Iswaran the Storyteller

Iswaran is a tremendous asset to Mahendra in several ways. First, he is a tireless and devoted worker — by the time Mahendra wakes up each morning, all chores are already done: cooking, shopping, and cleaning. Second, he is an excellent cook who can produce delicious meals even at the most remote and inconvenient postings, improvising ingredients from the local area. Third, and most importantly, he is a brilliant storyteller whose evening narrations provide Mahendra's only real entertainment at isolated worksites. He transforms dull, lonely evenings into vivid, engaging experiences. Iswaran seemed to more than make up for the absence of a television. Without him, Mahendra's nomadic life would be practically difficult and deeply lonely. Iswaran is companion, cook, and entertainer all in one — a rare and invaluable find.

Iswaran is a natural storyteller who uses several techniques to create and sustain suspense. He builds his stories slowly — setting the scene carefully without rushing to the dramatic parts. He uses vivid, sensory descriptions that put the listener right inside the events. He modulates his voice skilfully — dropping to a whisper for frightening moments and raising it with excitement for dramatic ones. He uses gestures and facial expressions to reinforce his words. Most importantly, he holds back the most crucial detail until exactly the right moment — much like a well-crafted serial drama. He is deeply influenced by the Tamil serial dramas he has watched and models his narrations on their structure: building tension, introducing complications, and delivering a perfectly timed climax. Mahendra, however rational, is completely in his grip by the end of each story.

Iswaran begins the elephant story with a vivid, dramatic account of a rogue tusker that escaped from a timber yard and went on a rampage through a town — smashing everything in its path while terrified townspeople fled. He describes the destruction slowly and graphically, making Mahendra imagine the chaos vividly. Then he introduces the climax: a small schoolboy — himself — who stepped forward when all adults had fled. He recalls a technique he had read in a book about elephant management, approached the maddened elephant, and delivered a precise blow with a cane to the elephant's third toenail. The elephant swayed and fell unconscious. This absurd yet compelling climax catches Mahendra completely off guard. He has been so engrossed in the build-up that he finds himself asking “Then what happened?” — a sure sign that Iswaran's suspense technique has worked perfectly on even a rational, sceptical listener.

Mahendra is a rational man who does not believe in ghosts. But Iswaran's description of the hideous female ghost — short, with matted hair, a shrivelled face, and a foetus in her arms, wandering the burial ground on full moon nights — is so vivid, so detailed, and so earnestly narrated that it lodges itself in Mahendra's imagination against his will. He tells Iswaran to stop, but the damage is done: the image is firmly planted in his mind. When he goes to bed, he tries to dismiss it but cannot fully do so. The story has colonised his imagination. He feels uncomfortable because his rational defences have been breached by the sheer power of narrative — something he finds deeply unsettling precisely because he prides himself on reason and not on superstition.

On a full moon night, unable to sleep, Mahendra hears a low moaning sound outside his window. Despite telling himself firmly it is just an animal or the wind, he goes to the window — and sees a dark, squat, shadowy figure in the moonlight that appears to be holding something. For a terrifying moment, he is convinced he is seeing the ghost Iswaran described. He stumbles back to bed, shaken and sleepless. In the morning, when he describes this to Iswaran, Iswaran calmly confirms it was indeed the ghost. Mahendra, who has always been rational and practical, is deeply disturbed — not only by what he thinks he saw, but by the fact that a story told by his cook has had such a powerful effect on his mind and senses. He immediately applies for a transfer to get away from the site. In effect, Iswaran's storytelling has driven him out of his own posting.

Iswaran is one of the most charming characters in the NCERT Class 9 reader — defined by a remarkable combination of qualities. He is a loyal and devoted servant: he has followed Mahendra for years to remote postings without complaint, completed all chores efficiently before his employer wakes, and cooked excellent meals in difficult conditions. He is hardworking, resourceful, and self-sufficient. But his greatest quality is his extraordinary gift for storytelling. He narrates with technique, timing, vivid detail, and dramatic flair — inspired by Tamil serial dramas he has absorbed. His stories range from comic and fantastic — subduing a tusker as a schoolboy — to genuinely frightening — the ghost on the full moon night. Whether he truly believes in the ghost or is a consummate performer is left ambiguous, adding depth to his character. He is, above all, a reminder that imagination and the art of storytelling are among the most powerful human gifts, capable of transforming even the dullest surroundings.

