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DateLine Sunday, 9 September 2007

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Mirror of a changing nation

Kaleidoscope: An Anthology of Sri Lankan English Literature
Edited by D.C.R.A Goonetilleke
Published by Vijita Yapa Publications
 

Having lived with Fawn Anderson for two days now I feel I know her better than I know most of my friends who have been around me throughout my life.

She smiled when I told her of the meeting between Aunty Carolina and Prema at the hotel because she was not there to see it herself. "Prema waited. You didn't speak when Aunt Carolina was present.

You waited. That was an established tradition. "So", said Aunt Carolina. It was only one word. It came through lips that hardly parted to let it through, but it said everything.

It was a question. It was a comment. It was also a judgement." I agreed with Fawn whole heartedly when she said Sri Lankans can "smile from their hearts, cry like children at funerals, hustle up a meal for a friend at any hour of the day or night, fall on their faces in worship before a tree.

They had all the innocence of paradise." I could not, however, agree with her about her views on women; "Most women were rich in dignity and poor in love. They grew grey and grubby and old and caressed the memories of their might-have-beens", or of what she said about men "any man can make love but only a few can make it memorable".

I would have liked to continue talking to her, but alas, now that I have started to write about her, she has disappeared; returned to her rightful abode within the pages of Anandatissa de Alwis' short story - "Star Sapphire" in Kaleidoscope; An Anthology of Sri Lankan English Literature, edited by Professor D.C.R.A Goonetilleke.

What distinguishes Kaleidoscope from other poetry and prose anthologies (apart from the manner in which most of its characters and events come alive on the pages) is the fact that when it comes to English literature in Sri Lanka, this is the first anthology of its kind, covering all the genres, fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction.

The vast and diverse mix of new and established writers, from Carl Muller and Yasmine Gooneratne to Destry Muller and Nihal de Silva, is the result of Professor D.C.R.A Goonetilleke's attempt at mirroring the changing patterns of our nation through its English literature.

Thus, one of the most striking features of the anthology is the manner in which the prose the poetry and the drama reflect "the vivid images of both urban and rural milieus, the South and the North, nationalism, class and race conflict in the post-colonial society, insurgencies, the tsunami and terrorism".

The transportation from place to place (both physically and emotionally) takes the reader on a journey of discovery that includes a visit to Godfrey Gunatilleke's "Garden", where a serpent literally and metaphorical ly enters the protagonist's paradise and Priyanthi Wickramasuriya's An Old Fashioned Bookshop, Vijita Fernando's deeply moving "The Homecoming" and Sunethra Rajakarunanayake's "The Third Party Guest" depicting perhaps for the first time in Sri Lankan English literature "casual love" in a "bold, vigorous, totally unconventional and earthy" manner, followed by the extract from Suvimalee Karunaratna's The Vine".

Meanwhile, the fluidity of the poems is enchanting; the way it moves from the simple, beautiful "Boat Song" of Patrick Fernando to Lakshmi de Silva's deep-felt remembrances of Tangalla, 9th April 1971, to the witticisms of Regi Siriwardena to Lakdasa Wickramasinha's Don't Talk to me about Matisse to H.L.D Mahindapala's "Landscape" - "In the mountains the weeping rains come so often/Beating down with a ramshackle rattle." etc.

Each piece of writing attempts to capture how Sri Lankans "thought and wrote from Colonial times to today", and as we read on, we begin to understand that all the poems and prose as well as the two dramas (H.C.N de Lanerolle's Fifty-Fifty and Ernest MacIntyre's The Loneliness of the Short-Distance Runner) form a kaleidoscope of "love and war, of sex and food of the tsunami and terrorism."

The different structures provide important gaps -often allowing the reader time to contemplate what has been read as the balance of the excerpts from the two novels and the short, pithy stories like Kamani Jayasekera's "Outsiders", and the diverse content and style reflect the scope of English literature in our country.

As the book shifts among different poetry prose and drama styles, from the Tennysonian lines of W.S Senior "For high in my highland valleys/And low in my lowland plains/The ride of the past is pulsing/Hot, in a people's veins" to the intricate, utterances of MacIntyre's character, Perera "Circulation of 100,000. Can you see they are making fools of hundreds of thousands of people.

