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| Sunday, 2 January 2005 |
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The writers' VIMANA Creative expressions - Edited by Nimal Sanderatne, In editing Creative Expressions, Nimal Sanderatne has given, to the writers in this country, a vehicle in which they can sail the skies of their own creativity. In fact, his introduction says much: this first collection will be followed by a yearly production. It is an invitation that will surely not go unnoticed. Yes, our writers are warmly welcomed, and, who knows, next year's publication could well be bigger - and that is something we can look forward to. This collection features fourteen writers - such a spectrum, and I will introduce them as I go along, beginning with Ransiri Menike de Silva, sister of Somasiri and Tissa Devendra. An accomplished writer, Ransiri's short stories have appeared in 'Navasilu' and 'Channels, in Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories in English 1990 and in Sri Lanka Literature in English, 1948-1998. Yasmine Gooneratne also listed her in "Celebrating Sri Lankan Women's English Writing, Vol. 2". Her story, 'Love' tugs at the heart. A little girl, wrapped in her innocence, full of bright, childish love for so much around her - except, of course, the Chinaman who sells silks and who would, if she were not careful, steal her away and carry her off to China - as her brother warned. So many children like this. Not for them the pitfalls of life. They love with a passionless passion; and to this little girl, Sangaran, the rickshaw man was so special, frail and feeble though he be. She was his 'sinna nona' and when he trotted past, pulling his load, she would blow him a kiss. How could she accept that he, her 'grandfather' had gone away - how could her love leave her the way he did? The little girl could not understand death. To be told that Sangaran had 'gone away', leaving her, had to be a wicked lie. Ransiri enters the child mind with sympathy and a glorious kind of understanding. So strange also that only the very old and the very young can be so drawn to each other: Something pure and wondrous, given and taken with a shining innocence. Deshabandu Wimala de Silva, first woman Chancellor of the Sri Jayawardhanapura University, gives us her first short story. Wimala is 83 and has recently published her autobiography, 'Those Phoenix Days. Her story, 'The Tongue Twister' may hold of what is now said of men (they are Martians) and of women (Venusians). A drunken Jayasena, Jane Nona running for her life, hiding in a laundry basket. And that typical scene we were once treated to on TV - drunken loud-mouth louts, screaming, belabouring, abusing their women, yet all fury evaporating when village authority crosses their paths. Is it all put on? Or is it true that people south of the Bentota river have no feelings? The story is set in the past - when the South East Asia Command (SEAC) was set up in Welisara. It brings back my own memories of my navy days when at a camp dinner to which the signals staff of HMCYS Gemunu were invited, one of our men stabbed at a roast chickem, sent it full steam ahead into a British lieutenant's lap! With the rise of Jane Nona's son, the father who came across the Bentota river suddenly changes, becomes hardworking, persevering. Lives change, things change. Now the village woman, still from Venus, can ride in a Morris Oxford - just like a lady. Somasiri Devendra writes short stories, as he says, "as the spirit moves him." This Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Ceylon Navy came into the force three years after I left, but his name is legendary. His story, Tap on the Shoulder is haunting. A dying man, friends who must help him, come hell or high water, to finish what must be done. The night drive to find a night attendant...it may seem so futile, but the man who had made of Rishi Valley his Eden, who was a tiger on the polo and hockey fields, knowing that his lifetime of effort was to fall into the hands of family vultures who watched with preying eyes, waited for him to die. A dying man, tapping on the shoulder of the only friend he trusts, giving this friend the cross he had carried for so long... Tissa Devendra needs little introduction, having published extensively on history and culture. His contribution to the public service is also legendary. His story, An Encounter in the Park takes us to a London park where a chance meeting carries him back to days in Love Lane, Trincomalee and his entry into the kilt-clad Scots community. Of course, he couldn't dance the Scottish reel. Actually, he couldn't dance at all. That was when he knew he didn't count any more - not to the girl who had shown how much she liked him. And then the same girl, thick-set, bulging