Storyteller who brought the nation together

As the Doordarshan logo would spin rhythmically on the screen and the opening notes of Malgudi Days floated through the living room, everything stopped — children froze mid-bite, mothers forgot about the

pressure cooker whistle and fathers set down their newspapers. For the next half an hour, the country wasn’t divided by cities or states, it was united by one small, imaginary town: Malgudi.

It was a world untouched by deadlines and traffic jams — a world full of small dreams, innocent mischief and the sweet chaos of small-town hearts. No big stars, no fancy sets, no over-the-top drama, just stories that felt like home. And the man behind it was RK Narayan — quiet, observant, wickedly witty and effortlessly brilliant. He saw beauty in the ordinary long before anyone thought it was worth writing about.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanswami was born in Madras (now Chennai) in 1906. He spent much of his childhood under the care of his grandmother while his father worked in another city. Narayan graduated from Maharaja College, Mysore, in 1930 and soon decided to dedicate himself entirely to writing, a rare and risky choice in pre-Independent India. It was then that he shortened his name to the simpler, more memorable pen name, RK Narayan.

His first novel, Swami and Friends (1935), introduced readers to his fictional town of Malgudi. The book, published with the encouragement of the British novelist Graham Greene, captured the innocence of childhood during colonial times. It was followed by The Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945) — the latter being deeply personal, written after the death of his wife and exploring themes of love, loss and spirituality.

Narayan’s most acclaimed work, The Guide (1958), told the story of Raju, a tour guide who unexpectedly becomes a spiritual figure. Over the decades, Narayan wrote 34 novels and numerous short story collections, including Lawley Road, A Horse and Two Goats, and Under the Banyan Tree. Narayan also adapted the great Indian epics, producing accessible prose versions of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Beyond fiction, his nonfiction works such as My Dateless Diary, My Days, Reluctant Guru , and The Emerald Route revealed his wit, travel experiences and reflections on society.

For his immense contribution to literature, Narayan received several national and international honours, including the Padma Bhushan (1964), Benson Medal (1980) from the Royal Society of Literature, Sahitya Akademi Fellowship (1994) and the Padma Vibhushan (2000). Even though he passed away in 2001, Malgudi hasn’t faded — it still lives on in childhood memories and in stories that feel real. Open his books, and for a moment, life slows down, laughter comes easy and the ordinary feels magical again.

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