Focus on the question of image and identity

At the Water's Edge
Author: Pradeep Jeganathan
Review: Charles Sarvan in Berlin

FICTION: Jewishness was a birth deformity sometimes cured by the surgical operation of Christian conversion. (From The London Review of Books, 23 February 2006, p. 14.)

Jeganathan's linked short stories, At The Water's Edge (New York: South Focus Press, 2004), are subtle works of indirection and understatement but, given genre, inevitably also of lacuna and silence.

A characteristic of the short story is that more is left out than included and the reader, intelligently and imaginatively, fills in lacuna and background, even taking the story into a future that lies beyond the fictional work: reading becomes an activity, an attempt at complementarity.

True, each reader will "complement" the text differently, but that is a positive, pointing to the multifarious richness of art: a mono-dogmatism is contrary to the spirit of literature.

The reader also speculates on the context that surrounds the text. With these in mind, I take up just one story, 'The front row' (pp.9-21), about Krishna, a Tamil boy studying in the Sinhala stream.

I think it most unlikely that a Sinhalese child will join the Tamil-language stream. Why such a happening is a near-impossibility in Sri Lankan schools today leads to sociolinguistics and to the politics of language.

Krishna has studied right through in the Sinhala medium. When parents decide to emigrate, they do not consult their little children. Similarly, the decision to enrol the boy in the Sinhala stream must have been made by his parents - as in the case of Arjie in Shyam Selvadurai's deeply "unfunny" Funny Boy.

It cannot be a choice lightly entered into, since it may be viewed as betrayal, opportunism and a denial of one's "true" identity and self. Given present Sri Lankan realities, the parents probably thought it was in the best interest and safety of their child.

However, though the demand is that Tamils learn Sinhala, Krishna's fellow, Sinhalese, pupils do not welcome him into the Sinhala classroom. Perhaps with time it will not be an anomaly for Tamil children to study in the Sinhala stream?

What separates the Sinhalese and the Tamils is not "race" - a concept and category long demolished by science - but language and religion. If, like Krishna, all Tamils learnt Sinhala, would that lead, years hence, to acceptance and assimilation?

Group attitudes, being constructs, can be changed. For example, researchers in the United States divided a group of boys into two, and influenced them so that soon each group violently hated the other.

The manipulation was then altered by the social scientists with the result that distrust and anger were quickly replaced by comradeship and cooperation. It is not facts but our attitudes, and how we, in the present, categorise a group - though often attitudes are mistaken for, and become, "facts".

Krishna's teacher reproves and urges: "We must all live in peace and harmony in this country" (20). Going further, he says, "We the Sinhala have always been hospitable to the foreign races" (emphasis added). In other words, the Tamils are foreign: alien Demallu (18).

In several countries, citizenship is granted within a few years and, with it, full and complete equality: one immediately ceases to be a foreigner. It is contested as to who came first to Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese or the Tamils but, as I have written elsewhere, after thousands of years, does it still matter that one group came on a Monday, and the other on a Wednesday?

How many more centuries must pass before the Tamils cease to be "foreign"? The teacher is unaware of his own assumptions - and of their implication. Nor does he realize that his statement will reinforce the belief that Tamils are foreigners - forever?

"Krishna" is one of the most beloved of Hindu gods, but our Krishna has converted to Buddhism. Did this cause his parents pain? Terms such as "religion" and "race" (not to mention "civilization", "democracy", "freedom") are abstractions.

The seductive power of rhetoric obscures the fact that these words - elevated, emotional - translate to the final reality of individual human beings who experience and either enjoy or endure. The story doesn't tell us why Krishna converted.

Probably, the conversion was not on religious grounds but the result of a deep longing to win acceptance by his peers, to feel that he belonged. (Is this, then, an example of improper conversion?) One of the characteristics of monotheistic religions is the emphasis on singularity and exclusivity.

In contrast, Hinduism and Buddhism are eclectic and accommodating: see, for example, the Hindu gods incorporated into Buddhist worship. So, perhaps, Krishna's parents were not pained by his conversion.

The first step was to adopt the Sinhala language; the second, Buddhism - Buddhism here as religion, rather than as a philosophy, and a set of attitudes and behavioural injunction.

