R.K.

Narayan Swami & Friends 1

Paper: Indian Writing in English

Lesson: R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends
Lesson Developer: Vandita Gautam
College/ Departments: Moti Lal Nehru College, University of Delhi

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 2

R.K. Narayan (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001)

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Narayan is an Indian literary

giant credited with establishing the Indian English novel genre and introducing the Indian sensibility to
the world at large. Narayan’s literary output was amazing. He wrote fifteen novels, five volumes of
short stories, a number of travelogues, non-fiction, English translation of Indian epics, and memoirs.
The backdrop of nearly all his fiction is an imaginative town – Malgudi - which grows from a sleepy,
dusty, unnoticeable town to a bustling hectic urban centre with the passage of time as the writer adds
to this imaginative landscape, novel after novel.
Narayan was born in Chennapatna in Chennai on October 10, 1906. He was the third among
eight siblings. He lived in a close-knit joint family which gave him
a sense of tradition and family values. He believed: "To be a
good writer anywhere, you must have roots - both in religion and
family..."1 for the “material available to a story writer in India is
limitless”. Within a broad climate of inherited culture there are
endless variations: every individual differs from every other
individual, not only economically, but in outlook, habits and day-
to-day philosophy. It is stimulating to live in a society that is not
standardised or mechanised, and is free from monotony. Under
such conditions the writer has only to
Chennapatna look out of the window to pick up a character
(and thereby a story)."2 For the first fifteen years of his life,
Narayan was brought up by his maternal grandmother, Parvathi, in Chennai, away from the rest of his
family residing in Mysore. From her he learnt Sanskrit and mythology. His childhood companions were
a peacock and a monkey. Later he moved to Mysore. Here he studied at Maharaja's Collegiate High
School where his father was the headmaster. Narayan’s father was a strict disciplinarian which made
him dislike formal education. Narayan failed his University entrance examinations twice. Finally, in
1930, he graduated from Maharaja College in four years, instead of the regular three years. 1930 led

Factoid R. K. Laxman, the famous cartoonist was Narayan’s youngest brother.

to Narayan’s creative flowering - in September, on Vijaydashmi, he scripted the first line of his first
ever novel Swami and Friends which was published in 1935.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 3

Throughout his life Narayan travelled globally. He visited the United States in 1956 at the
invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. Here he met Graham Greene for the first and the only time in
a unique literary friendship that continued over five decades. A memorable travelogue, ‘My Dateless
Diary’, was the result of Narayan’s American sojourn. In the Hotel Carlton, Berkeley, California,
Narayan wrote the most famous of his novels, The Guide, which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award
in 1960. In 1961 he re-visited the United States and also made a trip to Australia which was funded by
a fellowship by the Australian Writers' Group. In 1964, he travelled to the States again where he met
the celebrated Swedish-American actress Greta Garbo - she was interested in the Vedanta Society, and
Narayan taught her the Gayatri Mantra. During this time he also travelled to Europe, the Soviet Union,
the Philippines and Indonesia. In 1967 his novel, The Vendor of Sweets, inspired by his American visits
and experience of cultural differences, was published. In 1980 Narayan's works were translated into
Chinese for the first time and he was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha - the upper house of the
Indian Parliament - for his contributions to literature. During his entire six-year term, Narayan’s
singular focus was on the plight of school children, especially the overload of homework and stifling of
a child’s natural creativity, which resulted in the formation of a committee chaired by Prof. Yash Pal to
recommend changes in India’s school educational system.
In the early 1990s, Narayan moved to Madras to stay with his daughter and son-in-law in their
apartment. He continued to write, occasionally visiting his grandson in America. T. S. Satyan tells us in
an article published in the Frontline that Narayan missed Mysore very much: “ ‘I spend a lot of time
reclining in easy chair and thinking of Mysore, which now has become a sort of emotional landscape…’
His room had a window overlooking a crowded junction of roads at Alwarpet. Often, Narayan kept
gazing through this window to look at the world passing by. ‘There's so much happening here. There is
so much to see. So interesting’ he told me on one of my last visits to him before death overtook him” 3.
Narayan died of cardiac arrest on May 13 2001. N. Ram, one of his close friends tells us that just a few
hours before he went on a ventilator and breathed his last, Narayan, the master story teller had to be
advised to not strain his lungs and keep quiet, for he continued to discuss his plans to write a novel on
the life of his tahsildar grandfather. 4
Narayan’s literary oeuvre spanned a period of nearly sixty years. He was critically acclaimed
and honoured nationally and internationally. In 1958 he won the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide
and in 1964 he received the Padma Bhushan. In 1980, he was awarded the AC Benson Medal by the
(British) Royal Society of Literature. He was also conferred honorary
doctorates by the University of Leeds in 1967, the University of
Mysore in 1976 and Delhi University in 1973. In 2000, he was
awarded India's second-highest civilian honour, the Padma
Vibhushan. Narayan’s novels and short stories were televised and
also adapted for movies and the Broadway.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 4

