Act of Ambivalence and Resistance, Cricket and Colonialism, Politics Of

Home , Malgudi, My Days, Swami and Friends

International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 Act of Ambivalence and Resistance, Cricket and Colonialism, Politics of Self and Other, Indian Pluralism, Anti-colonial Propaganda, Oppressive Schooling System, Hybridity, Centre/Periphery and Master/Slave Dichotomy with Reference to R. K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends Partha Sarathi Mandal

PhD Research Scholar, Raiganj University, West Bengal, India Email: [email protected]

Abstract— Narayan’s Swami and Friends (1935) belonged to the centre of a power structure. In this paper luminously portrays its child protagonist Swaminathan’s I would like to investigate in which way Narayan has adventures in soul making, his skirmishes with his little pointed out the various agathokakological entities of comrades and reconciliations in his soupy school, his human life through the artistic representation of his contact with the experienced adult world vis-à-vis characters, his celebration of India’s heterogeneous apparently apolitical, shallow and banal Swami and identity, class struggle, the marginalized and Friends (1935) also postulates encoded political and peripheralized existence of subaltern voices, politics of cultural resistance so strategically camouflaged by colonial masters’ Self and the muted Other in an unequal Narayan’s narrative devise. Narayan’s Anti-colonial power structure where a very limited number of people propaganda, his aversion to fundamentalism and actually get access to the resources , ambivalence, hybrid authoritarianism, his earnest desire to bring the subaltern identity etc. with reference to Swami and Friends (1935). narrative into our mainstream narrative give him a Keywords— Ambivalence, Agathokakological, Anti- special place in literary world. Kudos to the Nietzschean colonial, Authoritarianism, Subaltern, Resistance, Will to Power of the common inhabitants of Malgudi and Heterogeneous. the little urchins of Albert Mission School that they dared to join the protest march against the hegemony of their I. INTRODUCTION white colonial masters. Swami much like Ishaan of Aamir Beat me, hate me Khan’s Taare Zameen Par (2007) used to shudder at the You can never break me very thought of his monotonous school where his wings of Will me, thrill me freedom used to be crushed under the fatal mill of the You can never kill me authoritarian and strict teachers except D.Pillai who was Jew me, sue me famous among the students. Swaminathan’s hybrid Everybody do me identity, Rajam’s Europeanized existence, overlapping Kick me, kick me associations of tradition and modernity, class struggle, Don’t you black or white me Centre/Periphery, Self/Other, Master/Slave dichotomy in —“They Don’t Care About Swami and Friends (1935) actually celebrate Narayan’s Us” (Michael Jackson) deep concern for our pluralistic and multicultural Indian Like Twain, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has identity where Narayan has also given space to the said that a true decolonization of the subaltern existence like Rajam’s family cook who was mind cannot take place until the issue of insulted and undervalued by Rajam only because Rajam the forms and norms of the colonizer’s

www.ijels.com Page | 606 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 language is resolved. In this effort innocence and is creating dry burnt out cinders then Ngugi has currently given up writing in Swami and Friends (1935) leaves us with a mixed feeling, English. However, in 1938, the Indian transporting us back to the times when things were novelist Raja Rao adopted Twain’s simpler and easier. As Shreya Thapliyal in her 10 solution — a solution that both Narayan October, 2018, The Statesman, article, “Remembering RK and Anaya use effectively. In his Narayan — The Malgudi Man” observes: preface to his novel Kanthapura, Raja Most people’s first brush with RK Rao wrote, “one has to convey in a Narayan’s writing came with Swami language that is not one’s own the spirit and Friends. And they would recall that is one’s own....We are all how Swami and Friends would instinctively bilingual, many of us transport them to a world so different writing in our own language and in yet so similar. Swaminathan’s life, his English. We cannot write like the friends, the fear of his father — all of English. We should not. We