Magazine 2013
International Peer-Reviewed Journal
RH, VOL. 3 JULY 2013
ENGLISH
Railway Raju To Guide Raju-
R.K.Narayan’s “Guide”
Sujatha Rao
ABSTRACT
Cinema brings words to life through visuals, sound, and music, dialogue, acting and splicing or
mixing of shots generally known as editing. Whereas, literature describes visuals in words.This, is the
basic difference between literature and cinema. Cinema, an eclectic art form, has borrowed generously
from earlier art forms like music, poetry, painting and architecture. Films like Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s
“Devdas,” Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Omkara,” Bimal Roy’s “Sujata,” GuruDutt’s “Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam,”
Vijay Anand’s “Guide” and Shyam Benegal’s “Sooraj Ka Satvan Ghoda” are all adapted from literary
fiction—classic, contemporary and international. It is very rare on Indian cinema that a novel is interpreted
on screen and remains truthful to the original. Some of those movies which remained true to the source
like “Devdas” had attained a cult status but there are some other movies which twisted the source
material and yet remained a classic in the folklores of Indian Cinema. One such film is “Guide.” R.K.
Narayan’s novel was based on the selfish journey of Railway Raju, a man who cheats himself and all
those who surround him for reasons best known to him and in the end turns into a demi-God who
ironically sacrifices himself for an illusory cause of others. Through the journey of Railway Raju, the lives
of Rosie, Gaffur, Marco and Raju’s mother are unveiled and also the fictitious town of Malgudi. On-
screen adaptation of the “The Guide” differs a lot on the outlook of Railway Raju Guide, Narayan adopts,
just as he does in almost all his works, the individual as his reference and looks inward, affecting a
microcosmic view of society and its problems. He showcases the idiosyncrasies of the characters and
superimposes them on one another to come up with a layered structure of societal inconsistency and
prejudice
Keywords - Cinema, Literature, Material, Malgudi, Society.
R.K.Narayan’s The Guide is one of the author‘s most critically acclaimed stories. He won the SahityaAkademi
Awards for this novel. The Guide begins as a comic look at the life of a rogue, but develops into something
different in its progression. In a fairly compact and concise manner the book conveys the numerous aspects of
the day-to-day lives of Indian. The different culture systems, the superstitions and values of the people of a
small town named Malgudi which serves as a reflection on Indian society altogether.
The Guide is set at the background of Malgudi, R. K. Narayan‘s make-believe place in southern India.
The novel is told through a series of flashbacks. Raju is the hero of the story who grows up near a railway station
and eventually becomes a shopkeeper. Later he becomes a resourceful tourist guide. He meets Rosie and her
husband. Rosie is a beautiful dancer. Her husband Marco is a scholar and anthropologist and is more interested
in his research than in his young wife Rosie. As the novel progresses the guide falls in love with Rosie and starts
to live with her. He losses all his money and inspires Rosie to start dancing. He becomes his manager. But he
cannot forget his habit and one day caught red handedly while forging Rosie‘s signature to sell one of her
necklaces. He stays in jail for two years. After returning from imprisonment he decides not to go to Malgudi. He
goes to a village named Vellan where the people take him wrongly as a spiritual guide. They start offering him
food and some comforts. Raju enjoys the whole process. The irony of the story is the drought that occurs in the
village. Raju takes 12-day fast on people request. After many days of his fasting in one fine morning when he
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goes to the riverside for his daily rituals his legs sag down and he feels it is raining in the hillside. The ending of
the novel is a bit confusing as it leaves an unfinished end of Raju‘s death or end of drought. Guide can be seen
in light of the social and political activism of the 60s. It essentially was the time when the average Indian
household started witnessing the advent of technology and hob gobbling the changes that came in the wake of
industrial development all around. Similarly, the wave of feminism, emanating from the West, started sweeping
through the world and India too did not remain unaffected by it. The question of equality in terms of caste,
colour, gender and religion came to occupy centre stage in intellectual deliberations.
Vijay Anand adopts synecdoche as his modus operandi, and showcases the concerns of national pride,
women empowerment and an endangered culture through the lives of Raju (Dev Anand), Marco (Kishore Sahu)
and Rosie (Waheeda Rehman). He uses rhetoric both in plot and dialogue to convey messages and gives his
characters a free reign to grow into the persona they require to carry the burden of mobilizing reform. Unlike
Narayan, whose caressing touch not only enlivens the characters but also induces in the reader a sense of
wonder at the stroke of irony that pervades the protagonists’ lives in the novel, Despite this obvious deviation
from the text, the change in approach does not seem to undermine the celluloid projection of the work and if
one were to view the socio-political backdrop of the times when movie was created, one can understand why
this movie could find firm favours both from the masses and the intelligentsia alike.
