Unlikely Heroes

My project will be drawing on folklore and legends to examine the new forms that the creative expression of the colonized peoples takes as it shifts away from the medieval, ambiguous time frame it has been frozen into. I will be focusing in particular on the unlikely heroes that feature in these songs and legends. The framework for this project is rooted in Fanon’s theory on the emergence of national culture in the wake of anti-colonial struggles. Fanon argues that with the collapse of the colonial institutions, great innovation takes place in folklore- stories no longer allude to “once upon a time”, “a long time ago” or any other obscure time period. The stories now refer to events that can easily take place in the present. Similarly, the stories have a different kind of hero, one who is a social misfit or an outlaw, that point towards new ways of being human. These heroes are rehabilitated and cast in a new, less negative light.

One such legend I will be looking at is the story of Jamalo Sheedi, immortalised in the popular folk song, Ho Jamalo. Jamalo Sheedi too is one of the unlikely heroes that emerge as folk songs and tales are revitalized. Jamalo Sheedi’s story takes place in the late nineteenth century. Not only this but it features a lot of characters we associate with modernity- railways, prisons and British colonial administrators. Jamalo Sheedi is a death row prisoner who takes on the task of test-driving a train across the then newly constructed Sukkur Bridge. This is a task that the British administrators have been unable to find volunteers for. Sheedi agrees to drive the train on the condition that he be released if he successfully completes the journey.  Sheedi manages to beat the odds and crosses the bridge. The British colonial administration is forced to release him and on his return his wife is said to have composed the song Ho Jamalo. Jamalo Sheedi makes an unlikely hero with his criminal past and his wits. Not only this, the story is also unique in how it can be easily placed into a time frame and is not a tale from an ossified past that the colonizer’s literature subjects the stories and heroes of the colonized to.  The project is significant because it will be looking at how stories evolved and modernized with recent struggles and events in the foreground. Although it might be a stretch to see Jamalo’s legend as an act of resistance against the colonizer, stories like these are important because they help show how the folklore of the colonized is a dynamic entity that has the capacity to reinvent and reinvigorate itself.

I will be looking for similar legends and stories. Another possible source for this project would be literature on the Thuggee culture in Southern India (might be referring to Philip Taylor’s Confessions of a Thug.

This project will most likely be an essay because it would be referring to secondary sources and tales.

References:

Fanon, Frantz. “On National Culture.” Wretched of the Earth.