The Guide by RK Narayan

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 9s, (2020), pp. 845-849

The Guide By R.K. Narayan: An Adaptation From Novel To Film Dr. Jyoti Syal, Assistant Professor,Department of Humanities, Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana, Ambala.

Abstract Adaptation in the film industry is not a new concept. History abounds with examples that almost three-fourths of all films ever made are the adaptions from novels, plays or short stories borrowed from the classic literature in every language. Our Indian film industry is of no exception. Right from the beginning till date, it has been coming up with a good number of super hit films, which are an adaption of a famous novel or play or a short story of either regional, Indian or a foreign author. It is often said that the printed text is superior to the filmed version in one way or the other. But at the same time, it is equally true that a film director is not bound to copy the original text form as it is. He has every right to eliminate or add some characters and incidents which may or may not be a part of original text form. The filmmaker not only adds or eliminates some incidents from the original text, but also makes some major changes. This he does so that he can cater to the taste of all sorts of public. He has to compress even the lengthiest novel or story into maximum of three hours. Vijay Anand’s ‘Guide’ takes one hundred and seventy minutes to present Narayan’s story of two hundred and forty seven pages. The objective of this paper is to focus on such adaptation – the adaptation of R.K.Narayan’s ‘Sahitya Akademi Award’ winning novel The Guide to Vijay Anand’s film ‘Guide’. This paper is also an humble attempt to trace the changes made by the director of the film, Vijay Anand and to show how these changes made the film a grand success and received several awards and recognition. A film, which is remembered for its creative direction by Vijay Anand and for the outstanding performance by actors Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman. Keywords: adaption, classic literature, film industry, Guide. Introduction Adaptation in the film industry is not a new concept. History abounds with examples that almost three-fourths of all films ever made are the adaptions from novels, plays or short stories borrowed from the classic literature in every language. Our Indian film industry is of no exception. Right from the beginning till date, it has been coming up with a good number of super hit films, which are an adaption of a famous novel or a play or a short story of either regional, Indian or a foreign author. We can take example of the famous movie ‘Devdas’ (1917), which has been adapted from a Bengali novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The novel has been filmed not only in Bengali or Hindi but also in various Indian regional languages like Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Assamese and Malayalam. The main objective of the present paper is to focus on such an adaptation – the adaptation of the eminent Indian English writer R.K.Narayan’s heart touching English novel The Guide (1958) which was adapted to a Hindi movie in 1965. The movie is still remembered for its excellent direction by Vijay Anand and for the outstanding performance by actors Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman. R. K. Narayan has deservedly come to be regarded as a pioneer of the Indian novel in English. He has endeared himself to millions of readers throughout the world, because of his impassioned blend of profound and comic vision. He has an uncanny capacity for empathizing with the common masses in a realistic manner. His art of story telling enabled him to carry the tradition of great writers to new heights. He not only interpreted the soul of India, the real India of the villages to the West, but also convincingly

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made known to the colonial rulers, the religious, moral and spiritual heritage of India. What gives Narayan, a distinctive place in the Postcolonial Indian English Literature, is the great importance he attaches to his vocation as a writer. Rashipuram Krishnaswami Narayan was one of those creative writers who made a living out of their creative writing. He struggled very hard to establish himself as a man of letters. Narayan, born in 1906 in Madras is a well known novelist of the twentieth century India. He made his first appearance on the literary horizon with the publication of Swami and Friends (1935) and has fifteen novels to his credit. His literary output is rich and varied. He wrote fifteen novels, multiple volumes of short stories, collections of non-fiction, English translation of Indian epics, and the memoirs My Days and My Dateless Diary. There are a number of literary awards and distinctions to his credit. As is stated earlier, he received the Sahitya Academy Award for The Guide in 1961. Padma Bhushan was awarded to him in 1964. The University of Leeds honored him with a degree of D.Litt. in 1967, which Delhi University followed in 1973. He was nominated as Fellow, Royal Society of literature; Fellow, Sahitya Academy and Member, Rajya Sabha. He earned high acclaim in India and abroad. M. K. Naik, a well-known critic, makes a general opinion that “The Financial Expert, together with The Guide and The Man-Eater of Malgudi constitute the cream of Narayan’s fiction . . . because irony develops from merely a useful technique into an all-embracing vision of life.” (The 44). Prof. William Walsh’s comments are worth noted when he writes: “Perhaps the most remarkable example of the difficult genre—the serious comedy—to which R. K. Narayan’s novels belong is The Guide (1958).” (Commonwealth 14). He further writes: “It is not only his best novel but the one in which his characteristic qualities show themselves most clearly.” (Commonwealth 14). K. R. S. Iyengar rightly says: “He is one of the few writers of India who take their craft seriously, constantly striving to improve the instrument, pursuing with a sense of dedication what may often seem to be the mirage of technical perfection. There is a norm of excellence below which Narayan cannot possibly lower himself.”(359). The novel, The Guide, is an autobiography of Raju who rises from an humble origin and becomes a successful tourist guide in Malgudi. Raju’s life is based on a series of self-deceptions which ultimately leads the character down a road of confusion, loss of self, and then to spiritual transformation and awakening. As a tourist guide, he is unprincipled, spontaneous and self-indulgent but after his imprisonment, and after his unwilling transformation into a holy man, he is careful, solicitous, and self-disciplined. The setting of The Guide, as most of Narayan’s novels, is Malgudi—the fictional town in Southern India. Raju, the protagonist, grows up near a railway station, becomes a shopkeeper, and then tactful tourist guide. He meets Rosie, an attractive traditional dancer, and her husband, whom Raju calls Marco. Marco is a scholar and an anthropologist, who is more interested in his research than his wife. Rosie and Marco hire Raju as a tourist guide. Rosie wants to see king cobra dancing and go shopping whereas Marco always remains detached to his wife. While Marco is busy with his archaeological studies, Raju seduces Rosie and has a good time with her. Finally when Marco comes to know of the affair, he returns to Madras leaving Rosie behind in Malgudi. Raju is emotionally attached to Rosie and neglects all else. He falls into debt, and loses his shop at the railway station. Raju’s mother also moves out of their house as Rosie starts living with Raju. Raju encourages Rosie to take up her career as a dancer. He becomes her manager. He launches her as a Bharatnatyam dancer. In the mean time he squanders her money, and forges Rosie’s signature for a pack of her jewellery in the custody of bank, for which he is imprisoned for two years. After his release from prison, Raju takes a shelter near a temple, where he is mistaken for a holy man by a villager named

