O. V. Vijayan
Encyclopedia
Ootupulackal Velukkuty Vijayan was an India
n author
and cartoonist, who was an important figure in modern Malayalam
literature. Best known for his first novel Khasakkinte Itihasam
(1969), Vijayan has six novels, nine short-story collections, and nine collections of essays, memoirs and reflections.
on July 2, 1930. His father O. Velukkutty was an officer in Malabar Special Police
of the erstwhile Madras Province in British India. As a child, Vijayan was largely homeschooled. Formal schooling began at the age of twelve, when he joined Raja’s High School, Kottakkal
in Malabar, directly in to sixth grade. The informal education arranged by his father during his absentee years was sufficient to keep him at par with his peers. The following year, Velukkutty was transferred and Vijayan joined the school at Koduvayur
in Palakkad
. He graduated from Victoria College
in Palakkad and obtained a masters degree in English literature from Presidency College
.
(The Legends of Khasak, 1969) tells the story of a teacher named Ravi dispatched to a newly created school in remote Khasak. He brought about a sea-change in Malayalam literature
with this novel: so much so that it can be divided into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak eras, named after Vijayan's pioneering first novel. The former era was romantic and formal; the latter is modernist, post-modernist and post-post-modernist, with tremendous experimentation in style and content . In a way, Vijayan released Malayalam fiction writing from the shackles of tradition . He wrote many other short stories, essays and satire. He was also an editorial cartoonist and political observer and his works appeared in various news publications including The Statesman
and the Far Eastern Economic Review
. He also worked for The Hindu
.
O. V. Vijayan was almost certainly India's foremost fabulist in the recent past . An extraordinary writer with enormous range, he wrote everything from a semi-fictional history of his feudal-landlord family, 'Generations' to the scatological 'The Saga of Dharmapuri'. His works have often been compared with those of William Faulkner
and Gabriel García Márquez
. While Khasak continues to be his best-known work as an angry young man, his later works, Gurusagaram (The Eternity of Grace), Pravachakante Vazhi (The Path of the Prophet) and Thalamurakal (Generations) bespeak a mature transcendentalist.
While he lived outside Kerala for most of his adult life, spending time in Delhi
and in Hyderabad (where his wife Teresa was from), he never forgot his beloved Palakkad, where the 'wind whistles through the passes and the clattering black palms'. He created a magical Malabar in his works, one where the mundane and the inspired lived side-by-side. His Vijayan-land, a state of mind, is portrayed vividly in his work.
Vijayan was unlucky not to win India's principal literary prize, the Jnanpith, possibly because he did not endear himself to the political powers-that-be through his trenchant cartoons (Shankar's Weekly, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Hindu, The Statesman). However, in 2003, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan
, India's third highest civilian award.
for 20 years and finally succumbed to organ failure in a Hyderabad hospital at age 75. His wife Dr. Teresa Vijayan died a year after his death. Their son Madhu Vijayan lives in Los Angeles, CA.
, the central Sahitya Akademi Award
and the Kerala Sahithya Academy
Award in 1991.
fusing mythology, spirituality and ecology".
.
O. V. Vijayan's best known collection in English is After the Hanging and Other Stories which contains several jewel-like masterpieces, in particular the title story about a poor, semi-literate peasant going to the jail to receive the body of his son who has been hanged; The Wart and The Foetus about the trauma of the fascist Emergency; the transcendental The Airport, The Little Ones, and several others.
An incisive writer in English as well, Vijayan translated most of his own works from Malayalam to English. Selected works have been published by Penguin India.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and cartoonist, who was an important figure in modern Malayalam
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
literature. Best known for his first novel Khasakkinte Itihasam
Khasakkinte Itihasam
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...
(1969), Vijayan has six novels, nine short-story collections, and nine collections of essays, memoirs and reflections.
Early life
O. V. Vijayan was born in 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...
on July 2, 1930. His father O. Velukkutty was an officer in Malabar Special Police
Malabar Special Police
The Malabar Special Police is a paramilitary unit of the State Police of Kerala, India. This unit also trains new recruits and also helps the local police units to maintain law and order during emergencies. During emergencies, this unit forms the riot police platoons fully equipped with riot gear...
of the erstwhile Madras Province in British India. As a child, Vijayan was largely homeschooled. Formal schooling began at the age of twelve, when he joined Raja’s High School, Kottakkal
Kottakkal
Kottakkal is a town and a municipality in Malappuram District in Kerala, south India. It has 32 Wards. The National Highway 17 separates the municipality from Edarikkode Panchayath on some part in the west. It is an Eranadan town located 12 km south-west of Malappuram, the district...
in Malabar, directly in to sixth grade. The informal education arranged by his father during his absentee years was sufficient to keep him at par with his peers. The following year, Velukkutty was transferred and Vijayan joined the school at Koduvayur
Koduvayur
Koduvayur is a small town in Palakkad district of Kerala state, south India. It is roughly around 10 km south of Palakkad town. It comes under Chittur Taluk of Palakkad district...
in 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...
