Self-Study Component- R K Narayan

RK Narayan’s Swami and Friends is a piece of fictional art of words and author’s imaginary with
his own experience. Swami and Friends portrays the story of the tumultuous friendship of
Swaminathan, his four childhood friends, and a new boy named Rajam. It takes place in British-
colonial India in the year 1930.

Swami and Friends begins by introducing the main character, Swaminathan and later his four
friends Somu, Sankar, Mani, and Pea. I have read the book a long time ago while I was in my
high school. I am not a book nerd or someone who can create time for reading. Reading bores me
but I realised this is the only way to know world, word and also how to write which I always
enjoy doing.

The Book is a simple fictional Novel written in very Basic language. It can be easily understood
by children. Even though RK Narayan picks simple language, he describe every incident clearly
that the reader can picture and feel like living inside his page given that he have an imaginary
mind to do so but unfortunately I didn’t completed the book nor reached the mid of it. I lost my
interest in between and had to leave it behind.

I was still curious enough to know the complete plot however. I wanted to know how did
Swaminathan managed when he had a bad time with his friends or did they end up in two ways. I
searched for the synopsis which is when I came to see the movie, Malgudi Days- Swami and
friends.

Movies are definitely my one choice entertainer. I love watching movies. It surprises me on how
each characters expresses emotions and take the whole plot through them as a person rather than
through printed words. Watching the movie saved my time, it took only weeks for me to
complete with the whole episode but if it was to read the book, it would take half a year to finish.

In the Movie, the costumes of the character gave an idea about their culture, background, time
period and the financial situation they were in unlike books which didn’t always focused on
setting the character with a costume that matched the scene. The book focused more on detailing
the incident but it gave us the freedom to imagine. While reading the book, I read the words and
my mind made the movie out of blank.

Visual scenes stay in my mind more than words. The colour, background, motion, sound and
dialogues delivered in the movie had brought a whole new difference to the world of
entertainment. Swaminathan’s soul attracted me while reading the book whereas his innocent
face caught my attention after watching the movie. Reading book and watching movies are
similar. They both convey a story and give detail and information about it.
The book and movie, Swami and friends have several things in common and yet have
differences. It is like choosing between vanilla and chocolate flavour, they both are flavours but
taste different for different people. I personally felt the movie was more engaging, time
consuming and entertaining as I am personally a great movie lover.