Paper no. – E-C-404 Do you agree with the statement ‘The Guide’ is the odyssey of a vagabond?

E-E-405-B: A Study of Special Author: R. K. Narayan as a Writer

Hitesh S. Vaghani

Roll no. - 19

SEM - IV

Paper no. – E-C-404

Year – 2011-12

Topic: Do you agree with the statement ‘The Guide’ is the odyssey of a vagabond?

Submitted to Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Railway Raju is a disarmingly corrupt tourist guide, who lives by his wits and talls in love with a beautiful dancer. More by chance than skill, he seduces. Rosie away from her husband. Marco, a lonely writer who is obsessed with rock, carvings, and transforms her into a celebrity couted by wealthy and influential dignitaries. Raju makes and lose a fortune, finds himself in jails, and though a series of hilarious, ironic circumstances, becomes one of India’s great holy man. ‘The Guide’ manages to describe a saint who is neither born nor made but simply happens, almost like the weather.

As a boy, he is good for nothing. He plays with the village boys and acquires dirty habits of all sorts. He does not like to go to school, wastes his time there when he is forced to go, and learns almost nothing. His father has a poor opinion of him, and his mother tabes a stall on the station and leaves it in his charge, but after his father’s death, the disciplining influence of the father is thus removed early in his life and Raju is free now to eat according to his own wish.

Raju then plunges into the professions of guide by reading the old magazines and books which he stocks. As a guide, he is shrewd, intelligent, and observant. Even as the train steamed in at the outer signal, he could scent a alstomer, Raju’s ability to read the human psychology or his exceptional ability as a guide, can be seen when he set his eyes on Marco; Raju speaks,

                                            “A man who preferred to dress

                                              Like a permanent tourist was

                                               Just what a guide passionately                                               

                                                Looked for all his life.”

Raju had all the satisfactory answers, ready. As soon as a tourist arrived, he observed how he observed how he dealt with his baggage, whether he engaged a porter at all or preferred to hook a finger to each piece. Whether he walked to the hotel or called a texi or haggled with the one horse jutka. Raju had to notice all this within a plite second. He never says ‘No’ to his alstomer though he is not aware of that place. He always says

                                                “Oh, yes, a fascinating place

                                                  Haven’t you seen it? You

                                                   Must find the time to visit it,

                                                   Otherwise your trip here

                                                   Would be a waste.”

The result is that his fame spreads and he comes to be known as ‘Railway Raju.’

Raju does not hesitate to ruin the domestic life and happiness of a man, Marco who has confided in him, paid him handsomely and has treated him as a family member. When Marco permits him to be persuade Rosie, Raju tells her to come out without changing her dress and adds, “Who would decorate a rainbow?”, and ultimately succeeds in seducing her. Raju is a selfish man who seeks to achieve his goal by hook or by crook. Raju fetches Rosie to his home without caring for the sentiments of his mother. Rosie practices in her home, so the environment echoes with the sound of dancing. The neighloours and the poor old widowed mother are annoyed but lost in the pleasures, Raju is least concerned for anyone else. He wastes his time and money on Rosie. His debt continues to mount, and ultimately the sath comes to him to demand his money. Raju, does not pay attention to his stay and his profession and replies his customers,

                                             “I’m busy; that is all. I have

                                               No time. I’m very busy.”

Raju then becomes a theatre manager, and Rosie is launched as a dancer and within no time they are able to earn fabulous amounts of money. But like the picaro, Raju indulges in gambling and drinking and lives in a lavish, extravagant style. When anyone ventures to ask for Rosie, Raju shrewdly denies by saying, ‘she is busy or no need to trouble her.’ He usually speaks that she was my property. Raju’s possessiveness reaches to such a extent that he can not bear that Rosie is reading the magazine of Marco. He feels jealousy of him and think,

                                                “I wanted him to be good to

                                                  Her, listen to her proposals,

                                                   And yet have her to my care!

                                                   What an impossible fantastic

                                                    Combination of circumstances

                                                    To expect!”

Then he forges her signature to get a box of jwellery lying with Marco. It is a criminal act, and it ultimately lands him in jail. He is thus proved to be a parasitic who had been living on her earning, and exploiting her both sexually and economically.

Out of jail, we find him playing the role of swami or Mahatma. Basically, there is no much difference between the role of a railway guide and that of a spiritual guide. The same gift of eloquence the same ability to make mystifying statements, the same air of knowledgeness, enable him to play his new role with such success. He is a fraud and a roué in ereality, but he appears every inch in a Mahatma. His rogueness can be seen in his sentence when Velan comes to Raju, asking for help for his sister,

“I wish I had asked him what

The age of the girl was. Hope

She is uninteresting. I have had

Enough trouble in my life.”

Raju was surprised at the account of wisdom welling from the depths of godliness, cleanliness, spoke on Ramayana, the character in the epics: He was hypnotized by his own voice. That is why he speaks,

“The essence of sainthood seemed

To lie in one’s ability to utter

Mystifying statements.”

To mesmerize the People, he not only chanted holy verses and discoursed on philosophy; he even came to the stage of prescribing medicines to children.

Raju thus goes on digging his own grave by making people fool. As a Mahatma, he is called upon to undertake a twelve day fast so that there may be rain, and the starving villages of Mangal may be saved. Raju thinks of running a way, but soon realizes that he cannot do so, for he has himself closed all avenues of escape. As a last solace, he narrates the story of his past of his villainy to Velan. He hopes that Velan would realize that Raju is no more a swami but fraud and criminal. But a reverse effect occurs and Velan’s faith strengthens in his sainthood. Then, Raju determines to undertake the fast. He says,

“If by avoiding food I should

Help the trees bloom, and

The grass grow, why not do it

Thoroughly.”

For the first time in his life, he is making an earnest effort; for the first time he is learning the thrill of full-application, outside money and love, for the first time he is not personally interested. He felt suddenly so enthusiastic that it gave him a new strength to go through with the ordeal. Thus Raju is spiritually regenerated. He is a changed man by the end of the novel. The fraud or picaro or vagabond is turned into a saint or Mahatma.