A trend towards modernity

Andurata Pera Aruna

by Senaratne Weerasinghe

Reviewed by Padma Edirisinghe

The cover of the book gives no indication that it is a translation but definitely it is. The original writer according to the opening pages and the blurb is Niranjana (1924-1976), described as a novelist who diverted the Indian novel into a new path thereby winning awards such as the Sahitya Academy award, the Sri Nehru Award and Soviet Russia award. Singing hosannas to the original seems almost redundant.

Niranjana, the author of Wait for the Moon is lucky to have survived the most significant period in Indian history, ie. the freedom struggle from the throes of White imperialism, culminating in a sizzling ground for drama in a sub-continent where so much has happened.

But Niranjana does not go for the ones at the top. The characters one meets in the novel are mostly from the miserable hovels and the putrid shanties and it gives a fresh insight to lives affected by the maelstrom accompanying the freedom struggle.

The translator himself seems to achieve a unique status in the field of writing. Most of the literary output comes in the form of translations, which when numerically put add up to 36 works in all, most of them translations of Indian novels.

The rest includes short stories, film scripts, academic works, children's books and video film scripts that extend the literary output to about 90.

Circumstances

But I do not want to go further along an unwarranted track, as that of tabulating the writer's works, for my assigned task is to review one particular book of his, Arunata Pera Andura.

The title Darkness before Dawn ticks better and is more redolent of immediate circumstances than Wait for the moon but the writer has his own licence to name it the way he desires. His literary baby, the book is his own kingdom where he reigns solo.

I have already waded into the material of the novel by insinuating that most of it comprises the actions of those struggling at the bottom, better say wallowing in the smelly muck. Is this a new literary trend? It can be termed the trend towards modernity that wraps around the whole novel.

The literary genre known as "novel" itself, unquestionably, is an import to India from the West. Is this trend, towards modernity engulfing many a creative work.

The author himself in his preface refers to the angry writers movement that became the rage in India in the 1950s. That Weerasinghe himself seems carried away by this movement is obvious as one goes through the titles he has handled.

That the wrath of the underworld (Pathalaya), the very bottom of hells, pathalaya used in our own parlance) froths throughout the book too is obvious. The choice of characters and environments and the language used are bold testimony of this trend. The language and style used is indigenous to us being the most evident. This is how the narrator begins his biography.

"I am not a writer. Literary writing is of no use to me. If ever I use a pen it is to record something".

Feelings

Here is hard and abrupt ventilation of one's innermost feelings in short sentences.

But yet there is something contradictory in the whole make-up of this narrator that even makes the beginning superfluous and even puzzling. If the man is not literary and not inclined towards writing, how does he end up narrating one whole book?

But unpredictable acts are the norm in a writer's fancy world. Generalising, it is rather a challenging task to review a translation and a literary one at that.

This is because the main facet is the plot which of course is the handiwork of the original writer. Now under what headings does the translator score? As far as my brain-workings allow, these two are the main segments: the selective capability and the style of writing to which again the original writer does not contribute.

Dwelling on the first there is much to relate that I will condense anyway.

I mentioned at the outset the angry writers movement. That is what activates the book. The soft stuff bids adieu. The romantic love stories too bid adieu. The outlying Indian environment is bitter and dark. The world war has intensified the dismal scenario.

The original writer hails from the state of Kerala, an amalgam of literacy (much beyond other Indian states which some ascribe to Christian missionary activity) and awareness of the abyss. Perhaps the second factor has been triggered by the first.

Progressive literature

What has come to the forefront as modern Indian progressive literature is this genre of literature and Wait for the Moon is bracketed into this calibre. What is the the translator's role here? Therein lies the selective capability.

Weerasinghe is sensitive to the fact of the affinity between Indian and Lankan societies and even to the pattern of social thinking in the two countries despite the disparity in size.

Both are poor countries, the degree of non-affluence screaming more in the bigger country. The acute social divisions between the bourgeois and the proletariat screams.

Louder in the big country with the inevitable repercussions. Traditions aggravate the malaise. In such an atmosphere literature that spotlights the evils thrives much more than literature tinged with the fairy tale or magical aspect.

No Aladdin's lamp appears to stage an avalanche of riches, the striving men and women are bogged knee deep in a quest for a hand to mouth existence. In such a set up, the kind of modern literature that hoists this struggle naturally becomes popular.

Translator

The wisdom of Weerasinghe leads him to choose as his translation fodder, works of this nature. Examples are the works of men and women as Kamala Das, Mothi Nandi, Tagore, Chander, Satyjith Rai and Chatterjie.

That the translator though he has a penchant for Indian writers does not solely limit himself to them is evident.

Here he finds myriad fountains from the vast world such as Maxim Gorki (Mother), Carpenter (Robin Hood) (Ivan Turgenev) (Affection) Pearl S. Buck (Earth) and Wasilikos (War is over).

Wait for the Moon or The Dawn Before Darkness fits comfortably into these works, where the hero and the heroine are those very proximate to the earth and drawing succour for living, majourly from this source.

Prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets, highway robbers, all those whose lives have gone awry due to the circumstances are placed in, these juggle in and out of these works.

It is as a personal tribute to this Kannada writer, Niranjana that Weerasinghe has chosen this work and the tale he tells in another language with almost equal force that fashions the original.

Weerasinghe's linguistic skills make him choose sleekly apt idioms that lend much authenticity to the tale. No wonder, he has brandished his sword ie. the pen so long that forceful and effective writing comes as second nature to him. He sure has a long way to go, in his chosen career.