Bambara Walalla: a life-dance common to us all

Athula Liyanage is a persistent young man.  I, on the other hand, am hard to catch.  My friend and part time boss, Irvin Weerackody says I am like a firefly, that I disappear. I’ve corrected him on numerous occasions, insisting that it is not that I am not around, but that I am at times invisible.  Athula did his best to show me his film before he sent it to the 43^rd WorldFest Houston Independent International Film Festival USA.  He was, apparently, convinced that his debut film, Bambara Walalla (Whirlwind) would win an award and wanted feedback from eyes not dis(mis)coloured by the fact.  Didn’t happen.  I didn’t play truant, but I never got around to seeing it.

Still, I am not one of those people in awe of award or award-winners, knowing very well how subjective such exercises tend to be.  They do encourage, this I recognize, but they also inflate egos and thereby can very well dent the natural creativity of the awardee.  Athula, so far, hasn’t shown any sign of things going to his head, as they say, and this is good.  I finally saw the film a couple of weeks ago.  The award, the Jury’s Special REMI Award for the Best Direction, was not easily dismissed from mind, but I think I managed to keep it footnoted.

The term ‘Bambara Walalla’ refers to two things. First, ‘bambara’ means ‘of bees’ it is known that bees, when they engage in collective attack, sometimes do so in the form of a ring (walalla).  More interesting is the second definition. Bambara Walalla is a dance sequence peculiar to the low-country where the exponent spins around like a top (bambare) and within a specific circle. It is a sequence that only the best dancers can attempt.  Indeed, you need a particular kind of training to ‘enter the dance’ as well as to exit it; amateurs and adventurers can very well break their limbs attempting it. 

The dance-allusion of the title is intriguing and apt.  Life is, one might argue, nothing more than an invitation to enter this dance.  Indeed, it can be argued that it something that each and every one of us is required to dance, whether we like it or not, whether trained or not, and consequently, a process that ‘makes’ (a few) or ‘breaks’ (the vast majority).  Some are born with rhythm, some not. Some are quick learners, some not.  Some have intuition, some do not. Some have the requisite footwork, some have clumsy.  Nothing is scripted, though, and even the naturally gifted have to be vigilant, keep practicing, keep turning and turning and turning in order to survive. 

It has been said, I believe by Boodie Keerthisena that Sri Lanka film lacks people who can write stories.  What we have are people who are good at playing with a small (sometimes profound) idea, with ‘story’ being a somewhat mish-mashed something that is more frill than substance.  We have good role players, editors, make-up artists, music directors, cameramen and directors who have a great feel for cinematography. We lack, some have argued, people who can put these things together.  This is perhaps why we speak in nostalgic terms about Nidhanaya or go to any lengths to watch re-runs of Bambaru Avith and Paara Dige.  Bambara Walalla is not the first ‘story-film’ of course and there’s nothing to say that what could be called story-less or less-storied creations are somehow of lesser quality.  Still, this film has it all, I thought.

The film is tagged, ‘loin-cloth to jeans’ but that should not frame the engagement with the narrative, I hope.  It is only a purely materialistic sense that such evolution can be talked about. Our engagements with the larger corpus that is the human condition of which we are, admittedly, a part is a constant and unpredictable clothes-switch, metaphorically speaking, sarong to denim to tie-coat to briefs and nothing and not in this order either.  There are many other ways to view/frame the cinematic experience, I concluded.

A straight forward reading shows us a boy whose growing up is scarred by terrible circumstances.  ‘Podi Eka’ – The Small One, played by Liyanage himself --  is distraught and livid when his step-father rapes his sister. He kills the rapist and spends 17 years in prison.  Now this does not mean that one has to undergo trauma and embrace violence in order to dance the whirlwind, but Podi Eka’s story is not uncommon.  He struggles to return to a normal life. His mother, recipient of tragedies beyond average human quota, loses her mind and her life.

Enter Mel, an undertaker.  Mel (Mahendra Perera) notices and earmarks Podi Eka for recruitment as assistant long before circumstances offer him an opportunity to take the boy under his wing.  Mel is ostensibly a decent man who claims that his business is with the dead and not the living.  From the moment that the orbits of these two characters intersect drawn slowly but surely into a vortex of intrigue, violence, revenge, stratagems and confusion where every character trait of the human being is drawn out, evaluated, twisted and ground to dust in the play of personal agenda and the primordial need to survive in the harsh and unforgiving moment(s) of truth-making and falsification.   

Mel is not a pure villain and Bambara Walalla is not your classic good vs. bad narrative.  Neither is Podi Eka the quintessential innocent, tested by circumstances not of his choosing, drawing from hidden resource-reservoirs and triumphing over evil intent and evil-doers.  No, none of the main protagonists are clean-cut characters. They are all the ‘you’ and ‘I’ we meet on the street, workplace and family gathering and sometimes if we care to look, even in the mirror. What gives insight is their interaction with one another within an ‘overall’ of a fast, furious, violent, dramatic and yet so familiar and poignant unfolding. 

Podi Eka has to figure out Mel and the world of Mel, discover the Mel within himself, the Podi Eka within Mel and come to terms with these character-entities and their play which, in the end, is his play with himself.  Brilliant portrayals by Mahendra Perera and Athula Liyanage elevate the narrative to one of exceptional quality.  Mahendra brings out every nuance of a complicated and complicating character while Athula treats us to the tumultuous and at times surprisingly serene ‘within’ of Podi Eka.  The interplay of these two is excellently handled by the Director, with fidelity what requirements of balance and taste demanded by the narrative and his message-objective. 

The engagement is of a kind that it made me wonder if Mel and Podi Eka were really two characters or if they were two elements of a single character called MYSELF.  There is a final denouement of course.  The characters play out the ‘fate’ of script and in according to the narrative frame implied by the title of the film the skilled survive and the powerful perish on account of a single and even simple flaw; in this case, being slow at second-guessing the other and of course oneself.  We are left wondering where we are located, in what or before which whirlwind, and asked to consider the true dimensions of our individual characters as well as traits; the size of the Podi-Eka within us and how much of Mel we have. 

