Essay --

Malgudi is, and will always be a land of imagination, in which sustains, its own set of problems and dynamics. The set of recurring characters is a reassuring and comforting thought. While embarking on a new Narayan novel, the readers get a feeling of familiarity with the place and the people.Right from his first chapter in ‘Swami And Friends’ to the last chapter he wrote in ‘Grandmother’s Tale’, he strives to show a world of conflict that is Malgudi. This is where, the beauty of his writing lies. Narayan managed to retain an average reader’s interest in Malgudi over a period of six decades. Malgudi was created and written about, by R.K. Narayan, keeping in mind his hometown of Mysore. Seen as place which is more or less stagnated, the same set of characters and places help the reader get a continuous reading experience. Moreover it has helped in creating a unique identity to this place. Saying that Malgudi remains the same over the course of Narayan’s career as a writer, would be unfair. For one could see signs of development in the latter books;which could have been inspired by p...