Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Mr. Sampath was the first novel by R. K. Narayan that he published in independent India in 1949. It was soon adapted into a Hindi film in the year 1952 with the same title. The novel is set in 1938 under the British Raj, and like many other novels of Narayan, it is also set in the fictional town of Malgudi. It is a comic novel of manners with shades of realism that talks about the hopes of common men, their struggles, desires, and eccentricities. The story is about a businessman who adapts to the collapse of his weekly newspaper by shifting to screenplays, only to have the glamour of it all go to his head.
The subtitle of the novel is The Printer of Malgudi. The novel doesn’t revolve around the protagonist as the other characters also attain somewhat equal weightage within the story.
Characters of Mr. Sampath:
Srinivas is the protagonist of the novel who belongs to a middle-class family living in Talapur. He is an idealistic person with a certain ethical code. He is already married with a teenage son named Ramu. Srinivas decides to begin a political journal titled The Banner in a nearby town Malgudi. Sampth is a conman of Malgudi. He is a very lively and optimistic person with very high ambitions but he lacks ethical stability. He enjoys his life as it comes and believes that living is not a punishment. He is also married but doesn’t care much about his family. Ravi is a young man living in Malgudi who works at a bank but doesn’t like his work. he is an artist. Shanti is a young beautiful movie actress working in the film industry. Mr. Somu, Mr. Sohan Lal, and De Mello are investors from whom Sampath swindles money to begin his film industry venture “Sunrise Pictures.” The landlord Sanyasi who owns the hovel where Srinivas lives in Malgudi is also a noticeable character. He is a miser widower who has turned his big house into several shady hovels or huts that he rents to people seeking shelter at an exorbitant rate.
Summary of Mr. Sampath— The Printer of Malgudi
Srinivas is a middle-aged man belonging to a middle-class family. His father is a reputed lawyer in Talapur while his brother is also a successful lawyer. However, Srinivas has no interest in the legal profession as he feels it involves too many pretensions and lies. He is married and is a father of a teen boy named Ramu. His brother encourages him to find some other occupation if he is not interested in law and thus, Srinivas decides to leave his ancestral home at Talapur and go to the nearby bigger town of Malgudi to begin his weekly news journal that he wishes to name The Banner. He leaves his family in Talapur so that he may invest all of his time in his new venture.
At Malgudi, he manages to set up an office where he could write and edit his newspaper but struggles to find a reliable printer. Meanwhile, he starts living at a small hovel owned by Sanyasi who is a miserly widowed old man. Sanyasi is a very eccentric person who has converted his big house into several small hovels that he offers for rent. He lives in a small hovel in the same building. He is a miser and doesn’t wish to spend a single penny for the upkeep of the hovels that are no better than huts or shanties. The whole building has a single tap-water connection that he uses most of the time. This is a big problem for the tenants who request him to get a tap water connection in each hovel. Sanyasi doesn’t heed them because extra water connection will require extra investment.
Srinivas is an idealist who wishes to follow his heart. Yet, he finds himself trapped in the web of familial responsibilities and regrets the fact that “Man has no significance except as a wage-earner, as an economic unit, as a receptacle of responsibilities.” To fulfill these responsibilities, he must find a printer that may help him establish his weekly news journal.
One day while taking lunch at Bombay Anand Bhavan restaurant, he meets a person named Mr. Sampath who claims that he has a printing machine and workers. Mr. Sampath is a lively person full of optimism and confidence. Srinivas gets impressed by him as he feels that Mr. Sampath can easily bring everyone in his favor. Mr. Sampath is also a married man who believes that life is not a punishment and enjoys every moment of it. Srinivas soon becomes his friend and begins writing for his newsletter. Mr. Sampath manages to print 500 copies of The Banner within a night and Srinivas’s new venture gets a beginning. Srinivas offers him some amount to continue the printing work and they become partners.
Ravi is a neighbor of Shrinivas who works at a bank but is more interested in painting. He often remains puzzled and aloof. One day, he confesses to Shrinivas that he is puzzled because of a beautiful girl that he saw once in a temple. Ravi is deeply in love with that girl though he knows nothing about her. He draws a beautiful sketch of that girl and shows it to Shrinivas. Shrinivas realizes that Ravi is a great artist who is forced to waste his time in a bank. Unfortunately, Ravi if fired from the bank on the same day. Shrinivas promises to find a suitable job for him.
