Malling Malgudi

The eternal small town will live on

Every time I visit Gurgaon or Bangalore I wonder at the changes R.K. Narayan 8212; if he were alive today 8212; might have contemplated in his Malgudi. Steel and glass fronted shopping malls, offices and multiplexes in bizarre shapes now form the new skyline. Where would Swami the schoolboy, Jagan the vendor of sweets, Sastri the printer, or Vasu the taxidermist fit in such a scenario?

Or perhaps the genius would have invented new characters and geography for the updated town. Maybe he would have added 8216;New Malgudi8217;, a suburb carved out by clearing the Mempi hills forests. A six-lane, expressway by-passing Lawley Road Extension might have linked New Malgudi to the railway station 8212; or perhaps even an airport and the shiny, Malgudi IT Park. 8216;Railway Raju8217; would have certainly expanded his operations to the scale of a swanky travel agency, adding another twist to the tale of Guide. Similarly, the famous 8216;Boeing Silk Sari Store8217; would have become a mega-mall 8212; finally enabling the screening of Mr Sampath8217;s long awaited epic on Shiva.

Even at the quintessential intimate level, even as small towns in India are transformed from cosy human settlements to the urban behemoths; the ageless, universal 8216;mini-cosmos8217; of Malgudi survives. In Le Corbusier8217;s Chandigarh 8212; notwithstanding the conspiracy of architects to regiment life into rectilinear, cuboid dwellings placed in chess-board layouts 8212; life asserts itself. In spite of its monumental City Centre, with grandiose piazzas and designer stores, the tin-sheet, low-budget 8216;rehri8217; markets are more animated. Here you can haggle with the shopkeeper, discuss politics or the changing fortunes of the ongoing cricket match on TV.

The pavement hawkers operating beneath fragrant groves of kachnar or amaltas trees, are quite the spice of life. There squat the likes of Badri, the cobbler-cum-connoisseur of old shoes and Bihari, the tandoorwallah whose rotis are as crisp and hot as his boasts of having served in Patiala8217;s royal kitchens. Or Rattan the vendor of newspapers, presiding over stacks of newspapers every morning as if he were selling the most mouth-watering 8216;political sweetmeats8217; of the day.

It8217;s in these quaint corners that the impersonal 8220;sectors8221; of the city come alive. With Chandigarh becoming the next IT hot spot the 8216;glass boxes8217; are sprouting here too. Will they destroy the warmth of these endearing 8216;encroachments8217;? I suspect the Malgudis will live on, even amidst the malls.