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Girls hardly ever tie their hair with ribbons these days. But the metaphor of the black ribbon lives on. Whoever travels on the Galle Matara road will constantly remember the comparison of the smooth black ribbon to the long stretch of tar in Gamperaliya. Like the book the metaphor too has become immortal. But Koggala? The village in the mid south situated between a creek and the sea. The village with the rail track like a never ending stepladder, stretching as far as the eye could see? With its numerous tourist restaurants and garment factories the Koggala of today is a far cry from the Koggala Martin Wickramasinghe describes in Gamperaliya. Now, though, thanks to the book published by the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust, called "From the Cradle: Glimpses of Sri Lankan Folk Culture", the world described in Gamperaliya too will be immortalized.
According to the publishers the 118 page A4 size book with texts by D.C Ranatunga, photographs by Sarath Perera and layout by Somachandra Peiris is intended to kindle an interest in the cultural heritage of Sri Lanka and Martin Wickramasinghe's writings among the present generation and the generations to come.
"My body grew like that of any Sinhala villager. My mind however developed differently. The benefit of a private education from a centre of higher learning or from learned pundits was not available to me. I resorted to learning by directly exploring my world, and by eagerly reading books". Wrote Martin Wickramasinghe, The only son of Lamahewage Don Bastian Wickramasinghe and Magalle Balapitiya Liyanage Thochchohamy, Martin Wickramasinghe was born on 29th May 1891. The financial circumstances which had made him become the sole breadwinner in a family of nine sisters and a widowed mother, at the age of fourteen was perhaps a blessing in disguise, for this prevented him from being shackled to a limited field of study endorsed by institutes of higher education. He was free to roam the fields of knowledge without being restricted by academic boundaries. And roam the fields he did, physically, in his childhood in the village of Koggala, gathering experiences which would later form the basis of such books as Madol Doova, Gamperaliya, Ape Gama... It is this world that the text and the ample illustrations in "From the Cradle" present to the reader, often quoting from Dr. Lakshmi de Silva's "Lay Bare the Roots". Here is how the fascination with the village craftsman is described " Of all the instruments in the carpenter's shed what interested us most was the lathe. We watched chair legs of beds and cupboards,or carved pillars take shape under the lathe, and sometimes returned home only after the carpenter had ceased work. The book also gives an attractive description of the "Thrills on the Water" re-creating the background for Upali's trip as a stowaway in "Madol Doova.
"The sea was a battlefield. Balaya were even banging against the sides of the boat. They fought for the bait like a pack of dogs for bones or like bats around a fruit tree...I have never participated in anything so fascinating or so exciting since. I think the fishermen too loved the thrill of it more than a gambler loves his game". Talking about his childhood Dr. Ranga Wickramasinghe says "It was very difficult to feed and educate six children with what my father earned from working at the Lake House and through the sale of his books. My mother was a very simple person and I know both my parents sacrificed a lot to bring us up. Whenever we did well in school my father took us to M.D Gunasena's and asked us to choose any book we liked. I grew up reading Coral Island but I am happy that my children and grandchildren grew up reading 'Madol Doova". Creative writing was not his only forte. In fact everything under the sun seemed to have come under Martin Wickramasinghe's scrutiny. The subjects Martin Wickramasinghe explored ranged from anthropology, to biology, from social sciences to Buddhism, from philosophy to fine arts. He wrote 14 novels beginning with Leela in 1914 and ending with Bawatharanaya (Siddhartha's Quest) in 1975. Gamperaliya (The uprooted) was published in 1944, followed by Madolduwa (Mangrove Island) in 1947, Yuganthaya (End of an Era)in 1949, Viragaya (Devoid of Passion) 1956, and Kaliyugaya (Age of Destruction)1957. Among his eleven collections of short stories are Gehaniyak (A woman), 1924 and Ape Viththi (About Ourselves)1946. He also wrote four dramas Chitra, (1940)Mayuri (1944), Vijitha (1953) and Vijitha and Other Plays 1953 as well as on travel, history, three literary biographies, six books on philosophy and other topics, five on evolution and anthropology, and numerous essays of literary criticism. Several of his novels were made into films and teledramas. Using the idiom of common speech in place of the heavy classical language found in Pali and Sanskrit literature he opened the doors of Western science to Sinhala readers; explained the idea of evolution and showed the relationship between Buddhism and modern scientific discoveries about the nature of the physical world. He wrote the first book on the social history of Sri Lanka - Purana Sthreenge Anduma, and the first science fiction book for children, Sinhala Vidya Vinoda Katha". He worked as a journalist for over twenty years as the editor of Dinamina, Silumina and Lakmina. He was also a critic, and would go down in literary history as the one who changed the basis of Sinhala literary criticism which had hitherto been modeled on Pali and Sanskrit literature by introducing a more rationale view in judging works of art. He had his own private library. All in all he had had over 7,000 books, all of which he had read and written comments on, in the margins. Whenever he had disagreed with what the writer had written, he dismissed the paragraph by writing on the margin bahubootha (rubbish). "The library with its different coloured books of varying sizes was like one huge map to me when I was small" recalls Dr. Ranga Wickramasinghe, the youngest son of Martin Wickramasinghe. Dr. Wickramasinghe recalls how his father began his day at four or five in the morning and ended it somewhere well after twelve midnight. He would return from work at about ten in the night and retreat into his study after dinner. It's late now. You should sleep" his wife, Prema (who, according to Prof. Ediriweera Sarachandra, was the ideal wife a writer could ever have) would gently remind him, but he would go on reading as if he had not heard her. Hailed as the sage of Koggala, Martin Wickramasinghe can undoubtedly be called the literary hero of the 20th century for he and he alone, single handedly changed the course of Sinhala literature and literary criticism during a writing career spanning from 1914 to 1975. The Martin Wickramasinghe Trust believes if the youth of today reads all the books written by this doyen of Sinhala literature an intellectual renaissance will be inevitable. As Fr. Tissa Balasuriya says "Our people and country are the richer for his having lived among us". Richer too, now that we have a companion to his work revealing the story behind the story. "From the Cradle" to the Devalegala and the horizon beyond stretching as far as the eye could see... |
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