A journey in search of human justice
Professor Sunanda Mahendra
 FICTION: K. Karunadhira Alwis' 'Pala Yema' (The Escape) won
the annual D. R. Wijewardene award for the best Sinhala fiction 2005;
this is now a published book (Stamford 2007) recently launched with a
simple ceremony at Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, Kotte.
Karunadhira's first work Kindura Gohin Vatunai Puramadulle, reviewed
in these columns earlier, was placed second in the same event 2004, with
the signs of a promising writer of outstanding novels to come.
We now have his second work Pala Yema to discuss in a wider sense.
The main point is that he centers his characters and situations in an
unusual manner shifting from one place to another leaving the reader to
imagine the rest. His characters are disaster-bound and they look for a
destination of justice and full of like-minded fellow beings devoid of
partisanships of the tribalism.
They are seen as victims of circumstances, driven and forcefully
uprooted by the sheer inhuman calamities to escape from the main stream
of the liveliest flow of birthright.
The main family in focus is the three human members: the husband, the
wife, and their child. Dr. Kumararatnam is a university don silently and
vigilantly carrying on his duties in a rationalistic manner.
He tries his best to live in a peaceful surrounding where he is shown
as a keen observer of scientific explorations. Arundathi Kumararatnam,
though not very much learned, is shown as a hard domestic worker
descending from a family lineage diametrically opposed to her husband's
living conditions.
She is earth-bound in many respects and a faithful wife with love and
respect for the traditional family traits. Being Tamils, they live in a
remote place in Jaffna, until they face the music of leaving the place
for some reason beyond their grasp. Her husband firstly was taken to the
police for questioning on a subject, and he was quite incapable of
coming with a positive response.
Decent human beings
Parallel to Kumararatnam's is Jeganathan's family in all good faith
helping each other to make a better deal for their lives. Their lives
are challenged by forces that disturb their intended peace of mind to
the point of grievance which results in their struggle to live in a
place which they dreamt as suited to live in harmony.
They are ultimately forced to find yet another place to live as
decent human beings. In this constant struggle they eventually arrive in
Colombo yearning to make a living in a mixed gathering which gradually
though flourishes well in the beginning is shown as once again disturbed
by the external forces of violence.
Historically, the Black July is memorable unbelievable social event
and it is recorded here without much political interpretations
recollecting the inhuman tragedy that befell causing much harm.
The main issue in discussion in the entire work centres round the
sensitive capture of the inner urge to live and in this direction they
find that these turbulences too are detrimental to their living
conditions and desirous of another abode where Kumararatnams find a hard
way ultimately leading to the bitter agonies of fatefulness.
To their dismay the circumstances changed from time to time and from
moment to moment where they are forced to leave the people and business
of their choice to another plane of living.
Lastly the choice becomes Nuwara Eliya, where they believe that they
can identify and adjust themselves in their own search for like-minded
people. But as Kumararatnam obviously had sufficient qualifications he
managed to find a good position to make ends meet; he leaves Nuwara
Eliya abode leaving the wife and the child in isolation but visiting
them during the weekends.
The new position in the private firm brings him some sort of job
satisfaction where money does not overrun other activities as well as
other requirements.
Painful events
Then the individual tragedy befalls where the reader's attention is
drawn to the amorous and painful events where Kumararatnam is drawn
towards a female administrator.
The fickle-minded female administrator is just a subordinate
associate in his office, and this newcomer to his life style disallows
him to believe that a woman could pacify a man in a strange manner
bringing a certain degree of solace which he had not enjoyed so far. But
he tries his best to keep his mind as clean as possible.
This happens though as a trivial event hits hard on the conscience of
Kumararatnam where he is mentally deranged to the point that he yearns
to be on his own once again. He is shown more like a hermit than a man
of pleasures in action. He recollects his past events which brought
disaster to him that forced him to escape from scene to scene.
Karunadheera does not pass any judgment on the passionate side of the
man and the woman, but just allows things to happen in the orderly
manner as realistically as possible making the reader realise that the
man had to undergo agonies as well as ecstasies.
He would rather like to see his wife toiling hard with the soil and
looking after the child in a society sandwitched between sensory
pleasures plus money earnings on one side and grave human injustices
thrusting out humans from their places of existence on the other side.
He imagines a place where he should enter in order to lead a real life
of a human being but apparently, there is no such place on the earth.
Though this is shown as a Pala Yema or 'an escape' from the normal
social order, there is a layer much more deeper than the reality. The
reality is that the man himself is responsible for this escapism. The
writer is hinting a renunciation or a journey in search of a higher
plane of living hard to find in the human frame of existence in this
particular context.
New surrounding
The episodes that record the journey from Jaffna to Colombo and from
there to Nuwara Eliya are quite sensitively drawn, where Kumararatnam
had to adjust himself to a new surrounding with the greatest difficulty
encountered as against his scholarship, making him a businessman of a
stationery shop and ironically enough, shifting his attention from
scholarship to office management in human resources development.
From Colombo he was driven away with terror and violence thrust on
him when he was trying to bring up his family in a better manner. He
could not yet adjust due to the alien circumstances and then this family
is compared with another family of the same calibre.
They are Jeganathans about whom the writer once again focuses
attention to show that no one is living in a saner condition that owes
sympathy and no one seems to be happy as humans as the humane qualities
are ousted with more terror and violence from moment to moment.
There are no exaggerations and fictional sensations as regards the
creation of situations in this work, for the writer shows with much of a
clear sensitivity that the humans he draws are not safe at all in their
living conditions and perhaps this factor one could brand as an ethnic
issue or whatever you may call it.
But there is a severe layer of petty pseudo inhuman political
undercurrent that lingers on out of which the humans have to escape in
order to lead a better life. But where could one escape? The answer is
envisaged as a need for a better social change. But who will ever bring
it back?
The novel is written in a detached form with more dialogues and
monologues and the writer introduces quite a number of human situations
devoid of any commentarial judgment, transcending the mere conventional
narrative structure.
The work is quite readable and packed with a vision. The writer shows
how the man, despite being a scholar, has to struggle hard to achieve
the required serenity in a war-torn society.
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