There is a claim at the beginning, not a lofty philosophical frame, but in fact rather somber and disappointing.  It struck me.  ‘Good and bad exist only when we are alone with our thoughts; out there when among others, in society, in the world, good and bad don’t count.’  It is a call not for the disavowal of ethics but in fact an invitation to engage in a more ethical kind of self-conduct.  The onus, Liyanage suggests and the film promotes, is on the individual. We don’t make the whirlwind, but we do inscribe on it our personal signature. There is nothing to say we cannot reshape it closer to the heart’s desire or dissolve it altogether.  It is up to you. Up to me. 

With this film, Athula Liyanage makes a statement.  He’s entered the whirlwind.  The Bambara Walalla of a creative existence is not by nature a one-off affair.  It is life-long.  He has showed that he can enter the dance.  I am not sure what skills he has to learn or to protect (as the case may be) to survive the long night of the dance.  Let him be assured that it will be long. Dark.  Violent.  Let’s hope he has the stamina, footwork, humility and the kind of integrity that references a personal universe of ethics, the kind that is ‘irrelevant’ to society and societal engagement.  He’s just said that he is not a ‘Podi Eka’, but perhaps he needs to be one if he wishes to mature and inhabit the full potential of his talent.   

See also, 'The world is made of humiliation and insult'

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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Asoka Handagama’s Vidu: an invitation to unwrap ‘hero’ and ‘heroism’

Vidu, the child-hero of Asoka Handagama’s film by the same name, is tagged by the film-maker as an ‘our kind of hero’.  The Sinhala equivalent is more meaning-laden. ‘Ape jaathiye weerayek’ confers on ‘kind’ a number of collective identities among which is the unmistakable nationalist strain given the social, political and cultural context of the day.  The term ‘our’ naturally offers itself as counterpoint to a real or imagined ‘their’ or a hero who is essentially alien to an ‘our’ experience. 

After watching ‘Vidu’, I was reminded of a conversation that took place about 8 years ago, outside the Colombo Public Library Auditorium.  This was immediately after an X-Group event. Deepthi Kumara Gunaratne gave me some advice (this is the rough English translation): ‘You will be just another journalist if you don’t give new knowledge to the public’.  I asked him what he meant by ‘new’.  He replied, ‘Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Althusser.’ My reponse: ‘Buduhaamuduruwo is more “new” to me than any of these people’. 

Handagama in theme song calls for a hero, a home-made hero, rubbishing in the rush the popular big-name heroes, Superman, Spider Man and the latest ‘super hero’, Harry Potter.  In the larger text of the film the call is not for a local hero but a local-local hero, a subaltern creature that challenges things-as-they-are including the powers that want things to be ‘as they are’, in idea and in act.  That’s Vidu. 

There’s drama throughout.  Enough to hold one’s attention.  The story is tight; perhaps too tight for the adequate development of the key adult characters, the principal, the politician’s local point-man and the child’s mother.  Saumya Liyanage (as the local politico), Chandani Seneviratne (mother) and Gamini Hettiarachchi (principal) have come up with stand-out performances.  Ravindra Guruge (editor) and Channa Deshapriya (camera) have done ample justice to their respective reputations. Overall, entertaining.  

It is a feel-good film, the kind that one would not associate with Handagama, and yet one which asks typical Handagama questions and contains typical Handagama invitations to peel off surface and explore the unsaid, unacknowledged and unrepresented elements of our social life.  Like in his other films, there is a lot of ‘message’. Unlike his other films, though, the relevant ‘message’ is pronounced to the point of being raw and unreal. 

Admittedly, a feel-good film can legitimately be unreal.  Handagama’s previous films catch slices of reality; marginal, true, but nevertheless real. He cannot be and need not be straitjacketed to make films that one expects Handagama to make.  The departure is fresh because it is unexpected of the film-maker.  Still, the thematic signature of the film; Vidu’s philosophical and not-at-all-hidden transcript of subaltern angst; seems contrived, even though the child-hero does a decent enough job of delivering message. 

Handagama’s call, the way I see it, is for a return to two things: an ‘ourness’ and an innocent, pure time and way of being.  It is not a call for some virginal clarity and a society of the pure, no.  He is smart enough after all to understand that human beings are flawed and that even the more flawed have their moments of redemption.  Still, in a land that is not empty of heroes, cardboard and otherwise, larger than life and made larger than life, the call for the kind of hero that Handagama would like to see is not out of place. 

We are a society that has been celebrating one kind of hero, that of the battlefield and related spheres, i.e. concerning efforts to eliminate the terrorist threat.  Outside of the need to be vigilant, this society is unhappy in the Brechtian sense, following Galileo’s famous words to his student in the play by that name; ‘unhappy is the land that needs a hero’ and not, as the student says ‘a land that has no hero’.  Or at least Handagama seems to think so.  If we do need a hero (and as such are an unhappy people) it is important to talk about what kind of hero we need. 

Handagama wants us to go for an ‘our kind of hero’.  Who is the ‘us’ implied in the articulation?  What is the real life Vidu required to deliver?  Handagama says ‘value’.  One could call it dignity. Or self-respect.  At the end of the tree-top speech the crowd breaks into a chant: ‘ape vatinakama apata diyau’.  Could be read as ‘recognition of worth’ or as a demand for fair compensation for services rendered.  If it was the latter, then it’s a call for trade unionism. If it is the former, it’s sad. 

Vatinakama is not something that one has to solicit; conferring after all assumes hierarchy.  It is something that one has to acquire.  It is about refusing the play according to someone else’s rules, refusing to inhabit someone else’s version of one’s reality and being the master of one’s own fate.

Nice words.  Good slogans. Good feel-good stuff. Real life, however, is unforgiving.  The boy’s mother cuts corners on the moral-track. She has to.  And yet she comes off as a character worthy of salutation.  It took me back to a line in Athula Liyanage’s film ‘Bambarawalalla’: ‘‘Good and bad exist only when we are alone with our thoughts; out there when among others, in society, in the world, good and bad don’t count.’ There is a need, I believe, for private heroism, an on-my-terms heroism, a heroism whose dimensions can be progressively expanded as counterpoint to ever expanding and corresponding ‘other’ sizes; from individual to household to community to nation. 

