Family happy over move to declare house a heritage monument
R.K. Narayan's family has expressed happiness over the Karnataka government's decision to declare the late writer's house in Mysore a heritage monument, said Minister for Urban Development S. Suresh Kumar in a statement on Wednesday.
Narayan's granddaughter Bhuvaneswari Sreenivasamurthy and her husband K. Sreenivasamurthy called on the Minister in the Vidhana Soudha here.
“As they live in Chennai, they expressed their inability to maintain the house in Mysore,” the statement said.
Mr. Kumar said he assured the family that the government would offer them an alternative housing site in Mysore or compensate them monetarily, and a decision to this effect would be announced soon. The family and experts would be consulted when the building, to be named Malgudi, would be restored.
“The Minister was very cordial and promised that he would take all efforts to protect the legacy of my grandfather,” Ms. Sreenivasamurthy told The Hindu.
Mysore MLC G. Madhusudan, Adviser to the Chief Minister on Urban Development A. Ravindra, and Urban Development Secretary Shambhu Dayal Meena were present at the meeting.
Keywords: heritage monument, R.K. Narayan, ancestral home
It is laudable that the house where R K Narayanan lived is going to become one of the heritage of India and particularly in Karnataka.
This is a great decision and all Indians should be proud of this.R.K.Narayan was a writer of international repute and brought a renaissance in English writing on traditional middle class style of life.His focus was on the village folks of the contemporary times.The heritage center should be completed in time and should be properly carried out.The tourism sector should bring in more awareness among tourists by including this proposed heritage center in their tours.We should take pride that such an internationally known Indian writer has been honored deservingly now.
It is shameful that a government can intrude in to private property. If RK Narayan had wanted his house to be mummified by the government he would have done it. He clearly passed on the property to his relatives. The government should respect that and not do something that pleases some freaked out individual sitting somewhere, with nothing personal at stake. The relatives of RK Narayan have to be praised for their forbearance. Hope the government pays them at least the fair market price.
It is high time that continued disregard in their own country of eminent people like R.K.Narayan by goverment comes to an end and a mechanism is put in place so that automatically the place where they lived , their manuscripts and such other things the posterity should have an oppourtunity to see and feel proud of will be presvered and taken care of well.
It is good decision.But this is to be followed up with interest and importance.R.K.N has written many books and had achieved many things locally and internationally. He and his close relatives must be having lot of items reminding us about the writer's life and other areas. All these should be collected and preserved in a proper , manner.Many pictures should be displayed about his young days,middle age and golden periods. There should be a library containing the books he had read and written.Many would have influenced him during his life.He has departed many hand prints on the sands of time and that would make our lives sublime and would usher many young writers in the future.Some minister had said about the maintenance of Shakespeare's house in UK.The karnataka state should act and bring this venture a reality quickly so that it would be a good lesson for other states in India.
Minister Suresh Kumar should be lauded for this effort,Iam Sure. He definitely is one of the very few politicians who belong to a different class.
I was just lucky to hear his wife's' interview on a radio station while I was in Bangalore a year ago!and that made me realize the true potential/nature of this couple. It is the right fortune of Kannadigas/Bangaloreans to have a decent minister like him!
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