R K NARAYAN

10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001

R. K. Narayan, whose full name is Rasipuram

Krishnaswami Narayan (originaly, Rasipuram
Krishnaswami Narayanswami), was born on October 10,
1906 in Madras (now known as Chennai), India. He is
known as one of India's greatest English language
novelists, alongside Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

Narayan’s breakthrough was with his first novel.

‘Swami and Friends’ was completed and sent to
publishers. It repeatedly returned. Narayan dispatched it
yet another time and gave the return address as one of
his friend’s in London. He wrote to the friend requesting
the manuscript be tied to a brick and thrown into the
Thames if it came back. It did. But the friend took it to his
acquaintance Graham Greene, who was already an
established author. Narayan received a telegram soon
thereafter, ‘Novel taken. Graham Greene responsible.’

Some of his famous works are as follows:

1. Swami and Friends (1935, Hamish Hamilton)

2. The Bachelor of Arts (1937, Thomas Nelson)
3. The Dark Room (1938, Eyre)
4. The English Teacher (1945, Eyre)
5. Mr. Sampath (1948, Eyre)
6. The Financial Expert (1952, Methuen)
7. Waiting for the Mahatma (1955, Methuen)
8. The Guide (1958, Methuen)
9. The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961, Viking)
10. The Vendor of Sweets (1967, The Bodley Head)
11. The Painter of Signs (1977, Heinemann)
12. A Tiger for Malgudi (1983, Heinemann)
13. Talkative Man (1986, Heinemann)
14. The World of Nagaraj (1990, Heinemann)
15. Grandmother's Tale (1992, Indian Thought
Publications)
16. Malgudi Days (1942, Indian Thought Publications)
17. An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories (1947, Indian
Thought Publications)
18. Lawley Road and Other Stories (1956, Indian Thought
Publications)
19. A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
20. Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)
21. The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories (1994,
Viking)
 SCHOOL BREAKS UP

With dry lips, parched throat, and ink-stained fingers, and

exhaustion on one side and exaltation on the other,

Swaminathan strode out of the examination hall on the

last day.

Standing in the veranda, he turned back and looked into

the hall and felt slightly uneasy. He would have felt more

comfortable if all the boys had given their papers as he

had done, twenty minutes before time. With his left

shoulder resting against the wall, Sankar was lost to the

world. Rajam, sitting under the second ventilator, between

two Third-Form boys, had become a writing machine.

Mani was still gazing at the rafters, scratching his chin

with the pen. The Pea was leaning back in his seat,
revising his answers. One supervisor was drowsing in his

chair; another was pacing up and down, with an

abstracted look in his eyes. The scratchy noise of active

nibs, the rustle of papers, and the clearing of the throats,

came through the brooding silence of the hall.

Swaminathan suddenly wished that he had not come out

so soon. But how could he have stayed longer in the hall?

The Tamil paper was set to go on till five o‟clock. He had

found himself writing the last line of the last question at

four-thirty.

Out of the six questions set, he had answered the first

question to his satisfaction, the second was doubtful, the

third was satisfactory, the fourth, he knew, was clearly

wrong (but then, he did not know the correct answer). The
sixth answer was the best of the lot. It took only a minute

to answer it. He had read the question at two minutes to

four-thirty, started answering a minute later, and finished

it at four-thirty. The question was: „What moral do you

infer from the story of the brahmin and the tiger?‟ (A

brahmin was passing along the edge of a pond. A tiger

hailed him from the other bank and offered him a gold

bangle. The brahmin at first declined the offer, but when

the tiger protested its innocence and sincerity and insisted

upon his taking the bangle, he waded through the water.

Before he could hold out his hand for the bangle, he was

inside the tiger.) Swaminathan had never thought that this

story contained a moral. But now he felt that it must have

one since the question paper mentioned it.

He took a minute to decide whether the moral was: „We

must never accept a gold bangle when it is offered by a

tiger‟ or „Love of gold bangle costs one one‟s life‟. He

saw more logic in the latter and wrote it down. After

writing, he looked at the big hall clock. Half an hour

more! What had he to do for half an hour? But he felt

awkward to be the first to go out. Why could not the

others be as quick and precise as he?

He saw a supervisor observing him, and at once pretended

to be busy with the answer paper. He thought that while

he was about it, he might as well do a little revision. He

read a few lines of the first question and was bored. He

turned over the leaves and kept gazing at the last answer.

He had to pretend that he was revising. He kept gazing at

the moral of the tiger story till it lost all its meaning. He

set his pen to work. He went on improving the little dash

under the last line indicating the end, till it became an

elaborate complicated pattern.

