Men That Keep Attention: Life and Contribution of R.K .Narayan: The of Harbinger Indian English Fiction

During the Gandhian Age (1920-1947) there has been a tremendous upheaval in the political, social and economic spheres. As there has been an unprecedented awakening among the every section of society, the major triumvirate of Indian English fiction- Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Naranayan and Raja Rao- start to revolutionize the writing by newer ideas and ideals. Ordinary men and women come alive in these pages. The sympathetic understanding of the middle class, seeking extraordinary in ordinary, their works comparable to the best in the genre. We will now sketch the picturesque beauty of Narayan’s work . Read More Men That Keep Attention
 

R.K. Narayan-as is the practice in south India, the two initials preceding Narayan stand respectively for the village from which Narayan’s family comes and the name of his father. R is for Rasipuram, a talucas in the district of Salem, to which Narayan’s ancestors belonged. By the time Narayan was born (10^th oct, 1907), the family had moved to ,Madras. Soon after his birth, his father Krishnaswami Ayer got a job in Mysore as schoolmaster and moved there. Narayan knew only two languages- Tamil and English but having stayed so many year in Mysore could manage to understand Kannada. His early knowledge of the life and manners of South India.

R.K. Narayan

 Read More Men That Keep Attention Narayan has produced a sizable body of workmore than 10 novels and 6 collection  of short stories which makes him one the most respected writers in the British commonwealth. Narayan claimed that his purpose in art was to convey unambiguously the thoughts and acts of a set of personalities, who nourished in a small town named Malgudi located in a corner of South India. Narayan chiefly wrote about the India Middle class because he was a part of it and understood it best. This is the middle class where people are not too off to be unworried about  the money or brutalized by the total lack of it.

Narayan’s first novel Swami and Friends was published in 1935. In fact It made an instant appeal to some of the leading writers and critics in India and England. Graham Greene who introduced him to Hamish Hamilton hailed it as ‘a book in ten thousand’. The novel is most enjoyable of the noshed is recalled here. Swami, Moni, Rajam, Samuel, Some are the notable portraits in the novel. Read More Men That Keep Attention Srinivasa Iyengar says, “chang sarayu to Tambravani, Vaigai, Chauvery, k rishna or Godavary, and Malgudi to one of the hundreds of similar riverside towns in India, and the story of Sweami and his friends would be true any where.”

His other novel Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher also centers around Malgudi on saryu location. Both the novel deals with love and marriage. The Dark Room is on the other hand, a study of domestic disharmony. Waiting for he Mahatma Brings out the Gandhian theme Though the Bharati-Sriram romance the whole novel has the motivating force Behind by the Gandhian influence,. Among his other novels, The Gnide, The Sweet Vendor, The Financial Expert, The Man Eater of Maljgudi are variegated in typical characterization. In the Guide we find Raju who travels the course of living in an exciting mamer. He starts as a shop owner, becomes tour guide, them a manager to a dancer, latter put into tail and finally becomes a ‘sash’, a Mhatma, a swami. At the end of the novel we find Raju trapped in his self deception. At the first last day of his fast we find him as a martyr waiting for rain to end end the draught in the district. Is Raju reborn as mahatma is a question of speculation. Narayan ends his novel in open ended fashion. In The Sweet Vendor we met a sweet vendor Jagan who not only sells sweets profitably but also sells his philosophy. In The Man Eater of Malgudi Narayan retells the Deva-Asura conflicts in modern version. The main character in this novel is demon, Vasu.

 Apart from novels, R.K. Narayan is a prolific short story writer.There are several collections of short stories in his name. They included Malgudi Days , Cyclone and other stories, An Astrologer’s Day and other stories etc. Narayan wrote that it was one of his principles in telling his stories ‘to compress the range of observation and subject the particle to an intense scrutiny’. Read More Indian English To quest an example, in An Astrologer’s Day, like an astrologer, Narayan had ‘a working analysis of mankind’s troubles: marriage, money and the tangles of human ties”. We may add caste, poverty, man’s harshness to man, and a view of lite depend up on a profound unquestioned religions mentality. Again in his Gods, Demons and other we find a retelling of some classical myths.

R.K. Narayan lived a one, full life up to the age of 96. In 2001 he died leavening India and the world of letters orphaned.Read More Men That Keep Attention  “It is sad that he gone but his passing bears with it the plentitude of a life full of personal growth, the ability to take failure, with success, and in the end to be overwhelmed with amplitude of honors.”(University Today-Dr.L.L. Prabhin)     
        

     Ardhendu De

Ref:

Indian English literature since independence : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/indianenglishlit0000unse