A day in the life of LIFE

How many of us have grown up, spending time in front of good old Doordarshan, watching the serial “Malgudi Days”! The melodious title music, the make-believe small town setting of Malgudi, the characters so infused with life – Swami being the most famous among them, and but of course, the illustrations and sketches, all these bring back memories of the person with the gift of Story telling – R.K. Narayan.

Born as Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Narayanaswami, R.K. Narayan is among the well known and most widely read Indian novelists who wrote in the English Language.

After completing eight years of education at the Lutheran Mission School close to his grandmother's house in Madras, he studied for a short time at the CRC High School. When his father, Rasipuram Venkatarama Krishnaswami Iyer, was appointed headmaster of the Maharaja's High School in Mysore, Narayan moved back in with his parents. To his father's consternation, Narayan was an indifferent student and after graduating, he failed the college entrance exam in English because he found the primary textbook too boring to read. He retook the exam a year later and eventually obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of Mysore.

One of the few Indian-English writers who spent nearly all his time in India, he went abroad to the United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. Narayan's first published work was the review of a book titled Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England. He began his literary career with short stories which appeared in The Hindu, and also worked for some time as the Mysore correspondent of Justice, a Madras-based newspaper. He also took up teaching at a government school, but left the job within two days.

It was on a Vijayadashami day, that his grandmother asked him to write something in the new book and Narayan was not sure what to write. It was at this time that his mind conceptualized a small town of South India and called it Malgudi which eventually interconnected the experiences of many Indians who could relate to the same.

His writing career began with Swami and Friends.At first, he could not get the novel published. Eventually, the draft was shown to Graham Greene by a mutual friend, Purna. Greene liked it so much that he arranged for its publication. Greene was to remain a close friend and admirer of his. After that, he published a continuous stream of novels, all set in Malgudi and each dealing with different characters in that fictional place. Autobiographical content forms a significant part of some of his novels. For example, the events surrounding the death of his young wife and how he coped with the loss form the basis of The English Teacher. Mr. Narayan became his own publisher, when World WarII cut him off from Britain.

Mr. Narayan won numerous awards and honours for his works. He won the National Prize of the Sahitya Akademi, the Indian literary academy, for The Guide in 1958. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, a coveted Indian award, for distinguished service to literature in 1964. In 1980, R. K. Narayan was awarded the AC Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature. He was an honorary member of the society. He was elected an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1982 and nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1989. In addition, the University of Mysore, Delhi University and the University of Leeds conferred honorary doctorates on him. His work is unique in writing field. He was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2000.

RKN's stories have definitely formed a part and parcel of every Indian household that would be remembered for time immemorial.Today, October 10 marks the birth centenary of this great author, and the least we could do is pass on the timeless tales written by him, to the generations that follow!

P.S. Facts courtesy - Wikipedia