ABSTRACT
OV Vijayan’s novel The Legends of Khasak is considered a classic of Malayalam literature and has been termed ‘magical realist’. It is about a young man Ravi who abandons his studies in Physics in Madras and becomes a schoolteacher in a remote area near Palghat. The novel is poignant and colourful in its descriptions but it remains static in that Ravi, who is disturbed on account of an incestuous relationship with his stepmother, is not shown to bring any change to Khasak. It remains a collection of exquisite vignettes. Nor is Ravi able to resolve the dilemmas within himself and he submits to a tragic end deliberately. The novel was translated into English later by Vijayan when he had abandoned his Marxist political beliefs and turned spiritual and the translation may represent the later phase as well. As it stands it bears some resemblance to Samskara but without transformatory expectations from Nehruvian modernity. This can be understood as Kerala being far less traditional than Princely Mysore from which Ananthamurthy (of Samskara) hailed. Alongside is also a satirical aside on the Communists coming to Khasak with their political expectations and finding it wanting.
