Under the Banyan Tree

I reviewed The Man Eater of Malgudi recently.  It didn’t quite work for me, though it had charm and I could appreciate Narayan’s skill and perceptiveness.  I thought his style might work better for me in short stories, a genre I often enjoy, and I found I was not mistaken when I read Under The Banyan Tree.

His style is quiet, lapidary, and understated.  His subjects are human fear, fancies and foibles.  And although his subject matter is alien to me – merely in that I do not know India and the Indians at all well – his story telling style is intuitive and appealing.  The first stories I read were about children and their relationships with parents, especially their fathers:  for example, A Hero is about Swami, a young boy who could not conquer his fear of the dark, and was compelled by his father to face it, torn from the comfort of a light and his grandmother’s closeness.  This results in an attempted burglary being foiled – but far from making the boy brave and his father happy, it merely restores the status quo ante, the father unable to criticise his son after such an event.  Cliché is turned aside, the expected subverted.

Another story, Nitya, concerns an eponymous young man, whose hair is to be shaved off in observance of a vow his parents made when he was a baby.  An argument, intransigence, then a long and uncomfortable journey is followed by moments of farce when the family arrives at the village where the appropriate temple is; they cannot get in, there is no music.  But all this is sorted, and all is ready – except the boy, who eventually, after some spirited argument on both sides, simply runs off to catch the bus home.

Another fine example is Old Man of the Temple, a ghost story without terror, just a little puzzlement on both sides.  A late drive home results in an encounter with a ghost, long ago ruler of some tiny kingdom.  Conversation at cross purposes establishes the two mingling realities, and the ease of death achieved for one, and a safe but late journey home for the other.  Such a story sounds nothing, and indeed it is written with a quiet certitude that this is really how the world works, and you know that: but maybe, your interest will be piqued, even by something so unexceptional.  But in the reactions of the traveller, his driver and the ghost is all human vanity and loss.

In short, these are stories well worth reading, but do not expect fireworks; expect a thoughtful, careful writing, fine perception of the mind beneath the face and the words, and a gentle humour.