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| Sunday, 17 August 2003 |
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Parental system could be cruel Excerpts from lecture by award winning novelist Manel Ratnatunge at 'Meet the Writer' series at the National Library and Documentation Centre . Ranweli Bay Mystery was motivated by my desire to let parents know that their system could be cruel. That parental criterion of goodness and eligibility was synonymous with wealth and power. The most elite parents are guilty of this. The most elite men are guilty of ruining a girl's life. I am not canvassing for love marriages and disobedience to parents but merely making parents aware that their system was not foolproof...I have given a lot of reasons why a man decides to marry. How does he decide? In Ranweli Bay Usha finds after marriage that her husband is choleric. She is frightened of him and longs to run back to the sheltered days when she was free from this frightening bondage. Then one night he slaps her. Let me read...."In that first moment when Sunil hit her, she could not say which hurt her more, her cheek or her heart. She did not weep. The agony was too enormous..."My husband. My husband. The good man my elders selected for me!" Her first savage reaction was to run out on Sunil...but the thought froze in mid air...." In the quiet of the night, with Sunil brooding somewhere out of sight, the servants asleep, lying alone in her twin bed with the meaningful emptiness of her husband's side...the stark realisation that there was no one else but herself to help her, turned her from child to maturity. Her marriage, her life...there was no one who could turn a switch to make things right for her. Not Saroja or Sena or any of those relations who had conferred about her marriage...they were not a trifle's worth to her to face this moment...But yesterday they had held her life in their hands. Where were they now? Slowly the tears released themselves..." The stage is set for the wolf to come tapping at the door. It certainly does not happen in every arranged marriage but it does in Ranweli Bay mystery. Let me read: "No one had any foreboding of the tragic consequences of these developments as Sunil Waas, Usha Cooray and Daya Guruge stalked each other in the jungle of human passions. Guruge, the seasoned amorist, was delighted, regardless of the penalties of the game, of the consequences Usha might have to face because she was a woman, a married woman. That was her pigeon. He would know when to leave, unscathed, satiated, before the tendrils of attachment fixed him. He never made the mistake of staying that long. he had performed the vanishing trick so often he knew the rules by heart....To him it was all recreation.... There was, however, the temptation of the fabulous Cooray Tea Company. He had not known he was putting his finger on something that lavish when he turned to Usha Waas for some diversion in that boring tiny mountain hotel.' The mystery now starts. You've got to solve it yourself. Saga Indonesia was motivated by the desire to tell my people the great story I discovered when I went there. From their newspapers and books, I began to see that there had been a great battle, like the recent Iraq war. The then powers were pounding Indonesia with their military might. Indonesians were as unmatched as the Iraqis. Let me read to you: '...the peasants and student guerillas fighting in rags, on empty stomachs, suffering from malnutrition after long years of starvation, from dysentery, beri-beri and frambosia. They had only machetes and bamboo spears and were dying for want of medical supplies. Amputation was without anaesthesia, bandages were sterilised banana leaves. But as one man fell, four more would take his place. They would never surrender.' My interest was captured at once. As the great story fell into place under the leadership of Sukarno and Hatta (I had never heard of him till I went there). I too was falling in love with the magnetic Sukarno. When I told my husband, he smiled understandingly. When I told my Indonesian friend, she said, "Ah! Manel, you are not his type!" I will read to you how, after gaining Independence, Sukarno began to have doubts with the system of Parliamentary Democracy, '...Rebellions swept the country as elections failed to satisfy anyone. When 51 per cent won, the other 49 per cent ended with a grudge. It became impossible for a single party to form a strong government. Nor did the Parliamentary system bring in the best talents to Parliament.....Cabinets kept falling like playing skittles...He found himself thinking a hundred times, something is wrong with this system of Parliamentary Democracy....He sighed. In the midst of all this, I am in love, thought Sukarno. He conjured Hartini before his eyes, the luscious wife of an oil company official...' A professor who knew some English took a month to read my manuscript. Past history was essential to comprehend the final battle. Thus I had to start with the entry of the Dutch, then proceed onto the French, British, Dutch, and Japanese periods. 350 years of history. He asked, "Where you find all this? It is good." Ah! Music! Then things began moving at a apeed. The word whizzed round. A book was being written. The highest doors began opening for me. Hatta. Sultan Hamengku Buwano 1X, Vice President of Indonesia...' But I came home. |
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