Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Guide is a novel by R. K. Narayan that was first published in 1958 and won the Sahitya Academy Award for English literature in 1960. The novel is set in the fictional town of Malgudi. It tells about a flamboyant young man, a tourist guide who is confident in himself and doesn’t indulge in self-conflicts. He knows what he wants and desires and does not think much about the goodness or badness of his deeds. He is an endearing but corrupt tour guide with lofty dreams. He is highly hypocritical with no sense of right and wrong. He cheats on his customers to earn petty profits. During his life, he learns the futility of self-centeredness and turns towards self-realization. That leads to his transformation from a petty selfish tour guide to a spiritual being.
Characters of The Guide by R. K. Narayan :
Raju is a young, endearing but corrupt tour guide of Malgudi whom everyone likes. Raju is very enthusiastic about his work. Being a tour guide, he takes a deep interest in his customers and recognizes them by their faces. Gaffur is his assistant guide.
An archaeological writer Marco visit Malgudi for the excavation of an ancient site of historical importance. Marco is too dedicated to his job and doesn’t care much about anything. He is married to Rosie. Marco is from Madras and as soon as he reaches Malgudi, his whole attention turns towards the archaeological site so much so that he forgets his wife. Rosie's mother was a devadasi. It was difficult for Roasie to get a nice husband considering her social status. She married Marco not out of love but out of reverence for his social and intellectual status. She loves dancing more than anything else but she cannot dance because Marco married her only on the condition that she will stop dancing after their marriage. However, she aspires to perform on stage. For her, marriage appears to be imprisonment especially because Marco doesn’t pay much attention to her. Velan is a villager who finds Raju near the temple of his village and mistakes him for a great saint. Raju tells him about his past but Velan believes that he visited their village to solve their problems. Mani is the secretary Raju appoints as a manager of Roasie when she becomes a celebrated dancer.
Summary of The Guide by R. K. Narayan:
R. K. Narayan developed the plot of the novel in a biographical manner in which the present and the past continues to overlap each other. The novel vacillates between first-person narrative (Raju) and third-person narrative.
Raju is the only son of a petty shopkeeper in Malgudi. He witnesses the wave of modernism transforming his town during his childhood when a railway line connects Malgudi to Madras and other big cities. His father decides to shift his shop nearby the new railway station and it proves to be a profitable decision. However, his father suffers a sudden death and Raju is thus forced to take responsibility for the shop. He is very enthusiastic at whatever he does and soon he gains a good number of customers because of his charming personality and decent behavior. However, he is a hypocrite and a cheat. Often he would cheat the buyers. His profits continue to soar while his mother continues to try to bring him to the right side of morality. Malgudi becomes a famous town with many ancient monuments and archaeological sites and as Raju grows up, he realizes that he can earn much more profits as a tourist guide. He shuts his shop and starts offering services as a tourist guide. He brings his enthusiasm, hard work, and innovativeness to this new profession too, and soon he becomes the most famous and sought tourist guide of Malgudi. Everyone likes “Railway Raju”, the best guide of Malgudi. He appoints Gaffur as his assistant. However, Raju has brought his innate cheating attitude to this new profession too. Often he would cheat the tourists and tell them fabricated stories and blatant lies about ordinary old buildings suggesting them as of great historical value. Yet, he is loved by everyone because of his good sense of humor and charming attitude.
One day, Marco Polo visits Malgudi for surveying a few new archaeological sites at Malgudi. Marco Polo is a serious studious archaeologist and writer. He appoints Raju as his guide and Raju tries to play his tricks on Marco too but Marco is a well-learned archaeologist. He debunks Raju and Raju starts feeling an impulsive dislike toward him. Marco is haughty and dominating by nature and he has a patriarchial mindset. He is married to Roasie, a daughter of a devadasi. Rosie had a great interest in dancing and she desired to perform on big stages. However, her mother wished her to marry and settle. Being a daughter of a devadasi, it was not easy for her to get a good match. Roasie married Marco not out of love but because of reverence for his social status and intellect. Marco agreed to marry her only on the condition that she will never dance after their marriage. He dismisses Roasie’s passion for dance, calling it a shallow profession for harlots. Roasie agreed but found that the marriage is no better than a cage for her. Rosie loved to dance more than anything but she had to sacrifice it for marrying Marco but Marco never gave any attention to her. He is too busy with his archaeological surveys and studies. Marco finds a new archaeological project in Malgudi and decides to stay in the town for a while. His wife Roasie arrives in Malgudi after a few days and Raju gets attracted to her.
