"My Days" is the only memoir from R.K. Narayan. In the wryly funny style that has made him famous, he shares his life story, beginning in his grandfather's garden in Madras with a ferocious pet peacock. As a young boy with no interest in school he trains grasshoppers and scouts and then, against the advice of all, especially his commanding headmaster father, the dreaming Narayan begins to write fiction. When one of his pieces is accepted by Punch magazine, what he describes as his "first prestige publication", his life becomes gradually filled with bumbling British diplomats, strange movie moguls, evasive Indian officials and "the blind urge" to fall in love.