admonishes him thus:

Milk is one of the forms of Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of Wealth. When you reject
it or treat it indifferently, it means you reject her. She is a Goddess, who always stays
on the tip of her toes all the time, ever ready to turn and run away. There are ways of
wooing and keeping her. When she graces a house with her presence, the master of the
house becomes distinguished, famous and very wealthy.

Margayya's reaction is typical. He "reverently touched the tumbler and very

respectfully drank milk, taking care not to spill even a drop" The priest also relates the
story of Kubera, from the Mahabharata, who had to go through an arduous penance in
order to atone the spilling of a drop of milk on the floor of his palace. Unable to hold
back any longer, Margayya requests the priest, "I want to acquire wealth. Can you show
me a way? I will do anything you suggest". s

Margayya's attitude is a fine example of the human tendency of becoming desperate to

realize one's ambitions, often overlooking the adverse effects of pursuing them. The
priest comes up with a solution to Margayya's problem. He suggests. "You should
propitiate Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth. When she throws a glance and if
it falls on someone, he becomes rich, he becomes prosperous, he is treated by the
world as an eminent man, his words are treated as something of importance. All this
you seem to want" When the vainglorious Margayya forgets his surroundings and takes
a deep pinch of snuff, the priest eggs him on thus,

A devotee of Goddess Lakshmi need care for nothing, not even the fact that he is in a
temple where certain decorum is to be observed -- it is only the protg of Goddess
Saraswathi (deity of knowledge and enlightenment) who has to mind such things --

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Some persons have the good fortune to be claimed by both --. evidently you are one of
those for whom both are fighting for at the moment.

Margayya could hardly detect the sarcasm in the priest's tone, for, he is overwhelmed
by the dreams of surrounding himself with wealth. Presently, he has his horoscope
examined by the priest who advises him propitiate Saturn (who, he was told, is
powerful enough to make or take one's fortunes) with honey in the temple of the
planetary deities. Then he is given a short verse to recite and a set of instructions to
follow before he starts the rituals. When he voices the last minute doubts about the
success of the ceremony, the priest replies ambiguously, "Results are not in our
hands. . . The shastras lay down such and such rituals for such and such ends. Between
the man who performs them and one who doesn't, the chances are greater for the
former". Two days later, Margayya began his rites in a room he spring-cleaned.
Following the instructions of the priest, he inscribed a Sanskrit syllable on a piece of
deer-skin (which he could get after suffering agony) which he tied around his neck
during the chanting of the mantra. He went all the way to the pond where the red lotus
was available, burnt it and mixed the charred contents in ghee obtained from the milk
of a gray coloured cow and dotted his forehead between the brows with it for a higher
degree of concentration. For the next forty days, he was lost to the world.

He had to repeat it a thousand times a day, sitting before the image of the Goddess..
Each took eight hours of repetition to complete the thousand, and then he reverently put
the black paste on his forehead, lit camphor...his jaws ached, his tongue had become
dry...he emerged...venerable -- sapped in every way but with his face glowing with
triumph.

Although there was a lull in Margayya's fortune making, he, however, was able to
achieve his goal by becoming a partner in the publishing business run by the
enterprising Mr. Lal. But becoming dissatisfied with the shady deal of publishing
pornography, Margayya turns to finance once again. Look at the way he prospered as a
financier: "People borrowed from him only under stress . . . . Margayya was the one
man who lent easily. He made the least fuss about the formalities, but he charged
interest in so many subtle ways and compounded it so deftly that the moment a man
signed his bonds, he was more or less finished" .

