His Days.. Review on My Days - R K Narayan

Look around you. Look at all the people, their faces. Observe the expressions. Behind those expressions is a secret lying hidden. Each face has its own story to tell. When I think this way I wonder if the world is but a giant book of collected short stories.

• Harsh <utakin2me> (a passing thought after reading the book)

R.K.Narayan is among the best literary persons India ever had. It is rare to come across anyone who has either not heard of him or not read any of his masterpieces. When such a great author writes about his life, one can't help but read.

The Book : Unlike others of its league this autobiography titled My Days does not give details about the author's date and place of birth or about his parents and siblings but it does gives us a glimpse of his younger days, his struggles and the arduous road he trod to fulfill his dreams. This is how it goes:

Early Life:The book begins with the author's recollection of a lazy afternoon at his grandmother's home in Chennai where most of his childhood was spent. The author in the first couple of chapters tells us about how he spent his days as a child with his pets (a peacock and a monkey). The simplicity with which he describes his days at a junior school, his fears and his moments of joy that one feels that a child has written the whole account with his own sweet innocence.

Days As A Young Adult:In later years he shifted to Mysore where his parents and his brothers and sisters lived. His father was a Headmaster but the author's grade at both school and college were not among the highest. Ironically R.K. Narayan failed miserably in english in his B.A. exam. This gave him one year at home to prepare again and during this year a great author and a great thinker was born. He read as many books and different authors he could. Being the son of a Headmaster he had access to all the books of the libraries and the latest publications that arrived from England. Then one day walking home from college library he had a great idea for his first book. A whole small and peaceful town of Malgudi floated in front of his eyes and he could see Swami with his friends running around. He immediately started penning down his imagination and every few days had either his friends or brothers read what he wrote and try to get their opinion. The author had decided to become a writer but as he describes in this book that he was yet to realise that it was not so easy. His two earliest novels, Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts, describe some of his trials and travails during this period.

The Adult Days:The author next tells us about his infatuations which lasted as long as he did not see a new girl. But once he saw Rajam in Coimbatore and he knew she was the girl that was made for him (as if all the others he saw before her were not). But this time he went one step ahead and talked to the girl's father proposing to marry his daughter, a thing rare in those times. After all the hurdles that pre-empt a marriage were cleared the author got married to Rajam. But after four years of marriage his wife passed away leaving behind a daughter. The author lost all interest in life. He somehow knew that he could never bring himself back to writing again. But a rare encounter with a person named Raghunath Rao who with his wife could contact the dead, changed his whole perception of life and death. At Mr. Rao's place he was able to communicate with his wife and slowly started to realise that by shunning life and responsibilities he was doing something wrong. He then wrote The English Teacher in which he described in great details through the protagonist his life after his wife passed away.

The End: The last few chapters describe his foreign trips and some betrayals that he faced. His novel The Guide (check out my review on it) got him a lot of appreciation and this brought one day Dev Anand to his doors requesting him to let him make a movie on the subject offering him a fair share of the profit the movie made which the author says he is yet to receive. In the last chapter he correctly writes that an autobiography can not have a last chapter but at the best a penultimate chapter. He describes his retired life having married off his daughter to a responsible man.

The autobiography is a very short one (186 pages) published by India Thought Publications founded by R.K.Narayan himself.

R.K.Narayan passed away in May 2001 leaving behind a literary legacy, for generations to come to explore.