A Town Called Malgudi

This was my second purchase along with ‘The Last Don’, made on a discount coupon that I’d received from the last book fair and though this was a hurried choice but there is not the remotest chance of repentance on the outcome.
When I’d first read R.K. Narayan, I was fascinated by his style and after reading the first novel in this book, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, i just fell in love with his works. He seemed to be in elements while writing his 9th novel in 1961, 26 years after he entertained his readers with the wonderful ‘Swami and Friends’ His wry sense of humour blended magnificently with the day to day events that he narrated in his own style to weave the plot that at one hand consisted of mystery and on the other hand the constraints in life that an apparently meek and contented man faces that he justifies in his own way. The story starts with the printer Nataraj, a good human being, persuaded by a compelling taxidermist, Vasu, to let his attic for his personal use wihtout caring to pay any rent for that. This doesn’t worry Nataraj but the increasing number of stuffed animals in the attic annoys him and his printing assistant Sastri but both fears the bullying Vasu to order to vacate his residence. Vasu, described as a good marksman and an obsessed taxidermist, often visited the nearby Mempi forest and without a licence, used to shoot animals without paying heed to the forest department and brought back the dead animals for his trade. His obsession ultimately drove him to target Kumar, a temple elephant, which seemed to strike protest from certain people and ultimately on the day following the one he was to shoot the animal, Vasu was found dead in his room. Mystery shrouded as to the cause of the death and a singular and symbolic solution was offered by the author though no clear evidence was ever brought forward.
The second is a novella Talkative Man where we are introduced to Madhu, the talkative man of Malgudi whose incessant talk earned him the name. He, being a freelance journalist, seemed to roam everywhere around Malgudi and each day saw him despatching his reports in the mail van. Thus it was obvious that a new entry in the town of Malgudi would not pass unnoticed by him. In this way he met Dr. Rann, that was what he called himself, in his three piece suit who proclaimed himself to be coming from Timbuctoo and would like to stay at Malgudi to continue his work on ‘futurology’, an United Nations project. Well, everybody seem to buy this, even TM (affectionate abbreviation for Talkative Man in Malgudi) and this resulted in TM writing an article on Dr. Rann which the editors in town seemed to like and published it complete with Rann’s photograph. This resulted in the visit of a lady from Delhi who confided in TM that she was the wife of Rann alias Rangan who was far from being a researcher but a lecherous womanizer. TM took the matter lightly and for the time being shielded Rann from the woman and managed to send the later to Delhi thus helping Rann to evade her. But soon it seemed what the woman had told was true as Rann seemed to form a bondage with the naive granddaughter of the good old librarian of the Lawley Memorial Library and Reading Room. This disturbed TM and he soon set pace to a series of events to save the young woman from disrespect. The story also gathered a brisk pace from this point onwards, so unlike Narayan narratives but as a whole the culmination was again correctly Narayan style. It may be mentioned that Nataraj of the 1st novel also plays a very small role in this narrative that started as a novel but thanks to Narayan who never paid heed to the publisher’s demand of more words and stopped where it needed to be stopped in the signature style!
The book also contains several of author’s short stories where we discover a different Narayan. In Astrologer’s Day the single eventful day of the astrologer revealed not only his secret past but may also represent several of the men in the trade and shows us the extent to which imagination can extend so as to pen such a classic narrative. The next story Lawley Road once again brings the Talkative Man who narrates a humorous series of event following the patriotic zeal of the Municipal Council of eradicating everything that is British in free India. True this story is a must read for every Indians both of whom support or are against of this time to time zeal of the Government without paying any heed to the treasury. In A Night of Cyclone, the Talkative Man narrates an anecdote that though could be horrifying but was draped in humour in his unique style. Selvi is a wonderful tale of a singer turned to star by the scheming Mohan who finally receives a severe jolt from the performer he created. But Nitya disappointed me as it tried to bring back the days of ‘Swami and Friends’ but seemed to lose its goal. But Narayan was again in his elements in The Roman Image in which he again introduces TM and I think I become more and more a fan of the Talkative Man as I meet him each time. Infact as I read the story, I remembered the soap version and how I enjoyed that too. Next is A Horse and Two Goats which is perhaps the best of the collection and here in the course of the events a Tamil rustic man is seen to be conversing in his own language with a British who is turn is speaking in English and both are barely understanding each other in the truest sense. Though the entire narrative is in English, the author’s style has never prevented the reader to understand the comic part which occurs due to the linguistic difference. A Breath of Lucifer seems to be the only short story with a Prologue and this is also an example where a magnificent narrative awaits the reader which is based on a post operative patient and his attendant and I use the word magnificent as the patient was an eye-patient and the narration is from his perspective whose sense of vision is temporarily lost. Narayan is again brilliant in the portraiture of Uncle in the eyes of his adopted nephew and how the latter tries to justify his feelings towards his uncle as his character slowly evolves in front of him. The next is Annamalai where the reader might enjoy again the humour that blends well in the relationship of the master and his servant. The second best of the narrative to me in this collection is Salt and Sawdust where the expert cook and the lover in husband metamorphoses the life of their family in a classic tale of comedy and ambition. The list doesn’t stop here but continues with The Edge, The Mute Companions, Naga and The Seventh House till we reach the final in Under the Banyan Tree which is again a bit abstract to me.
Thus Penguin India presents a fitting tribute to this R.K. Narayan with a nice introduction by S. Krishnan but a slight mistake is present as though the back cover promises the book to contain the short story ‘The Shelter’ but actually the compilation misses it!