R K Narayan is a well known Indian author. He has written numerous short stories and also full fledged novels. His stories are crisp and to the point making them interesting reading. R K Laxman, the world famous cartoonist is his brother. His cartoons are featured on front pages of leading Indian newspapers and continue to do so.

R K Narayan has written a memoir book which has proved to be unique in its own way. Memoir books can be boring, slow moving and monotonous. Not this one! It is an interesting revelation of his life incidents and experiences. The memoir book reveals his struggle in life. The narration is quite simple and tends to draw the reader into the writer’s surroundings and experiences. One can feel like a bystander witnessing the tragedies in his life.

The narration focuses on the writer’s struggles of life, his quest for real love, his love towards pets & the tribulations of raising a daughter. He also talks about spiritual encounters and his belief in soul-level communications. The reader would stop to think what he would have felt if placed in similar circumstances. Most of us would agree that they had similar experiences in life.

R K Narayan’s writing style is awfully simple and quite comprehendable to all. The narration is straightforward and the reader gets glued to the book. It makes very interesting reading and one might find it difficult to put aside this memoir book. The author is quite descriptive and the reader would find oneself spiritually moved to beautiful and serene surroundings.

The writer describes the pain he had to go through when he lost his wife. His life apparently shattered and the reader feels the pain in his heart. He was so much attached to her in real life; he apparently finds a way to communicate with her spiritually. He believed her spirit was always at his side and he sought guidance from it to cope with the troubles in his devastated life.

This memoir book is quite inspiring and I have decided to work back and get my hands on his previous works. I always knew the movie "Guide" was a super hit. This movie turned out to be very popular and was well liked by the 70s generation. I had learned it was based on a story written by R K Narayan.

His other works, I discovered lately, are "The Dark room", "The English Teacher", "The Talkative Man" etc.

These were the works inspired by the writer’s stages in life. It would be safe to say, his real life experiences have trickled into these novels.

I am sure they will all make wonderful reading!