O.V Vijayan, the central figure of post- modernist generation conquered the literary scene through his immensely influential works like 'Dharmapuranam, 'Gurusagaram, 'Khasakinte Itihasam which he translated as 'Legends of khasak',in 1994.
'Legend of Khasak' set in the backdrop of palghat country side, with chetali mountains.It is the land potent with dreams, legends and myths. The society filled with toddy tappers, shamans, religious elder people and so on. The whole land wrap with some sort of magic.
The central protagonist of the novel is 'Ravi', a young graduate drop out. He came to this place to purify his mind by the sin he committed with his step mother or the swamini. He commits to the single teacher school in remote khasak established by the District Board to provided local children basic education. 'Allah picha Mollaka' is the only person who don't like Ravi because he kept an ezhuthu palli, once Ravi come he had a bad attendance in this school.
Vijayan portrays beautiful and meaningful characters through this novel like Nizam Ali (Mollaka's adopted child) Mimoona, Kuppu Achan, Sivaraman Nair, Appu kili (man-boy). Appu kili is a striking character when the story progress he seems to have bonded much with Ravi. Vijayan gave flesh and blood to all his characters.
At a particular part of the novel we can see Ravi seems to explore his physical passion almost with every women he meets when the epidemic hits khasak it sweeps many but leaves Ravi to complete his destiny. Finally when 'Padma' his lover take care of him and she cure his disease and he desired to leave khasak with her. But at the end we see that Ravi committed suicide to allowing a snake to take his life while waiting bus near koomankavu. It can be interpreted in two levels physical and spiritual. Snake being the symbol of sex it can be described as Ravi being swallowed by his sensuous personality or he realizes his real self.
This novel has a life of its own. O.V Vijayan take readers to a magical world. In this novel he gave a wide explanation about the sight of chetali mountain. He gave minute details regarding that particular place. This novel gave us a nostalgic feeling of our own place.
No comments:
Post a Comment