The third step would be to take on a Sinhalese name. Some Tamils have done so, "passed off" as Sinhalese, and merged with the mainstream. Since readers "read" beyond the text, we may conjecture that, at some point in the future, Krishna will legally change his name.

Krishna secures a place in the front row (story's title) in the classroom, but this leads to resentment and hostility. Schools both build and reflect social values and attitudes.

The reaction to a Tamil boy sitting in the front row is, "If you give them a little bit, they will ask for everything" (17): the implication is, "Don't give them anything." We must teach him a lesson (18).

All Demallu have plenty of money. It is a mixture of misconception (all Tamils are rich), of insecurity, resentment and fear, and of a propensity to resort to violence to solve "problems": teach them a lesson. And the victims of violence are held responsible for the violence unleashed on them - they asked for it.

The teacher speaks to Krishna entirely in Sinhala, but tactfully substitutes the English word ("Tamil") for the Sinhala 'Demala' (13-14) because "Tamil" is neutral while 'Demala' carries negative connotations.

It seems that, like with, say, the pejorative "Nigger," negative connotations cluster so tightly round the word Demala that it cannot be used neutrally. If this is so, what does it reveal about Sri Lanka's ethnic attitudes, perceptions and predicament? "Tamil", unlike Demala, makes Krishna "feel accepted, a friend not an enemy" (14).

During an altercation, one of the boys uses the word Demalaya and Krishna "knew what the word meant to them" (18). Just a minor incident, just a word and a quarrel among schoolboys, but it gives us a glimpse into the Island's present major, and tragic, malaise.

The difficult but urgent task is to change inter-ethnic perceptions and attitudes - finding another Sinhala word for Demala, will not help. And what of the Tamil word for Sinhalese? What connotations does it have? Several years ago in Bahrain, I was befriended by a (Sinhalese) family; was known and called only by my first name.

One day, as I walked into their house, their daughter, then about twelve, came to me and quietly asked, "Uncle Charles, is it really true that you are a Tamil?" Her voice and facial expression begged me to reply, "My dear, someone has been pulling your leg.

Of course, I am not a Tamil." It pained me that I couldn't spare her the hurt of disappointment. It was as if she'd discovered that I was a paedophile.

Other readers will read 'The front row' differently - and different readings are to be encouraged. What I have tried to show is that the story raises major issues through minor instances, and points to fundamental problems and perplexities in contemporary Sri Lanka.

For example, what does it say about ethnic relations in the Island if the very word for Tamil is negative in Sinhala? Social attitudes create inner conflict and identity problems in Krishna.

Rather than celebrating and rejoicing in his individuality, of which his group (Tamil) identity is an essential part, Krishna is made to regret what he is by birth, that is, what he is naturally.

Being isolated (the only Tamil in a class of Sinhalese); being a child, he lacks the wisdom and strength to reject the "image" that is projected of his group and, therefore, of him: the real damage is done when there is a colonisation of the mind; when the victim accepts and internalises his or her inferiority - as happened to Okot p'Bitek's despairing and desperate (African) Ocol:

Mother, mother
Why
Why was I born
Black?

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Some psychoanalytic aspects of a novel

Bath Tharanga
Author: Sunethra Rajakarunanayaka
Review: Saman Wickramaarachchi

FICTION: True, this, I confess, is a belated reading of a novel. What I mean in saying that is Sunethra Rajakarunanayaka's Bath Tharanga was published in 2004 and even after two years it was published, for me, it is no less, a fine book to read it again and again.

But pathetically it was not suited to the so called criterion of Literary Board in that era to consider it for an award.

In fact, Sunethra, in her novel, touches on the cultural symptoms prevailing in capitalism. Walter Benjamin who had been a well-known critic in 1930s in his famous essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductions" wisely foresaw this capitalist cultural situation.

For Benjamin, as mechanical reproduction of art which was the harbinger of late capitalist condition has changed the reaction of the masses towards art and the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character.

In other words (if I repeat Benjamin) at any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer. Likewise in today's radio and TV channels spectator or listener has become a part of the media.

Today the listener can express his views on a song, whether he likes that song or not and if he likes why he likes it etc - to the whole world via these broadcasting channels.