ankles, who talks with him in the park... who knows him no longer. Time to say goodbye again - forever. The Shallowness of the social whirl in colonial Ceylon is deftly portrayed, as only Tissa can. Leonard Graholm is the only foreign writer in this collection, a Canadian. He visited Sri Lanka in 2002 and the story he has contributed, Serendipity is his first. Leonard and Ranjit become friends at University of London. It is a travelogue - their visit to Sri Lanka, all the elements of Serendipity. The return to Canada held more surprises for Leonard. The supermarket lady is Sri Lankan; so is the young man who repairs his computer. Ranjit is the most serendipitous of all. Leonard dials, is told that Ranjit is dead, then is e-mailed by a living Ranjit who explains that he must have called the home of another Ranjit. After all, among Sri Lankans, it is such a common name! Deshamanya Godfrey Gunatilleke gave us an earlier short story, The Garden. His new story, A Thief in the Night finds Nihal returning in a darkening sunset to his home after an usually disturbing day in the office. The children are like jackrabbits, his wife, Nelum, not pleased that he has forgotten to buy the curry leaves and green chillies. His son, Lakshman, keeps weaving his imaginary world of the Raksha Rakshaya and daughter Manel lisps, bouncing in excitement. There is a nest of the house sparrows. Even eggs inside it. But the thief comes at night: the polecat that kills the birds - and the daughter who sleeps, seeing in her dreams the nest of life, will find instead a nest of death. Sriyani Hulugalle has written many short stories and poems. Her story, Till We Meet Again is poignant. Old loves part, one goes away, leaves memory behind to marry, settle down. The other waits for Mr. Right who must have slipped by without a second glance. But they meet in a plane, assigned seats next to each other. She knows that he knows that she still loves him. She will fight it, but he will know that she cannot win. Yet, they will go their ways again - he to his wife, she to - what? Another time, another place perhaps... yet the journey has to end for now - until they meet again. Leela Rani Jayasinghe offers her first short story, The Diagnosis. After all, she is a doctor, so why not? Yet, her story is set in the old bullock cart days; of Podi Nona at the rice mills, working herself to death. The story moves fast - the shift to Colombo, to Medical College, the patient with symptoms that suddenly brings Podi Nona to mind. Cured, Podi Nona takes her chance - a last fling at happiness. After all, even the old Podi Nonas of the world deserve that, don't they? Elmo Jayawardena took the Gratian with his novel 'Sam's Story, His story, The Devil's Due is that of a devil man' - Rorbi Gurunnanse, the kattandiya of Nelumpitiya - plug-ugly, black as sin, claiming the power to cast out the demons, even inflict one with devils, kick the demoniac hordes around, he being their absolute master. But he gave a demon to be his slave-wife's servant, a demon held by the power of a nail driven into his head, and that was his undoing. A fearsome village tale, to be sure and our villages are filled with such. Milan Lin-Rodrigo is a Sri Lankan American, born to a Chinese father and Tamil mother in Trincomalee. This, her first short story, is titled A Night at a Time of Rioting, taking us back to those smoking, burning days of 1958 - and in the house, Mani's mother, stepfather and sister Rani. Her uncle would rub his body against eight-year-old Rani, then on one fierce morning, deflowered her with his fingers. All the while, the family readied for the worst - the thugs who would come, rape the women and girls, burn the house. The finger-rape stays in Mani's mind like a running sore. She wants to see her uncle bleed as he made her bleed - and he does. Shiranee Samarasinghe also gives us her first short story, "the Visitor with its hard edge of horror and a sort of deja vu. Returning to a house of ill-fate where bloody murder had been done. Thilani Samarasinghe gives us Sunrise Sunset palmyrah trees, the east coast, soldiers and barbed wire and Ram's family, hoping to flee to Colombo, far from the gunfire. There is Malee, driven home from school while the streets erupted, buildings blazed and mobs with iron bars and cudgels smashed the cars, broke the bones of the Tamils they accosted. Malee, who is so concerned about the puppies she loves, who hears, even in sleep, their dying cries from the heart of a raging fire... Nimal Sanderatne, the editor, gives us his own contribution Holiday Home - the Camelot of Bertram and Indranee; the departure to Hill Crest in Nuwan Eliya; three cars holding Indranee, Miriam, Lakshmi, Anton, Dawn, Leslie, Virginia and daughters Nelum and Manel. What do they find? Deceit and