Every Indian
is familiar with the great author R.K.Narayan, the creator of the fictional yet
famous Malgudi. ‘Swami
and Friends’ and ‘Malgudi days’ are his best known and widely read books even
today. Even a Hindi classic film “Guide” was a movie adaptation of his novel
“The Guide”. His fictional stories are pleasures for every reader.
R.K.Narayan
is best known for his works set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi.
He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English, along with Mulk
Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
“The Vendor
of Sweets” (1967) is a story of Communication and Generation gap between a
father and a son. The story is written in simple English that can be read and understood easily. Even a young school child’s vocabulary will
be able to comprehend the sense of the story.
Let’s first
have a look at the major character and the plot overview of the story.
This is a
story of conflicts between a father and a son. Father is average man with
Gandhian ideologies, who is constantly worried about his son’s future. He loves
his Son a lot so he forgets about his crushed expectations. Jagan portrays the
typical father image who wants his son to run his old generation sweet shop. We
see him suffering throughout the story, which makes us feel sad.
On the other
hand, Mali belongs to a different generation and don’t think as his father do.
Of course we feel bad when Jagan’s expectations are hurt, but practically now
it is not at all necessary that a son does the way his father wants.
: What are you writing now?
Mali: A novel
Jagan: Oh wonderful! Where did you learn to write
novels?
Son: Are you examining me?
Jagan: Oh no, I’m just interested, that’s all. What
story are you writing?
Son: I can’t tell you now. It may turn out to be a
poem after all. I don’t know.
Jagan: But don’t you know what you are going to write
when you sit down to write?
Mali: No! It’s not like frying sweets in your shop.
This
dialogue describes the generation gap and communication gap in relationship of
father and son. Many times even we feel that our parents don’t understand us
and sometimes even we don’t understand them. A human relation creates a lot of
complexities.
The relationship of Grace and Jagan is my
favourite part of the story. It is beautifully described in the story.
Grace: - “Father, Mo wants me to go back.”
Jagan: - why?
Grace: - “Mo has no more use for me.”
Jagan: - “Use or no use, well you know, I looked after
her all her life. If you read our Puranas, you will find that wife’s place is
beside her husband whatever may happen.”
Grace is so comfortable
to share her sufferings with Jagan. It reflects that “Family isn’t about blood
relations”. Here we see Grace more close to Jagan rather than his own son Mali.
Jagan also gives some money to his cousin for Grace.
The story
itself is quite short, but there are few such incidents like Jagan diving into
his reminiscences of childhood, interesting episodes of his youth, his freedom
struggle as a Gandhi follower, etc…which makes the story tastier.
Enjoyable
book!!!
Useful 👍👍👍
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