The irony of the narrative is that while Margayya amassed wealth, he lost his mental
and physical health. His son Balu turns out to be a loafer. His one time friend,
philosopher and guide Dr. Pal plays traitor in his later life by ruining his business as a
means to avenge his injured pride. Once again Margayya stands penniless. One
wonders at the way things turn out for Margayya despite the elaborate and painstaking
Lakshmi Puja. One can only conclude that Narayan tries to reconstruct the oft observed
pattern in reality that material assets are of no use if the basic integrity and sympathy
are lost, if one's attitude in gaining riches is selfish and singular. Rajaji's concluding
remarks of his Ramayana aptly describe Margayya's predicament. He says, "any work

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done in good spirit is good work. It is not work that is tiring or degrading but the wrong
attitude one brings to life" (Srinivasa),. Equally relevant may be an African adage,
which says, "As a man danced, so the drums were beaten for him". This suggests
eternal truth that the will and destiny of an individual are inextricable. It is the
individual who is ultimately responsible for his fate, as in the case of Margayya.

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The Man-Eater Of Malgudi:

The Man-Eater Of Malgudi has Vasu as its central character. A taxidermist by

profession appears out of the blue at Nataraj's press, ordering visiting cards intending to
begin his career in Malgudi. He learnt the art of stuffing animals from a master named
Suleiman, but before that he learnt wrestling and killed the guru with a deadly chop, in
a moment of uncontrollable fury. While Nataraj debated his wisdom of doing business
with a man who looked and sounded like a 'giant,' Vasu takes over his attic as living-
cum-working quarters for himself. No mention of rent or permission to conduct
taxidermy in it is made.

"It was like having a middle aged man eater in your office and home and with the same
uncertainties, possibilities and potentialities". Right from the beginning Vasu struck
Nataraj as a man of abnormal features. He had a "tanned face, large powerful eyes
under thick eyebrows, a large forehead with a shock of unkempt hair like a black halo".
After failing to appease a forestry official to a get a license to kill animals, Vasu began
poaching in the Mempi forest, besides shooting innocent creatures such as cats, dogs
and eagles. On being questioned about propriety in killing an eagle, held sacred by the
Hindus because it is Lord Vishnu's vehicle, Vasu replies flippantly, "I want to try and
make Vishnu use his feet now and then".

He seems especially fond of killing tigers. Nataraj is rather stunned when for the first
time he saw an eighteen-inch head of a tiger in the back seat of his jeep. The mild
mannered Nataraj was brought up in a household where to kill a fly is regarded as a sin.
Vasu, the selfish godless 'giant' appears his precise foil. He proved a 'perfect enemy'
when he filed a false case against Nataraj on the grounds that the latter rented part of
the house illegally and that he ill-maintained it. But Nataraj "never could be a
successful enemy" and desired to settle the matter out of court by peaceful means. He
was ready to look at the stuffed hyena and the python from educational point of view.
But Sastri, the right hand man of Nataraj, had a different view. He says, "He shows all
the definitions of a rakshasa" with his enormous strength, genius and no regard for man
or God. Sastri continues that like a demon, Vasu is invincible and beyond law. "But
sooner or later something or the other will destroy him"

Sastri provides a number of examples to support his observation. He quotes from the
puranas such as the Ramayana in which the ten-headed demon king Ravana, with
unusual yogic powers and boon for never ending life, nevertheless met with an end at
the hands of Rama. Then there is sMahisha -- an asura with a boon of immortality and
invincibility and an ability to create a demon in his own image with every drop of
blood he shed -- was at last annihilated by the goddess Durga who sucked the blood
from his body. And finally Sastri recounts the fable of Bhasmasura (who made
humanity suffer with his rare power of scorching everything he touched) was at last
tricked by Mohini (an incarnation of God Vishnu) to place his palms on his own head

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and was reduced to ashes. In real life, too, "Every man can think that he is great and
live forever, but no one can guess from which quarter his doom will come".

