Relive Malgudi Days

For most of who love to read, especially Indian authors, RK Narayan was a staple; a simple story teller, he did not use gigantic and confusing big words but like his stories, his language was also very simple but at the same time profound. His stories take you back in time when life was uncomplicated and value of life mattered more than the price of things.

He shot to fame when Anant Nag picturized his book Malgudi days into a TV series, shown on Doordarshan. Swamy and his household were loved by one and all; each of us probably going back in time to one’s own childhood.

RK Narayan penned his epic 29 books from a spartan but spacious 2-storeyed hose in Mysuru. He lived and wrote from here for 40 years or more and then in 2001, after his death, like one of his stories, it came up for demolition. A public outcry and better sense prevailed, and civic authorities restored the property into a museum. This will hopefully become a literary stopover for us Indians like the way it is for Shakespeare’s house at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Malgudi Days itself, a fictional town, was shot in Agumbe in Karnataka and even there you can visit the home where Swamy and his friends lived. But this house of our Indian literary treasure is a must visit; after all it is we the people who have the responsibility to nurture and preserve the legends of our times.