You Never Forget Your First R.K. Narayan Book

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[{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1507616948876","data":"Having recently discovered the joy of reading due to the Harry Potter books, thanks to Rowling and my parents, I ran home straight from school, a bright-eyed young lad who had made his parents promise to get him more books from the market when they came back home. <\/p>Excited to go through the pile of books I had just received, I took in the cover art of each of the books, carefully ran my eyes over the names of the authors and how they were presented, flipped the book over and read the summary and snippets of reviews on the back cover. Then I saw Bachelor of Arts. <\/p>Call it blind luck or maybe fate itself had its designs for me but I was drawn to the book in an instant, whether it was the curiously designed cover or the fact that the author was an Indian man named R.K. Narayan, I do not remember. I told myself that this would be the first book I'll read and ran off to a corner of the house where I could squeeze in and read in relative peace.<\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1507617572253","data":"59dc9271e51f5"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1507617574469","data":"Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was born on October 10, 1906, in a privileged Brahmin family, a fact he would remember as he went on to build his career in the coming years. Born in the Madras Presidency, his family would eventually move to Mysore, a town the young man feel unquestionably in love with. The general prosperity of The Kingdom of Mysore meant the small town was a beacon in the dark for all kinds of interesting people and intellectual discussions. The vibes of the small town combined with the kind of people that shuttled in and out of the place, the intellectual discoures under lush green trees and the sheer scenic beauty of Mysore had found a stricken lover in R.K. Narayan, so much so that he would eventually go on and immortalise it in the form of Malgudi, a small South Indian town in Karnataka that would be the ground zero for most of his stories. <\/p>I've never studied literature professionally, I'm an engineering drop out that decided to focus on writing instead, so maybe I'm not exactly the best judge of his literary merits. This piece is more of my personal opinions on his works, although I would be unfair to mention that I do wish to study literature, hopefully soon. <\/p>Because reading R.K. Narayan for the first time is like falling in love for the first time. Many have called his work simple and easy to pick up, but the reason Narayan's books found a place in our hearts was not that they were simple to read and understand, but because his writing was, without a shadow of a doubt, sincere. <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1507623538966","data":"59dc92763e522"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1507623541071","data":"For Narayan put his heart and soul into his work, the sincere and simple South Indian boy who would go on to be one of India's greatest English writers. His sincerity in writing showed, of course, many noted literary critics spoke at length about how Narayan's writing makes one feel like they had visited the town themselves. So detailed were the descriptions of the town and its people, you couldn't help but feel like you were an observer to the events in the book, watching in sadness or with great amusement as Malgudi's rich and varied characters interacted with each other and try to take on life in all its complexities. For a first time reader, one would go in not expecting what they would find, only to finish the book and feel a profound sense of loss for a life that doesn't exist outside the pages of Narayan's books. <\/p>I was too young to fully grasp Bachelor of Arts when I first read the book. The humour and the way Narayan highlights the quintessentially middle-class issues to the world with his crisp writing style has, since then, always been at the back of my mind. To this day, I regularly revisit the book. It is one of those works which you identify with more and more as the years go by because much like Chandan in the book, I too am an upper-middle-class spoiled brat. Bachelor of Arts is an example of how well Narayan understood the middle class, and this is just his second book, one which serves as a great example of going back in time to see how much things have changed and how much more has remained the same. <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1507624466152","data":"59dc928d1e81d"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1507624468092","data":"It is the simple honesty in his prose which makes Narayan such an effective writer. Following Swami and Friends and Bachelor of Arts, he would go on to write many more stories - short stories included - about life in and around Malgudi. His works have been adapted as movies and The Guide even got a Broadway play, were included in textbooks and more. He has inspired generations of Indian middle-class children (like yours truly) to look to writing as a career, all of which began that day when I picked up my first Narayan book and was blown away by what I read, and that is why you never forget your first R. K. Narayan book, it stays with you forever, nudging you when you feel lost and telling you that it is okay, that problems will come and go but you and your work will remain constants. <\/p>Whenever I read books by some of the greatest literary minds from across the world and find myself out of depth with the words they use and the way they write, it makes me wonder if I will be any good, if I'll ever be able to write even remotely as good as the authors of the books in question do, but then I remind myself of R.K. Narayan, a man who went on to become a legend not with lofty words and complicated sentences, but with sincerity and simplicity. <\/p>"}]

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