Short Stories by R.K.Narayan

An Astrologer's Day By R.K.Narayan

Hell, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as a part of thinking activity while dealing with the chapter of short stories by R.K.Narayan. (You can have visit the teacher's wall)

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

You can watch the film by clicking here 
· After watching the movie, have your perception about the short story, characters or situations changed?
· Does screening of movie help you in better understanding of the short story?
· Was there any particular scene or moment in the story that you think was perfect?
· If you are director, what changes would you like to make in the remaking of the movie based on the short story “An Astrologer’s Day” by R.K.Narayan?
Thank you

Click here to read the story In a very first sight to the story. I found this story little bit hard as well as boring. How the setting is there and the theme of the story. Just have a look at the beginning of the story,

PUNCTUALLY at midday he opened his bag and spread out his professional equipment, which consisted of a dozen cowrie shells, a square piece of cloth with obscure mystic charts on it, a notebook, and a bundle of palmyra writing. His forehead was resplendent with sacred ash and vermilion, and his eyes sparkled with a sharp abnormal gleam which was really an outcome of a continual searching look for customers, but which his simple clients took to be a prophetic light and felt comforted. The power of his eyes was considerably enhanced by their position placed as they were between the painted forehead and the dark whiskers which streamed down his cheeks : even a half-wit's eyes would sparkle in such a setting. To crown the effect he wound a saffron-coloured turban around his head. This color scheme never failed. People were attracted to him as bees are attracted to cosmos or dahlia stalks. He sat under the boughs of a spreading tamarind tree which flanked a path running through the Town Hall Park.

He had left his village without any previous thought or plan. If he had continued there he would have carried on the work of his forefathers namely, tilling the land, living, marrying, and ripening in his cornfield and ancestral home. But that was not to be. He had to leave home without telling anyone, and he could not rest till he left it behind a couple of hundred miles. To a villager it is a great deal, as if an ocean flowed between. 

From this part of story we can find that there is something like kind of mystery tone. 

• How faithful is the movie to the original short story?

The short story is a literary text and a movie is visual and moving picture. So when we get into the movie we always enjoy more than the practice of reading. When we talk about this particular movie that is An Astrologer’s Day. Then it is faithful we can say but the tone or we can say the flow of story is not going into the same direction. Because when a story being adopted to the moving picture it’s talk a lot rather than the words cause there are so many other elements which are specking louder than the words.

Yes, it is always the process when we read we can imagine the characters or other things by our own ways. And by that we assume so many things very boundlessly within ourselves. When it comes to situations we have to think in a way the writer make us to think or the characters make us to think. In the movie the directed has putted the things in one’s own way and then it goes in that proper path likewise camera and the angles or the sound even.

When I was reading the story it was not able to get that much interest by me but when I was watching the movie I came to know more about the story. Exactly I can say is that movie made me understand the actual concept of the story.

•  Do you feel ‘aesthetic delight’ while watching the movie? If yes, exactly when did it happen? If no, can you explain with reasons?

Literature is sometimes for aesthetic delight and sometimes for it is there to break all the bars in our minds. The movies which are produced there those all stuffs are in literature already in the different ways or at every possible different times.

I feel when that boy came to the protagonist to get information about his personal search of the person. And the person was only the astrologer who was sitting there only.

The screening of the movie is a very helpful to me to get  into much deeper concept of the short story. As it has its own basic storyline and the themes it contains.

When we watch the movie we find all kind of possible faithfulness from the short story. The astrologer come to the home and the way the director use to show the finance struggle by certain dialogues which are there and also by acting that part or scene is very impactful to me.  

If I get chance to direct this short story, I will do use of better setting of the story.

THANK YOU!