R.K. Narayan (original) (raw)

Malgudi : Traditional / Geographical Background in R.K. Narayan’s Novels

R.K. Narayan has used Malgudi as a traditional and geographical background in all his novels. From Swami and Friends to A Tiger for Malgudi is a march along a historical time. In R.K. Narayan's novels, Malgudi unfolds new vistas of life. A simple, innocent and conservative society undergoes fast changes because of the incursions of modern civilization. From a sleepy, silent and small town atmosphere on the bank of river Sarayu to a fast developing metropolitan ethos with modern streets, banking corporations, talkies and smugglers' den, and even a circus, Malgudi marks a movement in time. This movement not only affects the geography of the place, but also the social and cultural milieu. Innocence gradually gives way to experience and Malgudi begins to live up to the modern spirit. Malgudi, a small South Indian town provides the setting for almost all of Narayan's novels and short stories. Malgudi, of course, does not exist. It is for Narayan, just as Wessex is for Thomas Hardy or Yoknapatawhpa for William Faulkner, an imaginary landscape inhabited by the unique characters of his stories. Madras, Mysore, Coimbatore are names that can be located on any map of India drawn to a reasonable scale. Rashipuram is a taluq in Salem District. But where is Malgudi? It has been suggested that Malgudi is only Narayan's deliberate perversion of Malgudi, a township near Tiruchirapali (the Trichinopoly of British times). But Narayan himself has given the quietus to his speculation: I remember walking up with the name Malgudi on Vijaydasami, the day on which the initiation of learning is celebrated …… 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 Malgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just 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 Vijaydasami, I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The Train had just arrived at Malgudi station ……The sentence about the town got revised. 1 The goddess of learning gave me the name, says Narayan. You just have to take these things from your authors and artist. God may be dead today, but the Muse still exists –at least to those who paint and sculpt and sing and tell stories under a stress they cannot explain. To be a good writer anywhere, Narayan said to Ved Mehta in his interview, You must have roots-both in religion and in family. I have these things 2. In Narayan's own words: Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in

Malgudi: "The Heart of R. K. Narayan's Novels"

isara solutions, 2022

one of the most dominating literary figures in the history of Indian Writing in English, is one of "the Big Three" as called by the critic William Walsh. The other two novelists are Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand who gave a new direction to Indian English Literature. Narayan is credited to have introduced the imaginary world of Malgudi to the readers in his very first novel. It came into existence with his very first novel, Swami and Friends published by Hamish Hamilton in Oxford University Press in 1935. Thereafter, he climbed the ladder of success and never looked back. Malgudi is the heart and soul of his novels. His popularity lies in the depiction of an imaginary South Indian town, Malgudi in most of his novels. Although it is an imaginary town not to be found anywhere on the Indian map, it seems as if it exists in the real life somewhere in India. The idea of this imaginary town came to his mind suddenly on the auspicious day of the celebration of Vijayadashmi. Many critics agree that Malgudi is the hero of his novels. He was a pure artist who aimed at delighting the readers. He believed in "Art for Art's Sake" introducing the readers to the interesting world of Malgudi which has everything to fascinate the readers to the fullest. When it comes to Narayan's contribution to the literary world, Malgudi is the first thing that usually comes to our minds. It is the mini-India, the secret of his success.

The Storyteller: Reflections on R. K. Narayan's Malgudi Days

Indian English Literature Trends and Issues, 2008

My paper will focus on R. K. Narayan and his collection of short stories, namely, Malgudi Days. Most of my Indian readers, I am sure, have either read "An Astrologer’s Day", or some other story, during their school days or must have seen the delightful television series directed by Shankar Nag. Since our first encounter with Malgudi the place has found a permanent place in our experiential horizon. The question is how these stories, most of which set in a fictitious yet typical South Indian town, establish connection with readers from any part of the globe. It is necessary to probe how this connection assumes the exalted status of ‘collective experience’, in a vital sort of way, even though the author does not sacrifice the local flavours of the life described. The question is why it is extremely necessary to hand over these stories to our young ones in these changing times and encourage them to take part in the community experience which the stories throw up. My paper will try to address these questions.

“Cosmopolitanism Within”: The case of RK Narayan's fictional Malgudi

Postcolonial criticism challenges the normative conceptions of cosmopolitanism rooted in metropolitan cultures by inviting locally-bred, subaltern and third world experiences as forces of intervention and interruption in shaping universal(ist) ethics for a shared humanity. Nevertheless, these approaches remain more speculative than substantive, and they lack the empirical currency required for grounding local cosmopolitanism(s) outside of diasporic, transnational, exilic contexts. Through a close reading of R.K. Narayan’s fictional town of Malgudi, this paper explores its metonymical implications for a local cosmopolitanism (“locopolitan”): its unique rural and urban constellations; and an ethno-humanist narrative drawn along the “locopolitan” lines as opposed to the metropolitan (pre)conditioning of cosmopolitan experience. Such a reading aims at opening up an empirical basis for local cosmopolitanism within the postcolonial framework.

The Double Making of R.K. Narayan

Published in Critical Spectrum: Essays in Literary Culture in Honour of Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah, ed. Satish C. Aikant, New Delhi: Pencraft, 2004:172-91.

This essay considers the effect of Western publication on the fiction of R.K. Narayan, discussing the extent to which this influenced his treatment of his South Indian subject-matter. It examines the ways in which two of his novels, written a quarter of a century apart, Swami and Friends and The Man-Eater of Malgudi, fuse the Western and “Hindu” strands that have fed into their composition. It gives an account of the publication history of Swami, arguing that the novel was partly adapted to fit the conventions of English schoolboy fiction, but finally subverts this genre. It discusses The Man-Eater in relation to Narayan's self-portrayal of himself as a "reluctant guru", but contends that, paradoxically, the emerging American vogue for Indian mysticism at the time when the novel was written provided Narayan with more opportunities to draw on the Hindu myths that were one of the wellsprings of his imagination.

R. K. Narayan's Philosophy: His Themes and Characters

Journal for Research Scholars and Professionals of English Language Teaching, 2019

R. K. Narayan broke India's greatest English langua ge through with the help of Graham Greene, his mentor and friend. His themes in his stories and no vels find a vivid life from historical observation of common place incidents and humdrum life. Narayan i s considered the first and foremost an artist in hi s presentation of Indian life, culture and tradition. He covers the wide gamut of human experience from the innocent pranks of children to serious communal rio ts, misery of common man to filial relationship, superstitions and orthodox social traditions to the supernatural elements. Malgudi is a fictional town of R.K. Narayan, where his literary works take origin. The study of the family and various family relationships, the renunciation, generational disaf filiation, conflict between tradition and modernity , the East-West encounter, education, etc. are his other themes.