R. K. Narayan and the Literary Scene

The twentieth century in which Narayan wrote is an extremely charismatic age, nationally and
internationally. This period witnessed cataclysmic events that altered hegemonic structures globally.
There were two major world wars, widespread apartheid, anti-apartheid movements, and the
settlement of Jews in Israel. It was in 1947 that India won Swaraj after a consistent struggle against
the British and gave its indelible legacy, Ahimsa, to the world at large: a young nation with a unique
cultural blend fascinated the globe. Contemporary Indian writers writing in English had the daunting
uphill task of coming from a multi-lingual spool and splicing a non-indigenous language, English, with
Indian tones. The result was, and has been, remarkable: the language of these literary pioneers is
masterly in its simplicity, fluidity and naturalness. The first Indian novel in English Rajmohan’s Wife
was written by Bankimchandra Chatterjee in 1864. However, novel writing in English gained a steady
momentum with the famous trendsetting trio - Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan who wrote
effortless English which had an Indian sensibility and addressed an Indian audience: they are the
“forefathers”5 of Indian fiction in English. This novel form was a “twice born fiction” - an “organic
product of the concrete socio-political-cultural environment of the epoch”6. C.D. Narasimhaiah observes
that these three literary giants’ “essential literary sensibility” had a “distinct flavour… native and alien
at the same time”7. The period from the 1930s to the 1950s is hailed as Indian Renaissance. The
novels written during this period have a revolutionary fervour. There is a strong preoccupation with
Indian problems and Gandhi’s ideals. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchables deals with the exploitation of the
lower castes and is largely inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Instances of young men caught at cultural
crossroads teem the pages of these novels where humour and distress inextricably intertwine. Thus it

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 5

is a funny and embarrassing moment, in Coolie by Mulk Raj Anand when a well-to-do Indian family
goes overboard in its hospitality to an inconsequential British who cannot understand why he is feted
by the Indians who do not think twice over making fools of themselves. Families and filial politics
source the fictional material of these novelists, at times creating tragic and poignant situations and at
times humour. In Swami and Friends a schoolboy makes a ridiculous alibi to excuse his absence in
class saying that his grandmother had died but no one could warrant her death since she had an
extended line of relatives who were either missing from home or out of reach.
This period of literary flowering is conspicuous in its indifference to Europeans who are largely
absent from the pages of the Indian novelists writing in English. Also, no comparison is made between
them and the Indians. Suresh Kumar’s analysis of this period leads him to conclude that Europeans are
generally caricatured or casually mentioned8. De la Havre in Mulk Raj Anand’s novel, Two Leaves and a
Bud is an exception. He is a well-rounded European character who is humane and sympathises with
the cause of the coolies under his charge. We come across many Anglo-Indians who are limned as
social misfits and an unhappy lot. Swami’s teacher, Ebenezer belongs to this category.
India is vitalised in the pages of the Indian novelists who do an incredible service to the world
at large by introducing it to a country which is multi-faceted, complex and philosophically rich. The
clash between the old and the new, the problems faced by the indigenous population and the undying
belief in the intrinsic goodness of the human race are the major concerns of the novelists of the
nineteen thirties. It is due to these stalwarts that today the Indian authors are an international rage.
Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan had an extremely trying time getting their first novels published.
Anand had become desperately suicidal but his novel, Untouchables finally did get into print in 1933.
Narayan’s Swami and Friends was rejected umpteen times till one of his friends, Kittu Purna intervened
on his behalf and the book reached Graham Greene who sponsored its publication. While Mahatma
Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose worked towards ousting the British from India, the Indian writers
gained a formidable reputation.

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Narayan’s Critical Reception

Writing under the Empire’s shadow, R.K. Narayan is a remarkable literary personality who used
the language of the colonialists and made it his own. It is extremely commendable that Narayan’s
entire education took place in India and still he wrote in lucid English which was not his mother tongue.
Narayan’s choice of words and syntax was dextrously arrived at. The easy, readable style for which
Narayan has been critically acclaimed was the result of disciplined drafts and re-drafts of novels and
stories. Narayan’s themes are simple and profound at the same time. He has explored the complex
emotional quicksand of the average middle class Indian who finds himself/ herself at odds with
traditional values – values which are cherished and revered but gradually imprison and scaffold an
aspiring, ambitious individual. The simple subjects of Narayan’s novels and their day to day concerns
strike a chord in readers across the globe. One is humbled by the fact that non-Indians have
empathised with the tragedies and comedies in the lives of Narayan’s characters. India and its vibrant
middle-class, and the nation’s multifarious cultural complexity is palpably alive in Narayan’s pages,
which for the first time became familiar to the world at large despite its singularity and peculiar
Indianness. At times, Narayan’s language is piquantly Indian which adds to the unique charm of his
writing. One is impressed by the writer’s astuteness, his ability to observe the common and glean the
ordinary to create an enriching rewarding experience that subtly educates us. Each and every novel by
Narayan is steeped in humanism which inculcates in us a faith in the universal goodness of human
society which Narayan believes will continue to be the backbone of individuals despite its circumscript
morality which rebels will have to gradually come to terms with. According to Narayan, no man can be
an island unto himself and life has meaning only when one learns to accept and come to terms with
limitations.
Narayan has continued to have his share of detractors like Shashi Tharoor and Shashi
Deshpande who find Narayan’s English pedestrian and pidgin 9. Narayan’s themes have always been
simple and profound. He took up average people as his subjects and delved into their ordinary lives
and simple day to day problems that gradually reveal a profound stoic faith in humanity, God and the
goodness of mankind – a typical Indian philosophical stance. This thematic simplicity is the result of
the writer’s painstaking accurate observation of people around him. Narayan is an artist whose pages
are peopled by persons we come across in our daily concourse. To read a text for the first time and
feel an affinity with it is not trivial but a soul connect that can only happen because the text sublimates
the particular into a universal. If this is done in a language that strikes a chord in its readers it is no
mean task. And if critics belittle an author who has a firm control over a language it speaks volumes of
acerbity against simplicity. “Narayan stands for the immense flexibility, adaptability and élan of
English… without any discernible twang of the foreign, with a sense of disarming familiarity”10.
According to Srinivas Iyengar, he "uses the English language much as we used to wear dhotis
manufactured in Lancashire— but the thoughts and feelings, the stirrings of the soul, the wayward

