Wide and sensitive array of human experiences
 As you go on reading the seven stories of the latest collection of
Sinhala short stories titled Heta Nevata Eyi (tomorrow comes again)
(Sarasavi Publishers, 2011) by Buddhadasa Galappatti, a fresh sense of
exhilaration enters via the human experiences embedded in them.
Taking for instance the first story titled Davasak Nimavei, a little
girl wakes in the morning to meet the bread man named Somadasa, who has
been engaged in the job for many years. The little girl Kumari delights
in meeting the bread man Somadasa whom she addresses as Some Mama (Uncle
Some) not because she just buys the needed stuff like the buns, and
other crusty stuff but because she feels a sense of human relation in
the brief encounter.
As the story unfurls the reader sees that the struggles in the life
of Somadasa are challenged by certain sicknesses which eventually
prevents him from his normal round of selling bread by cycling. Another
challenge in his life is sensitively felt by him as a new delivery
system has entered his world of clients.
 During the brief period where he was absent the little girl Kumari
had been waiting with her money. But on recovery of his sickness as he
once again performs his normal duties in order to obtain some money to
buy a pair of shoes for his own daughter, he finds his luck illuminated.
The little girl Kumari not only informs Somadasa that new motor vehicle
had entered the bread delivery scene, she had waited with the money to
meet him Kumari had saved money even on the days when Some mama was
absent from the delivery scene.
The money thus saved, one thousand rupees, was given as a gift of
friendship. As a reader I found this insightful narrative, a sensitive
poetic episode, which clamours for a real humane lifestyle seldom seen
amid humans.
It is not just the story line or the plot that matters. Galappatty
expresses the story line in such a way that the humanism in it erupts
from the first line of the narrative to the last line. In the story
titled as Avamagul Charikava (The Funeral Trip), the reader comes across
a blend of duty-mindedness linked to the conventional officialdom and
the need for recreation even at mournful moments. The experience comes
from a group of bank workers who make a trip to a funeral in a remote
area by bus.
As they had to pass the coastal area, the mournful trip or the group
visit is made to arrange rather secretly as a jolly trip where the
agenda includes sea bathes, drinks and other merrymakings. But the most
significant factor is that the group that they are hindered from
attending at the scheduled time to meet the funeral rites. Thereby the
hindrance not only pricks their inner feelings, but also the ethical
codes by which they are bound as humans in brotherhood. There are two
layers in the narrative.
The first layer is the depiction of the sorrows on knowing the death
of a relative of a group companion and the dutiful arrangement on their
part to attend the funeral. The second layer is the humane humour, if I
may call it, which is a need from the day to day boredom in a busy
office. The sensitivity of the narrative is the depiction of certain
individuals who so go to make up a human experience, where the writer
does not take any side. Instead he just portrays a living experience and
allows the reader to make any judgment.
The third story titled as Dedenama Diyaniyo (both are daughters) is
yet another human experience where the question of the adopted daughter
and one’s own daughter matter. For a reader of the story it will be
visualised as an eternal experience of the motherhood torn between two
worlds: the foster mother and the real mother.
Galappatty’s storytelling technique and the selection of the human
experience of motherhood are seen at its heights in the narrative. All
the three stories cited are fairly long and they could be even referred
to as long short stories. I observed that the fourth story titled as
Punchi Kusumalatha may have been excluded from the collection, as it
does not suit the tenor of the rest of the narratives selected. This may
be due to perhaps person’s preferences of likes and dislikes of
individual compilers.
The fifty story titles Eya Ese Siduviya (So It Happened) a sensitive
capture of a house hold episode where a literary critic Premlal is
constantly disturbed by mice in his house who destroy his books and
other important documents. He, his wife, and the daughter come to know
the menace, but little do they realise the way to get rid of the
destroyers, the little mice in house, despite the fact that they have a
dog named Flex in the house. In the last resort the literary critic
Premlal has to succumb to the method of using rat poison which in turn
poisons the dog in the house.
The entire family bemoans the event, but the illuminative point is
that the literary critic keeps the poison technique used by him as a
secret, while he becomes a sharing member of the mourning wife and
daughter.
Perhaps a commonplace occurrence in our domestic life is transformed
into an edifying narrative which paves the way for more insights to
compulsory menaces and how to get rid of them! The story titled Jivite
Sundara Mohataki (The life is a pleasant moment) to me was long drawn
despite its technique to the use of dialogues ensued between a couple
who had met on a campus after a long lapse of time. Though readable I
felt that the human experience is ephemeral and perhaps aloof compared
with the rest of the narratives.
Galappatty, I feel, has such a lot to express: he is a creator who
observes a wider gamut of human experiences, giving vent to the shift of
attention from one field to another.
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