He was a novelist and short story writer noted for his path-breaking, down-to-earth style of writing that made him equally popular among literary critics as well as the common man.

Basheer was born on 21 January 1908[2][3] in Thalayolaparambu (near Vaikom) Kottayam District, to Kayi Abdurahman, a timber merchant, and his wife, Kunjathumma,[4] as their eldest child.

[6] Basheer would later write about his experiences on how he managed to climb on to the car in which Gandhi was traveling and touched his hand.

Since there was no active independence movement in Travancore – being a princely state – he went to Malabar district to take part in the Salt Satyagraha in 1930.

He became inspired by stories of heroism by revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru, who were executed while he was in the jail.

Once free, he organized an anti-British movement and edited a revolutionary journal, Ujjivanam, because of which an arrest warrant was issued on him and he left Kerala.

[8] Having left Kerala, he embarked upon a long journey that took him across the length and breadth of India and to many places in Asia and Africa for seven years, doing whatever work that seemed likely to keep him from starvation.

[8] His occupations ranged from that of a loom fitter, fortune teller, cook, newspaper seller, fruit seller, sports goods agent, accountant, watchman, shepherd, hotel manager to living as an ascetic with Hindu saints and Sufi mystics in their hermitages in Himalayas and in the Ganges basin, following their customs and practices, for more than five years.

[4] After doing menial jobs in cities such as Ajmer, Peshawar, Kashmir and Calcutta, Basheer returned to Ernakulam in the mid-1930s.

While trying his hands at various jobs, like washing vessels in hotels, he met a manufacturer of sports goods from Sialkot who offered him an agency in Kerala.

He started working as an agent for the Sialkot sports company at Ernakulam, but lost the agency when a bicycle accident incapacitated him temporarily.

[13] M. K. Sanu, critic and a friend of Basheer, would later say that M. P. Paul's introduction contributed significantly in developing his writing career.

[15] The couple had a son, Anees and a daughter, Shahina, and the family lived in Beypore, on the southern edge of Kozhikode.

[17] He wrote one of his most famous works, Pathummayude Aadu (Pathumma's Goat), while undergoing treatment in a mental hospital in Thrissur.

[17] Fabi Basheer outlived him for over two decades and died on 15 July 2015, at the age of 77, succumbing to complications following a pneumonia attack.

[21] Basheer's fictional characters were mostly marginalised people like gamblers, thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes, and they appeared in his works, naive and pure.

There is enormous variety in them – of narrative style, of presentation, of philosophical content, of social comment and commitment.

His association with India's independence struggle, the experiences during his long travels and the conditions that existed in Kerala, particularly in the neighbourhood of his home and among the Muslim community – all had a major impact on them.

I read all that I could get hold of—Somerset Maugham, Steinbeck, Maupassant, Flaubert, Romain Rolland, Gorky, Chekhov, Hemingway, Pearl S. Buck, Shakespeare, Galsworthy, Shaw...

"[23] Almost all of Basheer's writing can be seen as falling under the heading of prose fiction – short stories and novels, though there is also a one-act play and volumes of essays and reminiscences.

Hidden underneath the hilarious dialogues we can see a sharp criticism of religious conservatism, dowry and similar conventions existing in society.

[25] Premalekhanam was followed by the novel Balyakalasakhi – a tragic love story between Majeed and Suhra – which is among the most important novels in Malayalam literature[26] in spite of its relatively small size (75 pages), and is commonly agreed upon as his magnum opus work.

[27] In his foreword to Balyakalasakhi, Jeevithathil Ninnum Oru Aedu (A Page From Life), M. P. Paul brings out the beauty of this novel, and how it is different from run-of-the-mill love stories.

[31] While many of the stories present situations to which the average reader can easily relate, the darker, seamier side of human existence also finds a major place, as in the novel Shabdangal ("Voices", 1947),[32] which faced heavy criticism for violence and vulgarity.

Illiteracy is fertile soil for superstitions, and the novel is about education enlightening people and making them shed age-old conventions.

People boast of the glory of days past, their "grandfather's elephants", but that is just a ploy to hide their shortcomings.

Before he "met" Naraayani, the loneliness and restrictions of prison life was killing Basheer; but when the orders for his release arrive he loudly protests, "Who needs freedom?

Perch, a Chennai based theatre, has adapted portions from Premalekhanam and Mucheettukalikkarante Makal as a drama under the title, The Moonshine and the Sky Toffee.

[43] The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 1982[44] and five years later, the University of Calicut conferred on him the honorary degree of the Doctor of Letters on 19 January 1987.