Array of domestic tales

In the modern context in Sinhala literature, next to poetry, the most undermined genre is short story. Though the types of short stories are discussed at a high level of literary studies, the subject is centred round a few conventional creations stemming down from the influence of a few writers like Anton Chekhov, Guy du Maupassant, O Henry and Leo Tolstoy.

Down the years no proper discussion has taken place on growth and spread of the short story. It has been a forgotten factor, may be due to the lack of knowledge and information pertaining to the different types of narratives. Perhaps due to the much discussed globalization.

History of the art

The young university lecturer in Sinhala studies, attached to the University of Jayawardenepura, Hansamala Ritigahapola, has come out with a collection of Sinhala short stories - nine narratives with a long preface attired to give an impetus to trace the nature and context of the Sinhala short story over five decades.

The long preface, as it usually happens as a learned article around with footnotes and copious references, lacks the in-depth nuances that caused several significant changes in narratology.

As such from a global point of view, the preface is more local oriented easy to know factors that have already gone to the textbook literature and guidance to exam orientation. But still the most important factor is the creator of these short stories stands independent with her creations. Her stories are moulded on certain domestic factors referring to family conflicts and bonds.

In the shortest possible manner the story captures the inner feelings of a young girl torn between two worlds: the world of her own and the external world with ethics of behaviour and punishments.

Mini classic

The title story ‘Niltali Digas Mala’ is more an experimented piece which resembles a mini classic shortened. The story titled ‘Adaraya Ona Kara Tibe’ is more a humorous sketch on the nature of the wedding and bridal arrangements in the modern society. The writer depicts them in an ironic manner. The wedding arrangements are promoted more through commercial means rather than from actual faith based mannerisms. Here the reader finds new coinages like ‘wedding themes’ promoted more by beauticians and hoteliers.

All in all there is some sort of refreshing quality in the narrative twisting the reality into a magic fantasy. ‘Gangata Udin Kokku Giya’ looks more of an unifinished sentimental tale based on letters written by a student to her dear teacher of literature. Content-wise the central experience is simple but the letters are long drawn, emitting rays of unwanted disclosure. This normally happens when the writers miss the use of good editors.

In most modern Sinhala novels it has happened toe the extent that the reader is bored. Hansamala shows signs of a good imaginative narrator, who has stamped on certain areas of darkness in human behaviour. The concepts such as optimism and willingness to live amid struggles is a recurrent theme o served in most of these stories. The blend of the colloquial and the classical diction as found in folk tales too is observable in the use of language of the collection.

The narratives are classified conventionally into three categories. They are novel, novella or short novel and short story. I’m not sure if this sort of classification is correct. On reading some of the short stories written by the Indo-American writer Jumpha Lahiri (in her ‘Unaccustomed Earth’), a reader may come across long short stories, transcending all the already laid down elements in the teaching of the short story.

Norms and principles

I found Lahiri a good example of independent creative writership with a special skill. Perhaps norms and principles as laid down in the teaching of the Sinhala short story has to be transcended in order to yield better results in the actual experimentation in the genre. Hansamala, though attempts to perceive such a situation, results in a questionable success.

Perhaps as a writer she should lift the conventional barriers to obtain far better creations.

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