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There are three female characters in the novel, The Financial Expert They are Margayya's wife named Meenakshi, his elder brother's wife and his son Balu's wife named Brinda. None of them is capable of engaging and sustaining the attention and interest of the reader like Savitri and Shanta Bai in The Dark Room, Malathi in The Bachelor of Arts, Susila in The English Teacher and Shanti in Mr. Sampath. The role of each of the women depicted in the present novel is limited and tertiary. None of them renders, significant contribution to the pivotal occurrences taking place in the narrative.
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| Meenakshi |
Margayya's wife named Meenakshi is a modest, homely, unlettered and traditional woman. She possesses ordinary looks with "her faded jacket, her patched, discoloured saree and her anaemic eyes." She is untouched by any sort of ambition. Her circle of worries is circumscribed by domestic chores, welfare of her husband and her son, Balu and a moderate desire for money which is enough to pull them through. This aspect of her personality comes in glaring contrast with that of her husband who is relentlessly obsessed by an unlimited desire for money. His insatiable avarice for money is described by the author like the desire of "a fanatical mountaineer who sets his heart on reaching the summit of Everest. He might be standing on the highest peak. Yet he can never feel that he has attained the highest. Their contrasting attitudes in this regard become more pronouncedly clear in the reaction each shows to the incident of running away of their son, Balu, from home. Margayya is able to withstand the loss of his son because of the external strength and prowess he gets from his wealth. His possession of wealth has supplanted a natural fatherly instinct for the truant son. His rank materialistic attitude is depicted in these words:
His affluence, his bank balance, buoyed him up and made him bear the loss of their son. He lived in a sort of radiance which made it possible for him to put up with anything.
On the other hand, his wife's reaction is totally different. She remains sullen and reserved after Balu's disappearance. Margayya asks his wife to demand from him any amount of money because he thinks that money will divert her attention from the son's loss. This reveals his thinking that money is more powerful than human emotions. But he is sadly mistaken in this regard as she spurns his proposal saying, "What shall I do with money? I have no use for it." Human bonds aree much more powerful to her than any amount of money.
Margayya's wife is a patient, tolerant wife who bears the occasional overbearing moods and tantrums of her husband. One night Margayya comes back very late because he is held back by the temple priest for a long time. Moreover, he is upset over his tiff with the Co-operative Bank peon, Arul Doss and its Secretary. He finds it hard to pocket the insult he has met at their hands. His wife asks him why he is so late. He retorts arrogantly, "I must ask your permission, suppose." She bears it patiently. Balu has thrown away his father's red-bound register into gutter. She does not know about this incident. She asks Margayya about Balu when he comes in the kitchen where she is busy in cooking something. He replies to her ill-temperedly, "Probably rolling in the gutter." She remains cool-headed to the exchange of hot words that takes place between Margayya and his son, when the latter has failed repeatedly in the S.S.L.C. Examination. She knows that her husband has become more peremptory in his manners because of his affluence. She attributes his temperamental irascibility to over-work and tension he has to undergo in his profession. She thinks that things will resolve in due course of time if left to themselves. Her accommodating and peaceful disposition is evident in her understanding that the best way "to attain some peace of mind in life was to maintain silence: ultimately, she found that things resolved themselves in the best manner possible or fizzled out." She proves very helpful to Margayya during his penance for forty days undertaken by him for the propitiation of goddess, Lakshmi. She gets up early in the morning at five and prepares jaggery-Sweetened rice to be given as offering to the goddess. Margayya acknowledges her helpfulness by saying, "She is quite accommodating."
Sometimes, a quarrel takes place between the two but generally she avoids such scenes. Margayya undertakes a penance for forty days in order to propitiate goddess, Lakshmi. He spends one hundred rupees out of the two hundred rupees he has got. He hopes that he will get money as a miracle immediately after the conclusion of the puja. But to his chagrin, it does not happen. He runs into financial straits. He remains despondent and listless. He does not move out of the house in pursuit of making some earning. His wife is disgusted with his behaviour. She urges upon him to go out of the house to earn something. But he resists. A quarrel ensues between the duo over this point. Barring such occasional fracas, their relations normally remain peaceful. They share confidence with each other. Margayya tells her that he is giving up the publication of the pornographic book, "Domestic Harmony" for two reasons. First, the sale of the book has gone down. Secondly, the book is vicious and corrupting for the young minds and hence he does not want his name to be associated with it any longer. She readily agrees to it as she also considers this book to be pernicious, obscene and morally undesirable. She feels squeamish over going before Dr. Pal in person with the tray of coffee and tiffin as the latter is the real author of this book. This shows her modesty and puritanic attitude.
Meenakshi has strong motherly instincts. Her love for her only son, Balu, is inexhaustible. She gives him birth a decade after her marriage. At his birth, silver equal to his weight is given in charity. She undergoes a course of penance and hardship for the well-being of the child. She alongwith her husband goes to the God at Tirupathi "dressed in a saffron dyed saree, had carried the infant in arms and walked behind him; as he went to ten houses and begged alms." There are other instances which reiterate her deeply affectionate feeling for the son. Balu gets his fingers burnt over the lamp. She quarrels with her husband for his negligence in not protecting the child. Balu's repeated failures in the S.S.L.C. Examination worry her a lot. She prepares for him extra-nourishing dishes and gives him extra dose of milk and fruits during the examination days so that he is able to stand the strain. Balu's truancy from home thoroughly upsets her. She grows morose and reticent. She remains lost into ideas about her son. She loses appetite and interest in everything. Her condition is described in these words:
"She was on the verge of hysteria now-a-days. She spoke very little and ate very little."
The anonymous post-card bearing the news of Balu's death tires out whatever patience is left in her. She weeps, cries and rolls over the floor. Her hair is untied and her eyes are swollen. She looks like "a stranger, with her face swollen and disfigured with weeping." A number of omen, neighbours, Margayya's brother and his sister-in-law gather round her in order to console her. She prevails upon Miargayya to go to Madras to verify the news. Despite his unwillingness, he goes there and discovers Balu in a cinema theatre with the help of a Police Inspector whom he meets coincidentally in the railway compartment while travelling to Madras. He brings Balu back home with a promise that he need not bother about the examination. He tells, him, "You eat, rest and grow fat - that is all you are expected to do, and take as much money as you like."
Balu's coming back home alive is a matter of unbounded joy for Meenakshi. The very style of her life undergoes a sea-change. She is no more morose and reserved. She wears well, keeps cheerful, sticks jasmine flowers in her hair and looks youthful. She is all the time plying Balu with her persistent enquiry what else he likes to take. The transformation in her look and manner is depicted thus:
"A new flush appeared on her sallow cheeks. Her eyes had become very bright and sparkling. She became loquacious and puckish in her comments. She took the trouble to comb her hair with care and stuck jasmine strings in it. She seemed to feel that she was born anew into the world. She spoke light-heartedly, and with a trembling joy in her voice"
Balu's departure from home after marriage for a new house in Lawley Extension makes her feel sad and lonely. Balu goes to live there alongwith his wife, Brinda. Margayya arranges for a separate house for them against her will. He does it for two reasons. First, Balu's wife is a modern girl who should live in a modern house in a new locality. Secondly, Since Balu is a grown-up youngman, he should establish his own independent house. She is like Narayan's so many women characters who remain contented with their household life and consider the fulfilment of the interests of their family as end in itself. Such women are, as a class, known by their home-bound, traditional and conservative commitments.