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 7

movements of the consciousness, are all of the soil of India". Anthony West of ‘The New Yorker’
considered Narayan's writings realism to be of the variety of Nikolai Gogol.
Narayan’s fictional oeuvre is a tribute to “lives of ‘ordinary’ men and women… who remind us of
our own neighbours, or our own siblings – or ourselves”11. These people have “modest and hopeful
expectations”, fight against denials and “wrestle with existence” – a “grand salvaging operation” that is
an “adventure”12 trail to self realisation. This journey to self realisation is fraught with tensions and
frustrations that have a tragic-comic element to them. The characters are simple-minded and their
aspirations commonplace but their serious intent has an element of humorous incongruity to it. In
Bachelor of Arts Chandran consistently chalks out study schedules and plans to strictly adhere to them,
it is a bitter sweet comedy that his sincere intentions are thwarted. This comic vision is Narayan’s
forte. His ability to engage with the mundane intimately and still maintain an objective distance all the
while seeing in it “the miracle of transcendence and the renewal of life, beauty and peace” 13 is the
reason why Narayan’s stories leave an ever lasting impression despite their simplicity.
Narayan’s works are never overtly didactic or moralistic. His writings have been described as
“table talk”14 which has earnestness but not revolutionary fervour where the routine and the everyday
captivate the readers who are drawn into the relaxed vortex of lives that are ordinary yet refreshingly
beautiful and dependable. The stories ravel through lively, sparkling dialogues not staid and prosaic
descriptions. In this respect he has been compared to Jane Austen. The stories build through
anecdotes and action where the authorial voice remains in the background. Narayan is a “dramatist”
and less of a “pure describer”. As such, except for “a few introductory words… We then do not know
how Mr. Sampath looked like, nor Rosie’s husband nor Vasu…” whom Narayan “leaves… to our
fancy”15.
Narayan’s fiction is realistic but this realism is rarely stark or brutal. Narayan’s stories are
blanketed with serenity. At times this serenity camouflages society’s callousness but the promise of
potential calm remains. The status quo, howsoever obdurate and painful, is never disturbed. It asserts
the author’s conviction that traditions and community are integral to the survival of humanity. There
are no hardcore villains here. We find charlatans and tricksters who are glib and make quick buck by
using their charm and eloquence to dupe the gullible. But these men are invariably drifters and passive
– things happen to them and they are at destiny’s receiving end. The world that Narayan creates is a
world where villainy lies in chasing the mirage of dreams and trying to create a castle of wishful fancies
with indifference to, not in defiance of, traditions. Dreamers can never be irredeemable. Narayan
empathises with all his characters irrespective of their level of goodness. “In his sympathetic hands
they turn into interesting and amusing figures such as make the earth very colourful…” 16 And inevitably
when the denouement occurs and there’s a clash of values the imposter rises to the occasion and
becomes one with his dream which is always to create a world where the masses idolise him. In
Narayan’s world breach occurs but the edifice of universal humanism and brotherhood remains
steadfast. The Guide is Narayan’s masterpiece where he creates a lovable lout, Raju, who follows his
heart recklessly as a child and an adult, trying to gratify other people’s expectations by framing them
into believing his lies to be true. His recklessness lands him in prison. However, Raju remains true to
his nature. Once he is freed but without work, hungry and homeless, he lets people mistake him for a

