Books: The Reluctant Swami

THE GUIDE (220 pp.)—R. K. Narayan —Viking ($3.50).

This is a tale about a reluctant swami. The setting is Malgudi, a sleepy little Indian town dedicated to daydreaming nonviolence. One of Malgudi's daydreamers is Raju, an ex-jailbird (minor forgery) who camps on a stone slab near a temple and counts the stars. When a troubled villager says, "I have a problem, sir" and Raju hears him out, the stargazer's career as a swami has begun. Soon he gets credit for every good thing that happens in Malgudi. He repays his followers in doubtful oracular wisdom ("What can a crocodile do to you if your mind is clear and your conscience is untroubled?"). When a drought parches the countryside, Raju inadvertently agrees to fast till the rains come. He caches food in the corners of the temple, but the round-the-clock ministrations of his disciples prevent him from eating it. At this point Raju realizes that he is not man enough to be a saint.

He tries to disabuse his followers by telling about a long-drawn-out adulterous affair in his past. Author Narayan lavishes more space on this part of his story than it may be worth, but in its course he etches three striking character portraits. The adulteress is an Indian Madame Bovary; the cuckolded husband is an academic mole blind to his wife's yearnings; and Raju himself is the perennially Circefied male. After his confession, Raju expects the villagers to renounce him. But they disbelieve him—or are wise enough to know that he is not the same man he was. Their faith forces Raju to acquire the virtues he has mimicked. He fasts to the death and knows that the drought is over, that "it's raining in the hills." The Guide floats as gently as a lily pad on the surface of Indian life and yet suggests the depths beneath. It manages to describe a saint who is neither born nor made but simply happens, almost like the weather.