Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (2 page)

The theme of the young man on a journey – the innocent abroad, the ambitious dreamer – is also present in
Mr Sampath – The Printer of Malgudi
. Although this is a highly enjoyable novel,
with some intriguing pictures of typically colourful Narayan characters, the looseness of structure referred to in complimentary terms above does become a bit problematic here. William Walsh, one of Narayan’s better-known exponents, described the shape of it as ‘oddly hump-backed’, and he is right. It really is two separate stories, the first one focussing on Srinivas, the self-published editor of
The Banner
, a crusading paper with great ambitions, and the second one largely concerned with the film industry and Mr Sampath’s experience of it. Ambitions of stage and screen are notoriously unlikely to be fulfilled, and in many of Narayan’s novels you can see disappointment looming well in advance. Here Srinivas takes himself very seriously in his writing and yet, like so many of the young men in Narayan’s Malgudi, he is doomed to failure. He is trying to do too much; the world that he lives in is inevitably going to bog him down in its morass. This process of gradually being brought down to earth, of rising up only to be cut down again, is a metaphor, perhaps, for the struggle which the individual faces in India. India is such a complex, crowded country that it is often difficult for a person to achieve what he wants to achieve. There is an immense weight of history, there are just too many people wishing to do the same thing, or something else, for any one person to get anywhere – or that is how it must sometimes feel. At the time when Narayan wrote
Mr Sampath
, that feeling must have been strong. India was saddled with a creaking bureaucracy and the dead hand of an ancient social system; the economy was closely regulated; there were many complicating layers to life. Of course conditions are very different today, and the immense and impressive talents of the people of India are being at long last released. But it must have been very frustrating to be somebody like Srinivas, wishing to change the world, or at least his little part of it, back in 1949.

The Financial Expert
is a more tightly constructed novel than the other two in this volume. Margayya, the usurer, is a thoroughly unattractive character – a man for whom money is an end in itself and whose life is dedicated to its acquisition. At the beginning of the book we see him as a small-time facilitator of loans, sitting under a tree with his notebook and inks and
the precious loan application forms winkled out of the bank across the road. It is a perfect picture of the financial parasite: the peasants who come to him for advice are manipulated and encouraged into indebtedness, and although they are his bread and butter Margayya treats them with contempt. Indeed all the money-lender’s relationships take second place to his business concerns, and this leads inevitably to the gradual widening of the gulf between him and his family. Balu, his son, who is something of a failure, eventually runs away from home, and is falsely reported to be dead. That at least arouses some emotion in Margayya, but even in his grief he is suspicious of the sympathy extended by his brother, from whom he is also alienated: the offer which his brother makes to accompany him to the city to find out what happened is interpreted as an attempt to wangle a free trip to town.

Narayan gives us in
The Financial Expert
a striking account of the conversion of a mean-spirited person to the single-minded worship of money. In Margayya’s case, the seeds of obsessive greed are encouraged to grow into full-scale money worship after a remarkable meeting with a priest who explains to him the workings of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth. The goddess can be invited to smile upon a supplicant, but, as the priest explains, this requires single-minded devotion to her – as well as a series of elaborate, self-denying rituals. All of this works for Margayya, who becomes immensely wealthy by enmeshing his clients in ruinous debt agreements and then proceeding to seize their assets. Thus he acquires property – land and houses – and of course the rupees that he regards with mystical awe. His business dealings are, of course, exploitative and rotten, no more so than when he converts to his own ends
Bed Life
, the manuscript of the sexual visionary, Dr Pal. Armed with the proceeds of this questionable product, he develops his money-lending business and becomes a respected and influential citizen. Greed, though, triumphs, and his spectacular bankruptcy is achieved when the same Dr Pal triggers a run on his bank. Margayya, of course, has learned no real lessons, and returns to his place under the tree to start afresh.

The Financial Expert
is a satisfying novel at many different levels. It is, in the first place, a fine study of a selfish, shrivelled
personality – a man who is prepared to do anything for money and who can lie with complete equanimity. These lies are sometimes comic, as in the scene where he is discussing the publication of
Bed Life
with the printer and pretends to know much more about books and printing than he actually does (which is nothing). And we are similarly both amused and appalled when Margayya brazens his way through a blatant refusal on his part to pay an optician for his glasses. It is the optician who is made to feel guilty for raising the issue of the unpaid bill: ‘Haven’t you the elementary courtesy to know the time and place for such reminders?’ Margayya says to his creditor. The transferring of blame to others supports the diagnosis that we might be tempted to make: Margayya is a classic psychopath (or sociopath). This view is confirmed in the scene in which he summons an astrologer to cast a horosope for Balu, who wishes to marry. The fact that the stars are inauspicious does not deter him. If the planets are initially unwilling to give their blessing to the proposed union, then they shall be made to do so. And so a new astrologer is summoned – one who can be bribed sufficiently to make the planets conduct themselves as Margayya wishes. Money itself is not the problem here: it is the complete self-centredness and coldness of the psychopathic personality that strikes and appals us.

