Short Summary of “Vendor of

Sweets” by R.K. Narayan

Article shared by <="" div="" style="margin: 0px; padding:
0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: bottom;
background: transparent; max-width: 100%;">
The tea planter’s energy and entrepreneurial initiative, when assumed by a
“Westernized” Indian, turns into a form of self-delusion in The Vendor of
Sweets (1967), where Mali, the son of a Gandhian sweet vendor, travels to
America for a course in creative writing Malgudi, like India, reaching out to
the modern world and unexpectedly returns with a Korean- American
girlfriend, and an outlandish business scheme to manufacture creative
writing with a machine. (The point about Mali’s confusion is made, but the
machine is not a particularly convincing touch.)

Mali bewilders his father, Jagan, one of many emotionally inadequate

fathers in Narayan’s novels. Jagan, in fact, could be an older Sriram. He is
full of the pious certainties and hypocrisies of someone who thinks he has
done his bit for his society by participating, however briefly and shallowly, in
the Freedom Movement. He has been hard on his wife; he cheats his
customers and the government, invokes the greatness and permanence of
Indian civilization while dismissing the West as morally inferior.
ADVERTISEMENTS:

But his fragile Gandhian self-regard collapses before his much-loved son’s
strange new demeanor and actions; and after Mali ends up disastrously in
prison as a result of driving drunk around Malgudi, Jagan has no option but
a Hindu- style renunciation of the world.

The Vendor of Sweets continues the Gandhian motif of his earlier novel
waiting for the Mahatma. Jagan, the sweet vendor, who is out and out a
Gandhian, finds his only son, Mali lured away by the West. By the time he
came to write this novel Narayan has himself been exposed to American
living and also it’s thought processes.

So he makes Mali, the son of the sweet vendor, go to America only to return
with a half-American and half- Korean girl (to whom he is not married) and
with an out-of-the-world idea for devising a novel-writing machine (the
computer revolution was about to commence in the 1960s). All this makes
Jagan think of renouncing the world and he takes Mali as the spoilt thread of
his life.
The reader is unable to decide whether Narayan is talking of the generation
gap or he is dealing with East-West encounter or he is examining the
efficacy of Gandhism in modern world. The novel raises all these issues and
fails to add up to a coherent fictional statement.

Home ››

R.K Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets (1967) like his other books is
composed in simple, lucid English that can be read and undestood
without turning and returning the pages after a single read. The
compositional language is no doubt, plain– to such an extent that
even a young school child’s vocabulary will be able to comprehend
the sense of the tale. Nevertheless, the message that is being sent to
the readers is delivered in the best possible manner.
The story deals with Jagan, the primary protagonist of the story.
Jagan plays the role of the father of the household which houses his
only son, Mali, and memories of his late wife. The story revolves
around the life, deeds, confusions, policies and beliefs of the
protagonist and his final, ultimate decision to dislodge himself from
the material world and live a life of recluse and isolation.
Mali, his son, is portrayed as a character having ambitions that can
be regarded unique or perhaps at odds with his father’s
expectations, is a young chap ready to leave his homeland in order
to learn the art of novel writing. He comes across as a
revolutionary, returning to India along with a foreigner-woman
whom he declares to be his beloved wife in the initial days, but later
on reveals about the non-occurrence of the marriage ceremony.
Although, on a superficial level, he comes across as someone who is
opposed to the conservative ideals and values represented by his
father Jagan; although further contemplation dawns upon us that
Mali is not really opposed to, but in line with his father’s temper.
Jagan’s earlier life (when he was a part of the freedom struggle and
supported Mahatma) is a revelation of his aggressive spirit. A spirit
that does not fear the walls of a prison chamber, reiterated in his
son’s similar stance in the concluding part of the novel, when he is
arrested and sent to prison on account of achohol found in his car.
The relationship between the father and the son is hashed, based on
mechanical exercises and utilitarian expectations from the son by
the father. There is little or no warmth in their relation and there is
no attempt to develop one such, especially on part of Mali. Jagan is
shown to be inquisitive about the strain in their relation but is also
burdened by the guilt conscience when he recalls the fact that Mali
had stopped talking to him on the very day when his mother
expired on account of Jagan’s refusal to provide her with
antibiotics. Since one cannot change the past, Jagan ultimately
accepts his position as a money lender for his son, with no other
duties or responsibilities.
Grace, the woman who Mali has ‘supposedly’ married, is a woman
of duty, responsibility and sensibility. She is the one who is charred
by the Indian traditions, finds it fascinating and makes every effort
to bide by the customs and traditions, at times , even more than the
Indians themselves. She promptly wins Jagan’s (her father-in-law)
heart with her extreme sweetness and rational temper. She soon
becomes a medium of conversation between Jagan and Mali from
being looked as an averred foreigner when she stepped on the
platform of Malgudi for the first time.
The book is a must read for all fiction lovers and Malgudi fans.