R.K. Laxman — whose career was built on gentle comic observation — brings his signature humour to this story in several ways. The elephant episode is inherently comic: the idea of a small schoolboy subduing a maddened tusker with a cane jab to the toenail is so absurd that the reader smiles even as Mahendra is drawn in. The portrait of Mahendra — a self-declared rational man who dismisses all superstition — being slowly undone by a cook's stories is comic irony of the first order. The description of Iswaran modelling his narrations on Tamil serial dramas (with dramatic pauses and cliff-hangers) is a gentle satire of melodrama. And the ending — Mahendra packing up and applying for a transfer because of a ghost story told by his own cook — is both funny and quietly humbling. Laxman's humour is never cruel; it is warm, observant, and rooted in affection for the quirks of human nature.

The full moon night is the story's climactic setting, and it operates on several levels. First, it is narratively prepared: Iswaran specifically tells Mahendra that the ghost appears on full moon nights. This seeds the image in Mahendra's imagination. Second, the full moon provides just enough light for Mahendra to see a shape outside his window — not so dark that he sees nothing, not bright enough for absolute clarity. This ambiguity is crucial: we never know whether what he saw was a ghost, a person, an animal, or a product of his primed imagination. Third, full moon nights have long been associated in Indian tradition and folklore with supernatural activity — Iswaran's choice of this setting draws on deep cultural resonance. The full moon night thus serves as both a setting and a symbol: the moment when the line between Iswaran's story and Mahendra's reality disappears entirely.

Mahendra genuinely believes in his own rationalism — he dismisses Iswaran's ghost stories, insists there are no such things as ghosts, and makes a conscious effort not to be affected. In this sense, he is sincere. But the story reveals that rationalism is more fragile than those who hold it tend to believe. Over many evenings, Iswaran's detailed, vivid ghost story plants an image so deeply in Mahendra's mind that it shapes what he perceives when he looks out of his window on the full moon night. His rational defences are overcome not by a ghost but by a story — which is far subtler and more interesting. Laxman is not saying rationalism is wrong; he is saying it underestimates the power of narrative and imagination. Even the most educated, practical person carries the deep human capacity for being moved, frightened, and changed by a well-told story. That capacity is not a failing — it is what makes us human.

This passage highlights two of Iswaran's most important qualities. First, his efficiency and dedication: he has completed all domestic duties — cooking, cleaning, tidying — by the time his employer returns, without being reminded or supervised. Second, his absolute reliability: Mahendra can trust that however remote or difficult the posting, he will come home to a hot meal and a clean space. The word “asset” is significant: it is a financial and professional term, suggesting that Iswaran is not just a convenience but a genuine source of value — someone whose presence makes Mahendra's difficult life not merely tolerable but comfortable. This passage forms the stable background against which Iswaran's extraordinary storytelling gift is then revealed — showing that he is accomplished at multiple levels, not just as an entertainer but as a complete and devoted companion.

The two stories represent the two poles of Iswaran's storytelling range. The elephant story is comic and boastful — a tall tale in the tradition of folklore, where a small boy performs a superhuman feat. It is entertaining and amusing; even as Mahendra is sceptical, he smiles and enjoys it. Its effect is delight and entertainment. The ghost story, by contrast, is built for fear. It is told with earnestness rather than boastfulness; Iswaran is not the hero but a frightened witness. The ghost is described in genuinely unsettling physical detail — the matted hair, shrivelled face, the foetus in the arms, the wailing on full moon nights. Its effect is not delight but dread that lingers. Together, the two stories demonstrate Iswaran's extraordinary range as a storyteller: he can entertain with comedy and terrify with horror, adjusting his technique to the desired effect with total mastery. He is in complete control of his art — even if Mahendra thinks he is merely listening to a simple cook's chat.

The ending leaves one crucial question unanswered: what did Mahendra actually see on the full moon night? Was it the ghost Iswaran described? A living person? An animal? A trick of light on a mind primed by weeks of ghost stories? Laxman deliberately does not resolve this. This ambiguity is the story's most important artistic choice. If the ghost were confirmed as real, the story would become a straightforward supernatural tale, and the satire of rationalism would be lost. If it were confirmed as pure illusion, the impact would be less — Mahendra would simply be embarrassed, not changed. By leaving it open, Laxman keeps the reader in exactly the position Mahendra is in: unsure, slightly rattled, and unable to dismiss it entirely. The story thereby enacts its own theme: a good story lodges in the mind and refuses to be neatly resolved. Iswaran's greatest achievement as a storyteller is not the elephant tale or even the ghost description — it is turning Mahendra's own lived experience into something he cannot explain away.

