Why Indians Revere R.K. Narayan

In response to Tunku Varadarajan's de gustibus column " In Madras Once, A Writer Pauses, Visitors Bear Gifts" (Taste page, Weekend Journal, May 18):

R.K. Narayan is revered by Indians like me who come from the kind of lower-middle-class, run of the mill milieu that Tunku Varadarajan treats with disdain. Swamy, the little boy of Malgudi, continues to epitomize average Indian boyhood despite the intervening decades between Narayan's fictional creation and 21st-century India.

Swamy holds the same charm for most ordinary Indians that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn might hold for the average American (or Anglicized Indians like Mr. Varadarajan). His novel "Guide" presents an original perspective on the themes of man's spiritual quest and a woman's aspirations in life and work independent of husband or lover, themes that still remain central in the lives of young people, Indian or otherwise. The "spare prose, simple tales, unvarying vocabulary and no obvious philosophy" that Mr. Varadarajan derides, is precisely what is so appealing about Mr. Narayan's writing because it does capture the essence of the life and attitudes of ordinary Indians who live next door, around the corner and across the street in small-town India.

Painting the landscape of the daily lives of a few hundred million people might not be enough to get the applause of a pundit of the Wall Street Journal, but that is not the kind of writing that should be treated so dismissively either. Though Narayan's writing may be "artless," as Mr. Varadarajan puts it, since when has artlessness precluded greatness in anything, including literature? It is an acknowledged fact that the Nobel committee has ignored as many great writers as it has unearthed. This merely means that in quantity as well as diversity, more great literature is being produced in the world at large than Nobel Prizes can honor.

It is to the credit of postwar America's universities that its students could appreciate R.K. Narayan, even if the appreciation only skimmed the skin and not the soul of his writing. That was a much-needed widening of the West's intellectual perspective, not a "dumbing-down" that appealed to "eager young things." R.K. Narayan needs neither the Nobel Prize, nor the "literary affirmative action" of American academia. He is respected where he truly belongs: in India.

Anil Sivakumaran
Lawrenceville, N.J.

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It is quite unfair to base judgment of a great writer (by any standards) when he was 92 and ailing. Reports here say that he was "unwell," which could also mean that he was losing his memory and his other abilities toward the end. His son-in-law fiercely guarded his privacy and didn't allow much of the press fraternity to have a one-on-one with him in the last few years. Recently, our paper (Times of India) tried to meet him after he had a problem with his telephone bills -- he had been billed outrageous amounts for calls he had never made. Even then the journalist didn't get to meet him personally, and had to contend with meeting the son-in-law. Perhaps when Mr. Vardarajan met him it was the beginning of the end and that's why Narayan was unable to "dazzle" him with his speech and wit. Perhaps he didn't want to, either, who knows? I don't think that accolades from young journalists matter much to a man who has "seen it all" and was pushing 92.

Meanwhile, elsewhere I read another epitaph, which concludes saying that the reason Narayan didn't win any Nobel prizes was due to "epidermal pigmentation."

Neetha Raman
Chennai, India

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