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Velan. He accepts the situation as it solves his problem of food and shelter. Gradually, he accepts the role of a holy man which has been thrust upon him. Raju is satisfied with his life until a drought occurs. But the cheating cannot go on forever and Raju is caught in his own web. He makes an earnest effort to escape the ordeal by revealing his past to Velan, but fails. He apparently starts believing in the role he has taken on. He continues his fast and one day he faints. His legs sag down, and he feels that it is raining in the hills. The narrative ends without answering whether he dies, or whether the drought has really ended. The narratee is free to infer as he likes. The film ‘Guide’, is an adaptation of the novel The Guide. The director has made a few changes here and there, to suit the taste of the masses. But after going through the novel, if we watch the movie carefully, we will find that quite a few changes have been made in the original text just to make it suitable as per the taste of the audience. The first and most important issue in adaption is that the filmmaker has to look for the length of the film. No matter what the length of the original text is, the film version must not exceed to three hours or so. Director Vijay Anand also squeezed story of two hundred and forty seven pages to one hundred and seventy minutes. The task of condensation is not an easy task as it may result in the omission of materials from the original text, which may be essential for the novelist for his original conception. In the film ‘Guide’, director Vijay Anand has also excluded some things. The whole childhood days of Raju which have been vividly portrayed by Narayan in his novel, the contemporary socio - economic conditions of India in1950s and 1960s, the impact of urbanization on the village life etc. are completely invisible in the film. These events would have been possible to be omitted as they do not hamper the progress of the plot. Like the novel, the film begins, from the middle of the story and then retrospects the past. But unlike the novel, it avoids the frequent shifting of time frame. Indeed, it can be said that unity of action is more closely observed in the movie as compared to the novel. In this way it provides an aid to the audience to understand the story more easily and clearly than the novel. As the novel opens we find, Raju, the protagonist, who has just been released from prison, sitting on the banks of the river (Saryu), which is one of the identities of Narayan’s fictional town, Malgudi. But on the contrary, in the movie, the entire locale background is shifted from Malgudi to Rajasthan, Udaipur. Chittod also gets mentioned in the film. Thus, Malgudi, a fictitious small town of South India, which has always been at the background of all the novels of R.K.Narayan, is entirely eliminated from the scene. In the flashback Raju is shown using different languages with different tourists as their guide, which proves Raju as a successful guide. While reading novel, one has to be very alert and attentive. In the same manner one has to be attentive while watching the movie, in order to link the past and present events of the story. The narration, both in movie and novel moves in a zigzag manner, from backward to forward, and vice versa. The use of Soliloquies by the director in the film also gives a good effect in order to remind the audience of the past and to understand what is going on in the present. Like in the original text, Raju in the movie is shown as a complex character. Unlike a typical Hindi movie hero, he is an ordinary person. So, he is both a hero and an anti-hero at the same time. The hero of the film, Raju is shown as falling in love with Rosie particularly after the incident when he saves her from committing suicide. Rosie attempts so as she is completely frustrated with Marco, her husband, for whom his work is more important than his wife. He does not have time to cater to the needs of his wife. This is the reason that Rosie does not want to carry their relationship and attempts to commit suicide. But Raju saves her. He takes her to his house and give her shelter. He calms her by saying that committing suicide is a sin and she should live to fulfill her dream – to become a renowned dancer. After this incident they come close to each other. But if we look at the novel, we find that Raju develops