I do not think we are an unhappy nation.  I don’t think we need heroes.  I believe we are not lacking in heroes or heroism and certainly not in the ‘our type’ typified by Vidu.  This was amply demonstrated during the 30 year long struggle against terrorism.  ‘Our’ was an idea that was conferred pariah status. ‘Their’ had value. ‘Their’ was deified, worshipped and allowed to define the contours of ‘our’.  The ‘our’ heroes persisted. They did not pick the dollar dished out by the voyeuristic foreigner, holidaying and clicking a camera.  Sure, many did, but there were enough ‘our’ heroes who refused to be devalued.  They delivered. Vidu is not a future hero, then. He is a clone of heroes whose existence Handagama (and others) for a long time did not see any worth in acknowledging. That’s something to think about.

There was a brilliant old-Handagama moment in the film. Right at the end.  Vidu, after scampering over one obstacle after another, finally makes it to the event in school where he has to deliver a much-hyped speech.  He gets there and begins by thanking those who came to hear him speak.  Curtain fall.  Handagama tosses the political ball to the audience.  I could hear him say ‘your ball to hit’. 

Vidu is, in this sense, more than a feel-good film.  There is a lot of old-Handagama in the film than meets the eye.  Some of the ideological wares of the film-maker are crudely show-cased, but he has given us some think-points.

There are no saviours out there.  You are your own hero. I am mine.  It is up to us to deliver ourselves from evil and indeed ourselves, i.e. evict the corrupting and violating ‘other’ that resides within us.  That’s Siddhartha Gauthama speaking.   Now that’s a kind of ‘our’ hero I can identify with, even in these times when heroes are not needed. 

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com.  This article was first published in the 'Sunday Observer' in December 2010.

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Framing the child in art

A film with children is not necessarily a 'Children's Film'

Some years ago, when I was working in a Sunday newspaper, I was asked to do a story about children’s literature.  I as asked to interview some prominent writers about the status of children’s status. I remember what Ratna Sri Wijesinha said.

‘What is sold as children’s literature is basically adult narratives which child characters.’  He is right.  There are children, in text and illustration, a dash of the magical and a splash of baby words (well, the tone and language style can vary depending on the age of the ‘intended’ audience of course) in children’s books, so-called, but this doesn’t make them suitable to be read by children or even useful for them.  Ratna Sri Wijesinha explained the reason for this state of affairs thus:

“Those who write children’s books forget that in order to write a story that makes sense to children they have to first get inside the mind and heart of a child.  Instead of doing this, they focus on ‘message’. This makes them preachy. It takes away something from the story, the narrative, the whole unfolding which is what enchants the child. ”

I agreed back then.  What we get are authors who use the genre ‘children’s story’ to make a point, say, about morality, about good and bad, right and wrong.  What ought to happen is the opposite; a story that is written and is loved for its narrative worth. The telling is not framed by objective, rather the moral issues in an unobtrusive way which is the better way of persuading reader to reflect and embrace.

It reminded me of the difference between children’s literature that came from the former Soviet Union and that from Mao’s Culturally Revolutionized China in the seventies.  The stories from Russia, Ukrain and other Soviet Republics were not injected with socialist propaganda. There was no perceptible push to make the reader absorb ethic and values associated with the socialist ideal.  Folk tales.  Princes. Princesses.  Witches. Wicked people. Good people. Strange animals.  Magic. The simple triumph of good over evil.  All it did was to tell the child which side it is better to take given circumstances. Sure, there was the unabashed and life-misrepresenting lie: the good always emerges victorious.  Still, that is a ‘truth’ whose learning can be postponed without harming a child too much. 

The Chinese stories were different; at least the ones that my mother brought home from exhibitions of Chinese books.  There were no princes and princesses that I can remember. No unheard of creatures. Nothing magical.  There was however heroism, the triumph of good over bad, the putting down of the wicked and the consecration of righteousness   All this, however, was made insufferable by frequent references to Chairman Mao and the Great Communist Party.  I didn’t know Mao was or what this Great Communist Party was. I only remember my mother saying that she should have been more careful when she picked those books. 

It doesn’t ‘work’ for children whether it is political propaganda or morality lecture.  They are interested in storied, not messages.  That’s the bottom line.  Ratna Sri mentioned, I remember, Sybil Wettasinghe. He said that today we have so many who author children’s stories and none even close to the heights of creativity and charm reached by the Grand Young Lady of Children’s Fiction in Sinhala. 

Today literature is not just about giving into creative urge or the product of such engagement. It is business.  There’s something production-line about it.  You get one thing right and then its ‘replication, baby’ as far as author is concerned.  Most, I should say, since not everyone is that commercial-minded. 

We are just a couple of days since the world celebrated Children’s Day. Today, when there’s so much of children’s literature, it is ironical that there’s very little for the child.  We get tons of DVDs for children.  There are hundreds of cartoons. Almost every TV channel has a children’s programme made of cartoons. What are these about? In a word, violence!  Someone tricking someone, someone bashing someone over his/her head and a lot of little children being taught that this is good stuff, this is RIGHT stuff, this is ought-to-do stuff. 

Then we have children’s theatre and film.  Happily theatre appears to have more than a ‘fair’ share of decent and sensitive individuals.  Children’s plays are children’s plays.  They can’t really be described as the playing out of adult themes using children as actors and props.  Film however is a mixed bag.

We have had excellent films such as Udayakantha Warnasuriya’s ‘Ran Kevita’ and Somaratne Dissanayake’s ‘Siri Raja Siri’.  They were truly ‘family’ films.  There is drama, fantasy, a story line that was clear and entertaining.  There were ‘dark’ elements but nothing overdone to the point of terrorizing the younger child in the audience. Indeed those elements that are usually taken as ‘bad/wicked/fearful’ are in the end turned into funny, human and even lovable creatures. This was particularly evident in ‘Ran Kevita’. 

