The
Commentator says;
The
calamity of today’s higher education in English literature in India is the
blind tailing of western canons. This bias has incurred serious damage to the
products of such a handicapped academia: the students. Major English writers in
India are sidelined for the shameless inclusion of those whose Indian-ness could
only be proved after referring to a dozen researched articles. Five years back,
I used to teach R K Narayan in the MA English classroom, his novel The Guide. I read it as a maters’
student too. Now, a few years later, this author’s name appears only as a
passing reference in the history of Indian English Literature. Sad— sad for the
whole generation of students.
R
K Narayan’s short stories are often prescribed for students in lower grades as
if they are not worthy of the perusal of university students. My Days is R K Narayan’s autobiography.
This book deserves to be in the reading-list of any serious scholar of
literature. Unlike many semelparous authors India has seen, R K Narayan
delivers quite a busy ride in the complex arena of fiction. His fiction, mostly
written in the social realist tradition, offers with clarity the images of
rural as well as an emerging urban India.
 |
| R K Narayan/ Image Courtesy: Google |
My Days begins
with an enticing description of the childhood of Narayan. The boy with a
peacock and a monkey as playmates acts as a sharp contrast to contemporary
childhood. The Commentator feels that it may sound backward reading but R K
Narayan’s autobiography works in today’s India-the post-liberalized,
post-modern, post-globalized cultural space-as a reminder of a synchronic
reality that shaped most of the present thought leaders in this nation. In
order to understand India’s cultural present, one must, the Commentator
believes, go imbibe the cultural past that is mostly revealed through R K
Narayan. This man is India’s keeper of a nostalgic past. His words are not mere
signs that have signifiers; they are both signs and signifiers all in one.
 |
| Image Courtesy: Google |
Young
Narayan wanders the streets of Chennai and discovers as a young boy the various lives that
would appear in his fiction, later. As a young man, he falls in love and keeps
his family afloat by writing stories. The only job he was ever able to acquire
was a teaching job. Narayan gets this job through a recommendation made by his
father, the former principal of a major school. However, the young man was unable
to kindle enthusiasm in teaching students. So he runs away and chooses a
different life for himself.
My Days
is also a book with nuggets of wisdom on the life of a writer. My Days is a must read from a teacher’s
point of view. This book can inform as well as inspire wannabe writers. My Days feels like a vantage point
because it projects through its pages the big picture behind the foggy
realities of failures and struggles. While perusing the book, the Commentator
experienced the surge of inner knowing and the awareness towards understanding
life’s trials dawned on me. The reader gets a good look at the totality of
life, the inherent feature of any good biography, whether written by oneself or
by others.
