IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 324 Shahaji Mastud Assistant Professor D.A.B.N. College Chikhali Maharashtra, India [email protected] Malgudi to Macondo the Imaginary Homelands: A Study of Fictional Universe This research paper considers the imaginary location that leads to recreate social reproduction through fictional towns. The discussions will started with the creation of Macondo and Malgudi depicted by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Colombian and Indian eminent author R. K. Narayan respectively. I go to argue that motives, influence and similarities between these authors while fictionalizing imaginary homelands. I then look at the novels selected for these purposes are One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez and R. K. Narayan’s selected novels written from 1935 to 1945 to attempt articulation of imaginary hometown documented in the fiction. The creative work of imaginary hometowns evaluated with comparative perspective to find vision of human life through these hometowns mapped by both authors. It will contribute to look at the twenty- first century real cities and imaginative cities in the period of colonial imperialism for understanding better human life. The treatment of narrative structures, the utilization of multi focalization, and the use of meta-fictional elements allow for the gradual transition between the real space and fictitious imagined space. Finally, this analysis investigates the concept of an imaginary space and what role it has in the novel. Keywords: Reproduction, Imaginary, Homelands, Comparative, Perspective. IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 325 Introduction Twenty first century has been facing tormented problems in the towns and metropolitan cities. The dragon of city life has becoming hard and tough day by day. The people, those left their home for job in the morning. There is no guaranty that they will come back safely in time to home. They have to tackle the problems of traffic, air pollution and non-hygienic food that lead to health disease. To solve this question and to lessen the problems, it is necessary to have look in the literary fictional towns and try to find some solutions through it is one of the motives of the paper. The author creates utopian fiction to disguise the contemporary evil aspects of the world and provides better ideal model for happiness. Utopian universe in fiction has vital importance; it is a reflection of contemporary scenario. Macondo is the exciting fictional world in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. Even, Macondo is known as the Austrian refugee camp, since 1956, which has supplied homes to emigrant people from all over the world. Writers from Latin America discuss about home and migration, both fictional and real. However, It is my intention that to enquire the ways how Garcia Marquez and R. K. Narayan describes Macondo and Malgudi as town for artful and literary purposes. My concern goes in the direction that what extend the both writer has been described Macondo and Malgudi respectively? From this perspective, the subject has been discussed in the research paper. The purpose of this article is therefore to raise some artistic and ideological question behind depicting such cities in the fictional world. Malgudi - R. K. Narayan’s Fictional World IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 326 The three eminent fiction writer of the postcolonial Indian English Writing was Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and most famous R. K. Narayan in India. All these writers are influenced with western language and Gandhi’s ideology of decolonization of the mind. First time, they depicted Indian scenario in fiction. The panorama of Indian life was the prominent aspect of these writers. The Indian was struggling with modern ideology and declining traditional cultural practices. The impact of Gandhi’s philosophy was great and deep in the masses of the downtrodden Indians. Gandhi’s rejection of western cloth, eradication of untouchables and simple life of moral human values got large impact on these writers. Mulk Raj Anand echoed the voice of the untouchables in his novel Untouchables, with Bhaka’s character struggling to rebel old practice of untouchables. Raj Rao’s Kanthapura was the confusion of western thought and Gandhi’s ideology. Murthy’s transformation from Gandhi’s perspectives to Nehru’s dream of modern India has depicted with great intensity. In the opening chapter of The Painter of Signs a traffic policeman blows his whistle to make him move on, he reflects: “They won’t leave one in peace. This is a jungle where other beasts are constantly on the prowl to attack and bite off a mouthful, if one is not careful. As if this were New York and I blocked the traffic on Broadway. He would not recognize it, but Malgudi was changing in 1972.”1 Gandhi’s one more important aspect of ideology was return to elemental life of Indian village has given large space in Narayan’s fictional art. Rather than moving to fallow western education and working as a civil servant in India, it’s better to went in villages and assimilate in the life of poor and needy people to change their life to build new India. Anita Desai said that “in the imaginary town of Malgudi he could set up a statue wherever he liked, demolish the town hall if he wished, put up a tea shop without the permission of the municipality, banish old residents and IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 327 introduce strangers, just as he pleased.”2 That’s the artistic freedom of writer and character, we can observe in the Narayan’s Malgudi. All the emerging postcolonial writers give space for this purpose. But Narayan was mostly interesting in the Indian town life, narrating their style of living and ritual practices in fiction. Indian villages and town are full of natural resources as well as mutual understanding of each other. The people believe on each other, they discuss the problems in the temple or under the big tree in front of the village gate. It was situated at the bank of the river mostly, constructed huge temples and newly established schools. It was multicultural village living all caste and class people in collaboration. R. K. Narayan has narrated his fictional world describing the utopian idea of village/ town. Malgudi is the remarkable example of his writing, which is the prime aspect of this paper. Malgudi as a fictional world become very famous with the brushstroke of Narayan’s pen. It is believed that it might be situated somewhere in Indian Territory but actually that is the mighty power of Narayan’s artistic vision. The landscape of Indian Territory with full of mountains ranges, rivers and valleys, huge temples curved in stone are the geographically presented in the Narayan’s fiction. Panorama of tradition and culture of south is one of the segments of his writing. The people of Malgudi are mostly middle class and struggling to face their middle class problems. The predicament of middle class has given more depiction in Narayan’s town. He borrowed the character of his fiction form the road of Madras. The way how they speak and behave is also interesting. The contour of Malgudi with its vices and virtues has portrayed in many novels. In the “Author’s Introduction” to Malgudi Days, a collection of short stories, Narayan provides this discussion of Malgudi: IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 328 “I have named this volume Malgudi Days in order to give it a plausible geographical status. I am often asked, “Where is Malgudi?” All I can say is that it is imaginary and not to be found on any map (although the University of Chicago has published a literary atlas with a map of India indicating the location of Malgudi). If I explain that Malgudi is a small town in South India I shall only be expressing a half-truth, for the characteristics of Malgudi seem to me universal.”3 After postcolonial period Narayan envisioned Malgudi as a universal town where all the people from all religious and cultural arenas came together. They will be able to live together in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics, and all villages, straining to realize human unity. R. K. Narayan’s fictional town was an obsession of his patriotic sentiment, his idea of the united people with their virtues and vices. Rosemary Marangoly George pointed that “Narayan’s Malgudi produced a viable Indian hometown ethos (a sense of the local), which was consciously carved out of and against an imperial era of British global dominance.”4 It was the place of his artifact that created respect for him in literary arena. Malgudi is the plausible location for an imagined future when our species has left behind the ugliness of cruelty and violence. For the spiritual and civilizational energies of India, that Narayan believed could transform our species are beyond the limits and boundaries of nation-state. John Theme comments that “Narayan’s fiction may derive from very particular South Indian specifics, but it demonstrates how fluid, fractured and fleeting these specifics can be”.5 By sharing the human striving and challenges behind the Malgudi story, his fictional world of Malgudi makes the endeavor more accessible and relatable. However, the reality of Malgudi with all its struggles is far more fascinating and instructive. IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 4, April 2018 329 My intention is to introduce the reader deeper context of Malgudi imagined world, the place which is now largely known only as a Centre of Indian village town. When reader enter in the realm of the Malgudi, he will enter in the spiritual land of ancient India, where one can move to super mind and super mental consciousness.