Legends of Khasak  

The Legends of Khasak was written by O. V. Vijayan in Malayalam, and was titled ‘Khasakinte Ithihaasam”. It was translated into English by the author himself. Khasak is a story both about Ravi, an undergraduate who takes up a job to teach in a village, and about a new world he experiences in Khasak. It is set in Kerala in the middle of the 20^th century. The book creates contrasts of a modern world that meets tradition, and strangers that mix with village locals. It explores the features of a marginalized society. Khasak is portrayed as a village that embraces those who come upon it, and also frees them equally easily.

O.V. VIjayan was inspired to write this novel based on Thasarak, a village in Palakaad (Palghat) in Kerala, where his sister was stationed as a school teacher. Much of the novel is formed through phenomenological reality and though there is no continuous story of external incidents, the novel articulates a social world in a non-empirical way — often reminding the reader of One Hundred Years of Solitude of Gabriel Marquez — fantastically woven with legends and myths. N.V. Krishna Warrier, the distinguished poet-critic of Malayalam, makes the right comment on the book. He says, 

The Legends of Khasak is a meaningful turning point in the history of Malayalam fiction. It is The Legends of Khasak that proved for the first time convincingly in Malayalam that the novel can be a valuable expression of the inner experience of man rather than a continuous story of
external incidents. (Warrier, 1989)

Khasakinte Ithihasam

 

‘The Legends of Khasak’ is full of dense images of nature, old folk customs, evocations of caste differences and the rich play of dialects. Vijayan offers a picture of small-town wisdom and values. Readers can identify with the characters although the poverty, lack of education, lifestyle and beliefs of the characters are markedly different from Western readers.