Kevein Books and Reviews

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...