The soul of religion and spirituality resides in faith. And the existing of faith is based on realisation. We believe in god, soul, unseen forces in Nature and there in mortality. We pay homage, offer prayers or worship then in our own wage. We reliaze somehow or other atleast in a pious moment the divine presence of the invisible forces. R. K. Narayan narrates his realisation of the immortality of the soul in his autobiographical novel The English Teacher. It is a detailed love story of Krishna and Susila. True love and its manifestation in life and also after death is the main theme of the novel. The conjugal life of Krishna and Susila was very happy and ideal but Susila dies of typhoid leaving Krishna in the ocean of sorrow. In course of time a moment comes in his life when he has ecstatic vision of his wife's vision. They talked as if she were alive. Krishna thinks it a moment of rare immutable joy - a moment for which one feels grateful to life and death. It cannot be underestimated simply as mere physical projection of Krishna's psychic ecstasy. R. K. Narayan reveals his life-felt experiences of divine existence through his novels with intention to inspire people to pay heed to their own such realisation and share others so that the sanctity of individual as well as the social life may be maintained. In today's world of materialism dominated by modern science and technology, faith in supra-human existence has been fast decreasing. Man is running after material glamour which often results into degradation of moral values. Spiritual bent of mind makes us morally strong. We should maintain a harmonious balance between physical and spiritual perceptions of life. Perhaps this is the message R. K. Narayan wants to convey through this novel.
Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, M.G.P.G. College, Fatehpur, U.P.
