He told himself: I am not doing the right thing in carrying on with this sign-board painting. I took it up because I loved calligraphy; loved letters, their shape and stance and shade. But no one cares for it, no one notices these values. Like that bangle-seller and the lawyer and the other, who demand their own style and won’t pay otherwise. Compromise, compromise; and now this family planner wants —God knows what—black and white, or white and black, shaded or plain?
This passage occurs early in the book. Raman reflects on how his work is unappreciated by his customers. He feels frustrated because he puts so much love and care into his job and cannot seem to get compensated for it. He senses the gap between why he entered into this business—love of the craft—and what it has ended up meaning—continual headaches and interpersonal problems. He feels limited by his customer's demands and unable to do quality work. This passage is important because it showcases Raman's dilemma and highlights the tension between his careful approach to his job and the irritating demands of his patrons.
They became self-conscious at being left alone and looked at each other in embarrassment. This sudden isolation seemed to place a moral burden on them both. For a moment Raman welcomed the opportunity, but actually felt nervous. He had had no notion how important the old cart-driver’s presence had been. They stood about rather uncertainly. A fear came over him that any move on his part was likely to be misunderstood. He said, "A nice breeze blowing."
This moment occurs as Daisy and Raman are traveling back to Malgudi. The ox pulling their cart suffers an injury and the cart driver goes off to see if he can get medical assistance. Daisy and Raman suddenly feel shy around one another. The scene demonstrates the romantic tension between the two of them, as they both feel a sense of anxiousness about being together with no one else present. Narayan draws attention to their nervousness, and Raman's humorously failed attempt at conversation, to show how palpable the feelings between them are.
The cartman got down from his seat and said, "Come, come. This won’t do. How can you get away from each other when God has put you in wedlock? Impossible. Where are your children? Quarrels and fights such as this are inevitable, and you should not make too much of it. Go back, get along. H’m, get in. You will both laugh at this when you have eaten in that coffee-house, we will reach it soon. How can you go apart and where? How long have you been married? Newlyweds?"
In this scene, the cartman mistakes Daisy and Raman for a married couple. He tells them that "quarrels" are inevitable and that they should just get settled. He is unaware that they are not even a couple. Later, Raman goes along with his incorrect assessment, much to Daisy's consternation. Their different reactions to his comments show their divergent feeling about the idea of marriage. For Raman, being together all the time sounds great. However, for Daisy this idea is frightening, as she knows she will lose her ability to work as soon as she is drawn into a domestic arrangement with a man, most especially if they have children, as the cartman suggests.
He ruminated on his present action. Verily like the moth rushing to the candle flame, never waiting for it to come to him, he said to himself. Now one understands why the moth is so impatient to scorch its wings. Assured destruction is better than a half-anticipated one, he thought. What daemon is driving me on in this manner to the police inspector? Even now not too late to turn back, the inspector has not seen me yet, he will as usual be busy writing.
In this scene, Raman notices a police officer calling to him. He becomes nervous, as he assumes he is about to be punished for harassing Daisy in the cart. He makes a comparison between himself and a moth burning off its wings to explain how he thinks it would be better to just be destroyed than to wait around for it to happen. He considers his predicament because he feels that he cannot live with the uncertainty of potential arrest and detention. This moment is played to comedic effect because he ends up being completely fine. He later finds that not only has Daisy not complained but she is actually happy to see him back in Malgudi.
"Better than getting lost along with me," she mumbled on. "'I love you,' 'I like you,' are words which can hardly be real. You have learnt them from novels and Hollywood films perhaps. When a man says 'I love you' and the woman repeats 'I love you—it sounds mechanical and unconvincing. Perhaps credible in Western society, but sounds silly in ours. People really in love would be struck dumb, I imagine."
In this moment, Daisy rebuts Raman's admission of love. She says that people often make these kinds of declarations falsely, simply repeating the words and phrases they hear in Hollywood films. She expresses a belief that real love is an overwhelming force that few people actually experience. Instead, in Raman's case and many others, most people merely parrot phrases they've heard elsewhere and can't even convincingly demonstrate feelings. This comment underlines Daisy's suspicions about love and romance as well as her cynicism about gender roles. She believes strongly that most people are just acting out parts from films and rather than showing genuine emotion.
"Love is the same in any society," he said, after all venturing to utter the term ‘love.’ If she was going to push him into the river for it, well, he’d face it. He said, "I agree with you. I don’t believe in the romanticism created by the literary man. It has conditioned people’s thinking and idiom and made people prattle like imbeciles in real life too." She laughed at this observation, and he felt pleased that he had after all made some mark.
