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| Sunday, 13 July 2003 |
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The contours of a generation Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake In writing 'Pihatu Pena' Gunasiri Silva sub-titles his book as the social biography of the 1956 Generation. A bit extravagant some might think or is this a neat publicity gimmick? After all how can one person embody in himself the personification of a whole generation or have the audacity to stand for as that generation's embodiment? Admittedly Silva does not fit the bill all the way through but there are peculiar reasons for his audacity (if you will) in offering us this book to which we shall come presently. Gunasiri Silva has for many years been a journalist, a film buff, a film critic and a one-man promotion institute for dialogue on artistic and intellectual matters in Colombo. He has also moved in radical Left political circles and this is what impels him to offer this autobiography in his forties even if it does not quite qualify as a generational chronicle. Validity Silva's story gains its validity from the fact of his middle-class origins and his life as a schoolboy and adolescent in suburban Colombo. This was a time when the distinction between the middle-class and the lower middle-class was more acute than now (Subsumed as it is now in a consumerist culture) and on Silva's own admission he felt that he belonged to the lower middle-class the milieu of Isipathana Vidyalaya where he studied. He was studying engineering subjects but his inclination was towards literature and the arts. These are the 1970s when there was a resurgence of the arts and the young Silva is thrilled to meet Mahagama Sekera, the legendary poet and artist at an exhibition of his works although Sekera is puzzled as to who this young man in a pair of shorts is who is gazing so enraptured at his paintings at the now extinct Samudra Gallery (presently supplanted by the hotel bearing the same name). Bitter-sweet quality There is a bitter-sweet quality to Silva's recounting of these early days which form the best part of this book. Yearning for the life of the mind he drops out of school and begins life as a print worker at a glorified printing press which is little more than a garage housing a case of letters on which he composes a tabloid. This gives him enough time to visit the Public Library and watch films at the Liberty and Empire theatres which are all situated close by. Pedalling from home on a push bicycle Silva describes how after watching a film he would of an evening go to Galle Face Green and watch the ocean. He reads voraciously and devours everything within sight. Later he joins a chummery and leads a bohemian life during which he stages two short plays. This is a brilliant portrait of a kind of intellectually-inclined young man growing to maturity in the 1970s. Although intellectually-inclined he is disenchanted by the bookish formal education offered by the school system. He would rather read on his own discovering books and writers for himself. Reading leads to writing and he starts writing plays and short stories. The political backdrop for this part of Silva's life is provided by the abortive April insurrection of 1971 while the dramatic activities at the 'Sudarshi' where most of the avant garde plays of the time were rehearsed provides the cultural backcloth. Story of a generation This is one man's life but it is something to which a lot of journalists and creative people will be able to relate because it runs parallel to their own lives. It is the story of a generation in the sense that it represents the life and experiences of the basically sinhala-educated post-1956 generation with a high degree of political consciousness and deeply immersed in the art and culture of their times. This is the generation which has shaped the literary and cultural consciousness of our times whether as writers, dramatists or film-makers or as critics, journalists and commentators. Therefore, when Silva speaks of the films of Dharmasena Pathiraja whose films opened up new political and artistic horizons he speaks for an entire sensibility which has had a pivotal influence on how we think and feel and see the world in this age. But it is also a story of disillusionment and aborted hopes. After his early dalliance with the Bohemian way of life (the chummery incidentally had been run on the lines of a commune) Silva joins the 'Aththa' then at the height of its powers under the brilliant editorship of B.A. Siriwardena. It is the time of the United Front Government when hopes of a socialist transformation were never so high. Disillusionment But those hopes curdle into disillusionment and even despair. Soon the new age of Mammon is upon the country and Silva watches the defeat of the General Strike and what he sees as the betrayal of the workers by its leaders. He watches with dismay the steady weakening of the Left movement and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 'Aththa' itself is closed down and he is left without employment. (Happily the 'Aththa' was revived two weeks ago.) Loyalty Hopes are again raised when the People's Alliance Government of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is brought to power. But that Government's conformity to the open market economy and the marked lack of change in the country as a result of a new Government assuming office offends Silva's sensibility although in an amazing career turn he becomes Press officer to Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake towards the tail-end of the PA's rule. This Silva justifies on the grounds of personal confidence in the Prime Minister's senior media mandarin Seelaratne Senerath, a kind of loyalty so common in our kind of culture however sophisticated we might be as political animals. Youthful idealism So what does this personal story of youthful idealism and middle-aged disillusionment have to say about the 1956 generation. Gunasiri Silva does not quite tie up the loose ends which is why this is not a full generational tale. But with its chronicling of the literary, cultural and dramatic history of the 1970s and after and its recounting of the mass media of the times and its leading personalities it is an absorbing tale racily told. It is a cross between journalism and social history and well worth reading for its wide range. What then do we gain finally at the end of this generational saga. The moral of the tale perhaps is that the 1956 generation did play an influential role in spite of the limitations imposed by a mono-lingual education at times but in the context of idealism being extinguished and careerism enthroned under the new consumerist ethos it has been thrown into disillusionment if not exactly despair in this all-pervasive age of Mammon. |
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