For many who travelled to Thasrak to see the land where O.V. Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Ithihasam took shape, a meeting with Majeed Annan was part of the journey. He would take them through the world of the novel, explain its characters and share memories of the writer he had known since childhood.
Majeed, 70, who worked for years as a caretaker at the O.V. Vijayan Memorial Cultural Centre at Thasrak, died on Thursday night. With his passing, the village has lost a link between the writer and the people who continue to visit the place in search of the novel’s world.
Majeed was only four when Vijayan lived at Thasrak and wrote the novel. He would visit the writer with his mother. Too young to understand the significance of the work taking shape around him, he remembered Vijayan as a quiet man who spent much of his time thinking and writing.
Those childhood encounters later became a source of stories for generations of readers who came to Thasrak.
Familiarity with the place
Majeed could neither read nor write, but he knew the novel and its characters through his familiarity with the place and its people. Visitors would gather around him as he explained the characters, their lives and the real-world surroundings that had inspired the story.
He would also show them places associated with the novel, including Arabikkulam, Njattupura and Kooman Kavu. For readers who knew these places from the pages of the book, his accounts offered a way to connect fiction with the landscape before them.
His knowledge came not from books or formal study, but from having lived close to the place and its memories. He spoke about Vijayan, the circumstances in which the novel was written and the people and places associated with it. He also shared recollections of the writer’s final visit to Thasrak.
A human connection
For visitors, Majeed was more than a person who looked after the memorial. He was often the first person they turned to when they wanted to understand the world Vijayan had created. His stories gave the place a human connection that a visit to the memorial alone could not provide.
Majeed is survived by his wife and three children. He was buried at the Thasrak Juma Masjid cemetery on Friday.
Readers will continue to travel to Thasrak with Khasakkinte Ithihasam in their minds. They will still find the places that shaped the novel. But the man who helped them see those places through the eyes of its characters will no longer be there to tell them the stories.
Published - October 17, 2026 08:31 pm IST