Enjoyed the book. Could not make much sense. A reading spins the reader. Perhaps, large parts of Kerala are familiar with Khasakkinte Itihasam by Ottupulackal Velukutty Vijayan with the first release being a serial in Mathrubhumi Weekly in 1968. Wandering amazon and flipkart booksites, me tripped over The Legends of Khasak, an English translation by the author, something irregular. The sure thing that can be said of the book is Ravi; stubbles of characters pop up, off and on; anything can happen to them, Vijayan whims being the critical factor; Muslim images and beliefs form an avial with Hindu thought and the tale goes on ....Vijayan perhaps allows the reader to travel on board for an emote; the reader can add on. Pausing at the varieties of madness, me joined up with Vijayan to intern the telling; took some time to read the 200 pages book -- a novel, a Vijayan berserk ...me is still unsure. Seemingly, Vijayan is reported to have started on the Legends in English, tore it up to start in Malayalam. Kuppu-Acchan ...a toddy tapper ....'And so ended the epic of the toddy-tapper, an epic from other times, when flying serpents rested on palm tops during their mysterious journeys. The tapper made an offering of sweet toddy to please these visitants...He left flowers at the foot of the palm for the clan's well being. In those times the tapper did not have to climb, the palm bent down for him. It was when a tapper's woman lost her innocence that the palm ceased to bend.' When the toddy tapper has more than his wife, the palm might shrivel -- Vijayan does not say so but allows reader the width to join company. Yes, the book is a refreshing eeriness reminding me of Gogol, Kafka .... the madness threaded in immense style, songs of words...Is Ravi, the school teacher, O.V. Vijayan, in a one teacher school? That's me reading. 'Having spent itself in the first blinding onrush, the monsoon lay over Khasak, indrawn, in samadhi. The single-teacher school was now three months old, its strength an unstable twenty. The children came like moving huts, sharing the shelter of large handleless palm-frond umbrellas, heedless of time, as they stopped to play in the rain streams...Helplessly, Ravi watched the palm-frond thatches stray back into illiteracy...' Ravi, the astrophysicist, is the bird in the sky over Khasak. In an Afterword, the author asks: Will the Newtonian physicist be upset by the Einstenian equation? There are no upsettings, only acceptances of a many-way mayhem. Yes, there is something in it, what it is me do not know. Better readers may be of help. Useful to tell ourselves, Vijayan was a A grade cartoonist.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
The Legends of Khasak
Enjoyed the book. Could not make much sense. A reading spins the reader. Perhaps, large parts of Kerala are familiar with Khasakkinte Itihasam by Ottupulackal Velukutty Vijayan with the first release being a serial in Mathrubhumi Weekly in 1968. Wandering amazon and flipkart booksites, me tripped over The Legends of Khasak, an English translation by the author, something irregular. The sure thing that can be said of the book is Ravi; stubbles of characters pop up, off and on; anything can happen to them, Vijayan whims being the critical factor; Muslim images and beliefs form an avial with Hindu thought and the tale goes on ....Vijayan perhaps allows the reader to travel on board for an emote; the reader can add on. Pausing at the varieties of madness, me joined up with Vijayan to intern the telling; took some time to read the 200 pages book -- a novel, a Vijayan berserk ...me is still unsure. Seemingly, Vijayan is reported to have started on the Legends in English, tore it up to start in Malayalam. Kuppu-Acchan ...a toddy tapper ....'And so ended the epic of the toddy-tapper, an epic from other times, when flying serpents rested on palm tops during their mysterious journeys. The tapper made an offering of sweet toddy to please these visitants...He left flowers at the foot of the palm for the clan's well being. In those times the tapper did not have to climb, the palm bent down for him. It was when a tapper's woman lost her innocence that the palm ceased to bend.' When the toddy tapper has more than his wife, the palm might shrivel -- Vijayan does not say so but allows reader the width to join company. Yes, the book is a refreshing eeriness reminding me of Gogol, Kafka .... the madness threaded in immense style, songs of words...Is Ravi, the school teacher, O.V. Vijayan, in a one teacher school? That's me reading. 'Having spent itself in the first blinding onrush, the monsoon lay over Khasak, indrawn, in samadhi. The single-teacher school was now three months old, its strength an unstable twenty. The children came like moving huts, sharing the shelter of large handleless palm-frond umbrellas, heedless of time, as they stopped to play in the rain streams...Helplessly, Ravi watched the palm-frond thatches stray back into illiteracy...' Ravi, the astrophysicist, is the bird in the sky over Khasak. In an Afterword, the author asks: Will the Newtonian physicist be upset by the Einstenian equation? There are no upsettings, only acceptances of a many-way mayhem. Yes, there is something in it, what it is me do not know. Better readers may be of help. Useful to tell ourselves, Vijayan was a A grade cartoonist.
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