Majeed Annan, the man who brought Khasakkinte Ithihasam alive for visitors to Thasrak, is no more

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.