. He graduated from Victoria College
Victoria College
Victoria College is or was the name of several institutions of secondary or higher education, including:* [Victoria College, Chulipuram], Sri Lanka* Victoria College, Alexandria, Egypt* Victoria College in Victoria, Texas...
in Palakkad and obtained a masters degree in English literature from Presidency College
Presidency College, Chennai
Presidency College is an arts, law and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. Established as the Madras Preparatory School on October 15, 1840 and later, upgraded to a high school and then, graduate college, the Presidency College is one of the oldest government arts colleges...
.
Literary career
Vijayan wrote his first short story, "Tell Father Gonsalves", in 1953. He went on to write five novels and translated a significant portion of his own work into English. His first and most famous novel, Khasakkinte ItihasamKhasakkinte Itihasam
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...
(The Legends of Khasak, 1969) tells the story of a teacher named Ravi dispatched to a newly created school in remote Khasak. He brought about a sea-change in Malayalam literature
Malayalam literature
The term Malayalam literature refers to Literature written in Malayalam language. Malayalam is the language spoken by around 35 million people, mainly the inhabitants of the state of Kerala and the union territory of Lakshadweep Islands in India. Malayalam is a Dravidian language and thus has close...
with this novel: so much so that it can be divided into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak eras, named after Vijayan's pioneering first novel. The former era was romantic and formal; the latter is modernist, post-modernist and post-post-modernist, with tremendous experimentation in style and content . In a way, Vijayan released Malayalam fiction writing from the shackles of tradition . He wrote many other short stories, essays and satire. He was also an editorial cartoonist and political observer and his works appeared in various news publications including The Statesman
The Statesman
The Statesman is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper founded in 1875 and published simultaneously in Kolkata, New Delhi, Siliguri and Bhubaneswar. The Statesman is owned by The Statesman Ltd., its headquarters at Statesman House, Chowringhee Square, Calcutta and its national...
and the Far Eastern Economic Review
Far Eastern Economic Review
The Far Eastern Economic Review was an English language Asian news magazine started in 1946. It printed its final issue in December 2009. The Hong Kong-based business magazine was originally published weekly...
. He also worked for The Hindu
The Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
.
O. V. Vijayan was almost certainly India's foremost fabulist in the recent past . An extraordinary writer with enormous range, he wrote everything from a semi-fictional history of his feudal-landlord family, 'Generations' to the scatological 'The Saga of Dharmapuri'. His works have often been compared with those of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
and Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
. While Khasak continues to be his best-known work as an angry young man, his later works, Gurusagaram (The Eternity of Grace), Pravachakante Vazhi (The Path of the Prophet) and Thalamurakal (Generations) bespeak a mature transcendentalist.
While he lived outside Kerala for most of his adult life, spending time in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
and in Hyderabad (where his wife Teresa was from), he never forgot his beloved Palakkad, where the 'wind whistles through the passes and the clattering black palms'. He created a magical Malabar in his works, one where the mundane and the inspired lived side-by-side. His Vijayan-land, a state of mind, is portrayed vividly in his work.
Vijayan was unlucky not to win India's principal literary prize, the Jnanpith, possibly because he did not endear himself to the political powers-that-be through his trenchant cartoons (Shankar's Weekly, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Hindu, The Statesman). However, in 2003, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
, India's third highest civilian award.
Final years and death
Vijayan struggled with Parkinson's DiseaseParkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
for 20 years and finally succumbed to organ failure in a Hyderabad hospital at age 75. His wife Dr. Teresa Vijayan died a year after his death. Their son Madhu Vijayan lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Khasakkinte Itihasam (The Legends of Khasak; 1969)
The first novel of Vijayan appeared in 1969 and took twelve years' writing and rewriting to reach its final form. It set off a great literary revolution and cleaved the history of Malayalam fiction into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak. It was serialised first and appeared in book form later. The novel is about Ravi, a teacher in an informal education centre in Khasak, and his existential crises. The central character is a great visionary in astrophysics who completed his post graduate programme in Physics from a famous college at Thambaram. The novel ends when Ravi begins his journey to some other realms of existence. The existential puzzle of man as to why he should exist is thoroughly explored in this novel. It was a kind of stepping stone for the writer himself to that world and marked the arrival of a truly visionary writer.Dharmapuranam (The Saga of Dharmapuri; 1985)
Dharmapuranam is outwardly a great political satire where the author knows no restraint in lampooning political establishments. The language, the setting, and the characters are intended to create as great as possible abhorrence towards the tools and means of governance. The central character is Sidhartha, modeled after the illustrious predecessor of the same name, who lends a supernatural enlightenment to those who are attracted by his enchanting personality. Beyond the apparent level of political meaning the novel keeps in store spiritual and environmental levels of meaning also.Gurusaagaram (The Infinity of Grace; 1987)
The third novel differs in language, vision and characterization from the earlier works. It is on the immanence of Guru in the life of the'kmijn,...anifested in everybody. The seeker partakes of the grace of the Guru as he happens for him unawares and unconditional. The central character is a journalist from Kerala, working in Delhi, going on an assignment to report the Indo-Pak war of 1971. He undergoes an excruciating experience both spiritually and physically to learn how to annihilate all forms of ego. Gurusagaram fetched him the Vayalar AwardVayalar Award
The Vayalar Award is given for the best literary work in Malayalam. The award was instituted in 1977 by the Vayalar Ramavarma Memorial Trust in memory of the poet and lyricist Vayalar Ramavarma . A sum of Rs.25,000/-, a silver plate and certificate constitutes the award...
