Basheer on canvas
SANGEETH KURIAN
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Portraying the evergreen writer Vaikkom M. Basheer was fun.
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Writer par excellence: Simplicity marked his style
In one sketch, the state’s favourite story teller Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer reclines on his easy chair listening to his favourite Hindi oldie “Sojarajakumari,” yet another frame showed him lost in thought under the shade of a tree. A third one showed him listening to a gramophone.
The topic “Ottamara thanalile Valiya Ekkakka” saw children running riot with their imagination and portraying the unconventional story teller in all his endearing eccentricities.
The occasion was a caricature competition organised by the Basheer Sahityotsava Committee in connection with the 100th birth anniversary celebration of the writer in the city.
Children in the age group of 10 to 15 years took part in the event which also included competitions that tested the literary creativity of children.
According to Vinod Vaisakhi, convenor, arts and culture of the event though the competition was open up to the level of plus two students, it was children belonging to the Upper Primary section who displayed the greatest interest in recreating the image of the writer in black and white. “The students breathed life into the caricatures, complete with the writer’s shaved head and black-rimmed glasses,” he said. “The writer and his works were more familiar to them than the higher secondary students,” said Mr. Vaisakhi.
Many faces
A humanist, freedom fighter and a Padmashri winner Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer was known for his unconventional style of writing. He did not differentiate between literary language and the language spoken by the people and did not care about the grammatical correctness of his sentences. It is said that initially even his publishers were unappreciative of the beauty of his language and edited out or modified conversations.
The second event was based on a conversation “ente serettum posakom edukkunnundo ille” that depicts a school going routine taken from one of his famous works “Pathummayude Adu.” The children were asked to extrapolate on the incomplete sentence. Most of the students wrote about their experience of going to school with their siblings.
Shilpa Sivaraman, of St.Mary’s Higher Secondary School, Pattom bagged the first prize in the U.P. section in the caricature competition. The prizes will be given away at a function to be held in the city today.
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