With those four words, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan fondly known as R.K. Narayan to most took off on a journey to that oddly populated fictional continent called Malgudi, with the young boy Swami and his eclectic mix of friends.
R.K. Narayan was born on October 10, 1906 in Madras. His father was a provincial head master. R.K. Narayan spent his early childhood with his grandmother in Madras. They mostly conversed in English, and grammatical errors on the part of Narayan and his siblings were frowned upon. Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc.
R.K. Narayan studied for eight years at Lutheran Mission School, close to his grandmother's house in Madras. The well-stocked library at the school fed his reading habit. After completing high school, Narayan joined Maharaja College of Mysore. He briefly held a job as a school teacher; however, he quit in protest when the headmaster of the school asked him to substitute for the physical training master.[9] The experience made Narayan realise that the only career for him was in writing, and he decided to stay at home and write novels. his family and friends respected and supported his unorthodox choice of career.[16] In 1930, Narayan wrote his first novel,Swami and Friends,[15] an effort ridiculed by his uncle[17] and rejected by a string of publishers. Narayan shot to worldwide fame through his friend and mentor Graham Greene, who found publishers for Narayan’s first four novels.[8] With this book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that creatively reproduced the social sphere of the country. in 1933, Narayan married Rajam, despite many astrological and financial obstacles. Narayan became a reporter for a Madras based paper called The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. The publishers were thrilled to have a