A journey to Mandai
A personal account of Singapore’s Writers’ Festival -
2009:
by Indeewara THILAKARATHNE and Ranga CHANDRARATHNE
in Singapore

Ronny Someck |

Prof. Edwin Thumboo |
It was an extraordinary journey for us. The occasion and the
experience were unique not only because we had an opportunity to attend
the Singapore’s Writers Festival (SWF) - 2009, but this journey to
Mandai. We were travelling in a car driven by Singapore’s unofficial
poet laureate Edwin Thumboo. We were travelling with two other poets.
One of them was Ronny Someck who was born in Bagdad and now writes in
Hebrew and one of foremost poets in Israel. The other poet was our own,
Sunil Govinnage who still writes and publishes poetry in Sinhala in
addition to his English writing.
Our quick assessment was that all three of them could write poetry
for more than one country at any given time making impacts and waves of
different kind at any given moment.
We can’t simply explain what Mandai is or how it looks as many of the
Sunday Observer readers may not have heard of this sleepy little place
in Singapore. (It is not located in the vicinity of Little India, China
Town or famous Orchard Road and or places known to frequent visitors to
Singapore).
It is where the home of Edwin Thumboo was; where he grew up and
developed his poetic sensibility. For us this journey was in a way
Martin Wickramasinghe giving us a ride to Koggola and more because we
travelled with two other poets!
Mandai is a kind of a symbol for the diversity and growth and
development of the SWF 2009, which drew writers from many continents to
this City Country, which once desired to follow Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as a
model for its own development.
Thumboo graduated having studied English from the University of
Malaya in 1956. After graduation, he worked in the civil service for
about nine years joined the University of Singapore. He received a Ph.D.
in 1970 completing a thesis on African literature. Thumboo became a full
professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, heading
the department between 1977 and 1993.
Thumboo’s poetry is inspired by mythical tales and history, and he is
often described as Singapore’s unofficial poet laureate.
Thumboo has written and published extensively on his country, its
origin and nationhood. A pioneer of Singapore’s English literature, he
compiled and edited some of the first anthologies of English poetry and
fiction from Singapore and Malaysia.
His own collections of poetry include Rib of Earth (1956), Gods Can
Die (1977), Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993). His
latest anthology Still Travelling, consisting of almost 50 poems, was
published in 2008.
Mandai was Edwin Thumboo’s home. In a poem entitled At Mandai,
Professor Thumboo recalls the beginnings of the “village” where he grew
up:
Before the War our countryside enveloped You and me, helped stitch
prepositions To exponential numbers roaming among Dainty custard apples.
For the inquisitive, Slightly disobedient, there were little Infinities
in sound in light in the ant’s Unexpurgated sting...or how four fingers
moved To make a convenient abacus. Everything Narrated. Syabas!
Grandma’s tales were tragically real but where was Swatow Anyway! We
dreamt of them as fantasies, As games which adults played.
(Edwin Thumboo, At Mandai)
The Singapore’s Writers’ Festival for two of us was like roaming
among not only the “dainty custard apples” but also a platform for
meeting many writers from several countries.
The biennial Singapore Writers’ Festival is a major literary event in
Singapore and since the turn of the 21st century, has gained prominence
in both domestic and regional landscape.
This year’s Festival also focused heavily on Singapore’s neighbour
Malaysia. Two prominent writers from Malaysia spoke at featured
workshops of the Festival. One of them was K. S. Maniam. His interesting
stories have been staged, collected in notable anthologies and presented
in fictions (novels) titled The Return, (1981); In a Far County, (1993);
and Between Lives (2003). His prose is among the widely acclaimed work
of fiction on identity and displacement issues relating to Malaysia.
The other noteworthy Malaysian writer at the SWF was Wong Phui Nam.
Banker-turned poet, Wong Phui Nam examines both his rootedness and
his deracination (To displace from one’s native or accustomed
environment). Phui Nam’s poems have also appeared in Seven Poets, The
Second Tongue, The Flowering Tree, Young Commonwealth Poets ‘65, Poems
from India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaya. He was also published by
literary journals like Tenggara, Tumasek, South East Asian Review of
English. His mature poems are regarded as among the best Malaysian poems
in English, unsurpassed in their eloquence and linguistic richness. Most
of them are contemplative and draw their images from the local
landscape. Wong Phui Nam’s poetry explores the experience of living in
multi-cultural Malaysia.