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 8

sadhu till events catapult to a miraculous climax where a drought stricken village is inundated with rain
and the villagers credit Raju for God’s benevolence. Despite his littleness, the protagonist - an anti-
hero and a fraudster – remains true to his inner self because of which irrespective of his deeds he
realises the truth of atman, which is – in typical Narayanesque fashion – service to humanity. The
beauty of Narayan’s fiction is in its irrevocable camaraderie where no man can be an island unto
himself. However, Narayan’s rogues have been described W.J. Harvey as “Cards”17 who are static and
do not evolve or change with time.
R.K. Narayan was a consummate artist who worked
intensively “with his little bit of ivory just so many
inches wide”18. In ‘The Average as Positive’, Rajeev
Tarnath says “Narayan’s writing becomes an ‘oeuvre’
in the peculiarity of location…”19. “A geographical place
becomes for him a prototype of the entire world”20.
We find him returning to his small imaginative city,
Malgudi which altered with the passage of time and
the stories that shaped out in its topos. One continues to speculate on the location of Malgudi but it
remains a speculation since the author never gave it a specific geographical location. This ambiguity
adds charm to the fiction since it universalises the specific. Malgudi has been compared to William
Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Dr James M.
Fennelly, a scholar of Narayan's works, created a
map of Malgudi based on the fictional descriptors of
the town from the many books and stories21. One
feels that Malgudi is ageless and is a microcosm of
India which continues to exist despite a bewildering
variety and endless change. “…it is difficult to shake
off the feeling that you have vicariously lived in this
town. Malgudi is the single most endearing
‘character’ R.K. Narayan has ever created”22.
Narayan wrote in the Introduction to Malgudi Days
“the material available to the story writer in India is
limitless. Within a broad climate of inherited culture there are endless variations: every individual
differs from every other individual, not only
economically, but in outlook, habits and day-
to-day philosophy. It is stimulating to live in
a society that is not standardised or
mechanised, and is free from monotony.
Under such conditions the writer has only to
look out of the window to pick up a character
and thereby a story"23.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 9

Though the variety of characters in Narayan’s novels is noteworthy, all of them barring a few
exceptions are from the middle-class or the lower middle-class firmly rooted in age-old customs and
traditions. In Narayan’s own words: “My characters were simple enough to lend themselves for
observation; they had definite outlines – not blurred by urban speed, size and tempo”24. They have “a
marked potential for the uncommon” though the significance of their lives lies in their journey from the
“average to the extraordinary and back again to a more poignant state of average”. The “majority of
his protagonists are… self-complacent” with “small occupations which they manage more or less single
25
handed” . C.N. Srinath draws our attention to Narayan’s heroes who are mostly “identified with a
profession or a role, e.g. the Bachelor of Arts, the Vendor of Sweets, the Financial Expert”. The titles of
these novels suggest that humans are destined to play their pre-ordained role – their Dharma. Inability
to do so results in irony since these characters are defined by their ideals and aspiration.26
Rebellions do occur but, like Chandran’s in Bachelor of Arts, are ineffective against society’s
collective force: the rebels “accept defeat… and they find happiness… in submission”. Narayan is not a
reformist; his “work contains no scalded sense of social injustice, no anguish, no colonial indignation”.
V. Pandurang Rao correctly sums up that “Narayan’s vision is essentially moral… the problems… are
largely ethical”. Conflict in Narayan’s novels is between the old and the new generations within
the family’s “immediate context in which the novelist’s sensibility operates" 27 - Swami in Swami and
Friends is a child who runs away from home; Chandran is a young adolescent who becomes an ascetic;
Ramana’s aunt in Painter of Signs goes on a pilgrimage when Ramana plans to marry a Christian.
However, these “novels are not vehicles of mass propaganda” where “the sense of kinship is always
strong”28 and “at the end there is always a… restoration of normalcy… Narayan’s heroes ultimately
accept life as it and this leads them towards their spiritual maturity” and “acceptance” of life’s
“absurdities”29. This acceptance contributes to the novel’s irony and humour which is gentle.
Exclusive to every other concern, Narayan was creative, not didactic or moralistic though his
fiction was a foray into spiritual self-realisation. Narayan always wanted to be a story-teller and to
entertain through his works. He picked up ordinary lives and ordinary incidents as elements to build his
stories on. However, they “are focussed on in an amazingly extraordinary manner”. Graham Greene
thought this to be the “riskiest kind of fiction-writing”. The greatest tribute to Narayan’s fictional
oeuvre comes from Greene himself: “It was Mr Narayan with his Swami and Friends who… first brought
India… alive to me”30. Narayan is without doubt a writer whose crisp images and vivid storytelling are
at par with Maugham. He has been hailed as the ‘Indian Chekov’ by critics at large.
Today as we move on into the second decade of the twenty first century the world continues to
be perplexed by the Indian government’s treatment of R.K. Narayan. The country does not have a
single memorial raised to this writer’s name. Even his house which ought to have been declared a
national heritage is in shambles. It is wonderful though that the University of Delhi continues to include
the author in its syllabi. One hopes that Narayan’s vision to have a nation with a child-centric
education is thoroughly realised and the country does honour him the way intellectual across the globe
are honoured.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 10

Swami and Friends

Swami and Friends had its genesis in September 1930 on Vijaydashmi. The novel is largely
autobiographical though the incidents are so filtered that the personal is universalised. Its locale 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 coloured with
nationalist movements
and anti-British
sentiments. Swami’s life
has its little blitzkrieg
when

