R.K. Narayan

[P_R]

Waiting for the mahatma - one of R.K's finest.

Regarding Guide, it was made in englsih & hindi. The hindi version flopped though.

In fact R.K.Narayan was thoroughly unhappy with the final product that he called up dev anand & fired him.

After that, he announced that none of his novels must be made into films.

It is the english version that flopped. The Hindi version was a huge hit.
Yes, RK didnt like final product and that is natural, because he visalized it in different way and the story has been adapted to a movie-screenplay differently. For me, even as a fan of the novel, i did like the film. RK was rightly unhappy inis own way and Dev was right in his own way, becase cinema needs a different language. The movie a quite good. Plz watch it.

I think it is in Salt and Sawdust, that RKN writes about the making of the film. He does not have good words for Dev Anand but it makes lovely reading.

The problems start with the location hunt where apparently someone rebuffed RKN's objections to the location of choice with "how do you know where Malgudi is ?"

And apparently Dev Anand talked him into a percentage contract with the lines "the sky is the limit" and if the final accounts as stated to RKN when his royalties were calculated were to be believe : "the sky was so low I could poke it with my umbrella" (sic)