 R. K. Narayan, a popular English-language novelist and creator of the fictional town of Malgudi, and his cartoonist brother R. K. Laxman spent much of their life in Mysore.Mysore is connected by National Highway NH-212 to the state border town of Gundlupet, where the road forks into the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.State Highway 17, which connects Mysore to Bangalore, was upgraded to a four-lane highway in 2006, reducing travel time between the two cities.