Malgudi Days

The “Mango People” has become a common status message on Gtalk and facebook (Thanks to Love Aaj Kal !) The “common man” just reminds me of the best known cartoon by India’s greatest ever cartoonist R K Laxman which indeed reminds me of the common man just out of his brother R K Narayan’s fictional city Malgudi.

Malgudi is a metonymy for India. There are so many memories associated with Malgudi Days . The engine-trouble story I read when I was in class 5 I guess. The TV Serial I waited to watch when I was a kid. The title track of Malgudi days with magical flute piece “Ta nana tana na na naaa” is still so fresh in my mind.

Malgudi days, is a series of short stories, based out of Narayan's creation – the town called Malgudi. The peculiar flavour of Narayan's fiction comes from the integrity of his characters, the human tragic-comedy of their struggles for a living, the aptness of the Malgudi locale with its temples, reading room, The boardless Hotel, treadle printing presses, Gaffur's taxi and the railway station.

Each scene brings back an essence that we have almost forgotten in the high-tech world we live in. Values that have shaped us as Indians. Ideals that we seem to have put somewhere at the back of a dusty old room. The characters speak to us in a profound yet simple way. It hides within the simple nothings of life that are everything. Leaving us with an enriching experience. Few of my favourite among the malgudi days are Father’s Help, Engine-Trouble and Swami and his Friends.

In Swami I see our childhood. Everything about it, from beautiful friendships of the childhood days to teacher punishing us, playing with granny, getting scoldings from the father, mom’s delicious food, playing with friends etc.. I still can’t forget one episode in which swami decides that he should skip the school and how he sincerely prays to God that an earthquake should flatten the school building etc.,

In Malgudi we find real people, real places in one harmony of day-to-day existence and eccentricity. Every minor and major character of Narayan's stories fascinates us in its own way. The ordinary is the most extra-ordinary aspect of Narayan’s Malgudi Days. The most interesting things in our life, pass us by unnoticed. These things that we miss out on ultimately shape us and our destinies too. This is what is the soul and charm of Malgudi Days.

Malgudi is a state of mind common to many Indian temperaments, indulgent to both ambition and equanimity, co-existence and co-exclusion. Malgudi Days just takes us to a real place with which we have been as familiar as with our own birth place. Like the streets of childhood, Market Road, the local vendors, the grocery stores etc.. all that we relate to. The simple yet captivating stories, sound like they’re happening to someone you know, the characters are so real, you would imagine them to be someone like your aunt, or your old grandfather.

The spell that it casts on us will certainly outlive us. The message that 'Malgudi Days' conveys represents every human emotion there ever was and every personality there ever will be.