COMMITMENT TO LIFE:

A STUDY OF R. K. NARAYAN’S MAJOR NOVELS

JAYANTA K. BISWAL

“And all the voices, all the gods, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life....then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om perfectIon.” –Siddhartha

“O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.”–Pindar Pythian III

The young Brahmin boy, Siddhartha¹, in search for knowledge renounces the self, this world dismissing it as illusion. But after a long arduous and frantic search he fails to get the real knowledge until he comes to the river and listens to its voices. The real wisdom comes to him when he looks at the river and finds that the truth was this life from which he sought an escape and which was dancing with all its varied forms and colours on the surface of that thousand-voiced river. From time immemorial many philosophers, seekers of truth and saints have tried to-discover this mystery; have been disgusted with this transitory world and have sought for a life beyond; but in the long run they all have come back finding that however sorrowful, transitory and illusory this life may be, it is significant and worth living. Irwin Edman has rightly remarked, “Whatever life may be, it is a flow through time, a duration, a many-coloured episode in eternity.” Even in this twentieth century, when there has been a silent decaying of soul in every corner of the world, when man feels that he has been trapped in a nightmarish existence, eminent thinkers and humanists still believe in this life; still look forward to a millennium. Camus has felt this commitment of writers, ‘The writers are always on the side of life’. And Rabindranath sings of the glory of life, “I have had my invitation to this world’s festival and thus my life has been blessed”.² Thus we see life’s endless dilemmas, troubles and confusions, experiences bitter as well as sweet have been a prominent theme in literature since ancient times to the modern. And in great masterpieces one finds not the rejection of this illusory life, but the willing acceptance of it. The great Roman poet Terence has said, “I am a man, nothing human is alien to me.” Now when one comes to Indo-Anglian literature, one too finds the rainbow colour of life radiating its beauty in all directions. The purpose of this paper is to study this aspect in R. K. Narayan’s art, who is said to be a prominent figure in Indo-Anglian literature.

Anand’s theme has always been the grim aspect of life and his heroes are often the human underdogs, the innocent victims to a bourgeoise society. Anand always remains at this side and the reader misses a complete and wholesome picture of human life. Here one agrees with Mr. Verghese, “Anand’s emphasis on the didactic quality of art stands on the way of his attainment as a novelist, for obtrusive propaganda makes his novels suffer in quality”.³ But it was in Apology of Heroism that the artist Anand confessed, “...the theme of my work became the whole man and whole gamut of human relationships, rather than the only one single part of it.” Raja Rao, another major novelist in the Indo-Anglian screen, always soars in metaphysical heights, least touching this ground of ordinary human passions. With a rare exception of Kamala Markandaya, who particularly in her book Nectar in a Sieve has presented the poetry of human existence blended with the pathos, the smiles and sighs of two helpless human souls, no other novelist comes near Narayan.

Narayan with that rare gift of a writer, or more of a humanist closely clings to the philosophy of Tagore, “Deliverance is not for me in renunciation...No, I will never shut the door of my senses”.⁴ In his novels one does not find the grandeur of tragedy as in Chemeen or in Anand’s novels; but the pathos of day to day existence, the inside of human comedy exposed with all its bitter curves, levity of and seriousness of life and also rare moments of eternity concealed in a life of sweat and sense. Taking Narayan’s novels as a whole, a single unit, we discover characters are like caravans journeying on the quagmire of a twentieth century existence; yet each time adding to the rich and varied experiences of life and finally realizing the truth of life. From endless rigmaroles of life, from passion’s holocaust and from thousands of idiosyncracies and little ironies of life, life’s significance is to be realized. “Life is mysteriously strong”. ⁵ Quasimodo sings and for Narayan this mystery lies in the mosaic pattern of India’s culture as well as in this human existence in which all human idiosyncracies like Nataraj with his original Heideberg, Vasu with his pythons and carcasses, Mali with his story producing machine, the cousin with his listening capacity, the monosyllabic poet with his epic “Radhakalyan,” Sampath with his film “Burning of Kama,” Ravi with his vision of beauty, De Mello with his Hollywood nostalgias and so many other things exist.

