Remembering Motilal, one of the all-time great actors of Hindi cinema, on his 54th death anniversary today.
Motilal is easily one of the greatest actors ever in Hindi films. Motilal was effortlessly natural. You never felt he was acting. He never failed to amaze moviegoers with his completely natural ways before the camera.
His most well-known roles are of the conman Mr. Sampat in SS Vasan's film adaptation of RK Narayan's novel of the same name and Chunni Babu in Bimal Roy's Devdas (1955). With both characters, he had the gift of the gab, making sure your eyes never left him when he was on screen.
In his acting career that spanned 31 years (1934 to 1965), Motilal starred in over 60 films, with at least 30 in the lead.
This week’s stories were particularly of interest to me. I’ve been reading Indian poetry from both Indian-born and Indian diaspora poets, so moving into reading prose was a nice step. I had no idea who any of these authors were at first, but now I’ve started to recognize at least one of them out in the wild.
My week four stories are:
Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief”
R. K. Narayan’s “Naga”
Salman Rushdie’s “Chekov and Zulu”
Not surprising considering the first story, this week’s main theme is about grief and loss. However, and this is what interested me the most, all the stories are not about the same level of grief. There is intimate, abrupt grief, slow encroaching grief, and then systemic, cultural grief. Each is important to talk about and I believe that each story did their theme justice.
The first story is “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee, a famous writer who was well aware of the pain her country had suffered. Her story is centered around how people experience grief. The shock, the numbness, the anger—how people change or stay the same when their life changes radically. The grief comes from an airplane crash, killing everyone on board. “The Management of Grief” then asks, “How would someone process this?” The characters in the story go through everything to comfort and find comfort with those in their community. By the end, the answer is simple: change. When experiencing change, you can only change with it - good or bad. Yet, Shaila, the main character, is stuck in place, hold back by the memory of her dead family. She does not scream or weep or rage; instead, she helps and she gives and at the end she is ready to return to those she had lost. Grief can make or break a person, it’s all up to how you are helped that is the difference.
Next is R. K. Narayan’s “Naga”. As an author, Narayan was very interested in the everyday, social connections people had with each other and “Naga” shows that. The story revolves around a snake named Naga, the boy who takes care of him, and the boy’s father who originally had him. It goes into the little details of the boy’s childhood with his father as they roamed the poor districts for money by using Naga and later a monkey named Rama. Eventually it’s revealed that the father left his son for a woman, leaving the boy impoverished and alone - except for Naga. The loss here is mixed with a kind of love; though his father abandoned him, the boy cannot so easily abandon Naga. He is protective of the cobra, even when he knows he’d have to get rid of it to find an actually decent job. He refuses to go off as his father had—the loss had changed him, made him ever-so gentler when it could have made him cruel.
Lastly is “Chekov and Zulu” by Salman Rushdie, who was actually in the news in 2022 for his latest assassination attempt. The man has a wild history, I highly encourage anyone to read more about him. As for his short story, it’s no less interesting, though not as thrilling. That is saying a lot considering out titular characters are spies working in London. Throughout their work, they routinely reference different Western media like Star Trek or Lord of the Rings, even comparing the men they’re spying on to fictional characters. This is not a fun gag, but rather the coping mechanisms of two Indian men who must lean on a foreign culture to get by. Rather than intimate loss, “Chekov and Zulu” is about cultural loss. At the time in the story, India had been decimated by English imperialism which was followed by the popularization of American pop culture. Chekov is the better example of this as the men they’re investigating are revealed to be the politicians that helped to destroy India on a structural level, but he has already bought into Western culture. There is an unnameable grief in watching your culture be suppressed and then indulging int he culture (however unwillingly) that suppressed them.
Grief, at any level, is a hard thing to talk about or write about. There is so much that you can say, but I think each story did their best with the kind of grief that they are portraying. Loss can literally alter the chemical balance in the brain—it can, and will, fundamentally change a person. How you change and what you change into is the key thing to continue living well.
R. K. Narayan का जीवन-परिचय
Full name– Rasipuram Krishnaswami Lyre Narayanaswami
Birth– October 10, 1906 in Madras Madras Presidency in British India.
Death- May 13, 2001. Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
You were a South Indian writer. You had written several works related South India town Malgudi. You were considered the leading writer of early Indian literature in English. You had written…
many famous writers, social activists are present in past or in history to give their best to become an icon of the history R K Narayan is one of them to give the best their by his passion. That gave their best in history by their quality.become also known as Author Of Malgudi Days, to know About R K Narayan, R K Narayan Books and Novels visit RK Narayan. “Swami and his friends” is one that I suggest you guys personally I read is very close to me they define the meaning of real friendship.
Malgudi Days | The Composition of RK Narayan | Travelsite India
Want to feel like a free-spirited kid again!!!
Explore the streets of fictional and imaginary town named Malgudi (Bangalore) embedded with the sketches of imaginary characters of well known and popular Indian Television series, based on the fine works of R.K Narayan. One of The Compositions of RK Narayan – Malgudi Days
1. Taa Na Na Tana Na Na Na Na – The rhythmic music defining Malgudi days.
2. Malgudi days is a popular Indian Television series based on the fine works of R. K Narayan.
3. Indian writer who earned huge recognition from entertaining & fun loving sets of short stories.
4. Malgudi was made up with a collaboration of two Bangalore cities. “Mal” from Malleshwaram & “Gudi” from Basavanagudi
5. Swami and Friends – Mani and Rajam
6. Fictional Town [Malgudi Days] - Sarayu River, Bustling streets, Railways Station, MCC, Albert Mission School & College etc
Do visit the Fictional town of Malgudi with your friends and family this vacation with Travelsite India
One of the paramount and best-known writers of Indo-english, Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami aka R.K. Narayan is a much-loved author who has managed en route to capture the essence in relation to being Indian in his eloquent and much-appreciated writings.<\p>
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Copy Style<\p>
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Publications<\p>
Egged on by his pandit Graham Greene, Narayan published his semi-autobiographic trio that included the much-loved Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. He wrote other non-fictional pieces in this way Next Sunday, My Dateless Resume, My Days, Reluctant Guru, A Writer's Brown study and many more that reflected the straight-forward mind that he had intake beautiful somewhen commanding prose. The Dark Tenement, The Signal, Mahatma, The Hawker re Sweets, The Continent concerning Nagaraj and other works of his are also cherished as one of the best written.<\p>
Malgudi Days<\p>
His short spot news collection, Malgudi Days, which was published vestibule 1942, is till date one about the most loved passage for children and has been adapted to suit several apart platforms. A mythified town set irruptive Southern India, Malgudi was created with ok attention to detail with back stories that date back to the days of Ramayana. Duration the stories evolved, Malgudi worse as well as the changes in the political scene of the country and Dr. James M. Fennelly created a map regarding Malgudi based on the descriptions of the town that the stories manhandle.<\p>
In lock-step with a long and celebrated career, Narayan passed away in May 2001 at the ripe age of 94, on which occasion he was right in the middle of planning his next novel about a gaffer. The terrestrial globe give an order adieu to one of the best writers who had walked the earth in the century, while contemporaries felt in luck over against breathe crawling during the exact counterpart time after time as buy R K Narayan books.<\p>
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