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| Wednesday, 19 May 2004 |
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Focus on books Notes on country's indiscipline by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra
Instead he had handed over the certificate awarded to him at convocation to a professor, who had paid a courtesy call saying that 'keep this as a memento to remember me'. The good professor had taken it home and it is to be seen even today. This is a true story retold by Sarath Wijesuriya, the senior lecturer in Sinhala studies attached to the University of Colombo in his latest collection of essays titled 'Vinayak neti rataka' (In an ill disciplined country). He makes use of this actual event to illustrate how bogus doctorates can be either obtained or awarded by certain pseudo academic organisations that brand themselves as international foundations, with the sole intention of earning money. According to Wijesuriya those people so award and receive the same should be punished, for they use these tags abroad for monetary gains. Wijesuriya, the essayist takes the reader a long journey around such areas as mass media units, educational institutes, cultural units with special emphasis on the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. One of the most interesting elements in the various events are packed with human interest he had observed. When one of the well-known translators Chinta Sinharachchi passed away, her funeral was made to be known to the (then) secretary of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. That administrator according to Wijesuriya had not even taken any interest in the matter to the extent that even a note of condolences was not sent. Meanwhile a messenger had gone to the house and requested the husband of the late translator to send a letter of request in order to obtain a certain sum of money to meet funeral expenses, which is given as an honorarium to any artist. This Wijesuriya deems as a kind of unsympathetic gesture on the part of the Cultural Ministry. There is one more event that I read with interest, when the late president Ranasinghe Premadasa had not given any responsible portfolio to Minister Gamini Disanayaka, he is said to have kept silent in the first instance. Then he had asked Mr. Premadasa, Portfolio 'Sir, why don't you at least make me the Minister of Cultural Affairs?' Most of these essays have appeared in Sinhala Sunday newspapers and a few have been newly added, for this anthology. There are quite a lot of tirades on the lethargic drawbacks on the activities of literary panels, drama panels and the festivals connected with them. He observes that mere administrative structures linked with financial regulations have warped the spirit of action needed for the contemporary literary and cultural activities. In all, there are thirty eight long and short essays, which centre round various aspects linked to Media, Education and Culture. Perhaps much more than the general reading value, I feel that some of the socio-historical facts embedded are of significance. In a fearless mood and without defamation he takes people into account citing their names. At times he is sympathetic towards them and at times he is ironic. For example, he says that in a country where there is a severe scarcity of literary critics, a certain magistrate had to shoulder it, writing regular reviews. He lays bare one good example on the efficiency of administration as follows. Once the Minister of Cultural Affairs had told the President: 'My officers are quite efficient, for I got a file with a note 'I saw' (mama ditimi) signed by eight officers' 'So what did you do to the file?' asked the President. 'I jotted down the words 'I also saw' and passed on to my secretary. This according to Wijesuriya, though is a laughable matter, but in reality it is a serious drawback. Wit Similarly in the absence of a good poetry critic for the modern times, a certain dentist had to undertake the task of fulfilling the function. But the end product that came as a collection of a essays on modern Sinhala poetry was rejected by a certain university don, saying that the collection should be rejected as it does not carry footnotes as in the case of the conventional research works. I see a tinge of wit and humour flowing beneath these essays. Wijesuriya shows a sense of independence where he states that he had attempted to fulfil a long desired necessity. Though he has written quite a number of articles to Sinhala newspapers, he now wants to keep himself silent by presenting these pieces. In his long preface to the book he shows the challenges of a rationalist and seems to take the stance of the teacher at all levels as independent as possible as a great humanistic function in moulding a better society. Taking a synoptic view of his essays in the collection, Vinayak neti rataka, I felt that he has the strong tendency to express his displeasure as a university don, toward the entire gamut of things happening around him. Perhaps as a creative writer he would have utilised most of these material to write short stories and novels. But it looks as if he has abandoned giving preference to the latter over and above the former. But one sees the traces of creativity in some of these essays, gripping the reader as a page mover. *********** Sensitive Tamil transcreations Thenillankai Kavithai
