Childhood

The adventures, misunderstandings, and experiences of children is a motif that Narayan returns to over and over again in Swami and Friends. Notably, the author uses the idea of childhood as a lens through which more complex social and political events can be seen, understood, and analyzed. Therefore, the reader comes away with a more cohesive understanding of these events and issues. One great example of this is how Swami and Mani view the anti-colonialism protests and movement as a whole. On the one hand, they have little in terms of specific knowledge of the history of English colonialism in India, which is something Narayan is quite careful to point out directly to the reader. When the speaker at the protest gives a brief history of India and England, the narrative notes that “To Swaminathan, as to Mani, this part of the speech was incomprehensible” (95). However...