Character sketch of narayan
Answers
In “An Astrologer’s Day,” by R. K. Narayan, the astrologer is a calm, observant and deceptive character who we find at the end lives in fear every day of his life. This is true of his identity and his occupation. The astrologer makes his living deceiving people by making observations about their attitudes and behavior. If he has to twist the truth to make them believe what he wants them to--it is of no consequence. He sends them away as believers. He lives in fear, however, as we learn at the end of the story, that his past will come back to haunt him because the one person the astrologer cannot deceive is himself. We, as an audience, do not realize that his worst fear has come true until after the fact. This is the one instance in which honesty works better than twisted observations, and he convinces his mysterious visitor that the man he is seeking--the man who fought with him and left him for dead, has himself since died. The astrologer provided the man with vague details that are close enough to the truth that he believes the astrologer. This leaves the astrologer with a new emotion--one of safety, as he has observed that the driving force of revenge on the man who left him for dead has been eliminated, and the stranger will have no other need to ever venture so far from his home again. It is only after the astrologer gets home that we learn how really calm he is as he confesses to his wife that he was the man the stranger was looking for.
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