Malgudi

It is not often that one comes across something that is both insightful and simple. And this is one of the features of Malgudi Days. This book is a collection of short stories that are characterized by Narayan’s easy insight into both human relations and human mind and his subtle use of humour and irony. The stories provide convincing pictures of the society they depict. But what pleases the reader most is Narayan’s simple and easy narrative style that is surprisingly refreshing and enjoyable. These stories are about simple people and their commonplace problems and wishes, things that in films are often presented in a nagging way. But these stories have an unmistakable happiness about them. Narayan craftily uses the flashback technique in these stories. Each story gives you a feeling of watching an engaging film that runs smoothly without any fuss. Another information about it, Malgudi is an unreal place its name probably being derived from two real places Mysore and Lalgudi,a small railway station that provoked the author’s imagination. Nevertheless, it does not at all fail to give you an authentic taste of South India. Narayan said that in India, a writer just has to look out of his window and pick up a character and thereby a story. In almost all of these thirty-two tales, the central character almost invariably passes through some kind of a crisis and either resolves it or lives with it. After all the bustle of your day, this book can be a source of refreshment.