Fine blend of creative realism

Seasoned and senior writer Punyakante Wijenaike’s latest collection (2009), That Deep Silence consists poems and short stories. Let’s take her short stories for critical appreciation this week in this column.

There are 26 stories in this collection. They are appreciatively short in length. We recommend our writers young and old to study these stories and learn the craft of writing before submitting their own stories for publication in the Daily News Short Story / Poetry Page.

Before we study her stories we must know what her objective had been in writing these stories. Some of her statements in the Preface give us some idea of what is in her mind.

Of course in a multiracial society we cannot all belong to one single race because if we do that then we lose our ethnic identity which is essential in a pluralistic society. Variety adds colour to the nation’s fabric. Certainly we belong to one nation without losing our individual identity.

Having spoken our mind let us see how the writer suggests a kind of oneness in thought and feeling in her stories.

The title story- ‘That Deep Silence’- depicts the predicament of a mother driven to desperation due to changing values as seen in her own daughter’s decision to demolish an ancestral home to build a modern house.

It’s the deep silence she maintains by way of protest towards her daughter who in turn meant good for her mother. But people with cherished values of their own are difficult to be uprooted is the main idea in the story.

‘A Message of Love’ is a lamentation of widowed air force personnel who by premonition has sensed his demise and suggested his wife to wear white Sari which he bought for her just before his leaving for the war front.

‘A Gilded Cage’ is also an unusual story .An affectionate mother going by the horoscope of her daughter dissuade her not to have sex with her intended husband for the simple belief that she will die at the birth of her child.

‘Ashe to Ashes’ is again depiction of relationship between a parent and the off springs. I shall give a passage from this story to indicate the predicament of the elderly father left lonely. Please note the economy of words with which that the writer brings the atmosphere creatively.

‘Confined to his bedroom into which Mother Nature poured in sunlight and a view of trees and birds outside, he stayed alone day after day. For the first time in his life he began to rebel against loneliness. He longed for someone to sit by his bedside and hold his hand. He grew tired of the brick, unplastered walls he had created, and remembered his wife used to complain about their coldness.He grew afraid, like a child, of the dark night pressing against the tall, glass windows of his bedroom. He began to wish he had hung curtains.”

“Child Soldier” is a story told by a child soldier in the recent past in the North. The conclusion part of is telling in depth; “If no one ‘rescues’ me again I might jump into the sea and join my Appa wherever he is because I am no longer afraid of death. And I hate this world where nothing positive is achieved.”

Here is a passage from her story ‘Facing the Sunset’ which again a felt experience of a private kind of loneliness and the eventual anticipation of death. “As she lay alone in her hospital bed she looked out of the window at the evening sky. Nothing had changed. The dying sun was surrounded by a glorious sky.”

This collection by Wijenaike has 20 more well written stories that are readable and effective in communication. But to constraint space I avoid commenting on each of them. But let me give the titles of the remaining stories so that you can pick them up and form your own opinion apart from deriving pleasure in reading creative writing of substance.

The stories are: Living for the Day…Love is never wrong, Mother Courage, Nidhanaya, No Grass for My Feet, Pooja, Shallow water, So near and yet so far…Strangers when we met, Ahinsa, The Photograph, The Sacrifice, The Decision, The Farmer’s Son, The Guardian, The Tank and the Temple, The Unopened Door, The Wedding, The Distant Dream, and Tradition,

Readers would have noted that the writer bases her stories on Lankan locales and succinctly bring out aspects of Lankan Culture, even though the main themes of hers are loneliness and death.

A discriminating reader particularly those who are new to short story writing will benefit from the collection. It is a Vijitha Yapa Publication.

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