The Printer of Malgudi by R. K. Narayan

First published: 1949, in Great Britain as Mr. Sampath (U.S. edition, 1957)

Type of work: Comic realism

Time of work: 1938, while India is still in the colonial grip of Great Britain

Locale: The mythical town of Malgudi, South India

Principal Characters:

• Srinivas, the protagonist, the editor of a weekly paper and later a frustrated screenwriter
• Sampath, the unpredictable, flamboyant printer of the novel’s title
• Ravi, a bank clerk with artistic talent, who is driven to madness by his infatuation with Shanti
• Shanti, a beautiful actress who poses as Sampath’s cousin while having a secret affair with him

The Novel

Set in R. K. Narayan’s famous fictional town of Malgudi, where very little of the larger external world seems to intrude, The Printer of Malgudi is a comic novel of manners, in which the protagonist is not the title character but Srinivas, the editor of The Banner. Srinivas has tried many jobs (in agriculture, banking, teaching, and law) and has rejected them all. He stays in his room, which is part of a joint-family home, and worries about drifting with time. His elder brother, a lawyer, looks after the household (including Srinivas’ wife and son) while Srinivas idles away his time reading Hindu scriptures. Then he suddenly decides to go to Malgudi and start a weekly journal which, he hopes, will be a source of truth and vision. His writing, however, is pretentious and full of unintentionally comic bombast.

He lives in a small house rented from an old man who lives like a sanyasi or holy ascetic. Srinivas’ frail wife and young son arrive in this dingy, uncomfortable setting, and the protagonist finds himself burdened by domestic problems to compound his own financial and spiritual ones.

Srinivas’ restless ruminations about time, existence, and fate increase his own anxieties but without diminishing his essential humanity. He befriends Ravi, a bank clerk who is ridiculously infatuated with a woman who does not know him. Ravi has artistic talent that is not fully realized so long as his love for the woman goes unrequited, so Srinivas tries to help in this area. Problems proliferate even before Srinivas meets Sampath, the flamboyant, capricious “I-can-do-anything” printer of the Truth Printing Works, and when he does meet Sampath, Sampath pulls Srinivas deeper into confusion.

Sampath promises anything just to keep people happy: He promises to help the landlord marry off a granddaughter, he promises to search for Ravi’s dream-girl, and he promises to deliver on time all of his printing orders. He gives his most dedicated service to Srinivas, which means that he also passes along more comic problems in the process of concocting further outrageous plans.

When the Truth Printing Works is forced to shut down, owing to lack of funds, Srinivas and a number of others follow Sampath into his next venture: the making of an epic film that they hope will turn Malgudi into the “Hollywood of India.” Sampath convinces his associates that they should create their own stars, and he brings in Shanti to play the female lead. She turns out to be Ravi’s dream-girl, and Ravi’s unsuccessful pursuit of her turns to dementia and breakdown. The film goes awry catastrophically. The lead actor, who specializes in the role of Shiva, walks off the set in a contractual disagreement. Sampath takes over the part, and Ravi’s jealous passion dissolves the whole enterprise in chaos.

As his dream fades before his eyes, Sampath goes into hiding from his creditors and discovers to his chagrin that Shanti, his idealized paragon of beauty, has clay feet. Only Srinivas survives philosophically, as he reestablishes The Banner after bidding farewell to all of his former associates, whose assorted vanities and follies become the stuff of his editorials.

The Characters

Sampath is among Narayan’s most colorful creations. Although he is introduced late—more than a quarter of the way through the novel—and is not the real protagonist, he is vivid. His rich baritone voice of command is what attracts Srinivas’ attention, and his egotistical authority takes over in a crowd. Claiming to be an optimist with a doctrine of service and spiritual merit, he proves to be a materialist of moral confusion. He is full of false promises and invents alibis for all of his delays and failures. He neglects his long-suffering wife and five children during his affair with Shanti, and although his sangfroid is remarkable, and his deceptions roguishly humorous, he is really a foil to Srinivas, the man of would-be virtue.

