A Letter to RK Narayan

To,

R K Narayan

Subject: I wish you if you were here...

Dear Sir,

If you were present in this world today, I would have written you a letter at least a week. I would have looked for your number or would have dropped in your house to seek answers to some of the very simple question that I have been asking myself. The questions are similar to the questions that those characters in your book ask themselves, those characters through, whom you have been still speaking your mind to us.

I have recently read your ‘The English Teacher’ which kept giving me a hint that the protagonist is going to be alone soon and then he becomes lonely and explains his loneliness so beautifully at the end. Sir, I have been reading you and every book of yours has made me realise that ultimately everything boils down to what ‘I’ want. Your characters are always in pursuit of their ultimate goal, they are alone in their journey yet they are in love with people, places, simplicity and they speak their mind honestly.

When in English Teacher, Krishna thinks that he is doing nothing but filling his students’ heads with crap, I could relate to him. When the guy who completes his ‘Bachelor of Arts’ goes haywire in finding what he really wants I could relate to him. When ‘Guide’ covers up his mistakes and only lives in his self interests, I could relate to him and When the protagonist who is ‘Waiting for the Mahatma’ becomes vulnerable and lets his mind get influenced by an ideology just to impress and satisfy someone else, I felt as if I should tell him that he is not alone.

Sometimes I wonder how you could understand people and their feeling so well. Is that because you were very honest with your self or people were very honest with you. For me, everything today has boiled down to confusion.

Sir, do you know that when I close my eyes, I see almost 100 forms of myself! One of them is climbing a difficult wall but she is well equipped to do so. The other is sitting at the beach, watching the sun set and writing a poem, another one is waiting for a politician to take his quote. There another one, sharing knowledge with hundreds of youngsters. The one form I desire the most of me is walking hand in hand with someone into an endless, natural road invading forests, taking us into oblivion. And one is reading you and understanding herself through your characters.

Just like your characters, even I am alone, waiting for answers of several questions. I am in pursuit of something that I am not sure about. I am loved by people but not realising its intensity but my state is unlike your characters that lose their way in the middle and then…they discover themselves and then the need for money, love, company, job, status for them become secondary. Something else emerges inside them which is more meaningful!

Kindly tell me how you made it happen, Sir? If you were here, you would have asked me to look within and find my answers…But I wish if you were here to tell me…

From,

Yours faithful explorer