cannot them would resonate with every child in write only as Indians. The tempo of our the class. (Thapliyal) Indian life must be infused into our In this connection I would like to draw the readers’ English expression even as the tempo of attention to Sandeep Narayanan’s article entitled as “The American or Irish life has gone into the nostalgia inducing ‘Malgudi Days’: When Swami was my making of theirs”(vii). Swami and friend too” published on The News Minute where Friends in its alteration of Standard Narayanan observers: English and Indian English asks for Narayan had a way of creating simple, careful attention to those passages that relatable characters that one could our students might consider “strange” easily fall in love with, and his ability to or “ungrammatical.” This is particularly vividly create the world of Malgudi in useful in composition courses. Once our minds was nothing short of genius. students get the effectiveness of (Narayanan) language variation, they can feel freer Childhood is brilliantly celebrated in Swami and Friends about expressing themselves in their (1935) and Narayan has emphatically sketched the beauty “personal” voice. They can also see the and serenity of nature much like a painter. Narayan’s ways in which languages come in power of the imagination like that of wine is able to fuse a contact, evolve, and develop. This is a series of neighbouring and overlapping areas which move particularly powerful teaching tool progressively from nature to culture (Barry 246): ‘the because it is the final step in showing wilderness’, ‘the scenic sublime’, ‘the countryside’ and the cousinship of the shared experience ‘the domestic picturesque’. Peepul branches, gentle blow globally. of wind, the twittering birds, stream of the Sarayu, —“Teaching R.K.Narayan’s “Swami Swaminathan’s haunted and hallucinatory imagination and Friends” (Jussawalla 223) when he lost the way is reminiscent of Derridean Ye dharti apni hay (“this land is our hauntology (the paradoxical state of the spectre, which is land”) neither being, or non-being), moonlit night, scattered —Lagaan (Gowariker) leaves — these all are the transcendental signifiers and Let Every Indian spit on England, and much like the iconic scene in Satyajit Ray’s Pather the quantity of saliva will be enough to Panchali (1955) where Durga and Apu crouch amid fields drown England...’ of towering kash grass watching a train rumble past —Swami and Friends (Narayan 41) towards the city (“Pather Panchali the train scene” Amidst Shashi Tharoor’s “Exasperating Farrago 00:00:00-00:03:55) Narayan’s nature painting Of Distortions” tweet (@ShashiTharoor) or when Brexit embellished by his powerful imagination is an example of is short for “British exit” which would predictably flush Kantian sublime as it begets a feeling of awe and catastrophic dysfunction to the financial fluidity of the inexpressible joy in our minds. Despite Shashi Tharoor’s global economy creating a very adverse situation for harsh dismissal of Swami and Friends (1935) as jobless youths or when the primetime political debates on apolitical, shallow, and banal (Tharoor) I would like to national media have become a high decibel tu tu main investigate in which way the encoded political and main (“I am no less than you”) or when consumerism cultural resistance so strategically camouflaged in this operating in postmodern capitalism is mercilessly killing text can be decoded with textual and theoretical

www.ijels.com Page | 607 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 experimentation vis-à-vis how Narayan’s Anti-colonial where the barefooted natives challenged the hubristic and propaganda, Swaminathan’s resistance to the clubs and megalomaniac booted whites in a football match, Sourav cucumber sandwiches culture, issue of species superiority, Ganguly’s historic shirt waving at Lord’s (“Ganguly vs politics behind cricket and colonialism, hegemonic power Flintoff The Epic Revenge at LORDS” 00:00:27- politics, childhood skirmishes, Hegelian Master/Slave, 00:00:29) or pumped up Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes in a row Self/Other, Centre/Periphery dichotomy are also torched at Kingsmead in Durban after smashing Stuart Broad in this text. (“Yuvraj Singh 6 Balls 6 Sixes Against Stuart Broad T20 Feroza Jussawalla in her scholarly article Worldcup HD” 00:00:13-00:05:00) — in all these “Cricket and Colonialism: From Swami and Friends to instances