Malgudi Days is a collection of 32 short stories taken from two collections of his “An Astrologer’s Days” (16 stories), “Lawley Road” (8 stories) and eight new stories. Though they are unrelatedand independent short stories, they are blended together through Malgudi.
The characters in the stories are simple city folk whom you come across everyday in reallife. There are no super heroes or villains. No kings and king makers. No beautiful damsels in distress. Yet, the characters are very live and make the reader aware of their presence. Who would think of writing about “ ….one of those commonplace dogs one sees everywhere – colour of white and dust, tail mutilated at a young age…..bred on leavings and garbage of the marketplace…. ” or about Kannan who “ … sat at the door of his hut and watched the village go its way. Sami the oil-monger… coming up the street driving his ox before him….. ” This is RK Narayan for you. Simple stories about simple folk. It shows how closely he has observed life. He has not missed anything. Nothing is too small or too insignificant for him to write about. He breathes life into all the characters he handles making them living entities.
His stories are simple and short where the central character faces some kind of crisis in life and either resolves it or lives with it. He meant his stories to be “ ….. in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I perceive it…. ” The reader may read a lot into the stories depending on his experiences in life.
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