53 poems from South Sri Lanka are transcreated here. Wisely, Pathmanathan does not confine himself to poets writing in English: all the 'canonical' figures of Sri Lankan English poetry, with the notable exception of the late Patrick Fernando, are represented here by their best (or best-known) poems. Unfortunately Jean Arasanayagam is represented here by Remembering Nallur - 1984 which, in my opinion, is one of her weaker poems: it seems somewhat strained, overwrought and unconvincing in its attempt to superimpose images of war, death and destruction on typical Nallur temple festival scenes. She has written more memorable poems and it's a pity that Pathmanathan opted to transcreate this poem perhaps because it centres round a temple which is close to the Jaffna Tamil Hindu psyche, especially in the aftermath of Black July '83. Pathmanathan has also transcreated (via English renderings) Sinhala poets like Mahagamasekera, Parakrama Kodituwakku, Monica Ruwanpathirana and Ariyawansa Ranaweera. So one could say that this slim volume (neatly produced with a computer graphics designed cover) is a representative collection of the Southern Muse. Persona The first poem is Mahagamasekera's Prabuddha (English rendering by Ranjini Obeysekera). The poet dons the persona of an ordinary man who was not born to riches to implicitly critique (not through abstract arguments but by confronting the ideal with mundane realities) the Buddhist ideal of renunciation. The speaker says he cannot renounce his family because if he does so, his wife and infants will ultimately starve to death. Thus it's the compassion he feels towards his family (glossed as attachment by Buddhism) which prevents him from turning his back on them. The poem concludes by his appealing to Prince Siddhartha to show him a way whereby not only he as a lone individual but also along with thousands of others collectively, can sever the ties of attachment. There's one other poem by Mahagamasekera, The Moon and New York City, which expresses the sense of complete alienation felt by the poet in this concrete jungle. When he opens the window and looks skywards he sees the familiar moon which immediately brings back nostalgic memories of the moon-lit paddy fields in his native village and of the full moon lighting up the bo-tree in the village temple, every Poya Day. Prabuddha is immediately followed by Ariyawansa Ranaweera's Rahula is Born (English rendering by E. M. G. Edirisinghe). In tone, this is the diametrical opposite of Mahagamasekera's poem. The poet imagines Siddhartha addressing his son Rahula: "Sleep, search for me not, my son so tender A world full of bliss unto you I render." Compared with Mahagamasekera's radical view, this poem expresses well the orthodox, conventional view. Space will not permit me to comment on all the poems. Therefore I shall concentrate on those that appeal to me. Moving His transcreations of some of Anne Ranasinghe's Holocaust poems are as moving as the English originals. As Prof. Ashley Halpe has aptly observed "Anne Ranasinghe has made an aesthetic and ethic of memory." In July '83 she links up the Nazi killers with Black July '83 in Sri Lanka, 40 years later: "and I - though related only by marriage feel myself both victim and accused" Incidentally, I wonder whether Anne Ranasinghe has written a poem (or poems) about the terrible plight of the Palestinians who are being brutally victimised by the Israelis, a once-oppressed people. Which only goes to show that there is no special virtue in being an oppressed people because they are just as likely to become brutal oppressors themselves overnight: there are local examples close to hand. All this is by the way and not intended as disparagement of her undoubted poetic talent or to cast aspersions on her patent sincerity. I must thank Pathmanathan for his discovery of Upananda Karunatilleke's poem Corbett's Gap where the poet subtly and unobtrusively transforms topography into a symbolic landscape: "And the boy said, 'This is the Gap' We thought we could see far below, But there was only mist swirling, so we headed back The boy pointing out as we descended Their row of gloomy line rooms, Where women after tea plucking pottered around Watching across the slope the tennis by the summer-house And tea served English style." Another noteworthy poem is Karunatilleke's Nineteen Fifty Six - Part 2 where the poet narrates his experience of "The second spell of duty that election week Was a tea estate town Steep crossroad in a mountain bazaar Deafened by waterfalls." He goes on to relate: "Was it your luck, love, or the black cat's That found us that night in a cosy estate bungalow Magically empty. The sad South Indian type who cooked our dinner Appeared lonely and wanted to talk. We asked him about tomorrow's poll And found out the reason for his sadness. He had voted, he said, with all the lusty joy of voting In every election since Independence He couldn't vote on the morrow He was no more a citizen" (emphasis mine). There's a further twist of the knife at the end: "By strange chance it was our polls result. It brought a pang of sadness for our previous evening's caretaker The name over the radio was that of the bazaar lawyer." How much more powerful these lines are - because they focus on a concrete person - than all the harangues in Parliament about the disenfranchisement of the Indian tea estate workers by the then UNP Government because their votes had helped to return predominantly left-wing candidates in the up-country electorates in the very first General Election, held in 1947. Reputed I now turn to his renderings of Yasmine Gooneratne's Big Match 1983 and Basil Fernando's Yet Another Incident in July '83. The former is better known and reputed for its sophistication, irony and balance. As a Tamil, when I look at the poem more closely I think the comparison with the Big Match is completely askew (after all, there was only one team playing!) and somewhat callous though it masquerades