A home-grown English fiction

Reviewed by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

“Fate leads the willing, and drags along those who hang back.”
Lucius Seneca (55BC-40AD)
Roman Philosopher

Dear reader, when you approach this startling work of English fiction, you are in, for a whole horde of surprises.

To begin with, the title E-Danda which is the trans-literation of a Sinhala word, will assault your imagination, because of its puzzling unfamiliarity.

E-Danda, is a log, that improvises for a rough-and-ready (and, of course, precarious) bridge across a stream.

The writing style and the narration make you sit up and take notice, because of their compact, verse, prose, that telescopes long spans of time into brief episodes. The author reduces decades of social development by chronicling that prolonged progress, into a tight and attention arresting resume. The graphic history of the evolution of a phase of society, which the average fiction – writer would take several chapters to recount, is deftly related by this author, in a few telling paragraphs, that capture with finesse, the essential profile of the folk-change.

Minor saga

In sum, E-Danda is a minor saga, the central theme of which, is the fluctuating fortune of a rural family. For some readers, the language of the novel, may seem rather quaint. The author, resorts to a prose, that communicates an “organ roll” rhythm – that is deep and booming.

Let us select a segment of the opening passages of the novel, to sample this prose-elegance:

“Muddy water was gushing down the anicut and a lone farmer was reinforcing the bund in case it breached and damaged the rice field. Arachchilage Don Sudu Watta alias Suda, wanted to protect his livelihood. Handsome, tall at five feet ten, he walked erect, when he returned home from work, upright and looking straight ahead.”

With this purple – passage, the author introduces the patriarch, whose progeny peoples the landscape of this work of fiction. Don Suda, is the macho pater familiar, who heads a minor tribe in the village.

Destiny

Driven by destiny, the descendants of Suda's family, cross the E-Danda, to new worlds beyond the confining limits of the rural settlement, to which they were born.

The E-Danda (the log-bridge) serves as the symbol for both conservatism and its opposite force progress and modernisation.

Don Suda's enterprising son Kalu, crosses over the E-danda, to seek success in lands beyond our shores. He achieves worldly triumphs and grows up as an ideal young person, who is fully aware of the ways in which, destiny has to be utilised to reach the desired goals.

The youngest in Suda's family – Suduwattage Don Polon – follows a totally different path, that has been carved out for him by his peculiar fate. He becomes a dissident and leads a precarious life at the dark edges of society, when evil habitually lurks.

In a way, Don Polon is a kind of negative protagonist, as he evolves into an evil referral point.

After his pathetic passage out of life those who wished him well attempt to clear his socially tarnished character.

Whimsicalities

The novel, over and above being a fictional narrative of a family of rural origin that has been the plaything of the variegated whimsicalities of fate, is a remarkable record of the moves of rural folk and an in-depth chronicle influences, that bring about social transformations.

This work of fiction takes a keen look at the inner mechanisms of insurgency, that possess an evil potency to twist the souls of young people. Their processes of indoctrination receive considerable attention in this work.

Any reader passing the threshold of the preliminary sections of the work, will invariably get fully and totally immensed in the narration, because the urge of the creation is so compelling.

The telling detail relating to people and their ways of behaviour, their faiths and the folk superstitions makes the novel E-Danda, an anthropological treatise of considerable significance.

The novel probes, those entrenched forces, that make the life of the village in our day, a battleground where traditional residues wrestle with in-coming streaks of modernisation.

Surprise

To my mind, the most intriguing surprise associated with this novel E-Danda, is its unlikely author.

Author Mineka P. Wickremasingha, is a renowned entrepreneurial leader, in the business scenario of Sri Lanka. His prominence in the financial and associated activities in the country, would make one wonder how he manages the time and the leisure for his probing excursions and for patting down his long-garnered experiences in this kind of sustained works of fiction.

When you come to think of it, he is not a novice or a newcomer to this field. Way back in 1998 his anthology of short stories titled the playmate won him State awards.

Men of such maturity, in their profound understanding of the ways of the world, are the right personalities, to present those valued insights in a bumper harvest of creative fiction.

Fiction is a better vehicle, than the non-fiction medium, as they will be able to say their say in creative works, without hurting the susceptibilities through direct chronicles.