I saw my future yesterday and laughed and laughed and laughed
Years
ago, my friend Kanishka Goonewardena who was at that time an
architecture student at the Moratuwa University told me something about
art. If I remember right he was repeating something that Tilak
Samarawickrama had said at a lecture, or else a comment someone else had
made about Tilak’s association with Dumbara Mats. It was about the
utility value of art. The argument was that if there’s only ornamental
value in Dumbara Mats, the art would die a natural death.
Kanishka mentioned a definition or at least an observation offered by
Ananda Coomaraswamy. It was in anecdotal vein and about a kattadiya who
uses masks for dances associated with exorcism. The man is said to go
into the jungles, pick the right tree, obtain the necessary timber,
craft it, paint it and use it for the dance. The mask is thereafter
abandoned and his wife would chop it up and use it as firewood. That,
Kanishka quoting Coomaraswamy, is what art is about.
Nutritional intake
I don’t know if that point had registered in my subconscious or
whether it was because I have a fascination for used books stores, but
about seven years ago I wrote down a question which was in fact an
answer, depending on which side of the punctuation mark you stand: ‘Are
novelists, poets and other writers aware that their final resting place
is a dingy used-books store?’
I remember quoting this line in an article written some time ago in
these pages, again on the subject of the future and the genesis and fate
of words. Last night a friend, Himali Liyanage, wrote to me saying she
had translated a poem I had written from English to Sinhala. The title
was ‘Iron-made’. She wanted permission to post it on the internet. I
wrote back saying that my words don’t belong to me. She went ahead,
after making a snide remark about my moods.
It all came back last morning in Bambalapitiya. I had come to have a
late breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant opposite Unity Plaza.
String-hoppers, saambaru and an ulundu vadai. Cheap, healthy and to my
taste. Such eateries usually have on each table a container with pieces
of paper torn from newspapers. That’s the ‘serviette holder’. I eat,
usually, because I am hungry and am more concerned about nutritional
intake rather than taste. I think I ought to focus more on the act of
eating, but I tend to treat eating as a necessary evil, for better or
worse. I have a ‘bad habit’ of reading while eating. It just happens. I
take whatever reading material is within reach and that’s for me the
lunumiris or lunu-dehi or the pickle that others like their meals spiced
with.
Random sentence
Daily News. I could tell from the texture of the paper, the
appearance and the part of the illustration that remained. Mine. I could
tell from a random sentence. It was about a third of a piece I had
written titled ‘A note on a singular petal decorating the black bough of
Havelock Road’, dedicated to one of my English teachers, Mrs Sujatha
Dharmasiri.
I couldn’t help laughing. I know that Mrs. Dharmasiri read the
article and I am sure some others must have too. I doubt if everyone
remembers what was written or who wrote it (readers skip bylines, I
know). The point was made. The paper read. Discarded as papers usually
are. They end up being sold for recycling. Reminded me of a song by
Sunil Edirisinghe where the ‘Sama’ and ‘Amara’ of our Grade One textbook
are used to roll a handful of peanuts. The lessons were learnt, though.
Like that article. Did its work and having done so, was employed in
residual work. We end up as serviettes and occasionally use our work to
clean our fingers. It is good to be reminded, now and then.
Roadside eatery
Back-shelf of a used books store. I won’t forget. In my case, I was
fortunate to actually see the book that I am, that my life has been and
is. It came in the form of a newspaper turned into serviette in a
roadside eatery.
And this afternoon, writing this, I can’t help wondering if on the
25th day of February 2011, when she saw me and stopped to speak, tease,
chide and hug as I was crossing Havelock Road and she was speeding past
in a three-wheeler, Mrs Dharmasiri realized that I was one of the
thousands of books she had authored as teacher. Only, it was not as a
dust-laden less-read book on the shelf at the back of a used books store
and neither was it as a serviette made out of a newspaper whose work was
done. Not a huge difference, though. All things considered. She
continues to teach. I still write. We are present tense people. I saw my
future. That’s the only difference. I laughed. That was important too, I
think.
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