The Guide: A Novel; by R. K. Narayan.

He was a tourist guide who happened to be a resident of a town close to a cave complex in mountains nearby, with amazing paintings and sculptures, and his street smartness in acquiring a smattering of all languages possible that he might need so he can conduct tours with commentary in the language his clients require (and this is no joke, often people in India who look poor and illiterate do have this amazing achievement as one of their many, the ability with well over a dozen languages or even more acquired with enough vocabulary to take care of whatever few conversations they might need to have with clients) has made a comfortable living for him. Until she arrives in town.

She was a danceuse by not only training since childhood but also from ancestral profession over generations of women who were artists and performers. Her mother, however, did not wish that life for the daughter and got her married to the best candidate she could find so she could have a respectable life, unlike her ancestors.

But art was in her very blood, and the life that required her to wait for the staid husband - an archeologist busy with his research - had her desperate with boredom.

This is the story of the two, who met and it changed their lives. He helped her leave the husband and go back to her art while he promoted her in a profession to its pinnacles. Only, she couldn't care less for the fame and money she commanded - and his double role as her manager and her lover was demeaning in both by being both. She is just as bored with his "connections" that are after all due to her, and she would rather spend time with poor artists he cannot comprehend her wanting to be with.

A fateful moment, a mistake of a decision to hide from her the book and the jewellery sent by her husband - in fear she might melt and go back to him - lands him in jail for fraud, for the signature that is not hers and is easily so recognised by the husband.

When out finally he does not know where he could go to show his face with dignity, the mother who left him due to the bad woman ow the woman who did not testify on his behalf so he could escape going to jail. He walks away and keeps on walking, and is mistaken for a spiritual man since one such had covered him in his own covering while he was asleep, to protect him against cold wind.

The simple villagers and their simple problems that he solves and their sincere faith, and the tremendous calamity facing the region in the draught that he casually mentions "used to be solved once upon a time by spiritually achieved men by their fasting and prayers" - it all lands him in a position he never had thought of going to, that of fasting till either his death or rains that might solve the famine problem. And with the faithful villagers and increasingly more visitors of the region and beyond that always surround him, to take care of him, there is no possibility of cheating.

For the first time it is a struggle he never thought he would come to - that of his higher self and his lower, of bodily hunger and the inability to break hearts of the simple villagers with their faith.