The year was 1995, long before the age of cell phones and selfies to capture moments. Writer RK Narayan was 90 years old and my editor at the time assigned me to meet him for an interview in Chennai with clear instructions to interview him about the South Indian “filter coffee” moment.
I think Narayan received me with mild curiosity but infinite patience. Over the next six years, until I left Chennai, I had the rare privilege of popping into chats – the conversations that swirled were never rushed. He once mentioned his house in Mysore and almost casually asked, “What shall I do with it?” I remember blurting out with the characteristic lack of filter of a 20-year-old, “You should make this a museum for your books and photos!” He laughed and shook his head as if the idea was too exhibitionist.
The home of author RK Narayan in Mysuru, which was converted into a museum in 2016. | Photo credit: MA Sriram
This elegant structure later became the subject of a civil struggle between demolition and preservation after his death. In 2016, after spirited campaigns by Narayana’s fans, the writer’s house was inaugurated as a memorial and museum.
Narayan would have turned 120 this October. So it seems fitting that a novel inspired by the real-life battle for his Mysuru home reawakens Narayan’s world for a new generation of readers. In Rukmini Teta and RK Narayan Fan Club (Penguin India), Sita Bhaskar renders a playful, tender reimagining of Malgudi – a fictional South Indian town conjured up by Narayan.
Small town charm
Describing his approach as a gradual unfolding rather than a single spark, Bhaskar says, “I read The Jane Austen Society’s efforts to preserve Austen’s last home and was fascinated by how true events became fiction. When I came across the story of the RK Narayan House, the seed of an idea began to grow.”
Bhaskar, who lives just a few miles from Narayan’s old neighborhood, captures the cadence of Mysuru with both affection and detachment. “As an outsider, you notice the pauses in people’s speech, the gossip that has its own rhythm, the humor beneath the everyday absurdities. You become a silent spectator, and that’s where the stories begin,” he says.
By Sita Bhaskar
Like Narayan, Bhaskar has a sense of the contradictions of small-town India—its bureaucracy, moral confusion, and the unhurried charm of its inhabitants. Her heroine, Rukmini Aunty, red sneakers and all, is a wonderful mix: part busybody, part philosopher. Her book club becomes a stage where life and literature overlap, making reading Narayan’s works a celebration of community and continuity.
“There is a myth that writing RKN is easy,” Bhaskar says with a laugh. “He’s incredibly hard to emulate. He’s a master magician of restraint and humor. What helped me was watching people — their problems, their mechanisms for coping with this chaos we call life. I kept asking myself, ‘What would RKN say about this situation?'”
Some of RK Narayan’s personal artefacts now housed in the Mysuru Museum. | Photo credit: MA Sriram
Bhaskar’s narrative serves as a nod to Narayan’s universe: Swami and Friends, The English Teacher (with motifs matching the seance and horoscope), Lawley Road, Nitya, The Guide and the Sweet Seller, and other books. “His My Days was a huge inspiration,” she says. “It’s amazing storytelling where the ordinary becomes magical. Those were the moments I tried to replicate.”
Some of RK Narayan’s personal artefacts. | Photo credit: MA Sriram
Bhaskar has never met Narayan, but her admiration runs deep. One of her prized possessions is a 1967 Viking Press edition of The Vendor of Sweets, which sits in a small-town Wisconsin school library. “Imagine a school with 8,000 people who have that book! I often wonder what RKN would make of it,” he says.
Shaped by second-hand booksellers abroad, her literary journey reflects how Narayan’s small-town India traveled far beyond its borders. “My ‘Malgudi moment’ came when I read The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. While reading, Alexander McCall Smith said that his inspiration was an Indian writer named RK Narayan. It felt like it came full circle.”
Fiction to the rescue
Rukmini Aunty, admits Bhaskar, was not supposed to be the main character at all. “It was supposed to be Janani, the quirky Narayan fan. But Aunty Rukmini elbowed her way in and planted her red sneaker feet firmly on the page,” she says.
For Bhaskar, the book is as much about rediscovery as it is about homage. “I hope younger readers will find their way to Narayan through this story and maybe even visit the RK Narayan Museum,” he says.
As I finish the book, I remember that afternoon in Chennai when Narayan laughed at my proposal for a museum. He would smile at the irony that fiction, not bureaucracy, had finally given his house an afterlife. And maybe, somewhere between Mysuru and Malgudi, aunt Rukmini hands him filtered coffee and gently says, “See, saar, everything worked out.”
The writer is the author of Temple Tales and the translator of Hungry Humans.
Published – 21 Nov 2025 06:30 IST
