The Legends Of Khasak - pg. 95

Outside, the night lay inebriated with its vastness. The wind was on the palms of Khasak. Beyond the reaches of the village late wayfarers waved their fibre torches, pulses of flame and ember. Like stricken spaceships signalling distress with their incandescent antennae, they continued their desolate journey.

The Legends Of Khasak - pg. 84

Madhavan Nair was remembering his Guru. In the village of Mannoor an unlettered knife-smith went blind. He sat listening to the grind of the honing stone as his apprenntice fashioned the knives. The blind one listened to the great dark; people came to him, scores of them, with their afflictions. He discooursed on texts he had never seen, and told his devotees to go back to their homes and see beyond the delusion of seeing ... 

The Legends of Khasak - pg. 42

The mullah stepped out of the mosque, leaning on his stick. His way home lay past the school. He crossed the yard and paused awhile at the gate of the mosque. He thought of the stranger in the seedling house with sympathy and love. Innocent wayfarer, what bondof karma brings you here?

Then the lamp in the seedling house went out

.

The Legends of Khasak - Opening

I Search of the Sarai

When the bus came to its final halt in Koomankavu, the place did not seem unfamiliar to Ravi.

First published in Malayalam by Current Books 1969

First published in English by Penguin Books India 1994

Copyrigt O. V. Vijayan 1991, 1994

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For my father

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