The English Teacher- R K Narayan- A self-healing book review

Stories are powerful. They coax us to think, meditate, reflect, and introspect. It is potent enough to change our perspective, maybe, that is why everyone loves a good story. But some stories tug at our innermost chords, our wounds, raw from a newly afflicted grief or dull, familiar throbbing of a long-settled pain.

R K Narayan's The English Teacher was a book I picked randomly after browsing my modest library for a while. I was reading English classics for some time and as I was recovering from a traumatizing personal loss, books have been my sole solace, apart from my little one.

I had just finished Wuthering Heights, the classic story of mad love, betrayal, revenge, and final catastrophe when everyone realizes that nobody actually won in this malicious tug of war, even if it was in the name of love.

Heathcliff's love for Catherine was self-destructive and all-pervasive. It was blind, but so was his rage, and everything was set ablaze in that all-destructive fury of love, fed by the flames of jealousy, possessiveness, and the ultimate deadly ingredient- revenge.

At a time when I am contemplating, and analyzing man-woman relationships, husband-wife relationships, and father-daughter relationships, I found these stories enigmatic and revealing, if not deeply moving.

Wanting to take a respite from the classics and to shake off the intense emotional turbulence the book affected in me, I decided to pick a book that was close to home and my heart. With the familiarity of R K Narayan's writing, his penchant for simple stories wrapped in a curious narration of satire and humor, enriched with just the right amount of raw innocence, I was sure his story, the world he created with his words, would lull the storm raked up in my heart after reading Wuthering Heights.

Little did I know that this story, The English Teacher was in a league of its own, and cannot be tagged as the usual R K Narayan story. Yes, the subtle writing style is there- the simplicity of characters, the everyday life, and the mundanities of a common man is magically presented with a poignancy that is unmatched and inimitable- but the similarities end there.

It is the story of a married man who is living in a hostel away from his beloved wife and little daughter. A refreshing tale is woven around the marital bliss that Krishnan, the English Teacher at Alber Mission College is relishing when his wife Sushila and their little one Leela come to stay with him in a rented house.

Sushila, Krishnan, and Leela create such a wonderful life for themselves that for a while the reader is engrossed in this idyllic existence, and one cannot understand what could be more heavenly that a blissful marital life, a calm and peaceful family life, with its simple joys of companionship, love, care, and security.

Krishnan is so in love with his wife that he is plunged into a state of utter shock and despair when a very innocuous fever escalates to Typhoid and eventually Sushila succumbs to it. His life had been upended. Just a few days ago, he was a happily married man and after all, it was just a fever, it had to subside eventually, but it hadn't, and on the contrary, it had taken his wife away from him forever, to some phantom world. To be alive and never to see her again, never to smell her jasmine-like fragrance, never to see her beautiful eyes that laughed gaily at him every time he called her "Jasmine", was torture of the worst kind.

The narration is so uniquely subtle that Krishnan's grief and struggles of survival do not elicit tears from you. But without even you realizing, a dull aching pain must have settled on your heart which you will begin to feel only by the end of the book and it will perhaps linger on.

The first half may seem a bit of a drag, not a very riveting read but the second half makes up for this. It is the second half that intrigued me, held me in thrall, still not fully over it, I must confide.

Krishna actually communes with his wife after her death. They communicate on a regular basis, first through a third person and once he gets the hang of it, they continue conversing regularly in his own room, in the house where they had lived together happily as one family, dreamt of taking Sushila all over India for a tour, made so many plans that were never to come by. It is all so painful in the beginning, that Krishna can barely accept Sushila's death.

Did he actually see her? Did he talk to her after death or was it all just a figment of his tormented mind's imagination? It is up to each one of us to decide. Whatever may be the case, his aggrieved mind finds respite from the excruciating pain of loss through this communication.

"The book made me dwell on my loss, how I can overcome it, and how I can let the pain pass without destroying me. Love can be so powerful that it can be self-destructive. When the pain seems unbearable, it is almost impossible to silence the mind's call to action to end the pain."

To oscillate between despair, hopelessness, unremitting pain, and the innate tendency of every human to overcome and survive is the worst nightmare for any man. Krishna goes through that time and again. His pain is unbearable but he cannot end it all as he has to live on for his little Leela's sake. Finding mental resilience in such a situation is the challenge, Krishnan found it in this communication, the contact with his wife in after-life, the mysterious world of the spirits.

The part where Narayan deftly crafts together incidents and memories that haunt Krishna, to express the intensity of his pain, is so beautiful that I had to reread it time and again.

"Flames appear over the wall...It leaves a curious dull pain at heart. There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that, I watch flames without agitation."

"In the darkness, I often felt an echo of her voice and speech..I should leave the house...But after initial shocks had worn out it seemed unnecessary and then impossible. We had created a few favorite corners...The experience of life in that house was too precious...There were subtle links with a happy past; they were not merely links but blood channels, which fed the stuff of memory..."

I felt that somebody cannot write it so beautifully unless he has gone through it because every sentence seemed so real, so relatable to anybody who has gone through the loss of a dear one.

When I read that the book is actually autobiographical and is dedicated to R K Narayan's wife it only elated me further. It explained everything. R K Narayan is no more but his stories still touch and change lives for the better. For as long as the written world exists, book lovers and story lovers will seek them out!

That is the only hope humanity has if we are to survive this charade called life!

A profoundly moving book....for anyone interested in reading!

My favorite lines in the book..

"A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother has got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, ...my earliest friends- where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a water spray. The law of life."

"Gradually, unknown to ourselves, we recline against the wall and sink into sleep. The dawn finds us all huddled on the cold floor."

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