Somaratne Dissanayake proved in ‘Siri Raja Siri’ that he can do a decent children’s film. This came after the award-winning ‘Suriya Arana’ which was a violent film that was totally unsuited for the younger child. It was an adult-themed film that had a couple of children doing their child-thing, but ought to have been tagged PG-13 (Parental Guidance recommended for children under 13 years of age).  It was followed by several other ‘children’s films’ including ‘Bindu’, again touted as a ‘family film’ and therefore for ‘children’.  This too was unsuited for younger children. 

Right now we have ‘Ira Handa Yata’ (Under the sun and moon) by Bennet Ratnayake, again a film made for the entire family.  It is certainly unsuited for small children.  There is a lot of violence in the film.  The producers have carefully left out those colours in the advertising. It appears, if you went purely by hoarding and poster, like a love story in a stressful time with not a hint of the violence embedded in the film.  That’s trickery.  Cheap. 

These films clearly indicate how parents are being duped and children being abused for commercial gain.  The business enterprises camouflaged as art-productions needs to be taken to task and so too the ‘artists’ who are complicit in these ‘projects’.  We are not talking about people who are engaged in the business of providing entertainment for children and getting the wrong end of the stick (like those children’s authors mentioned earlier), but operators who may even be quite aware of what’s what in all this. 

Here’s the status report then.  We have more child-material in all art forms than we’ve ever had in our history. We got the volume sorted out. We just don’t have the quality.  For this reason alone, volume is a curse.  It is an obliterating curse for nothing is more pernicious and destructive than the trap that comes coloured as gift. 

Our children are poor indeed in this regard.  Some of them are lucky to have grandparents, yes, but that’s still only a consolation. 

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com.  This article was first published in the 'Sunday Observer' in October 2010 at a time when I wrote a weekly column for that paper titled 'From the Sidelines'. 

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Engendering representation

Women are clearly under-represented in Parliament.  Are farmers adequately represented? Fishermen?
And who is 'over-represented'?  Lawyers, racketeers, thugs, idiots?

This was first published five years ago, i.e. March 21, 2010, in the now defunct Sunday Lakbima News.  As electoral reform is being debated right now, it is good to look at the less talked issue pertaining to 'representation'.
  
Whenever an American from the USA or someone from Europe talks about ‘progress’ and indulges in neo-colonial speak of whatever kind, I have a standard response, said half in jst half seriously.  
‘Sri Lanka produced the world’s first woman Prime Minister. There was a time when we had a woman President and a woman Prime Minister.  We have had Prime Ministers who were gay and who were bi-sexual.  We have had Leaders of the Opposition who are gay. We have senior ministers who are openly gay.’ 

I do this mostly to liberals and they almost always respond, ‘really?’  I add that a person’s gender or sexual orientation has little bearing on ‘electability’, subject of course to the qualification that if a woman is the widow or daughter of a slain politicians it would improve her chances a notch.  Even here, though, there is nothing to say that a son whose father was assassinated would fare no better than his sister.   

There is a huge mismatch in terms of percentages in Parliament.  Women make up a little more than half the population but there were only 13 in the last Parliament against 212 men.  That’s just 5.8%.  The first parliament had 3 women out of a total of 95 or just 3.1%.  The percentages have fluctuated and it is not a case where there’s slow/gradual improvement.   

Now some think this is a horrendous state of affairs. Statements are issued periodically by women’s rights organizations saying that there is gross under-representation of women and there’s been a call articulated now and then for seat-allocation, i.e. a certain number of seats in parliament reserved for women.  The United National Party in what is clearly a populist move launched a Women’s Charter of sorts the other day, reiterating the call for better representation.  I think this is an important move, populism notwithstanding.  More important of course is the pledge to ensure same salaries for equal remuneration for performing similar tasks.   But let’s consider this matter of better representation by way of correcting gender mismatch. 

I think that it is nonsense to think that someone from category A will look after the interests of all those in that category.  Men don’t represent men.  Women don’t represent women. Muslims don’t represent Muslims.  The govigama will not look after the govigama. People are multi-dimensional.  At various times various dimensions of overall character will come to the fore.  History has shown, for example, that the lot of women did not improve just because a country had a woman as chief executive.  Sinhalese leaders have betrayed Sinhalese, just as Tamil leaders have betrayed that community.  Men have seldom sought power to consolidate the patriarchy and women who aspired to political office rarely had women’s liberation as No. 1 priority item on their agenda.   

Reserving places in parliament can correct an outward anomaly, I agree. That is not the solution for a number of reasons.  First of all, if women really want to be in parliament and believe that there should be ‘FEMALE representation’ (i.e. women representing women and nobody else, representing women’s issues and nothing else), they can easily use the strength of numbers to collect the half-a-pound of flesh from first party and then the Parliament. They have not done that and the onus is on all those who advocate ‘better representation’ to do so, i.e. answer the question.  Asking for allotment is the easy/cheap way out and smacks of argumentative sloth.   

Secondly, it would open a can of worms called ‘precedent’.  Farmers, for example, can say that lawyers are over-represented in Parliament.  What is the ratio of farmer to lawyer in this country, does anyone know?  Let’s say it is 100: 1.  (probably much higher, let me hasten to add).  Now how many lawyers were in the last Parliament?  I don’t know, but I am pretty sure the number would be more than 50.  Let’s be conservative.  Let’s say there were only 25. How many farmers? I mean, how many MPs who actually till the field, do the weeding, harvest, thresh and take the paddy to mill and market?  None!  That’s gross under-representation isn’t it? Sorry, not under-representation but non-representation!  Will the good-representation-seekers do something to correct this injustice?  I doubt it.   

How many fishermen?  How many teachers? How many servicemen? Are we going to have a parliament which accommodates by law all social categories in accordance with numerical strength? Will someone who is really good with numbers tell us how to accommodate in this manner categories of gender, ethnicity, religious faith, class, occupation and age?  What if left-handed people suddenly find themselves under-represented?  What if people above or below a certain height want to be adequately represented?  Fat people? Thin people? Beggars, anyone?   

How about crooks?  Would the honest complain they are being under-represented?  Would Ranil Wickremesinghe bring out a Charter for the Marginalized?  How about a Charter for People with Disabilities?  How about a Parliamentary Quota for them?  Should we have a quota for kudukaarayas?  How do we work out the relevant mathematics?   

