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Elective English—III

Notes

Notes In between, being cut off from England due to the war, Narayan started his own
publishing company, naming it (again) Indian Thought Publications; the publishing
company was a success and is still active, now managed by his granddaughter.

5.2 Summary of the Story

R.K Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets (1967) like his other books is composed in simple, lucid
English that can be read and understood without turning and returning the pages after a single
read. The compositional language is no doubt, plain – to such an extent that even a young school
child’s vocabulary will be able to comprehend the sense of the tale. Nevertheless, the message
that is being sent to the readers is delivered in the best possible manner.
Jagan, a college-educated man in the late fifties has made a success of his sweet shop. However,
he grew quite rich as a sweet-vendor, his main interest and concern was his only son, Mali.
Mali’s mother died of brain tumour several years back. The barrier between the father and the
son came into being the day the mother died. It might be that Mali, a little bewildered and
dismayed, felt obscurely that in some way his father was responsible for his mother’s death.
Jagan was an advocate of nature cure. Jagan’s love both for his wife and his son was deep and
unwavering. The tragedy is that when he lost his wife, he lost also any affection that his son
might have had for him. Jagan’s love for the son was so much that he hastened home from his
shop in the evenings thinking that the boy would be lonely.
However, Mali did not rise to his expectations and he preferred to be alone and detached. It led
to a total estrangement between the two. Even after having lived twenty years with his son,
Jagan knew very little about him. Jagan was very proud of his son but he had no control over
him. Mali gave up his studies and went to America. Mali’s letters from America only added
Jagan’s worries. Jagan could not think of his son eating beef. He was a true Gandhian and a
vegetarian. During India’s freedom struggle, he had been arrested for hoisting Indian flag. He
lived a very simple life. He ate food cooked by his own hands. He never used sugar or salt since
he believed that they were detrimental to health. As recommended by Gandhi he spun on his
charka and used clothes made of khaddar. Jagan could not use toothbrush, as he feared that its
bristles were made of pig’s tails. The Bhagawad Gita was always in his hand and he read it
whenever he was free. Thus, Jagan was a model of traditional Indian values whereas his son was
the other extreme, a representative of modern Western values. Spirituality in him gave way to
materialism. After three years of education in America, Mali returned home accompanied by a
Korean-American girl name Grace.
When Mali announced to Jagan that the girl was his wife, Jagan was shocked. Still he loved them,
gave due respect and allowed them to stay in his house. He accepted Grace as his daughter-in-law.
She also behaved admirable towards him. Soon cracks developed not only between Jagan and
Mali but also between Mali and Grace. Jagan was unwilling to finance a huge amount of money
for Mali’s establishment of story-writing machine. It was too much for Jagan when Grace
announced to him that Mali and Grace had been living together without being married. Moreover,
Mali was not even willing to marry her. The ever-growing tension in father-son relationship
reached its climax when Mali was caught red-handed for breaking the prohibition laws. Then
there came in Jagan’s life the moment of self-realisation and of decision. He managed to break
away from Mali and his scheming and vicious world, which he could not approve. He escaped
from the chains of paternal love. Jagan abandoned the world and retired into a life of spiritual
devotion. He was altogether unaffected to hear that Mali was in jail as the police had caught him
with liquor in his car. He thought that a period of jail might be good for the young man.

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