The Conflict between Tradition and

Modernity in R. K. Narayan’s The Vendor of
Sweets
The Conflict between Tradition and Modernity in
R. K. Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets

R. K. Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets was first published in London in 1967 by The
Bodley Head Ltd. Its seventeenth reprint appeared in 2006. East-West conflict is the
major theme of the novel. It is the conflict between a genuine Indian or Eastern father and
his Western-bred son.
Jagan, a college-educated man in the late fifties has made a success of his sweet shop.
Though he grew quite rich as a sweet-vendor, his main interest and concern was his only
son, Mali. Mali’s mother died of brain tumor several years back. The barrier between the
father and the son came into being the day the mother died. It might be that Mali, a little
bewildered and dismayed, felt obscurely that in some way his father was responsible for
his mother’s death. Jagan was an advocate of nature cure. Jagan’s love both for his wife
and his son was deep and unwavering. The tragedy is that when he lost his wife, he lost
also any affection that his son might have had for him. Jagan’s love for the son was so
much that he hastened home from his shop in the evenings thinking that the boy would be
lonely. But Mali did not rise to his expectations and he preferred to be alone and
detached. It led to a total estrangement between the two. Even after having lived twenty
years with his son Jagan knew very little about him. Jagan was very proud of his son but
he had no control over him. Mali gave up his studies and went to America. Mali’s letters
from America only added Jagan’s worries. Jagan could not think of his son eating beef.
He was a true Gandhian and a vegetarian. During India’s freedom struggle he had been
arrested for hoisting Indian flag. He lived a very simple life. He ate food cooked by his
own hands. He never used sugar or salt since he believed that they were detrimental to
health. As recommended by Gandhi he spun on his charka and used clothes made of
khaddar. Jagan could not use tooth brush as he feared that its bristles were made of pig’s
tails. The Bhagawad Gita was always in his hand and he read it whenever he was free.
Thus Jagan was a model of traditional Indian values whereas his son was the other
extreme, a spokesman of modern Western values. Spirituality in him gave way to
materialism. After three years of education in America, Mali returned home accompanied
by a Korean-American girl name Grace. When Mali announced to Jagan that the girl was
his wife, Jagan was shocked. Still he loved them, gave due respect and allowed them to
stay in his house. He accepted Grace as his daughter-in-law. She also behaved admirable
towards him. But soon cracks developed not only between Jagan and Mali but also
between Mali and Grace. Jagan was unwilling to finance a huge amount of money for
Mali’s establishment of story-writing machine. It was too much for Jagan when Grace
announced to him that Mali and Grace had been living together without being married;
nor was Mali willing to marry her. The ever-growing tension in father-son relationship
reached its climax when Mali was caught red-handed for breaking the prohibition laws.
Then there came in Jagan’s life the moment of self-realisation and also of decision. He
managed to break away from Mali and his scheming and vicious world which he could
not approve. He escaped from the chains of paternal love. Jagan abandoned the world and
retired into a life of spiritual devotion. He was altogether unaffected to hear that Mali was
in jail as the police had caught him with liquor in his car. He thought that a period of jail
might be good for the young man.

Jagan is the most vibrant character of the novel from the first page to the last. Mali, his
son who returned from America with a half-American half-Korean girl whom he reported
as his wife and later said he never married, had been something of a sensation disturbing
the placid waters of Malgudi. But Mali is insignificant when compared to his father. To
quote P. S. Sundaram:

Twelve of the thirteen chapters of the book deal with Jagan, a widower nearing sixty. He
is not likely to celebrate his shashtabyapurti as no one seems to care. The last but one of
the thirteen chapters in a flash-back deals with Jagan’s boyhood, youth and marriage, his
begetting Mali after years of waiting and prayer; and this, with other references in the
course of the book to Jagan’s relationship with his elder brother and the tragic way he lost
his wife, completes the picture telling us all we need to know of him. (91)
Instances of verbal conflict between tradition and modernity are many in the text. The
dialogues of conflict occurred between Jagan and Mali, Mali and Grace and Jagan and
Grace. The main situations and dialogues expressing the conflicts are detailed in the
following paragraphs.

