Khasakkinte Itihasam
Encyclopedia
Khasakkinte Itihasam is a path-breaking Malayalam novel
written by the Indian writer O. V. Vijayan
. First published in 1969 and generally referred to Khasak in literary circles, the novel has run into fifty reprints in the last forty years, making it the most popular and largest selling novel in South Asia
. Khasakkinte Itihasam has also been translated into French
and German
. The English
translation by the author himself was published in 1994 under the title The Legends of Khasak, though it differs substantially from the original in its sensibility. Most readers prefer to read it as an independent novel by Vijayan in English rather than seeing it as a translation of Khasakkinte Itihasam.
. He deserts his lover Padma and leaves on a long pilgrimage, which finally brings him to the small hamlet of Khasak near Palakkad
. At Khasak, he starts a single-teacher school as part of the District Board’s education initiative. The novel begins with Ravi’s arrival at Khasak and his encounters with its people, Allappicha Mollakka, Appukkili, Shivaraman Nair, Madhavan Nair, Kuppuvachan, Maimoona, Khaliyar, Aliyar, and the students of his school like Kunhamina, Karuvu, Unipparadi, Kochusuhara and others. After some years, his lover Padma calls on him and Ravi decides to leave Khasak. He commits suicide through snakebite while waiting for a bus at Koomankavu.
The novel has no story-line per se. It recounts the numerous encounters of Khasak from a spiritual and philosophical bent of mind. Through these encounters, Vijayan narrates numerous stories, myths and superstitions cherished in Khasak. He places them in opposition to the scientific and rational world outside, which is now making inroads into the hamlet through Ravi's single-teacher school. The irony of the interface between these two worlds occupies a substantial space in the novel. Through the myths and stories, Vijayan also explores similar encounters of the past recounted by the people of Khasak, enabling him to have a distinctly unique view of cultural encounters across time and space.
for a year. His sister O.V. Shanta was appointed as the teacher of a single-teacher school in the village. Most of the characters in the novel were modelled after real-life characters whom Vijayan encountered in Thasarak. In an afterword to the English
translation of the novel Vijayan wrote:
Vijayan took twelve years to complete Khasakkinte Itihasam. It was serialized in Mathrubhumi
weekly in 1968 and published as a book in 1969.
T.P. Rajeevan:
Lukose Mathew:
Tarun Tejpal:
K. Satchidanandan
:
. The early Vijayan was marked by deep philosophical doubt and skepticism, but the later Vijayan upheld certitudes. The Legends of Khasak was written by the Vijayan of certitudes, which makes it a very different novel in its sensibility, in spite of being a translation. One critic makes the following comparison between Khasakkinte Itihasam and The Legends of Khasak to prove this point. A literal translation of an important passage in Khasakkinte Itihasam reads:
In The Legends of Khasak, Vijayan rendered this passage thus:
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by the Indian writer O. V. Vijayan
O. V. Vijayan
Ootupulackal Velukkuty Vijayan was an Indian author and cartoonist, who was an important figure in modern Malayalam literature. Best known for his first novel Khasakkinte Itihasam , Vijayan has six novels, nine short-story collections, and nine collections of essays, memoirs and reflections.-...
. First published in 1969 and generally referred to Khasak in literary circles, the novel has run into fifty reprints in the last forty years, making it the most popular and largest selling novel in South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
. Khasakkinte Itihasam has also been translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. The English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation by the author himself was published in 1994 under the title The Legends of Khasak, though it differs substantially from the original in its sensibility. Most readers prefer to read it as an independent novel by Vijayan in English rather than seeing it as a translation of Khasakkinte Itihasam.
Plot
Khasakkinte Itihasam does not have a single narrative plot. It is crafted in the form of the spiritual journey of an under-graduate dropout, Ravi, plagued by the guilt of an illicit affair he had with his stepmother. Ravi abandons a bright academic career and a research offer from Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. He deserts his lover Padma and leaves on a long pilgrimage, which finally brings him to the small hamlet of Khasak near Palakkad
Palakkad
Palakkad , formerly known as Palghat, is a municipality and a town in the state of Kerala in southern India, spread over an area of 26.60 km2.The city is situated about north of state capital Thiruvananthapuram. It is the administrative headquarters of Palakkad District...
. At Khasak, he starts a single-teacher school as part of the District Board’s education initiative. The novel begins with Ravi’s arrival at Khasak and his encounters with its people, Allappicha Mollakka, Appukkili, Shivaraman Nair, Madhavan Nair, Kuppuvachan, Maimoona, Khaliyar, Aliyar, and the students of his school like Kunhamina, Karuvu, Unipparadi, Kochusuhara and others. After some years, his lover Padma calls on him and Ravi decides to leave Khasak. He commits suicide through snakebite while waiting for a bus at Koomankavu.
The novel has no story-line per se. It recounts the numerous encounters of Khasak from a spiritual and philosophical bent of mind. Through these encounters, Vijayan narrates numerous stories, myths and superstitions cherished in Khasak. He places them in opposition to the scientific and rational world outside, which is now making inroads into the hamlet through Ravi's single-teacher school. The irony of the interface between these two worlds occupies a substantial space in the novel. Through the myths and stories, Vijayan also explores similar encounters of the past recounted by the people of Khasak, enabling him to have a distinctly unique view of cultural encounters across time and space.
Background
Khasakkinte Itihasam was inspired by Vijayan's stay at a village called Thasarak near PalakkadPalakkad
Palakkad , formerly known as Palghat, is a municipality and a town in the state of Kerala in southern India, spread over an area of 26.60 km2.The city is situated about north of state capital Thiruvananthapuram. It is the administrative headquarters of Palakkad District...
for a year. His sister O.V. Shanta was appointed as the teacher of a single-teacher school in the village. Most of the characters in the novel were modelled after real-life characters whom Vijayan encountered in Thasarak. In an afterword to the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation of the novel Vijayan wrote:
-
-
- "It had all begun this way: in 1956 my sister got a teaching assignment in the village of Thasarak. This was part of a State scheme to send barefoot graduates to man single-teacher schools in backward villages.
