My Days by R. K. Narayan Page B

. . . Or why not send it back or why not tell the editor what a dunderhead he must be not to be responsive to “Divine Music”? How he could run a magazine at all, if he did not mean to read the fine things submitted to him on his own invitation? Typed double space, one side, all conditions honoured. I flung away the rejection slip and the cover into a rubbish dump and putting the manuscript into an inner pocket went back to my room depressed, not mentioning this disgrace—I took it as a personal affront—to anyone. Depression lasted a couple of days, and with renewed hope, only changing the pin, I sent it off again—this time perhaps to Ellis Roberts of Life and Letters —remembering how the Vicar of Wakefield or some other masterpiece was rejected by ten publishers. Even the masters faced a cold, soul-killing reception at the start of their lives. Reinforced with such thoughts, I was back at the post-office counter at Chamarajapuram, weighing the packet; this time I enclosed with the three manuscripts a personal letter imploring the editor to give himself a chance to read the compositions. I had no doubt that once he surrendered himself to my writing he would become my most passionate champion.

    In 1926 I passed the university entrance examination and took my seat in the lecture hall of Maharaja’s College for my B.A. The college is built in the early French style with octagonal turrets and arched windows on one side and Athenian columns on the other, giving on intoxicating views of the landscape up to the horizon. There was no escape whichever way one turned. A windowed classroom looking out over a landscape is deadly for scholarly concentration. If a student is to listen attentively to lectures he should be cooped up in a windowless classroom in the heart of a city. At Madras the school windows let on a view of nothing more stirring than the wall of the next building, sometimes blank or, worse, plastered with posters. But here in Mysore I found the classroom windows revealing trees and birds, or meadows with cows placidly chewing grass and perhaps the cowherd sitting in the shade. In such a setting, I found the teacher’s voice a meaningless drone, which one had to tolerate perforce. From the eastern corridors of the college, one saw Chamundi Hill in all its fullness framed in arches along the parapet; Maharaja’s College was on one ridge of the city, with the hill and the Lalitha Mahal Palace on the other; in the valley in between lay the city with the golden dome of the palace standing out. During the political-science hour, one could watch the shadow of clouds skimming the mountainside, alternating with patches of sunlight, or the mirage shimmering across the landscape, and nothing seemed more irrelevant than the Location of Sovereignty in a Modern State or Checks and Balances in Democracy.
    For English literature and history, we had to move to the Greek end of the building, on its western side. Now the view was from a gallery seat through a doorway, between tall, fluted columns; one could see the playground and pavilion bounded by a railway line, with a little train whistling and ambling up and down periodically; there was also a glimpse of the Oriental Library, with friezes depicting the life of God Krishna along its walls and inscribed pillars on its lawns, where once again one noticed cows grazing with concentration and contentment. (There are more cows in Mysore than in any other city, though not milk.) During my college years, I became so familiar with the scenic details and their transformations around that I could have drawn up, if need be, a time-table of the natural events. During June and July, for instance, fitful drizzling alternated with sunlight bursting through the clouds, and a rainbow sometimes arched over the hill. If a painter had attempted to put all these things on his canvas, he would have been berated for overstatement, but Nature, having no such qualms