R. K. Narayan has emerged as a complex writer whose limpid novels reveal unsuspected depths. He has consciously attempted to naturalize or Indianize the Western novel by transporting the traditions of linear narration, Victorian realism and the modernist psychological multi-text upon the circular and digressive structure, and the symbolical and ethical framework, of the ancient Hindu narratives. This fabular quality in Narayan’s fiction confers universality and depth and extends the significance of the novels beyond their immediate small-town context. This paper gives a detailed analysis of R.K. Narayan’s The English Teacher in the light of postcolonialism by pointing out the tension or the conflict that one can find between colonialism and nativism.