Here, Raman responds to Daisy's comments. He says that he too doesn't believe in manufactured romanticism and thinks that people have been too swept up by movies and books. However, he says this in large part to attempt to woo her, showing that he does in fact believe in traditional romance. While Raman's intentions are basically good, this moment highlights how he adjusts many of his beliefs in order to impress Daisy. This creates friction down the line when it is revealed that he does actually want a traditional relationship that conforms to gender roles. He is merely making these modern-sounding comments to try to impress her. This early moment shows an essential instability in their relationship.
"At five o’clock in the evening the process was reversed and all the children converged on the house, ready to devour whatever was available in the kitchen. Once again we were all lined up and fed and washed and groomed and once again we scattered around the neighbourhood to play until it was time to be marshalled back home, to go through our evening prayers; facing the puja room, which was too small to accommodate the whole crowd, we recited holy verses in such a loud chorus that our elders could have no doubt that our voices reached the heavens! And we lined up for a night meal and then good night, sleeping on mats or carpets in various corners of the house with or without pillows, anywhere, and everywhere. All individuality was lost in this mass existence."
In this passage, Daisy reflects on her childhood. She talks about how she was corralled with all of her family members throughout the day and was given no opportunity to express herself. Her final comment about her "individuality" being erased in "this mass existence" highlights how stifling she found her upbringing. This moment is also key to the story in that it partially reveals why she feels so vehemently about family planning and overpopulation. Her own childhood provided a window into how this crowded family life, in notable contrast to Raman's solitary upbringing, causes children to feel forgotten and unheard.
Raman quickly diverted her talk; he did not want her to launch on a description again of how she had survived with him the train accident which claimed the lives of Raman’s parents long ago, while they were out on some journey, a flood having washed off the bridge at ... He had heard this many times, so often that he had no feeling for the reminiscence, he felt cold and indifferent about it, as if it were a summary of a story on a cinema handbill rather than an accident that involved his childhood and life. And so he said rather hurriedly, "Surely, you will come back whenever you feel like it."
This scene occurs before Raman's aunt leaves on her journey. She becomes emotional as she recounts how she took him in after his parents died. Raman's reaction is somewhat surprising. Rather than becoming emotional at the memory of his parents' death, he claims to feel nothing, as he is merely hearing the repetition of a story he has become extremely familiar with over the years. The story feels remote to him, and devoid of emotion, precisely because it has been told over and over again. He interrupts her to prevent having to hear it once again. This moment highlights how distant the memory of Raman's parents has become to him and how grief can be processed in surprising ways.
Daisy had laid down two conditions before accepting his proposal. One, that they should have no children, and two, if by mischance one was born she would give the child away and keep herself free to pursue her social work. Raman was not to object or modify this in any manner. She explained, "Long ago I broke away from the routine of a woman’s life. There are millions of women who go through it happily. I am not one of them. I have planned for myself a different kind of life. I have a well-defined purpose from which I will not swerve. I gave my word to the Reverend that would not change my ideas If you want to marry me, you must leave me to my own plans even when I am a wife. On any day you question why or how, I will leave you. It will be an unhappy thing for me, but I will leave you..."
Here, Daisy names the terms of agreement for her marriage to Raman. She plainly states that she will never have or raise children or accept any limits on her ability to work. Her comments show her awareness of how many women are silently conscripted into lives of extremely restricted means. While she loves Raman, she wants it to be plain to him that their relationship comes second to his work. This moment shows clearly why Daisy is unable to marry Raman, as she ultimately expects her to fulfill a very traditional, and limiting, role as a housewife.
Raman took out his bicycle. Waited till the Chevrolet turned around the fountain and disappeared in smoke in the direction of New Extension and on to the mountain road. He looked at the key in his hand. "To hell with it," he said, and slung it into the dry fountain—an act which somehow produced the great satisfaction of having his own way at last. He mounted his cycle and turned towards The Boardless—that solid, real world of sublime souls who minded their own business.”
This is the final paragraph of the novel. After Daisy leaves him, he hurls the house key he made for her into the fountain. He feels a sense of "satisfaction" about it, as it is the one thing he was allowed to do on his own terms. He then starts to bicycle over to The Boardless Hotel, disappearing into the anonymity of its routine. This moment is an unfortunate return to stasis for Raman. Having lost Daisy, he refocuses on his old routine of eating lunch at the hotel. He will then likely take up his signs and paint once again, in an effort to return to the realm of the "solid" and "real." This conclusion shows that Raman has learned little and is content with simply resuming his old life. He has no desire to try to better understand why Daisy felt concerned about being limited to the role of his wife.
