A presentation by:Arjun Butola14150, ECE-I

Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon

Communication Skills in EnglishBook Review

If I were to ask you whether you have read any work of Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Naranayanaswami, you would say “who is that?”

I too was wonderstruck when a friend asked me this question. When I said, “I have never heard of this name,” he handed me the “Malgudi Days” by RK Narayan. I said “Oh RK Narayan! Yes of course I have seen the serial on Doordarshan.” He said “Yes. RK Narayan is the short name of Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Naranayanaswami. Do you know this abridged name was suggested by Graham Greene when he was getting ‘Swam and Friends’ published. Read this book. I am sure you will enjoy it and fall in love with Malgudi”

There began my journey into the Malgudi world and I really felt at home there.

Introduction

Although Malgudi was created out of RK Narayan’s imagination, it is very live and a vibrant city. Everything is there. The little Post Office, the grocery shop, the Town Hall Park, the vendor of fried groundnuts, the astrologer with his cowrie shells and paraphernalia, the Vinayak Mudali Street with four parallel streets, Thanappa the Postman on his bicycle pedaling furiously down one of the streets, City X Ray Institure at Race Course Road etc etc. You name it and it is there. It is a full fledged city which you can picturise as though you are being driven through its streets as you read through the stories.

The city has its permanent inhabitants who move through the stories as though the events were happening in a real city having real living people. After having read only a few of his books it is difficult to shake off the feeling that you have lived in this town.

Malgudi could be anywhere. It has no geographical limitations. You walk down the street in your city and it is as good as walking down Malgudi. You will find most of the characters who inhabit Malgudi present in your city too. Malgudi is depicted in the 1930s India when modern day developments had not taken place. If RK Narayan were to write some new stories depicting the present day world, probably Malgudi would have developed into a modern city with the neon lights, flashing banners, multi storied buildings etc.

Where is Malgudi?

RK Narayan, was born in 1906 in Madras. He graduated from Maharaja’s College Mysore (My wife is a product of Maharani’s college Mysore so she was thrilled to hear this.)

His first novel Swami and Friends came out in 1935 at the age of 29. From there started the legend of Malgudi. A city was born. So was a great writer in the making. He has published numerous novels, five collections of short stories, two travel books, four collections of essays, a memoir and some translations of Indian epics and myths. He preferred the short story to the novel as he says, “The short story affords a writer a welcome diversion from hard work.” While writing a novel he says, “….I feel restless and uneasy at being shackled to a single task for months on end.”

If one says that he is one of the best Indian writers in English, it will be no exaggeration. He has an equally illustrious and famous brother, RK Laxman the cartoonist.

A word about RK Narayan

ReviewMalgudi Days is a collection of 32 short funny and witty stories. Its author as I have

mentioned in the title is R K Narayanan.The stories happen in Malgudi, an imaginary town located somewhere on the banks of

Sarayu (a river in South India). Even though it is common to call Malgudi an imaginary town, you will not feel it is imaginary while reading the book. You can

trace it to any village in south India. The stories carry the scent and sounds of these villages and you instantly blend into the situations in the stories. You will feel as

though you are the character in the story yourself and that is the secret behind the success of this immensely popular book.

Rather than revolving around a particular plot these stories wander off dreamily. Each of the stories describe the relationship between members in a family, the various social taboos prevalent in the mid ninteties. All the stories will seem faintly similar

but they are vastly different from each other. The stories deal with the most ordinary men and women and that makes these stories extraordinary. Each story

deals with simple people and simple issues they are faced with in real life. The stories instantly establish a connection between the reader and the characters.

Cont….Some of the stories are humorous while other will shake your soul so wildly

that you might cry. Anyway I can dare to say that once you read these stories the memories will last you for your lifetime. You will carry them to

the grave!Indian villages which are often depicted as poverty-ridden, infested with epidemics, occupied by good for nothing illiterate fellows have another side to them. They have a charm, a charm which I cannot explain. This charm is depicted and presented in each of the stories in this book. Each story is so

full of humanity and will invoke that part of you which you have forgotten in this deplorable rat chase called life.

And the endings of each stories. They are also special. The author will never reveal what happened at the end and will leave it to your imagination. It will

make you go mad thinking what would have happened. The author will tease you by leaving you wondering for ever as those endings will never be

written as the author himself is dead.

Comments

Well, to come back to our lives. This book is one of those extra extra ordinary book which you MUST read. If you do not, then you are losing something very valuable. I recommend this book to all readers.

The stories are simple and short where the central character faces some kind of crisis in life and either resolves it or lives with it. He meant his stories to be “….. in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I perceive it….” The reader may read a lot into the stories depending on his experiences in life.

Thank You

The End