Narayan used the tales from puranas extensively because as K. R.Srinivasa Iyengar
observes,"they have been the ground plank of Indian culture." When the poet friend of
Nataraj completes his poem on Radha Kalyan, they decide to celebrate event in a big
way. The astrologer fixes a day that coincides with the spring festival. Nataraj gets busy
with printing cards and banners and making arrangements to bring the volume out on
the evening of the said day. All of a sudden Nataraj gets a surprise visit by Rangi, the
infamous temple dancer who of late has become the mistress of Vasu. Much to his
stunned disbelief and shock, she informs him in secret that Vasu has been planning to
shoot Kumar, the temple elephant on the night of the festival when a procession of gods
and goddesses is to be taken out into the streets of the town. When Nataraj corners him
about his nefarious plans Vasu replies nonchalantly, "Has it occurred to you how much
more an elephant is worth dead? -- I can make ten thousand out of the parts of this
elephant" . Having lost hope of rescuing the elephant, Nataraj surrenders to Vishnu,
who rescued Gajendra the elephant king from the clutches of a killer crocodile. He cries
out involuntarily "O Vishnu! -- save our elephant and save all the innocent men and
women" . Nataraj enters Vasu's living quarters and takes the gun away. But Vasu
remains still. It is only on the day after the function that they learnt of Vasu's accidental
death.

On enquiry it came to light that he hit himself on a vital part of his head in order to kill
a worrying mosquito and met with his own end. Vasu did say, "Night or day, I run a
mile when a mosquito is mentioned" . And Sastri is ironically right when he observes,
"He had to conserve all that might for his own destruction. . . Every demon carries
within, unknown to himself, a tiny seed of self destruction and goes up in thin air at the
most unexpected moment. Otherwise what is to happen to humanity?" Narayan applies
the mythological story of Bhasmasura to Vasu to underline the distinction between
good and evil: "The strong man of evil continues to be reckless until he is destroyed by
the tempo of his own misdeeds. Evil has in it, buried subtly, the infallible seeds of its
own destruction. And however frightening a demon might seem, his doom is implied in
his own propensities".

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The Guide:

The Guide, Narayan's magnum opus, is not only his most mature book but also one that
won worldwide renown by being filmed and won the prestigious Sahitya Akademy
Award in 1960. The theory of Karma is enunciated in the life of Raju the protagonist.
According to Hinduism, it is a foregone conclusion that an individual lives and dies in
accordance with his karma and vasanas (impressions the personality has gathered from
its own thoughts and actions of the past or previous lives). Desires and thoughts which
spring forth from one's vasanas make it appear inevitable. John Updike observed in The
New Yorker, "As a Hindu Narayan believes in reincarnation -- a universe infinite
rebirths. He surveys his teeming scene from the perspective of this most ancient of
practiced religions"

Raju's career is rather complicated. He begins his adult life as a guide to tourists. A man
who is a compulsive showman, Raju believes in appearances. He meets Marco, an
archeologist, to whom "Dead and decaying things fire, imagination rather than things
that lived and moved and swung their limbs". Rosie, his wife, is forbidden to dance
because her husband forbids it. A strained relationship is further breached because Raju
helps Rosie by being a sympathetic audience when she performs in the privacy of the
hotel room while Marco is away researching the caves in the Mempi forest. One thing
leads to another, Rosie confides in Raju, and they become lovers. Marco finds out the
liaison between the guide and his wife (in name only), and he deserts her cold-heartedly
without giving her a chance to explain. Castigated by family and friends for what
appears to be immoral behaviour, Raju the guide now becomes a manager for Rosie's
commercial dance performances all over the country and comes into great affluence.
Along with money come the attendant evils such as drink and gambling. Raju is also
madly possessive of Rosie. ("She was my property, I like to keep her in a citadel") he
is constantly in the grip of fear that he may lose her. This flaw in his character finally
causes his downfall. He hides the Illustrated Weekly in which Marco's article on Mempi
caves appears, fearing that Rosie may re-establish her links with her husband. It is this
fear that prompts him to forge her signature on the document sent by Marco for the
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release of her jewelry. Raju, who is finally caught by the net of his own sins, is arrested
by his former friend of prosperous times, the superintendent of police, in the middle of
a dance performance by Rosie. When she learns of his arrest, she comments, "I felt all
along you were not doing right things. This is karma" .

