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| Sunday, 10 April 2005 |
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Kaleidoscopic Tales wins the Gratiaen Prize by Rohan Canagasabey
The ten short stories of Kider Chetty Street are literary kaleidoscopes that gradually shifts from one character/s to others whilst being written in a genre defying style. Its author, Jagath Kumarasinghe, was awarded the prestigious Gratiaen Prize for the best work of literary writing in English in 2004, by a Sri Lankan resident in the country, for the as yet unpublished work. Kumarasinghe received his recognition as a new author and Rs. 100,000 as prize money at a ceremony held at Barefoot, last Saturday evening. The five short-listed candidates were announced in advance the previous Tuesday at the British Council, with each author reading for a few minutes from his work. The remaining short-listed novels, in surname alphabetical order were: A Cause Untrue by David Blacker, This Side of Serendipity by Neil Fernandopulle, At the Water's Edge by Pradeep Jeganathan and All God's Children by Carl Muller. Of these four, only the latter two are presently published. Both Fernandopulle and Muller were separately joint winners of the Gratiaen prize, in 1999 and 1993, respectively. Therefore the winner certainly faced talented competition. This year's distinguished panel of judges were Ruwanthie de Chickera, Richard Boyle and Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu. Jagath Kumarasinghe's Kider Chetty Street 'cannot be compared', 'subverts semantics and syntax' and 'is a mysterious delight' said Ruwanthie de Chickera, as spokesperson for the judges. She further added, as part of the statement announcing the winning entry, that as readers we should 'respect its confidence in its own independence and vitality' and the 'unpretentiousness of the author's endeavours just to tell you a story'. Well, ten short stories in fact, but all set in the fictional Kider Chetty Street. A well renowned author who has used one fictional setting to weave many different stories is R. K. Narayan, who set his novels (as opposed to short stories), in the fictional town of Malgudi, somewhere in South India. R.K. Narayan's first novel set in Malgudi was Swami and Friends, published in England in 1935, when he was a young man of twenty nine. In his acceptance speech Jagath Kumarasinghe implicitly acknowledged R.K. Narayan's pioneering literary concept by stating that he did not claim to have attended Albert Mission School in Mysore, as R.K. Narayan had done, but had arrived at this point, at the age of sixty, through the assistance and encouragement of many persons in Sri Lanka. When I spoke to Kumarasinghe on his literary influences, on the Monday following his award, he said that he found an 'amity with the writings of Indian authors', such as the late Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand, in addition to R.K. Narayan, "as there are social and cultural similarities in the settings of their writings and that of fiction set in Sri Lanka". Kumarasinghe also acknowledged the influence of the discourses of modern Indian saints, such as Sri Aurobindo and Sai Baba, on his writing, in addition to other authors outside of the Indian sub-continent, like Ernest Hemingway. But ultimately, "it's a matter of finding one's own way" said Kumarasinghe. Kumarasinghe hails from Nuwara Eliya and attended Uva College in Badulla. "I had been writing in Sinhala since the age of sixteen, though most of my readings were of English writers" said Kumarasinghe. At the age of twenty, Kumarasinghe came to Colombo. He was initially a reporter for the Sinhala language Dawasa newspaper, where his editor was A.U. Amarasena. Kumarasinghe said he also wished to acknowledge the help of Tissa Abeysekera (author of Bringing Tony Home) in securing his first role as a reporter and Lilamani Dias Benson for securing his subsequent role of advertising copyrighter. Kumarasinghe retired as a copywriter at the age of fifty-five and moved to Negombo. And for the last five years he has been part of the Beach Vaadiya Writers Group of Colombo 6, having switched to writing in English two years earlier. This has culminated in the ten short stories of Kider Chetty Street. In his acceptance speech, Kumarasinghe paid tribute to the crucial role the Vaadiya Writers Group played in encouraging and enhancing his writings through constructive criticism. He particularly wished to thank his literary supervisors, who are Punyakante Wijenaike, Haig Karunaratne, Christine Wilson and Sita Kulatunge. So what of Kider Chetty Street, the end product of five years work. As the work is as yet unpublished, Kumarasinghe kindly read two of the ten short stories to me and part of another. The common thread in these stories is of an imaginative and innovative way to describe the characters and the interaction between them. When we consider characterisation, one usually thinks of a set of characters with most of them being important to the tale. Not so here. The short stories are a narrative of life in the fictional Kider Chetty Street with one or two central characters, plus a number of others who happen to be passing by. An excerpt from the beginning of The till in the box at the barber shop, goes thus; "Moreover, the baby enjoyed his camel ride. The camel was his mom. Moms become camels when they have to carry their children". Another excerpt from this story further down relates to the baby's older brother creating a nest for sparrows, and is thus; "The pot now begins to mumble towards the boy. The boy understands it. It is not some words, but the very shape of the pot now communicates, with the boy. Hammer the nail to the wall. If the wall is hard blame the masons who plastered it". However, only towards the end does the reader realise that the baby's life is in the balance, hence what had gone before were merely delightful descriptions. This story also highlights a present day social issue. Kumarasinghe's short stories however, are inspired by his life experiences during the last sixty years. In His Niece, The Mermaid Kumarasinghe gives the reader (or listener) a unique description of shoes. An exert of this description is thus; ' 'And your pair of shoes', Mama says, "is not a reincarnated bull. It is made out of soft plastic sheets and rubber, and when you walk, the pair of shoes would quack, quack like a duck". Here, Kumarasinghe is suggesting that leather shoes are a reincarnated bull and draws a parallel with the squeak of a baby's shoes to the sound of a duck, but ultimately this as an incidental part to the point of the story, but which constitute a significant portion of it. And this is the essence of the Kumarasinghe's literary paintings on the canvas of the fictional Kider Chetty Street. At least one of the ten stories, Popeye is a Yankee, also has sarcastic comedy woven into it. "Kider Chetty Street is a multi-cultural street and is an example of how the different communities in Sri Lanka can live together in amity", said Kumarasinghe, adding that "in reading my stories a man will never grow hatred within him". However, it appears to be devoid of the reality of the discriminations that exist within communities and particularly between them. Kumarasinghe admitted that in this collection of short stories he is aiming to illustrate "the utopian ideal which we in Sri Lanka should aim for", drawing inspiration from the peaceful environment that he experienced in Sri Lanka, prior to the two-decade civil war. Irrespective of utopian ideals and the implied social morals, the colourful and imaginative language used by Kumarasinghe in describing his characters and objects, should make interesting reading. And also a new literary experience, as preconceived notions of plot and narrative, in some, if not all, of the short stories, need to be discarded. Kumarasinghe is hoping to have Kider Chetty Street published and available to the public within three to five months. I for one will be glad to have the chance to read it.
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