Engine Trouble is a novel written by Famous Indian writer R.K Narayan, originally published in 1972. Engine Trouble was published in R.K Narayan’s famous collection “Malgudi Days”. The story of novel explores the theme of Luck and Responsibility.
Engine Trouble By R.K Narayan
Summary of Engine Trouble By R.K Narayan
R.K Narayan’s “Engine Trouble” begins with fair which is held in a small village of Malgudi. A fair is like an event held mostly in small villages of India where people comes to ride on machines, purchase toys for their children or try to win interesting lottery prizes. Once upon a time, narrator goes at fair of village where lottery game was going to started.
There are lots of lottery prizes for winners like Fan, Pressure cooker and Broom etc. There is one more biggest prize of lottery for number 1 winner which is hidden under a black blanket. No one knows what is hidden under it. Actually, that big prize of lottery is to attract lots of people towards it.
A lots of people in fair were purchasing lottery ticket to win number 1 prize. The narrator purchased one lottery ticket for himself. When Narrator number comes, he won the biggest prize of lottery which was hidden under black blanket. When narrator uncovers the blanket, it was a big Road roller engine which he won in lottery. The narrator was shocked to see Road Roller engine as he doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know how he is going to bring it home.
The narrator was enjoying in fair but he is in trouble since he won Road Roller engine. It is because he is thinking about only thing and that is how he is going to take engine to his home. The next day, narrator goes at his engine and saw a notice letter of municipal corporation. In notice letter, Municipal corporation is demanding 100 rupees monthly from narrator as he is using government land for his engine.
As narrator reads notice, he gets very upset. He wants to sell his engine at any cost but no one is ready to buy his engine. The narrator sells his wife’s Jewellery to pay the tax of municipal corporation. Three months have been passed, but still engine is at same place.
Finally, narrator received a one more notice from municipal to remove his Roller engine within 24 hours anyhow. The narrator is very sad and upset, he decides to go at temple for a help from God. There he tells his sad story to a pandit of temple. Pandit allows him to use an elephant of Temple to take his engine from government land.
The narrator is happy now because he has feeling that elephant will remove his engine from government land. There comes one more Pandit who advises him to hire 50 labor as single elephant is not enough for engine. The narrator agrees to hire 50 labor with elephant. He just want to be free from troubled engine at any cost.
Thereafter, elephant comes with 50 labor and all of them including elephant tries to remove engine from land. One labor is assigned to drive Roller engine and to give it a direction as well. But still Roller engine’s tyre are not rolling, neither it is going right nor left, it just going straight.
The roller engine ends up hitting a wall in front of it. The person whose wall was breaks complaint against narrator and asks him to rebuild his wall and remove engine from his home. Afterwards, police arrest narrator for breaking a wall with his engine. The narrator agrees to rebuild the wall. The police officer agrees to release police officer on one condition which is narrator will rebuild a wall within 30 days.
If narrator doesn’t build wall within a month, then police officer will arrest him again. One day, narrator was sleeping peacefully, then suddenly thunderstorm comes and when narrator goes out to see what happened. He saw his Roller engine fall in drain.
The person whose wall was broken comes to narrator and thanks him for covering drain with his engine. That person was receiving notice from municipal to cover drains but he wasn’t able to cover it. Then narrator covers it up with his engine. He request narrator not to remove his engine from drains otherwise he will start getting notice letter again.
The narrator takes an advantage of opportunity and tells him that he can’t keep his engine in drain as he has paid 300 rupees to municipal for its rent, 100 rupees for elephant and 50 rupees to labor. Therefore, he can’t keep his engine in drain. Thereafter, the wall man repays all the debts of the narrator. At the end of story, narrator got rid of Roller engine and all his debt will also be waived off.
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