ABSTRACT:
Indian Writing in English abounds in examples of the creation and reproduction of texts, and that in each period of its existence. R. K. Narayan, whose writing covers the period of almost fifty years, deals with the theme to a great extent and in numerous ways. The creators of texts in his novels include printers, poets, editors, a painter of signs and even an inventor-to-be of a story-writing machine. Mr Sampath - the Printer of Malgudi appears to be a novel particularly convenient for exploring the ways of creating and even re-creating texts, where these are inextricably bound to a power scheme. The structure of Mr Sampath falls into two parts: we will explore the character of the power relation between the two main heroes, Srinivas and Sampath, established in the first part as related to their respective and complementary-like creations of texts (by which, in fact, they contribute to the creation of one text). The power scheme becomes challenged and re-established in the second part, as directly related to the re-establishing also of the text(s)-(re-)creation structure. We will examine in which way and under what circumstances this happens, and what significance it has both for the personalities of the characters and for the issue of the novel. Finally, this analysis of ours reveals that Mr Sampath, this text created by Narayan, can in fact be considered a(nother) metaphoric re-creation of the text of the modern Indian history.
