An ode to the doyen of Sinhala literature

A friend recently said that I touch on many things under the sun and moon, but seems to skip our great literati figures such as Martin Wickremasinghe. I admitted my failing in this respect but said that it was not done deliberately. Maybe there was so much of stuff written on them, I explained that I did not wish to proliferate it all. Yet I feel that forgetting the Wise man from Koggala, “Koggala Pragnaya” in my Musings column was really unforgivable for the simple or complex reason that I owe to him my success in my University Entrance.

To go back to the mid 50s, I happened to be educated in an institution that almost marginalised anything that was deemed national. But, inheriting a streak of nationalism from some undecipherable source, I was determined to offer Sinhala for my University Entrance examination though there was no teacher assigned to it formally.

The examination was a few months ahead when my mother bought me a copy of Sinhala Sahitye Nageema by the famous author. I was fascinated by it and read it twice or thrice. Believe me, that was the only source of Sinhala literature that helped me to get across.

Getting into the throes of European literature at the university I must confess that I again forgot him till very late in life I received an invitation a few months back for a function celebrating the anniversary of Wickremasinghe’s visit to Soviet Russia. I was handed a volume of literature on the great man’s life from which I note here the more worthy facts which impressed me.

Antecedents

He does not own the antecedents of a scholarly family nor make pretences to such origins anywhere in his autobiographical sketches. That alone is innate and unsophisticated wisdom.

His school education stopped at around the 5th standard in Bona Vista College, Galle due to economic stringencies, mainly the need to hoard dowries for a horde of sisters. So he gallantly gives up his school education bearing no grudges towards those for whose future he sacrificed his formal education.

In fact it is his eldest sister who plays broker between his life partner and him when he is intent on leading a bachelor’s life devoted to scholarly pursuits.

This dame from the South strangely though herself raw in the intellectual sphere was later to be the mainstay of his literary career, even proofreading much of his literary output and consistently putting into order the room of a typical writer. Redolent of the feats of Leo Tolstoy’s life’s partner. A loving pair, Wickremasinghe showered his gratitude to her, by getting her to accompany him on his visit to Russia.

Though basking in domestic bliss, Wickemarasinghe however did not give up his romance with literature and was soon collecting a multitude of books, both of the East and the West. Though his initial education was based on the most primeval modes as Weli Peelle liveema (Writing on sand) the English education he had received for about five years at Bona Vista College travelling a few miles from Koggala to Roomassala, helped him to digest the gems in Western literature.

The translated works of Russian literature, especially those of the highest calibre as Leo Tolstoy and Dostovesky just enthralled him. In these he saw a close semblance between the rural society of his country and that of feudal Russia, a semblance that only a very brilliant mind could grasp.

Observations

As he began producing erudite pieces mainly inspired by his readings and also, by his own observations and perceptions, his fame soon spread and newspaper offices were offering him the highest posts in the field of journalism. The recognition he garnered lasted till his death. No one grudged him his success. Dr Gunadasa Amarasekera in his funeral oration has described him as the greatest literary figure born in modern times.

His unique work, Satva Sannatiya, an amazing mirror into his very broad span of attention and no doubt inspired by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, also reveals his close observation of life as exhibited by the creatures of the sea and the coastal belt. Even his literary works, mostly the three books that make the trilogy, display his acute involvement with the people who lived the coastal terrain. Gamperaliya, his most famous work transpires the degree of relationship of the different geographical units of the island. Though small in size there are so many variations as that which existed between the South and the upcountry highland terrain.

What is least highlighted about the great man, to my mind, is that he is an extraordinary sociologist. It is he, who via his trilogy notes how the Western influences uproot the village folk and at certain instances, lead to drastic consequences. One wonders whether the concept of Sinhale was introduced by him.At least he popularised it by Jinadasa’s withdrawl into Sinhale.

Perception

Jinadasa epitomises though in a rather miserable way the withdrawal of the Southerner to the highlands to make a success in his life. This migratory factor now forgotten is first raked by this author. Today in Kandy and elsewhere in towns as Haputale, Kengalle and Hanguranketha area proliferation of families who have made these towns their true homelands. Their progenitors have arrived there in, not horse drawn carriages, but in bullock-driven carts. (“Adapan gono oya Haputhale kanda”.) This migratory thread runs throughout the trilogy.

Further, there is the acute perception of the human mind, especially the turmoils resulting from thanha or greed that makes him go beyond the field of sociologist into that of psychologist.

The lives of Piyal and Nanda are testimony of them, very subtly portrayed. A fact to be noted is that no special eulogy of the Buddha is made anywhere in his works, the Theravada Buddhist background is never negated.

Martin Wickremasinghe certainly looms above many a writer of ours in many a respect, chiefly in the perseverance he displayed in rising above many a wave that tends to submerge him. Luck too has played a major part in his life in two ways, one that he was “discovered" very early by the intellectual circle of Lanka and two, that he had left behind a progeny who is dedicated to perpetuate and broadcast the great mentor’s life and works that continue to remain fresh across a century and may even filter into the next.

The Martin Wickremasinghe Trust is the chief instrument in this mission while the edifice at Koggala facing the famous Madol Duwa is almost reminiscent of the Shakespearean village. These set an admirable tradition of honouring those who deserve to be honoured, "Poojacha Pujaniyanam”.

“The wise man of Koggala is an epithet fits him better.