The Painter Of Signs- R K Narayan (Aseel 5019)

"The Painter Of Signs" is a beautiful book by R K Narayan. R K Narayanan is one of the  Indian writers who wrote beautiful short stories and novels potraying the Indian people. Most of  his stories are based in an imaginary town Malgudi which is situated in South India.  Narayan's short stories have been compared with those of Guy De Maupassant because of his ability to compress a narrative. Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters.

Raman,the painter of signs is a part of the Malgudi town, an imaginary place created by R K Narayan which portraits a typical South-Indian village. He lives with his conservative old aunt.

His life changes when Daisy set set afoot on the Malgudi for conducting birth control campagins in the villages. She enters into contract with Raman for creating  sign boards for her office . Together they travel across Malgudi. Raman travels with Daisy for a 3 day campaign Around The villages for population control messages.  Raman gets attracted by her beauty and eventually falls in love with her.

The story goes on to outline Daisy's complicated past and her eventual admission of a mutual attraction for Raman. The two start spending the nights together, and decide to get married in the "Gandharva" style, the simplest form of marital union. Daisy seems to be unaffected by the relationship though, and tells Raman that she will not change her last name, or house-keep for him

His aunt was not convinced by the fact that he decided to marry out of the cast  ask them and arrange a one way trip to Banaras so that she could spend the  rest of her  life in there. On the day when Daisy was expected to move into his house in Ellaman Street , she changed her mind  realising the that the marriage life would not suit her and it would  put an her independent life.  She decides to leave Malgudi for a three-year family planning initiative in villages all over India.

Like any other of the RK Narayan stories "the painter of signs" is also notable for its simple language. It is a bittersweet novel where at the endthe protagonist is left with nothing but solitude where his wife as well as his aunt leaves him. The story indirectly deals with the characters of women ,both traditional as well as modern and shows  in simple terms the complexity of human relationships and about love and affection.