The Karmic Journeys in The Legends of Khasak

The Karmic Journeys in The Legends of Khasak

O.V. Vijayan chronicled journeys unlike any other writer I have read.

In The Legends of Khasak, Ravi arrives in Khasak on the last bus. He leaves many familiar markers of identity behind when he takes up a job as the sole instructor in a school in a forgotten village.

He once retold to his students the story of karmic journeys:

Once upon a time, before reptiles and long before dinosaurs, two cells went for a walk one evening. They came upon a sunlit valley.

“I wonder what lies beyond this?” the younger cell asked the elder.

“This is an emerald valley. Let me linger here.”

“I want to go,” the younger sister insisted. She looked toward the galactic paths that lay ahead.

“Will you forget me?” the elder sister asked.

“I won’t.”

“You will,” the elder sister replied. “This is a loveless story of karmic cycles. There is only separation and grief.”

Later in the book, the writer imagines human life as a journey in a passing train at night:

“Ravi is alone in the evening at his farmhouse.

He looks through the window. No cows are grazing outside.

Night falls like grief and consolation. Fireflies drift through the darkness.

The lights along the country road shimmer like distant travelers.

The house becomes a railway coach. Suddenly he remembers the darkness outside.

Where am I?

Lamps rush past and disappear into the crystalline night. Another train flashes by.

Yet another transit. A moment’s acquaintance of karma—only a moment between the wheels.

Again, it whistles past.”

The two passages evoke Vijayan’s deepest philosophical intuition: existence as an endless movement through separation, memory, and fleeting encounters.

Note: Translated from Malayalam by me.