white colonial masters were beaten by the Lagaan” observes: unconquerable spirit and skyrocketed self-confidence of In Swami’s bildungsroman, this “being the natives. These victories carried away by the non-white lost” is the great moment of his self- natives actually celebrate the idea of their cemented and awareness as Indian. The hero’s coming indefatigable love for their own motherland besides to an awareness of himself as belonging rendering a deep political meaning because these victories to a specific nation is an important from the sides of the non-whites also postulate the component in Martin Swales’s prowess of the colonized Other who are prejudiced as definition of the bildungsroman. In powerless, snake charmers, recalcitrant, barbaric, exotic, Signs Taken for Wonders, Franco languorous. Feroza Jussawalla in the previously Moretti feels that the hero of a mentioned article further observes: bildungsroman comes to his moment of Swami’s recalcitrance to play the game awareness when he feels integrated with is a subconscious recalcitrance, not a his context and “finds his peace there” deliberate one and as such not one that (231). It is precisely when he feels “coheres” colonial power. In Lagaan, integrated into his Indian family and the game is a revolt, not even a gives up trying to be British that Swami nonviolent passive resistance. It is one finds peace. Swami and Narayan both man’s, Bhuvan’s, absolute resistance to affirm Indianness. Contrarily, in colonial power, a defiant, “I’ll show Lagaan, the cricket match is also a you,” which he is able to solidify by devise that affirms nationalism, not by gaining support from the more turning one’s back on it, but by recalcitrant villagers. Therefore, unlike excelling at it and beating the colonizer, what Homi Bhabha quotes from albeit in a makeshift Indian way. (115) Benedict Anderson, at least in these two Bhabha in his The Location of Culture (1994) defines instances cricket is not a colonial “colonial mimicry” as being “almost the same but not mimicry which reflects “the inner quite” or “almost the same but not white” (89): compatibility of empire and nation” Mimicry is thus the sign of a double (Bhabha 87) (116) articulation; a complex strategy of Narayan’s Swaminathan much like Ishaan of reform, regulation and discipline, which Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par (2007) used to shudder appropriates the Other as it visualizes “at the very thought of school; that dismal yellow power. Mimicry is also the sign of the building; the fire eyed Vedanayagam, his class teacher; inappropriate, however, a difference or and the Head-master with his thin long cane...(Narayan 3) recalcitrance which coheres the This monotonous classroom reminds me of dominant strategic function of colonial Mr.Gradgrind’s “monotonous vault of a schoolroom” power, intensifies surveillance and (Dickens 5) in Hard Times (1854) which only believes in poses an immanent threat to both the valorisation of hard facts and total elimination of ‘normalized’ knowledges and anything that can fall under the heading of ‘fancy’ and disciplinary powers. (86) imagination. Mr.Gradgrind, Swami’s Headmaster, Tiwari Colonial masters strategically played cricket in order to Sir of Taare Zameen Par (2007) or Viru Sahastrabudhhe showcase their racial superiority and their special talent of Rajkumar Hirani’s blockbuster 3 Idiots (2009) are the but this very egotistical hubris can also be shattered when poster boys of uncompromising authoritarianism and they the so-called superior white sahibs are beaten by brown all are strict disciplinarian by nature. In Taare Zameen coloured Bhuvan and his teammates. In Ashutosh Par (2007), an 8-year-old dyslexic child Ishaan though Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001), in Arun Roy’s Egaro (2011) hails excellently in art but he cuts a very sorry figure in

