SONIA COLLEGE OF
EDUCATION
DHARWAD – 580002
2024 – 2025
NAME:Poornima M Narasappanavar
REG NO: U02CA24E0036
CLASS: B.Ed 1st Sem
SUBJECT: English
TOPIC: An Astrologer’s Day
AN ASTROLOGER’S DAY
-R.K. Narayan
About the Author
R. K. Narayan (10 October 1906 – 13 May
2001), (shortened form for Rasipuram
Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami) is an Indian
author whose works of fiction include a series of
books about people and their interactions in an
imagined town called Malgudi. He is credited with
bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the
world, and is regarded as one of India’s greatest
novelists Narayan’s works also include The
Financial Expert, hailed as one of the most original
works of 1951. His The Guide won the Sahitya
Akademi Award.
In a writing career that spanned over sixty years,
Narayan received many awards and honours. These
include the AC Benson Medal from the Royal
Society of Literature and the Padma Vibhushan,
India’s second-highest civilian award.
PROSE
AN ASTROLOGER’S DAY
1. Punctually at midday he opened his bag and spread out
his professional equipment, which consisted of a dozen
cowry shells, a square piece of cloth with obscure mystic
charts on it, a notebook, and a bundle of palmyra writing.
His forehead was resplendent with sacred ash and
vermilion, and his eyes sparkled with a sharp, abnormal
gleam which was really an outcome of a continual
searching look for customers, but which his simple clients
took to be a prophetic light and felt comforted. The power
of his eyes was considerably enhanced by their position
placed as they were between the painted forehead and the
dark whiskers which streamed down his cheeks: even a
half-wit's eyes would sparkle in such a setting. To crown
the effect he wound a saffron-coloured turban round his
head. This colour scheme never failed. People were
attracted to him as bees are attracted to cosmos or dahlia
stalks. He sat under the boughs of a spreading tamarind
tree which flanked a path running through the town hall
park. It was a remarkable place in many ways: a surging
crowd was always moving up and down this narrow road
morning till night. A variety of trades and occupations was
represented all along its way: medicine sellers, sellers of
stolen hardware and junk, magicians, and above all, an
auctioneer of cheap cloth, who created enough din all day
to attract the whole town. Next to him in vociferousness
came a vendor of fried groundnut, who gave his ware a
fancy name each day, calling it "Bombay Ice Cream" one day
and on the next "Delhi Almond," and on the third "Raja's
Delicacy, and so on and so forth and people flocked to him. A
considerable portion of this crowd dallied before the astrologer
too. The astrologer transacted his business by the light of a
flare which crackled and smoked up above the groundnut heap
nearby. Half the enchantment of the place was due to the fact
that it did not have the benefit of municipal lighting. The place
was lit up by shop lights. One or two had hissing gaslights,
some had naked flares stuck on poles, some were lit up by old
cycle lamps, and one or two, like the astrologer's, managed
without lights of their own. It was a bewildering criss-cross of
light rays and moving shadows. This suited the astrologer very
well, for the simple reason that he had not in the least intended
to be an astrologer when he began life and he knew no more of
what was going to happen to others than he knew what was
going to happen to himself next minute. He was as much a
stranger to the stars as were his innocent customers. Yet he
said things which pleased and astonished everyone; that was
more a matter of study, practice and shrewd guesswork. All the
same, it was as much an honest man's labour as any other, and
he deserved the wages he carried home at the end of the day.
2. He had left his village without any previous thought or plan.
If he had continued there, he would have carried on the work
of his forefathers namely, tilling the land, living, marrying, and
ripening in his cornfield and ancestral home. But that was not
to be. He had to leave home without telling anyone and he
could not rest till he left it behind a couple of hundred miles.
To a villager, it is a great deal, as if an ocean flowed between.
