A novel of merriment

Civil Sevayen Vishrama Giyemi
Author: Gunaratne Ekanayake
A Nipun publication

Reviewed by Somapala Arandara

Gunaratne Ekanayake has published a novel entitled Civil Sevayen Vishrama Giyemi (I retired from Civil Service) in Sinhala. On a superficial level the general reader accepts it as an autobiographical novel. On a second stratum, this novel is a relentless critique of the body politic in Sri Lanka. On yet another layer, it is a Utopian work of a writer who dreams of social reforms yet to be done.

The narrative drive and broad range of emotion make this a fine novel. The author's clarity and dexterous handling of language and quick flow of action are outstanding features of his merit as a story teller. Had the second paragraph of Chapter One appeared as the opening para, it would have been more captivating.

The salient aspects of the novel being the kind of people he comes from, and so what kind of world he grew up in; the friends and associates affecting him and affected by him; what errors and mischances underlie his life, we perceive, in the end, that the novelist has presented us with nothing less than the totality of a man's life.

Protagonist

Jayawardene, the protagonist, was born to a family of nine children. They were from a rustic village off Kandy. Jayawardene says at the outset: “I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

A garden, a paddy field of about half an acre and a land of an acre of mixed crops belonged to his father who had inherited them from his parents. Jayawardene's father mentions that with a deep sense of gratitude and loyalty to them.

The hero modestly describes how his parents earned a little more by doing odd jobs to help bear the family expenses. Jayawardene's father cultivated his stretch of fields so as to keep a stock of food to feed the family right through the year.

His mother worked as a domestic aide and as a helper at a brick-kiln. His father explains why they exert so much energy to earn their daily bread: “We struggle with the soil not merely to feed you but also to dispel from you the suffering we are undergoing. Therefore, make it a point to learn well.”

Feudal setup

Jayawardene grew up in a village still tinged with a feudal set-up or influenced by remnants of feudal overlordship and arrogance. The chief of the village was the Aratchi or Headman. Other men of importance were the Headmaster and the chief incumbent of the temple. The system of central schools created by Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara, the philanthropic Minister of Education was a boon to poor students such as Jayawardene to go up the social ladder.

It was therefore, a high regard for the family when their children secured high office in the government service. Jayawardene won a scholarship at Grade Five, passed his GCE A/L examination at Walala Central School and entered the university. After graduation he was appointed a teacher in a Government school. He sat the Civil Service Examination and became a Civil Servant with his first posting to Ampara.

Being honest and ambitious, he worked hard. Consequently, he was made a Divisional Revenue Officer. His romantic affair with a married and seductive female clerk produces a titillating sensation in the mind of the reader. The presentation of the sexy behaviour of the two is done with restraint. Thereby the novel gains artistic value.

Jayawardene's neighbourhood friends and his campus batch-mates are decent, beneficent and loyal ones who stand by him. Even after retirement, Jayawardene associated with William the peon until the latter's death.

Mischances

There are, however, errors and mischances underlying the hero's life. His intimacy with his paramour, Nanda, shows that even a haughty Civil Servant being an exuberant young officer has his inner frailty before sex. His neglect of her only request regarding her son's interview is not a peccadillo but proof of his aloofness. But it appears well nigh selfishness.

Moreover, his total failure to do something positive about the road and electricity in his own village brought to his notice time and again by the Headmaster, the Chief Incumbent and his own father cannot be condoned since it was a common cause for the well-being of the village. Here, his honesty and gratitude are questionable. This adamant and negligent nature reveals his self-centred and ambitions character who is blind to the give-and-take policy. These details do not allow him to be a tragic hero in the mind of the reader.

Critique

On a second stratum, the novel is a critique of the Sri Lankan body-politic. Politicians in power wish to make minions out of civil servants to seek their personal gain. In this instance, if I remember right, an autobiography of a Civil Servant called M. Chandrasoma, entitled “Vignettes of Ceylon Civil Service, 1948-1957” comes to my mind.

There he shows how the honourable, independent and authoritative Civil Service begins to crash at the behest of a Marxist Minister when the harbour workers rose up in rebellion in the post - 1956 era. With the radical change of government in 1956, the politicians who were swept to power, were over-enthusiastic, eccentric and frantic. In their overjoyed frenzy, workers too began to make numerous undue demands but were not checked. So the standard of good governance tragically came down. The time factor which involves the plot of Ekanayake's novel is quite puzzling.

The setting of the protagonist's village under the rule of an Aratchi points to a pre-1957 period as the system of administration of villages by a new brand of officers known as Grama Sevakas came into being in 1957 or so.

But the propaganda of the so-called profuse “development” activities came to light in 1973. And that year was proclaimed the “Year of production” under which scheme, priority was given to “grow more food” drive and the cultivation of crops such as manioc and yams since the country had faced a grave shortage of food.

Abolished

In 1972, the Ceylon Civil Service was abolished and replaced by the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka under the stewardship of the then Minister of Public Administration. This was the turning point of the downfall of the Civil Service by whatever name it was called.

The transfer of bright senior Civil Servants at that time to outstations simply because they held high posts during the previous regime was a mark of overbearing madness and imprudence of the politicos in power.

The Civil Service at that time had not been involved in corruption and commission - hunting. It all commenced from mid - 1970s on a large scale and has prevailed so up to date under all regimes.

Or is it the pomp and fan-fare of development under the present regime? In this manner the time factor involved with development referred to in Ekanayake's novel is a bit confounding.

Satire

Many pages of this novel are devoted to direct political satire but we may safely guess that only a very few of its appreciative readers are aware of even the most patent particular references. On a third layer, this novel is a creation by the author who seems to indulge in dreaming of a Utopian state.This is an absorbing novel which may evoke the interest of the reader. This is a production so new and strange that it fills the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and amazement. It will certainly be received with much avidity by high and low, the learned and the illiterate.

Readers who wish to indulge in a harmless play of fancy will do well to ignore the strand of satiric element. Gunaratne Ekanayaka walks with the characters with verve and aplomb.