R.K.Narayan : A Life Sketch

R. K. Narayan was born in Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu). He was one of eight children. His youngest brother Laxman rose to be a well-known cartoonist. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school. As his father's job entailed frequent transfers, Narayan spent a part of his childhood under the care of his maternal grandmother, Parvati, who

gave him the nickname of Kunjappa. She taught him arithmetic, mythology, classical Indian music and Sanskrit.  

Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy. When he moved to Mysore where his father was transferred, he had access to the well-stocked library at the school where his father taught. Now he started writing as well. After completing high school, Narayan failed the university entrance examination and spent a year at home reading and writing; he subsequently passed the examination in 1926 and joined Maharaja College of Mysore for a bachelor's degree, for which he took a year longer than usual. He briefly held a job as a school teacher; however, he quit early. He realized that the only career for him was in writing, and he decided to stay at home and write novels.

Narayan’s first published work was a book review of Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England. Subsequently, he started writing the occasional local interest story for English newspapers and magazines. Although the writing did not pay much, he had a regular life and few needs. In 1930, he wrote his first novel, Swami and Friends, which was rejected by a string of publishers. With this book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that creatively reproduced the social sphere of the country.

While vacationing in Coimbatore, in 1933, Narayan met and fell in love with Rajam, a 15-year-old girl who lived nearby. He married her. Following his marriage, Narayan became a reporter for a Madras-based paper called The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. Earlier, he had sent the manuscript of Swami and Friends to a friend at Oxford, and about this time, the friend showed the manuscript of Swami and Friends to Graham Greene. Greene recommended the book to his publisher, and it was finally published in 1935. Greene also counselled Narayan on shortening his name to become more familiar to the English-speaking audience. The book was semi-autobiographical and built upon many incidents from his own childhood. 

Narayan's next novel, The Bachelor of Arts (1937), was inspired in part by his experiences at college. His third novel, The Dark Room (1938) was about domestic disharmony, showcasing the man as the oppressor and the woman as the victim within a marriage. These books received good reviews.

Rajam died of typhoid in 1939. She had motivated him to write and make writing a full-time career. He never remarried in his life and cared for their daughter Hema. Her death was the inspiration behind his next novel, The English Teacher.

His first collection of short stories, Malgudi Days, was published in November 1942, followed by The English Teacher in 1945. In between, he started his own publishing company, naming it Indian Thought Publications; the publishing company was a success and is still active, now managed by his granddaughter. Around this period, he wrote the screenplay for the Gemini Studios film Miss Malini (1947), which remained the only screenplay by him that was successfully adapted into a feature film.

After The English Teacher, Narayan's writings took a more imaginative and creative external style compared to the semi-autobiographical tone of the earlier novels. His next effort, Mr. Sampath, was the first book exhibiting this modified approach. However, it still draws from some of his own experiences.

Soon after, he published The Financial Expert, considered to be his masterpiece and hailed as one of the most original works of fiction in 1951. The next novel, Waiting for the Mahatma, loosely based on a fictional visit to Malgudi by Mahatma Gandhi, deals with the protagonist's romantic feelings for a woman, when he attends the discourses of the visiting Mahatma.

He wrote The Guide which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958. Narayan's next novel, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, was published in 1961. With this success, both within India and abroad, he started writing columns for magazines and newspapers including The Hindu and The Atlantic.

In 1964, Narayan published his first mythological work, Gods, Demons and Others, a collection of rewritten and translated short stories from the Hindu epics. Like many of his other works, this book was illustrated by his younger brother R. K. Laxman.

Narayan's next published work was the 1967 novel, The Vendor of Sweets. He published his next book, a collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats, in 1970. He translated the Kamba Ramayanam into English. The Ramayana was published in 1973, after five years of work. The Mahabharata was published in 1978.

Narayan's works were translated into Chinese for the first time. In 1983, he published his next novel, A Tiger for Malgudi, about a tiger and its relationship with humans. His next novel, Talkative Man, published in 1986, was the tale of an aspiring journalist from Malgudi. During this time, he also published two collections of short stories: Malgudi Days (1982), a revised edition including the original book and some other stories, and Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories, a new collection. In 1987, he completed A Writer's Nightmare, another collection of essays about topics as diverse as the caste system, Nobel prize winners, love, and monkeys. The collection included essays he had written for newspapers and magazines since 1958.

In 1980, Narayan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, for his contributions to literature. During his entire six-year term, he was focussed on one issue—the plight of school children, especially the heavy load of school books and the negative effect of the system on a child's creativity.

In 1990, he published his next novel, The World of Nagaraj, also set in Malgudi. Narayan published his final book, Grandmother's Tale in 1992. The book is an autobiographical novella, about his great-grandmother.

Narayan died on 13 May 2001, in Chennai at the ripe age of 94.

Writing Style

Narayan's writing technique was unpretentious with a natural element of humour about it. It focussed on ordinary people, reminding the reader of next-door neighbours, cousins and the like, thereby providing a greater ability to relate to the topic. Unlike his national contemporaries, he was able to write about the intricacies of Indian society without having to modify his characteristic simplicity to conform to trends and fashions in fiction writing. He also employed the use of nuanced dialogic prose with gentle Tamil overtones based on the nature of his characters.

Narayan has won numerous awards during the course of his literary career. His first major award was in 1958, the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide. When the book was made into a film, he received the Filmfare Award for the best story. In 1964, he received the Padma Bhushan. In 1980, he was awarded the AC Benson Medal by the (British) Royal Society of Literature. In 1982 he was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times, but never won the honour.

Recognition also came in the form of honorary doctorates by the University of Leeds (1967), the University of Mysore(1976) and Delhi University (1973). Towards the end of his career, Narayan was nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament for a six-year term starting in 1989, for his contributions to Indian literature. A year before his death, in 2001, he was awarded India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan.