Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas: An Eclipse in Memory, History and National Identity

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Vandana (Department of English, D.A.V. College, Sector-10, Chandigarh)

Gurdial Singh called him the Bhisham Pitamah of Hindi literature. Bhisham sahni was born on 8 August 1915 in Rawalpindi-undivided India. He has joined the Quit India Movement of 1942 for country’s independence. During partition his Punjabi Hindu family took refuge in Amritsar. He became one of the mainstream writers of Hindi language. His command over local dialects and common languages like Punjabi and Urdu make him more subtle writer of characterization. His short-stories are about common folks’ useless labor from ancient to modern times under brutal cog-wheel of socio-economic-political bitterness e.g. Tamas, Kabeera Khara Bazaar Me, Madhvi etc. Tamas can be seen as semi-autobiographical work of Sahni. He said in his autobiography ‘Aaj ke Ateet’ that As we entered Bhiwandi, I felt as if I had seen the scene in that town somewhere: silence all around, only one or two people on terraces and verandahs, empty streets, as if time had slowed down. As we entered the town, there were one or two tents of the police with policemen sitting outside, in uniform – but some with their caps off, some with loosened belts, as if resting the fatigue of the riot. Here and there, stray dogs meandered around. The pall of silence – people on balconies and terraces seemed like statues – pervaded a kind of desolation. As we moved a little farther, there was a shantytown that seemed to have been attacked mercilessly by the ‘brave men’. Distraught people seemed to have run away in a hurry. Utensils were strewn around in houses. Outside a hut, a kettle still sat upon a chulha. Outside another hut was a parrot- cage with the parrot, dead, inside the cage. Clothes and rags lay strewn around here and there as if the fleeing people couldn’t decide what to take and what to leave behind.