Problematic of the Body and Subaltern Visibility in S Hareesh’s Novel Moustache

Abstract

The novel Moustache authored by S Hareesh tells the story of Vavachan, a character belonging to the Pulaya caste in the princely state of Travancore who started wearing an immense moustache after his appearance in a cameo role in a musical drama. The novel is an ethnographic study of the Pulaya people of the mid-Travancore region of Kerala at a crucial juncture of their social transformation. The article attempts to study the pivotal role played by the corporeality of the body in the historical Dalit mobilisation and Dalit resistance and in gaining agency and visibility. The paper studies how Vavachan, a Pulayan, reclaims the autonomy of his body and uses it creatively for contesting caste hierarchies.  It further examines how the body of Vavachan has been conceived as the ghostly subjectivity by the spectral perceptual practices of the hierarchical society and how it has been dehumanised by marking as the deviant and criminal body.