R.K Narayan’s Malgudi Schooldays: Father’s Room

R.K Narayan’s Malgudi Schooldays represents a colonial India, one that is not bound by time and space. Malgudi Schooldays represents an India that is not bogged down by ethnographic details. As such it represents the nation more as a construct, an imagined space in keeping with the feel of the village, than as a given identity.

I will be looking at the one episode in particular: ‘Father’s Room.’ Swami, the protagonist of the series, entertains his friend Rajam at his house. Swami goes to great lengths to ensure that he is seen in positive light by his friend. He asks to use his father’s room, for his grandmother to remove herself from sight and for his mother to ensure a meal of some quality. He does this as he regards his friend as a person of importance who needs to be revered. This is due to the status conferred on him by virtue of being the Police Superintendent’s son. The Police superintendent is representative of the colonial powers and those of the local intelligentsia who are complicit with the colonial apparatus. These people are critical to the creation of a nation as an identity as the can create a consensus against the dominant powers. However some of them choose to replicate the power hierarchies and enjoy the privileges that ensue from it- one of the dangers that Fanon warned his readers about.  This is evident from the way Swami views Rajam and his father as people of importance and superior to himself and his family. Even Swami’s father acknowledges this by allowing his son to use his room to entertain this guest of importance. Throughout the visit Swami is afraid that Rajam will see through his ruse. He is extremely embarrassed when Rajam smugly doubts whether the room actually belonged to him.

When Swami returns to school the next day he finds he has become a subject of ridicule. A tail is drawn on the chalkboard, as an indictment of Swami’s association with Rajam. This can be viewed as discourse against the colonial power represented by Rajam and Swami. Here the other school students represent the colonized subjects who appropriate the language given to them by the colonized to speak out against it. Swami then proceeds to lash out against those who he thinks are responsible i.e. Shankar and The Pea. The ensuing fight is broken up members of Rajam’s posse.

The boys then take it outside ignoring their rather helpless teacher. Manu and Somu (Rajam’s friends) attempt to discern the nature of the quarrel that had ensued between Swami and co. But it ends up with the two breaking into a fight as well. Swami and his group panic and run to the headmaster to tell them of the bloodbath that would ensure. The headmaster proceeds to break up the fight; though he takes the matter lightly.

The story ends with Swami’s astonishment at the fact that Somu and Manu could actually be overpowered. He believed they could not be outmatched in strength. This reiterates the fact that the colonized view the colonized as god-like and untouchable, even in the form of their representatives. Swami is also ambivalent in how he views his Rajam as he is not sure if he is really his friend or not but he is highly desirous of such a relationship.

The whole episode goes to show how complicit the colonized can be with the rule over them and perhaps Malgudi represents one of the villages on the margin that was not particularly caught up with the national sentiment as it was cut from the rest of the nation. There are no white characters mentioned in the entire story we just find their indigenous subordinates who carry on their work. So it begs the question whether change of rulers would actually have any effect on certain areas of the country where the people are too involved with their own affairs to bother about changes at the center.