horror... Lakshika Weragoda brings this marvellous collection to a more than fitting end. And, mind you, Lakshika is only thirteen. The inclusion of her story, A Father's Love puts her among the greats who have made this first volume of Creative Expressions so fulfilling. Lakshika, a student of Pushpadana Girl's College, Kandy, has quite a portfolio to be proud of: essays, Sinhala and English creative writing, commended by the Royal Commonwealth Society. It is this 13-year-old who rounds it all up as she tells of poor little Nirmala and her woodworking father, eking out a living in Rukgama. But there comes the change: Nirmala excels in her Grade Five scholarship exam, is accepted by a big school where in the hostel, she comes to feel ashamed of her father's visits, his poor clothes, his village ways. She even tells her schoolmates that the man who visits her each month is a servant, that her father is a very rich man. Bewildered, hurt beyond reason, her father commits suicide, leaving a note that says his daughter is dead to him. Love sometimes comes too late and realization storms in when the die is cast. This, is so large a nutshell, is what Creative Expressions' is all about. Such a tidal sweep of talent and boy, does my wrist ache. I thought this review would be a breeze but, story by story I met soft winds, rising air-currents, hurricanes of hate gusts of fury, a gale or two and the dulcet wind-murmurs of love. Within these covers are the offerings of true literary artists. Read it. Keep it. No unfathomed cave for this gem! ***************** Valuable contribution In this book, Dr. Kuruppu traces the peaks and troughs in the changing character of the bilateral relationship between the two democracies. India and Australia, in the post-world war period 1947 to 1975. The book claims a degree of originality in its interpretive focus: the impact of personality on the making of foreign policy. The book has a much greater Indian representation than has been previously attempted in other political writings or media reports relating to the India-Australia bilateral relationship. The case for a stronger Indian perspective, springs from the impression that Australian scholarship has had little reason, and experience of India, to evaluate the relationship from other than an Australian/Western Cold-War view of the world. And of course, this includes Australia's difficulty in understanding the Indian mind, as Richard Casey, Australia's Minister for External Affairs in the 1950s, was constrained to observe. This was also the view held by Prime Minister Nehru in regard to the West in general. The earlier lament among Australian academics, that India studies, and India-Australia relations, failed to adequately feature in university degree programmes, has, in recent years, been partially rectified creating considerable student interest in the topic, not least because of India's growing regional and global importance. The book will make a valuable contribution to a knowledge of international relations during the Cold War period, and, in particular, the impressive role played by Jawaharlal Nehru with his peace, initiatives and leadership of the emerging, independent nations of Asia and Africa. Importantly, it would also help improve the effectiveness of Australia's, and the West's, diplomacy as it seeks to build constructive and enduring relations with India, and also with other nations of the region, in these uncertain times. The book also examines Prime Minister Whitlam's (1972-75) impact on the bilateral relationship. Whitlam's enlightened attitude towards India, and Asia, led to the emergence of an Australia capable of more independent foreign policy framing underpinned by regional factors, rather than primarily on the imperatives of its Western alliance. This was helped by the enthusiastic response to Whitlam by the equally independent Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. It also reveals hitherto unpublished views held, and statements made, by Nehru and Whitlam: kindred spirits, different times. The foregoing, together with a discussion of the previously unexplored topic of the character of 'bilateralism', should ensure that the book has wide potential interest among academics, students, libraries and institutions, not to mention the general informed reader in India, Australia and beyond. - Max Teichmann ***************** How to read the Central Bank Annual Report The Central Bank Annual Report is an indispensable resource book for any person interested in the Sri Lankan economy. How to Read the Central Bank Annual Report is a guide to reading the Annual Report of the Central Bank authored by Terrence Savundranayagam, a retired career staff of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Mr. Savundranayagam has functioned as