This is the story of Nataraj, who earns his living as a printer in the enchanted
world of Malgudi, that slumbering Southern Indian village whose peace has been
often amusingly and outrageously disturbed by Narayan.
Nataraj and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenial
days disturbed when Vasu, a powerful taxidermist; moves in with his stuffed
hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing women up the printer's private
stairs. When Vasu, in search of larger game, threatens the life of a temple
elephant that Nataraj has befriended, complications ensue that are both comic
and calamitous.
A not unwelcome death occurs;