Chandran leaves Malgudi for Madras with the intention of going to his uncle’s house. Next morning the train reaches Madras Egmore Station. Chandran’s uncle’s son has come to the station to receive him. Chandran avoids his notice. He quickly gets down from the train and engages a porter to carry his luggage and moves out of the station without attracting the notice of his uncle’s son. Once outside the station, Chandran engages a jutka and drives to a hotel opposite to the People’s Park.
image source: bookscomefirst.files.wordpress.com
The hotel manager allots Chandran Room Number Three, upstairs and gives him the key after receiving a day’s rent in advance. After watching the busy traffic below the hotel for some time, Chandran sits on his bedstead. He hears somebody humming a tune in the next room. The humming rises and falls. [Chandran later on learns the source of the humming is one Kailas occupying the room next to his in the hotel.]
ADVERTISEMENTS:
A stranger by name Kailas thrusts his friendship on Chandran at the hotel:
Chandran notices a stranger, carrying a towel and a soap box, standing in the door way. He is a dark person with a whisker. He asks Chandran if he does not come to bathe. Chandran tells him that he will bathe later. The stranger tells Chandran that he will not have water in the tap after nine. So he asks Chandran to come and he will show him the bathroom. He tells Chandran that his name is Kailas. From that moment onward Kailas takes charge of Chandran. He acts as his guide and adviser.
Chandran has a taste of the rugged hospitality of Kailas and his way of life:
Chandran and Kailas go out together after breakfast. Chandran does not have the courage to oppose the other in anything. Kailas is aggressively hospitable. He does not let Chandran make any amendment of his suggestions. He takes Chandran out and whirls about in all sorts of tramcars and buses all day.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
They have their tiffin in as many as four hotels before the evening. Kailas pays for everything and talks nonstop. Chandran learns that Kailas has married two wives and loves both of them. Years ago Kailas had made plenty of money in Malaya, and has now settled down in his old village, which is about a night’s journey from Madras. He comes to Madras now and then to have a good time. He has brought with him two hundred rupees.
He will stay in Madras until that is spent. Then he will return to his village and sleep between his two wives for the next three months, and then again come to Madras. Kailas tells Chandran that he is fifty one and has his hair black yet. He is of sound health and hopes to lead a life of ease and pleasure for another twenty years at least.
He does not bother what happens afterwards. He feels that a man must spend forty years in making money and forty years in spending it. By that evening Chandran feels very exhausted. He tells Kailas that he is s a student in Tanjore and has come to Madras on a holiday tour.
Kailas takes Chandran to ‘Hotel Merten’ and plies himself with gin and whisky while admiring Chandran’s promise to his mother not to touch alcohol:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
At about five in the evening, Kailas takes Chandran to ‘Hotel Merten’. He asks Chandran to have a glass of beer with him. Chandran tells him that he does not drink any sort of alcohol. Then Kailas orders a glass of lime juice for Chandran and a gin and soda for him.
He asks Chandran to have at least a little port or something. Chandran asks Kailas to excuse him for he has made a vow to his mother never to touch alcohol in his life. This affects Kailas deeply. He remains solemn for a moment and says that Chandran should not drink alcohol if he had promised to his mother not to touch it. One must respect the word given to one’s mother. Kailas too was a good son to his mother.
The moment she died, he has changed. Where she alive, Kailas would have studied in college and become a respectable person. Chandran could not have found him there. Kailas goes on a drinking spree with gin following whisky and whisky following gin till about eight-thirty in the evening.
After drowning himself with his mother-sentiments, Kailas comes out of “Hotel Merten” and asks Chandran to hire a taxi for them:
After drowning himself with his mother-sentiments, Kailas comes out of “Hotel Merten” and asks Chandran to hire a taxi for them. Chandran is afraid to cross the busy road but then a passer-by help Chandran to find a taxi. Chandran and Kailas got into it. Kailas asks the taxi driver if he knew Kokilam’s house in Mint Street. The taxi driver understands that drunken Kailas wants to go to the house of a prostitute in Mint Street. So he tells Kailas that he knows her house pretty well.
But he stops the taxi in front of some other prostitute’s house. Kailas pays the taxi driver liberally and he drives away. Then Kailas finds that it is not Kokilam’s house. He asks somebody at the door if it is Kokilam’s house. But a middle-aged prostitute welcomes him saying that a name does not at all matter. Kailas is greatly pleased at this. He suddenly asks Chandran if he has taken down the number of the taxi. Chandran answers him in the negative.
