A Horse And Two Goats By R.K.Narayan ICSE 10

1. About the Author: R.K.Narya
2. About the Story: "A Horse And Two Goats"
3. Plot Of Story: "A Horse And Two Goats"
4. Theme: "A Horse And Two Goats"
5. HighlightsA Horse And Two Goats"
6. Tittle of "A Horse And Two Goats"

About the Author

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001), commonly known as R. K. Narayan, was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

R.K.Narayan's mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan's first four books including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. The fictional town of Malgudi was first introduced in Swami and Friends. Narayan's The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951 and Sahitya Academy Award winner The Guide was adapted for film (winning a Filmfare Award for Best Film) and for Broadway.\Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters. He has been compared to William Faulkner who also created a similar fictional town and likewise explored with humour and compassion the energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories have been compared with those of Guy de Maupassant because of his ability to compress a narrative.

In a career that spanned over sixty years Narayan received many awards and honours including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third highest civilian awards, and in 1994 the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour of India's national academy of letters. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament.

About The Story A Horse And Two Goats

First published in Madras,India, in the newspaper,'The Hindu' in1960, "A Horse and Two Goats" did not achieve wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R.K Narayan's seventh collection of short stories, 'A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories'. It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in 'Under the Banyan Tree', Narayan's tenth best-selling collection.By this time Naryan was well established established as one of the most prominet indian authors writing in English in the twentieth century. The story presents a comic dialogue between Muni,a poor Tamil-Speaking villager,and a wealthy English-speaking businessman from New York.They are engaged in a conversation in which neither can understand the other's language.With gentle humor, Naryan explores the conflicts between rich and poor, and between Indian and Western Culture.

Naryan is best known for his fourteen novels,many of which take place in the fictional town of Malgudi.Many of the stories in his thirteen short story collection also take place in Malgudi,but "A Horse and Two Goats" does not. This accounts of the fact that the story has attracted very little critical commentary;however,all of the attention it has drawn has been positive.The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan's dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogue,but it is not considered one of his greatest works.

Plot Of A Horse And Two Goats

1. Muni is a poor resident of Kritam,one of the thousands of inconspicuous villages situated in the Holy land of India. Muni was once proud owner of a large flock of sheep and goats, but lost most of his riches,and now the desolate owner of just two goats.He and his wife are in the last stage of their lives.
2. Despite his poor life, Muni is a dreamer and an avid food lover. Away from the prying eyes of villagers, he spends most of his time idling near the rocky highways, where his usual seat is the pedestal of a large clay horse.
3. One day, as he was sitting in his favourite place, an American comes to him to inquire about gas. As muni knows just two words of English, Yes and No, he finds it difficult to satisfy the queer red man.
4. The American is smitten with the chaste Tamil.
5. The American notices the beautiful clay horse, is impressed with the unparalleled art, and makes an offer to Muni to buy the horse at an exorbitant price. As Muni sits on the platform nonchalantly, he has mistakenly identified him as the owner of the horse.
6. The American is able to buy the horse by giving a hundred rupee note to Muni, while muni thinks that the stupid foreigner has paid him too much for two paltry goat and goes home happily,
7. His wife thinks he has stolen the money and is angry.

Highlights Of Speech/Or Summary

"A Horse and Two Goats" is set in Kritam, "probably the tiniest" of India's 700,000 villages. It opens with a clear picture of poverty in which the protagonist Muni lives. Of the thirty house in the village,only one,the Big House,is made of brick. The others,including Muni's are made of"bamboo thatch, straw, mud, and other unspecified materials." There was no running water and no electricity, and Muni;s wife cooked their typical breakfast of a handful of millet flour" over a fire in mud pot. Muni had shaken down six drumsticks from the drumstick tree growing in front of his house, and asked his wife to prepare them for him in a sauce. She agreed, provide he could get the other ingredients, none of which they had in the hose: rice, dal (lentils), spices, oil and a potato.

Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. There was a time when he considered himself prosperous as then he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead out to graze every day. But life had not been kind to hime or to his flocks: year of drought, a great famine, and an epidemic had taken their toll. as muni belonged to a low caste he was never permitted to go to school or to learn a trade. Presently he was left with two goats, too scrawny to sell or to eat. He and his wife had no children to help them in their old age. so their only income was from the odd jobs his wife occasionally took on at the Big House. Muni had exhausted his credit at every shop in town, and so when he asked a local shopkeeper to give him the items when his wife required to cook the drumsticks he was sent away humiliated.

Muni's wife sent him back with the goats saying,"Fast till the evening." Muni took the goats to their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by.The statue is made of weather-beaten clay and had stood in the same spot for all of Muni's seventy or more years.

As muni watched the road and waited for the appropriate time to return home, a yellow station wagon came down the road and pulled over next to him.A red-faced American man dressed in khaki clothing got out and asked Muni where to find the nearest gas station . He noticed the statue, which he found "marvelous." Muni's first impulse was to ran away, assuming from the khaki clothes that the foreigner was a policeman or a soldier.The two began to converse -if "conversation" can be used to describe what languages, neither understanding the other. "Namaste! How do you do?" the American said in greeting, using his only Indian word. Muni responded with the only English he knew: "Yes,No."

The American, a businessman from New York City,lighted a cigarette and offered one to Muni,who knew about cigarettes but had never had one before. He offered Muni his business card, but Muni feared it to be a warrant of some kind. Muni launched into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man was investigating, and the American asked questions about the horse statue which he wanted to buy. He told muni about a bad day at work, when he was forced to work for four hours without elevators or electricity, and seemed completely unaware that Muni lived that way every day. By now he was convinced that Muni was the owner of the statue, which he was determined to buy.

The two talked back and forth,each about his own life Muni remembered his father and grandfather telling about the statue and the ancient story it depicted, and tried to explain to the American how old it was. "I get a kick out of every word you utter," the American replied. Muni reminisced about his difficult and improvised childhood working in the fields, and american laughed heartily. Muni explained about the statue: "This is our guardian.... At the end of kali Yuga,this world and all worlds will be destroyed, and the Redeemer will come in the shape of horse." The American replied,"I assure this will have the best house in U.S.A.I"ll push away the bookcase....The TV may have to be shifted....I don't see how that can interfere with the party- we'll stand around him and have our drinks." It is clear that even if the two could understand each other's words,they could not understand each other's words.

Finally, the American pushes one hundred rupees into Muni's hand- twenty times muni's debt with the shopkeeper. He considers that he has bought the horse, and Muni believes he had just sold his goats. Muni ran home to present the money to his wife, while the American flagged down the truck got help in breaking the horse off its pedestal, and drove with its purchase. Muni's wife did not believe her husband's story about where the money came from, and her suspicions only increased when the goats found their way home. The story ends with her shrieking at him, and Muni appears to be much better off than he was at the start

Title Of  A Horse and Two Goats

The title is very apt as the whole story revolves around the statue of the horse and two goats. Muni grazes his goats at a grassy spot near the highway and sits under the shade of the statue. An American stops by and wants to purchase the statue of horse. Muni cannot understand the American and thinks he wants to buy his goats. The American thrusts hundred rupees into Muni's hands, the two men leave the place where they met, each taking away something of value. The comic characters of Muni and the American, could be identified with the roles of the "two goats" in the title.

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