SCANNING G.V DESANI’S HATTERR THROUGH THE LENS OF COLONIAL MIMICRY

The term ‘mimicry’, one of the buzzwords in post-colonial theory, has been chiefly expounded and popularized by Homi K. Bhabha. However, it is important to mention that one of his chief influences in this field has been Jacques Lacan. Nonetheless, mimicry, as depicted by Bhabha, has been used not only as a means of imitating the colonial master but also as a site of muffled colonial resistance. As such, the colonial authority is inescapably marked by a note of ambivalence that disrupts the very notion of fixedness by which it attempts to characterize itself. The primary objective of this paper is to scrutinize the methods through which G.V Desani exercises colonial mimicry in his only novel All about H. Hatterr to enact a subtle colonial resistance from behind the façade of a simple tale of H.Hatterr, an Anglo-Malay man and his adventurous encounters with different sages. Thus, what appears to be a straightforward story is, in reality, not at all politically naïve.