Dismayed at such alternations, R.K. Narayan was critical of the fact that Vijay Anand had changed the
setting from the idyllic and fictitious south Indian town of Malgudi to the real and concrete Jaipur. Narayan
seems to lament the loss in saying “…By abolishing Malgudi, they had discarded my own values in the milieu
and human characteristics. My characters were simple enough to lend themselves for observation; they had
definite outlines-not blurred by urban speed, size, and tempo” (Mehrotra 2011).
Vijay Anand as director and Dev Anand as producer and actor, embellish R.K. Narayan’s simple tale not
only by turning the film into a visual treat with the befitting use of camera, lights and sound but also by making
the central consciousness of a tourist guide the intersection of the economic and social cross-currents sweeping
postcolonial India mobility of the urban In contemporary India, it underscores the role of the city of Udaipur in
Rajasthan instead of the fictitious ‘Malgudi’ in the original novel. Udaipur is thrown up as a tourist site in the
national and local economy. The beauty of Udaipur’s palaces and lakes, hills and mountains is presented for
visual consumption through tracking shots
In the novel, R.K. Narayan used the tool of flashback and flash-forward,. This technique is retained in the
movie. Using the strength of the medium, Vijay Anand evokes telling images that depict the large scale devastation
that calamities such as droughts cause in the country time and again. By relating to both the pathos and
religious sentiments of the masses, the movie touches a chord with the populace that see religion as a panacea
for all the tortures and sufferings that one confronts in the wake of being a human.
One of the noteworthy deviations from the text seen in the movie is the omission of Raju’s childhood.
Narayan employs the use of a back story to sketch out the characters, atmosphere and events in the plots. The
medium of the novel gives him the space needed to flesh out details which is often denied to the director in the
movie.
The film however, passes over Raju’s childhood, starting off at the point when he is at the peak of his
career as a guide. The motivation of Raju, the disenchanted boy who dislikes school and resists the determination
of his future without his say, his escape from the future earmarked for him and instead his using native skills as
a glib talker and smooth manipulator, is overlooked. Perhaps Vijay Anand wants to smoothen the morally
ambiguous beginnings of his hero and instead warps him into a prototype promising youth who instantly
commands attention and evokes association in the audience. Raju’s secret to worldly success is his mastery of
words.
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The most striking, yet opportunistic change made in the movie is the polarization of the characters of
Marco and Raju. The preoccupied, scholarly Marco in the novel, meriting amused sympathy is far removed
from the brutish and oppressive Marco in the movie. In the novel, Marco is like the typical South Indian Hindu
gentleman, caught between the renouncing Bhramacharya ideals and the worldly responsibilities of the
Grihaprastha phase. He is mildly irritable and largely bovine in his dealings with the world.
The greatest triumph as well as flaw of the movie is the character of Rosie. The movie seems to celebrate
the individuality of the central woman character, Rosie, who has the resilience to push aside the men who
obsess themselves narcissistically ignoring thereby her carnal or emotional needs. Further example of this is
when Rosie, in her childlike enthusiasm, wears her newly acquired anklets (ghungroos) and skips through the
market place, defiantly ignoring the lecherous and disapproving stares of men and women alike. Raju’s love
and support gives the unfulfilled Rosie the courage to take a bold step and defy the tabooed societal norms by
leaving the oppressive atmosphere of her husband’s house and moving into Raju’s abode. In the novel Rosie’s
edgy quest for a meanigful survival coupled with a torn penancing self, renders her incapable of pursuing her
emancipation with authority and conviction, something that she unmistakably enjoys in the movie.
She opened the door, passed in, and hesitated, leaving the door half open.
She stood looking at me for a moment, as on the first day.
‘
‘
‘
Shall Igo away?’ I asked in a whisper.
Yes. Good night,’ she said feebly.
May I not come in?’ I asked, trying to look my saddest.
