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| Sunday, 28 December 2003 |
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Princess and the donkey Only cynics say that pornographic literature tops contemporary reading material. Write a good book and it will sell like hot Konda Kavum. by PADMA EDIRISINGHE The princess and the donkey though poles apart in stature had one common denominator, ie. they had both lived in sun-drenched coastal Mannar in the so-called formative stage of their lives. Happening to read their biographies I noticed another similarity. In the biography of Dinky the donkey as he is subject to many a ruthless act of the humans and suffers bondage in cages he hankers for the freedom of the endless coast of Mannar where he frolicked with his brethren with the vast blue sky forming a canopy in the background to the blue of the ocean. The book, 'Dinky' is written in the first person. In the multitude of articles and books written on the princess, Dona Catherina it is evident that her manifold sufferings in the turbulent arena of politics in our country always makes her yearn for the carefree days she first spent in the convent at Mannar and then in the Ferenghi Signora's house overlooking the harbour where galleons sailed to and fro. The princess' traumas were of such magnitude that she could easily be dubbed Lanka's Queen of Tragedy. Orphaned at the mere age of one year, forcibly wedded at 12 years, widowed in her 20's she gives birth to seven children that limits her life to a mere 32 years. During that short period she witnesses many a death of those near and dear to her including her eldest son, whom she suspects to have been murdered by her second husband so that the sons by the latter could be heir to Lanka's throne. Said to have been driven almost to the point of lunacy she stops short of the ultimate mad woman by taking to writing poetry in the alien language learnt in Mannar and also by prayer - sessions at a chapel in Kandy. But we have forgotten the donkey who is closer to me as I have just finished translating a book on him from Sinhala to English. During this process of translation I got so enamoured of the animal that I even planned to visit St. Joseph's College (Colombo) where he had been the pet of the school in his late years according to his biography. I simply wishes to meet him, say 'How do you do!' and pat him on the back to convey my apologies for all the cruel acts heaped on him by the two-legged. But incidentally just before my intended visit I happened to read a small note inserted by the author to the effect that Dinky had been buried some 20 years back with full military sorry, lay honours in the premises of the college where he had spent his last few years very happily. (The author had rescued him from a cinema hall to where he had crept in to escape stone-pelting by school boys). The book itself had seen its original publication some 30 years back and it is the fifth print that I have translated. This defies statements made by cynics that only pornographic literature draws readers in these vile days as excreta would attract flies. Write a good book that appeals to the innate goodness of the Homo sapiens and it will have a ready sale. In fact I myself wrote a book on Hanuman, a cross between a monkey and a man and I was told by a very authoritative source that the book missed the State Literary award for juvenile literature since it lacked a few pages than the stipulated number. That is another tragedy, that the number of pages predominates the content, the criteria of selection of good books for awards. Since I do not have the stature to get 'Ariyadu' of this nature howled over house tops at public functions by big wigs in politics this is only the ultimate howling I can indulge in. The only bright line in the dark skies of this issue is that since all copies of the first book on the monkey (not the donkey) have been sold out a famed publishing house has volunteered to publish a second edition. Just looking back, the corpus of sufferings humans and all other living beings indulge in, ever since life began on this earth is simply tremendous. It is even the springboard of the birth of the great religions of our world. The author of Dinky, who headed St. Joseph's College at one time is a PhD holder and one of the brightest intellectuals luminaries of our island. But he 'stooped' to write a book on a mere donkey. He says the inspiration came to him when he was working in his office and Dinky relaxed outside immersed in deep thought. What is he thinking so much mused Father Don Peter and then he mentally began to trace the animal's life backwards and thus was born the highly emotive book, 'Dinky.' I have begun this essay by drawing an analogy between the princess and the donkey and I will end it by pin-pointing on a dis-similarity. According to 'Dinky' the book, the burial place of a mere donkey can be identified. But the burial place of Dona Catherina, the princess remains a mystery. It is recorded in some annals as Qureoz's text that the queen fell out with her second husband, Senarat after the untimely demise of her son Maha Asthana and refused to live with him. She had finally got herself driven by palanquin to a palace at Welimanna Thota off Kegalle where she breathed her last. Though the Archaeology Department has blocked out this land the exact place where the palace stood and her burial place have still to be located. |
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