The fact that ironies of life never cease is realized in Raju's case when after serving
time in prison, he inadvertently becomes a saint for the people of Mangala when he
took refuge in an ancient temple on the outskirts. Velan becomes his protg and Raju
out of necessity mixes motives and desires, and once again the conman in him takes
over. He spoke to the villagers on various issues of topical importance. He not only
gave them discourses on the Ramayana and the characters therein, but also advised
them on matters of cleanliness and godliness. He even prescribed medicines and settled
disputes and quarrels involving property. He encouraged the village schoolmaster to
reopen the school in the premises of the temple. He plays the role of the Swamy to the
best possible extent, but once again hr is overtaken by the inexplicable eventualities.
Things take a dramatic turn when Velan's brother mistakenly reports that the swamy
will not eat till rains come instead of 'till they stop fighting' over a matter of selling and
buying. Events that followed were beyond Raju's thinking or control. He never once
imagined that there would arrive a time when the fake sanyasi in him would become
transformed into a genuine one. People expected him, as the holy one with spiritual
power, to bring rain to the draught stricken land of theirs by his penance as it used to
happen in ancient India. For sometime, Raju tried to evade this role. But fate is
something inexorable and relentless. It is in times like this that one realizes it is
'divinity that shapes our ends.' As said by Emerson in a memorable poem named
Brahma, it is the 'One behind the many' that is responsible for one's life.

In the novel The Guide, Narayan seemed to be particularly fascinated by the ubiquitous
presence of swamys and saints, gurus and guides, charlatans and philistines, cobras and
concubines in Indias colourful society. With his characteristic humour he was able to
capture the spectrum of Indian life, with its superstitions and hypocrisies, its beliefs and
follies, its intricacies and vitalities, its rigidities and flexibilities. The action of the novel
proceeded in two distinct streams, presenting two different aspects of Indian culture.
Malgudi, a miniature of India, presented the rich traditions of classical dances by
Rosie-Nalini and the breath-taking paintings that embellish Marco Polos The Cultural
History of South India. Mangal, the neighbour town village presented the spiritual
dimension of Indian culture, presented through Rajus growth into a celebrated Swamy.

The characters in The Guide can be reduced to symbolic meanings. Velan represents
the psycho-
logical reality of the rural ethos. He is the spiritual guide of Raju, the professional
guide. Raju remains professional even in his mask. Raju, Velan and Rosie are the
central characters in the novel. According to U. P. Sinha from his essay, Patterns of
Myth and Reality in The Guide: Complex Craft of Fiction: Their implicative or
metaphoric roles in the novel make a mythic triangle which is a triangle with three
points, one indicating the height of spiritual-cum-moral triumph. The point indicating
the low, the deep is represented by Rosie, and the vertical one is represented by Velan.

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The third point at the level, which seems to be vertical but is not obviously so,
represents Raju. The first two points act upon this one so that the whole triangle
becomes mythicalman facing two opposite-worlds; facing always with very little
chance of a smooth and painless arrival here or there.

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The Bachelor of Arts:

It is the story of a young guy name Chandran, who resembles a typical Indian upper
middle class youth of the pre-independence era. Chandran is in his last year of collage
and enjoying life when the novel opens. After completing his bachelor of arts in history
he aces a dilemma about his fu-ure occupation. Everybody starts to give him advice on
his future profession but he declines all offers and decides to wait a year to go to
England for further studies. He spends his times at ho-me acquiring knowledge. His life
changes when he sees a girl called Malathi in town and falls in love with her at first
glance. He faces many social obstacles when he wants to marry her and is finally
rejected by her parents because their horoscopes do not match. Distraught and heart
bro-ken, Chandran decided to visit his uncle in Madras. But there he slips away from
his uncles ho-me. Later, he realizes the foolishness of running away from loved ones.
He comes back to Malg-udi and became responsible and starts his own business. At the
end of the novel he gets married according to the wishes of his parents and fall in love
with his new bride, Susila.

