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Focus on Books :
Creations of an Army officer
Professor Sunanda MAHENDRA
Dolos Peye Sonduru Meheyuma (The Twelve-hour delightful operation)A
collection of Eight Sinhala short stories by Kamal Sri Manatunga. An
author publication sponsored by the National Library Services Board
Publications Fund
Kamal Sri Manatunga is an Army officer who keeps himself busy in two
fields. They, being the professional duties and the other the creative
work expressing some of his inner feelings in many a life experience.
In his preface, these eight short stories, he says that he had
managed to create these stories during his short span of leisure which
is about three or four days spent at holiday off from the legitimate
duties of the array regimentation. As an undergraduate of the university
where he achieved the background of the creative act, he had fulfilled
his desire first as a poet bringing out a collection titled ‘Yuda Bime
Sita Liyu Kavi’ (poems from the battlefront).
 But the strangest factor is that the writer, despite his army
experiences, avoids most of them replacing the gap with household
experiences.
He depicts the conflict between the person and the social forces
where he is forced to exist. In the first story titled ‘Ramya Sihinaya’
(delightful dream) the writer creates the character of a mother whose
child is adapted to a posh and upper class of nursery school which is
shown as unaffordable due to various monetary turbulences. She finds
that it is perhaps due to the meagre salary that her husband gets.
She is shown as indecisive, while on the other hand the husband is
shown as a sensitive observer who sees the agonies bubbling up in her
mind.
The narrative does not have a trick or an accepted conclusion. What
is shown is a slice of life as in most stories. The second story titled
as ‘Baharavima’ (ejecting) looks more of a brief experimental creation
about a foetus in a womb, signified as indecisive whether it should come
out or not.
Though the writer had stated at the outset that his narrations are
not meant to revolve round his professional experiences, the reader may
perhaps be a sensitive observer that in the story titled ‘Jivitaya Tava
durai’ (30pp), the protagonist was an Army officer who had returned
home, after a successful army operation, finds it difficult to obtain
the desired level of love and intimacy from his little daughter.
What happens is that the brief recess is over and he is destined to
go back to his regular duties, which he imagines as a far away journey
from his home front. Devoid of sentimentalities, the writer shows his
protagonist just preparing himself to take up this task hinting that he
is torn between two worlds: the world of his dear daughter and the world
of his profession.
The title story is more a series of reminiscences in the mind of an
Army officer who has embarked on a long sea journey and recalls some of
his past events fusing them with those of the present. He hears the
sounds of merriments of his fellow mates.
He stands still on the deck of the ship slowly floating amid waves to
the intended destination. Then he recalls some of his domestic events
and issues, some of which were left half done and some unfinished. The
protagonist is trained in psychology (like the writer himself) and as
such he recalls some of the motivational projects he had with his fellow
mates.
Then the culmination is a conversation that ensues between two fellow
mates. Then he hears, some news about terrorism which sounds the moment
of illumination. In this manner, there is a varying nature of narratives
as well as a varying nature of human experiences.
Most events are packed with a sense of humanism underlying the
necessity for a better social order. Sinhala short story art is a fast
changing genre which needs more discussion.
Sunandamahendra @gmail.com
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