The Financial Expert by RK Narayan

Margayya is a complex and entrancing character with a flair for those fabulously involved minor financial transactions which are an integral part of Indian life. We first meet him sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, advising the people of Malgudi how to extract loans from the Co-operative Bank. A brush with the Secretary of the Bank, and an accident in which his spoilt son Balu throws his account book down a drain, cut short his career as a financier; but after a series of amusing incidents Margayya grows rich and reverts to financial wizardry.