Mahendra is established from the very beginning as a practical, rational, self-sufficient bachelor. He lives a nomadic life moving from worksite to worksite and has grown accustomed to the discomforts of temporary accommodation. He is not fanciful — he values Iswaran for practical reasons, and when he first hears Iswaran's ghost stories, he dismisses them firmly. He does not believe in ghosts, and he says so clearly. This self-image as a rational man is important — it is precisely what makes his eventual flight so ironic and revealing. By the end of the story, this rational certainty has crumbled. Iswaran's narratives have saturated his imagination so thoroughly that when he looks out of his window on the full moon night, he sees — or believes he sees — exactly the ghost he was told to expect. He does not wait for a rational explanation: he applies for a transfer. The practical man has been undone by a story. This change is not presented as a failure but as a universal truth: no human being, however rational, is entirely immune to the ancient power of a well-told tale.

Iswaran's narration of the tusker episode is a masterclass in oral storytelling technique. He begins with a broad, dramatic scene: a rogue elephant escaped from a timber yard, rampaging through the town, smashing everything in its path. He describes the destruction in vivid, sensory detail — the panic of the crowd, the noise, the helplessness of the adults who fled in terror. He builds the chaos to a peak before introducing his pivot: while all adults fled, young Iswaran remained calm. He then recalls — with perfect composure — that he had read in a book that a sharp blow to the elephant's third toenail would render it unconscious. He approached, waited for the right moment, and struck. The elephant fell. The crowd cheered. Mahendra, completely caught up in the narration, asks “Then what happened?” — proof that the technique has worked. This episode reveals Iswaran as a natural, instinctive storyteller who understands suspense, pacing, climax, and the power of the perfectly absurd detail (the third toenail). It also reveals his tendency to dramatise and exaggerate — the story is almost certainly a tall tale — but his conviction makes it wholly compelling.

The story makes a powerful argument about the bond between storytelling and imagination. Iswaran's stories are not verified facts — the elephant episode is almost certainly exaggerated, and whether the ghost is real is deliberately left unresolved. Yet the stories have real effects: Mahendra is entertained, unsettled, frightened, and finally driven from his home. This shows that a story does not need to be true to have power; it needs to be vivid enough to plant an image in the listener's imagination. Once that image is planted — once Mahendra can see the ghost clearly in his mind — it shapes what he perceives with his actual eyes on the full moon night. Imagination is not merely a passive receiver of stories but an active creator of experience. Iswaran's greatest achievement as a storyteller is not the ghost description itself — it is populating Mahendra's imagination so thoroughly that Mahendra frightens himself. This is a tribute to storytelling as an art that can be more powerful than any physical reality, a celebration of the ancient human power of narrative.

R.K. Laxman sets up a clear opposition between superstition and rationalism in the characters of Iswaran and Mahendra. Iswaran lives in a world of stories, ghosts, legends, and the supernatural — he accepts them as part of life, describes them vividly, and is not frightened by them because they are familiar to him. Mahendra, by contrast, is a modern, educated man who explicitly rejects superstition and says so when Iswaran tells ghost stories. Yet by the end of the story, rationalism loses. Iswaran's steady, detailed, earnest narrations wear down Mahendra's rational defences over many evenings — not by arguing but simply by describing so vividly that the images take root. On the full moon night, Mahendra's reason is overwhelmed and he sees, or believes he sees, the ghost. Laxman does not mock rationalism as a philosophy; he shows it as genuinely fragile when confronted not with argument but with the deeper power of story and imagination. The comic irony of a rational man fleeing his posting because of his cook's ghost story is gentle but telling: superstition — or at least its storytelling equivalent — wins this particular round decisively.

This line is one of the most economical and telling summaries of the story's premise. Mahendra lives at remote worksites with few amenities — no television, no entertainment, no social life. Iswaran's evening storytelling fills the gap that television would fill in an ordinary home: it provides entertainment, drama, suspense, and company at the end of a long day. But the line also suggests something more significant: Iswaran is better than a TV. A television presents pre-packaged stories to a passive viewer. Iswaran performs his stories live, tailoring them to his audience, reading Mahendra's reactions, building suspense over multiple evenings. His stories involve Mahendra — they draw him in, make him ask questions, haunt him after he goes to sleep, and finally drive him to take real-world action (applying for a transfer). No television achieves that level of engagement and real-world consequence. The line celebrates the human storyteller over mechanical entertainment — and, by extension, the ancient oral tradition over modern media. It also quietly foreshadows the story's climax: a TV cannot haunt you. Iswaran can.