Swami and Friends

It is August of 1930, and a revolutionary atmosphere pervades the streets of Malgudi after the recent arrest of Indian politician Gauri Sankar by the British authorities. On this day, two thousand Malgudi citizens have gathered on the bank of the Sarayu River to protest the arrest. A local man stands on a wooden platform and shouts revolutionary statements meant to inflame the emotions of the amassed crowd.

The man declares that they have all become slaves under British rule, and that their culture and history is glorious in comparison to their British overlords, and he reminds them that they live in a country as big as the entire continent of Europe combined. He claims to the crowd that if every Indian spit on England, then the nation would quickly drown.

The man lectures well into the evening, and Swaminathan and Mani become completely entranced by his eloquence though they hardly understand his remarks. They are overcome by the fervor of the crowd, and Mani admonishes Swaminathan for wearing a British-derived Lancashire coat. Later a stranger berates Swaminathan for wearing a foreign cap, and thus the boy promptly throws it into a nearby fire.

As Swaminathan awakes the next day, he dreadfully realizes that he has no cap to wear to school that day even though a cap is a mandatory part of the dress code. Swaminathan heads to school regardless, and as he approaches the building a stranger informs him that there is no school today as “one of the greatest sons of the motherland has been sent to gaol.”

When Swaminathan arrives at the school, he sees that a large crowd has amassed in front of the building and that the school administrators are standing about with concerned faces. They attempt to get the school children to go to class, but no one budges. After several minutes, the crowd begins throwing rocks at the windows of the school. Swaminathan picks up a rock and tosses it through the glass window of the headmaster’s office.

Someone notifies the crowd that the local high school is still operating, so the frenzied crowd rapidly descends upon the other school. The high school is quickly ransacked, and several people are dragged out of the building. Swaminathan, still swept up in the emotion of the moment chases a group of young and frightened school children, ripping off one of their caps and stomping it into the ground.

After ransacking the high school, the maddened crowd descend upon Malgudi’s Market Road singing songs and screaming chants. They are halted by Rajam’s father and a group of fifty constables. He gives the crowd five minutes to disperse, and after a five minute standoff, the police storm the crowd, and many people are injured in the chaotic stampede that follows.

The next day, Swaminathan’s father reviews the events of the previous day to the boy’s mother, explaining how fifty people were injured and one or two were killed during the stampede. He calls Rajam’s father “a butcher,” and seeing his son’s torn cap, demands to know whether he was involved. Swaminathan lies, denying his involvement and claiming that the cap was torn to shreds because it was foreign.

At class the next day, the headmaster berates the schoolboys for their behavior the previous day. He demands individual explanations from each boy that missed. As each boy gives false accounts of their absence, the headmaster counters with punishment. When he arrives at Swaminathan, the boy nervously speaks in broken sentences, infuriating the headmaster. After stating that his assistant saw Swaminathan shatter his office windows, he begins to cane the boy. The chapter ends with Swaminathan screaming “I don’t care for your dirty school” and fleeing the scene for home. 

It is six weeks after the events of chapter twelve, and the revolutionary strife within Malgudi seems to have temporarily blown over. Swaminathan has been forced to transfer to a different school, the Board High School, and Rajam pays him a visit to forgive his participation in the unruly crowd. Swaminathan realizes that he should never have participated in the mob scene. Now attending different schools, the two boys seek something to maintain their connection. They decide to create a cricket team, settling on the name, M.C.C., or the Malgudi Cricket Club. Without money for proper equipment, the boys improvise, using charcoal to create a wicket, and replacing the traditional cricket balls with tennis balls, the cricket bats with wooden planks. With this improvised gear, the boys play their inaugural game, and when Swaminathan proves to be a skilled bowler, they give him the ceremonial title of “Tate.”

The chapter opens with Swaminathan wishing he had never changed schools, as his workload seems to have increased exponentially. He is always late to class, and to the M.C.C. practice that occurs after school. Regardless, he is still the “Tate” of his club, which has made him one of the most valued players on the team.

One day after school, Swaminathan’s grandmother asks to speak with him. She offers him 3 paise if he will go fetch a lemon for her, but the boy tells her to do it herself as he has to make it to practice. Later that night after his cricket session was over, Swaminathan felt bad about how he treated his grandmother and rushes home. He fears that she might disown him, but he finds her fine and she tells him that his mother already had a dozen lemons at the house.

Swaminathan tries to explain to her that he is the “Tate” of his team, named so after one of the greatest cricket players of all time, but Swaminathan’s grandmother has no idea what he is talking about, and her inability to recognize the significance of his nickname frustrates him. His disappointment is softened when Swaminathan’s father approaches tenderly holding his baby boy; it is an image of serene and loving fatherhood, and a vast improvement over his father’s tense and irritable state of the previous chapters.

Later, Rajam berates Swaminathan for missing the past several B.C.C. practices. Swaminathan defends himself, claiming he has been swamped with schoolwork. Rajam devises a plan to go speak to the headmaster, seeking his permission for Swaminathan’s early dismissal, a plan that Swaminathan greets with considerable skepticism. The next day, Rajam and Swaminathan meet with the headmaster, and Rajam implores him to excuse Swaminathan, the teams’ best bowler, from school early so he can attend M.C.C. practices. Incredulous, the headmaster refuses the request and orders them out of his office. 

M.C.C. challenges the Young Men’s Union, or Y.M.U., to a friendly match. After debating the match conditions, they schedule the contest in two weeks’ time. Rajam is concerned that Swaminathan is unprepared for the match, so he implores him to practice as much as he can before the game.

A week later, Swaminathan lies his way out of attending drill and goes to practice with his team. They are overjoyed to see him arriving early for practice. Later, he visits a local doctor to get a medical exemption from evening classes. The doctor cannot give it, but he says the he will talk to the boy’s headmaster. The next day, the headmaster approaches Swaminathan in class and berates him for his mischievousness. He strikes the boy with his cane, but Swaminathan grabs the stick and throws it out of a nearby window. He quickly flees from the school and determines to run away.

Swaminathan decides to say goodbye to Mani and Rajam before he leaves Malgudi for good. He bribes a teacher’s assistant at Rajam’s school to excuse the boy from class in order to speak to him. Rajam is surprised to see him, and Swaminathan explains the ordeal that just occurred with his own headmaster. Swaminathan decides against telling Rajam that he is running away, so their conversation drifts toward the impending match against Y.M.U.

Swaminathan asks if the M.C.C. even needs him, and Rajam explains that they absolutely need him and that he is the “best bowler we have.” Furthermore, Rajam says that he will commit suicide if M.C.C. loses their match. He tells Swaminathan that he must return to class, and the chapter closes with Rajam admonishing Swaminathan to be at practice early since he is no longer obligated to attend school.