The title music of the TV series still rings in our ears. Each time we hear it, we are transported to a fictitious South Indian town of Malgudi.

And, on Friday, Google honoured Malgudi's native son - RK Narayan - with a doodle celebrating his 108th birth anniversary.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan (or RK Narayan) was born in Madras (now Chennai) in 1906. He moved to Mysore from where he graduated in 1930.

Considered to be the early pioneer of Indian English literature and critically acclaimed as one of the greatest Indian storytellers, Narayan began his career as a journalist before writing his first novel "Swami and Friends" in 1935. The setting was in this fictional town of Malgudi.

And rightly so, today's Google India homepage has made space to highlight the contribution of RK Narayan with a sketch of the novelist apparently engrossed in his collection of Malgudi Days stories.

A click on the image takes the user to search results of RK Narayan with top links offering information about the author and his works.

Of the 12 novels, two of them - Swami and His Friends and The Bachelor of Arts are said to be set in Malgudi. He also wrote a collection of short stories, mostly focusing on wry humour and on the lives of the common man. He has also written travel books and essays.

It was in 1986 that his collection of short stories was first included in the popular television series - "Malgudi Days". The series was later revived and aired on Doordarshan in 2006.

This apart, one of his novels, The Guide, was made into a successful film starring yesteryear superstar Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman.

He died of heart failure at the age of 94 on May 12, 2001.

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