www.ijels.com Page | 608 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 exams until or unless the spirited, caring and affectionate converted teachers used to hate the non-Christian students new art teacher called Ram Shankar Nikumbh joins the which actually dismantle the secular fabric of India and if boarding school and helps Ishaan in overcoming his a particular religion is overinvested or overemphasized loopholes. But there were no one like Ram Shankar then obviously it is death knell for democracy: Nikumbh in Swami’s Albert Mission School except The scripture classes were mostly D.Pillai who was famous among the little urchins for his devoted to attacking and lampooning good sense of humour and kindness. Swami’s father who the Hindu Gods, and violent abuses is also a member of an European tennis club is a were heaped on idol-worshippers as a prototype of all Indian middleclass father figures who prelude to glorify Jesus. Among the belong to the centre of a power structure as far as the non-Christians in our class I was the distribution of power in a family is concerned and much only Brahmin boy, and received special like Ishaan’s father Nandkishore Awasthi, Swami’s father attention; the whole class could turn in is also authoritarian and a strict disciplinarian by nature my direction when the teacher said that — both these father figures like to fan hegemonic power Brahmins claiming to be vegetarian ate relations upon the other members of the family and both fish and meat in secret, in a sneaky way of them actually take all the important decisions of their and are responsible for the soaring price family while the emotions and opinions of the others are of those commodities. (Narayan 12) sidelined and crushed under the fatal mill of their P.S.Sundaram observes in his book R.K.Narayan : phallocentric monopoly. Sadistic Mr Ebenezer’s diatribes There is hardly any ragging in our consisting of abusive and derogatory terms for the Hindu schools and the dreadful tyrants are not Gods and through Ebenezer, Narayan focuses our senior boys as is Tom Brown’s School attention on the prevalence of bigotry, fanaticism and Days or Stalky & Co: but the teachers intolerance in the name of religion: and the headmaster Ebenezer’s ‘Oh, wretched idiots!’ The teacher said, denunciation of Krishna were not clinching his fists, Why do you worship uncommon in missionary school half a dirty, lifeless, wooden idols and stone century ago, though now-a-days images? Can they talk? No. Can they Christian teachers are likely to be much see? No. Can they bless you? No. Can more tactful. (28) they take you to Heaven? Why? Swaminathan’s father who is authoritarian and Because they have no life. What did strict disciplinarian by nature inflicts hegemonic power your gods do when Mohammed of politics upon his family. The whole novel seems to me a Gazni smashed them to pieces, trod boys’ club though it cannot be denied that Narayan has upon them, and constructed out of them given some space to both Swami’s old doting granny and steps for his lavatory? (Narayan 2) his mother. In a typical patriarchal society phallus is in Blatantly prejudiced against Hindu idolatry Mr Ebenezar the centre and women, marginalized voices are pushed at further lambasts his hatred with fresh salvo for Lord the periphery. Swami’s father appears to me as a poster Krishna: boy of masculine hegemony, conservatism, prudish “Did our Jesus go gadding about with mentality and a worshipper of “phallogocentrism” dancing girls like your Krishna? Did (Derrida’s term for the masculine power at the origin of our Jesus go about stealing butter like the Law). His palilalia which concentrates upon his son that arch scoundrel Krishna’? Did our Swami’s sticking to “definite order that Swaminathan Jesus practise dark tricks on those should stay at home and do school homework” (Narayan around him?’ (Narayan 2) 23-24) also hints at his inner psyche which is constantly Rajkumar Hirani’s secular movie PK (2014) teaches us to grooming a fear psychosis that if Swami fails to safeguard be tolerant, respectful towards other religions by airing the old traditional values or if he fails to bag a suitable the message of dissent in democracy which is a healthy position in Civil Service like him after shielding colonial practise in order to perambulate the idea of India which is principles he will be castrated, effeminized and will be pluralistic, secular and heterogeneous. Even when tagged as Other by the existing dominant power structure Narayan was a schoolboy in Lutheran Mission School the which runs a police state and the surveilling colonial scripture classes were mostly devoted to abusing and forces always like to punish its bad subjects by applying lampooning the Hindu Gods and violent abuses were stringently various Althussarian Repressive State heaped on idol-worshippers as a prelude to venerate Apparatus while good subjects eat the fig in galore after Jesus. From My Days (1974) we come to know that carrying coals to Newcastle.