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 11

www.architecturalstudio.com
he is fired with the Swadeshi zeal and goes about vandalizing his school run by the British
missionaries only to be rusticated from it. The novel is a paean to childhood – its innocence, bunglings,
friendships, breakups and its own non-duplicable unique world. Narayan is the greatest Indian writer
who has marvellously 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”31 through his non-metropolitan situations.
Being a child across the globe comes with its own set of problems and more or less has to do
with the formal academic system which treats childhood as a phase through which a child has to be
forcefully forded across. In Narayan’s time the use of cane, the degrading and humiliating nature of the
'stand-up-on-the-desk' punishment, the heavy workload - all are exposed for what they really are: a
cruel education which mass-produces unimaginative clerks and subordinate staff to serve the British
administrative machine. In itself, childhood is never encouraged per se: children are always
encouraged to grow out of their mould of innocence. Freedom to a child is far and between, snatched
in between classroom and homework – when free play becomes possible – freedom for which a child is
at times held criminally accountable. But the beauty of childhood, Swami and Friends tells us lies in its
resilience and innocence. Swami and Friends begins with the sentences: “It was Monday morning.
Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes. He considered Monday especially unpleasant… After the
delicious freedom of Saturday and Sunday”. The novel’s first chapter is aptly titled ‘Monday Morning’
where the writer takes us into the world of children and in a non-didactic, un-acrimonious tone paints
for us a world where children and their little tragedies and sorrows are consistently overlooked by the
adults. Swaminathan’s work-a-day begins with completing an overload of homework for which he is not
appreciated. His efforts merely earn him rebuke. Narayan was a life-long critic of the Indian
educational system and he crusaded against academics’ burdening the child with homework and
regimenting his life. As a child, Narayan disliked going to school - the novel is interspersed with
autobiographical details. It is Narayan’s forte that he selects, alters and filters the autobiographical –
Swami’s world enjoys “an objective existence… responsive to… things outside” the writer’s immediate
life. According to Susan K. Langer, Narayan gives a “slant” to his life to “turn fiction into fact”32. This is
done with subtlety and in an expressive, lucid and simple style which comes home to the readers.
William Walsh says “What happens in India happens in Malgudi and whatever happens in Malgudi
happens everywhere”33. Narayan was extremely fond of walking: "Every day I would like to meet a
new person". “He came across a variety of people - hawkers, lawyers and their clerks, printers,
shopkeepers, students and professors who became characters in his hands and he fitted them into
Malgudi - his 'beehive'”34.
Swami was especially close to his grandmother who is described as a “benign and ignorant old
35
lady” – a widow with a kind attitude towards her grandson who adores her and still finds her a social
embarrassment. Unlike her son, this old lady is not judgmental and critical of Swami. She has a
genuinely magnanimous attitude towards Swami. She knows that children do not share the adult
world’s social duplicity and that they speak their hearts without malice. As such, when Swami brings
home his friend and asks his grandmother to give him a warm welcome but keep away from them, the

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Narayan’s grandmother nicknamed him Kunjappa, a name he was familiarly
Factoid
known by.
 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 12

elderly lady remains good humoured over the entire affair. She accepts Swami the way he is and does
not force him to grow up and grow out of his innocent naiveté. With her, Swami is a quintessential
child. He comes to her claiming incredulous feats like having tamed a lion, happy in the tacit assurance
that his grandmother would indulge his flights of fantasy and adventure. She is the one who sings
lullabies to him. Through the grandmother we are brought into the trove of Indian joint families where
women are strong emotional anchors to their grandchildren when parents are busy shouldering
responsibilities. The grandmother epitomises an ideal parent figure whose unconditional love lets the
child blossom naturally. Her guidance is kind, in glaring contrast to Swami’s father who is autocratic
and stern and extremely hard to please. Where Swami can play around freely with his granny, he is
not allowed to touch anything that belongs to his father. A tacit hierarchical demarcation exists in
Swami’s home. Swami’s father brings strict regimentation to home –
he is nearly as stifling as the school. The difference between the
school and the father lies in the fact that at school Swami is one
among the many students and is managed so that the school’s
discipline remains undisturbed while at home Swami has the privilege
of his father attending to his problems and trying to solve them.
Despite his father’s strictness, Swami holds his father in awe and
hero-worships him. Teachers are an altogether different ballgame to
Swami – he dislikes them and finds going to school very tedious and boring. We are categorically told
by the author that the only teacher whom the students generally liked was the history teacher who
was kind and good humoured. “He was reputed to have never frowned or sworn at the boys at any
time”. The rest of the teachers were not averse to handing out corporeal punishment to them. With his
characteristic humour, Narayan balances the bleak with the comic. As such, when Swami is pinched by
the teacher, we grin from ear to ear since Swami was the least interested in his homework’s
assessment. He was engrossed in his teacher’s face: “His criticism of the teacher’s face was that his
eyes were too near each other, that there was more hair on his chin than one saw from
[email protected] the bench, and that he was very bad looking”. There seems
to be humorous poetic justice in the teacher-student relationship here since Swami returns his
teacher’s contempt towards him – the teacher treats Swami’s homework disrespectfully, giving him
zero credit for his effort, scribbling “Very Bad” across his written work and flinging the exercise book
into his face. Narayan was against formal schooling for small children for he believed “In every teacher
there lurks a potential devil”36. We are drawn into the vortex of an education system that believes in
dumbing-down – a child is not allowed to be enthusiastic or expressive but is coerced into being an
unthinking cog that is geared to respond to the teacher and never initiate. As such, when a child
answers out of turn to a teacher’s rhetorical question over the location of Nile, he is unceremoniously
snubbed. Swami’s correct even if not a detailed answer to a question about India’s climate: “It is hot in
summer and cold in winter” does not elicit even a smile from the teacher who punishes him is a telling
comment on teaching methodology which stifles creativity and encourages timidity and passive
conformity.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 13