Don't talk, don't read and the chances are you won't go insane" we move with the written words-both optically and textually. But we also bring with us what we have just read and felt in a previous story or poem so that the work in question gets deepened in meaning.

An active anthology, Kaleidoscope has made me come in close contact with writers I have hitherto known only by name, and as I reach the last few pages where there are brief descriptions of each writer, and close the book, I take with me their varied voices and give them room to resonate-and elaborate within my mind.

****

D.C.R.A Goonetilleke, Emeritus Professor of English, is the leading anthologist of Sri Lankan literature who has edited seven anthologies such as Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People (1917-2003), Modern Sri Lankan Stories, Sri Lankan Literature in English 1948-1998 etc.

In his new Anthology; Kaleidoscope he includes not only material selected from books but also from journals and newspapers as well.

Having thrown light on material which have hitherto been almost unknown to readers interested in Sri Lankan literature in English through Kaleidoscope, Professor Goonetilleke emphasises the importance of creating an anthology after regular intervals to harvest new work that enters the literary arena.

****

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Of human bondage

Phatik Chand
Satyajit Ray
Translated by Chandrika Wijesundara
Published by Sarasavi Publishers

In this exceptional translation of Satyajit Ray's Phatik Chand Chandrika Wijesundara provides to the Sinhala reader, a dramatic account of the story of a 12 year old boy kidnapped by hoodlums in Calcutta.

The plot is gripping, to be sure, but the real strength of Wijesundara is in the writing-graceful, evocative, and true to the original as a translation could ever be.

Having already claimed a niche for herself as a translator in the Sinhala literary arena Wijesundara, who, with her impressive credentials has already introduced to the Sinhala reader, two of the best books of R K Narayan and many translations of children's books, states in the preface of Phatik Chand how she came across the English translation written by Lila Ray.

"The book was given to me by my neighbour, who had found it in a second hand bookshop when he was strolling the streets of Mumbai ten years ago." Proving a bond deeper than the one between Phatik and Harun, her tribute to "Pati", with whom she would have loved to share her latest creation, but who left this world before the book could be published, brings tears to the eyes.

Using a convincing medley of poised, controlled, language, Wijesundara presents vividly the heartlessness of the rich and the deep love and sympathy of the poor through Phatik's father, Mr. Sanyal and Harun the juggler.

The prose is skilled and smooth throughout, and, once in a while, offers up a particularly striking turn of a phrase or a beautifully simple metaphoric image.

For example, the final paragraph which is a perfect mirror of the words written by Lila Ray in the English translation "Babul wiped his eyes on his shirt cuff and started for home. In his pocket were two wooden balls. And there was someone, someone he knew very well, to whom he owed a great deal tucked away in the corner of his heart. His name was:Phatik Chandra Pal."

Harun's message to Phatik's father, "Tell your Dad from me...I have no objection to taking his money for delivering his son to him but how can I accept money for a boy who is like a brother to me?" captures well Ray's ability to create characters you really care for.

A novel with a gentle sweet flavour, the compelling pages of Wijesundara's translation provides a well-upholstered good read. Here is classy, lavish entertainment at its best.

****

Satyajit Ray

Director, film producer, editor, music composer, book-designer, illustrator, graphic artist, calligraphist par excellence, the multifaceted personality of Ray found expression through not just his films but through books as well, of which Phatik Chand takes a special place as it centres round the relationship which develops between Phatik and Harun.

Unpretentious and entertaining, Phatik Chand proves Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's statement about Ray, all but true.

"Although he was such a superb visual artist, Ray's main inspiration was literary. He always wrote his own scripts (as well as directing them and composing his own original score!) and his greatest films were all adaptations of favourite novels and stories, including Charulata, which was based on a novella by Tagore.

It doesn't seem to matter through what medium novels, plays, films, music, the most potent influences reach us.

All great works stimulate a hopeful emulation that ends occasionally, as in the (work) of Satyajit Ray, in radiant success ensuring the continuation of this business of influence and inspiration that makes us all try and try and try again."


