R. K. Narayan. My Days
Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan
(October 10, 1906 - May 13, 2001)
"I'd be quite happy if no more is claimed from me than being just a story-teller. Only the story matters, that is all. If readers read more significance into my stories than was meant originally, then that's the reader's understanding of things. But if a story is in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I perceive it, then it will be automatically significant."
Among many of Indian writers in English, R.K. Narayan has a special place in Indian history. As a novelist, he maintained India's essence in all his works rather than adopting traditional western style.
Similar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan adopted his own way of creating his own fictional town called Malgudi, imitating typical south Indian city, His short story collection Malgudi Days took place in this exciting city of Malgudi. Some of his other novels too were written having Malgudi in mind.
He also travelled to United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. He began his career with writing short stories which were appeared mostly in The Hindu and also worked for some time as the Mysore correspondent for Justice, a Madras-based newspaper. His first work Swami and Friends was delayed for lack of publishing support.Graham Greene, through his mutual friend,was so much moved by Narayan's new work and he supported it for publishing. After this novel, a stream of novels based on Malgudi flourished.
His characters are like Charles Dickens model, imitate real world character's mind set, typical South Indian characters. This makes his novels loved my Indians. Later his novels became popular world wide.
He wrote his own life history: autobiography, he named it as My Days. A memoir, is an autobiography of R.K. Narayan. My Days is a beautifully compiled book that would otherwise seem like any other of Narayan's novels, until one realises that it's an actual narration of his life and his childhood.
The Guide : This novel made him so famous and popular.It was picturized in Hindi and later in other language. The book which begins as a comic look at the life of a rogue, but evolves into something quite different towards the end. This is also Narayan's Malgudi Novel. Novel starts with the hero Raju narrating his story.
I never knew R.K.Narayan, until my graduation, where my Professor introduced him to me as an Indian writer of English. I started reading his work like, Swami and Friends, Malgudi Days , My Days, The Dark Room, The Vendor of Sweets and Waiting for the Mahatma . Really it shows a new dimension to Indian writing in English. We read many novels of western style where we come across western names for all characters and places etc.Normally we never see our own city names in English novels.
In 1980, R. K. Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson award by the Royal Society of Literature and was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he was made a member of the Rajya Sabha (the non-elective House of Parliament in India). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide (1958).
Interview
R. K. Narayan describes his conception of Malgudi
"Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in writing about Lalgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just the railway station, which was a small platform with a banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and one going. On Vijayadasami I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The train had just arrived in Malgudi Station.''
'The World of Malgudi' by A. Hariprasanna:
"Various critics have attempted to identify the original of this mythical town. Iyengar speculates that it might be Lalgudi on the River Cauvery or Yadavagiri in Mydore. Others of the opinion that Narayan's Malgudi is Coimbatore which has many of the landmarks - a river on one side, forests on the other, the Mission School and College, and all the extensions mentioned in the novels. However, one is not likely to arrive at any definite answer as to its geographical locations, even if one shifts all the references to the town in the novels, such specific allusions as that "Malgudi is almost a day's journey from Madras." The simple reason is that Narayan has not drawn any map of framework for his Malgudi as Faulkner for example, did for his Yoknapatawpha or Hardy had in mind for his Wessex novels. ... But all efforts to identify Malgudi have remained futile, for it a pure country of the mind. ...
Narayan in an interview discusses some of the reasons why Malgudi had to be a South Indian town:
"I must be absolutely certain about the psychology of the character I am writing about, and I must be equally sure of the background. I know the Tamil and Kannada speaking people most. I know their background. I know how their minds work and almost as if it is happening to me, I know exactly what will happen to them in certain circumstances. And I know how they will react.''
Narayan's younger brother R.K.Laxman is also a very famous cartoonist and humorist.
I fondly hope, all of you to read his work.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian Writing Novels Writing India Indian Author
(October 10, 1906 - May 13, 2001)
"I'd be quite happy if no more is claimed from me than being just a story-teller. Only the story matters, that is all. If readers read more significance into my stories than was meant originally, then that's the reader's understanding of things. But if a story is in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I perceive it, then it will be automatically significant."Among many of Indian writers in English, R.K. Narayan has a special place in Indian history. As a novelist, he maintained India's essence in all his works rather than adopting traditional western style.
Similar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan adopted his own way of creating his own fictional town called Malgudi, imitating typical south Indian city, His short story collection Malgudi Days took place in this exciting city of Malgudi. Some of his other novels too were written having Malgudi in mind.
He also travelled to United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. He began his career with writing short stories which were appeared mostly in The Hindu and also worked for some time as the Mysore correspondent for Justice, a Madras-based newspaper. His first work Swami and Friends was delayed for lack of publishing support.Graham Greene, through his mutual friend,was so much moved by Narayan's new work and he supported it for publishing. After this novel, a stream of novels based on Malgudi flourished.
His characters are like Charles Dickens model, imitate real world character's mind set, typical South Indian characters. This makes his novels loved my Indians. Later his novels became popular world wide.
He wrote his own life history: autobiography, he named it as My Days. A memoir, is an autobiography of R.K. Narayan. My Days is a beautifully compiled book that would otherwise seem like any other of Narayan's novels, until one realises that it's an actual narration of his life and his childhood.
The Guide : This novel made him so famous and popular.It was picturized in Hindi and later in other language. The book which begins as a comic look at the life of a rogue, but evolves into something quite different towards the end. This is also Narayan's Malgudi Novel. Novel starts with the hero Raju narrating his story.
I never knew R.K.Narayan, until my graduation, where my Professor introduced him to me as an Indian writer of English. I started reading his work like, Swami and Friends, Malgudi Days , My Days, The Dark Room, The Vendor of Sweets and Waiting for the Mahatma . Really it shows a new dimension to Indian writing in English. We read many novels of western style where we come across western names for all characters and places etc.Normally we never see our own city names in English novels.
In 1980, R. K. Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson award by the Royal Society of Literature and was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he was made a member of the Rajya Sabha (the non-elective House of Parliament in India). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide (1958).
Interview
R. K. Narayan describes his conception of Malgudi
"Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in writing about Lalgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just the railway station, which was a small platform with a banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and one going. On Vijayadasami I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The train had just arrived in Malgudi Station.''
'The World of Malgudi' by A. Hariprasanna:
"Various critics have attempted to identify the original of this mythical town. Iyengar speculates that it might be Lalgudi on the River Cauvery or Yadavagiri in Mydore. Others of the opinion that Narayan's Malgudi is Coimbatore which has many of the landmarks - a river on one side, forests on the other, the Mission School and College, and all the extensions mentioned in the novels. However, one is not likely to arrive at any definite answer as to its geographical locations, even if one shifts all the references to the town in the novels, such specific allusions as that "Malgudi is almost a day's journey from Madras." The simple reason is that Narayan has not drawn any map of framework for his Malgudi as Faulkner for example, did for his Yoknapatawpha or Hardy had in mind for his Wessex novels. ... But all efforts to identify Malgudi have remained futile, for it a pure country of the mind. ...
Narayan in an interview discusses some of the reasons why Malgudi had to be a South Indian town:
"I must be absolutely certain about the psychology of the character I am writing about, and I must be equally sure of the background. I know the Tamil and Kannada speaking people most. I know their background. I know how their minds work and almost as if it is happening to me, I know exactly what will happen to them in certain circumstances. And I know how they will react.''
Narayan's younger brother R.K.Laxman is also a very famous cartoonist and humorist.
I fondly hope, all of you to read his work.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian Writing Novels Writing India Indian Author
