One of my favorite writers has to be Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. I have read most of his short stories, h
e was an amazing man. Why I thought about writing on Basheer was this story “enteuppapaakuoruannaindarunu” (my great grand dad had an elephant), this story was translated into English and titled as "Me Gran'dad 'ad an Elephant". There was difficulty in translation as it lost the punch. Let me explain. The hilarity of the story was confusion between Kuzhi anna (literal translation would be: hole elephant) antlion larvae -doodlebug, with real elephant. The story is a strong take on superstitious in Basheer style!. Basheer's charming stories i always liked (some stories faintly reminds me of Saadat Hasan Manto). When I was a kid there was an elderly man who liked taking children for fantasy ride. He would say when I had accidentally eaten seeds with fruit that it will grow in my stomach- very serious when he said these, and next few days I would think trees growing in my stomach, even occasionally checking by putting finger into the throat or opening my mouth wide into the mirror. Now this fellow once when he saw the track of kuzhi anna (antlion larvae) told me that these are miniature elephant
s that live underground. And i ask "really", he would say "absolutely!!". Obviously that was enough to trigger my imagination and next many hours I followed the track and kept digging to capture one, it remained elusive. When I read Basheer years later couldn’t help recalling that incident. Even now I sometime wonder there must be miniature elephant down under, it really was so very convincing. Basheer is a strongly suggested writer, more than a writer he was a great human. A charming man you would love to know.
Need to mention in context to Elephants that there is a very popular program in one of Malayalam TV channels titled E 4 Elephant.
