The English Teacher --R. K. Narayan

I always go through phases in my life. Sometime I like to do loads of crafts and sometimes its sewing, Sometime I can watch just any movie in a row and this will go on for a week or so, or sometime I will just clean up the house and give all the room a entire new look. And there are days when I will cook everyday a new dish  but in all these of my hobbies, reading is my all time favorite. And these days I am going through reading phase. I am enjoying every bit of it. This time I have decided that I will write something about every book I read. It wont be exectly a book review but my opinion and feelings about that perticuler book.

Yesterday I borrowed R. K. Narayan's "The English Teacher" from a friend's place. In my childhood I used to watch this TV show "Malgudi Days" ( tana... na.. tana... na....tune still echos in my mind whenever I hear Malgudi )and always wanted to read  R. K. Narayan's work. In the evening I started reading it and I was just hooked to it. In between I was doing the house chores also. Hubby was watching cricket (as usual) and I was totally engrossed in the book. 


The story starts in a very simple manner...writing style is simple but elegant, In just two or three pages you become attached to the character and you feel you know them. Krishnan who is a  English lecturer at the Albert Mission College is living in the hostel. In the first page itself we get to know that he thinks he is doing the wrong job. He is a poet at heart. his bachelor life comes to an end as his wife Susila and daughter comes to live with them. He rents a beautiful house and lives a good family life in next few chapters. His love is so deep and subtle towards his wife. When his wife suffers from typhoid he takes care of her in all his means. After the death of his wife his life becomes empty but he see his only relief in his child It becomes his aim in life to see that she would not feel the absence of her mother.

Later he receive a letter from a stranger that his wife wants to communicate with him. That man becomes his friend and medium to talk to his wife.   I will not go into the full story line but when  I was reading the last few chapters my mind was wandering around thousand questions. What happens after death? This communication with the person who is already departed..is it possible? 
I will quote the last para graph here:

A cock crew. The first purple of the dawn came through our window, and faintly touched the walls of our room. "Dawn!"

she whispered and rose to her feet.

   We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy- a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death.

It was really a good book. May be will read it again after a year or so.(I like to read a book again and again as every time I read a book it brings a new meaning.)