We all love R K Narayan and his Malgudi...don't we? For those who have not yet read his works, I strongly recommend it. Once in 1982, he was awarded with a fellowship of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. I am reproducing an excerpt of his accepatance speech where he tells us where Malgudi actually is or rather where it actually isn't !!
" You (Mr. Ambassador) have spoken of my writing with warmth and understanding. I am glad you have felt drawn to my characters and their environment. I am often questioned, ' Where is Malgudi?' which is the background of my novels and short stories. I'd like to take this occassion to answer it. I didn't consider too long when I invented this little town. It had just occurred to me when I started on my first nove, Swami and Friends, about fifty years ago, to be exact in September 1930, that it would be safer to have a fictitious name for the background of the novel, which would leave one free to meddle with its geography and details as I pleased without incurring the wrath of any city-father of any actual town or city. I wanted to be able to put in whatever I like, and whereever I liked - a little street or school or temple or a bungalow or even a slum, a railway line, at any spot, a minor despot in a little world. I began to like my role, and I began to be fascinated by its possibilities; its river, market place, and the far-off mountain roads and forests acquired a concrete quality, and have imprisoned me within their boundaries, with the result that I am unable to escape from Malgudi, even if I wished to ...."
What a vision !! His simplicity baffles me still .. R K Narayan never uses hi-fi words or complex sentences.. his writings are full of understanding of the daily human life in the queer old town of Malgudi. Malgudi, the over-used word that describes a gamut of things... Malgudi..( sigh )
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