Malgudi
Encyclopedia
Malgudi is a fictitious town in India
created by R.K. Narayan in his novels and short stories. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel, Swami and Friends
, all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here. Narayan has successfully portrayed Malgudi as a microcosm of India
.
, a few hours journey from Madras. It is located on the shore of the fictional river Sarayu. Mempi Forest is nearby.
Narayan has often asserted that Malgudi is a fictional town. However, this has never deterred fans from speculating about its actual location. It is certain that it is located in South India, for Narayan himself says in an interview:
"I must be absolutely certain about the psychology of the character I am writing about, and I must be equally sure of the background. I know the Tamil
and Kannada
speaking people most. I know their background. I know how their minds work and almost as if it is happening to me, I know exactly what will happen to them in certain circumstances. And I know how they will react."
The exact location, however, is a matter of speculation. Many are of the opinion that it may be Coimbatore
, with a river on one side, forest on the other, and many similar buildings and lanes as Malgudi. It is also speculated that it may be Lalgudi
on the river Kaveri
, or Yadavgiri in the erstwhile state of Mysore.
Agumbe
, a small village on the western ghats
served the screening of most of the episodes of Malgudi Days
, a TV serial based on Narayan's works. The movie Guide
, based on Narayan's novel of the same name, was filmed in Rajasthan
, instead of South India, a fact that Narayan was not very happy about.
, Swami, Mani and Rajam spend most of their evenings playing or chatting by the river. In The Guide
, holy-man Raju fasts on the banks of the dry river Sarayu, praying for the rains to come. When Mahatma Gandhi
visits Malgudi, the meetings and speeches are held right on the banks of river Sarayu.
Between Ellammn Street and the river lie Nallappa's Grove and the cremation
ground. The Untouchables
and sweepers live on the lower banks of the river.
gfh
Another important place is 'The Boardless', a small restaurant without any board. Boardless is a centre of discussion for current events in Malgudi.
"Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in writing about Malgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just the railway station, which was a small platform with a banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and one going. On Vijayadasami I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The train had just arrived in Malgudi Station."
Various critics compare Narayan's Malgudi with Thomas Hardy
's Wessex
or William Faulkner
's Yoknapatawpha. It was a town created from his own experiences, his childhood, his upbringing. The people in it were people he met everyday. He thus created a place which every Indian could relate to. A place, where, in the words of Graham Greene
(from the introduction to The Financial Expert), you could go "into those loved and shabby streets and see with excitement and a certainty of pleasure a stranger approaching past the bank, the cinema, the haircutting saloon, a stranger who will greet us, we know, with some unexpected and revealing phrase that will open the door to yet another human existence."
" seems to have taken root in popular imagination. Some restaurants offering South Indian fare go by the name or extensions of "Malgudi." The Shyam Group operates Malgudi restaurants in Chennai
, Bangalore
and Hyderabad http://www.chennaionline.com/Hotelsandtours/Events/03malgudi.asp, http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2004/12/16/stories/2004121601430100.htm. A restaurant named "Malgudi Junction" is located in Kolkata
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061015/asp/calcutta/story_6866554.asp.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
created by R.K. Narayan in his novels and short stories. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel, Swami and Friends
Swami and Friends
Swami and Friends is the first of a trilogy of novels written by R. K. Narayan, a celebrated English language novelist from India. The novel, which is also Narayan's first, is set in pre-independence days in India, in a fictional town called Malgudi...
, all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here. Narayan has successfully portrayed Malgudi as a microcosm of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Geography
Malgudi is a small town somewhere in South IndiaSouth India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
, a few hours journey from Madras. It is located on the shore of the fictional river Sarayu. Mempi Forest is nearby.
Narayan has often asserted that Malgudi is a fictional town. However, this has never deterred fans from speculating about its actual location. It is certain that it is located in South India, for Narayan himself says in an interview:
"I must be absolutely certain about the psychology of the character I am writing about, and I must be equally sure of the background. I know the Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
speaking people most. I know their background. I know how their minds work and almost as if it is happening to me, I know exactly what will happen to them in certain circumstances. And I know how they will react."
The exact location, however, is a matter of speculation. Many are of the opinion that it may be Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
, with a river on one side, forest on the other, and many similar buildings and lanes as Malgudi. It is also speculated that it may be Lalgudi
Lalgudi
Lalgudi is a town in Tiruchirapalli district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.-Geography:Lalgudi is a town located around 20KM from Tiruchirapalli on NH227 Tiruchirapalli-Chidambaram. Lalgudi lies close to Coleroon River...
on the river Kaveri
Kaveri River
The Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...
