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The World of Nagaraj characters Í 107 Ion and turbulence which threaten to alter for ever the contented tranuility of his world The latest of RKNarayan's magnificent Malgudi books The World of Nagaraj is beautifully written funny and haunting evoking in marvelously rich detail the atmosphere of a small town in southern India and creating a magical world into which the reader is instantly draw Simplicity enables a person to understand the depths of human nature as well as the universe RKNarayan s novel The World Of Nagaraj just like his other books takes the reader on a journey into the simplicity of a man s heart who is unable to comprehend the undertones of normal activities of people At the same time the description of an Indian town Malgudi where all of Narayan s stories are based again soothes the intellectual critic within us challenges our inner self especially the Indian within us all to judge the book The story is simple yet profound in its uniue way The character of Nagaraj is put forward to the reader as a person whose only aim in life is to pen down a novel on the life of the holy celestial Hindu sage Narada Nagaraj is a domesticated personality who is simple minded he cannot even mix his coffee properly who is unlike his elder brother Gopu who is materialistic very ambitious ready to make a profit at whatever cost Nagaraj is dominated humiliated by his brother which as is seen clearly in the novel he tries to ignore passing it of as a sort of brotherly joke The point is however that no one takes poor Nagaraj seriouslyneither his brother nor his wife Sita not the card playing pandit who he goes to learn about the life of the a fore mentioned celestial sage nor his nephew Tim who is adored by Nagarajnot anybody except one personthat person is Nagaraj s obsession NARADA The reason I state that the sage from mythology is the only one who takes Nagaraj seriously is because the meaning of Narada s existence itself is to cause misunderstandings between people as we know from studying Hindu Mythology to pass on gossip from one party to another This is what constantly happens in RK Narayan s novel the mother in law misunderstands Sita uestions her actions Tim misunderstands his doting father runs of to his uncle s home Saroja Tim s wife misunderstands Nagaraj leaves her abode along with her shady character of a husbandthis continues to take place leaving pitiable Nagaraj gasping for a breath of freedom rom everyone including his wife Narada the sage himself The novel also brings together a number of unforgettable Malgudi characters who not only entertain but who also play pivotal roles in the whole narrativeexample my favorite the Talkative Man who leads Nagaraj to the card playing pundit The novel keeps one engrossed till the very end yet develops a person s understanding of how not being forthright in ones dealings can create a lot of unwanted issuesexample Nagaraj was not forthright enough unlike his wife who seems to act as hi Lady Macbeth to uestion the mysterious drunken Tim about his whereabouts during college hours The hypocrisy of the clergy is evident in the novel as well as the rather amusing side of a stationary shop owner who seems to know about the Hindu sages gods than the ordinary pundit In all the book was a breath of fresh air for me through the humorous characters their never ending problems just like minea good read if there was ever one The Grand old man of Malgudi strikes again

The World of Nagaraj characters Í 107 Nagaraj's world is uite and comfortable Living in his family's spacious house with only his wife Sita for company he fills his day writing letters drinking coffee doing some leisurely book keeping for his friend Coomar's Boeing Sari Company and sitting on his veranda watching the world and planning the book he intends to write about the life of the great It had been a while since I read an RK Narayan book I had been in search of some Indian English books and I rifled through my sister s bookshelf to get this gem I loved the character of Nagaraj I loved the way he thinks I loved everything about him including his aversion to the harmonium He made me laugh and considering my grim facedness in life that s something to say

R.K. Narayan à 7 Read

The World of Nagaraj characters Í 107 Sage Narada But everything is disturbed when Tim the son of his ambitious landowing brother Gopu decides to leave home and come to live with Nagaraj Forced to take responsibility for the boy puzzled by his secret late night activities and by the strong smell of sprits which lingers behind him Nagaraj finds his days suddenly filled with unwelcome complicat RKN had got his first novel Swami and Friends published in 1935 after lot of struggle but there was no looking back once the mystic town of Malgudi was born The World of Nagaraj was his penultimate novel which got published in 1990 and hence clearly one of his later works Maybe it was an idea that did not go the way RKN wanted it to maybe he just grew tired of the idea but from the beginning The World of Nagaraj never takes off Unfortunately this particular book though set in Malgudi s familiar landscape fails to capture the magic of this delightful village I found it difficult to read laboured through it though I knew it was going nowhere and finally ended it just because I had started it which was a first for me after reading so many of his books which were all good in their own ways This book mainly concentrates on how Nagaraj looks at the incidents and events in his life The language is simple and has vivid descriptions which definitely catch attention but after a while it just becomes repetitive and stale and hence the interest just goes But definitely not anywhere close to all books that I have read so far which were uite a few It gets boring at a few places with too much detail It was a slow read for me The language is impeccable the usage the turn of phrase everything is perfect as one would expect from a master like RKN but it lacks soul which is the biggest problem here All his past books had a character or a collection of characters which used to bring that magic every time which somehow did not happen here As an inhabitant of Malgudi Nagaraj is perfect but he does too little and anything of conseuence or interest to the reader has only enough material on him to probably last two pages in any of RKN s other books but we go through his monologues for almost 180 pages which is kind of sad considering the masters abilities All in all this goes to the bottom of RKN s pile so far

• Paperback
• 186
• The World of Nagaraj
• R.K. Narayan
• English
• 18 June 2020
• 9780749397449