Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma
Page 3
1952 The Financial Expert published in the UK by Methuen. The following year it becomes the first of Narayan’s works to be published in the US (by Michigan State College Press). Beckett: Waiting for Godot.
Waugh: Men at Arms (vol. 1 of The Sword of Honour Trilogy).
Ezekiel: A Time to Change (poems).
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Major famine in Bengal leaves three million people dead. Allied invasion of Italy. Fall of Mussolini.
D-Day: Normandy landings. Japanese troops driven out of Burma. Fall of Berlin and suicide of Hitler. Unconditional surrender of Germany. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. End of World War II. Foundation of the United Nations. Truman US President. Labour Party comes to power in Britain, with Attlee as Prime Minister.
Cabinet Mission: three British ministers led by Lord Pethwick-Lawrence visit India to negotiate terms for Indian independence. They refuse to accept Muslim claims for partition and their proposals are rejected by both Congress and the Muslim League. Riots between Hindus and Muslims; 5,000 lose their lives in Calcutta. USSR extends influence in Eastern Europe. Beginning of Cold War.
In February, British government resolves to hand over power in June 1948 regardless of whether or not a new Indian constitution is in place. Newly appointed viceroy Lord Mountbatten, persuaded that partition is the only way forward, puts pressure on the Congress leaders to agree. Indian Independence Act is hurried through and on 15 August India is partitioned into two Dominions; India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim). Jawaharal Nehru Prime Minister of India.
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Campaign of violence by Communists in India crushed by new government. The last British troops leave India. Jewish state of Israel comes into existence. Soviet blockade of West Berlin. Apartheid introduced in South Africa.
Chinese Revolution. North Atlantic Treaty signed.
Beginning of Korean War. Mother Teresa founds the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.
India declares itself a Republic within the British Commonwealth; first national general election confirms India’s status as world’s largest democracy; Congress Party is dominant. First Five-Year Plan in India sets in motion huge number of irrigation projects.
Eisenhower elected US President. Accession of Elizabeth II in UK.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1953 The English Teacher published in the US by Michigan State College Press under the title Grateful to Life and Death. Narayan’s new house at Yadavagiri being finally ready for occupation, he uses it as a retreat for writing, continuing to live with his extended family at their home in the Laxmipuram district. Anand: Private Life of an Indian Prince.
Hartley: The Go-Between.
1954 Markandaya: Nectar in the Sieve.
Masters: Bhowani Junction.
K. Amis: Lucky Jim.
1955 Waiting for the Mahatma. Ezekiel: Sixty Poems.
Nabokov: Lolita.
1956 Marriage of Hema with her cousin Chandru. Although their home is 120 miles from Mysore, Narayan visits them frequently over the years and plays an important role in the life of his two grandchildren. Lawley Road and Other Stories and Next Sunday: Sketches and Essays. Leaves for the United States. Pillai: Chemmeen (‘Shrimps’).
Mishima: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
Mahfouz: The Cairo Trilogy (to 1957).
1957 Dom Moraes: A Beginning (poems).
Kerouac: On the Road.
Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago.
1958 The Guide (written while travelling in America), the first of Narayan’s novels to be published by Viking in the US. Jhabvala: Esmond in India.
Achebe: Things Fall Apart.
Lampedusa: The Leopard.
1959 Chaudhuri: A Passage to England.
Bellow: Henderson the Rain King.
Burroughs: Naked Lunch.
Grass: The Tin Drum.
1960 Narayan wins the Sahitya Akademi (India’s National Academy of Letters) Award for The Guide. Malgonkar: Distant Drum.
Moraes: Poems.
Rao: The Serpent and the Rope.
Updike: Rabbit, Run (vol. 1 of Rabbit tetralogy).
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Death of Stalin. European Court of Human Rights set up in Strasbourg. Korean War ends.
Indo-Chinese Treaty. Vietnam War begins.
India establishes a policy that bars foreign print media from publishing within the country. India’s parliament accepts Hindu divorce. Second Five Year Plan in India aims to increase national income by 25 per cent. Soviets invade Hungary. Suez crisis.