, or Yadavgiri in the erstwhile state of Mysore.
Agumbe
Agumbe
Agumbe is a village located in the Shimoga district in the state of Karnataka, India. Lying in the Thirthahalli taluk and the Malnad region, Agumbe is among the places in India that receive very heavy rainfall earning it the sobriquet, "Cherrapunji of the South". It is also the home of the Agumbe...
, a small village on the western ghats
Western Ghats
The Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...
served the screening of most of the episodes of Malgudi Days
Malgudi Days
Malgudi Days is an Indian television series based on the works of R.K. Narayan. The series was directed by the late Kannada actor and director, Shankar Nag and Carnatic musician L. Vaidyanathan composed the score. R. K Narayan's brother and acclaimed cartoonist R. K. Laxman was the sketch artist....
, a TV serial based on Narayan's works. The movie Guide
The Guide
The Guide is a 1958 novel written in English by the Indian author R. K. Narayan. Like most of his works the novel is based in Malgudi, the fictional town in South India...
, based on Narayan's novel of the same name, was filmed in Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
, instead of South India, a fact that Narayan was not very happy about.
The Sarayu River
Malgudi is located on the banks of the river Sarayu. In Swami and FriendsSwami and Friends
Swami and Friends is the first of a trilogy of novels written by R. K. Narayan, a celebrated English language novelist from India. The novel, which is also Narayan's first, is set in pre-independence days in India, in a fictional town called Malgudi...
, Swami, Mani and Rajam spend most of their evenings playing or chatting by the river. In The Guide
The Guide
The Guide is a 1958 novel written in English by the Indian author R. K. Narayan. Like most of his works the novel is based in Malgudi, the fictional town in South India...
, holy-man Raju fasts on the banks of the dry river Sarayu, praying for the rains to come. When Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
visits Malgudi, the meetings and speeches are held right on the banks of river Sarayu.
Streets and Neighborhoods
Market Street is the central street of Malgudi, the location of several big shops including Bombay Anand Bhavan and Truth Printing Works. Kabir Street is the residence of the elite of Malgudi, while Lawley Extension is a new upcoming lane housing the rich and the influential. Ellammn Street, home to the oil-mongers, is the last street and beyond it lies the river Sarayu. Other streets include Grove Street and Kalighat Lane.Between Ellammn Street and the river lie Nallappa's Grove and the cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
ground. The Untouchables
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
and sweepers live on the lower banks of the river.
gfh
Buildings
Palace Talkies was built in 1935 to replace the old Variety Hall. Albert Mission School and Albert Mission College are the more popular educational institutions. There is also the board school and the town elementary schools.Other Landmarks
Malgudi has a small railway station. The statue of Mr Lawley, seated on a horse, forms another major landmark.Another important place is 'The Boardless', a small restaurant without any board. Boardless is a centre of discussion for current events in Malgudi.
Conceptualization
While describing how he conceptualised Malgudi, Narayan says,"Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in writing about Malgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just the railway station, which was a small platform with a banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and one going. On Vijayadasami I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The train had just arrived in Malgudi Station."
Various critics compare Narayan's Malgudi with Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
's Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
or William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
's Yoknapatawpha. It was a town created from his own experiences, his childhood, his upbringing. The people in it were people he met everyday. He thus created a place which every Indian could relate to. A place, where, in the words of Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
(from the introduction to The Financial Expert), you could go "into those loved and shabby streets and see with excitement and a certainty of pleasure a stranger approaching past the bank, the cinema, the haircutting saloon, a stranger who will greet us, we know, with some unexpected and revealing phrase that will open the door to yet another human existence."
In contemporary culture
The concept of Malgudi as an "idyllic spot located in South IndiaSouth India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
" seems to have taken root in popular imagination. Some restaurants offering South Indian fare go by the name or extensions of "Malgudi." The Shyam Group operates Malgudi restaurants in Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Hyderabad http://www.chennaionline.com/Hotelsandtours/Events/03malgudi.asp, http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2004/12/16/stories/2004121601430100.htm. A restaurant named "Malgudi Junction" is located in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061015/asp/calcutta/story_6866554.asp.