25th March 2017
Khasakkinte Ithihasam – The Legends of Khasak By Deepan Sivaraman (Theatre) (Malayalam with English Subtitles) at 18:30- 200 minutes,
South Ex. (Ticketed)
Khasakkinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasak) penned by OV Vijayan is undoubtedly one of the best and most read novels in Kerala and beyond. This celebrated work uniquely blends the umpteen stories of Thasraak, a remote village in Palakkad where the author had spent a significant time.
It’s been nearly five decades since OV Vijayan imagined the mythical landscape of Khasak and gave Malayalis a novel to die for. Khasakkinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasak) continues to enchant readers with its intense lyricism and seamless weaving of myth and reality. It didn’t spawn imitations because few dared to walk the path of the maestro. Khasak was the Malayali’s Macondo, trespassers could be prosecuted. It is this sacred literary landscape that 40-year-old theatre director, Deepan Sivaraman, entered when he chose to stage a play for KMK Smaraka Kala Samiti, a theatre group in Thrikkaripur, a village in northern Kerala.The result is an exceptional production that challenges conventional wisdom about Vijayan’s novel and recreates a people and a landscape with potent political meaning. It celebrates the syncretic religious life of Khasak and retrieves the folk-Islam embedded in the novel as a counter-narrative to current perceptions about Muslims. The production of the play has become a cultural event with large public participation, evoking memories of an era when theatre was an integral part of people’s political life.
