R. K. Narayan

Over a career spanning seven decades, R.K. Narayan, easily one of the most influential and important writers of India, populated the fictional town of Malgudi with a host of unforgettable characters: Swami and his gang of friends, the Talkative Man, Raju the guide and Sampath the printer, among many others. These characters have carved out a place for themselves in popular imagination and live on, still fresh and endlessly entertaining, many decades after they first appeared. Timeless Malgudi brings together a selection of the best and the most enduring of R.K. Narayan's fiction and nonfiction. The Guide examines, with wit and irony, how a man becomes a godman. The story 'A Horse and Two Goats' describes an attempt at crosscultural communication which goes haywire, with hilarious consequences. The excerpt from My Days, Narayan's autobiography, paints a poignant picture of the author's childhood while the 'Misguided Guide' is a cynical, sharply written chronicle of the making of the film Guide, based on his novel. Also included in this volume are excerpts from the travelogue My Dateless Diary and a brilliant retelling of the Tamil epic Silappadikaram.

R. K. Narayan (1906-2001) witnessed nearly a century of change in his native India and captured it in fiction of uncommon warmth and vibrancy. Swami and Friends introduces us to Narayan's beloved fictional town of Malgudi, where ten-year-old Swaminathan's excitement about his country's initial stirrings for independence competes with his ardour for cricket and all other things British. The Bachelor of Arts is a poignant coming-of-age novel about a young man flush with first love, but whose freedom to pursue it is hindered by the fixed ideas of his traditional Hindu family. In The Dark Room, Narayan's portrait of aggrieved domesticity, the docile and obedient Savitri, like many Malgudi women, is torn between submitting to her husband's humiliations and trying to escape them. The title character in The English Teacher, Narayan's most autobiographical novel, searches for meaning when the death of his young wife deprives him of his greatest source of happiness.

Mr Sampath - The Printer of Malgudi is the story of a businessman who adapts to the collapse of his weekly newspaper by shifting to screenplays, only to have the glamour of it all go to his head. In The Financial Expert, a man of many hopes but few resources spends his time under a banyan tree dispensing financial advice to those willing to pay for his knowledge. In Waiting for the Mahatma, a young drifter meets the most beautiful girl he has ever seen - an adherent of Mahatma Gandhi - and commits himself to Gandhi's Quit India campaign, a decision that will test the integrity of his ideals against the strength of his passions.

Chandran is a good-natured, popular, rather dreamy student who works hard to pass his exams. Not all is well in Chandran's horoscope and while some customs can be forgotten, others must be strictly observed: customs that temporarily cause Chandran to turn his back on the legendary Malgudi altogether.

THE APPLE OF HIS EYE IS HIS SON MALI, FOR WHOM HE FEELS A DEEP BUT ABSURDLY EMBARRASSED AFFECTION, WHICH APPEARS TO GO UNREQUITED. WHEN MALI COOLLY ANNOUNCES THAT HE IS ABANDONING SCHOOL TO GO TO AMERICA TO BECOME A WRITER, JAGAN S FATHERLY FEELINGS ARE THROWN INTO STILL GREATER CONFUSION. AND WHEN, A YEAR OR TWO LATER, MALI RETURNS WITH A HALF-KOREAN, HALF-AMERICAN WIFE AND A GRANDIOSE SCHEME FOR MARKETING A NOVEL-WRITING MACHINE, JAGAN IS UTTERLY AT SEA. HE IS CONFRONTED BY THE NEW WORLD SHOCKINGLY PERSONIFIED - A WORLD WHERE HIS CHERISHED NOTIONS OF MARRIAGE AND MORALS SEEM TO COUNT FOR NOTHING. THE TRAGICOMIC CLASH OF THE GENERATIONS DEEPENS WITH EVERY CHAPTER. JAGAN S FINAL ESCAPE FROM THE GALLING CHAINS OF PATERNAL LOVE COMES AS UNEXPECTEDLY AS EVERY OTHER TWIST IN THIS DELICIOUS STORY.

बरगद के पेड़ तले भारत के श्रेष्ठ कहानीकार आर.के. नारायण के प्रिय काल्पनिक शहर, मालगुडी, की अमूल्य धरोहर में एक अनूठे नग की तरह है जिसमें सौदागर, भिखारी, साधु-सन्त, अध्यापक, चरवाहे, ठग जैसे अलग-अलग चरित्रों की दिलचस्प कहानियाँ हंै। कहीं तो है एक विद्रोही नवयुवक जो पैतृक मन्दिर में अपने माता-पिता की ली गई प्रतिज्ञा का पालन करने से साफ इनकार कर देता है, तो वहीं सीधा-सादा दुकानदार एक अजनबी की मनमोहक बातों में आकर दिवालिया हो जाता है, और एक छोटा-सा लड़का अपना साहस दिखाने के लिए रात को अकेले ही चोर को पकड़ दिखाता है। ऐसी ही अट्ठाईस रोचक कहानियाँ हैं बरगद के पेड़ तले में। कहानीकार आर.के. नारायण शब्दों के जादूगर थे जो अपने शब्दों के मायाजाल और जीवन्त चित्राण से पाठकों को मोह लेते हैं। कहानी का विषय कैसा भी हो, पात्रा कितना भी क्रूर क्यों न हो, परिस्थिति कितनी भी विकट क्यों न हो, लेकिन आर.के. नारायण की शालीन कलम हर स्थिति को मानवीय नजरिये से पेश करती है।