RK Narayan’s ‘The Guide’

I finished reading ‘The Guide’ by RK Narayan (ISBN 978-81-85986-07-4; Indian thought Publications) today. It is one of the master pieces of RK Narayan. Of late I have tried to read all of his books; and this one has made me nearer to the goal. Though this story has been made into a very famous movie by the same name enacted by Dev Anand, I have not watched it and hence I could enjoy this book starting from truly unexplored status.

The Guide is indeed a master piece. We can find the width and depth of storytelling and minuteness of details as typical to RK Narayan and at the same time a unique new story to mesmerize us. It is a biography of Raju who sees many twists and turns. The book is written in a narrative style, as Raju is recollecting his life story. Starting out as a Guide, called Railway Raju, he falls in love with a lady dancer who is into an unhappy marriage with an academician living in his own world. The lady’s love makes him ignore his business of being a guide; his infatuation of watching her dance all the time makes him lose his business of running a shop at the railway platform and in order to fulfill all his debts, he loses his home that his father built and his mother had to leave him and go back to her brother when Raju does not agree with her to send away Rosie the dancer. Rosie at this point was very selfish, very well knowing that Raju was losing everything due to their relationship. Raju was so lost in his love with Rosie that he had to be woken up by Rosie who encourages him to get ahead on their plan of seeing through her dancing career. Supported by Raju, Rosie becomes one of the country’s top most classical dance performers and they become very-very rich. But she remains married to her previous husband who had deserted her and had no plans to take her back. Due to this, she does not get married to Raju also, though even Raju does not think about marriage, as if still lost in his fantasy world. He is obviously possessive about her and becomes uncomfortable with the thought of she reuniting with her husband. In the end, just to ensure that she does not see a letter sent by her husband, which he feared may trigger her reconciliation with him, he signs a legal document. Her husband, it seems does remember her and her boyfriend Raju, and seeks a revenge. Raju loses the court battle and is jailed for two years. At this point, Rosie shows insensitive and ungratefulness towards Raju; not forgiving of little mistakes one may make but being too harsh on him. At such points, the rigidness of social structure becomes too evident. Society has made unwritten rules and those who break it feel guilty even if no one blames them for it. Since Rosie was not married to Raju, in fact since she was still married to her uncaring and insensitive husband, she still had soft corner for her husband, which made her seek opportunity to reconcile with him, even if possible only in her thoughts. I think it would have been proper if she had filed for a divorce and married Raju legally many years ago, before becoming a burden on Raju’s mother and reason of lots of gossip about their immoral relationship (for which Raju had to suffer a lot and he lost social acceptance when he was poor). When Raju is in jail, or perhaps when he comes out of it too, Rosie never shows any sympathy towards him, which is inhuman. Perhaps she never loved him but only needed him. On one hand one can ask how could she love him when she was married to someone else? On the other hand, the fact that they shared an intimate relationship, it was only fair if she remained unattached to Raju if she never intended to see them as husband and wife together at some point of time in future. So while on surface Raju can be blamed for a lot of things, I think Rosie was also to be blamed for a lot of things. Her only defense could be that she was helpless and clung to Raju for her survival. But Raju never abused their relationship, never took grant of her and hurt her in anyways, he truly loved her. On financial matters, he became too used to seeing too much money coming in the house and hence did not do any self-check, which often happens. That is a bad thing about money – initially you think you own the money but later on money owns you. Until you have little money, you don’t know what it is to be on the money trail, but once you are on that road, it is a non-stop journey. It is like riding a tiger; you cannot get off from it for the fear of being swallowed away. Blessed at the people who have only that much they truly need; or have the courage to remain content with what they have.

In the end Raju goes to a remote village where no one knows him. People happen to take him as a saint and even this episode is so interesting to read.

How much seriously humorous RK Narayan can be is seen in the following para. Raju was a failure in earlier life but when he goes to the Jail, he is revered there. And he says, “I was considered a model prisoner. Now I realized that people generally thought of me as being unsound and worthless, not because I deserved the label, but because they had been seeing me in the wrong place all along. To appreciate me, they should really have come to the Central Jail and watched me.” :)

It is a marvelous book; full of geniuses of exceptionally brilliant story teller R K Narayan.