www.ijels.com Page | 609 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 The Whole narrative of Swami and Friends character who is neither fully Indian nor (1935) is anchored in an ambivalent attitude towards authentically English; he haunts the text colonization. This novel is not politically innocent and as and informs its gesture of resistance. An John Thieme observes in his “The Double Making of incarnation of a Western genre, Swami R.K.Narayan” that the novel offers “a subvers ive and Friends narrates a story of filiation. response to the colonial ethic and to the educational In a deviant maneuver of resistance, curriculum that was one of its lynch-pins” (180). Swami’s Narayan writes an India of his own. granny illustrates Narayan’s subtle strategy of formulating (83-84) a porous zone between the private and the public space. Rajam, the Westernized boy because of the These overlapping associations between modernity and virtue of being the son of a powerful Superintendent of tradition which are symbolically portrayed by her old Police always enjoys special attention and better to say a belongings and “the ill-ventilated dark passage between special status in the eyes of others. David Cecil observes: the front hall and the dining room” (Narayan 19) celebrate ...To Swami, Rajam appears a demigod in-between identity — our Indian identity and the hybrid as Steerforth appears to David. Again, identity imposed upon us by the white colonials. Granny’s Mr. And Miss Murdstone are nothing story of Harischandra channelizes the ides of India’s rich short of ogres to David’s immature oral culture superseded by European written culture intelligence, as is the son of the tanga which is always presented as a source of estrangement driver to Swami (Cecil 48). and bewilderment. Swaminathan’s Indian Self cannot In the big face off between Rajam and Mani, Mani’s equate itself with the imposed and alien foreign culture indigenous wooden clubs looked stupid and worthless in and as a result he could not get Andersen’s Fairy Tales to front of Rajam’s phallic European gun and Narayan’s his satisfaction. As Hager Ben Driss in his scholarly mastery and craftsmanship in storytelling brilliantly article “Acts of Ambivalence: Political Resistance / merges these overlapping associations of tradition Resisting Politics in R.K.Narayan’s Swami and Friends” symbolically portrayed by clubs while gun symbolizes observes: modern European weaponry. Rajam belongs to the centre The role of the native intercessor is of a power structure and he had tried to inflict upon his assigned to Rajam, Swami’s newly subaltern family cook in front of his comrades a kind of arrived friend, who speaks “very good Hegelian Master/Slave dialectic. Powerful/hegemonic English, ‘exactly like a “European”’ ; people always try to belittle and mock the powerless in which meant that few in the school pursuit of sadistic pleasure: could make out what he said” (Swami “You dirty ass, take it away, don’t put it 12). Narayan’s ironic use of inverted there.’ comma in this sentence is quite ‘Where am I to put it, Raju?’ asked the significant. By encapsulating the second cook. phrase of the sentence in single Rajam burst out: ‘you rascal, you commas, and further encasing scoundrel, you talk back to me?’ “European” in double quotation marks, (Narayan 12) he shows the double estrangement of a As Raymond Williams defines hegemony in Culture and newly rising Indian elite, a hybrid caste, Materialism (1980): as Thomas Babington Macaulay would It thus constitutes a sense of reality for characterize in his 1835 “Minute on most people in the society, a sense of Indian Education,” as “Indian in blood absolute because experienced reality and colour, but English in taste, in beyond which it is very difficult for opinion, in morals, and in intellect” most members of the society, to move (par.30). The sly criticism directed in most areas of their lives” (38). towards Macaulay’s linguistic and Rajam belongs to the category of “haves” while his cook cultural program is elicited through the belongs to “have nots” (Marx in Wen 74) category. unpleasant character of Rajam. Swaminathan deserves our kudos because even though he “[D]ressed like ‘a European boy’’’ is a child and hardly understands the complex frenzy of (Swami 182), Rajam epitomizes the political hullabaloo but he dared to join the protest march cultural transvestite, estranged both against the colonial forces. Authoritarian and oppressive from his Indian culture and the schooling systems and their hyperactive teachers in their European set. He is represented as a mission to beat, twist, punish or to flog the innocent