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 9s, (2020), pp. 845-849

his love for Rosie much before the incident. He knows the fact that Rosie is a married woman. But in spite of the fact and the warnings given by his mother, his maternal uncle and Gaffur, he goes on loving her. But this negative shade of Raju’s character is depicted in the film in a polished way: “Where Narayan’s Raju takes the first opportunity to warm himself into Rosie’s bedroom, the ‘reel’ Raju is unfailingly noble never taking physical advantage of a damsel in distress” (Bhattacharya 93). The character of Rosie, like that of Raju, is presented in such a way in the film that we cannot claim that Rosie is agnostic to her husband Marco. A new scene is deliberately introduced by the director of the movie in which Marco is seen as having a physical relationship with a native girl in the cave, which is not a part of the novel. After this incident, Rosie rejects Marco and accepts Raju as she finds him loving and caring, which she is unable to find in her husband, Marco. Moreover, it is only Raju who supports her to pursue her dream of becoming a famous dancer. The characters of Raju and Rosie are presented in such a manner in the film that the audience feels pity on them. Another character which influences the direction of the story is of Marco. He is shown as a scholar who has passion for his work and thus neglects his wife, Rosie. As a result Rosie tries to end her life by consuming poison but is saved timely by Raju. When Marco comes to know about the incident, he returns from the cave leaving his work but on seeing Rosie fit and fine gets furious. Another incident which brings their relationship to an end is when Rosie comes to know about Marco’s relation with a native girl in the cave. But as mentioned earlier this incident of womanising on the part of Marco has been deliberately introduced in the film, otherwise such an incident does not exist in the novel. According to Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya, the role of Marco is significantly enacted by Kishor Sahu, an established ‘villain’ of Bollywood in the 1960s, creating an impression in the audience’s mind about Marco’s intractable ‘badness’. In R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: New Critical Perspectives (2004), she further comments: “... unlike the academic, and inscrutable Marco of the printed text, the ‘reel’ Marco surreptitiously drinks alcohol in the caves, and maintains illicit relationship with prostitutes, thereby forcing Rosie, as it were, to take the final and irrevocable step of leaving him for another man.” ( 93 ). Another one of the most important part to be discussed is the ending of the film. In the film, we find Raju fasting for twelve days in order to bring rain to the drought ridden village, Rampuri. It is during this period that he gets back his mother and Rosie and there is reconciliation among them. At the end rain comes and Raju dies. Raju is depicted as a saint, whose efforts bring happiness in the form of rain for the village. But the ending of the novel is open and ambiguous. It ends with the final words of Raju to Vela, “Velan, it’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs - "(Narayan, The Guide 247). The reader is not told whether Raju dies or the rain comes. The reader is free to assume as per his imagination. The film was a commercial success. The audience embraced the film and it ran in the cinema halls for many months. Apart from its commercial success, the film received many awards and recognition. It was awarded to be the Third Best Feature Film in Hindi at the prestigious 13th National Film Awards. It has been said that the printed version is superior to filmed version. This is true to some extent. But one should not forget the fact that a story or novel is meant to cater to the taste of selected group of people, preferably having literary taste. But a film caters to all sorts of people. In short it is for masses, not for classes. It consumes less time, energy and demands less concentration than the printed version. So one cannot criticize it from being deviated from the original text. The grand success of the film is a clear cut proof that it won the hearts of masses. So Seymour Chatman, a new critic, is absolutely right when he says, “What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (and Vice Versa).” The handling of plot, theme and

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characters characters, costume, narrative technique, script, action, direction, music, songs etc. can make the dramatized version different from its original literary work. Yet they both serve their own purposes in their own different ways

References

1. Bhattacharya, Nandini. R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: New Critical Perspectives. Delhi: 2. Worldview Publication, 2004. Print. 3. Chatman Seymour. What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (and Vice Versa). “Critical Inquiry” 7:1 : 1980. Print. 4. Iyenger, K. R. S. Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling, 1962. Print 5. Narayan, R. K. The Guide. Chennai: Indian Thought Publications, 2005. Print. 6. Naik, M. K. The Ironic Vision: A Study of the Fiction of R. K. Narayan. New Delhi: 7. Sterling, 1983. Print. 8. Walsh, William. Commonwealth Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Print. 9. R. K. Narayan-A Critical Appreciation. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1983.Print.