Captivating denouement in short stories

Reviewed by Somapala Arandara

Bolkanda
Author: Gunaratne Ekanayake

“Penakaraya” is the first short story of Gunaratne Ekanayake's anthology of short stories titled Bolkanda. Its theme is the exploitation of the ignorant by crafty Kapuralas. The main character, Kusumalatha becomes a teacher. She had fallen in love with Jagathsena, an employee of the Post Office of the area where she lived. She is posted to a distant school in Ampara, with her teaching appointment. They get married and have two children living first in a government quarters and later in their own house.

Eventually, Jagathsena starts an illicit affair with a pretty widow who works in the same office. Rumours of this intimacy creates the first crisis. When the affair develops the major crisis arises. Despite several warnings and entreaties by Kusumalatha, Jagathsena carries on his affair with the widow.

One day, out of despair, Kusumalatha goes home under the guise of going to see her ailing mother and tells her all the details of her husband's misconduct. Her mother who believes in mystic remedies takes her daughter to a magic foreteller.

He grabs the chance of helping the desperate woman with an ulterior motive, to indulge in a sexual relationship with Kusumalatha.

After she visits the foreteller with offerings to god, he instructs her to come alone the next day for a special ‘Pooja'. She acts accordingly. After a few preliminary rituals, the ‘Penakaraya’ or the oracle gets her to strip herself. Then he suddenly embraces her tightly. With a mighty struggle, she manages to free herself from him by attacking him with a brass lamp. The writer weaves the story successfully. The exploitation of the ignorant and hapless, particularly women, by unscrupulous people disguised as ‘Kapuralas’ or minions of god is skilfully dramatised here.

Calf love

The second story, “Mama Pem Kalemi”, portrays the shattering of a ‘calf love’ between an innocent young man and a girl owing to the despicable caste system prevalent even in this space age. Elements of the feudal system still persists in society. The theme is not poignantly worked up.

Sohonkoth (Sepulchral monuments) is the best story in this collection. It leaves us the question of who outwitted whom?

In other words, who is the victor? I would like to quote the Sinhala proverb, Raigamayai Gampalayai (tit for tat). The central character, Ranaweera, wants to buy a plot of land which he could afford. Since the cost of lands is high, the prohibitive prices egg him on to purchase a plot of land which is a part of the property of a temple. He decides to buy it though there is a couple of tombs on it by the front roadside for Rs. 50,000.

Despite his wife's protests, Ranaweera puts up a house on the land. Nevertheless, his wife plants some manioc sticks around the graves so as to conceal the two vaults. There are some mango branches also bent towards them.

Two days before the wedding ceremony of Ranaweera's daughter, the Chief Incumbent comes with a few others. The death anniversary of the late Chief Incumbent had unfortunately, fallen on the wedding day. The Chief Incumbent has come to clean the site of the monuments and whitewash them. Ranaweera gets astounded and could not utter a single word against the priest's wishes.

Theme

There is a subsidiary theme underlying this story which is more effective and impressive. It is a fact that Bhikkhus make money by various ways such as renting out rooms for tuition classes.

The present chief incumbent is adept at it. So, even the graveyard of the temple is sold to Ranaweera. The writer satirises the Bhikku's manoeuvre. Thereby he criticises the morality of the Bhikkhu. The Friar in the Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is similar to this Bhikkhu.

”Sweetly he heard his penitents at shrift

With pleasant absolution for a gift.”

Peasant life

The fourth short story, Bolkanda, gives the reader a comprehensive and realistic account of the plight of the peasant in the Dry Zone. It also applies to the predicaments of all other farmers in the island. The pathetic life of the peasant is a perennial feature. And as a result, out of despair, some commit suicide.

The commercialism represented by the exploitation of the poor farmers by unscrupulous and greedy traders is also depicted in Leonard Woolf's, The village in the Jungle where it sucks the life-blood out of the peasants as a result of unrealistic and pompous measures adopted by the authorities. Merchants, often with the connivance of some politicians and their stooges are a bane to the cultivations for ever. The exploration of a cross-section of the life of poor farmers is enlightening and vivid.

Mystic beliefs

Kalu Sudu Nagaya is the title of the fifth story in the collection . It embodies mystic beliefs about cobras, prevalent among people. It unfolds how a Buddha Statue in a certain temple is saved by a cobra from the plunder of four unruly young men. In the struggle, the cobra as well as the four rogues are killed. The story has a striking resemblance to Chaucer's the Pardoner's Tale which relates how three rioters challenged death, and through their greed of gold florins, killed themselves.

The sixth short story, Duwata Asaneepayi, confirms that habit is second nature”. A porter who is given to drinks misuses even the money which his employer gave him out of charity to take treatment for his seriously ill daughter. He spends it on the way home on alcohol and shares it with an erstwhile friend. The next short story Sada Pahara tells the tale of love unrequited. It is a commonplace topic and does not invite much attention.

Dikkasadaya (Divorce) is the last story of Gunarathne Ekanayake's anthology. It is an examination of the married life of Karunasena and Mallika. There is a vast disparity of age between them. Worse still, he was addicted to alcohol. He is ten years older. They have, however, three children.

She perceives that his vigour and virility has gradually vanished of late. So she is naturally attracted to Yasapala, a robust young mason. In spite of several warnings, one day, Karunasena catches them red-handed and takes his wife and her paramour to the police station. When the OIC explained to her that she would have to give up either her husband or her paramour, Mallika was on the horns of a dilemma and said she wanted both. Then the OIC gave them some time to come to a conclusion. Finally, Karunasena informed the OIC that the three of them would live together.

I would like to quote again an incident appearing in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale, which is akin to the theme of Dikkasadaya and throws light on it:

”Long, long ago in good King Arthur's day,

There was a knight who was a busty liver.

One day as he came riding from the river

He saw a maiden walking all forlorn

Ahead of him, alone as she was born.

And of that maiden, spite of all she said,

By very force he took her maidenhead.”

The king condemned him to death as a punishment. Then the Queen and other ladies implored the King to exercise his grace.

Thereupon, the King entrusted the Queen with the case to take a decision on the life of the knight. The Queen posed the question to him: “What is the thing that women most desire?” and granted him one year and a day to find a sufficient answer, failing which he had to meet with death.

“Some said that women wanted wealth and treasure, ‘Honour’, said some; some ‘Jollity and pleasure'; some ‘Gorgeous clothes’ and others ‘Fun in bed’, ‘To be oft widow and remarried said others. Some wished to be ‘cosseted and flattered’ and so on ran the list.

At last, an old crouching “woman crooned her gospel in his ear and told him to be glad and not to fear”. Thereafter in Court, the knight gave his answer to the Queen's query:

”A woman wants the self-same sovereignty

Over her husband as over her lover,

And master him; he must not be above her.”

The knight escaped death!

On surveying this anthology I believe the author does justice to five out of eight short stories. Penakaraya, Sohonkoth, Bolkanda, Duwata Asaneepai and Dikkasadaya are dramatic and attract the readers’ attention. The author plunges into a sensational moment in the narrative and denouement is captivating.

What he sets out here are the immediate reactions of a group of people. He does not go for details and dexterously portrays lives that are largely mysterious, as a painter does with brush strokes here and there. He offers us his notion of the way human beings behave. The reader is free to enjoy or refuse them.