 After The English Teacher , Narayan 's writings took a more imaginative and creative external style compared to the semi @-@ autobiographical tone of the earlier novels . His next effort , Mr. Sampath , was the first book exhibiting this modified approach . However , it still draws from some of his own experiences , particularly the aspect of starting his own journal ; he also makes a marked movement away from his earlier novels by intermixing biographical events . Soon after , he published The Financial Expert , considered to be his masterpiece and hailed as one of the most original works of fiction in 1951 . The inspiration for the novel was a true story about a financial genius , <unk> , related to him by his brother . The next novel , Waiting for the Mahatma , loosely based on a fictional visit to Malgudi by Mahatma Gandhi , deals with the protagonist 's romantic feelings for a woman , when he attends the discourses of the visiting Mahatma . The woman , named Bharti , is a loose parody of Bharati , the personification of India and the focus of Gandhi 's discourses . While the novel includes significant references to the Indian independence movement , the focus is on the life of the ordinary individual , narrated with Narayan 's usual dose of irony . 