www.ijels.com Page | 610 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 urchins also focused their camera lens on that education by the strict headmaster in his school always get their policy which would create the safe custodian, protector sadistic pleasures in cutting Swami’s wings of freedom and defender of British colonialism. Descartian principle short and force Swami to always maintain certain orders of Mind-Body relationship is very much prominent here and principles. As Pankaj Mishra in a chapter entitles as where society is getting much more utilitarian or body “R.K.Narayan” observes: centric while Swami giving a challenge to the utilitarian Narayan‘s dislike for the kind of and rigorous aspect of life is returning to mind or education Swami and Chandran receive imagination either by seeking idyllic boyish adventures or had hardened into conviction by now: his lethargy in action can be judged as his strategic the system of education churns out attempt to sabotage the industrious colonial mechanism. ‘clerks for business and administrative Swami’s nebula of emotions finally busted and he dared officers,’ and reduces India to a ‘nation to call his claustrophobic school “dirty school” (Narayan of morons’.(198) 48) after getting severely flogged and caned by the Swaminathan appears to me as a mouthpiece of Swadeshi callous headmaster. Swami did not want to be a perfect and Boycott movement because he had burnt his British product of British monopolised political economy and cap. Police which is obviously a RSA factor charged lathi throughout his days in his school he was forced to remain and some blows went over him. Swami’s hybrid identity as a muted existence under the rigorous authoritarian loves Englishness but not wholeheartedly. His isolated doctrines of his teachers. Much like Gradgrind Swami’s and I would like to say alienated existence when he lost headmaster seeks to produce a Platonian ideal Republic the way symbolically posits the view that human beings where freedom of students is forbidden and anyone found are cast into an alien universe; no inherent truth, value, or challenging or trying to destereotype the existing meaning and fruitless search for purpose (Camus in authoritarianism and rigorous education policy will be Abrams 1). Swami and Friends (1935) navigates and ostracized and rusticated much like Swaminathan. This propels the idea of heterogeneous Indian identity in the empirical system of education leads us back to the sense that people belonging to various pyramids of power empirical philosopher John Locke’s An Essay Concerning relations in our society have been detailed here with Human Understanding (1689) where tabula rasa becomes Narayan’s vivid representation and artistic wisdom. From the motto of him, i.e. after seeing the ray of life the mind Rajam and his SP father who belong to the centre of a of the child appears like a white sheet, i.e. innocence. power structure to the bullock cart driver Ranga or the Authoritarian and stringent teachers of Swami’s schools subaltern cook who are subjects and except D.Pillai are trying to impose upon the students a peripheralized/marginalized voices and they belong to kind of Master/Slave dialectic vindicating and robbing the “[n]on hegemonic groups or classes.” (Gramsci xiv) It tenderness, generosity and freedom of the children by actually celebrates Narayan’s earnest attempt to bring the giving them a kind of materialistic education. Agamben’s subaltern narrative into our mainstream narrative. The Potentialities (1999) shows a difference between potential British government arrests Gauri Sankar, a well-known and actual where actual is very much empirical and political leader of Bombay and as a result the little potentiality moves one from absence to presence and students of Albert Mission School join the protest march Narayan here tries to condemn the education policy which with thousands of other citizens of Malgudi in order to is based upon rigorous and strict school mechanism showcase their unity and solidarity sloganeering “Gandhi which only likes to promote empirical and scientific ki jai, Bharat Mata ki jai” (Narayan 97) and indulge in knowledge controlled and regulated by colonial “hooliganism, howling, jeering and hooting” (Narayan principles. William in his essay “The School That I 98). Kudos to their Nietzschean Will to Power that despite Would Like” emphasizes the relationship between the tyrannical and oppressive British monopoly they teachers and students which is informal giving much more dared to revolt against the tyrannical oppression of their emphasis upon the students’ freedom of expression but in white masters. But it is undoubtedly a fact that the dying, Swami’s schools the boys are strictly monitored, subjugated, and marginalized situation of women in controlled and regulated by their strict disciplinarian phallocentric Indian society highlights the loopholes of headmaster in a very formal manner. In Tagore’s “Tota Mother India mythology as a bourgeois ideological Kahini” the bird becomes the victim of this kind of construct. (Morton 40) claustrophobic education policy and Swami’s situation is Trisha Gupta in her 28 October, 2018, Hindustan like the caged parrot in the sense that like the parrot Times, article, “60 Years of RK Narayan’s The Guide : A Swami also likes to flap his wings in search of freedom Tale ahead of its time” describes Malgudi as “...the sleepy but the stringent and authoritarian systems whether South Indian town that Narayan had dreamt up as a represented by his autocratic father figure in his house or setting for his fiction.” (Gupta) Narayan’s Malgudi or

