SWAAAMEEEE....!!!!

Its R K Narayan's birth centenary today.To be honest( maybe its to my discredit) I did not know when he passed away or even whether he had. The books have always been bigger than the man for me.Today, there was a slight change in that. I read this article written by his nephew R S Krishnaswamy -about the man, his foibles, idiosycrasies. It makes sense that this man would write "Malgudi Days" where playing truant from school to eat lime pickle on the river bank is just something you do, everyday.

Being born in Mysore and having spent some of the best summer holidays there put me in a right frame of mind to appreciate RKN's novels, which are all supposedly snapshots of his life there. The Mysore he describes (thinly disguised as Malgudi) might have been before my time, nonetheless, that state of mind is not.The lazy summer days, wandering aimlessly with friends,petty quarrels are all typical of a typical kid growing up in a small town. I remember( not the exact words) he says in "Malgudi days" that small children never notice the heat even if they are playing in the hottest midday sun of the summer. I remember thinking exactly that. I used to wonder, as a kid, why my mother would repeatedly ask me to come in because it was too hot to play outside. I didnt know what "too hot to play" meant.Old and grey that I am , now I do. RKN must have remembered that particular thought from his childhood too. To be middle-aged and remember the thoughts of childhood is no mean feat.It just shows the greatness of the man.

His nephew, Sudarshan says "He(RKN) felt it was a child's birthright to create mischief". What could be more true? Why should any child have to acquire that strait-jacket discipline and angelic manner which seems the mode?Widely diverging from the topic,why do we need to bother about childhood obesity if every child runs next to a train everyday?( Like the endearing Master Manjunath in the serial shouting "Swaaameeee").

His niece Pavithra says “If we told him that we didn’t feel like going to school and shed a tear, nobody in the world could stop him from not sending us to school."How cool is that!!!

Yes, I know he is one of the best writers of English literature in India and all that but to me, RKN's biggest literary triumph is that he defined the ideal childhood through "Malgudi days."
I was not surprised at all to read that he was no supporter of formal education or indeed, anything formal.

As I said earlier, the books had always been bigger than the man. Reading this article today, I feel the man and the books are one. Only RKN could write them. Because he was an inspiration, as is his work.

PS: I was thrilled to read that he actually told Indira Gandhi that her cook doesn't make good coffee!! Feels like revenge of the South Indians for Mahmood's accent in "Padosan"!