‘හැටේ
වත්තේ මග්දලේනා ’
(‘Hete watte Magdalena’ or ‘Magdaleena of Community 60’) by Saumya Sandaruwan
Liyanage, a collection of 47 poems, an author publication, reviewed by Malinda
Seneviratne
Love and social justice.
That’s usually the world of a young poet. In the case of the former, typically, the
sentiments revolve around common themes:
‘I love you’, ‘love me’, ‘why don’t you love me?’ ‘why did you leave?’
and a lot of ‘damn, damn, damn!’ In the
case of the latter, i.e. social justice, there’s a lot of ‘damn, damn, damn!’
liberally laced with prescription.
Slogans abound. Call for
reflection, sparse.
Nuance, one can’t help thinking, comes with age, when life
reveals things such as layers, multiplicity of shades and cuts down arrogance
to the point where humility can rise. One
sees this in a lot of cyber space poetry as well as first-time
publications. ‘හැටේ වත්තේ මග්දලේනා’ (‘Hete
watte Magdalena’ or ‘Magdalena of Community 60’) is refreshingly
different.
Saumya Sandaruwan Liyanage’s maiden collection of poetry,
which by the way won the 2013 State Literary Award for Poetry, is by the poet’s
own confession a transcription of his conscience. That’s almost a cliché. Except for the humility between the
covers. Rings true. There’s nothing clichéd in his verse. No slogans. No ‘damn, damn, damn!’
But there’s love. In
‘ඉනික්බිති, සිත්තරා නික්ම ගියේය’ (the artist then left),
the poet says the easy easily and even more effortlessly the difficult of love
and leaving, remembrance and nostalgia.
හිස්
බවෙකි නිරතුරු ව
නුඹ
නික්ම ගිය පසු ව
මතක
සැමරුම් පිරුණ
මේ
විසල් 'මහගෙදර'...
නුඹ
ම'වෙත ඉතිරි කළ
මතක
සායම් රැගෙන
හිත
පුරා තවරමින්
කරමි
සිත්තම්, නුඹ ව...
There is emptiness
in this
memory-filled mansion
now that you are
gone…
so I gather the
hues of re recollection
you left behind
splash it all on
the canvass of mind
and paint,
you.
The above is ‘easy’.
What’s difficult or rather, rare, is the last verse:
නුඹ
තියා ගිය මතක
තවම
ඉඳහිට දිනෙක
විඳිනවා
මං තනිව
ගෙවෙන
සීතල රැයක...
බිතක්
මත දියෙන් ඇඳි
පෙඳ
පාසි සිතුවමක
ඉබේ
ඇඳෙමින් වැඩෙන
රුවකි
නුඹ ගැන මතක...
I do suffer along
memories you left behind
on a certain lonely night…
when memories of you arise
as a form that arises naturally
a moss-mould fresco
water-painted on a wall.
Poets write.
Poetry arises without effort and sometimes does not get transcribed into
words. That’s not easy to say, but the
poet says it effortlessly.
So yes, there’s love.
There’s also comment on things social, disparities and subjugation,
insult and humiliation, and by and large a decent range of the vicissitudes of
the human condition. In ‘සුළං පෙම්වතාගේ නො පළ පෙම’ (The unexpressed love of
the wind-lover), the poet traces a history of a love felt but not spoken, from
childhood and its innocence, through the disconcert of unfamiliar feeling, the
sobriety inscribed by a violent political and the long lived thereafter, ending
with a ‘nothing’ that is conclusive in a way that the tears are not overworked
or overly sentimental.
හුරු
පුරුදු ඔරු-පාරු
නාඳුනන
මළමිනී
සම
සිතින් දරා ගනු බැරි හෙයින්,
කලාතුරකින්
දිනෙක
හැඬුවාය
නුඹ හොරෙන්
ඉකිලමින්...
