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Amaradeva's role in adapting the Sinhala folk song into modern usage and idiom

by M.B. Mathmaluwe

Watching the TV programme 'Amara Sara Vandana' on the ITN Channel the other night (06.04.'02), organised to felicitate Pandit Amaradeva by his students, on his receiving the coveted "Padmashiri" Award from the Government of India, one could not but marvel at how fortunate our country has been to be blessed with so great an artiste as this precious son of hers.

here is a genius that frugal nature might throw upon this earth perhaps, once in a thousand years. Caught in the sweep of a rare tide of human affairs, this great man has been placed today on a pinnacle of prestige, honour and glory. The nation rejoices at such good fortune; he deserves every bit of it. It now seems, at least this part of the world has exhausted all its high honours to shower upon him. No honour seems to be too prestigious to be offered to him!

When the country's contemporary musical scene passes and is no more, a time will come no doubt, when students will study and make assessment of the extent of his contribution to the nation's cultural treasure and it might then emerge that he has made a very considerable contribution in reviving, adapting and re-orienting the traditional folk songs, verses and ditties that have been fast disappearing from use on account of their antiquity and incompatibility with modern usage. Amaradeva has tackled this task -- this word is used advisedly for, it is difficult, requiring artistry, verbal dexterity and finesse -- with the consummate skill of the Maestro that he is.

Amaradeva has often admitted that he has been deeply involved in beating into form, a language capable of being the medium of the fine nuances of poetic thought and, he no doubt, is aware of the difficulties encountered by one setting out to adapt the folk idiom to blend harmoniously with the modern usage. However, the exercise is worth the effort for, the folk idiom forms a considerable component of our literary heritage indeed, if it could be drawn into the current idiom, and functionally used, it would certainly enhance and enrich it.

It would be worthwhile to understand the genesis and nature of the folk, idiom, to understand the arduous nature of Amaradeva's contribution in this field. The folk idiom, as the term indicates, has it genesis in the folk tradition, its life and environment. This is clear from the fact that each community, sharing a common culture, beliefs and values, -- as T.S. Eliot says, "the blood-kinship of the same people living in the same place" in his "After Strange Gods" -- has its own folk tradition, its own articulate idiom as distinct from those of another group.

This could be better understood if one examines the symbol, the metaphor, the myth and the parable used by the Buddha and Christ in their teachings; if one agrees that these two represent two entirely different social, cultural and economic backgrounds then one should also agree that their modes of communication should differ too, in the matter of the idiom they used. The Buddha drew his metaphor and symbol from the scenes that formed an organic component of the environment of his time, thus, he spoke of the river, the flood, the raft, the cart, the wheel, the plough, the ploughman, the yoke, whereas Christ spoke of things that he saw and experienced from his environment through sensory perception, of course, he spoke of the corn the birds, the vine, the vineyard, the lamb, the shepherd, the fisherman and the fish.

The folk idiom therefore, is a linguistic manifestation that found conception and grew on nourishment peculiar to a social, economic and cultural climate obtaining at the time of its genesis. It should follow then, that deprived of that climate and that environment its functional use also should cease and, if used, for some reason, it would not be a functional use. That is why those who set out to weld the old folk idiom into modern linguistic usage find their exercise so difficult, the two things do not so easily and harmoniously blend.

In the early '90s, the TV put on a series of programmes where we were shown Amaradeva together with Madawala S. Ratnayake, another gifted writer and poet, a man particularly equipped to do this for, his roots were firmly planted in the village, rendering a number of these folk songs and 'Sivupadas' (quatrains) most successfully to please the modern listener. Amaradeva's beautiful melodies like,

"Kanda uding ena kikiliya gomariye ...."

"Pila padura henata aeragena yanava ....", and

"Bambareku aavai nirita digeya ....." that are today, favourites of listeners, were the products of this period, very probably.

When one considers how a living language grows, in a way, one need not lament the event of our folk usages, the songs, the verses, even the proverbs and their idiom passing away for, that is all a part of the growth of a living language, it discards the old, archaic and the obsolete and, like a tree putting on new leaves, takes on new words and usages. T. S. Eliot puts this idea better, this way:

"We become conscious of the items (i.e., items of the Folk Tradition) or conscious of their importance, usually, only after they have fallen into desuetude, as we are aware of the leaves of a tree when the Autumn wind begins to blow them off -- when they have separately ceased to be vital. Energy may be wasted at that point in a frantis endeavour to gum them on to the branches, but the sound tree puts forth new leaves, and the dry tree should be put to the axe".

from "Points of View", extracted from, "After Strange Gods".

But the difficulties of fusing the folk usage into the current idiom are obvious, such a fusion of something alien to a living language may still remain non-functional for they may continue to remain outside the reader's/speaker's direct sensory experience. it would be a second-hand or recreated experience like that of a Sri Lankan who has never visited a snow-bound scene and felt its rigours, himself, responding to the word, "Winter". This should be the case with every metaphor, symbol, myth, they would remain spurious transplants in the speaker's language.

One example may make this statement clear: in the days when travelling was on foot, slow and leisurely, those who undertook long journeys rested or spent a night perhaps, in a way-side "ambalama" (a resting shed); for them the "ambalama" was an integral component of their daily life, as such, the concept formed a part of their current linguistic usages. a villager would say, 'life was only an ambalama in the long journey of sansara (transmigration)', meaning that we sojourn here only for a short while and the long journey commences again, birth after birth.