Chandran flees form Kailas and decides to become a sanyasi:
Chandran used this as an excuse to slip from Kailas and tells him that he will go out and note it down. He flees from Mint Street. He has escaped from Kailas. This is the first time that he has been so close to a man in drink; this is the first time he has stood at the doorstep of a prostitute’s house. He is much terrified at this horrible experience.
After leaving several streets behind, he feels tired and sits down on a pavement. He thinks about his home and wishes that he would be back there by taking some train. But the memory of Malathi, horoscopes, astrologers, the piper piping Kalyani raga, his unsympathetic mother will all torment him if he returns to Malgudi. So he makes up his mind never to return to Malgudi.
He is now like a sanyasi. No, he will become one by shaving his head and wearing ochre clothes. He has finished with the gamble of life. Enough is enough. He gets up and wanders a little in search of his hotel. Then he realizes that it is a futile search. He is not going to achieve anything by it. He thinks why he, a sanyasi should bother about his possessions like bag and other things. He thinks his luggage will require for the payment to be made to the hotel.
The significance of Kailas episode in the novel:
Chandran is befriended by one Kailas, an epicure and a true follower of Omar Kayyam at that. Narayan depicts the character of Kailas in a very realistic and engaging manner. All of a sudden Chandran is exposed to a new kind of life with strangers like Kailas who lead him by the nose.
But fortunately, the good brought up of his parents help Chandran not to fall a prey to temptation and taste the pleasure of liquor and women as Kailas does. Kailas is frank and forthright in expressing his opinion. Narayan is highly ironical about Kailas’s mother-sentiment. He says that he was a good son as long as his mother was alive.
But after his death, he fell into evil ways. If she had been alive, he would have been to a college and become a very responsible person and Chandran could not have met him in a hotel like that. Narayan does not miss to point out how the taxi driver befools the drunken Kailas by landing him in the house of some other prostitute in Mint Street instead of the house of Kokilam. Again Narayan is highly ironical about the middle-aged prostitute who asks Kailas ‘what is there in a name?’ when he asks her if it is Kokilam’s house.
Chandran who is exposed to the strange and outrageous ways of Kailas takes the earliest opportunity to flee from him. He wants to return immediately to his home town. But then he cannot stand the bitter memories of the past when he returns there. So he decides to leave Malgudi for good. He wants to become a sanyasi without any attachment or so.
The character of Kailas adds colour to the plot of the novel. He is a lover of life for its sensual pleasures. He is aggressively hospitable and a lover of light-hearted company. He does not look into the moral aspects of making Chandran share a glass of gin or whisky or making him accompany to the house of a prostitute to taste the pleasure of sex. He believes in enjoying life to the lees. He is a contrast to Chandran who wants to lead a disciplined life by honouring his promise to his mother.
Narayan depicts the character of Kailas in a very realistic and engaging manner. All of a sudden chandran is exposed (o a new kllid strangers like Kailas who lead him by the nose. But fortunately, the good brought up of his parents help Chandran not to fall a prey to temptation and taste the pleasure of liquor and women as Kailas does. Kailas is frank and forthright in expressing his opinion. Narayan is highly ironical about Kailas’s mother-sentiment.
He says that he was a good son as long as his mother was alive. But after his death, he fell into evil ways. If she had been alive, he would have been to a college and become a very responsible person and Chandran could not have met him in a hotel like that. Narayan does not miss to point out how the taxi driver befools the drunken Kailas by landing him in the house of some other prostitute in Mint Street instead of the house of Kokilam. Again Narayan is highly ironical about the middle- aged prostitute who asks Kailas ‘what is there in a name?’ when he asks her if it is Kokilam’s house. Chandran who is exposed to the strange and outrageous ways of Kailas takes the earliest opportunity to flee from him.
He wants to return immediately to his home town. But then he cannot stand the bitter memories of the past when he returns there. So he decides to leave Malgudi for good. He wants to become a sanyasi without any attachment or so.
The character of Kailas adds colour to the plot of the novel. He is a lover of life for its sensual pleasures. He is aggressively hospitable and a lover of light-hearted company. He does not look into the moral aspects of making Chandran share a glass of gin or whisky or making him accompany to the house of a prostitute to taste the pleasure of sex. He believes in enjoying life to the lees. He is a contrast to Chandran who wants to lead a disciplined life by honouring his promise to his mother.