Raju’s Character

The Hindu basis of Narayan’s concept of human psychology, as well as his art of
characterization, is at once evident. His heroes are tormented by desire, vanity
and greed. Passion and attachment are the sources of moral deviation, and the
goal of life is to obtain release (moksha) from these trammels. In his ‘Preface to
Gods, Demons and others’. Narayan writes: “Renunciation is ever a desirable
means of attaining a higher life, and at some stage every character of goodness
adopts it”. The careers of Narayan’s characters by and large fall within these
parameters, though, being fallible human beings and not sages, none of them can
be described as a perfect ‘idealist’. For instance, Chandran in ‘The Bachelor of
Arts’, or Ravi of MR. Sam path, Jagan of ‘The Vendor of Sweets’, Raju in ‘The
Guide’.

In ‘The Guide’ Narayan seeks to explore the psychological and situational

complexities of ‘enforced sainthood’. Raju’s career is a parodic re-enactment of
the dedicated lives of the sages of yore. He adapts his duty but with a
masquerade. His inner being is aware of his “lack of…judgment…lack of ordinary
character”, till circumstances compel him to discover a reservoir of strength
which he did know he possessed; and he may have ultimately attained ‘godhood’,
but that matter remains open to question.

Raju is a type of ‘godman’ who is familiar figure in the contemporary India.

Through Raju Narayan problematize the ancient yogic paradigm of the sant and
sadhu by transposing it into a modern setting, and then probing the way in which
it negotiates the many venalities of modern life. As man familiar with tradional
stories, Narayan must have known many of the great spiritual guides of antiquity,
like Valmiki for instance. In European literature, Raju’spersona is similar to the
tradition of ‘Picaro’ or Fielding’s Tom Jones and Defoe’s Moll Flanders.

Raju is a quicksilver personality_ capricious, mercurial and even somewhat fickle.

Because his swift change of moods and desires, he is a bundle of contradictions.
Raju is simultaneously duplications and sincere, self-serving and unselfish, rouge
and redeemer, sinner and saint. It is the coexistence of complexity and venality in
Raju’s character that enables him to alter his personae and improvise just as the
situation demands.

If one is looking for some kind of core for Raju’s personality, a basic self amid the
plethora of selves, it might be summed in the metaphor of the guide, Rosie’s
impresario or career guide, and the spiritual guide of the villagers of Mangal. He is
affable, articulate, and intelligent. It is indeed ironic how all these extremely
positive qualities conspire to entrap him in various compromising situations
because of the presence of one defect_ his lack of judgement. This seems to stem
from a number of factors_ his need to be liked by everyone he meets, his
tendency to take the easy out by refusing to face facts, his inclination to indulge
himself. Motivated throughout his life by these self-regarding instincts, Raju’s
personal redemption is achieved when he finally puts the well-being of others
above the claim of the self.

Raju is a natural guide also because he is a born leader. Even the village teacher
succumbs to his authoritative demeanour_ “I’ll do anything under your
guidance”_ and there is a gentle comedy at teacher’s accepting a jail-bird as his
guide. Raju has an old, old habit of affording guidance to others. This is seen not
just his role as guide (of different sorts) to the tourists, and later to the villagers.
When Rosie rejected by Marco, comes to Raju’s house in a very compromising
social situation, he immediately takes her life in hand with his characteristically
cavalier disregard for all in convenient facts. Even after the forgery of Rosie’s
signature has been discovered, and she is shattered and disillusioned, Raju
remains undaunted_ “I felt I must take charge of her again”. Surprisingly, the ‘
‘guide’ personae does not desert Raju even after his imprisonment for forging
Rosie’s signature. Within the four walls of Central jail, he is still the “master of the
show”: “Whether they were murderers or cut-throats or highwaymen, they all
listened to me”.

The other prominent interpretations of Raju’s character sees Narayan as

illustrating through Raju the four stages of varnasrama_ student, householder,
recluse and ascetic_thus turning the novel into a Hindu parable. Now it is true
that in Hindu iconology, Rosie interprets Raju’s downfall as ‘karma’ earlier, after
getting accepted as a guru following his release from prison, or in some sort of
transmigration? Again there are reference to reincarnation: as Rosie’s impresario,
Raju muses_ “I too felt changed, I had ceased to be the old railway Raju and I
earnestly wished that I could bury myself, as Rosie had done, under a new name”.
Raju being “held… as if he were a baby” just before his death is also gestures
towards rebirth.

Despite this overt Hindu references, one cannot ignore the braided narrative
which gives a greater complexity to the novel. By locating Raju’s first person
narrative against the third person account involving the villagers of the Mangal,
the novel seems to affirm that the self must be understood both socially and
spiritually. Rather than separating the autobiographical subject from its cultural
matrix in the western manner, the narrative strategy suggests a collaborative
approach. Raju is positioned against the many claims of self and society. He is
thus not a flat, predictable or allegorical figure as in a moral fable, but a complex,
round character (to use E.M Forster’s terminology from Aspects of the Novel),
who continually surprises us with his human unpredictability.