It is silly to think that increased representation will solve the problems women in our society suffer from and even if some gains can be obtained it would leave as painful side-effect the vexed issue of category-representation.  There are serious disparities in our society, especially on lines of gender.  There have been many attempts to correct these and some have floundered simply because advocates and practitioners have assumed that gender is a synonym for women and ignore the fact that women, in many instances, are locked in relationships that are intimate and/or extremely close for reasons of kinship with men.  The lives of the ‘protagonists’, if you want to use such language, are not neatly separable, as would be the case of distinctions in caste, religious faith, ethnic identity etc.  

I am not a woman. The charge can be made, ‘well let us decide what’s good for us’.  Fine.  But ladies (and gentlemen who advocate this ‘solution’) please understand that you can put all the make up you like but in the end there’s a real woman beneath all that and that’s what counts. The same thing holds for the issue of ‘representation’.  Us men have had a good time in terms of representation in Parliament, right?  We can ask, ‘how come only a certain class of men have benefited?’ There’s more to it than playing with percentages, I think, correct me if I am wrong. 


Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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It’s great to chase rainbows

This is the twenty fourth article in a series I am writing for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'.  The series is for children. Adults consider yourselves warned...you might re-discover a child within you! Scroll down for other articles in this series. 

We have all seen rainbows.  Long before we know the science of rainbows, that is how they are produced, they are magical.  Even after we learn how they are made rainbows still delight us. 

Some rainbows are faint and far away but some have really vibrant colors and seem close enough to touch.  This is a story about one of those touchable rainbows. 

It happened in the hills of Nuwara Eliya, a few kilometers off the Ramboda-Nuwara Eliya road.   You could see the place if you are travelling towards Nuwara Eliya as you pass Labukele and approach Kuda Oya.  It’s a vegetable garden hugging the faraway hills, just below the tree line.  People in the area call it Rambodawatte. 

It had rained hard the previous day.  There were enough clouds to indicate that there would be more rain coming that way.  Still, the sun was out.  It was a splendid afternoon.  One minute it was all sky, the next it was sky with a rainbow; a wide arc that came out from beyond the hills across the road and dropped down somewhere near a carrot garden, or seemed to at least.

The little girl who noticed it first was determined to catch the rainbow.  She announced that she was going to do so.  She was old enough to know that you can’t really ‘catch’ a rainbow.  She was too young to know that sometimes what appears to be near is really far away.  Her father told her this but she didn’t want to believe. 

‘Can I go?’ she asked and her father, delighting in his daughter’s delight smiled and said ‘of course’. 

He didn’t ask her, later, if she had indeed caught the rainbow.  He only knew that it had taken the girl longer than she expected to get to the place she believed the rainbow ended and of course that she would have discovered that it was still further away.  He only knew that she took a long, long time to get back. 

There’s so much that’s between where you are right now and the place where one might think the rainbow touches earth.  As you walk towards that point you the excitement of chasing the rainbow might make you miss a lot of things on either side of the path you’ve chosen.  Then again, you might discover a rare flower, be distracted by a birdcall or by any number of things.  You might trip over a rock, slip and fall.  When you get back on your feet the rainbow may have disappeared. 

At some point you will stop.  You might realize that rainbows are for wonderment and not for touch.  If the rainbow has disappeared you might still find what’s before you to be amazingly beautiful.  In any case, as you walk back you’ll notice a lot of things you had missed earlier. 

Rainbows come in many forms.  Some as arcs with colors some without any shape or hue.  We call such rainbows different names:  hope, promises, the future, dreams etc.  We don’t catch these things.  We walk towards them.  We learn a lot along the way.  We get to a point and we see a different world.  Whatever happens we are richer for making that choice to go towards the rainbow. 

Other articles in this series

Ready for time travel?

Puddles look back at you, did you know?

What's the view like from your door?

The world is rearranged by silhouettes

How would you paint the sky?
It is cool to slosh around
You can compose your own music
Pebbles are amazing things
You can fly if you want to
The happiest days of our lives
So what do you want to do with the rain?

Still looking for that secret passage?

Maybe we should respect the dust we walk on

Numbers are beautiful 

There are libraries everywhere 

Collect something crazy

Fragments speak of a thousand stories 

The games you can and cannot play with rice

The magic of the road less-traveled

Have you ever thought of forgiving?

Wallflowers are pretty, aren't they?

What kind of friend do you want to be? 

Noticed the countless butterflies around you?

Read more

Good to meditate on impermanence

This is the twenty fourth in a series of articles on rebels and rebellion written for the FREE section of 'The Nation'. Scroll to the end for other articles in this series.  'FREE' is dedicated to youth and youthfulness.

We know stuff but one ‘stuff’ we know but don’t often admit even to ourselves is that we don’t know ‘all the stuff’.  Twenty two years ago, there was a young boy who didn’t know much.  He knew so little that when things got really bad he thought things were far worse than they actually were. 

He was part of a group of about 15 young people engaged in a lively political discussion in a temple.  The leader had recommended that they begin by meditating on compassion.  This was around 5 am.  Seven hours later, they adjourned for lunch.  Before the next sessions began, there was a light discussion about ‘old times’.  The leader of the group was asked how it was when he had been arrested a few years previously.  The following is the gist of what he said.

‘I was in a room with someone from the Jathika Kamkaru Satan Madyasthanaya (National Workers’ Action Center, the ‘labor arm’ of the JVP).  He had been badly assaulted.  His body was covered with wound that had not been treated.  There were maggots in some of them.  He had by that time lost his mind.  He was talking about his three year old daughter.  He would say “chooti doo, thaththata jo tikak denna” (little girl, give your father some water).  He died in that cell.’

The young man asked, ‘what did you do?’

‘I found that I was thinking a lot about my mother.  But knowing what happened to my cell mate I realized that I would lose my mind if I continued to do so.’

The question was repeated, ‘so what did you do?’

‘I meditated on impermanence.’

Two minutes later a group of policeman in civvies crashed into the room brandishing pistols.  They abused the group, tied them up and bundled them into a couple of vans.  They were questioned by various officers.  They were fed food that looked like it had come from a toilet and not a kitchen. 

