R.K. Narayan
fittingly depicts the stories of relationships in his books. There may be one
or more relationships which are taken for scrutiny and presentation. In ‘Swami
and Friends’ and ‘The Dark Room’, for example, there is one major relationship
each i.e. of Swami and Rajam and Savatri and Ramani which assumes significance.
Narayan’s
first novel, Swami and Friends delineates Swami’s character as that of a
pre-adolescent boy going through many misadventures. Swami and his four friends
– Mani, Pea, Shankar and the newly admitted Rajam – the son of the Deputy
Superintendent of the police, are the main characters in the novel. Thus, life
for Swami means his friends and himself, his parents and himself, his teachers
and himself, coping with everyone in an individual way. However the main
concern is the Swami-Rajam relationship.
Rajam is
Swami’s hero. While ‘nestling close to his granny, very snug and safe Swami
narrates to her everything about Rajam and Mani, how Rajam’s father is “The
master” of all the policemen of Malgudi, how he has a real police dress and how
he killed a tiger when his father was once camping in a forest. By the fourth
chapter in the novel, one finds Swami very much attached to Rajam and his
friends start calling him a tail of Rajam. It hurts him.
The first blow
that comes to Swami which pulls him away from Rajam is the 15th August 1930
incident. Swami pelts a stone or two at the panes of the headmaster’s
ventilation and is unfortunately caught red-handed by the peon. Rajam is not
able to appreciate Swami’s participation in the nationalist movement because
his father, after all is a government servant, and Swami’s act has been
anti-government. The headmaster enters the class to punish the culprits.
The parting
scene between Swami and Rajam is quite emotional. Swami feels guilty for his doings
and wants yet to make good his precious friendship for Rajam by offering him a
small volume of Anderson’s fairy tales. Rajam takes the present and waves a
farewell.
The theme of
incompatibility of interests finds the best expression in the life of this
young hero of Narayan’s. Even though he is too small to be thought of in such a
serious context, the melancholy of his life comes from his incompatible
relations with a friend, Rajam, whom he considers a great hero.
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