Point of View

A nameless narrator describes his life and experiences in the first person. However, unlike most first-person narrators, this man reveals very little about himself. Rather, the reader gets to know this character through what he does not say. He seems to have no life story, no main event that made him choose to live a retired life on the banks of the Narmada River. In contrast, the people the narrator meets and the stories he hears reveal the tumultuous nature of truly living. Without exception, the narrator meets or hears tales of extraordinary people, people who have made enormous sacrifices for love or who have been treated cruelly by life. The narrator's very lack of story, however, makes him an everyman. The readers eavesdropping in on the stories told by the exceptional relate more to the man who seems so ordinary. A narrator without a narrative...