George Mastrakoukos echoes Wasantha Wijewardena
George Mastrokoukos, Chief Organizer of the World Youth Chess
Championship 2010, currently underway in Halkidiki, Greece, ran into me
as I stepped out to get a breath of fresh air a couple of days ago. It
was close to midnight or perhaps even a little bit after.
‘It’s late,’ he observed.
‘The best time,’ I replied.
‘Yes, yes. It is healthy. Let me tell you something I know. It’s my
quote. Those who want to walk in the light must first learn to work in
the night.’
We laughed. He got into his car and drove off.
I am in charge of 17 young Sri Lankans who are accompanied by 12
parents. It is easy to manage children not least of all because when
they are not playing they spend hours with our coach, Rajeendra
Kalugampitiya who has had very little sleep because he works around the
clock preparing and coaching. Parents are a different kettle of fish.
Prestigious prize
‘Greater love’ and ‘I know what’s best for my kid’ attitude is quite
taxing because it fractures team discipline. Arrogance when married to
ignorance can produce weird creatures.
I can only imagine what it must be for George to be in charge of an
event where there are over 1,400 players with at least a third of them
accompanied by parents. It can’t be easy for him. I figured that he must
have spent many hours walking and working at night.
Got me thinking, his words did. I remembered a walk in the night. A
dust road in the South East Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. A few miles off the
Thanamalwila-Haldemmulla Road. Shrub jungle on either side. At several
points the road was intersected by streambeds. Dry. It was Amawaka, a
moonless night. The half-light from stars was barely sufficient to
illuminate anything.
The luminosity of memory, however, was bright enough to light the way
for my travel companion Wasantha Wijewardena, a self-confessed
professional rastiyaadukaaraya, whose approach to life and the world had
been unequivocally stated when in his last year at school he had opted
to refuse the most prestigious prize at Royal College just to make the
eventually recipient, his supporters in the teaching staff and the
principal happy.
We had many miles to go. It was anecdote time, a time for song and
light humour, a time to talk about life and love; the life we lose by
living and the love we lose by loving. A rastiyaadukaaraya or vagrant is
a gatherer of narratives. Such people are magnets for folklore.
They are repositories of narratives that did not warrant front-page
mention or place in history. Wasantha knew stuff. He regurgitated stuff.
A lot of stuff. Right now, I am reminded of an observation he made
that keeps surfacing in my mind whenever I encounter violence of any
kind.
This is what he said: Those who set fire to the thicket do so because
they are intimidated by the dark and its secrets.
This is George, speaking in another voice belonging to another body
and in a language he is not familiar with.
It is true, isn’t it? We are fragile creatures. Timid, for all our
big talk, arrogance, professed courage and what now.
Repel ignorance
We are bad at adapting to circumstances so we spend lifetimes
changing manufacturing circumstances we are comfortable with, even if it
means we have to desecrate landscapes, destroy cultures, massacre
communities and disrupt the cycles of the natural earth beyond the point
of regeneration and thereby bring ourselves and all life on earth to the
brink of extinction. We are pyromaniacs. That’s the signature trait of
our species.
We set fire to all thickets, real and imagined, as literal entity and
as metaphor. Out of ignorance. Out of fear. And yet believe that setting
fire will clear cloud and density, repel ignorance and doubt and that
the resultant light will help obtain wisdom.
Wasantha told me that the forest is a friend and that it protects
those who are innocent in intent, humble in disposition and benign in
all engagement. ‘It is not that there are no dangers Malinda Aiya,’ he
said, ‘just that there are always safeguards for any eventuality.’
One has to cultivate a certain way of thinking and being in order to
obtain the eyes and second-nature skills necessary to turn dark into
light, forest into clearing, enemy into friend and danger into
plaything.
‘The sacred is secret, Malinda Aiya. There is a reason for this.
Secrets are not revealed except to friends and friendships are hard won
things. We think we can dissect things, split them and somehow unearth
the philosopher’s stone that reveals all. We are so wrong. We do learn
this way, but not anything that is important when it comes to perceiving
the eternal verities, the sadaathanika sathyayo.
The touchstones that light up truth are there but few can see and
they are always invisible to the arrogant, to those who would burn the
forest, cut the trees.’
It is 10.25 am where I am right now. The hotel lobby. I don’t see
George Mastrokoukos around, but I think he is somewhere nodding in
agreement. [email protected]
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