The young boy fell asleep in one of the cells.  Around midnight he was woken up by the sound of screams.  He was sharing the cell with a young bikkhu.

‘Our friends are being beaten up, right?’

‘Hmmm,’ the bikkhu replied.

‘Will they kill us?’

‘No.  Are you scared?’

He was, but didn’t admit it.  The bikkhu knew the boy was scared.

‘Don’t worry.  Two punches and your body goes numb.  You won’t feel a thing after that.’

It didn’t console him.  What consoled him were the words of the leader, spoken a few hours before.  So he thought.

‘I’ve lived 26 years.  I might live another 30, 40 or maybe 50 years.  In the long span of history, it’s like a fraction of a second.  To die now, won’t be so bad.’

And he meditated on impermanence.  Eventually, the Officer in Charge came up to the cell.  The boy was pulled out.  He was not killed.  He was beaten though.  Two punches and he didn’t feel a thing thereafter. 

It is good to meditate on impermanence.  Not just to deal with fear of assault and disappointment.  It gives perspective.  It shows up things in their true(r) dimensions, let’s say.  And when you obtain reality in that way you get a measure of what is and what could be.  You can then think of strategy.  If not anything it gives courage to endure.  It keeps disappointment away.  Useful.  

Other articles in this series

Dear Rebel, please keep it short
Get ready for those setbacks
The rebel must calculate or perish
Are you ready to deceive?
Dear Rebel, 'P' is also for 'Proportion' 
Dear Rebel, have you got the e-factor out of the way?
Have you carefully considered the f-word?
It is so easy to name the enemy, right?
The p-word cuts both ways
Cards get reflected in eyes, did you know?
It's all about timing 
Heroes and heroism are great, but...
Recruiting for a rebellion
The R, L and H of 'Rebellion'
Pack in 'Humor' when you gather rebellion-essentials

When the enemy is your best friend

The MSM Principle of Engagement

Dear Rebel, get some creature-tips!

Dear Rebel, get through your universities first

Read the enemies Bibles

Poetry, love and revolution

Are you ready to shut down your petrol shed

The details, the details!

Know your comrades

Read more

Portrait of an evergreen Red

I once saw the following caption beneath a portrait of Ernesto Che Guavara: "Some people struggle for a day, and that is good; some for a year, and that is better. Then there are those who fight all their lives, and they are truly revolutionary." It is indeed rarely that one comes across such personalities. Not all of them are as famous as Che. Typically, they live and die without celebration and acknowledgement.

And yet their lives, their work and their hearts are as vibrant and life-giving, and they always leave a trace of their particular fragrance on this earth.

I first met Manikvadura Daniel, known to countless activists and communist fellow-travellers as Danny Aiya and Communist Danny, at a discussion on Green Socialism about 10 years ago. Later Danny Aiya and I were fellow-detainees in one of the many National "security" headquarters in Longden Place.

Last week I went to see Danny Aiya, who is now 71 and lives in a village called Gonagalapura, about 7 km inland from Aluthgama, and was the recipient of his hospitality, wisdom and soft ways.
Born in Thalalla, Matara, and named Daniel by a high-handed person whose task was to register births (quite against the wishes of his father), he was the 7th in a family of 14. He belonged to a family of traditional farmers. He described his father as a man with an infinite capacity to give. A couple of years before he died at the age of 102, the old man, whom Danny described as a "Kawthuka Vasthuva," had given up his room to accommodate refugees who had fled terrorist attacks in the Eastern Province, and this "in a country where there are people who are reluctant to offer a glass of water to a stranger." His mother was from Waawwa, Devinuwara, a village that gave rise to the tongue-twister "Waawwa Weve Vee Vewwa".

The family had been strongly influenced by the political thought of Anagarika Dharmapala and their ideological predilection was broadly left-wing. Unlike the rest of his family, however, Danny committed his entire life to progressive politics, giving his labour and time, and losing everything of material value that he possessed in the process. "My siblings, with whom I have excellent relations, say that I am a person who is paying off other people’s debts," he said with a wry grin.

He had studied in Sinhala until the 5th grade and then in English until the "SSC". He has an excellent command of both languages and have contributed many articles to both Sinhala and English newspapers over the years.

Nineteen Forty Seven marked his baptism as a political activist. Premalal Kumarasiri had contested the Hakmana seat for the Communist Party, his chief rival being Maj. Dharmapala of the UNP. Kumarasiri had made a campaign stop at Thalalla and Danny had been impressed by the eloquence of the man. After that, he had abandoned his usual practise of going to the paddy field upon returning from school and had gone from meeting to meeting, village to village. In the evenings, he would stand on the Vangediya and repeat the speeches he had listened to. His father had been quite perturbed, but Danny remembers that his mother had been quite supportive.

By this time he was attending the bilingual school in Devinuwara, his education being provided for by his older brother. During the campaign and afterwards, he had been suspended three times by the principal, H. B. Weerasinghe. Apparently he and his friends were in the habit of going to a small boutique called "Nuga Sevana" where they would leave their books and take off with Premalal on the campaign trail. Someone had tipped off the principal. He recalled with some mirth the fact that even those who had failed to come to school because of other reasons had been suspended on one of these occasions. When he came home he had been duly beaten by his father. Again his mother saved him, arguing that Danny cannot be doing all this without having given proper thought to the matter.

After the SSC he had come to Colombo to work as a full-timer for the party. Having built quite a reputation for himself as a fiery speaker and a dedicated activist, Danny had been in the forefront of the ‘53 Hartal’ in the Southern Province, engaging in quite a number of subversive activities. He had been shot at and had to flee to the jungle on a number of occasions.

When the Paddy Lands Act was introduced in 1958 he had been appointed as a Field Officer in the Hambantota District. He had resigned not long afterwards, against the advice of Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe, choosing instead to work for the party.

Being a long standing member of the Communist Party, and a founder member of the "Peking Wing" led by Sanmugathasan (or "Shan" as he was often called), as well as being in the Central Committee of other off-shoots such as Nava Lanka Communist Party (led by Kalyana Thiranagama) and Gamini Yapa’s Peradiga Sulanga, Danny was able to trace the trajectories that Left politics in Sri Lanka have taken over the past three decades.