According to Mishra (2004:89) the character of Kailash in The Bachelor of Arts is

molded on Narayans maternal uncle who was a heavy drinker of wine. He was
Narayans mothers youn-ger brother and was known as junior. He was an automobile
salesman and occasionally helped his sister financially. He used to drink wine a lot
every evening and behaved wildly. In My Days Narayan says that his uncle approaches
to other human being, his aggressive talk whe-rever he went, his dash and recklessness
and his fondness for alcohol in every form all through the day had provided him with
insight in human behavior. Chandran met Kailash while he was in Madr- ras, trying to
cope with his grief of losing his first love.

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The English Teacher:

Narayan, like Krishna in The English Teacher, had an exceptionally happy marriage.
He was a devoted husband to his wife Rajam and a caring father to his daughter Hema.
Narayan used to feel anxious whenever they were separated from him and felt guilt for
neglecting them. At this time Narayan was having difficulty establishing himself as a
full time author and suffering financially. His happy family live helped him to endure
this period of despondency and low spirits.

Narayan was deeply in love with his wife Rajam. Though they had their arguments, it
was clear that they really cared for each other. In The English Teacher Krishna has a
similar relationship with his wife. Unlike Narayan, Krishna was financially secure and
was happy in his profession as a lecturer of English. Their arguments centered on a
clock and their suffering and patch ups shows that it is a normal aspect of married life.
Narayan was a devoted father to his daughter Hema. He has portrayed his love for his
daughter through Krishnas relationship with Leela. Krishna is always anxious for the
well-being of his daughter. This is evident in the scene when he tells his wife to be
careful of the baby while she is getting off the train. He is very conscious about the
eating habits of his daughter, as he is reluctant to buy her outside food. After returning
from collegessss Krishna spends a lot of time with her and after the death of his wife
she becomes his only reason for living. Narayan was always anxious about his
daughters well being as well. When in January 1939 Rajam went to visit her parents in
Coimbatore by train, their dau-ghter Hema had slight fever. Anxious for his daughters
well being, Narayan requested his wife not to go to Coimbatore but to return home with
him.

In The English Teacher Narayan has described a scene in a railway station which was
taken from his own life. In early March of 1939, Rajam and Hema were travelling to
Mysore by train. Narayan went to meet them in Mysore station. His feeling is
memorably evoked in The English Teacher through Krishna.

.. I was pacing the little Malgudi railway station in great agitation. I had never
known such suspense before. . I saw her sitting serenely in her sit.. I gazed at
my wife.. her fresh face.

The anxiety and apprehension Krishna experiences while waiting for his family is
similar to Narayans own feelings. The love and tenderness of a husband after long
separation is conveyed beautifully. Narayan has introduced some changes from reality
in the novel. For Susila it was transfer of residence from village, whereas Rajam was
returning home from visiting her parents. Unlike Rajam, Susila was accompanied by
her father. The child Leela, daughter of the protagonist, is clearly younger than
Narayans daughter Hema in early 1939. Krishnas family returns home in a Victoria, a
low light four-wheeled carriage which has seat for two passengers, whereas Narayan
engaged a two-wheeled Tonga.

Narayans father in-law wanted to buy his daughter a house, so in mid-1939 Narayan
went house-hunting with Rajam. He provides a blow-by-blow account of this
experience in The English Teacher. In the novel Krishnas father and father-in-law both
want to advance the money so the couple could build or buy their own house in
Malgudi. Krishna and Susila one day go house-hunting and after seeing some houses

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find the one they like. After seeing its interior and outside beauty, Susila alone goes to
explore the house. When she does not return after a long time Krishna goes to find her.
He finds her trapped inside a filthy lavatory which had a freshly painted door. This
incident affected Susila greatly, especially because a fly had set on her lips. Narayans
wife Rajam went through a similar experience. She also got trapped inside a filthy
lavatory and was attacked by a fly on her lip. Like Susila, Rajam also used to
constantly rub her lip to brush away the loathsome fly. According to her brother-in-law
Laxman, Rajam could never get rid of the fact that there was something on her lips. In
Narayans mind the incident with the fly is responsible for Rajams typhoid. Rajam,
like Susila in the novel, fell ill the same evening.