With uncompromising courage Narayan’s heroes fight the game of life; sometimes they lose the battle and sometimes win it. On the way they are exhausted, tyrannized and betrayed; but are never finally defeated. With that typical courage of Santiago “Man can be destroyed, but not defeated”,⁶ his characters are always on the move and never static. Thus the plot gathers the tempo, the energy. Consider Raju, Sampath, Margayya, Vasu and others–all in a great hurry as if subject to a sort of frenzy for life. They move, very violently move and complete a cycle at the end going through rapid climaxes and anti-climaxes. And speaking from a material plane, at the end they are more or less at their beginning. But internally they do not remain the same self of their beginning. Thus each of Narayan’s novels becomes a valuable itinerary for us, those who have set on the journey of life. Just like Hemingway’s old man, his heroes stick to life with renewed vigour from time to time even in spite of frequent abysses and heights. They are capable of tremendous energy in one way or the other. To live is a hard task and it requires guts. “All they want to escape from the pain of being alive and mostly from love”,⁷–this pathetic vision of our existence has been reflected in most of the works of to-day’s writers. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis the nightmarish experiences of Gregory Samsa turned into a giant insect has been presented. Coming back to our own field, we notice in the last chapter of Coolie the dance of life inside the ballroom of Sahibs contrasted with the dance of death outside in the blood of a tender aged, dying Munoo. In Arun Joshi’s novel The Foreigner, one finds how man feels that he has been thrown into an alien world, “my foreignness lay within me and I could not leave myself behind wherever I went.” But in Narayan’s novels one finds the immense faith in life, the lilting waves of love and laughter, the consolation of a reconciliation. That is why, in all his novels the characters at the end of the novels emerge from the crucible of suffering, discarding the jaundiced vision of theirs, emerge with the knowledge and wisdom of life. Raju laughs through his tears and at the end of the novel the comicality of a situation is presented when one finds Raju, the starving Swami against a funny back-drop of film shows about Malaria, mosquitoes, B. C. G., gambling booth and the American film producer and the Ali Baba film. But beneath the apparent comicality of this situation, lies at its core a man, essentially helpless and ridiculously pathetic. At the end Raju realizes the truth. For the first time in his life he was making an earnest effort, for the first time he was learning the thrill of full application, outside money and love; for the first time he was doing a thing in which he was not personally interested.” Thus after completing a full circle, Raju achieves martyrdom and redeems his earlier deeds. His other characters, Margayya, Mali, Jagon, Balu and many others complete the circle in their own ways and thus attain at the end a sort of resurrection. Margayya, after a meteoric rise and meteoric fall, is devoid of all ego and all pretensions. So many ups and downs in life have provided him with wisdom and with that wisdom he is prepared to carryon his financial expert’s business under that tree. This is not a realist’s defeatistic credo; rather this is the urge to fight on, to struggle discarding all pretensions and pseudo values of an earlier life. And now only Margayya feels the essence, feels the urge to nurse the finer sentiments of life: “Now get the youngster here. I’ll play with him. Life has been too dull without him in this house.” Margayya’s loss in this money world has gained him domestic harmony just like Jagon’s rebirth at the age of sixty. At sixty, one is reborn and enters a new Janma.” Jagon has renounced his all attachment to see the goddess emerge from stone; yet pockets the cheque book. And we are to look for a further development of his character. Dr. Iyengar has brilliantly summed up this ambiguous situation of Jagon’s renunciation and attachment, “But at last the demon has been worsted, though the Deity hasn’t arisen yet”.⁸ “At the end of the journey Sampath is alone; the castle of his dreams has fallen to the dust; but yet he is not defeated and we know this of himself that he is going to the railway station to “manage” himself there. Somebody is to be met at the railway station; some new enterprise is to be started; the broken strings of life are to be harmonized once again. Anyone of these possibilities is there for Sampath. Shanti too has gone through the experiences and has seen the truth, the emptiness of a gewgaw film existence. She has gone back to look after her son. Every character in Narayan’s novels undergoes a kind of metamorphosis not to an insect as in Kafka’s work, but to a better to face this world with pure guts and wisdom. Nobody is lost in this crowded world: “Only existence asserts itself”.⁹ And we eagerly look forward to Ravi’s cure at the temple at Sailam. Narayan believes in life, not in transcending it; but in living inside it, close to it, intensely and intimately. For him, man lives in his dreams and in its denial too, in his aspiration as well as in his frustration. Every experience, however small, sweet or bitter may be, has got significance and contributes to the main stream of eternal life, because all experiences culminate in the experience of Wisdom. And while there is life, there is hope for amendment of life,” Alan Paton preaches in his “Cry, The Beloved Country.”

Narayan’s heroes have tremendous power of adjustment, which Ibsen in Wild Duck stressed. As long as man is not capable of adjusting himself with situations, a lacuna is created in his emotional being. When one witnesses the human drama in Malgudi theatre, one does not notice Narayan’s heroes ever failing to adjust. Raju, Sampath, Margayya and others willingly accept their rise and fall as well. There is no lamentation, no breakdown of spirit. There is always the movement, ‘Chareyabati.’

Narayan’s treatment of mythology is unique and appeals to the unconscious of present-day Indians who are in a way divorced from her rich traditions. Maneater of Malgudi brilliantly explores the ancient myth of the demon who has carried in himself the seed of self-destruction. In The English Teacher Krishna, in a sense, is united to his lost wife at once reminding us of Savitri and Satyavan story. These rich traditions of India and her mythologies have added new colour to Narayan’s narrative, which at the other side, depicts the rare moments of eternal happiness creeping into the troubled life of a lower middle class Hindu family.