Secretary, Additional Director of Economic Research, Director of Statistics, and Director of Development Finance at the Central Bank during his long career. He has also been a resource person to the South East Asian Centre for Research and Training (SEACEN) in Kuala Lumpur. Thus, the author, with varied portfolios at the Central Bank, is well versed to write a guidebook of this nature. Terrance Savundranayagam traverses through the voluminous Annual Report of the Central Bank in detail with clarity. National income accounting practices may differ from country to country even when countries broadly follow the United Nations System of National Accounts (also known as the blue book) due to specific needs of countries. Besides, the National Income Accounts of non-market economies (former and present day communist countries) differ significantly from countries with market economies. These differences in conventions and practices in the preparation of National Income Accounts pose problems for inter-country comparisons of national income data. Therefore, it becomes very important for any student of economics to know the different conventions, practices, and methodologies followed in the compilation of National Income Accounts nationally and globally. Usually undergraduates courses in Economics incorporate National Income Accounting as part of the course on Macroeconomics and not as a stand-alone course. The reviewer was fortunate to study National Income Accounts as a standalone course (which was compulsory and not optional) during his undergraduate studies at the University of Delhi. Even in India, University of Delhi was the only university to make National Income Accounts a compulsory standalone course during the first year of undergraduate studies in Economics. In a country like Sri Lanka, where I presume there is no standalone course in National Income Accounts at the undergraduate level, knowledge of conventions, practices, and methodologies in National Income Accounting could be meagre. Hence, this guidebook by Mr. Savundranayagam is expected to fill a critical lacuna in the teaching of Economics at tertiary level in Sri Lanka. Though this guidebook may not qualify as a textbook (as the author points out in pp3) it certainly has ingredients of the latter. This guidebook is a first of this kind in Sri Lanka and a long felt need of both non-economists and economists alike. The guidebook is divided into five sections: Section A provides guide to National Income and Expenditure, Section B provides guide to The Balance of Payments, Sections C provides guide to Fiscal Policy and Government Finance, Section D provides guide to The Financial Sector, and Section E provides guide to Prices and Wages. The last section is important for the understanding of the real sector (flows of goods and services) as opposed to the financial sector (money flows). The foregoing five sections are preceded by a short introduction and followed by two appendices. Appendix 1 explains The General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and The Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) of the International Monetary Fund. The GDDS and SDDS, developed by the IMF during the Financial crisis in Asia in the late-1990s, are intended to be an early warning system for the markets and policy makers. Appendix 2 provides a very useful glossary of economic terms and acronyms. This guidebook also contains a subject index, which is a value addition. All sections of the guide incorporate definitions of concepts used and explain the tables pertaining to respective sections. Though in some instances the definitions do not go far as textbook definitions they do provide adequate explanation of terms and concepts. In many instances the guidebook explains with examples, which is a powerful tool of understanding especially to non-economists. As is customary in any publication this guidebook also has a few drawbacks. Since the guidebook does not provide a detailed account of the sources and methods used in the compilation of statistical tables in the Annual Report, limitations of the Central Bank data are not made known to the reader. It just explains the statistical tables as they are and does not critically look at the sources and methods of such data. There are some mistakes in calculations in the numerical examples given in pp25. A numerical example would have been much more useful for the reader in pp40-41. I suppose the title should have ended with a question mark. Despite the foregoing limitation and corrections I strongly feel that this guide should be an essential reading for personnel in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, particularly for those in the Sri Lanka Planning Service and Sri Lanka Accounting Service. Besides, it would be a useful resource