Crafting Khasak through letters and words

Artist Bhattathiri’s calligraphy works on OV Vijayan’s ‘Khasakkinte Ithihasam’ will be unveiled in Palakkad on September 1

Artist Bhattathiri

OV Vijayan’s seminal work,

Khasakkinte Ithihasam, is in its golden jubilee year. Celebrating the milestone is calligrapher Narayana Bhattathiri a.k.a. Artist Bhattathiri. On September 1, Bhattathiri unveils his calligraphy works based on the novel at Thasrak, the village in Palakkad made famous by Vijayan through his seminal novel as Khasak.

The book, which ran into over 50 reprints, revolutionised Malayalam literature with its use of magical realism. Bhattathiri celebrates the novel by showcasing sentences from its chapters through his deft strokes and twirls.

A calligraphy work by Artist Bhattathiri based on OV Vijayan’s ‘Khasakkinte Ithihasam’

“The work has 28 chapters and I am exhibiting canvases dedicated to each of them. In addition to the 28 canvases, there will be two more on general subjects,” says the veteran calligrapher, who has been experimenting with Malayalam calligraphy for nearly four decades now. “As far as I know, nobody has done calligraphy based on a novel till now, whereas there have been works based on poems,” he adds.

Although he had read the book during his college days, Bhattathiri pored over the book again before starting the project.

“The selection of sentences depended on how good they would look in calligraphy fonts and the composition I had in mind. Fonts differ from canvas to canvas. While some canvases have two to three sentences from the respective chapters, some have only one. For instance, I have taken just one sentence from the last chapter, whereas there are more sentences from the opening one,” he says. The dimensions of the canvases differ, with one that is six feet long, for instance. It took him over two weeks to finish the work.

A calligraphy work by Artist Bhattathiri based on OV Vijayan’s ‘Khasakkinte Ithihasam’

Bhattathiri points out that what led to the concept was a request from DC Books to make four calligraphy covers for the book to mark 50 years of its publication. “When I finished it, my friend, [writer-filmmaker] Vinod Mankara, suggested that I should do something more for the occasion. So I put across the idea of calligraphy based on the chapters to TR Ajayan, an office-bearer of OV Vijayan Memorial Committee. He was all for it,” he says. The works will be permanently exhibited at OV Vijayan Memorial at Thasrak.

The artist says that but for a brief interaction with the author, he did not know Vijayan very well. “Plans were in place to release an English translation of his book of cartoons, Ithiri Nerambokku, Ithiri Darshanam . But Vijayan was ailing by then. Although he had translated the work, he was too weak to write it down and so I was approached for the same. I came up with different fonts and translated the book in the font he selected,” Bhattathiri remembers.

Meanwhile, he has been doing calligraphy based on poems. The designs he posts daily on his Facebook page, Bhattathiri Calligraphy, are mostly excerpts from poems. A recipient of the Jijki award for the best calligraphy work instituted by the South Korean government, Bhattathiri started by working on titles of books and eventually came up with innovative letterings that have now become part of the history of Malayalam literature.

Auteur Adoor Gopalakrishnan will inaugurate the event at Thasrak at 11 am. Bhattathiri will hold a calligraphy demonstration session as well at the event.