The Festival started in 1986 as “Singapore Writers’ Week” as a
component of Singapore Festival of Arts (now knows as Singapore Arts
Festival) before striking it on its own to become “Singapore Writers’
Festival” in 1991. The Festival for us is also included a special
journey to Mandai to connect with beginning and departures of
Singapore’s old and new writings:
Thumboo has captured a similar theme about his place of birth:
Mandai to city connect beginnings departures and
Returns...with no anointing by the sky no Blessing from the earth no
healing by wind No bounty except the spirit’s wholeness
Edwin Thumboo drives us through meditative roads. Either side is full
of lush green vegetation. We drive through Woodlands; a suburb just
before Mandai. Edwin is an excellent driver and a great guide. He is
well-known for his hospitality, and strong desire for looking after old
and new friends alike.
We feel as if he speaks for more than one generation and landmarks
that have disappeared inside a time capsule. Though the physical
landscape around Mandai village has changed, this great poet carries all
those vanished trails in his mind, a repository of memory, knowledge and
wisdom. Thumboo as a senior poet of Singapore has witnessed the genesis,
growth and development of his country, similar to his experience of
changes to Mandai.
In his most famous and widely discussed poem, Ulysses by the Merlion,
Thumboo describes the evolution of his nation:
Peoples settled here, Brought to this island The bounty of these
seas, Built towers topless as Ilium’s.
They make, they serve, They buy, they sell.
Despite unequal ways, Together they mutate, Explore the edges of
harmony, Search for a centre; Have changed their gods, Kept some memory
of their race
(Edwin Thumboo, Ulysses by the Merlion)
In another poem, he described the development of his country from an
ordinary fishing village by sea to its current form of a modern
metropolis that is amongst the ten richest nations of the world in terms
of gross per capita income. (Singapore’s per capita income grew from
meager $512 in 1965 to $30,000 in 2008.) Thumboo has captured the
development in his Island:
Once there was a quiet island, with a name.
...
There were persons in this place.
Too young to know the sea, Aminah cried; Harun, who followed crab and
tide Ambitiously, learnt To keep the spray out of his eyes.
Their father in his bid To make a proper life, Lived the way his
father did.
Mangrove and palm Unfold in brittle shades of green.
Houses on stilts, boats drawn up The sand, the makeshift pier,
village shop, Smoke from kitchen fires, All frame a picture.
Romantic. Nostalgic.
But images change.
Nearby hills are pushed into the sea.
Tractors roar, lorries thrive Till the ochre of the land Scooped out
day and night, Crept upon the sand.
Aminah, Harun now reside in flats, Go to school while father Learns a
trade.
(Edwin Thumboo, Island)
During our brief visit, we also learnt about Singapore’s rich history
of literature and its multicultural writings. The Festival had several
sessions not only in English but also in Chinese, Tamil and Malay
languages representing the multi-cultural literary traditions of
Singapore. Sunil Govinnage told us that his Australia is yet to achieve
this multicultural creative power and those who write on Australia’s
multicultural policy should take a very closer look at Singapore’s case.
The landscape of our physical journey changes. Edwin provides
explanations.
Sunil interrupts and asks a question as he has taken this journey
with Thumboo earlier, perhaps many times. But for both of us and also
for Ronny Someck, this is a maiden journey down the memory lanes of one
of the world-class poets.
Edwin is indeed a public poet though he has begun to explore his
inner self with his spiritual and biblical poems in recent times.
Professor Lily Rose Tope of the University of the Philippines earlier
gave an excellent paper giving insights into Thumboo’s journey searching
for inner peace and spirituality.
Edwin drives with dexterity and there are no pedestrians or bullock
carts to manoeuvre like in our roads. He drives calmly and takes us into
in to serenity; a wonderful memory lane; a labyrinth engulfed with his
memories; the beginning of a wonderful poetic journey.
Edwin slows down the vehicle and shows us a large reservoir, which
collects water for his nation. Edwin has seen all these, the beginning
and changes of his country, which now draws not only tourists,
scientists, politicians, but also prominent writers and artists. The SWF
is an additional attraction.
The SWF has featured many writers from around the world and delighted
book lovers with literary celebrities’ such as Czech Republic Writer
Arnost Lustic, twice Man- Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell and
celebrated Chinese Writer, Yu Hua. This year’s distinguished people
included Professor Peter Nazareth from the University of Iowa who
launched an anthology of contemporary writings from Singapore entitled
TUMASIK.
