The financial expert

Margayya is a complex and entrancing character with a flair for those fabulously involved minor financial transactions which are an integral part of Indian life. We first met him sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, advising the people of Malgudi how to extract loans from the Co-operative Bank. A brush with the Secretary of the Bank, and an accident in which his spoilt son Balu throws his account book down a drain, cut short his career as a financier; but after a series of amusing incidents Margayya grows rich and reverts to financial wizardy. Apart from the vigour of the narrative, what is remarkable about the book is the unselfconsious ease and humour with which R K Narayan conveys the flavour of Indian life.