Vaikom Muhammed Basheer
Write an essay identifying the many stylistic experiments you notice in Basheer's story, particularly with reference to the narrative voice.
Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, besides being a celebrated Indian writer, is rightfully a part of the cynosure in Indian modernism which has come to be occupied by the likes of Manto, Chughtai, etc.
Counted among world-class writers, Basheer’s stylistic simplicity and focus on ‘non-characters’- characters who live on the outskirts of society, have helped him
Spanning considerably limited number of writings, he focused less on the profusion of words than on the profundity of each word. Each of his works was the result of a careful deliberation and numerous revisions. He has often proclaimed his deficiency in the knowledge of the Malayalam alphabet. Ironically, his obliviousness to the rich sanskritized Malayalam that was being used by his contemporaries helped him to appreciate the beauty in everyday language. It is his great dexterity as a writer to bring out the richness and freshness in the local Mapilla dialect. Everyday language was his medium of instruction. Yet, even in the simple proclivities, he was able to yield poetry.
“The Card-Sharper’s Daughter”, one of his most famous short stories, is quite representative of Basheer’s style except of course his darker prison diaries and autobiographical texts. Although the world of Mandan Muthapa and Ottakannan Pokker (and others too) is a fictional one, Basheer quite plays with us by constantly testifying to these events as true facts. Thus we see from the beginning that Basheer is not attempting to ‘write’ this story, but rather he intends to ‘tell’ this story. This conversationalist tone is idiosyncratic of his writing style in most of his works. At several places in the story, Basheer makes uninvited intrusions to ‘inform’ us of some ‘essential facts’ which prove to be nominal as they do not aid the reader in broadening his comprehension of the story. Instances ‘testifying’
Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, besides being a celebrated Indian writer, is rightfully a part of the cynosure in Indian modernism which has come to be occupied by the likes of Manto, Chughtai, etc.
Counted among world-class writers, Basheer’s stylistic simplicity and focus on ‘non-characters’- characters who live on the outskirts of society, have helped him
Spanning considerably limited number of writings, he focused less on the profusion of words than on the profundity of each word. Each of his works was the result of a careful deliberation and numerous revisions. He has often proclaimed his deficiency in the knowledge of the Malayalam alphabet. Ironically, his obliviousness to the rich sanskritized Malayalam that was being used by his contemporaries helped him to appreciate the beauty in everyday language. It is his great dexterity as a writer to bring out the richness and freshness in the local Mapilla dialect. Everyday language was his medium of instruction. Yet, even in the simple proclivities, he was able to yield poetry.
“The Card-Sharper’s Daughter”, one of his most famous short stories, is quite representative of Basheer’s style except of course his darker prison diaries and autobiographical texts. Although the world of Mandan Muthapa and Ottakannan Pokker (and others too) is a fictional one, Basheer quite plays with us by constantly testifying to these events as true facts. Thus we see from the beginning that Basheer is not attempting to ‘write’ this story, but rather he intends to ‘tell’ this story. This conversationalist tone is idiosyncratic of his writing style in most of his works. At several places in the story, Basheer makes uninvited intrusions to ‘inform’ us of some ‘essential facts’ which prove to be nominal as they do not aid the reader in broadening his comprehension of the story. Instances ‘testifying’