“It depended upon the circumstances and the types of people I was escorting.”
Raju explains in this quote how he goes about his duties as a guide with a large degree of dishonesty by reading the nature of the tourists and that of his own mood. He sweet-talks his way to fame as Railway Raju without much knowledge about history or art; all he knows is how to read a person and how much money they're willing to spend. His skill set serves him well, especially as a man coming from a low-income family who from a young age had to be the sole breadwinner of his family after his father’s death. He is a trickster and a dishonest tour guide who misinforms and misleads the tourists deliberately, which foreshadows his relationship with Rosie and his time as a fake holy man.
“What a darling. You are giving me a new lease on life.”
Rosie says this to Raju when they stay together in Room 28 behind Marco’s back, where she performs one of her dance pieces in front of Raju. She loved dancing but always had to run away from her true passion; having married Marco meant misery for her since he did not approve of her dancing. But in Raju she found an admirer who encouraged her enthusiasm, and under this admiration Rosie flourishes as a dancer and as a person. Ironically for Raju, as she comes into her own she becomes aware of how miserable Raju makes her and how immoral he truly is. She is finally able to extricate herself from the relationship and take out her own lease on life.
"I'm James J. Malone. I'm from California."
Malone is a very minor character but his intrusion in the story is notable in a meta-narrative way. Critic John Thieme writes that Malone could be a surrogate for potential American readers of the novel. The way Malone talks to Raju "blends ingenuousness and disingenuousness" and "possibly... involves a metaliterary anticipation of how he feels the novel may be read in the United States." He pretends to identify with Raju, a "secular man who finds himself the object of American interpretation and appropriation as a guru." Narayan, who wrote this novel while in America, may very well have been thinking this way.
"Velan, it's raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs-"
In this famous last line of the novel, Narayan leaves several things open to interpretation. First of all, does Raju actually know there is rain coming? Does God tell him? Or does he, in the haze of his fatigue and starvation, does he merely think God told him that? Or, in true Raju fashion, is he lying? Second, is Raju's "sagging down" evidence that he is exhausted, or that he died or is dying? And what does all this mean for the villagers? Will they be saved or will they consider to suffer? Will Raju's fame ever get him noticed by the people he once knew? Narayan is ambiguous on purpose, forcing readers to think deeply about Raju's conduct throughout the novel.
"He realized that he had no alternative: he must play the role that Velan had given him."
Raju vacillates between thinking that he has choices and feeling as if he is merely put into situations. Here he thinks that Velan gave him this situation and that he cannot leave, but in reality he can leave at any time. He simply doesn't want to. He has no other skills that he can use for work. He does not want to return to his family and people who knew his downturn in fortune. He cannot go back to Rosie because she will not have him. He likes being provided for without having to do anything (though he does acknowledge he has no privacy anymore), and, more importantly, the adulation and feeling of importance and authority. He really does have a choice here but he tells himself he does not because he does not want to take full responsibility for his actions.
Raju felt like an actor who had come on the stage, and, while the audience waited, had no lines to utter or gestures to make.
Though Raju thinks this as a swami, it could also pertain to many other parts of his life. He is an actor while a tour guide, as he only says what he thinks other people (who are paying him money) want him to say. He makes up things about the ruins and sites he shows people, caring little about what is true. He is all facade, all acting. This is the same when he finds the most effective way to appeal to Rosie—by complimenting her on her dancing. He maintains his "interest" in dancing as long as he gets to stay with Rosie and profit off of her. And, of course, he is all performance when he is a holy man. He realizes he has to look the part and sound the part so he can stay with the villagers as long as he wants.
The essence of one's sainthood seemed to lie in one's ability to utter mystifying statements.
Narayan gently pokes fun at religion here, for in this quote he suggests that if a person can say something that sounds profound, that sounds confusing, then this person will be perceived as a saint. A person doesn't have to be learned or trained or sincere; they merely have to sound correct. They can be an utter charlatan like Raju and people looking for comfort, succor, and/or counsel will buy it. However, Narayan isn't being cruelly dismissive of the people who flock to Raju. They are facing difficult times and any modicum of hope and peace a holy man can provide is welcome. Furthermore, Narayan doesn't let Raju get away unscathed with this behavior, for he will eventually have to make a sacrifice.
They were abstract verse about some theories of an ancient musical system or some such thing. I said, "If these were about dancing, I could perhaps have tried-" He looked up sharply. The word "dance" always stung him.
This line in Rosie's explanation to Raju of what happened between her and Marco carries a certain sting, for it is clear that her hope that he may understand her impulse to dance and approve of it as a career is misplaced. Marco cannot understand how for Rosie, dancing is her cave painting. It is her love, her creative expression that brings meaning to her life. Marco only sees it as a low, useless art and heaps insult upon insult on her. He reveals his selfishness and his patriarchal and controlling nature. Though he is right to feel aggrieved when he finds out Rosie has been having an affair, his conduct here regarding his wife's desire to dance and his entrenchment in the "dead, decaying" past makes the reader sympathetic to Rosie and aware that she is ultimately better off without him.
"She is a real snake woman, I tell you."
Raju's mother repeats this insult of Rosie to him numerous times. Not only does "snake" allude to her fascination with the cobra, but it also references her sinuous dancing and, more importantly, that ancient symbol of treachery and slipperiness. To Raju's mother, Rosie is a temptress and a vixen. She lures Raju away from his responsibilities and his family, and by doing so secures the family's ruin. This is both true and untrue, but what is sure is that she does not mean the comparison to a snake/serpent as a compliment. Interestingly, Rosie comes to embody the other symbolic aspect of the serpent—fertility and rebirth through the shedding of skin—by the end of the novel.
I liked her to be happy—but only in my company.
Raju's statements such as this one are brutally honest (since he is telling all of this to Velan) and absolutely indicative of his deep selfishness. He does not care about Rosie as an individual. For him, she is sex and, perhaps even more importantly, money and power. Raju wants to metaphorically keep her locked away from the world so she has to rely solely on him. He ignores her protestations of fatigue and unhappiness in his quest to make the maximum amount of money. He lies to her, manipulates her, and avoids difficult conversations so as to not be made accountable for anything. Unlike the tourists and the temple villagers, however, Rosie comes to a breaking point and dismisses Raju. She is too self-aware and capable to endure Raju any longer. He even admits this himself, saying "She would go from strength to strength. I knew, looking at the way she was going about her business, that she would manage -whether I was inside the bars or outside; whether her husband approved of it or not. Neither Marco nor I had any place in her life, which had its own sustaining vitality and which she herself had underestimated all along."
