ABSTRACT
This chapter explores about the role of wit, irony and satire in Vidyasagar's personal and social life. As the confrontation with Ramakrishna illustrates, humour provides a means for coping with the discomfort associated with change as well as for enacting personal or social transformation. The chapter discusses Vidyasagar's use of humour as a 'weapon of the weak', it seemed quite appropriate to quote Kaviraj's observation that humour and dissimulation are characteristic modes of survival for the subaltern. Vidyasagar's run-in with Principal Kerr and the subsequent 'Shoe Question' together illustrate a crucial dimension of 'subordinate group politics' as discussed by Scott. This is a politics of 'disguise and anonymity'. The scandal of Vidyasagar's footwear is the physical counterpart to his ironic self-presentation, shielding his identity while simultaneously granting him enormous powers of self-assertion. The same qualities that made Vidyasagar a great storyteller inhere in his humour - clarity, concreteness and a definite punch.