Danny protested my use of the term "Peking Wing". "Don’t say Peking-Wing. We were the ‘revolutionary wing’ of the Communist party. We were against Revisionism and Khruschevism; that is why we had to split." He claimed that the Ceylon Trade Union Federation, the All Lanka Peasant Congress and a number of youth and women’s organisations of the party chose to go with Shan’s faction when the split occurred.

Later he had parted ways with Shan on ideological grounds. He said that it was much later that he realised the racist agenda of the man. Apparently, in a discussion on who constituted the local version of the "revolutionary vanguard," Shan had insisted that it is the estate workers that constitute "the real proletariat", and argued that it is with them that the party should move. He, along with others, had countered that it is the peasants that should be considered the vanguard of the revolution, following Mao’s line.

"Our party was fraught with factionalism. Nine people of the Central Committee resigned, led by Premalal Kumarasiri."

Danny had been a founder member of the Samastha Lanka Govi Sammelanaya which Ariyawansa Gunasekera had formed. He described Gunasekera as an exceptional human being and an unforgettable personality in the struggle of the peasantry. He had been a founder member of the LSSP, the CP, the "Revolutionary" CP and the Nava Lanka CP.

Danny had to hide from both the JVP and the state during the ’71 uprising. After that he had given up party politics, devoting himself to social work. "Still, time and again, party activists would come to see me, requesting that I help them in numerous ways. I could never say ‘no’," he said.
Danny, being the fire-brand that he was and a much sought after public speaker, had his fair share of excitement, adventure and political intrigue.

He is clearly endowed with an excellent memory and an amazing ability to recollect detail. He recalled a strike organised at the Andapana Estate, owned by Sarath Wijesinghe, a leading figure in the ‘56 government and the brother-in-law of Dr. S.A. Wickramasinghe, where he had been very active in organising the workers. This was in 1963-64. Apparently one thug by the name of Highran Prema, a well-known bomb-maker who had also thrown bombs at the house of CP stalwart Tudawe, had been assigned the job of breaking up the strike. The workers had resisted and in the melee the thug had been killed. Danny had been on the way to the estate at this time and when he arrived he had been surrounded by the Prema’s gang.

"For the first time in my life I encountered the fear of death. I knew that they were going to kill and that I had only minutes to live. I was saved by a Sergeant named Piyaratne, who was aware of who I was and the kind of politics that I practised."

I remember, while being incarcerated with him, Danny telling me about Rohana Wijeweera. "His is a history of betrayal. I was the first person that he betrayed, alleging that I was flirting with a woman in one of the houses where we stayed during our political work." At that time he did not elaborate on his version of the rise of the JVP.

He had met Wijeweera during the election campaign of March 1960. He had called on an old CP activist, Andiris Wijeweera, Rohana’s father. During the ’47 election, supporters of the UNP candidate, businessman W. P. Arnolis Appu, had abducted Andiris and had later thrown him out of the jeep in which they were taking him. The fall had forced him to be bed-ridden for 22 years. When Danny had gone to Lunukalapuwa to see him, Andiris had called his son and told him to take Danny to meet all the CP supporters.

He remembers Rohana Wijeweera as a dedicated and disciplined activist. "Wijeweera did everything he was asked to do on time and with total commitment," he recalled. They had organised pocket meetings, going from village to village, choosing times and days when the local fairs were held. It was Wijeweera who announced these meetings.

Afterwards, when Khruschev started the Lumumba University, Wijeweera’s name had been nominated even though he was not a member of the party. His father’s history, and Wijeweera’s loyalty to the party during the campaign had worked in his favour. In Moscow he had been denied membership of the Sri Lanka Communist Party’s Secretary in Moscow, K. A. Jeewaratne. When young Wijeweera returned, he had resigned from the party along with those who chose the Maoist line.

Wijeweera had lectured, along with Shan and Danny in a political school that the party had established in Thalalle. He was elected the Vice Chairman of the Youth League, the Chairman being A. R. Edmund. This gave him the opportunity to meet students from all parts of the country. This was, according to Danny, his baptism in party politics. Danny said that Wijeweera had participated in a UNP procession in 1965, during which one Buddhist monk from Dambarawe had been killed. Shan had asked for explanation, and Wijeweera had resigned to form the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, along with G. I. D. Dharmasekera and others. The name had been proposed by Kuliyapitiye Prananda, who was also the person who came up with the term "Jathika Chintanaya".

During his tenure in the Youth League, Danny alleged, Wijeweera had engaged in a vile campaign against the party leadership and had been building his political base among the students. It was in this way that he was able to take off on his own and build his own political organisation.
Danny has visited China twice, once in 1962 as a party representative and again in 1982 along with Gamini Yapa, a year after Peradiga Sulanga was formed. He recalled these visits with much pride and said that he learnt a lot during his travels.

In 1962, although initially sent for a year on a study programme, he had come back in four months. The group had been taken to Hong Kong and they had crossed the border and entered China at a place called Kolung. Having broken from the Moscow-led Communist Party at the height of the Sino-Soviet ideological split, they had been accorded a red carpet welcome. He had participated in the May Day celebrations of that year and holds the distinction of sharing the stage with people like Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Chou Enlai.

There had been representatives from 82 countries, some of who were later killed in the struggles they led in their home countries.

He said he had learnt a lot about agriculture, sustainable development and the efficient use of scarce resources during this visit. More than all that, he had learnt the importance of discipline. "The Chinese are the most disciplined people I have met. Discipline is one of the most important things for an activist, it enables him/her to engage to the full potential as well as allows the quick uncovering of deceit."

Danny recalled his visit to Mao’s village, where there had been a party in their honour and he had been forced to take his first sip of alcohol, some rice wine. It had been a good educational experience. First they were taken to the landmarks of the Chinese Revolution, places where there had been critical battles. Then they were introduced to those who had actually taken part. Finally the politics and history was discussed. "This was a very organic way of instruction. This process ensures that the lessons are concretised in your mind and heart."