Beneath the humour of Narayan’s narrative there is always an undercurrent of sadness and sometimes it comes to the surface. “...laughter, a deafening, roaring laughter, has a knack of swallowing everything up”.¹⁰ It is the secret to Narayan’s technique. The deafening, roaring laughter in the novels arising due to various pranks, idiosyncracies swallow up the gloom, the horror and tear of human existence. Hence, ordinarily viewing, his novels look comic and the cry of the suffering soul remains concealed within. Raju’s realization of the painful truth, “Neither Marco nor I had any place in her life.” Jagon’s grief-stricken soul after his wife’s death, Ravi’s pathetic search for his long lost vision in the long run culminating in his madness are all pushed to the within and all we see is life’s little pranks and peculiarities, the fun in the “exotic world of half-headed or half-hearted dreamers, artists, financiers, speculators, twisters, adventurers, cranks, cinema stars, Sanyasis”.¹¹ The consciousness of time flowing on, age very silently slipping away haunts Narayan’s soul at rare moments, but with enough intensity. This tragic vision of human life, the old man’s shocking awareness of an approaching death is acutely reflected in his somewhat autobiographical work Reluctant Guru, “One sees the finger of death too often, plucking a life here and a life there. He has lost count of all the bereavements he has suffered in life: friends, children, nephews and elders.” Srinivas in Mr. Sampath feels it with pain, “Every New Year’s Day he felt depressed and unhappy. All around he felt there were signs that a vast inundation was moving onward, carrying the individual before it, and before knowing, where one was, one would find oneself senile or in the grave, with so little understood or realized.” All the major characters in Narayan’s novels are desirous to communicate. And when the string of communication is snapped, only left is the gloom and horror of lonely, derelict shores of human existence. The tenant, the predecessor of Srinivas in Mr. Sampath was shut up in this nightmarish existence, who used to enquire everyday whether there were any letters for him. Even the rapacious rascal, the owner of the house in the same novel, is a lonely man beneath his mask. The wife is dead and the children proved ungrateful. Yet the father in that greedy man still lives, “For this grand-daughter of mine, why don’t you find a bridegroom? I may die any moment, I am very old...” Even Vasu, surprisingly enough, is subject to common human passions. He too has a desire to build a cosy nest with Rangi. He wants to take Rangi with him to Bombay. Against this silhouette of human zoo, this humdrum of present, creeps the shadow of an innocent past strewn with loving reminiscences of childhood into the narrative of Narayan. Life may be bitter, life may be sweet; but life is full with innumerable experiences. Narayan exposes our existence with a strong nostalgia for grand-father and grand-mother; stream of life that has been flowing down to us and to our progeny endlessly. In all his novels, mostly in Guide, Vendor of Sweets and in Financial Expert Narayan sentimentally turns to a loving past, an innocent childhood. On a reading of Swami and Friends, the reader is carried back to that period of sublime intoxication. But when he pauses, reflects and looks to his miserable present, he feels the lapse of time, the miserable scars that age has left in his brows and wrinkles. When Narayan recollects his childhood with a burning nostalgia, themes of common human sorrow such as a grand-father lost in the corridors of time, the sorrow of the transitory, the charm of marriage day long since lost giving place to a widowed life-all find their ways in his otherwise humorous description. In his autobiography My days Narayan reflects how childhood friends are lost in a vast world, have been strange and unknown to each other. He has felt this transitory, has felt that “in the rush of eternity nothing mattered”.¹² Yet he is always searching for the knowledge “for an unknown stabilizing factor in life, for an unchanging value, a knowledge of the self, a piece of knowledge which would support as on a rock the faith of man and his peace, a knowledge of true identity.....¹³ For Narayan, transitory and eternal are not opposed to each other; transitory is a part of the great eternity. So many human dramas have been enacted here on the stage of Malgudi; but Malgudi is still there, the river Sarayu is still there having its rebirth and growth murmuring “men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever.” Dr. Iyengar has rightly quoted Shelley in this reference, “The One remains, the many change and pass.” And we are to realize the One in the many, while living closely in the line of Santayana’s thought, “There is no cure to birth and death except to enjoy the interval.”

R. K. Narayan, the champion of man’s cause always looks for the totality of human experiences. In his pattern of philosophy, existence and essence remain mingled together. His works constitute the eternal saga of human life, the poetry of human existence pumping life blood into the tingling veins of time. And all he can do with his humble craftsmanship –“Only exhaust the limits of possible.”

Notes

¹ Siddhartha: Hermann Hesse.

² Gitanjali: Rabindranath.

³ Essays on Indian Writing in English: Verghese.

⁴ Gitanjali.

⁵ To my Father(poem): Quasimodo.

⁶ Old Man and the Sea: Hemingway

⁷ Look back in Anger: John Osborne.

⁸ Indian Writing in English: Dr K. R. S. Iyengar.

⁹ Mr. Sampath: R. K. Narayan.

¹⁰ The Guide: R. K. Narayan.

¹¹ Indian Writing in English: Dr. K. R. S. Iyengar.

¹² Mr. Sampath: R. K. Narayan.

¹³ Mr. Sampath: R. K. Narayan.

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