Meanwhile, after the publication of three editions, the publication of the fourth edition of The Banner gets delayed. Shrinivas gets pensive and asks Mr. Sampath about the reason. Mr. Sampath informs us that printing got delayed because of a strike by the workers. Shrinivas finds something fishy and decides to check the printing chamber and finds out that there is no worker and Mr. Sampath himself used to do the whole work alone. But now Mr. Sampath is not feeling the same zeal and interest in that job. Anyhow, Mr. Sampath promises to begin working again.
Shrinivas further gets into trouble when he sees his wife and son Ramy at his office. His wife complains that he never answered her letters and announces that she and Ramu will live with him in Malgudi. Shrinivas is worried that his wife is habitual of living in a big house with all sorts of amenities, how will she adjust in the small shanti he is currently living in. Anyhow, he manages to get another nearby hovel for rent in the same building. However, his elder brother asks him about the performance of The Banner to which he fails to answer because Mr. Sampath hasn’t begun the printing yet. Somehow he convinces his brother that The Banner will be in circulation pretty soon.
When he meets Mr. Sampath for enquiring, he finds that Mr. Sampath has totally dropped the idea of continuing the journal and rather has established a film production company by the name “Sunrise Pictures.” Mr. Sampath informs him that he has already got a few investors for his new venture which include Mr. Somu, Mr. Sohan Lal, and De Mello.
Mr. Sampath convinces Srinivas that film production is a better and more lucrative business and engages him as the scriptwriter for their first production which is based on the Hindu legend involving the incineration of Lord Kama by lord Shiva. Shrinivas agrees and prepares the script but asks Mr. Sampath to give a job to Ravi as the art designer for the project. Mr. Sampath agrees and decides to play the role of Lord Shiva himself while he engages Shanti, a successful and beautiful actress for the role of Goddess Parvati. When Shrinivas sees Shanti in the make-up of Goddess Parvati, he finds that she appears exactly like the sketch drawn by Ravi.
Soon Shrinivas finds that Mr. Sampath is swindling the money of the investors while he is also having an affair with the lead actress despite being already married. When Shrinivas questions Mr. Sampath about it, he says that he finds nothing wrong in having two wives and he can manage both his wives well. However, Mr. Sampath says that Shrinivas should ensure that Ravi remains away from Shanti because Mr. Sampath feels that Ravi obsessively stares at Shanti and he may snatch her from Mr. Sampath. Shrinivas realizes that Ravi considers Shanti the same girl whom he saw in the temple. He tries to reason with Ravi but fails to convince him otherwise.
Meanwhile, Sanyasi is interested in convincing Ravi to marry his niece who is still a teenage girl. He approaches Shrinivas and tells him that his niece is his only responsibility and that if Ravi marries her, he will be able to die peacefully. Shrinivas again tries to convince Ravi but fails to make any progress.
One day during a shooting when Shanti and Mr. Sampath were acting on the stage, Ravi fails to control his emotions and confronts Shanti and tries to convince her to break up her affair with Mr. Sampath, who is an aged married person and elope with him. Shanti gets frightened by Ravi’s straightforwardness and shouts at him. Ravi insists she runs away with him and as Mr. Sampath tries to intervene, he throws him down the stage and injures Shanti too. This creates pandamonium while the stage goes dark because of an electric blackout.
After that incident, Mr. Sampath bundles up his film production and runs away with Shanti while stealing all the money from the investors he arranged. Ravi loses his mental balance and falls ill while Shrinivas finds himself responsible for him. Shrinivas decides to return to his first venture of printing a news journal and asks for some monetary help from his elder brother. Soon he finds another printer who is not as artistic as Mr. Sampath but he is much more professional and reliable. Shrinivas works hard with the new printer and The Banner gains good and regular circulation in the market. Meanwhile. Mr. Sampath elopes with Shanti and they enjoy a short honeymoon during which he spends all the money that he swindled. Shanti tries to manage with him for a few days but then leaves him and goes back to Bombay to revamp her career. Mr. Sampath too decides to return to Malgudi. When he reaches Malgudi, he comes to know that The Banner is working successfully. He visits Shrinivas’s home and tries to convince him to let him work for The Banner again but Shrinivas rejects him and says that he does not want to have any occupational dealings with Mr. Sampath ever again though they will remain good friends.
Meanwhile, Sanyasi, the landlord dies in an accident at the playground. His relatives start fighting over the ownership of the hovels and shanties. Somehow, they come to an agreement and then they decide to renovate all the hovels to make them better for living and arrange a private tap water connection for each of the hovels. Ravi’s condition also starts improving. The novel ends on a happy note as Shrinivas succeeds in establishing his weekly journal and the tenants of the hovels get proper water connection.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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