European Economic Community founded.
India begins designing and buying equipment for a plutonium reprocessing plant at Trombay.
Castro seizes power in Cuba.
Union of Kashmir with India. Bombay state split into Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1961 The Man-Eater of Malgudi. Markandaya: A Silence of Desire.
Naipaul: A House for Mr Biswas.
Heller: Catch-22.
Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
1962 Malgonkar: Combat of Shadows.
Nabokov: Pale Fire.
Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich.
1963 Malgonkar: The Princes.
Markandaya: Possession.
1964 My Dateless Diary: An American Journey (travel book). Gods, Demons and Others (retelling of stories from the Sanskrit religious epics). Meets Graham Greene briefly while visiting London. Malgonkar: A Bend in the Ganges.
Naipaul: An Area of Darkness.
Bellow: Herzog.
1965 Opening of Survival, the film based on The Guide. Jnanpith Award, Indian literary prize, established. Das: Summer in Calcutta (poems).
Moraes: John Nobody (poems).
Rao: Cat and Shakespeare.
Scott: Raj Quartet (to 1975).
1966 Tagore: The Housewarming.
Markandaya: A Handful of Rice.
Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita.
1967 The Vendor of Sweets. Das: The Descendants.
Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude.
1968 Play version of The Guide, by Patricia Rinehart and Harvey Breit, opens on Broadway on 6 March and closes within a week. Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward.
1969 Markandaya: The Coffer Dams.
1970 A Horse and Two Goats (short stories).
1971 Tagore: The Broken Nest.
1972 The Ramayana (shortened modern prose version of the Indian epic). Malgonkar: The Devil’s Wind.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Third Five Year Plan in India propels the country into the ranks of the ten most industrialized nations; India’s population rises to 434 million. Goa liberated from Portuguese rule. John F. Kennedy elected US President. Erection of Berlin Wall. Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space.
Sino-Indian border clashes lead to threats of Chinese invasion. Cuban missile crisis.
Assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Death of Nehru; succeeded by Shastri. Khrushchev deposed and replaced by Brezhnev.
Indo-Pakistan War. Tamil riots against Hindi language; English confirmed as official language of India.
Mrs Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru, becomes Prime Minister of India.
Arab – Israeli Six-Day War. Population of India reaches 500 million.
Student unrest in US and throughout Europe. Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Assassination of Martin Luther King. Nixon US President. India refuses to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Beatles arrive in India for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Americans land first man on the moon.
The shooting of tigers is banned in India.
Revolt in East Pakistan, state of emergency, formation of Bangladesh. Indira Gandhi strips Indian princes of their titles and abolishes privy purses. Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth. President Amin expels Ugandan Asians.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1973 Das: The Old Playhouse and Other Poems. Markandaya: Two Virgins.
Jhabvala: A New Dominion.
Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow.
Solzhenitsyn: The Gulag Archipelago (to 1975).
1974 My Days: A Memoir. Reluctant Guru (essays). Das: My Story autobiography).
Bellow: Humboldt’s Gift.
1975 Das: Manas (novel).
Jhabvala: Heat and Dust.
Singh: Train to Pakistan.
Rushdie: Grimus.
1976 The Painter of Signs. Levi: The Periodic Table.
Das: Alphabet of Lust (novel).
Rao: Comrade Kirillov.
1977 The Emerald Route (travel book). Desai: Fire on the Mountain.
Morrison: Song of Solomon.
1978 The Mahabharata (shortened modern prose version). Pillai: Kayar (The Rope).
Greene: The Human Factor.
P. Fitzgerald: The Bookshop.
1979 Desai: Games at Twilight.
Naipaul: A Bend in the River; India: A Wounded Civilization. Calvino: If on a winter’s night a traveler.
1980 Made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Awarded the A. C. Benson award by the Royal Society of Literature. Desai: Clear Light of Day.
1981 Naipaul: Among the Believers: an Islamic Journey.
Rushdie: Midnight’s Children.