-
-
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- "Since it was hard for a girl to be on her own in a remote village, my parents had rented a little farmhouse and moved in with my sister. Meanwhile I had been sacked from the college where I taught. Jobless and at a loose end, I too joined them in Thasarak to drown my sorrows.... Destiny had been readying me for Khasak."
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Vijayan took twelve years to complete Khasakkinte Itihasam. It was serialized in Mathrubhumi
Mathrubhumi
Mathrubhumi is a Malayalam language newspaper that is published from Kerala, India. Mathrubhumi was founded by K. P. Kesava Menon, an active volunteer in the Indian freedom struggle against the British.-History:...
weekly in 1968 and published as a book in 1969.
Praise for Khasakkinte Itihasam
Sunil K. Poolani:-
-
- "So, who was Vijayan? For the uninitiated (which is really unlikely if you are a connoisseur of Indian literature, political cartooning or journalism) he is, to put it in one sentence, one of the greatest writers the world has ever produced. And what raised him to that pedestal is his first and best novel, The Legend of Khasak, which was published around the same time that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s path-breaking One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hence one could fairly conclude that two of the greatest of writers of the twentieth century evolved at the same time, changing the course of Malayalam and Spanish literatures respectively, making the two individual works the benchmarks in their own respective languages."
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T.P. Rajeevan:
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-
- "It might be the author's truthful "self-dissent" during the course of the writing that made Khasak, which otherwise would have ended up as a mundane village romance, a seminal work that addressed some of the deeper issues of an enlightened individual's personal and social existence in the post-independence period. Everything in this novel — the theme, the characters, the language, the style, the narration, the way myth and reality, realism and fantasy mix — was ingenious and unprecedented in Malayalam."
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Lukose Mathew:
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-
- "The Legends of Khasak stands out in the collection for its originality and depth. In this book Vijayan succeeded in universalising his personal experience which is the hallmark of great works of art."
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Tarun Tejpal:
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- "Critics point out that there are plenty of established literary giants whose works have been reasonably well translated. Foremost among them is O.V. Vijayan, whose Malayalam-language masterpiece, The Legends of Khasak, arguably ranks alongside Rushdie's own output. The story line may not leap across continents and ages, as Rushdie's works do. But the book contains the same magical realism that has made Rushdie an international celebrity."
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K. Satchidanandan
Satchidanandan
K. Satchidanandan is a major Indian poet and critic, writing in Malayalam, and English. Satchidanandan has established himself as an academician, editor, translator and playwright...
:
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- "This novel literally revolutionised Malayalam fiction. Its interweaving of myth and reality, its lyrical intensity, its black humour, its freshness of idiom with its mixing of the provincial and the profound and its combinatorial wordplay, its juxtaposition of the erotic and the metaphysical, the crass and the sublime, the real and the surreal, guilt and expiation, physical desire and existential angst, and its innovative narrative strategy with its deft manipulation of time and space together created a new readership with a novel sensibility and transformed the Malayali imagination forever."
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English translation
Vijayan published his English translation of Khasakkinte Itihasam in 1994, long after he experienced an epistemological break after meeting the monk Swami Karunakara GuruKarunakara Guru
Nava Jyothi Sree Karunakara Guru was born in Chandiroor, Alappuzha district, Kerala. The humility, dignity and calm poise of this ascetic attracted to this young aspirant the devotees who came in large numbers to the institution of Sivagiri Madom of Sri Narayana Guru.Before long, in the year 1957,...
. The early Vijayan was marked by deep philosophical doubt and skepticism, but the later Vijayan upheld certitudes. The Legends of Khasak was written by the Vijayan of certitudes, which makes it a very different novel in its sensibility, in spite of being a translation. One critic makes the following comparison between Khasakkinte Itihasam and The Legends of Khasak to prove this point. A literal translation of an important passage in Khasakkinte Itihasam reads:
-
-
- "What is the truth about him?" They asked one another.
They recalled the spell that the Mollakka had sought to cast on Nizam Ali. It had no effect on him.
"The Khazi's truth," they said, "is the Sheikh's truth."
"What then of the Mollakka's? Is he untrue?" They were puzzled.
"He too is the truth."
"How can that be so?"
"Because truths are many."
- "What is the truth about him?" They asked one another.
-
In The Legends of Khasak, Vijayan rendered this passage thus:
-
-
- "What is the Khazi's truth?" The troubled elders asked one another.
They recalled the spell the mulla had tried to cast on Nizam Ali.
They had seen the spell fail.
"The Khazi's truth," they told themselves, "is the Sheikh's truth."
"If that be so," the troubled minds were in search of certitude, "is Mollakka the untruth?"
"He is the truth too."
"How is it so?"
"Many truths make the big truth."
- "What is the Khazi's truth?" The troubled elders asked one another.
-
External links
- http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fline/fl2208/stories/20050422003113200.htm
- http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/india/vijayan1.htm
- http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/07/22/stories/1322067f.htm
- http://www.hindu.com/lr/2005/03/06/stories/2005030600230400.htm
- http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/30ov1.htm
- http://bradley.bradley.edu/~tjp/mlpost.html
- http://www.keral.com/celebrities/ovvijayan/
- http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/31intera.htm
- http://dannyreviews.com/h/Legends_Khasak.html
- http://www.literaturfestival.com/bios1_3_6_615.html