Perspective

Gods, Demons and Others was written by R.K. Narayan, who recorded these stories, preserved mainly in the oral tradition, as spoken by The Story Teller. The Story Teller is a figurehead of the rural Indian community, who would act as a public servant and even a priest in some situations. Every rural village within the culture would have a storyteller. It would be essential to pass these stories along, down through the generations, as they basically outlined the road map that the villagers needed to follow in order to live a prudent and austere life. The stories are told from a third person, past tense perspective, as they would be stories of occurrences that happened to mythical characters who lived thousands of years ago. Narayan selected certain stories to include within this text after listening to several different story tellers, and warns in the preface that they...