In 1982, he was on a "tour," and able to go where he liked and talk freely with the people. He witnessed the changed under Deng and said that the Trotskyist charge of China becoming capitalist did not have any base in truth. At that time, all that was given by way of private property was a small plot of land which people could do whatever they liked with in whatever leisure time they had.
Looking back at his life he said "I never thought about money. All I ever did was work for the betterment of the community. After 1980, I wrote for the "Goviya" newspaper, and worked with the All Lanka Peasant Congress of which I was the Organising Secretary. I also engaged in social service."

He is perhaps best known for what he did for the refugees from the East, and of course what he had to suffer as a result.

The inmates of the Kantale Refugee Camp who had been forced to abandon their village, Alla, in 1986, had come to the South upon hearing rumours that others in their position had been given land in the area. One hundred and eighty three people had come to his village of Thalalla. Danny had appealed with the chief monk of the Sri Mandalaaramaya to allow these people to stay in the temple premises. The monk had said there was only one toilet and that he couldn’t accommodate all these people.

Danny had been running a small scale coir rope industry at that time and he had two toilets. He had decided to take everyone to his house. "The police, which was generally not too well disposed towards me, gave me a lot of support on this occasion.

More than that, people from nearby villages rallied round me to ensure that these people who had lost their property and livelihoods to LTTE terror are looked after."

This humble man with modest means had looked after these 183 people for 5 full days. Thereafter they had gone to Ambalantota, seeking relief from the Government Agent. Instead of relief they had been set upon by a group of thugs. Danny, along with others had been arrested and had to languish in police cells for a month. The matter had been taken up in courts, where it was determined that "Every citizen has the right to live anywhere." No compensation was granted.

Danny, as I mentioned earlier has been a vociferous campaigner for the rights of farmers. He has been arrested and held on three occasions, detained on countless occasions. In 1992, along with 15 others he was arrested while having a discussion in a temple in Wadduwa. The group consisted of the core of what later became the Janatha Mithuro. They filed a Fundamental Rights Application, a move which prompted the Attorney General to charge the group with sedition. Both cases were decided in their favour, the Fundamental Rights verdict being a landmark decision in the legal history of the country.

He has written several articles to newspapers both as a citizen and an officer bearer of the All Lanka Peasants Congress. His commentaries on the political economy of agriculture have been extremely perceptive and he has demonstrated a feel for the peasantry that is sadly lacking among the political leadership of this country.

"It is because we were self-sufficient in rice that we could proudly say that we are not afraid of anyone or anything. We had fertile land. In those days the worth of a piece of land was assessed according to the number of earthworms in a handful of soil. Then came the pesticides and chemical fertilisers when we were taken for a ride in the name of the so-called Green Revolution. Now our soils are heavily dependent on chemical inputs for fertility and protection from pests."

I asked Danny what his thoughts were about the future and how he evaluates his life.

"My wife, Ariyawathie, who has been a comrade and friend, died a year ago. This is the greatest loss I have suffered. As I was taking her in a three-wheeler to hospital (where she later died), she asked me ’mechchara karalath apita sathutin inna puluwan unada?’ referring of course to the hard life we led and which we still lead. I said ‘This is the way it is sometimes’. She has never sent away anyone who came to our house without giving them a meal. She always made people comfortable. I was away most of the time, so it was she who brought up our three daughters and son."
Danny lives with his three daughters, Hemamali, Sarala (named after the notion of simplicity) and Chinta (after Mao’s thought) and his grandson, Chatura who is in many ways the apple of the old man’s eye.

Over the years, Danny has moved away from Marxist ideologies, even though he has lost nothing in terms of his fierce commitment to progressive political transformation. "My political philosophy has been fed to a great extent by Buddhism. Buddhist thought with its stress on simplicity and a life that is neither extravagant or impoverished, teaches important lessons in terms of economy and social organisation. I consider Kuliyapitiye Pranand, Rev. Athureliye Rathana and Champika Ranawake to be the main people who have made me change my view of the world. Champika and Rev. Rathana, especially, have been instrumental in making me see the fault-lines of Marxism. My wife always told me "Whenever there is a problem, go to Rev. Rathana, he will take care of you."

"About the future? The President said recently that no one can solve the problems of this country. This, I consider, to be an insult to every Sri Lankan. We have the resources and we have the knowledge. We don’t have the correct leadership. There are enough Mahoushadas in our country. I take this statement of the president as a personal challenge. We don’t have leaders of any stature in our country. There was a time when our kings knew the amount of rice being cultivated. In fact they could calculate to the grain the wealth of the country. In stark contrast, our present day leaders don’t even know how many acres are under cultivation."

At the same time, Danny lamented no one is taking advantage of his experience and the knowledge that he has acquired over the years: "People don’t make use of people like me. People like me are like the karapincha in a kirihodda, used to give flavour then thrown away. Just like the parliament and the voters. Nevertheless, I am convinced that we can make our country prosper.

"As I said, I no longer consider myself a Marxist. Marxism has many flaws, one of the main being its inability to take into account the issue of culture. At the same time, I take a lot of inspiration from the Chinese example. Mao understood the critical issues and the cultural ethos of the region. We have a lot to learn from China. I have taken heed of the words of wisdom that a man who was branded as a ‘capitalist roader’ said to me when I was in China: ‘open your eyes and see the world’."

M. D. Daniel, quiet man whose eyes easily fill with tears but who with sheer strength of character bears his wounds without complaint, has lived a life that embodies the famous words of Nikolai Ostrovsky "Always strive to work for the betterment of mankind, and so live that when you die you can do so with the full knowledge that yours has not been a life lived in vain where personal enhancement mattered more than social gain."

In the 54th year of our so-called Independence, perhaps it would be most fitting to think of the Dannys of our country whose struggle to win freedom for our people has no end-point in event and time. This gentle and humble man who refuses to retire from political engagement would not want any thanks for all he has done for people who will never know him. It would be more appropriate, I believe, to repeat these lines from that simple folk song:

"May all you find in the wilderness, taste sweet
May the people rally round you like the bees around the flower
May the rays of sunlight fall gently on you".

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