On the 25th death anniversary of ‘Beypore Sultan’, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, auteur Adoor Gopalakrishnan remembered the inimitable writer as a genius who created an extraordinary world using the daily lingo and ordinary life of the common man.
“The characters he created steered clear of the western stereotypes and became a part of our conversations,” he said at a remembrance meet organised by the Basheer Smaraka Samiti at the writer’s birthplace Thalayolaparambu, some 36 km east of Ernakulam, on Friday.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan was honoured with the Balyakalasakhi Puraskaram at the event.
While several works of Basheer’s had caught the attention of critics who conducted in-depth studies on them, the umbilical connection between Basheer the man and his works had not been put to a comprehensive study by anyone. Basheer had not written an autobiography, but there were autobiographical sketches in several of his writings, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said.
A total of 25 cultural activists were honoured at the event with saplings of Mangosteen, a tree species that graced his courtyard and grew popular among readers for its association with the writer.