Jagan felt very proud and even crazy to narrate his son’s letters to every one he met with,
even strangers. But the only letter Jagan rigorously suppressed was the one in which Mali
had written, after three years’ of experience of America:

“I’ve taken to eating beef; and I don’t think I’m any worse of it . . . Now I want to suggest
why not you people start eating beef? It’ll solve the problem of useless cattle in our
country and we won’t have to beg food from America. I sometimes feel ashamed when
India asks for American aid. Instead of that, why not slaughter useless cows which
wander in the streets and block the traffic?” (Narayan 56-57)

Jagan felt outraged when he read the letter. The shastras have defined the five deadly sins
and the first in the list is the killing of cows. Jagan was an orthodox Hindu, a pure
vegetarian and a Gandhian who believed in ahimsa.

Mali, Jagan’s son returning from America arrived at the railway station. There was a girl
with him. Jagan was worried at the sight of the girl. “Matters became worse when Mali
indicated the girl at his side and said, “This is Grace. We are married. Grace, my dad.”
Complete confusion. Married? When were you married? You didn’t tell me. Don’t you
have to tell your father? Who is she? . . .” (Narayan 58). Mali was influenced by the
modern, western civilization and as a result he did not find it necessary to ask his father’s
permission to get married. The selection of his spouse was also done by himself alone.
This western style is in contrast to the traditional Indian style of arranged marriages. Love
marriages are very rare even at present in India. Jagan had none in the world except his
son for whom he devoted his life. He thought it improper and impolite to ask his son why
he had married without his permission. That showed the intensity of his love towards his
son. Naturally when his son did not return that love and reverence to him, one can
imagine his mental conflicts.

Grace, though a Western, wanted to be a true Indian daughter-in-law to Jagan. Hence she
wore sarees and did all household works. She started cleaning Jagan’s room and washed
the vessels in his kitchen. Jagan’s protests were unheeded. “She clutched the broom and
raked every corner of the floor saying, “Father, you think I mind it? I don’t. I must not
forget that I’m an Indian daughter-in-law” (Narayan 62). As to please her father-in-law,
Grace had to trouble and take much pain. She was not used to kitchen work in her own
country.

Jagan wanted to know the whereabouts of Grace. Hence he told her, ““It is a custom in
this country to inquire where one was born and bred and who is who generally, and then
we go on to other things.”
“Only the passport and income-tax people ask for such details in other countries.
However since I am also an Indian now, I might as well get used to things, and tell you
something”” (Narayan 65). The conflict of two cultures—traditional Indian and the
modern Western–are expressed in this dialogue. Since Jagan was educated he showed
enough courtesy in asking her whereabouts indirectly and not bluntly as most Indians do.

Mali’s use of socks in India can be treated as modern western influence. The traditional
Indians do not wear socks and they have their own reasons for not using it. Jagan, a
professed Gandhian dislikes his son’s use of socks in his house. But he dares not to speak
it out to Mali. To quote from the text:

He noticed that Mali wore socks under his sandals, and wanted to cry out, “Socks should
never be worn because they are certain to heat the blood through interference with the
natural radiation which occurs through one’s soles, and also because you insulate yourself
against beneficial magnetic charges of the earth’s surface. I have argued in my book that
this is one of the reasons, a possible reason, for heart attacks in European countries.”
(Narayan 68)

Jagan’s argument against socks is ridiculous and not scientifically proved. Narayan has
deliberately made Jagan speak such unreasonable things as to make the character
humorous and comic. The novelist wants to speak out truth through comic situations and
conversations. In South Indian climate socks and shoes are not necessities but they only
cause discomfort. But Narayan tells this truth in an absurd manner.

The visit to Chinna Dorai’s garden and the spiritual discussion with him made much
transformation in Jagan. He took Chinna Dorai, the bearded man as an angel sent to him.
After the visit when he reached home his mind became perturbed again. He took the
charka and started spinning. To quote from the text: “. . . the slight whirring noise of the
wheel and the thread growing out of it between one’s thumb and forefinger were very
comforting, stilling the nerves and thoughts. Gandhi had prescribed spinning for the
economic ills of the country, but also for any deep agitation of the mind” (Narayan 121).
Jagan’s cure of worries is the traditional one done and recommended by the sages. But
modern man when confronted with stresses, take haven in drinks and drugs.

Jagan used ten-watt bulbs in his room and so there was only dim light inside. Mali who
came to Jagan’s room with a telegram from the associates, complained, ““Why can’t you
have brighter lights?”

