An author's story

In 1925, when he was 18 years old, RK Narayan failed his University entrance examination in English. An enforced gap year followed, and every morning of that year, Narayan would walk from his house at 1087, Bojjanna Lines, to the banks of the Kukkarahalli lake, with a book of poetry in his pocket. “After a walk around the tank, I sat down under a lone tree on a rise of the ground, opened the book, and partially read and partially observed the water birds diving in,” he wrote later.
This was at a time when the population of the city was a little more than a lakh, and people walked to get from place to place, and not for fitness.
On Narayan’s mornings around the lake, his companions were cowherds and their charges. There would have been little noise apart from bird song and the sound of the leaves, rustling in the breeze.Today, there’s a parking lot near the lake, and it’s full. The path around the lake’s perimeter is full of people, walking briskly – or slowly, in their track pants and Nikes. And while the island in the middle of the lake is still full of birds, it’s hard to imagine a dreamy-eyed teenager with a dog-eared copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury lazing around on a bench, watching them today.
Bojjanna Lines is still around, as well. You won’t find it on Google Maps, but it’s a small street that runs opposite the Chamarajapura Railway Station. It’s a quiet street, still mostly residential. There are some old houses, but none look as if they’ve been around for close to a century now. And finding what was 1087, back in 1925, is pretty much a lost cause.
From Bojjanna Lines, Narayan’s father moved to Lakshmipuram. It was while his family was here that Narayan went through college, and got his first job as an English teacher at a government school in Channapatna. The job was a disaster, and he returned to Mysuru. It was in the Lakshmipuram house that Swami and his friends took shape, mostly on an ancient, ‘elephantine’ typewriter. During this time, Narayan would walk from his house to Chamundi Hills, with a notebook and pen, and write under the shade of the tree.
Ports of call
Walking around Mysuru became an integral part of the author’s day. “Leaving early in the morning, I sauntered down Vani Vilas Road, at old Agrahar slowed my steps in order to pray briefly to Ganesha installed under a peepal tree on the roadside; the scent of jasmine sold on the foot-path, and of sandalwood from manufacturers of incense sticks in the neighbourhood, wafted in the air... At every turn I found a character fit to go into a story. One could not traverse the main artery of Mysore, Sayyaji Rao Road, without stopping every few steps to talk to a friend. Mysore is not only reminiscent of an old Greek city in its physical features, but the habits of its citizens are also very Hellenic. Vital issues, including philosophical and political analyses, were examined and settled by people (at least in those days) on the promenades of Mysore.”
The Ganesha under the peepal tree has his own temple now, a neat structure with multiple deities and officiating priests. The streets remain as crowded - if not more so, but you are unlikely to find citizens indulging in political analyses and philosophical discussions anymore. There’s no longer the scent of jasmine and sandalwood in the air, but there are pushcart vendors selling chaats and fruits, as well as plastic bags stuffed virulently yellow popcorn. And some of Narayan’s old haunts remain – despite facelifts and transplantation.
The vendor of betelnuts
There were some regular stops that Narayan made on his perambulations through the city. One was Srinivasa Stores, at KR Circle, where not just he, but all his family shopped. The old Srinivasa Stores, with its heaps of cloves and betelnuts and raisins and cashews and spices is long gone, of course. In its place is another Srinivasa Stores, a “glamour store”, selling perfumes and cosmetics. Dwarkanath, the son of the founder of the original shop, sits in another Srinivasa Stores, on Kothwal Ramaiah road, this one selling jumbo thermometers and Accu Chek sugar monitors and Tynor medical compression stockings.
Dwarkanath is in his eighties, but he looks decades younger. In other times, he would be called “dapper”. His head is neatly combed, and while his hair looks suspiciously black, there’s not a strand out of place. “Narayan was a great friend of my father, NA Subramania Setty, who established the shop back in 1931. The entire family were our friends. He used to come there around eleven o’clock. He used to sit next to my father, behind the cash counter. He would even handle the cash, count out change for our customers while chatting with us,” he says. “He would observe people keenly, their conversations, their mannerisms for hours together,” he says. “It was almost a home for him. Sometimes he would discuss the short articles he wrote for the papers with my father.”
Dwarkanath pauses, remembering. “He had a thing for betelnuts. I was married to a Shivamogga family. On the day of my marriage, I remember him saying ‘Dwarkanath, from tomorrow, I want only the best betelnuts from Shivamogga’. He used to be very fond of a certain variety, P10s, and we made sure that he always got it. Even when he went abroad, we would ship packets of 50 gms and send it to that area. I think there was no customs duty on packages below 50 grams, so we used to send multiple packages.,” he says.