Narayan is not a ‘preachy’ writer. We see a wide variety of human types in his novels, and we also witness a great deal of bad behaviour. His descriptions of human failings are very matter-of-fact and in some cases almost dry, and yet this does not mean that there is no authorial viewpoint. There is such a viewpoint, but it is a discreet one and it is delicately advanced. Unlike many modern writers who leave us in no doubt about their personal position and objectives, Narayan is a very unobtrusive writer. He does have a world view, but it is one which is as much anchored in a shared culture as in personal conviction; it is a world view that is linked with a profound understanding of Hindu myths and legends. These novels can all be seen as reflections of various themes explored in that body of belief, and this lends them a universal significance. In the context of such elemental and ancient legends, it is not surprising that the novelist himself should seem modest and
somewhat in the background. And that, in a sense, is the real nature of this great novelist’s achievement: the portrayal of the world and its great themes through the depiction of the minutiae of life. Narayan does not start with a generalization, with a theory; he lets his characters demonstrate to us, through their very ordinary thoughts and actions, what it is to be human. And to do this he stands in the crowded streets, in the houses, in the workplaces, listening to the things that people say, the small things, the poignant things, the laughable things; listening and taking notes.

Alexander McCall Smith

R. K. NARAYAN,
My Days: A Memoir
, Viking, New York, 1974, Chatto & Windus, London, 1975.

SUSAN RAM and N. RAM
R. K. Narayan: The Early Tears
, 1906-1945, Viking, New Delhi, 1996.

RANGA RAO,
R. K. Narayan
(‘Makers of Indian Literature’ series), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2004.

WILLIAM WALSH,
R. K. Narayan: A Critical Appreciation
, William Heinemann Ltd., London, 1982, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982.

Foundation of Muslim League, first Muslim political party in India. Simla deputation to British Viceroy, Lord Minto, asking for separate electorates for Muslim community.

Asiatic Registration Act becomes law in the province of Transvaal, South Africa.

Minto-Morley Reforms: Indians given more power in legislative affairs; creation of separate Muslim electorates. Blériot flies across the English Channel.

Dalai Lama flees from the Chinese and takes refuge in India.

George V recognized as King-Emperor in Delhi (during a hunting trip in Nepal the King bags 21 tigers, 8 rhinos, and a bear). Transfer of capital to Delhi announced.

Sinking of
Titanic
.

Gandhi arrested as he leads a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

Beginning of World War I (to 1918); large numbers of Indians, Hindu and Muslim, rally to the British cause. General Smuts begins negotiations with Gandhi to eradicate many of the racist laws imposed on South African Indians.

Mahatma Gandhi returns to India from South Africa.

Muslim League and Congress Party agree to work together to campaign for self-government.

Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

End of World War I.

Versailles peace conference. Montague-Chelmsford Reforms (Government of India Act): reorganizes central legislature but falls short of Indian expectations. Demonstrations against British rule become widespread; massacre of peaceful protesters by armed British troops at Amritsar. Non-cooperation movement launched by Gandhi. League of Nations created.

Opening of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta.

Gandhi sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for civil disobedience – he is released after serving two years. Establishment of USSR. Stalin beomes General Secretary of Communist Party.

Gateway of India monument in Delhi is completed. Gandhi undertakes a fast to end Hindu – Muslim rioting. Death of Lenin.

Commuter rail service introduced in Bombay.

Germany admitted to League of Nations.

Lindbergh makes first solo flight over Atlantic.

Gandhi nominates Jawaharlal Nehru to succeed him as leader of the Congress movement. Wall Street Crash. Period of worldwide depression begins. First non-stop flight from England to India.

Mahatma Gandhi sets off on famous salt march, sparking off a wave of anti-British demonstrations and boycotts. Chandrasekhara Raman wins Nobel Prize for Physics.

Inauguration of New Delhi as India’s capital. Series of Round Table Conferences in London to discuss the future of India (to 1933).

Clampdown on demonstrators in India;
60,000
Congress activists are imprisoned. Gandhi’s hunger strike against the treatment of untouchables. Election of Roosevelt in US.

Gandhi’s hunger strike to protest against British oppression in India. Hitler becomes German Chancellor. Roosevelt announces ‘New Deal’.

Gandhi resigns from Congress Party.

Government of India Act creates a central legislature; provincial government handed over to elected Indian representatives. Burma separated from India. In Germany Nuremberg laws deprive Jews of citizenship and rights.

Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (to 1939) – Hitler and Mussolini form Rome – Berlin Axis. Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’ of the Communist Party (to 1938).

Japanese invasion of China.

Germany annexes Austria; Munich crisis.

Hitler invades Poland; outbreak of World War II. Gandhi calls on the world to disarm. The Indian subcontinent contributes the largest volunteer army in history (some 2.5 million servicemen and women) to the Allied cause.

Italy enters war as German ally. Fall of France. Battle of Britain. Muslim League adopt the Pakistan Resolution, which demands an independent state for Muslims.

Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; US enters war. Japanese invasion of Burma begins. Hitler invades USSR. India’s population is 389 million.

Sir Stafford Cripps visits India with British government’s offer of complete self-government after the war: described by Gandhi as ‘a post-dated cheque on a failing bank’, it is rejected by Hindus and Muslims alike. Gandhi calls on British to ‘Quit India’ but the movement to eject the British is quickly suppressed. Japanese troops capture Rangoon and consolidate their position in Burma.