Waiting For Mahatma

Set against the backdrop of the Indian Freedom Movement, this fiction novel from award-winning Indian writer R. K. Narayan traces the adventures of a young man, Sriram, who is suddenly removed from a quiet, apathetic existence and, owing to his involvement in the campaign of Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India, thrust into a life as adventurously varied as that of any picaresque hero.&quote;There are writers-Tolstoy and Henry James to name two-whom we hold in awe, writers-Turgenev and Chekhov-for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect-Conrad, for example-but who hold us at a long arm's length with their 'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan (whom I don't hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian.&quote;-Graham Greene&quote;R. K. Narayan…has been compared to Gogol in England, where he has acquired a well-deserved reputation. The comparison is apt, for Narayan, an Indian, is a writer of Gogol's stature, with the same gift for creating a provincial atmosphere in a time of change….One is convincingly involved in this alien world without ever being aware of the technical devices Narayan so brilliantly employs.&quote;-Anthony West, The New Yorker