REVIEW OF, MY DATELESS DAIRY

Oindrila Mukherjee’s article about RK Narayan is an exemplary piece of art that reflects his
reading and writing skill flourished with an honest review about the rare non-fiction novel from
the writer of Malgudi.

Oindrila have expressed how RK Narayan’s ‘My Dateless Dairy’ is a must-read travelogue. He
starts the article describing about the life in America. He takes the reader into the innovations
that took place in the US during the past periods, “In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected
President of the United States. Elvis Presley made his first entry into the US music charts, with
Heartbreak Hotel. Artist Jackson Pollock died in a car crash. The average cost of a gallon of
petrol in the US was 22 cents, and that of a house, $11,700. The first Hydrogen Bomb was tested
over Bikini Atoll. Allen Ginsberg published Howl.” (Scroll.in, web) This paragraph has served
the reader to get in close with the US background and be aware of the situation that was taking in
place while Narayan was writing his dairy still.

Oindrilla has reviewed the book significantly and in a well-staged manner. He pens about all the
humorous scenes of the book into the article published as, Everything you didn’t want to know about
the RK Narayan book that no one reads anymore, but should.(scroll.in,web) It has provoked every
reader of him to be a reader of Narayan also.

The book as its title says is a dateless documentation of fifty-year-old Narayan's journey through
America from India. Even though the book is dateless, the stories somehow fall into sequence:
He takes note of almost day to day accounts as he travelled from town to town in America.

One can learn that the author is trilled and excited to visit UK for the first time. The book rather
than setting its location in the cities of US alone throughout the chapters opens with a mix of
description and his life in India also. He briefs out about his culture, tradition, family bond and
relation he had in his home town.

He parallelly draws the similarities and difference in the lifestyle and systems followed in
America and India. Initially, He compares about the cafeteria in America, “Yesterday, at the self-
service cafeteria, I made the mistake of waiting for someone to ask what I wanted. Today I know
better. You enter the cafeteria, pull out a 'check' (on which prices are punched) from a machine,
pikc up a tray and spoons, and study the various dishes displayed on the long counter under a
glass cover, trying to judge what's what and how far a vegetarian could venture – whether that
attractive yellow stuff might not be some prohibited food such as lobster.” (Narayan, p. 7)

He says this is much different from where he came. He adds into the context how the cafeteria in
India works, “…how differently you got through a restaurant-session in Mysore. You took your
seat, asked for morning paper and a glass of water – just to mark time before deciding whether
you should have Masala Dosai again or Idli, or as you generally felt inclined (but resisted) both;
but indecision could never be an end in itself, and you devised a further postponement of issues,
by asking, when the reading of newspaper was over, 'What have you?' A routine question. The
waiter would give a quick recital of the day's menu – nothing new or startling, but you enjoyed
hearing it all over again.” (Narayan, p. 40)

He charmingly flatters his home town, Mysore in these texts. Even though Narayan physically
stays in the city his heart is still in India. He also tries to anecdote Indians to America through the
coffee, “…when I approached for coffee and was asked, 'Black or white?' 'Neither', I said
haughtily. The server looked up rather puzzled. 'What do you mean?' he asked. 'I want it neither
black nor white, but brown which ought to be the color of honest coffee – that's how we made it
in South India where devotees of perfection in coffee assemble from all over the world'. He must
have thought me crazy, but such leisurely talk is deliberate, like extra-clutches on the track of a
train rolling downhill.” (Narayan, p. 8)

Narayan takes the readers to various places in New York such as the Statue of Liberty, the
Empire State Building, and Rockefeller Plaza. When he saw a shop selling Indian stuff, he
peeked into it, a passerby asked him, whereon upon he felt proud to describe ivory of Mysuru
(Mysore). In his witty manner, he talks to them about the reasons why people give the address of
their known, “mercenary …to carry pickles and spices from India, to know them....”(Narayan,
9p. 15) He was baffled at the linguistic variations when someone at the subway counter asked
him, “Up-town or down-town?”(Narayan p.15)

Humor is dispersed in his writing everywhere. When he said, “Vegetarian” people around him
were shocked as if he had said, “Man-eater.” They wonder how he is alive on this diet without
having meat. People around him got inquisitive about Gandhi and asked many things about the
Mahatma. They were “proud to have seen a man from ‘Gandhian land.’ (Narayan, p.17)

Narayan saw that the American people were not excited on Election Day, whereas in India it was
“full of noise, crowd and movement, with all normal work suspended; and above all
loudspeakers rending the air.”(Narayan, p.46)
He links down about the Indian Society, its origin, joint family towards the end of the lecture, an
elderly person came to him and shows his photograph saying he too lived in a joint family.
Americans were amused by the exotic Indian lifestyle.

Narayan finds that the Americans were making fun of God. They were impressed by Buddhism
and claimed to be a follower of Buddhism, when asked what you do, they simply reply,
“Nothing. You are just a Buddhist—that’s all.” (Narayan, p.118) He notices, “Irreverence,
Blasphemy, are here as compelling a creed as any religious practice in a monastery.” (Narayan,
p.119)

In a discussion with his friends on how old people have been taken care of in America, he came
to know about the old age homes and about the estranged parents-children relationship. He was
shocked and disappointed to learn another fact of American life, that children are considered as,
“an unmanageable nuisance in this country.” (Narayan, p.112) The Americans in turn, are
interested and curious to know about the difference between Hindu and Muslim, and for the
reason they had flight between them in India.

Narayan was glad to see the idol of Shiva and Ganesha in the US. On his visit to Universal
International Studios, he realized that the people of film fraternity were disturbed with the
attitude of the Indian government and complained on how difficult it is to get permission for a
movie project in India whereas Hollywood is full of yoga and philosophy. He felt cheerful and at
peace seeing the Vedanta Plaza. In a self-realization center, he found that the first step for self-
realization is good-food, then listening to lecture on Vedanta. Many Americans were attending
the lectures and some were living in the ashram.

The book is written in a witty narrative way. While he was spending nine months travelling
across the US, New York, Midwest, California, and then south as far as New Mexico, before
coming up again along the east coast, back to New York, he was penning it down the incidents of
meeting celebrities like Greta Garbo, Aldous Huxley, Martha Graham, Cartier Bresson, Milton
Singer and Ravi Shanker in his delightful inimitable manner. During this time, he maintained a
journal which in his mind he never thought of publishing. He writes about it as, “My own
comments on all this may be out of place since I know nothing about architecture, and dare to
pronounce them here only because this is my own personal diary.” Narayan was overwhelmed
by publishers’ reply to his work. He was impressed by their enthusiasm, warmth, and genial
nature.
My Dateless Diary ends with the words of Greta Garbo, “How I wish we could stop time from
moving and always taking us on to a moment of parting!” (Narayan, p.203) Even though the
book is a first impression on history without a proper research, every page is worth in its
description about the landscape beauty, socio-cultural difference and similarities in Indian and
American lifestyle.

References

Korte, B. (2000). English Travel Writing from Pilgrimages to Postcolonial Explorations.

Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Kumar, A. P. (2013) “R. K. Narayan as a Pragmatic Essayist”, Language in India. 13 ( 10,

October). 359-366. Retrieved from www.languageinindia.com

Narayan, R.K. (1960). My Dateless Diary: An American Journey. Mysore: Indian Thought
Publications. Rpt. Delhi: Orient Paperbacks 1969; Penguin Books, 1988.

Spengemann, W. C. (1977). The Adventurous Muse: The Poetics of American Fiction, 1780-
1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English. Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles. New York:
Cambridge University Press.