It's about the singer, not only the song
Captain Elmo JAYAWARDENA
The newspapers are full of praise for the new Chandran Ratnum movie
'Road from Elephant Pass' and I have absolutely no doubt the film
deserves the glowing accolades. I read the book some years ago, both in
English and Sinhala and know the story very well. Moreover, I have
spoken to the author on many occasions about its contents. We discussed
at length the 'whys and the maybes' and the 'dos and the how comes' that
chronicled the story, one author to another, raillery across a label in
black. Hence I think I can go a step beyond and add a bit more to the
journey of Captain Vasantha and activist Kamala Velaithan than what I
gathered from the book.
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Nihal de Silva |
I am no literary critic and have no idea what a film critic's job
description is. In any case I have not even seen the movie yet. I simply
want to add a few lines about the story and the man who wrote it. Nihal
de Silva was my dear friend and it makes me so sad to write of him in
the past tense. But, such is life. At this time when people are flocking
to the Regal or wherever the film is shown I simply want to sprinkle
some words of praise on the author, the man who gave us 'The Road from
Elephant Pass'.
Nihal wrote three novels and a collection of short stories and was
half way through his fifth book when he became a victim of a tragedy in
his much loved Wilpaththu. The bomb certainly wasn't directed at him,
but such is fate and we lost someone who would have contributed so much
to Sri Lankan literature.
'The Road from Elephant Pass' was his debut novel. Nihal ran a
company selling water, was a graduate of the Colombo University and a
self taught writer. He not only won the Gratiaen Prize, but also the
State Literary Award, both novel and short story class. I used to call
him the great salesman, a man who could sell water has to be great. We
did laugh a lot on that.
He certainly was more an author than a marketing man, creative,
original and well constructed writing, that's how he gave life to 'The
Road from Elephant Pass'.
The book has a perfect theme for contemporary literature and was
written in a style totally Nihal's. It carried vivid descriptions of
where and how the journey took place from a remote checkpoint in Palali
to a house in Battaramulla. The maps he inserted gave a very clear
picture to the reader to follow the story step by step. The book had no
fantasy, all practical and totally believable content and the suspense
was held in master craftsmanship till the end.
The love story itself was cleverly concealed and brought to light at
the apt moment to add a melancholic measure of sentimentality. There was
enough dosage to give the man woman touch and what could take place even
among enemies when tendrils of affection reach the hearts. The last
letter to the mother by Captain Vasantha's Commanding Officer was Nihal
at his brilliant innovative best.
Of course the discussions would take place now among the moviegoers,
the book is better than the film or the vice-versa or how good or bad
the translation was. Why fret, Nihal gave us a beautiful story and
Chandran did the movie and Edirisinghe translated. Let's appreciate and
applaud the result which has given us something to watch or read and
talk and enjoy. Let's be grateful and refrain from slotting the
translator and the film maker in a race against the author to see who
won.
That I think is a waste of time.
Now let me talk about my dear departed friend Nihal, great husband,
great father, great friend and lousy golfer. Anytime for a laugh and a
tipple, that was Nihal and he played life like 'One Day" cricket, fun
filled and improvising with perhaps a few faults to be marked against
him. I saw none. The language he wrote was simple and original. In his
later books, he did address issues that plague our society through
corruption and greed. Nihal had no fear to express his innermost
thoughts of the people and the powers that blatantly flouted the very
laws that were laid to give us decency. He certainly spoke the truth
with his pen.
The war is over, thank God; the likes of Captain Vasantha and Kamala
Velaithan will fade away from memory as the world gets older and the
news turn to matters such as Agassi taking drugs and the 559th in the
rich man's race gets interrogated. We must be grateful for literature
like Elephant Pass to keep a memory alive of a time cloaked in courage
by ordinary men and women from both sides and sadly shamed by a few who
had the call of power.
Thank you Nihal for writing the book and thank you Chandran for
making the movie. Through Elephant Pass we at least get a glimpse of the
shocking and sad emotional prices that have been paid. What better ways
of expression than Vasantha and Kamala's young lives in turmoil, in love
and then lost and the sad sad state of a lamenting old mother in
Akmeemana, frozen in tears for a missing son.
Amidst the masquerades and the fairy tales of valour and new born
shareholders of the war-win, The Road from Elephant Pass will make us
wake up to the truth. Then we shall remember the ones who really fought
and died and got maimed and misplaced and paid the price for you and me
to breathe free again.
When you see the movie, let there be praise, criticism and cheering
and even comparisons; literature is such, be it a book or a film. That
is the prerogative of a movie goer and the entitlement of a reader. But
spare a thought too, to the architect, to the wonderful man Nihal de
Silva who sold water and played lousy golf and laughed and walked this
planet with us and gifted us the beautiful and thought provoking book,
'The Road from Elephant Pass'.
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