India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 14 :: No. 25 :: Dec. 13 - 26, 1997

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BOOK EXCERPT

Our Man in Malgudi

K. NATWAR SINGH

"HAVE you read R.K. Narayan?" asked E.M. Forster as we sat in the King's College Fellows Garden across the river Cam, on a nippy spring afternoon in May 1954.

"No, I am afraid I have not."

"Read him. High-class comedy, without any isms," was Forster's advice.

With some effort I got hold of a second-hand copy of The English Teacher and read it at one go. That is how my love affair with Malgudi began.

R.K. Narayan with Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961.

In July 1955, the 1953 IFS batch was despatched on Bharat Darshan. While in Mysore, I left my colleagues and went in search of R.K. Narayan. He was yet to become a household name and it was with considerable difficulty that I got to his newly constructed house in Yadavgiri. It was the only house there 42 years ago. I opened the wooden gate, walked up the gravel path. A man in shirt and lungi was standing on the verandah.

"My name is Natwar Singh. I am looking for Mr. R.K. Narayan."

"You are talking to him. Are you Khushwant Singh's brother?"

I then produced my cliche about Singhs and Sikhs.

On my return to Delhi, I wrote him a letter but he did not respond. While in China from 1956 to 1958, I wrote my very first article on him for Nissim Ezekiel's Quest, which impressed C.R. Mandy, the formidable editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India. But not a word from R.K. Narayan. Not a propitious beginning for a friendship!

The 1960 Sahitya Akademi Award for the best book in English was given to R.K. Narayan for The Guide. In early March 1961, he came to Delhi to receive the award. I had not set eyes on him for six years. On his arrival in New Delhi, Narayan contacted me through our mutual friend, Krishna Kripalani, then Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi. I was then a bachelor and staying at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. Narayan spent many hours with me. I arranged for him to meet several friends of mine in the IFS. They liked him. He liked them. R.K. is one of the most comfortable persons to be with.

I was charmed when Narayan told me he had never been to Delhi before. Here was someone different, someone original. In my enthusiasm, I made the mistake of asking him if I could do anything for him while he was in Delhi. "Two things," he said, "show me the rose garden in Rashtrapati Bhavan and take me to Pandit Nehru."

Somehow I managed both. I took him to Jawaharlal Nehru at Teen Murti House. Nehru came down at 9-00 a.m. - fragrant and glowing, looking 61, not 71. After greeting one or two others, he walked towards us. R.K. Narayan was in suit and tie; I, in C3 - closed collar coat. R.K. said, "How do I greet him? Will he shake hands with me or should I fold my hands? The mechanics of life defeat me." By then the Prime Minister had reached us. "R.K. Narayan, sir," I said.

"What have you got there?" he enquired of R.K. Narayan.

"This is my latest novel; it has just been published by the Viking Press in America."

He handed the book to one of the all-time great lovers of books. The Prime Minister read the title aloud: The Man-Eater of Malgudi. He said that he did not get time to read novels now and that he had not written anything for years. "My daughter has read some of your books, and I have a niece who writes. What is the book about?" R.K. Narayan enlightened the Prime Minister - it was about a taxidermist who creates a lot of trouble in a village. I intervened, "It is high-class comedy, sir, free of all isms," echoing E.M. Forster. Nehru enquired how our man from Malgudi was spending his time in Delhi. I told the Prime Minister of R.K. Narayan's two priorities - first the roses at Rashtrapati Bhavan, then the Prime Minister. Nehru was amused and remarked, "I am one of the sights of Delhi. Do you know Delhi at all?"

R.K.N. Never been here before.

J.N. I thought everybody got here sooner or later on some jaunt or the other.

R.K.N. My writing keeps me busy in Mysore and I had no particular reason to come to Delhi.

J.N. Have a look at the albums of this year's Republic Day parade. Someone brought these this morning.

He then left R.K. Narayan and me to be taken care of by Indira Gandhi.

When R.K. Narayan's autobiography, My Days, appeared, I found no mention of the Nehru-Narayan meeting. This surprised me and I spoke to R.K. Narayan about the omission when he stayed with us in London in 1975. His reply was disarming. "It never occurred to me to give publicity to it, and in any case I could not weave it into the narrative. My Days is a literary work, not a political tract." All I could say was that modesty could be but need not be carried to extremes.

Nevertheless, at the time R.K. Narayan was quite obviously excited about his meeting with Nehru and was moved by the occasion. On his return to Mysore, he wrote on April 10:

My dear Natwar,

What a joy it was being with you in Delhi. I miss you badly, I tell you. Have you no business which can bring you to Mysore?

I used to be a hopeless letter writer, but now I promise improvement. I am going to write to you as often as I hear from you, and if I don't hear from you I will always leave one on credit.

I want more copies of the photo with the PM, preferably some that include Indira, and the negative of my picture. Could you manage all this? I would hesitate to bother anyone about photographs, but the occasion is special and I feel I can take the liberty with you. Thank you. Did you manage that piece for The Hindustan Times? How did it go?

It went very well and was read by a lot of people. I think the photograph of R.K. Narayan and Jawaharlal Nehru caught the eye, especially as I had been wisely cut out by The Hindustan Times.

R.K. Narayan went on to tell me in the letter about the birth pangs of his next novel:

I am in a torment about the choice of a theme for my next novel. I am thinking of a new subject each day and rejecting it after a few hours of enthusiastic speculation. The most acceptable seems to be Woman-eater of Malgudi.