1982 Malgudi Days (short stories). Levi: If not Now, When?
1983 A Tiger for Malgudi. Rushdie: Shame.
1984 Brookner: Hotel du Lac.
Barnes: Flaubert’s Parrot.
1985 Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories. Márquez: Love in the Time of Cholera.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Arab – Israeli War. Rising prices and downturn in Indian economy. India establishes a network of tiger reserves.
Resignation of Nixon following Watergate scandal. Strikes and demonstrations against Indira Gandhi. India explodes its first nuclear device.
State of emergency declared in India because of growing strikes and unrest (to 1977) – First Indian satellite launched into space, on a Soviet rocket. End of Vietnam War. Civil war between Christians and Moslems in Lebanon.
Death of Mao Tse-Tung. Soweto massacre in South Africa.
First defeat of Congress Party in India since Independence. Morarji Desai becomes Prime Minister. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan since 1971, overthrown by the military, and later hanged (1979) – Carter US President.
P. W. Botha comes to power in South Africa.
Margaret Thatcher first woman Prime Minister in UK. Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT-2 arms limitation treaty. Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Mother Teresa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Indira Gandhi wins election and returns to power. Sanjay Gandhi killed in plane crash. Lech Walesa leads strikes in Gdansk, Poland. Iran – Iraq War (to 1988).
Ronald Reagan becomes US President.
Falklands War.
Emergency rule invoked in Punjab to suppress Sikh terrorism.
Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh bodyguard; her son, Rajiv, becomes Prime Minister (to 1989). Bhopal gas leak kills 2,000. Indian troops storm the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. Famine in Ethiopia.
Heavy fighting in Kashmir. India files suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster. Riots in South Africa. Gorbachev General Secretary in USSR.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1986 Talkative Man. Seth: The Golden Gate.
1987 Rushdie: The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey.
Morrison: Beloved.
1988 A Writer’s Nightmare: Selected Essays 1958–1988. Chatterjee: An English August.
Desai: Baumgartner’s Bombay.
Ghosh: The Shadow Lines.
Rao: The Chessmaster and His Moves.
Rushdie: The Satanic Verses.
1989 Made a member of the Rajya Sabha (the non-elective House of Parliament in India). His inaugural speech is on the plight of Indian children. Visiting professor for the fall semester at the University of Texas at Austin. A Story-Teller’s World (essays).
1990 The World of Nagaraj. Naipaul: India: A Million Mutinies Now.
Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
P. Fitzgerald: The Gate of Angels.
Trevor: Two Lives.
1991 Mistry: Such a Long Journey.
Kanga: Heaven on Walls.
Okri: Songs of Enchantment.
1992 Malgudi Landscapes: The Best of R. K. Narayan. Leaves his home in Yadavagiri, Mysore, and settles down in Madras, closer to his grandchildren. Das: Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories.
Ghosh: In an Antique Land.
Ondaatje: The English Patient.
1993 The Grandmother’s Tale (three novellas: ‘The Grandmother’s Tale’, ‘Guru’ and ‘Salt and Sawdust’) published by Heinemann in the UK. Salt and Sawdust: Stories and Tabletalk published by Penguin in India. Seth: A Suitable Boy.
1994 The Grandmother’s Tale and Selected Stories published by Viking in the US. Narayan’s daughter, Hema, dies of cancer. Narayan is looked after by Hema’s husband Chandru for the remainder of his life. Gunesekera: Reef.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan. Gorbachev – Reagan summit. Nuclear explosion at Chernobyl.
Seventy-two people killed by Sikh extremists.
Benazir Bhutto Prime Minister of Pakistan. George Bush elected US President. Gorbachev announces big troop reductions suggesting end of Cold War.
Pakistan rejoins the Commonwealth. V. P. Rao becomes Prime Minister of India. De Klerk becomes South African President. USSR loses control of Eastern Europe; fall of Berlin Wall.
