For R. K.
Narayan, death is not a full stop. As he states in The
English Teacher, it is more of a comma, with each
hiatus leading to the birth of a new identity which
replaces the previous one. But the western concept of
identity as a mask is against Narayan's oriental
philosophy. His protagonists do not merely play one role
after the other, they live out one existence, which is
not a performance but pure reality. As a Spectator
review once put it, his success lies in portraying the 'extra-ordinary
ordinariness' of day-to-day life.
Those who try to find existentialism, nihilism, magic
realism, and all other kinds of 'ism' in Narayan's works
will be disappointed, since western concepts have little
to do with his vision of life. As a detailed reading
shows, Narayan is steeped in Hindu philosophy, and though
he discards many of its notions, he assimilates the basic
truths. As he says in The English Teacher:
My knowledge of past,
present and future strictly pertain to this life.
Beyond that I have nothing to say, because I believe
I shall once again be resolved into the five elements
of which I am composed: and my intelligence and
memory may not be more than what we see in air and
water!
This view rules out the
possibility of Narayan supporting the theory of Karma,
but at the same time it is not a statement supporting the
Epicurean theory of 'carpe diem' or 'seize the day'. Our
deeds in this life will have repercussions in this life
only, and through the realisation of our follies and
delusions comes wisdom. He believes in making our
faculties and experiences useful in this life, rather
than accumulating them for an after-life. Narayan's view
is that wisdom is not gained through meditation, or by
spiritual contemplation, but by going through the
experiences that life has to offer.
Raju in The Guide has an ordinary childhood, an
extra-ordinary love affair, a parasitic life which
extends to his term in jail. In plain and simple words,
Narayan portrays a normal Indian man in different
circumstances. I find no similarities between Raju and
existential characters such as Mersault in Albert Camus's
The Outsider. What happens to Raju has something
in common with what happens to Savitri in The Dark
Room when she tries to commit suicide after being
driven out by her husband, to the headmaster in The
English Teacher when he does not die on the day an
astrologer predicted that he would, to Jagan in The
Vendor of Sweets when his son Mali violates all his
notions of life, and to Chandran in The Bachelor of
Arts when he renounces everything and becomes a
sanyasi. They all die a death, but this death is not an
end but the starting point of a new life. As Narayan says
about Chandran when he becomes a sanyasi because he
couldn't marry a young girl called Malathi:
Others may renounce
with a spiritual motive or purpose . . . But Chandran's
renunciation was nothing of that kind. It was an
alternative to suicide.
Through this symbolic
death, however, emerges a Chandran who realises that he
had been 'humbugging through life' and comes back to the
mainstream, a thoroughly changed man.
The ending of The Guide leaves us an unresolved
problem. Does Raju die at the end of the novel? My
reading of Narayan tells me no. For the first time Raju
has done something without any profit for himself, and
the moment he has accomplished this selfless task he has
renounced his previous life. Hence we are witnessing his
rebirth, not death, and this is reinforced by the image
of Raju as a baby. Like a phoenix, Raju annihilates the
past and recreates himself.
Similarly, after her failed attempt at suicide, Savitri
could be said to experience rebirth. She almost settles
down to a new life, but has to go back to her previous
existence since very strong bonds exist between her and
her married life, especially in the form of her children.
For Raju, the headmaster and Jagan, life has been renewed,
as is evident in Jagan's statement near the end of the
novel:
I am a free man.
But for Savitri, being a
woman makes it impossible for her attain this freedom.
Throughout The Dark Room Narayan portrays the
helplessness of Indian women.
Throughout his work Narayan focuses how unique
experiences change our vision of life. Raju's meeting
with Rosie and his subsequent term in jail, Krishnan's
sense of loss at the death of his wife Sushila, Jagan's
clash of ideals with his son Mali, Chandran's infatuation
for Malathi and his consequent sanyas, all change their
perspective of life. Life to Narayan is the greatest
teacher. The headmaster in The English Teacher
tells us:
You may treat me as
dead or as one who has taken Sanyasa Ashrama.
Jagan in The Vendor of
Sweets, showing a similarity with Raju, says:
At some stage in one's
life one must uproot oneself from the accustomed
surroundings and disappear.
These statements also
support my view that most of Narayan's characters are in
quest of inner peace and freedom from the collective.
Krishna tells us in The English Teacher, on his
day of retirement:
Let me assure you I'm
retiring, not with a feeling of sacrifice for a
national cause, but for a very selfish purpose. I'm
seeking a great inner peace.
This freedom, however,
does not make them selfish. This is almost the Hinayana
form of Buddhism where the salvation of the self is
followed by the salvation of others. Raju's penance is
for the greater common good, just as are the headmaster's
and Krishna's. And The Vendor of Sweets ends
with Jagan's statement that he will look after Grace, as
is evident in his words, 'It's a duty we owe her.'
Instead of looking for threads of Existentialism, Narayan's
characters can be analysed in the light of the Buddhist
concept of Nirvana. Nirvana is a state of utter
extinction, not of existence, but of passions and
suffering; it is a state beyond the chain of causation (in
the case of Raju), a state of freedom (Jagan). It is in
addition a state of bliss (the headmaster). It is the
truth of utter selflessness and insubstantiality of
things, of the emptiness of the ego, and of the
impermanence of all things. With the realization of this
truth, ignorance is destroyed, and, consequently, all
craving, suffering, and hatred is destroyed with it (Chandran)
Narayan states his law of life in The English Teacher:
The law of life can't
be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment
we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All
struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to
arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing
ourselves to be hurt by it. A profound unmitigated
loneliness is the only truth of life.
This view is complimented
in The Vendor of Sweets:
We are blinded by our
attachments. Every attachment creates a delusion and
we are carried away by it.
Raju, Chandran, Krishna,
and Jagan all try to escape from this law by clinging to
various kinds of attachment, be it love for a woman, or
for one's son but realisation does eventually come to
them all.
Bibliography
Camus, Albert. The Outsider. 1942
Narayan's works referred to:
The Bachelor of Arts. 1937
The Dark Room. 1938
The English Teacher. 1945
The Guide. 1958
The Vendor of Sweets. 1967
© Amitangshu Acharya, October 2002
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