Humanistic researcher’s

Kider Chetty Street
 

by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra

I am not too sure how to define and understand what a modern short story means in the literary context for going through some of the best stories today, written in various parts of the world, one finds it difficult to give a conventional definition to the structure and the content of a narrative form evolved over the years as a special genre.

Each writer of creativity has his own way of expressing an experience in his own way of presenting the situations, conflicts, and character portrayals as some prefer to say it in a well formed or formulated story form, while some others prefer to say it in an alternative form like a series of dialogues or monologues or any other form as the structure and the content demands from the point of view of the creator.

When I finished reading the ten interlinked narratives of Jagath Kumarasinghe’s Kider Chetty Street (winner of the Gratiaen literary prize 2004, Sooriya edition 2005), I found myself immersed in a galaxy of characters drawn from various walks of life, where a multinational and multi ethnic groups (Sinhala Tamil, Muslims, Hindus, Malays, Burghers etc) loiter in their fascinating mannerisms, inherent to themselves most of whom are dwellers in around the Kider Chetty Street, a fictitious, but felt as a real one anywhere in a semi suburban vicinity where lots of things happen internally and externally in their lives with various beliefs and interactions.

Unconventional

The ten stories in this collection each carrying a separate title could be either read separately or as related stories.

They are mostly unconventional investigative creations with various layers of meanings with a mission. Take for instance one fine story that I liked most, the last one titled ‘the last bird man,’ where the reader comes across a gradually vanishing character, who was seen some years ago in urban corners who forecasts the destiny of people with the help of birds (budgerigars) caged and allowed to come out and peck cards placed outside.

Now, who can wonder a story could be woven around such a man? But Kumarasinghe does not create a mere story around the man or about the man.

Instead he has various layers of experiences laid on the birdman, like his private life, his connections with the outer world, his fantasies, his sick wife lying in the hospital ward, how he is being bribed by the gate keeper to enter the ward, the elopement and the childlessness, how he is being pawned by others, how he hides himself in the hospital toilet to keep off from the hospital chief, his isolation and the love towards the birds, and his sorrow at the death of his birds and the changing of his profession from the bird man to a fruit vendor etc.

All these events take an interspersed structure of its own and there is no clear cut simple narrative line as seen in conventional creations.

In this manner Kumarasinghe possesses a wealth of multi-dimensional narrative style of his own which is being superimposed by various other elements like religious and spiritual susceptibilities, metaphysical undertones, wit and humour, fantasy and folklore.

One superb example is the story titled, ‘notes on a talisman’ which basically centres round the follies of a wedding ceremony presented with a tinge of humour and gradually culminating in various other dimensions like sicknesses, misgivings, superstitions and deaths.

The creator of situations in each case, Kumarasinghe is seen quite detached from the events as he presents them in a sensitive dramatic manner possible pairing down the commentaries to the minimum. Even in the case of commenting, he would rather prefer to use a parabolic or anecdotal manner.

One example goes as follows: “And it is jungle green as the jungle of this wood apple country, where wild elephants and ants roam, and where pumpkins abound, and pumpkins are much larger than the ants. And men are more Herculean than the pumpkins and the ants. And the elephants are larger than the men, the pumpkins and the ants.” (p 113)

Fresh and simplistic

This form of narrative structure is seen in many stories in this collection, which in many ways is fresh and simplistic, embedded with symbolic meanings. As a reader of these narratives I felt that the writer sees a sense of underdevelopment or an ailment in the living standards of humans which needs a cure. The writer holds a mirror to the situation which is ailing.

But the cure is perhaps the inevitable social development envisaged in the restructure of society. I may be misunderstood by some, if I say that I was for a moment reminded of some of the narratives of V.S. Naipaul, especially Miguel Street, (to a lesser degree R. K. Narayan’s Malgudi stories), where we encounter quite a number of characters in various types similar to some of the ones in these narratives.

But Kumarasinghe has his own identity and originality, is a keen observer of some facets of life such as the corruption of policemen, ignorance on the part of parents, the innocence of illiterate villagers, the lifestyles of vegetarians, soothsayers, restaurant owners and their servants, rickshaw pullers, habitual drinkers, inheritors, losers, barbers, emigrants etc.

The creation on the part of writer Kumarasinghe is not merely to evoke fun or tragedy of individuals but to show the living conditions and lifestyles in a decadent society.

He shows the face as well as the mask that covers it leaving the reader to make judgements of his own. Taking a synoptic view of the content and experiences underlying in the ten narratives, I judge him as a humanistic researcher cum narrator who possesses emotional argumentations juxtaposed with socio religious philosophies.

In all its diversity in the narrative forms and contents, this collection has a remarkable thematic unity notable for an English writer of fiction in Sri Lanka.

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