The writers we met included Ronny Someck who is one of most
influential poets from Israel. Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951
and migrated to Israel with his parents as a young child.
He still speaks Arabic. Someck studied Hebrew literature and
philosophy at Tel Aviv University and drawing at the Avni Academy of
Art. He has worked with street gangs, and currently teaches literature
and leads creative writing workshops.
He has published ten volumes of poetry and his work has been
translated into 39 languages.
(During the festival, Sunil Govinnage translating one of Someck’s
poems into Sinhala made Someck’s poetry into 40 languages!).
Sunil Govinnage without any global or local literary prize tags or
awards was the only non-Singapore resident poet to read at two very
important events at the SWF; An Evening with Edwin Thumboo and
Dissecting Merlion Poems, and both of these events were highlights of
the Festival. Sunil shared with us how Edwin Thumboo discovered his
English writings in Perth and mentored him.
Sunil is unsure of his place in the globalized world roaming between
his two homes in Australia and Sri Lanka. He has published four volumes
of poetry in both Sinhala and English. His next collection of English
poems entitled Perth My Village Down Under is due to be out soon. He
claims his only wealth is having poets as friends around the world with
no assets or money in his pocket.
We enter Mandai and Thumboo slows down the vehicle at end of the
journey to Mandai showing us the entrance to the Singapore Zoo! This is
part of the changing landscape of Mandai. What came to our mind were the
changes of the landscape of Koggala, Sri Lanka’s foremost writer Martin
Wickramasinghe’s village. At least for Wickramasinghe, there is a
folk-museum giving visitors a window to his literary achievements.
However, in Mandai there is nothing to remember Edwin Thumboo, except
his own memory like the reservoir we passed a few minutes ago.
We begin the journey again and Prof. Thumboo directs our attention to
a hill site where his childhood memories are still carved into his mind
like a rare fossil. A part of the hill is now a mine where granite is
taken out to construct new buildings. For Thumboo, Mandai is still a
bundle of memory that has now subverted in time. However, it has given
him power to create poetry and immortalise vanishing memories through
words; the power only a poet could possess:
Daily rhythms gradually subverting into Time into power to compute,
arranging The shaded layers of memory, inventing Movement in the mind
...
(Edwin Thumboo, At Mandai).
Thumboo has indeed done that despite not having museums or even an
autobiography to tell his wonderful journey. Earlier Sunil Govinnage
mentioned the years of research he helped Thumboo with to come out with
an autobiography, which is yet to be published.
The Asia’s foremost poet in English language is still busy. He had
just finished a teaching assignment in Hong Kong. He came for the
opening event of the festival; spoke and took a plane early next morning
and came back in two days to participate at events focusing on his works
and achievements in Singapore literary scene.
Even at the age of 75 Thumboo has not slowed down. He is still
travelling fast and sharing his places of memories with us on this
occasion.
We hope to see the launch of his autobiography at the next SWF in
1911, or earlier and presume that we can make another journey to Mandai
with the same protagonists to learn about the changes to the landmark!
He has attracted us with his poetry and guided us by sharing his vast
knowledge on one of the world’s best writer’s festival.
We will continue this journey to learn a bit more about literary
figures, issues and trends of Singapore’s literary scene. Thanks for
Professor Thumboo and Sunil Govinnage, we now have a few literary
friends in Singapore. Rama Ramachandra, Robert Yeo, Professor Kirpal
Sing, Chris Mooney Sing, Alving Pang, and Aron Lee are amongst them. The
list is gorwing!
We begin the journey back to Singapore’s Writer’s Festival venue, The
Arts House located in the Old Parliament House. It is now a world
attraction and a window to Singapore’s world-class arts, drama and many
types of literary events.
We are going back with good memories and they cannot be simply
written down with words.
We have met some wonderful people, met old friends and made new
friends. We had good conversations and received hospitality of many
people at SWF. R. Ramachandra, the Chief Executive of the National
Library Board, Singapore deserves a special mention.
For two of us, these are not pure memories as articulated by Edwin
Thumboo in one of his recent poem entitled *Memories* in a different
context:
So these words with you behind. A pure rapture, because I chose our
friends and conversation, have them sit. (Edwin Thumboo, Memory) |