ABSTRACT
The cultural politics of humour conjures a critical space within Hindu thoughts in the middle of rigid religiosity and fluid faith. It amounts to the two-faced experiences of negotiation and challenges. The discursive preponderance of the political avatar of Hinduism, however, seldom shadows the socio-cultural interjections. This chapter presents a close reading of one such collection of vernacular literary interjections in the mid-20th century that depicts Hindus’ beliefs and practices with due humour and wit. Interpretatively reading the relationship of the biographic and literary work of the renowned 20th-century modern Maithili litterateur Hari Mohan Jha and his fictional character Khattar Kaka, the analysis underlines a sound critique of the Brahminical world of Hinduism. The means of subversive humour receives more nuances in Jhas’s invocation of Carvaka, also interchangeably known as Lokayata, an ancient and somewhat forgotten philosophical thought.