Marco is too busy and enthusiastic about his archeological surveys and fails to find any time for her. She feels too lonely and abandoned especially because she is restricting herself from pursuing her own passion for dancing. Raju notices that Roasie is feeling lonely so he takes her on a tour of local sites. Raju takes her to a snake charmer where she sees the king cobra dancing to the music of the flute. While observing the snake, she starts dancing like a cobra as she couldn’t resist her passion for dance anymore. Raju notices her devotion to dance and the weakness of her marriage. He realizes that she just married Marco because of his social and monetary status. He sees a chance for attaining another means of his pleasure and starts using tempting words on Roasie. Marco is totally disinterested in her and continues to devote himself only to his work. He soon notices that Raju is trying to woo Roasie. He confronts Roasie and they had a loud argument over it. Marco accuses her of having an illicit relationship with Raju and tells her “You are not my wife. You are a woman who will go to bed with anyone that flatters your antics.” Part of this accusation comes because Roasie is a daughter of a Devdasi. Marco decides to go back to Madras for writing about his surveys at Malgudi while he leaves Roasie in the town. Raju tempts Roasie to develop a sexual relationship with him. Rosie is still rooted in her marriage with Marco but succumbs to Raju’s charm because she finds a way in attaining completion of her passion for dance through Raju’s help. Raju always appreciates Roasie’s dance. He suggests that Roasie should change her name to Nalini, the dancer. With his efforts, talent, and impressive marketing skills, Roasie becomes a famous stage dancer by the name of Nalini. Raju decides to start living with Roasie but Raju’s mother doesn’t approve of this and she ultimately leaves the house to go live with her brother.
Throughout his life, Raju always does his best according to whatever people require him to do. He was the best shopkeeper in Malgudi, then became the best tourist guide, and now he is the best celebrity manager a stage dancer could attain. However, he continues to drag his bag of fraud, lies, cheating, and corruption. He continues manipulating the account books. As she reaches higher heights of fame, he starts feeling insecure. This sense of insecurity increases when Mani, his assistant brings a book for him. The book is written by Marco about the cultural history of South India. Marco attained his own success as an archeological writer. Raju decides to hide the book from Roasie. However, Mani informs her about the book. Nalini demands the book from Raju and after seeing it, she feels happy about her husband’s success. This further increases Raju’s insecurities. After some days, Raju receives a letter from a bank demanding the signature of Nalini for the release of a box of jewelry deposited in the bank’s safe custody in her name. Raju surmises that Marco must have sent some jewelry to Nalini and he decides to hide that too. But then greed engulfs him and he forges Roasie’s signature to acquire the box of jewels.
The box never arrives but one day, when Nalini was performing on stage, the police arrive with a warrant against Raju. He is arrested for forgery and fraud. Raju realizes the graveness of his mistake and feels extreme self-pity. When Roasie asks why is Raju being arrested, he tells her all that he did. Roasie takes it calmly and says that she had an inkling that he is doing something wrong. She assures him of paying back all his debt but declares that their relationship is over. Raju is sent to 2 years of rigorous jail term. Roasie never visits to see him.
In the jail, Raju again spreads his charm and soon becomes the favorite of all the inmates. He finds a strange solace in the peace and regularity of the jail. Mani keeps visiting him in the jail and shows him newspapers of Roasie’s performance who has now settled in Madras. After the completion of his jail term, he decides not to go back to Malgudi but he has nowhere else to go. He keeps wandering aimlessly and reaches a village named Mangal situated on the banks of River Sarayu. Raju feels very tired and decides to sit along the bank near a temple. A villager named Velan notices him and mistakes him to be a sage. He pays his respect to him and asks him to help him manage his adamant sister who is refusing to get married to the good match that he and his mother has decided for her. Raju tells him that he is no saint and he cannot help him anyways but Velan insists that he can see the spiritual glory on his face. At last, Raju decides to talk to Velan’s sister. Being an expert sweet-talker, marketeer, and manager, he convinces Velan’s sister to accept her family’s decision. Raju’s success in pacifying Velan’s rebellious half-sister leads the villagers to believe in his powers as a holy man, or spiritual guide. Raju decides to don this new role for him and continues living in the temple of the village. He still has that bag of hypocrisy and corruption with him. Gradually, he takes all villagers in his confidence and he actually starts liking this position as a spiritual guide. One day, the villagers ask him to help them fight against the persistent famine due to the lack of rain. They ask him to pursue a two-week fast and cheer the gods to bring rain to their village. Realizing the enormity of the sacrifice that the villagers expect him to undertake he is afraid. He decides to disclose his charade. He calls Velan and tells him everything about his past. He honestly confesses all the cheating and crimes he committed in his past to Velan and tries to convince him that he is no holy man and he cannot bring any rain. Velan believes every word said by Raju but still continues to respect him and calls him “Swami” or the holy man. Velan says that anyone may commit mistakes but he is convinced of Raju’s spiritual abilities and will always respect him like that. Astonished by Velan’s belief in him, Raju feels a sudden change in himself. He feels very light-hearted as the burden of lies, fraud, and cheating has been overthrown by him. He earnestly starts the two-week-long fast to bring the rain. He always succeeded in his endeavors and now when the villagers require him in the role of a holy man, he decides to take it but this time, with utmost honesty. Soon the news of his fast spreads all around like wildfire and people start gathering in greater numbers every new day on the banks of the river to pray along him for the rain. On the early morning of the eleventh day of fasting, a small crowd watches him quietly as he attempts to pray while standing on the river bed and then staggers and dies, mumbling the enigmatic last words of the novel, “It’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs….”
The author doesn’t make it clear if there actually was any rain. But Raju’s transformation from a corrupt tour guide to an honest and earnest spiritual guide is clear. This change asserts that a person’s past is not entirely what defines them and an ordinary person can be destined for great things without even realizing it.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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