Kannada writers' backlash hurts R K Narayan's family

It has been more than a year since the Mysore City Corporation stopped the demolition of writer R K Narayan’s residence in Yadavagiri.

The State government had later declared it a heritage monument. But the recent outburst of a few Kannada writers opposing the move to convert the famed writer’s house into a memorial has come as a rude shock to his family members.

Though the legal heirs of Narayan’s house were not available for comment, a member of the extended family of the writer who spoke to Deccan Herald on the condition of anonymity said, “It is very sad that when the house was being demolished there suddenly was a strong opposition to it and now when more than a year has passed, a few Kannada writers have opposed converting it into a memorial.”

“The family has at no time been interested in converting the house into a memorial. Neither did the legal heirs go to the government asking it to consider such a move. Now, why is it that this issue is being raked up again. None of us is interested in what is happening, as the decision is already been taken by the government,” he said.

What did the great novelist himself feel about his house he had left to settle down in Chennai in the late 1980s? One of the grand nephews of Narayan, writing in a popular blog, has recorded the author’s views thus: “Many years ago in Madras, reclining on an easy chair and chewing on a piece of clove, R K Narayan quite uncharacteristically said, ‘Although I have built the Mysore house brick by brick, I carry no emotions, no nostalgia about it…. In life one has to move on, you can’t simply dwell in the past’.”

“I don’t quite remember the details now, but oddly, that muggy afternoon, I thought I detected a streak of nostalgia beneath the veneer of cold pragmatism and bravado.”

Prof K C  Belliappa, former vice chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, said, “There are two ways of looking at the issue of a memorial. One is if the family willingly gives the property for building a memorial. The other is the family expecting a market value for it. But what is truly shocking is the Kannada writers’ narrow-minded view. They should have a more broad-minded, liberal and a catholic view.”

Prof N S Rangaraj, Indian Heritage City Network co-ordinator from the University of Mysore, said, “This kind of approach by the Kannada writers sends a wrong signal to the younger generation. How can anybody question the contribution of R K Narayan as a writer and especially to Mysore. The government, I am sure, will go ahead with the construction of the memorial.”