The charm of an Indian chatterbox
Andrew Robinson TALKATIVE MAN by R. K. Narayan
Heinemann, £8.95
They call me Talkati affectionately shorten it to TM: I have earned this title, I suppose, because I cannot contain myself. My impulse to share an experience with others is irres- istible. .
So is R. K. Narayan's short novel, of which this is the beginning. His lean, matter-of-fact prose has lost none of its chuckling sparkle mixed with melancholy. As Narayan remarks, in a quite disarming postscript replying to an imaginary charge that 119 pages is too short for a novel, `Otherwise I might be compelled to inflate my stories with laboured detail and de- scriptions of dress, deportment, facial fea- tures, furniture, food and drinks — pas- sages I ruthlessly skip when reading a novel. While writing, I prefer to keep such details to a minimum in order to save my readers the bother of skipping.'
The Talkative Man, who was introduced in an earlier novel, now takes control of the story of Malgudi. As Narayan himself once was, he is a struggling journalist dispatching copy on petty Malgudi doings religiously each evening by train to a news editor whose indifference to it is total. But, unlike Narayan in earlier days, TM does not depend on journalism for his survival. There is a touch of grandness in his background; he belongs to one of the vanishing Kabir Street families `which flourished on the labours of an earlier generation'.
Like the immortal Mr Biswas in V. S. Naipaul's novel pursuing his 'deserving destitutes', TM knows everyone and goes everywhere in Malgudi in search of stories. One of his regular haunts is the Lawley Memorial Library and Reading Room, `established on a bequest left by Sir Frederick Lawley (whose portrait hung from a nail high up near the ventilator) half a century ago'. There, one day, he encoun- ters the irritating but intriguing Dr Rann dressed in a three-piece suit. He looks like a European but is in fact a fair-skinned Indian who has cunningly altered Rangan to Rann, and he is on the run: from the voracious bed-bugs in the Malgudi station waiting-room, and secondly from the string of broken-hearted women he has left all over India and abroad. The latter emerges of course only later, from TM's private researches. For the time being Dr Rann announces himself, and is accepted as a UN expert come to Malgudi to write a book that will have an earth-shaking reper- cussion, and his report on a mysterious `project': 'a self-contained phrase', TM tells us, `(which) may or may not be capable of elaboration. I come across the word in newspapers and among academics, engineers and adventurers. One might hear the word and keep quiet, no probing further. Sometimes a project might involve nothing more than swatting flies and send- ing reports to the headquarters.'
Partly from journalistic curiosity and partly from generosity, TM is persuaded to install Dr Rann in his old, deserted family house on Kabir Street. In a way he has no choice. TM's friend the stationmaster in- sists; Rann must 'positively vacate right now' the waiting-room: the DTS is due to arrive the following day for an inspection. As soon as Rann appears, TM asks him in that very subtle blend of English English and Indian English that carries the dia- logues of Narayan's characters beyond the quaintness of Kipling's: 'How many pieces have you, your baggage, I mean?'
Dr Rann has made the mistake of trying to impress TM by casually telling him he is from Timbuctoo. TM innocently sees a story. For once the far-away news editor agrees, but insists on a photograph. Rann refuses, and so TM makes a secret and hilarious arrangement to have Rann snap- ped while in the market with him. The article, `Timbuctoo Man', appears — and so does a mountain of a woman at Malgudi station, come from Delhi, waving the article and demanding to meet its writer. She claims to be Rann's wife, and has a certificate to prove it. After years of futile travel and searching for him, she is now determined to get her man.
It would be unfair to reveal how TM and Dr Rann cope with this demanding and desperate situation, except to say that Dr Rann, through the good offices of TM and the Lotus Club Silver Jubilee, eventually gets a chance to deliver his apocalyptic speech on the year AD 3000 to the citizens of Malgudi; and that he does continue his career as a 'philanderer on a global scale', a man whose obsessively hoarded corres- pondence reveals him to have a thousand names 'like our gods'.
What exactly is the nature of Narayan's appealing charm? Graham Greene, in a celebrated remark, said of Narayan that `without him I could never have known what it is like to be an Indian.' The essence of the claim is just but it needs qualifying a little to read 'Southern Indian'. Narayan's characters, in their parochial passivity, would not pass muster as Bengalis or Punjabis for instance, (nor, I am sure, would Narayan want them to). It is his frank perception of human motive — in its mixtures of self-interest and sincerity that makes his characters so delightful and universal for me. The Talkative Man, out of kindness to the unknown Dr Rann, quietly slips the station master money for ten days' train tickets so that the rules can allow Dr Rann to remain in the waiting- room. 'This proved effective. Whether he pocketed the money or bought the ticket each day was not my business to probe. That gave Rann ten days' extension.'
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