‘I used to be a hopeless letter writer before, but now I promise improvement’, wrote R.K. Narayan.
In the mid-1930 of the last century, three young Indian writers appeared on the English literary landscape. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable was published in London in 1935. It carried E.M. Forster’s preface. R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends appeared, also in London in the same year. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura followed in 1938 published by George Allen and Unwin.
All three became very intimate friends of mine. I produce below one letter from each.
The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas 78712,
Dept. of Philosophy,
September 11, 1978
My dear Natwar,
I have been meaning to write to you. I received both your letters—but you know how lazy I am in writing letters. But I shall one of these days.
Meanwhile I send this letter of introduction. Naik is a very bright student from Zambia, and he is going back. So I thought it would be good that he should go and see you.
Naik is an immensely intelligent student but the University machine want common fodder. He came to my graduate seminar—for one whole semester and did a splendid job which was assigned to him.
I think someday he will do a work in philosophy which will be creative.
I am sure he will be happy to see you and thank you for receiving him.
Your family I imagine is back with you. Sorry I missed you in Delhi
Yours ever,
Raja Rao
* * *
Mysore 2
April 10, 1961
My dear Natwar,
What a joy it was being with you in Delhi. I miss you badly, I tell you. Have you no business which can bring you to Mysore?
I used to be a hopeless letter writer before, but now I promise improvement. I am going to write to you as often as I hear from you, and if I don’t hear from I will always leave one at credit.
I want some more copies of the photo with the P.M, preferably some that include Indira, and the negative of my picture. Could you manage all this? I would hesitate to bother anyone about photographs, but the occasion is special and I feel I can take this liberty with you. Thank you.
Did you manage that piece for The Hindustan Times? How did it go?
I am in a torment about the choice of a theme for my next novel. I am thinking of a new subject each day and rejecting it after a few hours of enthusiastic speculation. The most acceptable seems to be Woman-eater of Malgudi!
Affectionately
R.K. Narayan
* * *
Chandigarh 3
July 31, 1963
Dear friend,
After writing to you last week, it occurred to me that I forgot to ask you to send me galley-proofs or even my text to revise before it goes into page-proofs. I would just like to ass a few sentences if possible.
If you are reproducing the preface to Untouchable , perhaps you would like to put in the original beginning which E.M. Forster withdrew, because the person concerned, (I mean referred to) in this sentence was still alive and Morgan did not want to hurt him. Perhaps you could ask him if he would allow that beginning to go in rather than the tame sentence: “The remarkable….” I quote the original beginning.
“Some time ago, I came across a book of mine A Passage to India, which had apparently been read by an indignant Colonel. He had written, ‘burn when done, has a dirty mind: see page 259.’ I turned to page 259 with pardonable haste there I found the words: ‘The sweepers of Chandrapur had struck and the commodes lay desolate in consequence’. That light-hearted remark has earned me exclusion for military society ever since.
“If the Colonel thought this of A Passage to India, what will he think of Untouchable, which describes a day in the life of a sweeper…”
You will agree that this is a better beginning. But our dear friend Morgan being sensitive, gentle and timid, did not wish it to be printed. I do not want to upset him in anyway. But perhaps now he may like the idea of using that sentence. But I am not insisting that he should allow it, because he had his own reasons for disallowing these words in the first instance.
With kindliest wishes
Yours Sincerely
Mulk Raj Anand
* * *
On 9 June, Tuesday, a friend of many years passed away of multiple organ failure, at the Medanta Hospital in Gurugram. Ajay Singh was born on 15 August 1950. His great grandfather had migrated to Fiji in the closing decades of the 19th century. Ajay was educated at St. Stephen’s College. He was a top class journalist for many years. He was news editor of India Today for some time.
As Managing Trustee of the Kisan Trust in the early 1980s, he worked closely with veteran socialist leaders Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes, Biju Patnaik, Karpuri Thakur, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. Chaudhury Charan Singh treated him with affection.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989 and became Minister of State for Railways in V.P. Singh’s government. From 2005 to 2007, he was High Commissioner to Fiji.
At the time of his death he was working on his autobiography.