The Man eater of Malgudi is a novel written by famous Indian writer, R.K. Narayan, originally published in 1961. The Story of novel revolves around a man, Nataraj, a simple man of small village, Malgudi.
The Man Eater of Malgudi By R.K Narayan
Summary of The Man Eater of Malgudi By R.K Narayan
R.K Narayan’s “ The Man Eater of Malgudi” begins with major character, Nataraj, a simple living man from Malgudi village who owns a printing shop. Nataraj is a well known person of his village. Nataraj is doing good in his printing shop business and his business is growing well day after day.
He is characterized as good man with kind heart who loves to help people. Nataraj is married and has one son named Chota Babu. He wakes up daily at 4 am in the morning as he likes to start his day with rising sun.
Nataraj has one friend named Sastri. One day, Sastri have to go home for Puja, so he asks his friend, Nataraj to look after his printing work. Sastri hand over his work to Nataraj and leaves for his home. There comes new character, Vasu, a masculine villain of the story who works as Taxidermist. Vasu visits Nataraj shop for the printing of visiting cards.
Nataraj doesn’t seem to like the aggressive behavior of Vasu but he accepts his printing order. Nataraj and his friends does not like Vasu, they have feeling that they did a big mistake by accepting his order. They should have rejected Vasu’s order.
One day, Vasu comes to Nataraj’s shop and asks for a help to stay in his shop for few days. As we all know Nataraj is a good man, he allowed Vasu to live in his shop. Vasu spends most of his time outside of shop, he only visits Nataraj’s shop to take rest. He used to have arguments with Nataraj’s friends.
One day, Vasu comes at Nataraj’s shop with forest officer of Mempi forest, forest officer wants Nataraj to do his printing work. On the other hand, Nataraj doesn’t like Vasu so he don’t want to do any kind of work of Vasu’s friend. Vasu wants to impress forest officer because he need a permission from him to do hunting in Mempi forest.
Somehow, Nataraj agrees to do a printing work of forest officer. Vasu impressed forest officer with the help of Nataraj and get a persmission of hunting in Mempi forest. But forest officer only allowed him to do a hunting of wild fowl. Vasu gets furious on forest officer because he needs a permission of hunting big animals like elephant not wild fowl.
As soon as Vasu get a persmission of hunting, he started killing animals on daily basis. He was storing all the dead bodies of animals in Nataraj’s shop without his permission. Nataraj cannot tolerate all of this so he decides to throw Vasu out of his shop.
Nataraj lies to Vasu, he told him that his relative are coming in his home who are going to stay in his shop so he asks Vasu to leave his shop immediately. Vasu gets furious, he yells at Nataraj for no reason. Afterwards, Vasu leaves Nataraj shop without any proper reply. After few days, Nataraj received a legal notice letter from rent controller court.
Nataraj knows that he is getting legal notice letter just because of Vasu. Therefore, he decides to hire a lawyer for him. Nataraj explains everything to his lawyer about Vasu. He gives his hard earn money to lawyer. On the other side, Vasu is killing more animals day after day.
He wasn’t showing any mercy to animals. One day, same forest officer visits Nataraj’s shop to meet Vasu. He gives warning to Vasu to stop hunting in his forest. Forest officer also increases security in his jungle to stop Vasu from hunting.
To entertain himself, Vasu started bringing prostitute in Nataraj’s shop. There comes Kumar, a famous elephant of Memi forest who is very ill. Nataraj request his villagers to bring Kumar in their village for the treatment. As Vasu get to know about Kumar visits in Malgudi, he made a plan to hunt it. Nataraj learns about Vasu plans and tried to stop him.
Next day, Thanappa comes to Nataraj and tells him that when he visits his shop to meet Vasu, he found him dead. Nataraj request Thanappa not to tell about it to anyone. Afterwards, Police comes at Nataraj’s shop to do an investigation on Vasu’s murder. The police did Vasu’s post mortem and learns that he was killed by hitting on head.
Everyone from Malgudi village started blaming Nataraj for Vasu’s murder even though he has no involvement in it. The story of novel ends with last new character, Rangi, a prostitute of Vasu who tell everyone that Vasu died by hitting his own head with iron rod.
A lot of mosquitoes were buzzing around Vasu’s head so to stop them from buzzing, Vasu hit his own head with iron rod and died on the spot. The story ends with beautiful lesson, bad people bring about their own destruction.