Affectionately,
R.K.N.

Four months later I arrived in New York to take up my new job. R.K. Narayan followed a few weeks later. This was a godsend for me. R.K. Narayan introduced me to Santha Rama Rau, Marshall Best, her publisher at Viking, and Harvey Breit, a one-time editor of The New York Times Book Review and a well-known literary gadfly. He also gave me an entire set of his books, published by the Michigan University Press. We spent many evenings with Santha and her entertaining and highly strung husband, Faubian Bowers, who had written a learned book on the Japanese Opera. During the war he had been aide-de-camp to General Douglas MacArthur. Ved Mehta was also friendly with Narayan. I too saw something of him with Narayan. I was, after initial revulsion, beginning to love New York, which has a tempo of life at once exciting, exhilarating and exhausting. A city in which the pursuit of a receding destination is all-absorbing.

Narayan's next letter is from Mysore, dated February 7, 1962. He told me what he had been doing. His schedule appeared to be without focus and not a bit divagatory. He obviously liked it that way. The letter is typed and para three has 453 words!

... Since coming back to India, I have been very busy. Don't ask "What were you busy about?" I am not able to give a coherent explanation. I visited Delhi, I wrote on Gandhi for Life, I promised articles for magazines and broadcast talks and invariably backed out at the last minute. My mind is buzzing with a new character for a novel and I am writing just five hundred words of it a day and not more, which is again a quarter of my days. Necessarily so since I am more than twice my own age of about twenty-five years ago when I began writing!... I am also planning on a vast scale the book of Mythology for Marshall and I spend some enchanting hours now and then with a real, live pundit who helps me with the research.

I am also fixing my house all the time, white-washing, arranging, furnishing and so forth, which leaves me panting at the end of the day. I am just back after two months stay with my granddaughter. I feel like going back there, now or very soon, abandoning everything. So you have a picture of me.

It is quite a picture of a widower getting involved in chores not generally associated with authors. I knew how he doted on his daughter and her daughter.

He had been devastated when his young wife died leaving little Hema alone. This most searing tragedy is described in Narayan's The English Teacher, in poignant words. Hema's well-being took almost all his time. In My Days, Narayan opens his heart on the effect Rajam's death had on him:

I had lost my anchorage. There was no meaning to existence... I had to give her (Hema) a great deal of my company in order to make up for her mother's absence.

I doubt if R.K. ever read Nietzsche, but this echoes the German's view of the ultimate emptiness of life. The other aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy, of the superman craving for power, would repel R.K. The letter ends on an unexpectedly practical domestic note:

May I exploit you for a small help? I bought a refrigerator from Corvette as you will see from the enclosure. The refrigerator arrived and is in use. It is a small portable model with legs for which they charged extra. But the legs have not arrived, although from the bill you will see that I have paid for it. They also said that the booklet explaining its operation would be enclosed with the package. This is not to be found either. Could you take it up with them and ask them to mail both by air-freight? Don't bother about this if you have no time. Forgive the trouble.

Affectionately,
R.K.

This practical side of R.K. Narayan came as a surprise. As the years went by, I learnt that he had a finely tuned business sense. For several years he ran his own publishing unit. Indian Thought Publications did well for the author.

On March 20, 1962, he wrote announcing his plans to visit the part of the world discovered by Captain Cook:

I am off to Australia today, visiting Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Actually I am writing this on a plane to Delhi, where I shall spend a day with Narayana and Rekha. Of course, we shall talk about you as much as possible. I am quite charmed to hear that Harvey thought I treated him like a lackey. I don't know who a lackey is, never having had one, but please assure Harvey that I'd never treat a lackey as badly as I would a 'collaborator' (who) actually turns out to be (the) murderer of a novel. You were handsome to defend me. Actually, do you know he has approached me again, fourth time in four months, he wants to produce it with Zia next season. I have said yes, provided I have the final approval of the script. Let us see how it goes this time.

He was having problems about the stage production of The Guide. Zia-Mohiyuddin had made a name for himself as Aziz in Santha Rama Rau's stage version of Forster's novel. Forster was much pleased. The play, A Passage to India, did well on both sides of the Atlantic. R.K. Narayan also mentioned his publishing fears. Marshall Best was Vice President of Viking Press, New York. He was a decent, softspoken man and liked R.K. The letter goes on:

I am delighted to know you are in touch with Marshall. I have not heard from him at all. Our contracts have been satisfactorily concluded. Why should it ever be otherwise? I have no idea what went on between my agents and Viking, but always and ever I place implicit trust in my friendship with Marshall.... I would not dream of writing my books for anyone else. You must please convey this to Marshall, as I have been receiving hints now and then of the bothers they face from my agents. I'm spiritually committed to Viking, apart from all other considerations.

I was struck by the words 'spiritually committed'. How wonderfully old-fashioned. How splendid to know someone who actually lived by what he said.

He goes on to mention that his new novel is progressing 'unhurriedly'. He also gave some useful 'author's information'.

Formerly, I used to set 2,000 words as my daily quota for a novel, but now I feel that the best results are obtained when I write only 500-1,000 words a day. Anyway don't put too much reliance on what I am saying now, as I discover a new theory of writing with each new book, each day. There can be no axiom in writing.

(To be continued)

Excerpted from Profiles and Letters by K. Natwar Singh; published by Sterling Publishers Private Limited, New Delhi, 1997; pages 244, Rs. 350.