This study will provide a critical review of the essays contained in R.K. Narayan's collection, A Writer's Nightmare. It is difficult if not impossible to squeeze these essays (or even the majority of some sixty essays) into a category or two for the purpose of analysis. The essays tell us far more about the writer himself and his subjective views than about the India which is indirectly or directly the subject of his essays. A major clue to the spirit of the collection, however, can be found in the title piece, "A Writer's Nightmare." This essay reports the very bad dream Narayan has about government censorship of writers in his nation. In fact, while there may be instances of governmental pressure on writers, for the most part India practices the freedom-based principles of democratic government, and this liberty is reflected in Narayan's essays.
What most marks these essays is the author's realistic, humorous, skeptical, and humanistic expression of his democratic right to say what he thinks and feels about whatever he wishes to write about. For example, when India won its independence, a rash of renaming of "streets, towns, parks and squares" (94) struck the nation. One would think that any properly patriotic writer would take a reverential attitude toward such an expression of newly-won independence. To the contrary, Narayan clearly sees his role in a free and democratic India to be that of a balloon-puncturing watchdog. He combines idealism and skepticism in his response:
Nor . . . is this change likely to make the ghost of the old despot go pale with shame and remorse. Even if it does affect the ghost, would it be legitimate to achieve the end in a country nurtured on ahimsa, the essence of which is that we should not hate our enemies, much less our dead enemies? (96).
After this idealistic appeal, Narayan concludes on a wry and pragmatic note when he reminds the name-changer that there will be a name-changer in the fut...