“Under the Banyan Tree,” the title story in R. K. Narayan’s collection Under the Banyan Tree, and Other Stories (1985), appeared originally in his earlier volume, An Astrologer’s Day, and Other Stories (1947). It is the story of an old-fashioned storyteller named Nambi, in whom Narayan has created a character of mythic dimensions. The story radiates its author’s deep love for tradition as he, using the omniscient point of view, nostalgically evokes the Old World charm of oral storytelling by showcasing Nambi.
The story begins in a remote village in southern India where people live “in a kind of perpetual enchantment,” unmindful of their dismal surroundings. The “enchanter” is Nambi, the storyteller whose tales work like magic to transmute the drab existence of the villagers. The story focuses on Nambi, an old man of indeterminate age. Though illiterate, he is gifted with a fertile imagination. He can weave a story in his head with great ease, at least one every month, and then he narrates the story to an eager audience in an open space in moonlight.
The narrator further reveals Nambi’s simple, tranquil, and austere lifestyle. Nambi lives in the front portion of a little temple dedicated to the goddess Shakti, at the end of the village. A man with no material possessions, he spends most of his day in the shade of the Banyan tree in front of the temple. On Friday evenings, he serves as the temple priest and leads the villagers in the worship of the goddess.
The narrator recounts in detail the rituals and the method of Nambi’s storytelling. On the night Nambi is to tell a story, he lights a small lamp and keeps it at the trunk of the banyan tree...
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