In The English Teacher Krishnas, wife Susila dies from typhoid just like Narayans
wife Rajam. Through Krishnas actions Narayan portrays how he took care of his wife
at that time and the excruciating agony he suffered and the precautions he had taken for
his daughters safety (Ram & Ram, 1996). Narayan was not totally convinced that the
fly was the carrier of the disease which took his wife Rajams life. In the novel he has
hinted that Susila may have already been ill prior to the fly incident. However,
psychologically the incident had a great impact on Rajams life, as it may have
aggravated her early symptoms.

There is a poem in the novel which Krishna writes when his wife Susilas condition
deteriorates and he does everything to make her well. It becomes a battle against fate to
cure his wife. He is told to apply ice to bring the fever down. Reducing the fever
becomes necessary to save Susilas life.

The great fight goes on

..
But so far it is not the fever which cools,
But Ice that melts.

He did this in a fit of rage against fate shortly before Rajams death. He says in The
English Teacher:

Let life do its worst, this is my answer. Every shred of memory will be destroyed, I
will avoid torment thus.

In The English Teacher Narayan wanted to achieve immortality for his life with
Rajam. Narayans loyalty and love for his wife is such that it outlived her and proved
lifelong. This novel is based on reality, and though Narayan has introduced certain
changes it almost looks like an autobiography .

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Swami and Friends
The first of a trilogy of novels, Swami and Friends is set against the backdrop of
preindependence India. The story is about an adolescent boy growing up at that time. It
is the story of Swami, a small boy who is a student at Albert Mission School. It not
only tells the story of Swami but others like, Shanker whose specialty is to top every
exam; Pea and Somu, who occupy the middle positions and Mani, who is Swami s
best friend and who always sits on the last bench and takes more than one year to pass
some classes. Together Swami and Mani rule over the class and barely manage to
scrape past the exams. These boys live for summer vacations when they can play all the
time in the street with friends. This peaceful setting is disturbed occasionally by the
stern headmaster of the school and sometimes by the religious study teacher, Ebenezar
and also by a stern father. The 10 year old boy grows up when Rajam joins the school.
The monotonous school life of Swami then gains excitement when together with
Rajam, he dreams of forming a cricket team. Young Swami gets caught up in the anti-
British movement and manages to get thrown out of school. When he runs away from
school for the second time, he feels that there is nothing left and so he also runs away
from home. Eventually Swami returns home to the relief of his parents. The story
attains its climax when Rajam moves out of the town without even uttering a word to
Swami.

In this novel Narayan has drawn upon his own childhood experience to recreate a
childs perception of the world (Ram & Ram 2006: 30). The protagonist of Swami and
Friends is Swam-inathan, a school boy, whose attitude towards school is just like
Narayan himself. The opening lines of the novel clearly sketch the moods, behavior and
psychology of a young boy.

Swaminathan. considered Monday especially unpleasant in the calendar. . it

was difficult to get into the Monday mood of work and discipline. He shuddered at
the very thought of school: that dismal yellow building; .the Head Master with
his thin long cane. ...

Another incident from his life which resurfaces in this novel is Narayan s attitude
towards drill class and the punishment he suffered for skipping them. Narayan used to
regularly skip Friday afternoon drill class and consequently get six whacks in his
upturned palm from the headmasters cane first thing on Monday morning. In Swami
and Friends when Swami skips a few drill classes due to cricket practice he has to
endure punishment from his headmaster. Swami had to attain drill class everyday after
school while his friends played cricket. So he pretended to be sick to skip the drill
classes and requested the doctor to talk to his headmaster. As the doctor did not make
excuses on Swamis behalf, he got punished by the headmaster, six on each hand for
each day of absence, and the next lesson on the bench.

