The TamBrahm community takes part in a ceremony to change their sacred thread in Chennai. The main cast in RK Narayan's books is all TamBrahm. Pic/AFP

Last week, in writing about Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize, this column mentioned the late RK Narayan and said he ought to have won the Literature Prize (even some influentials in India lobbied on his behalf while he was alive). Mentioned were his deceptively simple prose, his Chekhovian world of Malgudi in which places and characters recur, and the profound themes that his writing mined. Some readers responded positively. There was one friend from Chennai, BJK, who was so filled with indignation that he sent me a lengthy WhatsApp.