Beyond the horizon

Into the unknown regions of human landscape:

Asgar Hussein was born in Kandy in 1972, and educated in Colombo. He worked at various places - including a pharmacy, a tea firm, a snack bar, a studio and a textile shop - before drifting to journalism. For several years he worked for a leading national newspaper, writing on a wide range of subjects, from corporate scandals to archaeological discoveries.

Hussein has also contributed to magazines and literary journals, and holds a BA Degree in the Social Sciences.

His first book - a volume of poetry called Termite Castle- was highly acclaimed by leading academics and journalists in the country, and went on to win the State Literary Award for Best Poetry.

Prof. of English, University of Colombo, Siromi Fernando described it as an impressive collection. She also emphasized the originality of the poet’s thinking, and referred to his experimentation with language and technique.

Another renowned critic Prof. Yasmine Gooneratne called Termite Castle an outstanding book. She described Hussein as a true poet, capable of unusual range and variety of subject, and possessing, most importantly, an authentic and original voice.

Hussein is a member of the Wadiya Group of Writers, a literary circle that has made a notable impact on the Sri Lankan literary scene. Perhaps, Asgar is one of the poet with inborn talent in handling the words and that too in a matured way.

Q: Termite Castle, your maiden collection of poetry, has won the State Literary Award for Best Poetry. Among other poems, the title poem ‘Termite Castle’ is an outstanding creation, apparently on the theme of impermanency. What inspired you to write this poem?

A: I have always been fascinated by the vicissitudes of history, for it reveals the impermanence of things as much as anything else. The anthill that is at the poem’s core is an analogy of a well-ordered human society, and through its intricate workings I note the functions expected of a duty-conscious citizenry.

Both the anthill and a great human civilization enjoy their periods of glory, built to grand heights by these efforts, but eventually they must fall to dust. This is a historical truth. The irony here is that the seeds of decay may well be sown on the peak of civilization.

My reflections on time and its consequences have been the basis of several poems, as observed by Prof. Yasmine Gooneratne in her review of my book. She stated that my verse is shadowed by the master-theme of the inevitable passage of time. That’s the great thing about such insightful critics; they can point out certain aspects of your work that will otherwise be lost on many readers.

Q: ‘The Centenarian’s Ten Cents’ is not only about inflation and transition from the colonial administration to independence, but also about socio-economic changes that took place within the past century. In terms of metaphors, you seem to be very specific and use them sparingly, and diction is also simple and lucid. Please comment.

A: This poem revolves around a centenarian’s musings on the declining value of the ten cents during his lifetime. The implications of inflation are made obvious in the material used to mint the currency. Over time, the ten cents was transformed from a silver coin to a note to a nickel-brass coin and finally to a light aluminium coin.

I used the imagery of the external features of the currency, such as the profiles of British monarchs and the independent nation’s armorial ensign. This I did to place the poem in its historical context, including the transition from the colonial era. At the end of the poem, the centenarian laments how the ten cents, once so valuable to him as a little boy, is now so worthless as to go unused, and that today you would need ten such coins to just buy a toffee.

Old coins always fascinated me and my brothers during childhood. These included the Kahavanu coins of the ancient Sinhala kings, Dutch era VOC coins coated green with verdigris, large 5 cent copper coins bearing the head of Queen Victoria, quarter cent coins of the early 20th century and partly tarnished silver coins. A coin reveals much more than its mere face value - it is history cast in metal.

Q: ‘That House’ is a poem about an ancestral home which saw the lifespan of many members of a clan. I believe that among other things it shows the poet’s emotionally rich life: “It changed temperature With our fevers and colds Lamented our wounds And celebrated our trophies...” Can you tell us the story behind this poem? Is it really born out of your personal experience?

A: Much of the poem has to do with an old house we lived in for many years, from the time I was about two until I was fifteen. It stood along Sir James Peiris Mawatha, not far from Bishop’s College. This house had a certain decrepit appearance on the outside, and I would not have been surprised if some passerby felt it marred the beauty of the neighbourhood. Anyway, what happened in the end was that it was sold and destroyed, and in its place rose a faceless corporate building.

