The Bachelor of Arts

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The Bachelor of Arts is a 1937 novel written by R.K.Narayan. The Bachelor of Arts is the second in the trilogy that began with Swami and Friends.

The Bachelor of Arts is set in Malgudi, the fictional town Narayan invented for his novels.One of the earliest coming of age novels written by an Indian, this is the story of Chandran, a young man in his last year at college. Life, half-planned, is before him. Love, as yet half-glimpsed, like the fleeting green sari on the river bank that sends his imagination running, makes of Chandran for a long while an exile from Malgudi, from his friends, his family and from life itself. And lvoe is the catalyst that makes him turn back to all that which he had turned his back on.

Narayan's characters are fully alive in their doubts, their affections and aspirations - concern shown with assumed carelessness, Hindu customs observed as often as they are ignored, shown with gentle and wry humour.