Indian Writing

…when I first read it months ago, and now I’m thrilled that it has won.

(Thanks, Amar K & JM)

In Mysore, a seminar to mark the R.K.Narayan birth centenary. T.S.Satyan’s tribute here.

Here’s Pankaj Mishra on Narayan. And here’s Jhumpa Lahiri on his Malgudi Days:

The concentration of Narayan’s prose is astonishing. While other writers rely on paragraphs and pages to get their points across, Narayan extracts the full capacity of each sentence, so much so that his stories seem bound by an invisible yet essential mechanism, similar to the metrical and quantitative constraints of poetry.

An extract from Narayan’s memoir is available here. Among other things, it reveals that he failed the University entrance examination, wept over the stories of consumptive heroines, and kept a picture of Marie Corelli on his bookshelf.

*****

Above sketch of R.K.Narayan by his brother, cartoonist R.K.Laxman.

(Assorted reasons for my absence from blogging/email - travel, persistent computer trouble, other stuff…)

… in the ToI (read 542641 times as of now) today is this supplement story titled “High Time, Ash!” about Aishwarya Rai reportedly arriving late for a formal dinner at the Bachchans’ house, and being ticked off by Jaya Bachchan.

Just saying.