book for new recruits to the Central Bank as well. Furthermore, this guide to the Central Bank Annual Report should be an essential resource book for teachers and students of Economics at the tertiary level. It could also be very useful for people who may have to refer the Central Bank Annual Reports at their workplaces in the private and non-governmental sectors. My fervent hope is that this guidebook would be translated into Sinhala and Tamil as well in order to be accessible to the vast number of public servants, teachers, students, and private sector employees whose English language skill is wanting. Since the Central Bank Annual Report is published in all three languages this guide should also be published in all three languages in order to get maximum user value. In conclusion I would contend that this guide to the Central Bank Annual Report is a great value for money. The author and the publisher should be gratefully thanked for this valuable product. ***************** History is now, wherever by James Methven (Excerpts from literary review: Oriel College Record 2004, University of Oxford) Ashley is a village in Cheshire, on the edge of Manchester. The Vague Poetess is set in a university in Sri Lanka beset by the violence of Sinhala extremists rebelling against the government's handling of the Tamil Tiger uprising. David Ellington's Ashley. Portrait of a village, is a lasting time capsule of social history and knowledge expressed verbatim in the chatty and revealing language of what were obviously relaxed and candid interview. Ellington (matric: 1960) has a knack for bringing out the most telling memory from the villagers interviewed. Some of them read like scripts for a radio drama, perhaps in the same vein as David Hare's The Permanent Way, and it would be great to know the rhythm of the original delivery. The memories of the Second World War are thrillingly at a tangent to the usual presentation of that conflict. Shot through with fascinating insights and gold-dust gems of local thought and perception, the book will please those, like me, who find at certain times that quotidian detail is the nearest thing we have in life to some aspects of post-modern artistic control, a kind of endless creativity born out of a burrowing in the mundane and the real. There's a lulling poetry to such remarks as, "The difficulty with the tree in modern society is that the tree is not compatible with impatient people. Modern society as a whole is very impatient." And if you start to be affected by any nagging, sly Monty Pythonesque doubts, whereby no imparting of information can be taken wholly seriously, then the real world and its real history intrudes to remind you that the lives of the people in Ashley on the edges of Manchester have a much wider global meaning. Shavindra Fernando's first novel, The Vague Poetess (1999), tells of shocking events in a language that appears deceptively unable to bear the load expected of it. Fernando's story covers the sexual, social, and psychological manipulation surrounding a disastrous revival of Lorca's Blood Wedding at the University of the Sleeping Giant in the late nineteen-eighties. How many reading this are aware of the events in Sri Lanka at the time? One of the book's best moments shows the bleakly comic result of a Western journalist's attempt to intrude, fobbed off by a local policeman: "You bloody bastards come here to write about human rights? Bugger off from here, and tell the world that I told you that if I have to kill people to end this bloody business, I will kill people." Fernando's depiction of horrific violence is no fiction. The culminating sequence of revolt and violence that includes the decapitation of twelve young people, their bodies left to burn in a makeshift funeral pyre upon the steps of the Senate House of the University, is not fiction at all. What is timely about this novel is its insistence upon an inferiority that betrays an overlapping crux of ignorance, fear, envy and desire. The narrative texture varies between blank dialogue, subtext expunged, and a detached lyrical voice, as if writing at an enormous distance from the material. This mirrors the strangely naive focus of the university students who choose to go through with their production of Lorca, seemingly oblivious to the rising chaos around them. By turns beautiful, comic, close, perceptive, and painfully aware, Fernando's story makes its point: "You can't be playing the fool in the middle of a revolution." With a Sinhala language screen-play version Rudira Kasadaya, there is talk of a film. (Dr. James Methven teaches 19th century realist fiction and 20th century drama at the University of Oxford, with interest in psychoanalytical approaches to literature). |
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