Examinations and Swami are an incorrigible affair. Swami loves physical activities and has a laid
back lackadaisical attitude towards life – he is non-assertive and happy-lucky-go. He is a proverbial
child in whose life there is sheer spontaneity. The gravity of exams is beyond his ken. Once again,
Narayan shows us the absurdity of academics’ evaluation yardstick which does not account for the
individuality of the student – an insistent issue that runs through the novel is the incongruity of
schooling where there is no place for children who are not academically inclined but bright otherwise.
Swami is not loquacious: he writes an absolutely correct answer which is just a few lines long in
comparison to his classmates’ half to one page long answers. Swami is badly graded despite being
correct. Narayan has rightly observed said “I feel convinced that the… aims of education are hopelessly
wrong from beginning to end”37.
It is R.K. Narayan’s unique forte that his novels ravel the complete picture. We never ever have
a world which is all black and bleak – sunshine and happiness
radiate from the pages. School has its innocent charm where
children get together, play, make friends, plot and learn to cope
with various kinds of pressures and develop camaraderie and
team spirit. We cannot begin to imagine Swami without his school
and school buddies, some of whom are meek and timid while
others are bullies or brilliant. Swami’s group consists of boys with varying aptitudes and
temperaments. What all of them invariably share is a make-believe world and their unwavering love for
cricket. Mani, the first friend we are introduced to, is possessive and likes to be looked up to. He
enjoys fooling around Swami who adores him and does not mind being pushed around. Mani keeps
getting physical with his group but holds no malice even if he is loudmouthed at times and believes
that he has a mean and macho image. He loves cowering over his classmates who try to please him.
When Swami is unable to bring lime pickles for Mani, Mani calls him “a nasty little coward”, which does
not dent their friendship. Swami’s group of friends has children with varying temperaments, some of
whom are given nicknames like Pea. Living and growing up together in a small city with minimal
distractions has brought these children very close emotionally and made them socially dependent on
each other. Their lives have a predictable pattern that is comforting in its regularity. We are never
taken outside Malgudi where the outside world makes its inroads through strangers and visitors who
briefly sojourn here. A police superintendent’s son, Rajam brings an exciting interlude to their lives.
They have their first brush with the pangs of separation when Rajam leaves Malgudi. The novel ends
on a bitter sweet note where Mani tries to comfort Swami unsuccessfully: the children struggle to come
to terms with the world of grownups where disappointment has to be taken into stride.
R.K. Narayan’s writings were never in a social or political limbo. This novel has a comprehensive
trajectory where politics makes an impact though not deep and lasting since the town’s defining quality
is its self-sustaining nature. Swami participates in the 1930s Civil Disobedience Movement. He burns
his foreign clothes in Swadeshi zeal and vandalizes his school building by breaking its window panes.
The frenzy subsides once the nationalists are lathicharged by the sepoys. The events come to a turning
point with Swami getting rusticated from school. He joins another school and we find him evolving into
a better more rounded individual who has the ability to rise over and above communal differences and

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 14

make friends with Muslims. The novel touches the contradictions inhering in the anti-colonial
sentiments. Where on the one hand, Swami participates in the Civil Disobedience Movement, he is
enamoured with cricket which is a British legacy and to date is played across the Commonwealth.
Swami and Friends makes for an easy read which helps us understand the everyday India of the
nineteen thirties. The country, especially the South, comes to us through an inverted world where
children, not adults, are in focus. Children are heard and their points-of-view matter. It is an extremely
refreshing change from the mainstream novel writing that exclusively concentrates on the world of
adults and merely accommodates the world of children. One is humbled by Narayan’s extraordinary
ability to create an authentic world of children with remarkable ease. Graham Greene understood the
difficulty of rendering childhood successfully by adult authors and appreciated Narayan’s efforts in
Swami and Friends. Swami and Malgudi continue with us despite the novel coming to an end. Like
Graham Greene, the reader continues to be intrigued: “Whom next shall I meet in Malgudi? That is the
thought that comes to me when I close a novel of Mr Narayan’s. I do not wait for another novel. I wait
to go out of my door into those loved and shabby streets and see with excitement...” India’s premier
cartoonist, R.K. Laxman, lent his imagination and skill to sketching Swami and Friends, giving the
characters an identity. Swami and Friends caught the imagination of the nation and in 1987 it was
filmed in thirty-nine episodes as a television serial, Malgudi Days and telecast on Doordarshan. It was
directed by Shankar Nag, a Kannada actor and director. The serial was shot entirely in Shimoga
District, Karnataka. Swami’s role was enacted by the child actor, Manjunath.

rajivanandblog.blogspot.com
October 10,
Narayan’s birth in Chennapatna, Chennai
1906
Completed high school from Maharaja's
1925
Collegiate High School, Mysore
Graduated from Maharaja College of
1930 Started writing Swami and Friends
Mysore.
Worked with, The Justice, a non-
1933 Married Rajam
Brahmin paper
1935 Hamish Hamilton publishes Swami and