He looked at the clock again, thinking that it must be

nearly five now. It was only ten minutes past four-thirty.

He saw two or three boys giving up their papers and

going out, and felt happy. He briskly folded the paper and

wrote on the flap the elaborate inscription:

Tamil Tamil

W.S. Swaminathan

1st Form A Section

Albert Mission School

Malgudi
 South India

Asia.

The bell rang. In twos and threes boys came out of the

hall. It was a thorough contrast to the preceding three

hours. There was the din of excited chatter.

„What have you written for the last question?‟

Swaminathan asked a classmate. „Which? The moral

question? . . . Don‟t you remember what the teacher said

in the class? . . . “Love of gold cost the brahmin his life.”

„ „Where was gold there?‟ Swaminathan objected. „There

was only a gold bangle. How much have you written for

the question?‟

„One page,‟ said the classmate.

Swaminathan did not like this answer. He had written

only a line. „What! You should not have written so much.‟

A little later he found Rajam and Sankar. „Well, boys,

how did you find the paper?‟

„How did you find it?‟ Sankar asked.

„Not bad,‟ Swaminathan said.

„I was afraid only of Tamil,‟ said Rajam. „Now I think I

am safe. I think I may get passing marks.‟

„No. Certainly more. A Class,‟ Sankar said.

„Look here,‟ Swaminathan said, „some fools have written

a page for that moral question.‟

„I wrote only three-quarters of a page,‟ Rajam said.

„And I only a little more than half,‟ said Sankar, who was

an authority on these matters.

„I too wrote about that length, about half a page,‟ lied

Swaminathan as a salve to his conscience, and believed it

for the moment.

„Boys, do you remember that we have no school from

tomorrow?‟

„Oh, I forgot all about it,‟ Rajam said.

„Well, what are you going to do with yourselves?‟

somebody asked.

„I am going to use my books as fuel in the kitchen,‟

Swaminathan said.
„My father has bought a lot of books for me to read during

the vacation, Sinbad the Sailor, Alibaba, and so on,‟ said

Sankar.

Mani came throwing up his arms and wailing: „Time

absolutely insufficient. I could have dashed off the last

question.‟

The bell rang again fifteen minutes later. The whole

school crowded into the hall. There was joy on every face

and goodfellowship in every word. Even the teachers tried

to be familiar and pleasant. Ebenezar when he saw Mani,

asked: „Hello, block-head, how are you going to waste

your vacation?‟

„I am going to sleep, sir,‟ Mani said, winking at his

friends.
„Are you likely to improve your head by the time you

return to the school?‟

„How is it possible, sir, unless you cut off Sankar‟s head

and present it to me?‟ A great roar of laughter followed

this. There would have been roars of laughter at anything;

the mood was such. In sheer joy the Drawing master was

bringing down his cane on a row of feet because, he said,

he saw some toes growing to an abnormal length.

The Headmaster appeared on the platform, and after

waiting for the noise to subside, began a short speech, in

which he said that the school would remain closed till the

nineteenth of June and open again on the twentieth. He

hoped that the boys would not waste their time but read

story-books and keep glancing through the books

prescribed for their next classes to which, he hoped, most

of them were going to be promoted. And now a minute

more, there would be a prayer, after which the boys might

disperse and go home.

At the end of the prayer the storm burst. With the loudest,

lustiest cries, the gathering flooded out of the hall in one

body. All through this vigorous confusion and disorder,

Swaminathan kept close to Mani. For there was a general

belief in the school that enemies stabbed each other on the

last day. Swaminathan had no enemy as far as he could

remember. But who could say? The school was a bad

place.

Mani did some brisk work at the school gate, snatching

from all sorts of people ink-bottles and pens, and

destroying them. Around him was a crowd seething with

excitement and joy. Ecstatic shrieks went up as each

article of stationery was destroyed. One or two little boys

feebly protested. But Mani wrenched the ink-bottles from

their hands, tore their caps, and poured ink over their

clothes. He had a small band of assistants, among whom

Swaminathan was prominent. Overcome by the mood of

the hour, he had spontaneously emptied his ink-bottle

over his own head and had drawn frightful dark circles

under his eyes with the dripping ink.

A policeman passed by. Mani shouted: „Oh, policeman,

policeman! Arrest these boys!‟ A triumphant cry from a

hundred throats rent the air. A few more ink-bottles

exploded on the ground and a few more pens were

broken. In the midst of it Mani cried: „Who will bring me

Singaram‟s turban? I shall dye it for him.‟

Singaram, the school peon, was the only person who was

not affected by the spirit of liberty that was aboard, and as

soon as the offer to dye his turban reached his ears, he

rushed into the crowd with a big stick and dispersed the

revellers.