www.ijels.com Page | 611 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 Lamming’s Creighton’s village serve as metaphors of R.K.Narayan who brought a small little their own country. Malgudi is imaginary, like Hardy’s delightful town called Malgudi and its varied characters to Wessex or William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha. As life deserves our kudos because with a true journalist’s Pankaj Mishra in the previously mentioned chapter eye he has vividly portrayed the various further observes: agathokakological entities of human life through the ...Malgudi, the colonial district town artistic representation of his characters who have become with its post-office and bank and the mirror of our society and much like Wordsworth middle-class suburb and small roadside Narayan is at his best in celebrating the charms and magic shops and low-caste slums and of childhood vis-à-vis the encoded political, Anti-colonial missionary school and government propaganda, class struggle, Centre/Periphery dichotomy bungalows — is the new world of or the beauty of nature so profoundly sketched with urbanising India that Swami is minute attention prove Narayan to be a worshipper of expected, in the way Narayan was, to India’s heterogeneous and multicultural identity. The find his place. But Swami is essentially bright-eyed boy Manjunath Nayakar who played the role anarchic and it is his great restlessness of Swami in Shankar Nag’s popular TV serial Malgudi within this restricted world and Days 28 years ago is now a PR consultant in Bengaluru. premonitions of the drabness that awaits Swami’s adventure in soul making, his contact with the him which make for that unique mix of experienced adult world, little fights and reconciliations, ‘sadness and beauty’ that Graham his peripatetic nature egregiously narrated by Narayan’s Green — who helped publish the book artistic vision, his envies for his newly born little brother — spoke of.” (196) who is still in the Lacanian Imaginary or Pre-Oedipal or Furthering this critical observation I would like to draw Pre-Linguistic stage and hardly understands politics, the readers’ attention to Krishna Sen’s arguments about colonialism or the biggies like Hobbs, Bradman, Duleep Malgudi in her seminal book Critical Essays on R K or Tate but relies the peaceful lap of his mother, boyish Narayan’s The Guide : With an introduction to Narayan’s adventures or misadventures, twisting of ears, exam Novels : pressures, granny’s lap as the safest place in the world — Malgudi may be said to be situated all these are mirabile dictu even in the 21st century. metaphorically at the intersection of the Swami much like Stephen of A Portrait of the Artist as a real and supra-rational, of physical Young Man (1916) positions himself in the universe: space and time and mythic space and Tamil Tamil time. From this perspective one may W.S.Swaminathan extrapolate Bakhtin’s terminology 1st form A Section (since Bakhtin recognised historic, but Albert Mission School not mythic time), and say that the Malgudi Malgudi environment takes on the South I ndia attributes of a ‘chronotope’... (153) Asia (Narayan 62) Giordano Nanni in The Colonisation of Time: Rituals, Despite being an inhabitant of Malgudi Swaminathan is Routine and Resistance in the British Empire had coined celebrating the concept called vasudhaiva kutumbakam terms like “empire time” and “local” or “native” time. In (the world is my family) after mentioning his continent Swami and Friends (1935) “empire time”is in a tussle Asia’s name on the paper’s flap — this symbolically with “local” or “native” time. As Malreddy Pavan Kumar propagates the union of separate identity with totality or argues that Narayan’s “fabulist localism” (560) can be wholeness. Kipling’s children play out the Great Game of made out as an example of “provincialized modernity” Imperialism or Golding’s children play out the imperial (Chakravarty 1-36). Throughout the novel Swami is game of power but Narayan’s children fight even though accused of being complacent and lazy lacking their harmless fights have nothing to do with the industriousness and seeking boyish pleasures. Such an preparation of the Civil Service. Abira Dhar in her 13 attitude was, according to Frantz Fanon, misconstrued in March, 2018, The Quint, article, “Lost and Found: The colonial discourse as passivity when it was essentially Boy who played Swami in ‘Malgudi Days’” rightly ingredient of “the conscious sabotage of the colonial observes: machine” (237-238) R K Narayan died on 13th May 2001, at the age of 94 in Chennai, but his works II. CONCLUSION will continue to live on forever, whether through books, television series or