Jagan replied, “Light rays should soothe the optic nerves and not stimulate them””
(Narayan 124). The present generation, both Indian and Western, never thinks like Jagan
and their use of light and sound is highly detrimental to the sense organs. Similarly,
under-light, as Jagan uses, is also harmful to the eyes and health.

When Jagan complained to the cousin that his son was living with Grace without getting
married, the cousin replied:
“Our young men live in a different world from ours and we must not let ourselves be
upset too much by certain things they do.”

. . . Jagan said, “This sort of thing is unheard of in our family. Even my grandfather’s
brother, who was known to be immoral never did this sort of thing. When he was not
married he never claimed that he was married, although . . .”

“I have heard my father speak about him. He was certainly married to three wives and
had numerous other women. He never shirked a responsibility.”

. . . “I can’t understand how two young persons can live together like this without being
married,” said Jagan.

. . . “I feel my home is tainted now. I find it difficult to go back there.” (Narayan 137)

Jagan, a traditional Indian man who believes in values can not imagine his son living
immorally with a woman in his house. He believes that his house is defiled and hence he
can not go back and live there.

The protagonist or the narrator of the story is only ‘the listener.’ In the conventional
manner of story telling, comedy is reinforced here. Barry Argyle writes:

To refer to a protagonist simply as ‘the listener’, and to enlarge on him a little later only
as ‘a cousin’, though how he came to be called so could not be explained, is to create in
the reader’s mind an echo of the comedy of humours. But the echo is inexact. The
‘listener’, even when he becomes a ‘cousin’, is described by function not attribute. His
function in the novel is defined by his relationship to Jagan: ‘His role was to help Jagan
crystallize his attitudes in crisis. He is referred to as ‘practical, ‘clear-headed’, ‘rational’.
(15-16)

The cousin’s name is deliberately hidden by the novelist. Jagan shares his sorrows and
happiness with him and seeks advice whenever needed. The cousin visits Jagan’s shop
every afternoon and checks the taste of each item. Jagan and the cousin spend in the shop
speaking for hours and hours. But it’s very strange that Jagan has never called him by his
name. Why his name is concealed is known only to the novelist. Unlike the Quixotic
Jagan, the cousin is very mature, rational and practical-minded. The only flaw in him is
that he flatters Jagan now and then. Of course it is justifiable since it serves his purpose.

The Vendor of Sweets deals with the trials of relationship and the separateness of
generations between a father and his son. It is also a modish tale of East versus West.
When one reads these obvious contrasts, he should not fail to notice the similarities. In
the words of Barry Argyle, “Narayan is interested in the similarities, in states and feelings
that might have been the same; but by using a modish vehicle he not only disguises his
true concern . . . but also creates a tension between the apparent and the real. This tension
duplicates the novels theme, which is the search for real values among many that are
spurious or outworn” (35). Thus this novel may be treated not only as a ‘generation
novel’ or a ‘national novel’ but a ‘universal novel.’
Jagan is an orthodox Hindu who tried to live according to Hindu scriptures and traditions.
He professed to live by the principles of the Gita and Gandhi, but had to live in the
particular necessities of his own condition. “He makes and sells sweets, makes a lot of
profit, partially evades sales tax, but at the same time he claims to be a follower of
Gandhi and the Gita” (Nanda 89). Jagan is a representative of thousands of Indians who
outwardly appear to be very pious and straightforward, but their actions prove otherwise.
To safeguard their selfish interests they find justification in their incongruities as Jagan
did.

Narayan accepted the Hindu world view. To quote an example, when Mali told his father
that he had never seen a more wasteful country than theirs the author made Jagan retort
that they found it adequate for their purpose. Commenting on this D. S. Philip says, ““The
purport of all this is clear: The West, enchanting as it may appear, threatens to destroy
that given traditional life its values. The West, Narayan, says, is not a model Indians must
imitate indiscriminately. This results in disruption rather than contentment”” (qtd. in
Nanda 92-93).

Mali’s story-writing machine when viewed from Indian tradition is the ultimate profanity
in the realms of art. “Mali tries to introduce the final depersonalization in an
Americanized, mechanical concepts of art. Even the critical and evaluative process is to
be mechanized with “a little fixture, by which any existing story could be split up into
components and analysed”” (Nanda 93). Jagan refuses to invest his money in such a
perversion of art as well as his tradition.

