Obsession and Professionalism in R. K. Narayan

K. NAGA RAJA RAO

Obsession or mental aberration seems to be the hinge on which a great part of Narayan’s characters turn round and the writer’s pen moves briskly while delineating professionalism, though his art in portraying odd fish cannot be under-estimated.

Govind Singh, the gateman retires from service, takes a fancy to prepare clay models which he presents to the General Manager. The registered letter he receives for the first time, that too from the General Manager, sets his mind in motion. The saheb might be angry with him for presenting him a clay model of the office and the envelope might contain fearful tidings that his pension is stopped. His wife’s sane suggestion that he should open the letter and ask someone to read it for him falls on deaf ears. Narayan indulges in a sort of sly dig at modern science, in making the gateman visit the X-ray Institute and ask the assistant if he can tell him the contents of the envelope, without opening it. Later he goes round the streets behaving like a mad man. He feels everyone in the streets is laughing at his madness and makes a generalisation that the people will also behave madly if they were also to make clay dolls. Seeing school children he falls on knees and crawls up to them just to amuse them. At last the accountant breaks the news that the envelope contains a cheque for a hundred rupees. Singh tells the accountant “you are a god to say I am not mad.”

Iswaran who is considered a dunce, never succeeds in Intermediate Examination. He is on his way to the Senate House to know his result. Accosted by someone and asked for his number, Iswaran gives the first set of numbers that come to his head, as seven eight five. The boy visits the theatre, but cannot enjoy the picture. He thinks that the young men of heaven on the screen are singing as they have no examinations. Surprisingly enough Iswaran finds his number in Second Class but the mental aberration he has undergone makes him highly fanciful. He thinks he has five hundred and one horses. Feeling like a king, Iswaran orders the Prime Minister to bring him the other five hundred horses which are all in Second Class. Finally imagining to be riding on horse he jumps into the Sarayu river and joins the other world where he need not worry about examinations at all.

The fear that the registered letter contains woeful news keeps the gateman’s mind obsessed and the idea that he is called a dunce for ever makes the boy Iswaran a frustrated soul. Similar is the case with Dasi, the ignorant simpleton who fancies that the film-star loves him. Egged on by others’ encouraging words he visits her only to be slapped by her. The children returning from school cry out that his wife had beat him the previous day. The thought is bitter and painful and the man unable to swallow it, swings his arms about, knocks down people, breaks chairs and tables at school and finally lands himself in the mental asylum.

In “Swami and Friends” the way Swami continues to touch the wicket makes interesting reading. His head is full of imaginings. Narayan gives an additional touch of realism by writing that Swami had the presence of mind to lower his head and lie flat so that the huge yellow-and-black tiger missed him. Similarly the tiger, the cobra and the scorpion are the terrible visions that frighten and goad the man to run further and further. In another novel, the financial expert’s mind is completely obsessed with various calculations. He hardly speaks during dinner. His wife asks him if she will serve and he tells her to do what she pleases. If she adds more rice on his plate, he pushes it aside and gets up only to make further calculations. A mentally obsessed person will never agree that something is wrong with him. The financial expert for whom money-making is the be-all and end-all tells his wife that he is alright and orders her to take any money but to leave him alone.

Again, Narayan’s art in portraying professionals is unsurpassed. Even if two seers of Mysorepak and half a seer of Jilebi is left unsold, the head cook considers it no problem, as the left overs can be pulped and fried afresh in a new shape, and adds philosophically that everything consists of flour, sugar and favour. The Tourist Guide, a professional expert with sympathy both for the tiger and the lamb, describes the way in which the bait is arranged and the high platform built. The interests of his tourists is also the guide’s concern. The financial expert orders his son “if you do not speak before clock hand points to seven five, I will go.” One for whom time sense is important speaks in such a vain. Again the same Margayya, when challenged by the son for a share of ancestral property and not desirous of cresting a scene, takes a half rupee coin, says it is what the boy’s grandfather has left him and in consonance with his profession asks the son to take the coin and give him a receipt “Style is the Man.” In another novel, The man of the press finds an ingenious method to get over the difficulty caused when all the available letters K and R are consumed. He proposes to put in a star in the place of K or R and will add a footnote for readers to inform what the star stands for. Here again the man failing in his duty to get the invitation cards for marriage printed, in a serious tone asks, “If the man is willing and the woman is willing, what has a printer to do with it?” The writer adds his own commentary that the printer is “the lord of the universe,” he had no use for other people’s words. Similarly the man familiar with the beasts and man-eaters in the jungles, knows an obscure plant believed to have grown in some mountain. This plant can control beasts and ‘serves better than one’s own brother emanating from the same womb.’

The professionals we come across in Narayan, may be of two types: those who are by nature and training professionals like the taxidermist; or those compelled by the force of circumstances like the Tourist-Guide-turned-holyman. The man who does not know the art of getting down into wells, pretends for the sake of two rupees, he knows the art, but when faced with the reality, tells people that he would go home, have food and come again. But he is given dinner and asked to accomplish the deed there itself. The Astrologer wants to go away on recognising the face of Guru Nayak, but the customer does not allow him to go without predicting his future. If he leaves the place, he will be made to disgorgle all the coins. Raju is forced to offer prayers for the rain and nobody believes him for what he is, as long as he is on the pedestal. All these characters heroically face the situations, come what may, and in most cases extricate themselves from the crises, as Narayan’s genius is essentially comic.