In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

In her essay “Identity/Alterity,” Monika Fludernik says that “more radical postcolonial texts [. . .] demonstrate their independence from the West by choosing to militate against patterns of colonial literature [by] writing [not] in English but in one of the native languages” as well as by focusing on native protagonists “exclusively” (270). Fludernik first cites the famous example of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s radical choice to write in Gikuyu, and she goes on to explain that the anticolonial strategy of eliding “contact with Westerners” by focusing only “on native protagonists” is more evident in the Indian novel today. To Fludernik, this means that Indian novelists are saying, “for India today, only Indians are important ” (270). While Fludernik’s discussion of alterity in postcolonial narrative is thought provoking, it should be noted that many Indian writers during the colonial, late colonial, and postcolonial periods chose to write in Indian languages naturally, not as a part of their anticolonial agenda. Thus, the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali . Likewise, Premchand wrote in Hindi and Urdu; Faiz Ahmed Faiz, in Urdu. The same is true of literary figures writing in Gujarati, Panjabi, Marathi, and most notably Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. These literary traditions antedated the entry of the East India Company and the establishment of the Raj. They continued through the latter’s ravages and emerged as potent vehicles for thought and creative expression that addressed the complex issue of colonial occupation. For Indian authors, then, writing in “native” languages is not inherently a strategy to assert independence from the West, and Indian writers often tend to blend aesthetic models and narrative tropes of the West with models and tropes derived from the Sanskrit, Tamil, and ArabicPersian traditions. By far the vast majority of Indian postcolonial writers, CHAPTER 8 Agency and Emotion: R. K. Narayan’s The Guide lalita pandit hogan 110 Lalita Pandit Hogan whether writing in English or Indian languages, are syncretists. However , this does not mean that Indian postcolonial writing abjures the anticolonial project. Unlike writers such as Premchand, Tagore, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, R. K. Narayan wrote in English but populated the storyworlds of his novels and short stories with mostly Indian protagonists. These choices, however, do not demonstrate either colonial conformity or anticolonial dissent. For many Indian writers, the decision to write in English comes from a desire to reach a wider readership in India. If R. K. Narayan had written in his birth language, Tamil, Indians from other parts of India who cannot read Tamil would have had at best partial access to his writings, as is the case with Tagore, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and many others. The lingua franca status of English brings in an issue of access that relates to legacies of colonial education in India. Moreover, the Indian postcolonial writer’s own perception of the relative advantage or disadvantage of the language he or she chooses can vary. Anita Desai, for instance, thinks that within India the sales figures for some regional authors are significantly better than sales figures for literature written in English. In other words, only the educated elite read English novels, while the more numerous others devour what is written by the regional authors (see Desai, “Sense” 163). Whatever the general case may be, R. K. Narayan’s fiction is widely read all across India and throughout the Indian diaspora.1 Like Tagore, R. K. Narayan reconciles his indebtedness to European tropes and models with inspiration drawn from Indic myth, poetry, and story. At the same time, this integrative model in his Malgudi stories, as well as in novels such as The English Teacher, Painter of Signs, and The Guide, does not inhibit but rather facilitates Narayan’s incisive critique of the harmful effects of colonialism. An example from The Guide will demonstrate this point. Though all the characters in this novel are Indian, the protagonist, Raju, the tour guide of Malgudi, names one of them Marco. Naming this character after Marco Polo (who traveled the Silk Road, made a long journey to Asia, and returned to write of his travels and “discoveries”) provides Raju a metonym for someone who is an outsider to Malgudi, who has come to discover undiscovered caves and study cave art. During his first encounter with the archaeologist and his young wife, Raju shows the same inner contempt and outward deference to his client that a “native” might show toward a European who has come to study his country. At the same time, Raju is...

Share