In Swami and Friends, the tension associated with the approach of exam is explored
with sensitivity. The anxiety and sleeplessness of the night before examination is shown
as Swami tries to deflect his rising trepidation by making a list of his exam stationery
requirements. The atmosphere of examination hall is grim and tension filled. After the
examination the students speculate about the answers. On leaving the examination hall
Swami begins to have doubts after hearing others responses. The reader begins to
share his sense of error and mild panic. Though there are trepidations about the result,
the joy of having finished the exam is great. Swami and his classmates welcome the

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summer holidays with a glorious, ink soaked celebration of freedom. As a middling
student, the writer finds the examinations a particular ordeal. Narayan expresses his
dislike of exams in many essays. Through Swami, Narayan expresses the desperate
nervousness and mental anguish one suffers at exam time.

Through Swami and his father Narayan illustrate the distance that used to exist in
father-son relationship at that time. In his fathers presence Swami displays wariness
and apprehension. Swami greets his fathers departure from home with hope and his
presence at home with trepidation. Narayan also had a similar attitude towards his
father in his childhood. Later in the novel, Swamis action of running away from home
enables Narayan to explore deeper regions of father-son relationship. The caring and
love a father feels for his son but is unable to openly express is shown in this novel.

In this novel the attitude and expressions of adult characters like Swami s father, his
Granny, the Headmaster of the school and teachers are viewed through the eyes of a
child.

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Waiting for Mahatma:

Gandhiji, a socio-political figure, struggled for the sake of Indias development and
independence. He is an immense source of writing and has influenced different
disciplines and many writers from different fields like history, politics, philosophy,
literature, sociology, and so on. He served as a central figure for their writings.
Gandhiji not only struggled for Indias sindependence but also taught the people of
India to love one another and advised them to show bitterness towards non-violence. In
this principle of non-violence Gandhiji introduces technique of resistance to evil and
untruth. His Satyagraha is inspired by boundless love and compassion. It is opposed to
sin and evil. Gandhiji was the speaker of truth and he does not like falsehood. These
principles of Gandhiji were very well exhibited in the novels of R.K. Narayan. One or
in another way the characters of the novels explore Gandhiji himself or his views. For
example,in a novel called Waiting for MahatmaGandhiji, himself has participated as a
character. Bharati an important personality in the novel servesas a disciple of Gandhiji.
The famous novels of R.K.Narayan were Swami and Friends(1935), The Bachelor of
Arts(1937), The English Teacher(1945), Waiting for Mahatma(1955), The Vendor of
Sweets(1967) were all set in Narayans imaginary town, Malgudi. It is not a place but
an experience of soil and soul of India.
The paper aims at analysing the novels of R.K. Narayan on this backdrop and it
concludes that his novels serve as a panorama for the future generation, to know
Gandhi as a whole.

The period between 1920 and 1947 is noted for spreading Gandhian philosophy in
Indian Writing in English. M.K. Naik, an eminent critic regarded this period as the
Gandhian whirl world (Naik 114) with an unprecedented awakening ofa distinctive
national unity (Naik 116).Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon em. (Twelfth Night Act IIScene5) This is very applicable
to Gandhiji. He is born and brought in a normal background, but his principles gained
from his experience made him a great and best individual.

The period between 1920 and 1947 is noted for spreading Gandhian philosophy in
Indian Writing in English. M.K. Naik, an eminent critic regarded this period as the
Gandhian whirl world (Naik 114) with an unprecedented awakening ofa distinctive
national unity.Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon em. This is very applicable to Gandhiji. He is born and brought in a
normal background, but his principles gained from his experience made him a great and
best individual. individuals of India, through the writings of various writers. R.K.
Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, and also many other Indian writers explore
Gandhijis view in their writings.

Swaminathan, Chandran, Krishnan, Sriram, and Jaganall the protagonists in his novels
are true embodiments of Gandhian virtues and principles.Thus, R. K. Narayan has
presented an encompassing view of Gandhian ideology and philosophy in his novels.
These novels serves as a panorama for the future generations who wants to understand
Gandhiji as whole.

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