Obituary: R K Narayan

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Jul 2001

Yuganta: The End of an Era
(Rasipuram Krishnaswamier Narayan, 1906-2001)

He delighted three generations of readers with his stories of small town people and their ordinary lives. The inhabitants of R K Narayan's Malgudi were mostly mild and unheroic people -- students with no great ambitions, easy -- going householders content with their modest lives and idlers who spent their time talking in and around Market Street. The author's amused tolerance turned even the crooks into comic rather than evil figures. Once in a while there were unexpected turns of events but by and large the complications got sorted out by the end of each book and the normal rhythm of life was restored. This reassuring sense of stability and permanence might have been one of the reasons for his steady popularity.

But the R K Narayan magic is not so easy to explain. There was nothing extra-ordinary either about his themes or narrative mode. While his two major contemporaries and numerous successors constantly experimented with language to meet the challenge of writing about India in English, Narayan solved the problem by appearing to ignore it. Through his even-toned minimalist prose he could manage to convey almost anything he wanted. It was like playing on an ektara, which may not capture too many intricacies, but can move the heart of the listener. Anyone attempting to play the ektara knows that it is not as easy as it sounds.

After fifty years of reaching people through the printed page, R K Narayan acquired a new circle of admirers in the nineteen eighties when his Malgudi Days was made into an enjoyable TV serial. The innocence and charm of the world he evoked with gentle humour and in which all his viewers and readers recognized a part of the life they had known, came under severe strain in the last decade of the twentieth century. The rapid changes in the taste and aspirations of the common people caused by globalization, the loud din of trade and the glare of commercial entertainment began to eclipse the elusive and quiet appeal of Malgudi. With the passing away of RKN in May 2001, the twentieth century seems to be finally over. His death marks the symbolic end of an era.


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