as sophisticated irony. Her cock-eyed balance amounts only to this: A hundred guns raised above Jaffna's palmyra fences'. Apart from the stereotype of the Palmyra fences (no longer true even of the villages), only poetic licence can sanction the reference to a hundred guns. At the time of the ambush of the military patrol in July '83, there were less than fifteen hard-core militants. Thanks to President JR's (and his henchmen's) ill-conceived pogrom, the ranks of the militants have swelled since then much to the discomfiture (to put it mildly) of successive governments. If Yasmine's poem is suave, Basil's is stark. Its language is spare and unembellished: "Yet I remember the way they stopped that car, the mob. There were four in that car, a girl, a boy (between four and five it seemed) and their parents - I guessed - the man and the woman. It was in the same way they stopped other cars. I did not notice any marked difference. A few questions in gay mood, not to make a mistake I suppose, then they proceeded to action, by then routine. Pouring petrol and all that stuff. Then someone noticing something odd as it were, opened the two left side doors, took away the two children, crying and resisting as they were moved away from their parents..... Someone practical was quick, lighting a match efficiently. An instant fire followed, adding one more tok many around...... Then suddenly the man inside breaking open the door, was out, his shirt already on fire and hair too. Then bending, too his two children. Not even looking around as if executing a calculated decision, he resolutely re-entered the car. Once inside he closed the door himself - I heard the noise distinctly. Still the ruined car is there, by the road-side with other such things. May be the Municipality will remove it one of these days to the Capital's garbage pit. The cleanliness of the Capital receives Authority's top priority. Consciousness Though the poet had stated later that he had not witnessed this particular incident personally, his poem is virtually an eye-witness, report and by its very matter-of-factness it sears our consciousness and conscience and is as heart-rending as John Hersey's Hiroshima. I'd like to wind up with a reference to his effective renderings of Parakrama Kodituwakku's Kusumawathi and Court Inquiry of a Revolutionary and Monica Ruwanpathirana's Podiduwa and Streetwalker. They introduce into poetic discourse the hitherto muted voice of the marginalised and the downtrodden, something barely audible in Sri Lankan English poetic discourse, with the possible exception of the late Lakdasa Wickramasingha's The Death of Ashanthi. I'm afraid I cannot agree with my friend Gamini Haththotuwegama's assessment of this poem: "His concern for the humble is best seen in that most gentle and moving story told by this gifted story-teller - The Death of Ashanthi, with its many-sided observations and its perfect direction and control of feeling." Though Lakdasa's poem is a harsh expose of the sexploitation of the servant girl by the aristocrats (the poem bears the sub-title Nuwarawalauva Kotte 1974) and others the reader's indignation and sympathy are somewhat dissipated by the touch of romanticism in the lines: I noticed her ear-lobes They were longer than usual as if gold rings of great intricacy and weight had hung from them" These lines are reminiscent of Baudelaire's To a Red-Haired Beggar Girl where the poet indulges in erotic fantasies which have little to do with the beggar-girl: "Gaping tatters in each garment prove your calling is not only beggary but beauty as well, and to a poet equally 'reduced' the frail and freckled body you display makes its own appeal - queens in velvet buskins take the stage less regally than you wade through the mud in your wooden clogs" (Richard Howard's translation) Baudelaire's poem oscillates between these erotic fancies he's indulging in and the wretched reality: "Meanwhile here you are, begging scraps doled out by the local table d' hote at the kitchen door." Lakdasa's poem moves from Ashanthi's 'marsh howl', with the focus shifting to her ear-lobes and it ends on a rather surreal, danse macabre note: "and then the familiar black stork danced in the hall once more, among an army of spines, an army of men centuries old who watched and gloated as she lay upon my lap, packed with white seed." Way back in 1988 when Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha published his pioneering anthology of Sri Lankan English poets he had to tackle head-on the question whether there were any worthwhile poems being written in English by Sri Lankans. Now that particular question has been answered once and for all with a resounding 'yes', I would like to conclude by urging him to publish a new, expanded edition covering not only Sri Lankan poets writing in English but also representative Sinhala and Tamil poets transcreated in English. Such an anthology will be truly representative of the Sri Lankan Muse. - A. J. Canagaratna
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Produced by Lake House |
When the late great monk scholar Ven. Yakkaduve Pragnarama was honoured
by a university, with an honorary doctorate (D. Litt) he did not take it
seriously. He was not bothered about it to the point that he never used it
as an additional tag to illuminate his name.
S. Pathmanathan - a Tamil poet in his own right and a notable
translator who gave us African Poems (2001) - has now turned his attention
to the Sri Lankan Southern Muse in this path-finding work dedicated to the
Hiru Group which has striven against all odds to bring Sinhala and Tamil
artistes together as a first step towards improving Sinhala-Tamil ties.