V. P. Singh forms coalition government.
First Gulf War. Yeltsin President of Russia. USSR disbanded. Rajiv Gandhi assassinated during Indian election campaign by Tamil suicide bomber; Narashima Rao becomes Prime Minister in tenth general election. Destruction of the Mosque of Babur at Ayodhya by Hindus leads to Hindu – Muslim rioting in several Indian cities. Bill Clinton elected US President. Civil war in former Yugoslavia.
Israel hands over West Bank and Jericho to the Palestinians.
Mandela and ANC sweept to victory in South African elections. Rwandan massacres. Russian military action against the Chechen republic.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1995 Desai: Journey to Ithaca.
Kesavan: Looking Through Glass.
Rushdie: The Moor’s Last Sigh.
1996 Tales from Malgudi. Mistry: A Fine Balance.
1997
1998 Arundhati Roy becomes first
Indian-based writer to win
Booker Prize for her novel
The God of Small Things.
Rao: Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi.
1999 Seth: An Equal Music.
Desai: Feasting, Fasting.
2000 Desai: Diamond Dust.
2001 Narayan dies aged 94 in a private hospital in Chennai (formerly Madras) on 13 May.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Bharatha Janata Party (BJP) government collapses after a matter of days. Bombay becomes Mumbai, Madras becomes Chennai. Fiftieth anniversary of Indian Independence. Death of Mother Teresa. India declares itself a nuclear weapons state. BJP form coalition government. Amartya Sen wins the Nobel Prize for Economics.
Pakistani troops cross India-Kashmir border leading to fierce fighting in Kargil – Drass region. Thirteenth general election; BJP government. India’s population reaches i billion. Sonia Gandhi becomes President of Congress Party. Vishvanath Anand wins World Chess Championship. Twin towers of World Trade Center in New York collapse after terrorist attack. Earthquake in northern Gujarat leaves 20,000 dead and an estimated 100,000 trapped in the debris. Terrorist attack on Indian parliament.
ABOUT THE INTRODUCER
__
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH is a professor of medical law at Edinburgh University. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taugh
t law at the University of Botswana. He is the author of over fifty books on a wide range of subjects, including the internationally bestselling novels of the No. I Ladies Detective Agency series and the Sunday Philosophy Club series. He lives in Scotland.
MR SAMPATH –
THE PRINTER
OF MALGUDI
CHAPTER ONE
Unless you had an expert knowledge of the locality you would not reach the offices of The Banner. The Market Road was the life-line of Malgudi, but it had a tendency to take abrupt turns and disrupt itself into side-streets, which wove a network of crazy lanes behind the façade of buildings on the main road.
Kabir Lane was one such; if you took an inadvertent turn off the Market Road you entered it, though you might not if you intended to reach it. And then it split itself further into a first lane, a second lane, and so on; if you kept turning left and right you were suddenly assailed by the groans of the treadle in the Truth Printing Works; and from its top floor a stove-enamelled blue board shot out over the street bearing the sign ‘The Banner’.
It was the home of truth and vision, though you might take time to accept the claim. You climbed a flight of wooden stairs (more a ladder), and its last rung was the threshold of The Banner. It was a good deal better than most garrets: you wouldn’t knock your head on roof-tiles unless you hoisted yourself on a table; you could still see something of the sky through the northern window and hear the far-off rustle of the river, although the other three windows opened on the courtyards of tenement houses below. The owners of the tenements had obtained a permanent legal injunction that the three windows should not be opened in order that the dwellers below might have their privacy. There was a reference to this in the very first issue of The Banner. The editor said: ‘We don’t think that the persons concerned need have gone to the trouble of going to a court for it, since no one would open these windows and volunteer to behold the spectacle below.’
This stimulated a regular feature entitled ‘Open Window’, which stood for the abolition of slums and congestion. It described the tenements, the pigsties constructed for human dwellings in the four corners of the town by rapacious landlords. It became an enemy of landlords. In fact, it constituted itself an enemy of a great many institutions and conditions. Within twelve pages of foolscap it attempted to set the world right.