My Days by R. K. Narayan

Author:R. K. Narayan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

For the next three days, sitting beside my grandmother, I wrote and soon produced several pages of interesting anecdotes and a variety of imaginary stories centering around matrimonial life: about wife-beaters, husband-baiters, a live-and-let-live couple who faced some calamity, young runaways, elopers and elopees, and every kind of permutation and combination of man and woman. The tone, for some reason, emphasized misery—if not tragedy. It seemed so hard to find a happy couple in this world. Probably I felt that there was monotony in a contented, harmonious married life, nothing to write about. It was only a broken marriage or one at a breaking-point that offered literary material. I had no facility for typing, and wrote everything in the best calligraphy I could manage, pinned the sheets neatly, wrapped them into a package, and carried them to the editor with no doubt that he would accept them with joy. My junior uncle, who was hardly at home but was in and out at certain specific hours for a wash or a change of dress, admonished me constantly, while passing, to write suitably and try and please the editor and forget all that damnfool stuff about Malgudi and such things. So one day I took the literary package to George Town and placed it before the editor. He offered me a seat, and glanced through the sheets. I had managed to fill about thirty or forty pages. After studying them, he said, “You have a flair for writing, definitely, but you will have to understand our needs and aim at satisfying them. We should first take you as an apprentice in our office.” (Suddenly he had switched on to the royal “we,” although I did not notice a second person in the establishment.) “During the probationary period, you will not be paid. In fact we charge a fee, generally for training people. But in your case, I’ll exempt you, being a nephew of my friend. I’ll put you through every branch of the journal, and after three months, will consider paying you an honorarium commensurate with your aptitude.”

“What about these?”

“Of course we will use them as and when we find an opportunity after editing them suitably.”

“You will pay for them?” I asked timidly.

“Of course by and by, but not at present.” I didn’t understand what he meant. All that I could gather was that he was looking for a free assistant, or probably an assistant blackmailer, as I found that he was proposing to subtitle his publication True Tales (of matrimony) and needed a researcher in social life.

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