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 15

Friends
1936 Daughter, Hema, born
1937 The Bachelor of Arts published
1938 The Dark Room published
1939 Rajam dies of typhoid
Narayan brings out a journal, Indian
1940
Thought
1942 Malgudi Days published
Indian Thought renamed Indian Thought
1939-1942
Publications
1945 The English Teacher published
An Astrologer’s Day and Other
1947
Stories published
Mr. Sampath adapted for a Tamil
1948 Mr. Sampath published
movie, Miss Malini
Mr. Sampath adapted for a Hindi
1952 The Financial Expert published movie, Mr. Sampat, by Gemini
Films
Narayan’s works were published in the
United States for the first time by
1953 Michigan State University Press, who later
(in 1958), relinquished the rights to Viking
Press
1955 Waiting for the Mahatma published
Narayan meets Graham Greene
Travelogue, ‘My Dateless Diary’
Narayan travels to the U.S. at the
1956 published
invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation
Lawley Road and Other
Stories published
Narayan travels to Australia. Trip
1961 Narayan re-visits America funded by the Australian Writers'
Group
1958 The Guide published
Narayan conferred the Sahitya Akademi
1960
Award
Narayan writes columns for
magazines and newspapers
1961 The Man-Eater of Malgudi published
including The Hindu and The
Atlantic

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 16

Narayan Visits America and meets

the Swedish-American actress
Narayan receives the Padma Bhushan.
Greta Garbo. He also travels to
He also publishes his first mythological
Europe, the Soviet Union, the
1964 work, Gods, Demons and Others, a
Philippines and Indonesia.
collection of rewritten and translated short
Narayan awarded the AC Benson
stories from Hindu epics
Medal by the (British) Royal
Society of Literature
The Guide adapted for a movie starring
1965
Dev Anand and Wahida Rehman
Narayan travels to England, to
receive an honorary doctorate from
1967 The Vendor of Sweets published the University of Leeds. The
University of Mysore also awards
him an honorary doctorate.
Narayan translates the Kamba
1968-73
Ramayanam into English
A collection of short stories, A Horse and
1970
Two Goats published
University of Delhi awards Narayan an
1973
honorary doctorate
1974 My Days published Reluctant Guru published
1977 The Painter of Signs published
1978 The Mahabharata published
Narayan commissioned by the
government of Karnataka to write a book Narayan republished his work on
1978-1980 to promote tourism in the state as part of tourism as The Emerald Route in
a larger government publication in the late Indian Thought Publications
1970s
Narayan is elected as an honorary
member of the American Academy of Arts Narayan's works are translated to
1980
and Letters and is awarded the AC Benson Chinese
Medal by the Royal Society of Literature
Narayan nominated to the upper house of
1980-1986
the Indian Parliament for a six-year term
1983 A Tiger for Malgudi published
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories
1985
published
1986 Talkative Man published Malgudi Days serialised for Delhi

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 17

Doordarshan
Narayan’s collection of essays, A Writer's
1987
Nightmare published
1988 A Story-Teller’s World published
1990 The World of Nagaraj published
Grandmother's Tale, an autobiographical
1992 novella, on Narayan’s great-grandmother
published
The Grandmother’s Tale and Selected
1994
Stories published
Narayan awarded India's second-highest
2000
civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan
May 13, 2001 Narayan dies in Chennai

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 18

Notes:
1. T.S. Satyan, ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
2. N. Ram, ‘Malgudi's Creator’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
3. T.S. Satyan, ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
4. N. Ram, ‘Malgudi's Creator’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
5. ‘A Companion to Indian English Fiction’, ed. Pier Paolo Piciucco (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers,
2004) p. iv.
6. Farbat Singh ‘Indian English Novel Writing: Shifting Themes & Thoughts’, International Research
Journal , Volume 1, July 2010.
7. A.V. Suresh Kumar, ‘Six Indian Novelists’ (New Delhi: Creative Books, 1996), p. 16.
8. Ibid. pp. 7-8.
9. Wikipedia
10. Nandan Datta, ‘The Life of R.K. Narayan’
11. ‘A Companion to Indian English Fiction’, ed. Pier Paolo Piciucco (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers,
2004) p. 3.
12. Ibid. 5.
13. Ibid.
14. Wikipedia
15. Harish Raizada, ‘R.K. Narayan: A critical Study of His Works’ (New Delhi: Young Asia
Publications, 1969), pp. 168-169.
16. Harish Raizada, ‘R.K. Narayan: A critical Study of His Works’ (New Delhi: Young Asia
Publications, 1969), p. 159.
17. A.V. Suresh Kumar, ‘Six Indian Novelists’ (New Delhi: Creative Books, 1996), p. 81.
18. C.N. Srinath, ‘R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism’ (New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2000), p. 93.
19. A.V. Suresh Kumar, ‘Six Indian Novelists’ (New Delhi: Creative Books, 1996), p. 84.
20. Veena V. Mohod, ‘Social Realism in R.K. Narayan’s Novels’ (Jaipur: Book Enclave, 1997), p. 79.
21. T.S. Satyan, ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
22. Wikipedia
23. C.N. Srinath, ‘R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism’ (New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2000), p. 93.
24. R.K. Narayan, ‘My Days’, p. 174.
25. S.R. Ramteke, ‘R.K. Narayan and his Social Perspective’ (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1998),
p. 124.