I have however taken liberties with some facts. For example, that house did not have an old grandfather clock as stated in the poem. And it was not so old as to muse upon the follies of five or six generations. And I certainly cannot recall bringing home any trophies that it might have been proud of. Ha ha! The essence of this poem lies in the emotions that house evoked. I begin by referring to it as the “repository of my past”, and that’s how it has remained in my mind after it was broken down to rubble.

The fact is that it had a personality of its own, like most old houses. Ajith Samaranayake wrote that this particular poem is haunted by images of a more leisurely era now irrevocably extinguished. The ‘ghosts’ referred to in the last line are of course memories. These ghosts may have abandoned the place when that house became a heap of rubble, but they still follow me. In a sense, such memories are as real as anything material and tangible, maybe even more so. But such truths can only be expressed through poetry.

Q: ‘Smoke & Ashes’ is a poem on a chain smoker who slowly walked to death with cigarettes. Here you have used the metaphor of smoke and ashes to draw a parallel with the smoke and ashes of a pyre. The smoker’s life is also like a cigarette. I find it a little contrasting with your life because you also so far have not given up this bad habit. Please comment.

A: Well, yes I do enjoy the occasional puff but I’m certainly not a nicotine addict. Anyway, this is just one of the 700 odd vices I have identified in myself, ha, ha! The point is this. I wrote that poem because I cannot remain blind and ignorant of the harmful effects of smoking.

The irony is that cigarette ads then tended to portray smokers as handsome macho men when the outcome is the opposite. The metaphor I used of the body ending up as smoke and ashes like a cigarette made that fact clear. In that character’s fate lies a warning to all of us.

Q: ‘Red July’ is a poem on the communal riots of 1983 when goons set upon innocents killing and looting their properties.

“Men spoke of patriotism As they engaged in the great betrayal” sums up the rationale behind the riots that contributed to protracted conflict. How do you perceive it as a poet and its devastating repercussions not only on the ‘so called patriots’ but also on the entire race of Sinhalese?”

A: I was eleven when the riots broke out, and to this day I carry its horrors. For the first time in my life, seeing the burnt-out shells of shops and homes, and hearing stories of the most gruesome killings, I was made aware of the evil that lurks in this land called paradise.

It would be unjust to blame the Sinhalese as a whole for what happened. And yet, there are times when I recall the utter apathy among many at that time, and the notion that “the Tamils asked for it.” Perhaps the Sinhalese can only undo that by a collective act of expiation, and that expiation must involve acknowledging past injustices and granting the Tamils their due rights.

The irony is that it was the rioters and the pseudo-patriots who gave that despot Prabhakaran power over his people, and this is the great betrayal I refer to. This is something you always see, how extremists feed on each other’s views and actions.

Q: ‘Cyanide Capsule’ captured the very essence of human bombs that is a by-product of this long-drawn conflict and boldly questions the so called ‘liberator or sun god’: “ I hold a despot’s dream And all the dormant rage; I hold the muted scream And the madness of an age...

I grant a moment’s pause To make posters of the brave.” Here you have rightly analyzed the mentality of a suicide bomber. Do you think any leader of a political movement can advise the destruction of life in the name of liberation?

A: Well, first, the LTTE is more a terrorist organization than a political movement, and secondly it destroys not for true liberation but for total and absolute power over its people and the land it claims.

Why else would they always insist that they alone be recognized as the sole representatives of the Tamil people? And why did they destroy every other group that also claimed to fight for liberation? Why were only LTTE cadres recognized as martyrs? Many Tamils murdered by them, including Rajani Thiranagama and Neelan Tiruchelvam, did much more to advance the cause of freedom and human rights.

Tiruchelvam was the man Jayadeva Uyangoda described as “the only contemporary Sri Lankan Tamil who had the capacity to reconceptualise Tamil politics in democratic emancipatory terms within the framework of a pluralist Sri Lanka.”

