mybookjournal

The world of Nagaraj was yet another satirical book by RK Narayan.

Nagaraj is leading quite a happy and content life in Malgudi with his wife and some of his friends who he meets and interacts daily. Apart from this, one of his favorite pass time is sitting in his porch and woolgathering. He has no responsibility nor does he wants to take any. But his routine life changes slightly once his nephew (brother’s son) Tim start living with him leaving his parents. Initially, Nagaraj feels overwhelmed by Tim's arrival. On his brother’s insistent he even tries to keep an eye on Tim but fails miserably.

Nagaraj also dreams to write a book on Narada Muni whom he admires the most. But every time he thinks of starting his book he soon gets distracted, either blaming lack of information available on Narada or blaming the people around him for their interruption to his work, like for example when Tim’s wife Saroja sings with her harmonium he just can’t stand it but he is hesitant to tell her to stop it. And finally he discards his writing!!

Basically, the problem with Nagaraj is that neither he is able stand up for himself nor for others. He is not a man of action neither of words. He is admired my none and is taken for granted by every one, his opinion keeps changing every second and is unable to concentrate on any thing in his life.

No doubt Nagaraj is a very realistic character and R.K Narayan has captured him perfectly. But it still failed to impress me because it didn’t meet my expectation. There was no development in the character nor was there any progress in the story, I felt as if it stayed where it started and ended just like that. It seemed like a book on day to day routine events of Nagaraj’s life which bored me after a certain period. Well, It was a bit disappointing considering this was from my favorite author.