A tragedy of an administrator
by Professor Sunanda Mahendra
 FICTION:
The Sinhala novelist Gunaratne Ekanayaka had been engaged in the writing
of fiction for the last two decades and to his credit he has written
seven works one of which became a runners up in the list of D. R.
Wijewardene awards for the best manuscripts submitted annually.
This work is titled as Yapanaya Tavamat Atai - (Jaffna is still far
away) (2003). He deals with various characters in the fields of
education, agriculture, politics, government offices, trade activities
and other such areas of the society.
His latest Sinhala work Bodhisattva Gunopeta (an author publication
2007) revolves round the character of a young provincial administrator
Jayaratne Bandara who had risen from his normal duties as an office
clerk to the post of a District Revenue Officer, commonly called DRO.
Colonial rulers
This prestigious title was given by the colonial rulers to the white
men of the calibre of Leonard Woolf, and many others who were sensitive
and creative as well as strict in their attitudes in decision making.
This was adhered to by the rulers locally selected for these
positions of state administration who were directly responsible to the
Government Agent [GA] or the topmost senior member of the hierarchical
order in the line of administration.
As a result those who held this position not only honoured their
predecessors but also attempted to ape the behaviour patterns, perhaps
becoming too honest and helpful, while some others violently
miscalculated the position and its virtues and became self effaced to
the point that they sometimes misjudged the others around them as
outsiders and ignoramus beings who should be cast aside.
Perhaps this syndrome was a certain weakness in the character of
Jayaratne Bandara, the protagonist, who is also a sensitive person
writing poems to newspapers and accustomed to romances while trying his
best to keep his head straight.
Maternal relative
There is also another side visible in the person, for he feels that
he is more isolated in the society than with people around him and as a
result of this aloof attitude he fails to make up his mind to marry his
first girlfriend Anoma a maternal relative.
This, I suppose, is the central behaviour pattern of the protagonist.
But this attitude gradually declines and worsens as he comes to grips
with a medical doctor one Senaratne, whose behavior is seen as one which
is sometimes anti-medical in nature to the effect that he encourages
Jayatane Bandara to involve himself in overusing alcohol that he does
not see anything worth as a medical doctor, assort of a free person
given the good chance to treat the common folk.
As a reader I was a bit taken aback with these two patterns of
creativity as the writer attempts to present through a series of
experiences - some as real and some as unreal - to the point that the
reader may perhaps wonder as to whether this could actually happen in
real life who is moulded in a domestic culture packed with virtues in
the beginning. But there are so many things that could be recreated
which do not really happen in the realm of reality around human
behavior.
In many ways this is a work which links the rural family life and its
manifold outer influences such as the one that Jayaratne Bandara
encounters and makes his life fixed to two points, the family and the
office where neither of the units are seen as well received by him.
Though he is depicted as an efficient administrator, praised by the
higher officials, the reader tends to think of the negative aspect as
well.
His romantic attitudes towards his village damsel too becomes a
fading entity to the point that he watches as she is given in marriage
to an outsider as he becomes busy, oversensitive and fails to decide on
common but crucial factors. The decision making administrator fails in
his own decision making when it comes to his personal issues.
Desperate woman
Then as chance brings fatefully he encounters a desperate woman who
needs his help officially to whom he is gradually attracted for no
justified reason other than his own isolation which inherently urges him
to make advances towards her.
He uses his official powers to get her a home build via the finances
of his office and over pervading the administrative barriers. This is
shown as a humanistic act though it is not in actual reality, as he is
attracted to her physically and this too becomes a wearied experience by
making her pregnant in the end.
From his point of view the common factor becomes the sensory lust
over shadowing his love and the balance of judegment. Should this happen
so suddenly in the life of the protagonist, may be a pertinent question.
The writer may say that the protagonist he creates is not a demigod but
a sensitive young man losing the spirit of life within showing that he
is gradually losing his standpoint as a strict administrator.
What happens in the end is the inevitable factor, the death caused
via over drunkenness. In this work the reader may find quite a number of
layers of stories within stories as the central narrative unfolds to the
climax where the tragedy of Jayaratne Bandara is depicted as the main
human frailty.
But this too is questionable from the point of view of the reader as
Bandara is shown as one of the ideal characters that can be dependable
not only to his family circle and well wishers who witnessed his
downfall, but also to the others around him, a person who could be
looked as an ideal human being or a Bodhisattva with noble qualities.
Why then should he be portrayed as tragic figure succumbed to a death
wish?
Points of view
Perhaps the writer does not want to answer creatively or fails to
face the issue within the frame of the narrative. But presumably, even
the great beings have their own frailties when it is challenged from
other points of view. I felt that more of a rounded descriptive story
structure is moulded with details enveloping the main narrative, and I
am not too sure whether some of them are really matter.
On reading this work of Gunaratne Ekanayaka, I felt that though years
have gone by with experimentations on creative structures and the
contents embedded, the Sinhala fiction writing today is still in its
early stages of the so called well constructed narrative form which is
perhaps anticipated by the common reader who so needs a story line with
suspense, thrill and pathos.
This does not strictly mean to say that the writer Ekanayaka should
be overlooked for his latent creativity; he has a number of plus signs
as a creative writer when he shows that even a so called virtuous
village lad may have his pitfalls in an alien stand where he is made to
artificially adjust himself going against his free will.
The portrayal of his father image and the grandfather figure as
stalwarts in the village traditional mind set could be regarded as well
observed frames of references in the local changing patterns of life,
especially in the rural sector.
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