Vinayak Narahari Bhave, also known as Vinoba Bhave, was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. Often called Acharya, he is best known for the Bhoodan Movement. He is considered as National Teacher of India and the spiritual successor of Mahatma Gandhi. He was an eminent philosopher. The Gita has been translated into the Marathi language by him with the title Geetai.
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, better known as R. K. Narayan, was an Indian writer and novelist known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
Malgudi is a fictional town located in Agumbe situated in the Shivamogga district of the Indian state of Karnataka in the novels and short stories of R. K. Narayan. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel, Swami and Friends, all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here. Malgudi was a portmanteau of two Bengaluru localities - Malleshwara and Basavanagudi.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar was an Indian teacher of yoga and author. He is the founder of the style of yoga as exercise, known as "Iyengar Yoga", and was considered one of the foremost yoga gurus in the world. He was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga, Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often referred to as "the father of modern yoga". He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world.
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Laxman was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He was best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India, which started in 1951.
Arthur Llewellyn Basham was a noted historian, Indologist and author of a number of books. As a Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London in the 1950s and the 1960s, he taught a number of famous historians of India, including professors Ram Sharan Sharma, Romila Thapar, and V. S. Pathak and Thomas R. Trautmann and David Lorenzen.
A Tiger for Malgudi is a 1983 novel by R. K. Narayan told by a tiger in the first person. Deeply moving is the attachment of the tiger to the monk and the monk's care for the tiger. R. K. Narayan consulted with noted tiger expert K. Ullas Karanth on the writing of this novel. Narayan used the teaching of Buddha's enlightenment in this particular novel. The novel is set in the fictional town of Malgudi.
My Days (1974) is an autobiography by R. K. Narayan. It tells the story of Narayan's upbringing. My Days is an autobiography which starts with his childhood spent in his grandmother's home in Chennai.
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
The Ramayana is a mythological book by R. K. Narayan. It was first published by Chatto and Windus, London in 1972. The book is a shortened, prose adaptation of the Tamil Kamba Ramayanam. In 1938, Narayan made a promise to his dying uncle that he would translate the Kamba Ramayana to English, however, he did not think about this promise until 1968 when he began work on this effort. He later wrote The Mahabharata, published in 1978.
The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic is a mythological book by R. K. Narayan. It is a modernised, shortened, and translated retelling of The Mahabharata. It was first published by Heinemann, London in 1978. The book was published as a result of a long endeavour that included three Hindu mythological works, Gods, Demons and Others, The Ramayana and finally The Mahabharata; in 1995, these works were republished as part of a new book, The Indian Epics Retold.
The Emerald Route is a travelogue by R. K. Narayan. It was published by Indian Thought Publications in 1980. It is a pseudo-travel guide for Karnataka, India. The book was commissioned by the Government of Karnataka, and the initial non-commercial version was published in 1977 as part of a government publication. The book is focused on local history, culture and heritage, and does not exhibit much of Narayan's characteristic personal narrative.
Next Sunday is a collection of weekly essays by R. K. Narayan published in 1960. The book provides insights into Narayan's writings and perspectives and the protagonists of his works - the middle class common man. The book also includes his reflections on the themes of and actions in his novels and short stories.
Reluctant Guru is a book by R. K. Narayan published in 1974 by Orient Paperbacks. The book consists entirely of discursive essays, some of which were his weekly contributions to The Hindu. Some of the essays relate to the topic of his American stay, describing with his characteristic irony, the expectations of Americans that he would show them the key to the spiritual life of Indians. One criticism of the book is that the essays were too short and therefore lacking in depth.
Indian Thought Publications is a publisher founded in 1942, in Mysore by R. K. Narayan. Narayan founded the company as he was cut off from England owing to the war and needed an outlet for his works. The first book to be published by the company was Malgudi Days, in 1943. The publishing company followed a short-lived journal that he founded, of the same name. The company is currently managed from a tiny home-office in Chennai by Narayan's granddaughter Bhuvaneswari (Minnie).
Thayil Jacob Sony George is an Indian writer and biographer who received a Padma Bhushan award in 2011 in the field of literature and education. The fourth of eight siblings, TJS was born in Kerala, India to Thayil Thomas Jacob, a magistrate, and Chachiamma Jacob, a homemaker. Although his roots are in Thumpamon, Kerala, he lives in Bangalore and Coimbatore with his wife Ammu. He has a daughter, Sheba Thayil and a son, Jeet Thayil. American TV journalist Raj Mathai is his nephew.
Miss Malini is a 1947 Indian Tamil-language satirical film written and directed by Kothamangalam Subbu and produced by K. Ramnoth, based on a story by R. K. Narayan. Subbu also starred in the film alongside Pushpavalli and M. S. Sundari Bai. Javar Seetharaman and Gemini Ganesan made their acting debuts in the film appearing in minor supporting roles. The film focuses on Malini (Pushpavalli), an impoverished woman who joins her actress friend Sundari's theatre company Kala Mandhiram and becomes a success. Things take a turn for the worse when she befriends a charlatan named Sampath.
Vellalore Annaswamy Sundaram was an activist in the Indian Independence movement, an associate of Mahatma Gandhi, a confidant of Madan Mohan Malaviya, and a fundraiser and secretary to the Benares Hindu University (BHU). His work focused on communication and public relations, with particular emphasis on an international and intercultural perspective.
P. S. Sundaram (1910–1998), born Pazmarneri Subrahmanya Sundaram, was an Indian professor of English, best known for translating the Tirukkural and various Tamil classics into English. He had degrees in English from the University of Madras and the Oxford University. He served as professor of English for about 40 years in different parts of North India.
Kolar Venkatesh Iyer, known as K. V. Iyer (1897-1980) was a gymnast, bodybuilder, proponent of Indian physical culture, and author of books including the 1930 Muscle Cult: A Pro-Em for My System. He contributed to the development of modern yoga as a system of exercise.