Towards the end of the novel the image carver, Chinna Dorai tells Jagan about the
dancing figure of Nataraj which was so perfect that it began a cosmic dance and the town
itself shook as if an earthquake had rocked it, until a small finger in the figure was
chipped off. To quote Nanda:

This story of the dancing image gives an account of the Indian view of the perfection of
art which partakes of the divine nature. The contrast of this view of art with the western
conception of art propagated by Mali is instructive. In the Indian view, one had to strive
for perfection in art. In the process one may transcend the illusory world of individuation
and discord and achieve Nirvanasuggested by the cosmic dance. (93)
Unlike many other novels of Narayan The Vendor of Sweets focuses attention on a limited
number of people: Jagan, the protagonist, his son Mali, Mali’s companion Grace, Jagan’s
ubiquitous cousin who is not given a name, Jagan’s wife Ambika, his parents, Chinna
Dorai, the hair-blackener and sculptor and a few others. As the number of characters is
limited it presents greater psychological subtlety and depth of the feeling than many other
novels of Narayan (Jayantha 62).
The Vendor of Sweets is not merely an amusing story which depends for its comedy on
the improbable and fantastic, but it has much depth than the apparent on the surface. To
quote R. A. Jayantha, “While it seems to tell the amusing story of an eccentric and
obscurantist father and his upstart son, and the game of hide and seek they play with each
other, in point of fact it is built on a few inter-related themes of which the most readily
obvious is the father-son motif” (62). The other themes are: youth versus age, the
generation gap, tradition versus modernity, East versus West, and search or quest. The
quest motif in the novel encompasses all the other themes. “Jagan the protagonist of the
novel, by virtue of his circumstances of his life, engaged himself in different kinds of
search. But he is not a deliberate and self-conscious quester, nor is he capable of
sophisticated intellectual inquiry” (Jayantha 62).
Narayan’s fictional world Malgudi is the microcosm of Indian society revealing all
diversity. “From the appearance of Narayan’s first novel Swami and Friends (1935) to the
recent, The World of Nagaraj(1990), we are made aware of the steady encroachment of
modernity and the resultant conflict between modernity and the traditional Malgudi life”
(Nanda 88).

In Jagan, the reader may note of an autobiographical element. He can be called an alter
ego of Narayan in some aspects. To quote Macdonald, “It may be that Narayan had a
special sympathy for Jagan, since they both married at an early age, had one child
(Narayan’s was a daughter) and lost their much loved wives at an early stage in the life of
their children. And more important, Jagan and Narayan were both sixty years old at the
time the novel was written. In Jagan, Narayan has created a character close to his own
image” (155).

Works Cited
The Vendor of Sweets (1967), by R. K. Narayan, is composed in simple, lucid English that can be read and understood
without turning and returning the pages after a single read. The compositional language is no doubt, plain– to such
an extent that even a young school child’s vocabulary will be able to comprehend the sense of the tale.

The main characters are Jagan and his son Mali. It revolves around the issues arising from the generation gap
between father and son. Narayan in his superb style narrates the pr of his role in India's freedom struggle during his
youth. Gita forms the staple of his life. He tries to act on the principles described in the great epic. Naturopathy
forms the pivotal of his life and he even desires to publish his natural way of living in the form of a book, but
obviously it is a futile dream as the draft has been gathering dust in the publisher’s office for the last five years. He
wears hand spun cloth that signifies purity to him. In his early days Jagan loses his wife Ambika because of his belief
in nature cures. He had never spent much time with his wife, something that causes discontent in his son Mali. Mali
has got his passport and tickets ready without even informing Jagan about his plans.Mali, without his father's
permission discontinues his education, and goes to America to get training to write a book. But, the old man accepts
even this diversion with good heart and treasures every letter received from Mali and proudly exhibits it to anyone
who cares to listen. A few years later, he comes back very Westernized and brings along a half-American, half-
Korean girl, Grace. Jagan assumes that they are married, though Mali never told him this in a straightforward way,
which causes great disappointment to Jagan. Jagan however develops an affection for Grace and feels Mali is not
giving her the attention she deserves.

Soon Mali expresses a desire to start a machine factory with some partners from America. He asks his father to
invest in this factory. Jagan is unwilling, which causes friction between Jagan and Mali. Troubled by the turmoil,
Jagan decides to retire from active working. As this is happening, Mali is caught by the police for drunkenness and
deserts his wife. Jagan then asks his cousin to make sure that Mali stays in prison for some time, so that he can learn
his mistakes. Jagan also gives some amount of money to the cousin so that he can buy a plane ticket to Grace so she
can go back to her hometown.

The conflict between the old and young generation, their ideals and the generation gap makes 'Vendor of Sweets' a
memorable story. This novel was made as a TV serial in Hindi and subsequently dubbed into English.

Read more on Brainly.in - https://brainly.in/question/2902236#readmore