They would say something was like an ambalama when they meant that it belonged to everybody. But today, to us who have swifter means of travel, the word 'ambalama' can no longer evoke the same sensory responses for it is no longer a functional component of our lives, whatever felt would not be first-hand or intimate.

The effort made here is to stress the extremely difficult nature of the assignment Amaradeva has taken upon himself, deprived of the sensory experiences, it is not easy to transplant the old folk idiom in the modern linguistic soil and climate. it would require great finesse and skill and the ingenuity and mature judgement of an Amaradeva! If it is not done with the care and circumspection called for, the end-result could be a disaster. It is not everyone who can do it.

This was proved when once, a poet of the Colombo period, B. H. Amarasena, tried to render the 'Lament of Yasodara' as coming in that beautiful little Folk Poem, "Yasodaravata" that has, for generations, called our village wives/mothers to conjugal fidelity and love. The new rendering he produced was an unqualified disaster! The pure poetry and expression and the refined and restrained emotion found in the verses of the original work of the unknown Folk poet, were totally destroyed. It was coarse, vulgar, lacking in taste and, even embarrassing to the reader!

Preserving the old tradition with the new would certainly be a good thing, but to take it over wholesale or as a clumsily 're-conditioned' article would not serve a harmonious or functional purpose in the new idiom, it would be like flogging a dead horse. Giving a new lease of life to the folk arts would be a different exercise, call for a deep sense of perception and expertise, transferred haphazardly into the new soil, would make it spurious. Martin Wickramasinghe who had a keen eye and ear for folk literature has this to say on the nature of folk poetry:

".... traditional (folk) poetry having no roots in the contemporary soil withers like an uprooted plant .... they are untranslatable because in an English translation, their suggestive meaning, poetry and rhythm will be lost."

.... in an article submitted to The Quarterly Review of Maharagama Training College. It is in this context that one cannot help marvelling at some of the beautiful renderings of the Folk poems into new songs by Amaradeva.

The large corpus of lyrics in which he has succeeded in capturing the best in the old and welding it into the new, is truly praiseworthy.

There is much more work to do in this field. It is hoped he will live long enough to complete this great task.

European film week May 3 to 9

A European film festival jointly organised by the National Film Corporation (NFC), European Business Information Centre, European Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka and the Delegation of the European Commission to Sri Lanka will be held from May 3 to 9 at the Elphinstone Theatre, Maradana.

The festival will consist of ten films. The schedule is as follows. May 3: 3.00 pm and 6.30 pm - Rasmus and the Vagabond (Sweden), May 4: 3.00 pm - Daens (Belgium), 6.30 pm - Western (France), May 5: 3.00 pm - Based on the Novel (The Netherlands), 6.30 pm - The Head is Spinning (Italy), May 6: 3.00 pm - Mifune (Denmark), 6.30 pm - A Matter of Taste (France), May 7: 3.00 pm - Western (France), 6.30 pm - Daens (Belgium), May 8: 3.00 pm - Paradise (Germany), 6.30 pm - No Trains, No Planes (The Netherlands), May 9:- 3.00 pm and 6.30 pm - England (Germany). The film festival is free of charge and the invitations can be obtained from the NFC, No.224, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7.

Nadira Gunatilleke

She captures the mood of Islamic women

A two day art exhibition by Indian artist Akila Saifi was held at the Lionel Wendt Arts Theatre last week. During the last few months Akila was living in Sri Lanka with her husband a veteran banker. Born in Mumbai, she has been enthusiastically painting since her schooldays. The hustle and bustle of life in the City of Maharastra, perhaps the biggest Indian City did not desist Akila from continuing her painting.

Earlier she successfully presented her first solo exhibition at the Arts Centre in Dubai. Her exhibition at the Lionel Wendt was her second. Many a Sri Lankan who attended the exhibition appreciated her forty presentations, a range of mixed media.

None of her paintings portrayed the busy life of Indians. Instead she had attempted to express the loneliness of Islamic women and their spiritual and emotional expressions.

Commonwealth Arts and Crafts Awards 2002

The Commonwealth Foundation is offering promising young artists and crafts people the opportunity to explore their skills in an international context. Ten awards of Sterling Pounds 6,000 each will be made to help winning artists travel to another Commonwealth country to work with other artists or be attached to an arts institution for a period of between six and nine months.

The awards aim to give crafts people and artists the chance to share their skills, exchange ideas, develop their talents and create a network of artists around the Commonwealth.

To be eligible, artists must:

* be aged between 22 and 35

* be a citizen of a Commonwealth country

* be resourceful, self-reliant and able to plan, organise and manage their own award programme

* have had little previous experience of working in another country

* be experienced in one of the following artforms: basketry, ceramics, decorative arts, glass, installation art, jewellery, painting, papier mache, printmaking, recycled materials, sculpture, silversmithing, textiles and woodcarving.

Please note that the award is not intended for study leading to a degree. Neither is it intended for travel between any two of the following countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Deadline for completed applications: 1 October 2002.

Further information and application forms can be found on the Commonwealth Foundation's website at www.commonwealthfoundation.com. Or write to: The Project Manager, The Commonwealth Arts and Crafts Awards, The Commonwealth Foundation, Marlborough House, Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5HY, United Kingdom. Tel +44 20 7930 3783. Fax +44 20 7839 8157.

E-mail [email protected]

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