Narayan’s comedies are always of moral import, and their protagonists are examples of “innocents” caught in flux and confusion, struggling to deliver themselves from existential bondage to absurdity. Srinivas’ moral character is what holds the novel together. He has very real faults. He has temporarily abandoned his wife and son, while selecting a profession that has vain pretensions all of its own. Unable to solve many of his own personal problems, he nevertheless offers solutions for cosmic crises. Close to middle age, he still wastes time on trivia, and he finds that his goal of harmony in life is continually mocked by his absurd actions. He is basically kind—showing compassion for the old landlord and Ravi—but he is also gullible and easily misled by Sampath. Srinivas never follows through with his sentiments or thoughts, and, consequently, finds himself deficient in moral strength.

Srinivas’ wry humor is a saving grace. He mocks himself lightly and is able to see, with teasing self-criticism, his own pathological anxieties and imbalances. Although bombastic at times in his ruminations, he has a significant purpose: to discover his identity and his place in the cosmos. His sense of charity and justice marks his positive side, and he is called on to serve as intermediary in his associates’ business and romantic affairs. His quest for a stabilizing factor in life and a true basis of knowledge on which to build his future is concomitantly serious and comic, giving the novel its sweet-and-sour flavor. Free with advice to others, he is often bewildered by life’s vagaries. Yet he does mature once he sees that in “the rush of eternity” all follies can be shaken off. In typical Hindu fashion, he arrests his own drift, tacitly but decisively renounces his former associates, and returns to a quieter but saner existence.

The other characters are schematically presented but are not without their distinctive and engaging qualities. The old landlord, frugal to a fault, serves to activate Srinivas’ generous assistance. Ravi, the harried bank clerk, is also a means to test Srinivas’ compassion and loyalty. The various follies that Ravi commits in his hopeless quest for Shanti and the raving madness that darkens his life become a test of Srinivas’ steadfastness and perseverance. They also serve as a screen of wayward distraction that he must dispel in order to see a clear way to truth and harmony.

Similarly, De Mello (the parody of a Hollywood studio executive addicted to conferences), V. L. G. (the paunchy, gruff specialist in Shiva roles), and Shanti (Sampath’s carefully glamorized paramour) have their diversionary functions, allied to the moral thrust of a fable. Along with Sampath, they are all part of an analogy between Shiva and Srinivas, in that just as Shiva once had to overcome the corruptions of desire, so also Srinivas has to suffer assaults on his passion and mind before he achieves a level of objective dissociation from the flawed characters who embroil him in confusion, restlessness, and illusory power.

Critical Context

Perhaps the sharpest criticism of Narayan’s writing in general and of The Printer of Malgudi in particular concerns the very Indian attitude of passive acceptance and withdrawal that rounds off the book. Critics—especially V. S. Naipaul—believe that Narayan leaves out too much that is overwhelmingly at odds with his Malgudi world. They believe that the small town is a simplification of reality, and that Narayan’s novels require a special response, for they are not pure social comedies but Hindu moral fables.

The Printer of Malgudi, for example, ends with the madness of an artist (Ravi) and the detachment of the protagonist. Ravi’s desire for Shanti frustrates his art. He can be cured only by a Hindu magician, who begins the exorcism ritual by beating the artist. Then it is Srinivas’ turn to share once again in the Hindu attitudes, for he does not interfere in Ravi’s exorcism ritual and decides with equanimity that “Even madness passes.”

As Naipaul and other critics contend, the ending marks a division between Narayan’s form (which implies concern) and his attitude (which denies it). Srinivas’ story ends with a sense of Karma, the Hindu doctrine of calm acceptance of fate. Everything Srinivas sees is now balanced as distress melts away and chaos is perceived as an illusion of reality. The novel becomes, in effect, a fable in which the protagonist survives by preparing to withdraw from old relationships and from a world teeming with anxieties and frustrations.

Bibliography

Harrex, S. C. “R. K. Narayan’s The Printer of Malgudi,” in Literature East and West. XIII, nos. 1-2 (1969), pp. 1-18.

Mehta, Ved. “‘The Train Had Just Arrived at Malgudi Station’: A Profile of R. K. Narayan,” in The New Yorker. XXXVIII (September 15, 1962), pp. 51-90.

Naipaul, V. S. “Fantasy and Ruins,” in An Area of Darkness, 1968.

Naipaul, V. S. “An Old Equilibrium,” in India: A Wounded Civilization, 1977.

Nazareth, Peter. “R. K. Narayan: Novelist,” in English Studies in Africa. VIII (September, 1965), pp. 121-134.