‘
No, no. Go away,’ she said. But on an impulse I gently pushed her out of the
way, and stepped in and locked the door on the world. (pp. 88-89)
Her transformation from ‘Rosie’, a name carrying the ‘tawdry overtones of the demi-mondaine world of
the traditional tawayaf, devadasi, or (in colonial lingo) “nautch girl” - a courtesan learned in dance, music, and
poetry, often “married” (if Hindu) to a temple deity, and permitted to perform in public (as respectable women
were not), and to form casual liaisons with mundane men to a delicate lotus (‘Nalini’) is exclusive. The fine
balance between artistic success and fame married to emotional duplicity and insecurity is carefully transmitted
in the novel. On the silver screen, Waheeda Rehman the actress, effectively conveys her character’s repressed
energy and desires through her many breathtaking dances. She’s subtle as ever, and her expressive eyes flash
fire as well as frighteningly cold rage.
One of the major structural changes that the film incorporates over the novel is the ending. The novel
adopts the technique of an open-ended finale. Whether the rains come or not, is left to the imagination of the
reader in the novel. R.K. Narayan’s tendency to report but not comment is rooted in a detached spirit, providing
for a more realistic narration. Narayan lifts the story to a domain of faith, trust and devotion and lets it float back
to the earth. In the concluding part of the novel, Narayan brings Raju to the precipice of a miracle through a
pure series of coincidences, a testimony to the brilliance of the novelist that he acknowledges the limitations of
humans and forgives them for it.
The film “acquires overtones of the much-maligned mythological/ devotional genre (at one point, the
voice of God speaks from a penumbra of light, and the climactic moments and the simple faith of the villagers.”
The movie-version Raju has a more definite fate- he passes away as the rains start pouring. The melodramatic
conversation between his id and ego truly reflects the conflict which seems so real and rich that ends with the
saffron clad saint vanquishing the khadi wearing guide and immersing with the one in a fever pitch of song,
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dance, sound and light. Rosie, Gaffur (his estranged friend) and his mother are all present at his arm not only to
complete his reconciliation with the material world but also to witness his resurrection from the ordinary and
ephemeral to the eternal and blissful. The literal ‘tying-up of loose ends’ is Vijay Anand’s interpretation of an
ideal ending- one which elevates the protagonist well above all the physical world of confusion and chaos to
spiritually glorious and enlightening levels and resolves the malaise of society in a shower of divine blessing.
Unlike the accidental rise of the protagonist, as R.K. Narayan envisioned, the rise of the individual in the film is
well aligned with the importance of larger-than-life personas that inspire public by achieving glory, immortality
and bliss through suffering, austerity and atonement.
Vijay Anand from the very beginning maintained that he was not merely interested in copying any work
of art from one medium to another unless there was some scope of value. The film received several Filmfares
and was widely considered as one of the greatest movies the industry has produced,
R K Narayan was, however, appalled by both versions, particularly the English one. The script had been
written by Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck Narayan vented his wrath in an article he wrote for Life magazine. The
publication ran the story under the headline, How a Famous Novel Became an Infamous Film. R K Narayan’s
protests did not stop the audiences from embracing the film in its Hindi version and making it run for many
months. As for the English version, show biz observers believe it was doomed even without the blistering attack
in Life.
References
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Akka, K. B. Guide: Upperstall Review. http://www.upperstall.com/films/1968/guide. 23 March 2010.Web.
Andrew, D. Adaptation. In J. Naremore (Ed.), Film Adaptation (pp. 28 -37) London:Athlone. 2000. Film.
Bhatnagar, M.New Insights into the Novels of R.K. Narayan (pp 205-206). New Delhi: Atlantic Publishing,
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005. Print.
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Chatterji, S. A. From ‘Literature to Cinema’ (2009), Muse India-The Literary Journal, Issue 27, Sept-Oct. 9,
October 2010. 6, Aug. 2012. Web.
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Lahiri, J. Narayan Days: Rereading The Master.Boston Review. p.13. 2006. Print.
Mehrotra, H.R. ‘The Guide – A Comparative Analysis Of The Movie And The Novel,’ http://
www.hrmehrotra.info/home/the-guide-a-comparative-analysis-of-the-movie-and-the-novel. 25 November
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Nandyal, R. ‘Cinematic Adaptation of R.K. Narayan’s The Guide: A Perspective’ in M.K. Pandey (Ed.).
Millennium Responses (pp 21-22) New Delhi: Sarup, 2003.Print.
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Narayan, R.K. The Guide. Mysore: Indian Thought Publications, 1968. Print.
Raengo, Alessandra. Literature and Film : A Guide To The Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation (p.46)
Oxford: Blackwell. Print.
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