It is a fact but not a joke that presenters of programs of nowadays in radio and TV channels have become clowns.

The mock broadcasting service called Bath Tharanga which is created and situated under a table by Gotabhaya alias Battichcha in that same reality presents a farce. In fact, there is no distinction between reality and farce.

Accordingly, for me, Sunethra is like re-reading Bemjamin's essay by way of writing a novel. In this context, she in an allegorical style has situated those post-modern social relations within the area called Seventh Lane (Hathe Lane Eka) in the city of Colombo.

It would be more serious reading if I can persuade you to seek the elements in this novel. For Lacan weakness is clearly central in psychoanalytic conception of the subject where the whole drama of identification takes place.

The narrative of this novel is revolving round a dwarf type male person of two and half feet height. Even though his name is Gotabhaya. He is a small made man who desired to be compatible with his name, and his imaginary ways represented himself as a media man, poet, and novelist trying to overcome his weakness.

This is considered in Lacanian theory as the subject attempts to cover up his weakness through continuous identification acts. But in his attempts the subject meets only weakness where it seeks fullness and identity.

This is the real tragedy of Gotabhaya alias Battichcha of this story. Gotabhaya being a fatherless child had to depend on his mother because of his bodily weakness.

As the father was excluded from the family structure his life has been reduced to the mother-child relationship.

In Lacanian jargon it is described as the 'Name-of-the-Father' is foreclosed for a particular subject and it leaves a hole in the symbolic order which can never be filled. Then the subject (Gotabhaya) can be identified as having a psychotic structure, even if he shows none of the classical signs of psychosis.

It is crystal clear that his bodily weakness affects him and he is unable to identify himself with symbolic "social other".

Then he manages to turn that reality into an imaginary farce under the table in his own house. It means he identifies himself with his imaginary world. What we are able to see in these situations is that reality itself has been brought into a farcical radio drama which is created by Gotabhaya.

If I explain the situation in Lacanian theory this reality is none other than a mask which covers the reality of our desire.

I have considered only some psychoanalytic aspects of Sunethra's novel. But what I emphasize is that, she has transformed a very ordinary story of a man who is physically handicapped into a myth and it is a kind of beauty never before seen.

The writer is Additional District Judge, Avissawella.

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Useful aid to understand poetry

A New Approach to Poetry
G.C.E. Ordinary Level
Co-authors: Nilusha and Nina Alahakoon
33B, Samagi Pedesa, Walpola, Rukgahawila
111 pp. Price not mentioned
Review: R. S. Karunaratne

POETRY: Those who offer English literature for G.C.E. O/L examination may not be aware that poetry can transport them to lands afar or to the areas of adventure and romance.

Many students shun poetry without knowing that it can give them lasting satisfaction if studied properly. Teachers also should take the blame for not generating an abiding interest in poetry among their students.

As one critic put it succinctly, all men are poets. The only problem is that only a few gifted persons can impart the feelings awakened in their hearts.

Reading through A New Approach to Poetry I found that the co-authors have made a concerted attempt to kindle an interest in poetry whoever happens to read their book.

Since the book has a target readership, the co-authors have thought it fit to introduce each poet briefly before commenting on the poems.

Experienced teachers know that the young reader should have at least a nodding acquaintance of the poet's background, his social outlook and the political climate he was born into.

Those who offer literature for GCE O/L are not aware of certain techniques used in poetry. The authors have thought it fit to include short notes on form, content, poetic voice, tone, mood, imagery, rhyme, rhythm and metre. These are very helpful to beginners who are grappling with a highly abstract subject.

Unlike certain other books of this nature the co-authors have included the prescribed poems along with their comments. They also explain certain unfamiliar terms found in the poems to the delight of students.

Some of the poems included in this book are really interesting. The poems such as Wendy Whatmore's "Island Spell", Charles Causley's "Colonel Fazackerly", Anne Ranasinghe's "Plead Mercy" and William Blake's "Poison Tree" should be made compulsory reading even for those students who are not offering English literature as a subject.

Except for a few typographical errors, the overall effort of the co-authors of this book is quite satisfying. A New Approach to Poetry will definitely help students to pass the examination. The book can also be recommended for teachers who are teaching poetry for G.C.E. O/L.