The Malgudi Days
I left for college soon this morning not because I wanted to attend any of those lectures, in fact I was happy that it was election time and there wont be any lectures but there were other things to do. Like I had to submit the essay on 'RashtraBhasha Hindi' and the practical file, both of which I hadnt completed. But I also had to go to the library to return the books. I had taken two books from library, first one was 'data structure' for college and other one was 'Rangbhoomi'. I borrowed another one by Premchand again because lately I have been in love with his books. In every one of his books he has taken some different issues of which poverty, daily life, relations, psychology of humans, corruption are common in all of them. so not to extend this further because I might have done it already or will do it in future again, in a nutshell - 'I love Premchand and his novels'. when I was reading the book one day I felt a little bored, it felt like I was havin a lot of it in a little time. so I became a little anxious today because I didnt know what book will I be taking today with me. Sometimes choosing a book is the hardest thing to do, you go round and round those shelves but nothing interests you. After returning the books I started looking for a new book. and suddenly after a few minutes I found one in the 'New Arrivals' section. It was "The Magic of Malgudi" by RK Narayan. I started thinking 'wait a minute. have I heard this name before...? Oh yes! wasn't he a famous cartoonist? did he write books as well? I should check it in the book, it must have mentioned it.' the book hadn't mentioned him as a cartoonist and there was written he died in the year 2001.'but didnt barack obama applauded him when the former was on a visit to india and the latter one had drawn his ears big? and Obama came so many years after 2001 to India, isnt it?' i thought again. The mystery wasn't solved but because the word Malgudi seemed familiar and close to me I took the book with me.
I started reading the book immediately after i got home. The book is mainly a collection of three novels of RK Narayan, each one of which captures a different phase of life - childhood, teenage and adulthood. I started with the first one of course. It's about a ten year old boy Swaminathan and his life around his friends, school and home. It is a good book and starts nicely. It wasn't until i reached chapter three that the book took my sudden interest. I started recognizing it from the first line and it gave me chill down to my spine. It was a story I had read it in my childhood in one of the Hindi textbooks. And i started remembering all that. It seemed to me how lovely my childhood school days were. I still remembered the whole story and the environment made by the scent of cardamom and cloves. Swami tells his grandmother the intelligence of his friend, Rajam, but grandmother instead tells him about the boy's grandfather and how his teacher used to give me 200 marks out of one hundred and how he got a gold medal which his aunt turned into four bangels(i really liked that part). To which Swami irritatingly reacts and boasts how brave the boy was and how he killed a tiger with a gun but here grandmother again got a story about Harishchand.
I never thought a book would take me straight to my childhood. To those happy and carefree days where there were no problems, all we would do were play with friends and created imaginary things and played around them. We would run for hours and still wouldn't feel tired. I had a lot of friends back then and used to have so much time to be with them, we would visit each others' homes and did all the mischiefs together. We were always ready to get wet in rain, made boats, my boats most of the time would be leaves. I liked following them and liked to make stories of their voyages as they sailed through rough waters of drains passing by obstacles. some ships would stop after a short time some would cover a long distances, slopes usually helped them. i read a lot of 'Champak' comics, 'Akbar Birbal','Tenaliraman' stories during my childhood. Boys, who were sporty, unlike me, fought over 'Cricket Samrat'. We used to look at the pictures and share it with our friends, whenever we found something interesting.
Now the situation is completely changed, it has become all too complex. Sometimes "growing up" feels a lot scary. I really miss my childhood and sometimes all i want to do is to go back in those times. Those really were my "Malgudi Days".
By the way it wasn't RK Narayan but RK Laxman who was the cartoonist. And to my surprise they both were brothers.
I started reading the book immediately after i got home. The book is mainly a collection of three novels of RK Narayan, each one of which captures a different phase of life - childhood, teenage and adulthood. I started with the first one of course. It's about a ten year old boy Swaminathan and his life around his friends, school and home. It is a good book and starts nicely. It wasn't until i reached chapter three that the book took my sudden interest. I started recognizing it from the first line and it gave me chill down to my spine. It was a story I had read it in my childhood in one of the Hindi textbooks. And i started remembering all that. It seemed to me how lovely my childhood school days were. I still remembered the whole story and the environment made by the scent of cardamom and cloves. Swami tells his grandmother the intelligence of his friend, Rajam, but grandmother instead tells him about the boy's grandfather and how his teacher used to give me 200 marks out of one hundred and how he got a gold medal which his aunt turned into four bangels(i really liked that part). To which Swami irritatingly reacts and boasts how brave the boy was and how he killed a tiger with a gun but here grandmother again got a story about Harishchand.
I never thought a book would take me straight to my childhood. To those happy and carefree days where there were no problems, all we would do were play with friends and created imaginary things and played around them. We would run for hours and still wouldn't feel tired. I had a lot of friends back then and used to have so much time to be with them, we would visit each others' homes and did all the mischiefs together. We were always ready to get wet in rain, made boats, my boats most of the time would be leaves. I liked following them and liked to make stories of their voyages as they sailed through rough waters of drains passing by obstacles. some ships would stop after a short time some would cover a long distances, slopes usually helped them. i read a lot of 'Champak' comics, 'Akbar Birbal','Tenaliraman' stories during my childhood. Boys, who were sporty, unlike me, fought over 'Cricket Samrat'. We used to look at the pictures and share it with our friends, whenever we found something interesting.
Now the situation is completely changed, it has become all too complex. Sometimes "growing up" feels a lot scary. I really miss my childhood and sometimes all i want to do is to go back in those times. Those really were my "Malgudi Days".
By the way it wasn't RK Narayan but RK Laxman who was the cartoonist. And to my surprise they both were brothers.
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