Swami and Friends

The Innocence of Youth is the fundamental theme of Swami and Friends. Swaminathan and his friends are 10-years-old at the beginning of the book, and are prone to all the typical behaviors of young children: they are fascinated with toys; they daydream in class; they take their families for granted, and they disdain schoolwork. Rather than plotting or planning out their adventures with deliberate intention, these boys participate in the risk-taking and spontaneous mischief characteristic of young children. At their youthful age, they are not yet fully equipped to understand the world around them, the class differences that already work to inevitably divide them, or to understand the repercussions of their actions. For example, Swaminathan does not understand why an angry mob gathers after the arrest of the Indian politician Gauri Sankar in Chapter Twelve, and he cannot anticipate the consequences of shattering his headmaster’s windows with a rock. In running away, he does not understand that in doing so he might miss the M.C.C. match and irrevocably damage his friendship with Rajam. These are but a few cases that illustrate the central theme of Swami and Friends, where youthful innocence wrestles with increasing tension against worldly complexity and conflict.