This poem refers not to suicide bombers but the fighting Tiger cadres, who would rather swallow the poison than be taken alive. Here I have personified the cyanide capsule to reveal the perverse indoctrination of the LTTE. I used this same device in my poem ‘Yalpanam’, where I personified Jaffna by combining the social, psychological, historical and geographical aspects of the region to lay bare her sufferings.

Q: ‘ Onslaught’ depicts the gory aspect of war overwhelmed by “resounding war drums” in “throbbing heat”. Was this poem inspired by a particular incident?

A: No, not really. Rather, it is a general description of the chaos that grips any battlefield. In the heat of an enemy assault, amidst the shock and carnage, one’s patriotism turns to something as fragile as a butterfly. And finally, when the sealed coffins of the dead reach home, the war drums beat louder for more vengeance and blood.

Q: ‘She’ is about a past love that haunts the mind of a lonely man. How did you analyze the mind of a lover so passionately as if it is your own experience?”

A: Well, it is based on my own experience. Sometimes, when you are intensely in love, you can be irrational. You read too much into the other person, thinking too seriously about some remark, or gesture.

In the end, you can hurt and compel her to withdraw into a quiet corner of her world, and she is so deeply hurt that she reemerges as another woman, not the sensitive and caring person you once knew, but someone cold and hard. And all that time you are blaming yourself, hoping that there is some part deep in her soul that longs to get back to how things were.

Q: ‘Lost World’ is a poem about a bygone era dominated by rickshaws, ice palams and bombai muttai. The poem is a revisit to that era and the poet relives the slow moving life experienced a few decades ago in Sri Lanka. Please comment on the experiences that led to the birth of this poem.

A: Actually, much of the imagery is based on what I experienced as a kid of five or six in the 70s. I clearly recall the poor rickshaw puller who ambled along Flower Road with his burden of schoolchildren. And then there were the black Morris Minor taxis that soon ended up like the dinosaurs when the three-wheeler was introduced.

And how could I forget the orange ice palams from Elephant House enclosed in that distinct green and white striped triangular covering. Or the bombai muttai strings of candy that melted in your tongue, and the gal siyambala offered in conical paper cups outside school gates. Or the women who sold those delicious cadjunuts boiled yellow in turmeric and wrapped in havari nuga leaves.

Many of these things gradually disappeared as I grew up. You used the words “a bygone era” because it all seems so long ago. Of course, this was what life was like even before, when my mother went to school, and the character in the poem is today a man in his late 50s who is transported to his own childhood when he sees a soap bubble blown by his little grandson. The nostalgic reminiscences however explode like the bubble when he hears the words, “Seeya, let’s go to KFC in your brand new BMW X3”.

Q: ‘Old Family Photographs’ is a revisit to the old members of a clan. They departed this world a long time ago, but those still moments in history have registered their facial expressions, preserving them for posterity. Though the photographs are slightly faded, they serve to reflect upon the past. Are these your family photographs? Explain the impulse that incited you to its conception.

A: This is one of my more philosophical poems. To me, it puts our very existence in a certain perspective, that is, us as the sum total of our ancestors’ actions, as the ones who emerged from their collective destinies, moving through the labyrinth of time to exist in the present.

This poem could well be about your family as it could be about mine. In a sense, what are you but the outcome of innumerable actions of the past, each significant enough to have had profound implications had things turned out differently. I particularly focused on some rituals of courtship - hearts in wild pursuit, nods heavy with guilt, rings thrust into uncertain fingers and formal honeymoons - to illustrate this point.

The photographs in the poem serve as the basis for reflection. Gazing at such old pictures, at your great grandparents captured in a moment of time, may bring forth such revelations when you are in a meditative mood. Another implication in this poem is that we inherit not just the features, but also certain traits of our ancestors.

However, though bound by birth to the shackles of our genes and circumstances, we also have the will to mould our own destinies, and in this lies our salvation.