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R K Narayan's house sold to builder, being demolished

Last Updated 05 September 2011, 18:00 IST
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No 15, Vivekananda Road, Yadavagiri, was the address, where he had built the house, lived and written most of his novels, short stories and essays. The demolition began Monday morning.

After Narayan's death on May, 13, 2001 in Chennai at the age of 94, the house was lying vacant and then Governor T N Chaturvedi had proposed to make the house a memorial for the great novelist. Unfortunately, the Governor got transferred and the proposal died a natural death.

The only heirs of R K Narayan - his grand daughter Minni, living in Chennai, and grandson Srinivasan, living in the US - have sold the property to a builder who has begun the demolition work. An eight-floor apartment will come up on this site measuring 120 ft x 80 ft, it is learnt.

The house, with six bedrooms, was built in 1951 and was not occupied till 1966 as Narayan was living with his joint family on Seshadri Iyer Road, but used to visit the house daily to write.

Former minister B K Chandrashekar, who was very close to Narayan and spent a lot of time with him in the late 1960s, told Deccan Herald that he was terribly sad and shocked to hear about the demolition of the house.

“I used to frequent his house regularly and go out for long walks with him. I remember an occasion when I had accidentally banged the main door shut and Narayan had remarked, ‘this is not an Ambassador car, Sir’ and it was the time he had a Mercedes car presented by one of the publishers.”

Narayan had a watchman, Annamalai, who used to live in the bungalow with his wife.

The writer was very fond of him and always used to crack jokes on him, said Chandrashekar. The house was very beautifully designed and the first floor had a huge balcony. He would go on long walks every evening, and frequent the famed Mysore market, quietly watching and noticing everything happening around him, said Chandrashekar.

“I urge the State Government, University of Mysore and the Mysore City Corporation to save this house which has a sense of history and pride for the heritage city of Mysore and see to it that it houses all the memorabilia of the great English writer who put Indian writing in English on the world map,” said Chandrashekar.

Some of his family members who expressed regret on learing  about the demolition of the house refused to comment.

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(Published 05 September 2011, 18:00 IST)

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