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 19

26. C.N. Srinath, ‘R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism’ (New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2000), p. 53.
27. S.R. Ramteke, ‘R.K. Narayan and his Social Perspective’ (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1998),
p. xx-xxii.
28. Ibid. p. 135.
29. Veena V. Mohod, ‘Social Realism in R.K. Narayan’s Novels’ (Jaipur: Book Enclave, 1997), p.
106.
30. Graham Greene, Preface to R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends, (London, 1935).
31. Dr. T. Vasudeva Reddy, ‘R. K. Narayan: The World of Malgudi’
32. Susan K. Langer, ‘Feeling and Form, The Theory of Art’ (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.:
London, 1967), p. 292.
33. C.N. Srinath, ‘R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism’ (New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2000), p. 93.
34. T.S. Satyan, ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
35. C.N. Srinath, ‘R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism’ (New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2000), p. 100.
36. T.S. Satyan, ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.
37. R.K. Narayan, My Dateless Diary (Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1969), pp. 189-190.

Glossary
amnesia: loss of memory
Bhagavadgita: a 700-verse scripture that is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata
brigand: bandit
Buddha: Indian religious leader and founder of Buddhism (approximately the sixth century BC)
Bushy-Eyebrows: Mani’s uncle
canon: branch of literature
Clive: Robert Clive (1725-774) a British officer who established the military and political supremacy of
the East India Company in Bengal
culvert: a structure that allows water to flow under a road, railroad, trail, or similar obstruction
dawdling: loitering and wasting time
decoyed: anything used as a lure
denouement: the final resolution of a play
efficient as tails: useful only as appendages and is of no importance by itself
F.A.: Fellow of Arts – Graduation in British times
haggle: petty bargaining
Harichandra: Hindu mythological king renowned for his incorruptible honesty
hartal: strike

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 20

Hastings: Warren Hastings (1732-1818) was the first Governor-General of Bengal

Kalidasa: classical Sanskrit writer
khaddar: a coarse homespun cloth made in India
Lancashire thumb-cutters: the British who put Indian weavers out of work to promote the native
Lancashire cotton
Last Supper: the final meal that Jesus shared with his Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion
Lord of the Seven Hills: Lord Siva
mail: cargo train
M.C.C.: Malgudi Cricket Club
Muhammad of Gazni: The first sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty in Afghanistan (971-1030) who
invaded India seventeen times between 1000 and 1026 A.D.
Nativity of Christ: biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus
Oracle: a person or shrine through whom a god was believed to prophesy
Pea: Swami’s academically average classmate, Samuel
pyol: (Tamil) sitting area in front of a house

Resurrection: the rising of Jesus from the tomb after his death
Samson: According to the Bible, a judge of Israel famous for his great strength
Sankara: 8 AD Hindu philosopher and a leading exponent of the Vedantic school
sircar: archaic sarkar, i.e. Government or bureaucracy
taluk: a subdivision of a district or a group of several villages organized for revenue purposes
Tate: Maurice William Tate - an English cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s
Vasco da Gama: A Portugese who discovered the shortest sea route from Europe to India in 1497
Wise Men of the East: Magi, or Three Kings, who came from the East to adore the newborn Jesus
wizened: lean and wrinkled with old age
Y.M.U.: Young Men’s Union

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 R.K. Narayan Swami & Friends 21

Bibliography

Datta, Nandan. ‘The Life of R.K. Narayan’, 2007.

Greene, Graham. Preface to R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends. London, 1935.

Langer, Susan K. Feeling and Form, The Theory of Art. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.: London, 1967.

Mohod, Veena V. Social Realism in R.K. Narayan’s Novels. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 1997.

Piciucco, Pier Paolo. ed. A Companion to Indian English Fiction. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2004.

Raizada, Harish. R.K. Narayan: A critical Study of His Works. New Delhi: Young Asia Publications,

1969.

Ram, N. ‘Malgudi's Creator’, Frontline, The Hindu, Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.

Ramteke, S.R. R.K. Narayan and his Social Perspective New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1998.

Reddy, T. Vasudeva ‘R. K. Narayan: The World of Malgudi’.

Satyan, T.S. ‘Walking With R.K. Narayan’, Frontline, The Hindu. Volume 18 - Issue 11, 2001.

Singh, Farbat. ‘Indian English Novel Writing: Shifting Themes & Thoughts’, International Research
Journal, Volume 1, July 2010.

Srinath, C.N. R.K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000.

Suresh Kumar, A.V. Six Indian Novelists. New Delhi: Creative Books, 1996.

Walsh, Williams. ed. The Novels of R.K. Narayan in ‘Readings in Commonwealth Literature. London:
Oxford University Press, 1973.

Wikipedia.

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