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Understanding death and smiling with life through poetry

Loneliness is a favourite theme for many poets and writers. Many of us dread loneliness but at the same time, we would be attracted towards it. This may be because in loneliness we learn about our inner selves and appreciate beauty of things around us better. I deem the above sentiments are correct about the poetess of this collection of poems as well.

Out of the experience of loneliness, there have arisen many themes in her mind that are befitting poetry.

Bereavement is the experience of loneliness and sorrow in its severest form. The sense of loneliness that was ingrained in her with her father's death when she was just a child has later become a kind of driving force and a light with the help of which she could see things around her in a new light.

She expresses them in her poems. Hence, a sensitive reader could feel a sense of glow, a calmness and a feathery lightness characteristic to her poetry.

In "Awareness of Death" one could experience the height of these qualities in her poetry."It was when I was six years old,

My precious cat was stiff and cold,

It was buried under a flowering tree,

I yearned and sighed to set it free.

When her pet cat died she was two young to understand the concept of death. So, when the carcass was buried, in the hope of setting her pet free, she dug the feline grave, and what she saw filled her with disgust and desperation.

This poem is one of the good examples I find in this collection that provides witness for Letitia Hewavisenthi's poetic excellence. Here, she handles a serious theme in the most simplest and beautiful manner understanding death and smiling with life simultaneously.

Another notable characteristic is the sense of innocence reflected in her poetry. Before this vast complex phenomenon - the world and this vast humanity, she is full of hope. She hopes that contentment and beauty of friendship prevails above other things. An innocent hope. In "A string of Pearls", she says:

In times of sorrow we weep together,

The secrets we share and gather,

A string of friendship is all I care,

As they have proved - they love and share,

Are they not my solace?

My strength, my

happiness, in this weary place,

Cultured pearls last for many years,

So are my friends - I salute with cheers.

The two examples here from 'Bloom like a Lotus' may be sufficient to prove the readability of the poems and the power of creativity of the poetess.

Many of her poems are stimulants for one's thoughts. They make you see the same old things around you in a new light and a new understanding.

The reader could sense the effortless flow of her poetic thoughts, in her handling of words.

There are enough hints all over her poetry that she is acquiring 'poetic discipline' in the process which is a sign of properly harnessed creativity.

Malini Govinnage

Principles of organic farming

Organic Farming

Reviewed by Prof. H. P. M. Gunasena

Organic farming is currently very popular both in developing and the developed world due to its multifaceted advantages. Having experienced the outcomes of the green revolution which began in the early sixties, organic farming scores heavily in the new millennium.

The high input agriculture on which the green revolution was based was too costly for the farmers of the developing world, it was more suitable for the pro-rich farmers of the developed world. Besides, excessive use of agrochemicals and fertilizers have resulted in environmental pollution, particularly in the developing countries which were the dump houses of these pesticides.

While environmental pollution continues unabated, the food containing these poisons are causing human misery through many known and unknown diseases, mainly cancer, the third largest killer of the world. There is a global demand for health foods which runs into millions of dollars annually due to this reason and they are popular both in the west and the east.

Organic agriculture, on the other hand is a suitable land use system which has been accepted from ancient times. Traditional shifting cultivation or chena farming practised by our ancestors was based on the principles of organic farming. This low cost, ecologically sustainable system of organic agriculture, offers wide opportunities for families living in the developing world.

This system not only cares the environment but also cares the people of the world. Dr. Thornton Smith has explicitly explained the principles of organic farming in his book giving details of how the soil fertility could be maintained and erosion controlled towards a safer environment. There are 32 sections in this book devoted to different aspects of organic farming.

The most interesting feature of this book is that each section stands on its own to explain to the reader how organic agriculture could be practiced under different situations.

There are sections on livestock and bee keeping which integrates crop and livestock into most effective systems of organic agriculture. The concept is therefore, not a piecemeal approach but a total system approach which is often ignored by many agriculturists. The essence of this publication is that what is available in nature could be used to foster soil regeneration, environmental protection and production of crops using low cost alternative technologies.

A further aspect of this book is that it emphasises on the conservation of biodiversity through the management process itself without too much effort.

When low cost systems agriculture are adapted, use of an integrated approach is a common option which leads to the conservation of biodiversity.

Many pests and diseases could be managed at required levels by the use of integrated agriculture as clearly stated in this book.

A major drawback of organic agriculture that is often cited is the low yield of crops. Some opine this as a disadvantage on the basis that domestic food supplies has to be improved to sustain the growing population, particularly in the developing countries where the population growth is highest.

However, it has to be noted that organic farming is expanding worldwide due to the demand for healthier foods. Although the total yield may be lower, the profit margins are much higher than the chemically grown foods sold presently in the markets. In fact, recognising the value of health foods the farmers and the food chains world over have established health food stores which are patronised by many irrespective of the age groups.

Sri Lanka has not taken advantage of the opportunity to encourage farmers to grow organic foods in an organised manner, but it is most timely to capture this opportunity.

As the author clearly identifies, it could reduce the import of expensive agrochemicals and fertilizers at a tremendous drain of foreign exchange while organically produced products could easily be exported.

The author has also made several suggestions to the institutions concerned how organic farming could be encouraged starting from the school level to those including the large scale plantations. This will be a pointer to the tea and spice growers of this country to achieve higher marketing margins for their products. Already some plantation companies are growing organically produced teas for export which fetch very high prices.

The author has also focused on issues regarding marketing of organic products and the need for quality standards. Marketing of produce is the most important problem in the production chain facing agriculture in this country. Effective marketing of any product will require identification of markets which require market intelligence.

Marketing nitches for organic products will be available locally and more in the foreign countries as there is a great demand for tropically grown products.

Empathic study of Lankan migrant housemaids

Reviewed by Frances Bulathsinghala

The stories, the good, the bad, the sad and the gory, of women who leave the shores of Sri Lanka for the arid soil of the middle east in the hope of a pot of gold unavailable in their own land, have been told many times, in newspapers, over the radio.

They provoke visuals bordering on sensationalism which manage to raise a moment of pity, derision and accusation all rolled into one, which begin when an exceptional housemaid's case is reported (housemaids arriving at the airport bandaged and swathed) and fades off at the bottom of a newspaper and the flicking off of a television. Michele Ruth Gamburd, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Portland State University in her book 'Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids', a painstaking 249 pages, has laid bare the socio-economic background which made village women transform themselves from kitchen hands to the breadwinner for the family. What is unique about Prof. Gamburd's book is that it is humane. It does not venture to deal with flamboyant analysis but takes in the entire picture which has a depth arising from research into female labour and the changes it has spurred in gender relations, class status.

The research is based on women in a coastal village, Naeaegama, a region between Kalutara and Ambalangoda, which had acted as surrogate home for the author who accompanied her parents in 1968 as a two year old, trailing her mother, Geraldine E. Gamburd, a graduate student in anthropology from the Columbia University who was studying the nine generation kinship network central to all village interactions and relations. Friendship made then had years later proved to be invaluable to Gamburd who says in her book that she could not have managed with her research and interaction with the local people if not her Sri Lankan playmates who when grown into adults transformed themselves into sound research assistants.

The concept of globalisation, its effect on Asia and the international and transnational dynamics and the concept of global implosion are all dealt with focussing on the qualitative experiences of individual migrants exploring how new economic opportunities transform local, national and international power structures.Under the chapter, 'Migrant mothering: on Love and Money', Gamburd lays before the reader the economic hardship and dearth of employment opportunities that since the early 1970s have coerced women to earn money in alien countries, amidst alien cultures.

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