, the central Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
and the Kerala Sahithya Academy
Kerala Sahithya Academy
Kerala Sahitya Akademi or Academy for Malayalam literature is an autonomous body established to promote Malayalam language and literature. It is situated in Thrissur, Kerala in India. The academy was inaugurated on October 15, 1956, by Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the former king of...
Award in 1991.
Madhuram Gayathi (1990)
This novel has been termed as "a fantastic allegoryAllegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
fusing mythology, spirituality and ecology".
Pravachakante Vazhi (The Path of the Prophet; 1992)
This novel emphasizes the vision that intuition is perennial and it is one and the same always. This oneness of the revelation makes the ways of all prophets the same. This great education in spirituality is got in those barbarous days of Delhi when the Sikhs were maniacally hunted after and mercilessly butchered following the murder of Indira GandhiIndira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
.
Thalamurakal (Generations; 1997)
Vijayan’s latest novel Thalamurakal is autobiographical to a great extent. It is historical to a still greater extent. Beyond autobiography and history, the novel is a journey down the collective experiences of a family in search of an awareness about oneself and his clan. This search is of great importance when the collective experiences of the subculture are very bitter and the individual sense of the clan identity is much superior. The novel is a narration of four generations in Ponmudi family in Palakkad, Kerala.Other works
He has written many volumes of Short Stories, the first volume of which was published in 1957 - Three Wars. He has also written many essays, and also published one book of cartoons- Ithiri neramboke, Ithiri Darshanam (A Little Pastime, A little Vision) - 1990.O. V. Vijayan's best known collection in English is After the Hanging and Other Stories which contains several jewel-like masterpieces, in particular the title story about a poor, semi-literate peasant going to the jail to receive the body of his son who has been hanged; The Wart and The Foetus about the trauma of the fascist Emergency; the transcendental The Airport, The Little Ones, and several others.
An incisive writer in English as well, Vijayan translated most of his own works from Malayalam to English. Selected works have been published by Penguin India.
Short stories
- Short Stories of Vijayan (1978)
- Oru Neenda Rathriyude Ormakkayi (1979)
- Asanthi (1985)
- Balabodhini (1985)
- Kadaltheerathu (1988)
- Kattu Paranja Katha (1989)
- Poothaprabandham and Other Stories (1993)
- Kure Kathabeejangal (1995)
- O. V. Vijayante Kathakal (2000)
- Arakshithavastha (2007)
Collection of Essays
- Khoshayathrayil Thaniye (1987)
- Oru Sindoora Pottinte Orma (1987)
- Sandehiyude Samvadam (1988)
- Vargasamaram Swathwam (1988)
- Kurippukal (1988)
- Ithihasathinte Ithihasam (1989)
- Haindavanum Athihaindavanum (1998)
- Andhanum Akalangal Kaanunnavanum (2001) Satire
- Ente Charithranewshana Pareekshakal (1987)
Cartoons
- Ithiri Neramboke, Ithiri Darsanam (ഇത്തിരി നേരമ്പോക്ക്, ഇത്തിരി ദര്ശനം; 1990)
- Memoirs: A Cartoonist Remembers, Rupa & Co. (2002)
- Cartoon: Tragic Idiom ~ O.V. Vijayan's Cartoons & Notes on India, Edited by Sundar Ramanathaiyer and Nancy Hudson-Rodd, DC Books, (2006)
Translations into English
- After the Hanging and other stories
- The Saga of Dharmapuri
- The Legends of Khasak
- Infinity of Grace
- O. V. Vijayan: Selected Fiction
Awards
- 1970- Odakkuzhal Award, for Khasakinte Itihasam
- 1990- State and Central Academy awards of Gurusagaram
- 1991- Vayalar AwardVayalar AwardThe Vayalar Award is given for the best literary work in Malayalam. The award was instituted in 1977 by the Vayalar Ramavarma Memorial Trust in memory of the poet and lyricist Vayalar Ramavarma . A sum of Rs.25,000/-, a silver plate and certificate constitutes the award...
for Gurusagaram - 1992- Muttathu VarkeyMuttathu VarkeyMuttathu Varkey was a Malayalam novelist, short story writer, and poet from Kerala state, South India.-Early life and career:...
Award for Khasakinte Itihasam - 2001- Ezhuthachan Award
- 2003- Padma BhushanPadma BhushanThe Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
External links
- A Tribute to Vijayan by Sunil K Poolani
- Vijayan interview
- BBC obituary
- Obit by NS Madhavan
- DC Books
- A memoir
- Excerpt from the Legends of Khasak
- Memories of O. V. Vijayan
- Chosen Among Outlook's 60 Heroes of 60 Years of Independence in 2007
- List of Works and Reviews
- Feature published in his 6th death anniversary