හදවතේ
ඉඩ මදි ව
දෙගොඩ
තැලුවේ දුකය
වැළපෙමින්...
And one rare day
in secret you wept
sobbing…
unable to bear
together
the unknown dead
in known waters…
and it was weeping
sorrow
that broke the
banks…
Here the poet weaves into the tenderness of young, innocent
love so wedded to the unspoken-felt, the larger tragedies of a time terrible
for other reasons. He touches thereby
the trace left on human lives by such processes without robbing the innocence
of timeless commerce between human and human.
This kind of juxtaposition is also evident in ‘වන්දාමි චේතියං’ (The Chaithya I
Venerate):
ඉදිව
දැගැබ්
සුවිසල්
සඟවත්;
රුපුන්
කඩු ගෑ තැන්
ගලා
ගිය ලේ පැල්ලම්.
Dagobas
magnificently made
conceal;
there where
warriors clashed
sword met sword
and the mark of
blood
that flowed.
He delves beneath the apparent, clearly, perceives the
tragedies swept under by both time and the need for a gaze that will not hurt,
for convenience perhaps. This is this
poet’s edge, a confident grasp of the subtle that makes for pithy comment that
nevertheless illuminates so much.
He cuts clean through to the unsaid but known, not just
in that which is taken to be political but the politics of the everyday, for
example work or rather its drudgery that is also marked by sloth and
fudge. ‘පැය
අට’ (Eight hours) is a
delightful explication of what happens in (government?) offices. He employs a rhythm that resonates with
factory sounds to show the day-to-day sameness of come and go, order and obey,
empty talk and gossip, from ear to ear, hour to hour, and then slams us all
with the meaningless of it all with the following…
එති
- යති
කති
- බොති
හිනැහෙති
- හඬති
අවසන
මියෙති
Come – go
eat – drink
laugh – cry
finally die
The philosophical gaze of the poet pervades the
collection. Take for example ‘සරුංගල්’ (kites):
ආකාසේ
බදු
අරන්
පැද්දෙයි.
තියෙනකං
නූල්...
Floats
hither and thither
having leased out the sky
as long
as there is
thread…
Transliteration is a murderous exercise, but the message
is clear and the clarity speaks to several levels of meaning. This is our story, for example, in a
democracy. There is the apparent and
there is the real, hardly seen, tug and control. Forget all that, it’s an at-face-value kite
story that anyone can relate to. Vivid,
in short.
Such poems reminds us of the work of Ariyawansa
Ranaweera. As opposed to Ranaweera,
perhaps due to the particular fascinations of youthfulness, the poet is more
overtly political.
The politics of control and the ideologies that coat
control with perception of untrammeled liberty is perhaps best captured in ‘නගරාලන්කාරය’ (city
beautification). Consider the following lines:
අලුත්
ගල් එබ්බවූ
මේ
පදික මං තීරු
ඔබටම
ය, ඒ'ගැන සැක
නො
කරන්න
These walkways
with new stones
paved
are yours;
doubt not.
And these, at the end of the poem:
ඔබට
හිමි තීරුවේ පමණක් ම
රිසි
ලෙසින් ඇවිදින්න
Walk as you will
on that path
reserved for you
and no other.
The politics of city space, the ideologies of control
engraved in that architecture and landscape at all captured in this insightful
gaze on the everyday of ‘consuming’ what is commonly called ‘city
beautification’.
In this collection one encounters oneself in the personas
and lives, trials and tribulations, described by the poet. There are Magdalenas and Sivas within us and they
are also characters we meet, only wearing different garments, having different
names and wearing varying contours that time and life have carved on their
faces. He writes their lives. And he writes our lives thereby. Truly a remarkable artist.
Yes, love and social justice are ‘youth concerns,’ it is
popularly held. Some would say that the
latter is contained in the former or that they are one and the same. If it is true, others might qualify. This collection has the truth of honest
appraisal and engagement with that which the heart encounters.
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