New Delhi, Dec. 12 -- At the end of her charming novel Rukmini Aunty and the R.K. Narayan Fan Club, Sita Bhaskar quotes the Scottish writer Alexander McCall Smith's admiration for the much-loved creator of Malgudi Days, first published as a collection of short stories in 1943, and later turned into a popular TV series in 1986. "He was a major influence in writing the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," McCall Smith is cited as saying. "Narayan succeeded in creating small, self-contained worlds for his quirky characters which gives him an avenue to explore their eccentricities and problems."

The statement provides a perfect frame to read Bhaskar's work, a fictional revisiting of the controversies over the restoration of Narayan's home in Yada...