The Hindu : National : "Greene-Narayan correspondence, a treasure"

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Thursday, Oct 12, 2006
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"Greene-Narayan correspondence, a treasure"

Bageshree S.

Greene's perception of Malgudi creator evolved from patron to admirer: N. Ram

— PHOTO: M. A. SRIRAM

ADMIRERS ALL: Makarand Paranjape of the JNU, Sangeetha Rani from Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia, and Mohan G. Ramanan, University of Hyderabad, at a seminar on R.K. Narayan in Mysore on Wednesday.

Mysore: "Do take care of yourself, literature demands it," Graham Greene wrote in his understated, yet touching, last letter to R.K. Narayan in 1990.

Quoting this letter and many others the two literary giants exchanged over six decades, N. Ram, Editor-in-chief of The Hindu and co-author of a biography of Narayan, offered a glimpse of their exceptional literary friendship.

Making a presentation on the second day of the Sahitya Akademi seminar in Mysore to mark Narayan's birth centenary, Mr. Ram illustrated how Greene's perception of the creator of Malgudi had evolved over the years from that of a "patron to an equal and an admirer." Narayan's trust in Greene, Mr. Ram said, was "absolute to a degree that astonishes us today."

It was Greene who shortened Narayan's long name to what he came to be known as. In an interesting sidelight, he pointed out that the first 50 copies of Swami and Friends had the author's name wrongly printed as R.J. Narayan, which were today collectors' items. But the extent of editorial intervention made by Greene in Narayan's writings remained unknown, he said, because the early manuscripts are not available.

The treasure of the Greene-Narayan correspondence, an "exciting find" in the course of writing the biography, was worthy of being recorded in a book, said Mr. Ram. Another interesting but neglected facet of Narayan's writings, he said, was his journalistic output. Narayan was not only someone who read "everything from the masthead to the imprint line," but also a regular contributor to newspapers, especially The Hindu . For someone known for "lack of politics" in his writings, Narayan had great interest in current affairs, he added.

Responding to a suggestion from Harish Trivedi, chairperson of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Mr. Ram said the founding of a research centre on R.K. Narayan would be fruitful.

The earlier presentations analysed various aspects of Narayan's writings. Speaking about Narayan's technique of translating culture through "stylistic minimalism," Makarand Paranjape of the Jawaharlal Nehru University said his writings "suggest more than they reveal." Laxmi Holmstrom made a cultural and linguistic comparison between R.K. Narayan's The Dark Room and its Tamil translation.

Alastair Niven made a plea for reading Narayan "simply and in an uncluttered way... free of interpretative jargon." Narayan had once called an academician a man "who cannot read for pleasure [if any] or pain" and "views a book only as raw material for a thesis or seminar paper."

The day ended with the screening of an episode from Malgudi Days, directed by Shankar Nag in 1986. Padmavati, who worked as assistant director for the series, recalled how Narayan had exclaimed after watching the first episode, Old Man Of The Temple: "I didn't know there was so much in the story!"

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