www.ijels.com Page | 612 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.10 ISSN: 2456-7620 artists like Manjunath Nayakar who will [14] Narayanan, Sandeep. “The nostalgia inducing always have stories to tell us. (Dhar) ‘Malgudi Days’: When Swami was my friend too” The News Minute, 26 August 2018, REFERENCES https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/nostalgia- [1] Narayan, R. K. Swami and Friends. Minerva, 1993. inducing-malgudi-days-when-swami-was-my- [2] ——. My Days. Viking, 1974. friend-too-87266. Accessed 29 April. 2019. [3] Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. [15] Dhar, Abira. “Lost and Found: The Boy who played Routledge, 1994. Swami in ‘Malgudi Days’” The Quint, 14 May 2015, [4] Thieme, John. “The Double Making of https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/lost-and- R.K.Narayan.” In Critical Spectrum: Essays in found-the-boy-who-played-swami-in-malgudi-days. Literary Culture in Honour of Professor Accessed 29 April. 2019. C.D.Narasimhaiah, edited by Satish C. Aikant, [16] Gupta, Trisha. “60 Years of RK Narayan’s The Pencraft, 2004, pp. 172-91. Guide : A Tale ahead of its time” Hindustan Times, [5] Tharoor, Shashi. “Comedies of Suffering.” The 28 October 2018, Hindu, Online Edition of India’s National https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/60-years-of- Newspaper. (8 Jul. 2001). Web. rk-narayan-s-the-guide-a-tale-ahead-of-its- [6] Taare Zameen Par. Directed by Aamir Khan, time/story-djxz0t5RZz6ZqK8ftXkcRK.html. performances by Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Accessed 29 April. 2019. Tanay Chheda, Vipin Sharma, and M.K.Raina. [17] Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Aamir Khan Productions, 2007. Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester [7] Lagaan. Directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, University Press, 1995. performances by Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Paul [18] Mishra, Pankaj. “R.K.Narayan.” A History of Indian Blackthorne, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Rachel Literature in English, edited by Arvind Krishna Shelley. Aamir Khan Productions, 2001. Mehrotra, Columbia University Press, 2003, pp.193- [8] PK. Directed by Rajkumar Hirani, performances by 208. Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh [19] Sen, Krishna. Critical Essays on R K Narayan’s The Rajput, Sanjay Dutt, and Boman Irani. Vinod Guide : With an introduction to Narayan’s Novels. Chopra Films, 2014. Orient Longman, 2004. [9] Pather Panchali. Directed by Satyajit Ray, [20] Jussawalla, Feroza. “Cricket and Colonialism: From performances by Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Swami and Friends to Lagaan.”South Asian Review, Chunibala Devi, Tulsi Chakraborty,and Uma vol.23, no. 3, 2002, pp.112-128. Dasgupta. Government of West Bengal, 1955. [21] Kumar, Malreddy Pavan. “Cosmopolitanism Within’ [10] 3 Idiots. Directed by Rajkumar Hirani, performances : The Case of R.K.Narayan’s Fictional Malgudi.” by Aamir Khan, Sharman Joshi, R.Madhavan, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol.47, no. 5, 2011, Kareena Kapoor, and Omi Vaidya. Vinod Chopra pp. 558-570. Films, 2009. [22] Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin [11] Egaro. Directed by Arun Roy, performances by Books, 1967. Shankar Chakraborty, Rajat Ganguly, Biswajit [23] Chakravarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Chakraborty, Tulika Basu, and Hirak Das. Magic Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Hour Entertainment, 2011. Princeton University Press, 2000. [12] @ShashiTharoor. “Exasperating farrago of [24] Driss, Hager Ben. “Acts of Ambivalence: Political distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies Resistance / Resisting Politics in R.K.Narayan’s being broadcast by an unprincipled showman Swami and Friends.” South Asian Review, vol.34, masquerading as a journalist.” Twitter, 8 May. 2017, no.2, 2013, pp.79-89. 8:48 a.m., [25] Williams, Raymond. Culture and Materialism. https://twitter.com/shashitharoor/status/8616086655 Verso, 1980. 17895680? lang=en [26] Sundaram, P.S. R.K.Narayan. Arnold Heinemann, [13] Thapliyal, Shreya. “Remembering RK Narayan — 1973. The Malgudi Man”The Statesman, 10 October 2018, [27] Nanni, Giordano. The Colonisation of Time: Ritual, https://www.thestatesman.com/books- Routine and Resistance in the British Empire. education/remembering-rk-narayan-malgudi-man- Manchester University Press, 2012. 1502695035.ht ml. Accessed 29 April. 2019. [28] Cecil, David. Early Victorian Novelists. Collins, 1970.

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