An exceptional DRO

Title: THE FIRST DRO OF HOROWPOTHANA
Author: A.P.A. Gunasekara
Publisher: Godage Bros., Colombo 10.
 

'Horowpothane Palaveni Deeaaro' or the First DRO of Horowpothane is a fascinating book. In the first place it so convincingly delineates the trials and tribulations of an Administrative Officer.

He gets through a grueling competitive examination, receives training for a long time in all the aspects of Administration, including motivation and then we see him sitting in a noisy packed rickety ramshackle bus bound for his first station in the Wanni where there is neither an office nor quarters for him.

The basic creature comforts exist only in the imagination. For no one in the higher echelons of Colombo has apprised him of the challenges he would face. He spends the nights sleeping on the floor on old newspapers.

On the other hand nor is a vehicale available to perform an infinite amount of duties over a vast extensive area. To the credit of the author all these demotivators are accepted as challenges, which he faces with equanimity and understanding. This admirable exemplary quality is manifest throughout the book.

Secondly, in the performance of his duties the new DRO shows an avidity in learning and absorbing the dialect, the customs and manners and the innermost feelings of his poor and helpless clients.

Hence he is able to communicate with them effectively and attend to their needs, and win their hearts. His approach to their problems is without suspicion or doubt and completely without the colonial, mechanical, perfunctory attitudes.

Neither does he pass the buck: - push the problem elsewhere, as is done even today. This is very clearly seen in his response to the appeal made by the Venerable Chief Priest of Naa Vehera to have a road constructed to his ancient temple where things of archaeological and cultural value are being plundered by brutal treasure hunters.

The DRO solves the problem magnificiently and the villagers volunteer their services in appreciation. Thus, he is par excellence a counsellor by example and an incomparable source of inspiration and guidance. It is therefore natural that the politicians should nurse the unfounded fear that he might supplant one of them.

Of course, personal convictions, sincerity and dedication alone cannot achieve success in the kind of situation the writer of First DRO of Horowpothane faces. He has to ensure that his own staff at the office, and Grama Niladaris in the field, not to mention officers of other departments, including the police, who co-operate in his efforts.

With commendable expertise they overcome all indifferences at the office, departmentalism elsewhere, and even vestiges of feudalism as evident in the election of the Diyawadana Nilame, and never fails in his co-ordinating efforts. How he mends the ways and attitudes of a feudal-minded labourer by example is indeed incredible.

Instead of a noisy harangue or disciplinary action or intimidation he so convincingly demonstrates by washing the office lavator y that the assumed social status and feudalistic postures are all absolute bunkum.

Be that as it may. But what impresses most is a rare courage with which this DRO resists and refuses to obey all immoral improper illegal political requests and orders. Here in Sri Lanka an individual's well-being is subsidized by public funds from conception to University, through many schemes including Free Education.

Then he or she goes through a gruelling competitive examination, undergoes extensive training and is placed in a post with vast responsibilities in developing the country and guiding the community.

Only to be brow-beaten or ordered by the unscrupulous politician or even by his sycophants to do illegal immoral things to the detriment of the country and the community. The author of 'Horowpothane' deserves our admiration and sincere praise for the courage wherewith he resists such vile directions and orders. Even with attempts at character assassination the author does not yield to injustice.

It need not be emphasized that this national tragedy of thoughtless callous demoralization is extremely well depicted in this book pointing at the depth of corruption.

From the Tagorean ideal the swing is indeed towards 'where the mind is full of fear and the head cannot be held high' etc... We should be grateful to the author for recording unequivocally a malady that nobody appears to heed.

The detachment with which all judgments are made makes this DRO exceptional if not exemplary. There is also a relieving sense of humour present in the narrative. All in all 'Horowpothane' is an excellent socio-economic analysis and enchanting study of a people whose lives almost unknown to us.

For this simple reason of making that life come alive before us with such vividness and reality, we owe so much to the author: for reading this book indeed is a very rare experience and it is recommended highly for all and sundry as it is a true aspect of Sri Lankan life and the depiction of the soul and suffering of an officer devoted to his task.

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