The Guide By R.K Narayan

'Guide' is one of the most ambitious books of Narayan. One reason for this could be that this book was adapted into a successful film. One cannot separate the two. I saw the film first and read the book later.

Let us talk about the book first. It is a story of Raju – a charming Guide with loose morals – who wants to attain success at any cost. It is by his ingenious and charming sense of humor, his clever persuasion, and his rhetoric that he achieves whatever he wants. He meets Rosie, a married woman, who is not at all happy in her marriage. Raju encourages her to be a dancer. With Raju's help, she becomes a famous dancer. He arranges shows for her and manages her career. In the meantime, Rosie has big problems with her husband who forbids her from dancing professionally. He considers that below his status. Rosie, supported by Raju, stands up to her husband and ignores him. In the film, when Rosie leaves her impotent husband, for the first time, she feels truly emancipated. Never in Hindi films before a woman is shown in this way. After leaving her husband, she celebrates the newly found (sexual) freedom, and openly embraces her desire and passion. The song is beautifully picturised and even if one does not understand the highly explicit lyrics, one sees in her movements the deeply felt bliss without a shred of guilt.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KS5Kxqe3VE ).

Of course, the book is far more subdued. Narayan would not have gone that far in depicting passion and desire. He definitely does not want his characters so free that they give up tradition and caste and therefore unleash chaos in his society. He was upset with what the film had done to his book. The landscape of the film has nothing to do with Narayan's 'Malgudi. He could not have imagined giving Rosie the sort of freedom she attains in the film. Such brazen acts would play havoc in his cool and conservative Malgudi. In one of his interviews, he said, “... by abolishing Malgudi, they had discarded my own values in the milieu and human characteristics. my characters were simple enough to lend themselves for observation; they had definite outlines – not blurred by urban speed, size, and tempo ...”

As the story further unfolds, Raju embezzles funds and gets a term imprisonment. After he is released, he does not want to come back to Malgudi. He stays at the periphery of Malgudi. In the meantime, there is draught in the town. Simple villagers take Raju for a 'sadhu' ( a fakir). First he resents it because there is nothing about him that is fakir-like, he is a petty criminal, but when he sees the trust and belief people show in him, he decides that he will go on fasting till it rains in Malgudi. Towards, the end many people visit him, they want to see the 'Sadhu' doing fasting and praying for them.

The book ends on an ambiguous note. Narayan does not tell us if Raju lives or dies, or if at last it rains and the draught comes to an end. The last scene is described thus;

“ ... the morning sun was out by now; a great shaft of light illuminated the surroundings. it was difficult to hold Raju on his feet, as he had a tendency to flop down. They held him as if he were a baby. Raju opened his eyes, looked about, and said, ‘Velan, it’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs-‘ he sagged down ...”

Towards the end, the book is not anymore about Raju and Rosie, it enters a much wider domain. One can write an entire book studying how myriad themes emerge and intersect as Raju, the charlatan, by default, embarks on a spiritual journey. The reader sees how this new situation in his life compels us to think of god, death, ethics, renunciation, science and superstition.