O. V. Vijayan’s ‘Khasakinte Ithihasam’ was evolutionised literary sensibilities when it was published in 1968. Decades later it continues to be arguably the single most significant work of fiction written in Malayalam.
The fictional village ‘Khasak’ was inspired by the real Palakkadan village, Thasarak. Its people, language and landscape lend the novel its unparallaled narrative power.
Trees feature with particular prominence in ‘Khasakinte Ithihasam’. The novel starts with its protagonist, Ravi stepping off a bus at secluded ‘Koomankavu’ with its great banyans.
At the end of the novel, he chooses to leave Thasarak. Coming full circle, he comes to the Banyan tree at Koomankavu again from where he hopes to take a bus. As it turns out, he doesn’t.
Dr. P Murali, retired professor and Malayalam scholar revisits the great banyan tree, Thasarak’s celebrated Nattumaram, after many years, to narrate its story within Malayalam’s modern epic.
- Jayaram Koottaplavil, Sanusha
