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R.
K. Narayan dead, but Malgudi lives on
By
RAHUL SINGH
© Earth Times News Service http://www.earthtimes.org/may/profilesrknarayandeadmay16_01.htm
R. K. Narayan, who died in the early hours
of Sunday, 13 May 2001 was India’s first -- and arguably foremost --
Indo-Anglian writer. He was a true pioneer. Indo-Anglian writers like V.
S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie and, later, Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Seth and
Arundhati Roy -- to name only the five best known -- stand on his
shoulders.
Two
other writers of Narayan’s time, who were also first published before
the second world war, Raja Rao ( “Kanthapura”, “The Serpent and
the Rope”) and Mulkraj Anand (“Coolie”, “The Untouchable”),
could also lay claim to the honour of being pioneers. But their writings
were largely polemical or political in nature, whereas Narayan’s work
was essentially non-political and non-contrroversial. His inspiration
came from his surroundings, from the sights and smells around him and
the characters that dwelt there.
He did
not take up any “weighty” issues, like caste or the Indian movement
for independence, in his writings, though they may have come up in
passing. He wrote with gentle irony about Indian village and small-town
life, creating a mythical place, Malgudi, which was peopled with
endearing, quirky characters. His style was simple, his thoughts
profound.
If one
were to try and discover a theme which ran through his work, it was
probably the tussle between tradition and change, the old and the new.
But the conflict was never painted in confrontational or painful tones,
only with great compassion and wry humor.
Somebody
whom Narayan resembles stylistically is Evelyn Waugh (“A Handful of
Dust”, “Scoop”), one of the greatest writers of the 20th century,
but Narayan had none of Waugh’s stinging satire. Narayan did not want
to change the world. He just wanted his readers to see the world
differently.
Narayan
was also the first Indo-Anglian writer who did not write consciously for
the English market, as did Mulkraj Anand and Raja Rao, along with many
others after them. He wrote for himself. He wrote as he saw life around
him, not caring whether his writings would sell or not.
In many
ways, like V.S. Naipaul, Narayan was a born writer. And though his roots
may have been in what is now the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka, the language which formed his thoughts and from where he
derived much of his inspiration was English. He was, as one of his
biographers has pointed out, a product of Thomas Babington Macaulay, the
man who decided, soon after the British came to dominate India in the
19th century, that the English language would be imposed on the upper
classes in India. Narayan was a direct product of the imposition of
English on India. He took to the language like fish to water.
Rooted
in tradition, Narayan was, nevertheless, a child of cultural
colonialism. “To be a good writer anywhere, you must have roots, both
in religion and in family... I have these things,” he wrote later.
Naipaul, the ethnic Indian writer from Trinidad, the “man without a
country”, admitted that Narayan operated “from deep within his
society”.
From an
early age, Narayan imagined no other profession for himself, other than
writing -- and that, too, in English -- even though his family and
friends were horrified at the thought.
Born
Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Ayyar Narayanswamy in Madras on Oct. 10, 1906,
his father was a headmaster in Mysore State. But since his father
belonged to the school system of the State, he was transferred from
school to school. Narayan was the third of eight children and it was
decided that his maternal grandmother, Ammani, would bring him up in
Madras, as his mother was busy giving birth to and bringing up what even
those days was considered to be a pretty large family. Ammani was a
great story-teller and it was probably from her that the young Narayan
imbibed his sense of humor.
After
going to various neighborhood schools in Madras, for his final year of
schooling, he went to Mysore where his father had become principal of
the prestigeous Maharaja’s Collegiate High School, which had a
university entrance class. But Narayan was not a particularly good
student.
“Next
to religion, education was the most compulsive force at home in a family
like ours,” he would later recall in his autobiography, “My Days”.
“My outlook on education never fitted in the accepted code at home. I
instinctively rejected both education and examination, with their
unwarranted seriousness and esoteric suggestions.”
Nor
surprisingly, considering such views and despite the fact that his
father was something of a martinet, the young Narayan failed his
university entrance exam in two successive years. But the university’s
loss during those two years was the world’s gain in literature. The
young Narayan spent those two years wandering around Mysore and its
environs, taking long walks, book in hand, his eye observing everything,
his mind storing it in memory.
He was
a voracious reader and, soon, he also began to write. Though his heart
was not in his studies, he eventually got his Bachelor of Arts degree,
with great difficulty (one of his novels was titled “Bachelor of
Arts”). After a stint of teaching turned out to be a disaster, he
announced to family and friends what he had known all along in his
heart, that he would be a writer.
A
writer! they exclaimed. Nobody made money through serious writing. And
they were right. Luckily, Narayan lived in a joint family and his needs
were meagre. He struggled, writing for non-descript magazines, while
working on his first book, “Swami and Friends”.
Most
writers, however good they may be, need an element of luck and a
talisman. For Narayan, it came in the form of Graham Greene, one of the
best known writers of the time.
Introduced
to him through a friend, Greene was bowled over by manuscript of
“Swami and Friends”. He became a champion for Narayan’s writings,
praising him wherever he went. He also persuaded him to shorten his name
from the impossible Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Ayyar Narayanswamy to the
shorter R.K. Narayan. When Narayan was demoralised by a succession of
rejection slips, Greene personally wrote to well-known publishers like
Hamish Hamilton and persuaded them to publish Narayan.
At
first, Narayan’s books did poorly in sales, despite receiving rave
reviews. But slowly and surely, as novel followed novel, his genius was
recognised and his standing began to soar in the literary world. The
small town of Malgudi, which figured often in his novels, became
synonymous with Narayan, just as Wessex was for Thomas Hardy. Narayan
was seen as an original, a writer who did not compromise, who did not
pander to any prevailing mood, who had no political lable attached to
him.
He
eventually published 14 novels, several collections of novellas and
short stories, along with travel books and the re-telling of some of the
ancient Indian epics. He has been translated into many languages,
ranging from Hebrew to Japanese. The American Academy of Arts and
Letters made him an honorary member, the President of India awarded him
the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest honors given to a civilian in
India, and he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for what was his most
popular novel, “The Guide”, which was also made into a film.
But his
life was dogged by personal tragedy. His wife, whom he married against
his family’s wishes and whom he was absolutely devoted to, died from
typhoid four years after the marriage. His only child died of cancer
when she was still relatively young. But neither the sadness, nor the
bitterness, showed in his writings.
Nominated
to the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, he made
just one speech during his entire parliamentary career. He complained
about the heavy load of books and other material that schoolchildren had
to carry in their satchels!
It was
somehow typical of the man. Simple and practical to the end. Yet
profound. His writings will continue to give readers pleasure and deep
insights into Indian life and into the characters that people
fascinating India. Malgudi will live on. |
Renowned
English novelist of international fame, R. K. Narayan was born in Madras
in 1906. He had his initial education in Madras (Chennai) and later at
the Maharaja's College in Mysore. He was living in Mysore, the place
which had maximum influence on him and reflected in his novels, before
moving to Madras. Dr. Narayan has travelled extensively. Most of his
works, starting from his first novel, Swami and His Friends
(1935) is set in the fictional town of Malgudi. His novels reflect the
Indian conditions and life and have a unique identity of their own.
Malgudi comes to life in his novel, leaving a feeling that the reader is
a part of Dr Narayan's fictional place.