“Of course, everybody knows about Narayan’s fondness for betelnuts, but he used to smoke as well. Gold Flake cigarettes, the plain ones, unfiltered. Filtered cigarettes came much later. He wasn’t a heavy smoker, but whenever he bought a packet, I knew that he was going to write something,” says Dwarkanath.
Books and stationery
At J Nanumal & Sons is a small bookstore on Sayaji Rao Road, another occasional stopping point for the author. “He used to stop by here, once in a while, and look through our books,” says NB Ashok Kumar, the proprietor. “We make sure that we have all his books on sale, all the time,” he says, as he points to a shelf full of Narayan’s works, wrapped in plastic.
Another, more frequent stop, was the stationery store R Krishnaswami & Sons. It’s been run by the same family for three generations now, and still does brisk business at its Benki Nawab Street location. K Subramanyan, the son of the founder, was one of Narayan’s close friends. “We were friends of the family for a long time. We lived in the road next to theirs, opposite the railway station. Of course, they moved to Lakshmipuram afterwards, but our association goes back a long way,” says Subramanyan. “He never liked publicity. He would visit the shop regularly, in his veshti, coat and his inevitable umbrella, sit and chat a while before leaving,” he says. “He’d sit there, watching the groundnut seller, the cucumber vendor, and then, there would be a story about them, in the paper.”
“He used to be very fond of music, and would attend kutcheris. He was a close friend of Veena Doreswamy (Iyenger), and he even learned the veena,” he says.
“We went to his house for Pattabhi’s (Narayan’s elder brother) daughter’s wedding, and all the great Carnatic singers – DK Pattamal, ML Vasanthakumari, and MS Subbulakshmi – were there,” says Sarada, Subramanyan’s wife.
“I remember he used to drive a Morris Minor. Then, he got himself a Mercedes Benz. I think it was a gift from a German distributor who saw the movie adaptation of the Guide. He would later complain about it being a white elephant. ‘What do I do with it? I have to hire a driver for it. I have to construct a shed to keep it in. It gives only 8 miles to a gallon of petrol,’ I remember him complaining,” says Subramanyan.
Subramaniam stayed in touch with the writer till the very end. “I used to visit him whenever I went to Madras,” he says. “And the first thing he would ask me was for news of Mysore,” he says.
Home and the world
Narayan always saw himself as a Mysurean, but his relationship with the city has always had some kind of uneasy tension, something that went back a long way. There’s a famous anecdote about how Somerset Maugham (and in other tellings, George Bernard Shaw or HG Wells or PG Wodehouse), while visiting Mysuru as a guest of State, wanted to meet any authors in the city, and was told by Sir Charles Todhunter, the Maharaja’s secretary, that there weren’t any. The late TS Satyan, Narayan’s close friend and famous photographer, remembered the attitude of schools and libraries in the city being offered signed copies of Swami and friends. “Not many of them showed any interest and some of them thought that by accepting the books they were doing ... Narayan … a great favour,” he said in a speech organized by the Central Sahitya Academy on the occasion of Narayan’s birth centenary.
More recently, of course, was the controversy surrounding converting Narayan’s Yadavagiri house into a memorial, where several Kannada intellectuals, including the poet GS Shivarudrappa and the novelist SL Bhyrappa, protested the move, saying that the government should not spend money on the effort, because Narayan was not a Kannadiga, and because he did very little to promote Kannada literature to the outside world.
The memorial is in place today, and while the writer’s house has been given a makeover – a fresh coat of paint has been applied, and the red oxide floors are polished to gleaming – it still remains underwhelming. There are a few shelves of books, a display cabinet showcasing the awards and honours Narayan received for his works, and a few randomly selected quotes of dubious quality and stills from Malgudi Days displayed on the walls.
Krishna Prasad, the journalist and the person behind the popular blog Churumuri, is one of the key people who lobbied for the Narayan memorial. “It would have been good to have his papers, his old typewriters, as exhibits,” he says. “But Narayan himself is to blame for the scarcity of material. Why are the US presidential libraries so good? Because everything is saved, stored. You can bet that things are already getting preserved for the Donald Trump museum,” he says.
The most striking feature of the memorial is a wall where hang a set of framed photos. And one of the most striking is a photo of Narayan and his wife Rajam, taken in 1938. Rajam would die a year later, an event that devastated the author
Outside the memorial stands a frangipani tree, ancient, gnarled and twisted. And the branches still bear those delicate white and yellow flowers. It seems an appropriate gatekeeper.