Countries of the past, present and future

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]

Prabath Sahabandu, Editor, ‘The Island,’ batchmate, friend and one time colleague, related the following story a few years ago at the launch of a children’s novel by a young student of Royal International School, Kurunegala, to which we had both been invited.

Prabath had been an English teacher at Angunakolapalassa Maha Vidyalaya in the Moneragala District. He had to leave his job and Angunakolapalassa when he was selected to the University of Peradeniya. He had announced his imminent departure to the students.

‘It was one of the saddest moments in my life because a little girl came up to me with a gift which happened to be the only thing she owned, the exercise book she had brought to take down notes.  I never saw her again. I don’t know where she is or what she is doing. Indeed, I don’t even know if she’s still alive.’  

This would have been in the year 1985. Things may have changed. She may have bested the numerous depravations of her circumstances. Circumstances, however, have a way of persisting in the main. Here’s a story from twelve years later.  

Thanamalwila is also in the same district, around 15 km away from Angunakolapalassa. Some students from the Sociology Department, Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya were in the area learning the practicalities of fieldwork under the supervision of the late Karunatissa Athukorala. A different set of students from the same department, also guided by ‘Tissa Sir’ had identified several critical issues in this area, among them a high incidence of abortions and suicides. This group was focusing on suicide, inquiring into the why and how of the phenomenon, with a view to developing some kind of programme to combat the problem.

The area that came under the jurisdiction of the Thanamalwila Divisional Secretariat, apparently, had the highest suicide rate in the country at the time. Free access to pesticides meant that those contemplating suicide didn’t have to worry about the means. The fractures typical of migrant labour, the absence of an established social safety net in the form of temples or sports associations which may have provided an avenue to vent frustrations, it was hypothesised, may have contributed.  

There were very young children who took poison for what may seem to be trivial reasons such as being scolded by a parent or a teacher. The story of one particular kid, around 11 years old if I remember right, who had survived a suicide attempt has remained with me all these years. Never fails to make me reflect on the enormity and pathos of certain sections of our citizenry. Never fails to provide some perspective.

That little boy had decided to take his life because there had been a grand funeral for a friend who had committed suicide! He had seen the outpouring of grief over the death of the boy prompted probably by love and affection. The attention that the dead boy received was nothing like this boy, the one who survived a suicide attempt, had experienced. The decision to take his life, then, was prompted by a desire to obtain in death what he never had in life.

Twenty five years have passed. I don’t know the boy’s name. I don’t know what he is doing now. Indeed I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I do remember however a Facebook post where someone was urging reluctant or let’s say less-agitated or more reserved friends to join the Aragalaya. It went like this, more or less:

‘Tomorrow, your driver will say that he can’t buy school books for his child. Tomorrow your domestic aide will say that she has no money to buy milk powder for her child.’

The post went on to insist that the ‘friends’ have a moral responsibility to act. Clearly the issue was not deprivation of the kind that is the daily bread of certain sections of the population if you’ve got a driver and a domestic aid, probably deployable in petrol queues and gas queues respectively.  Inability to purchase school books and milk powder is not a problem that cropped up just the other day and if people didn’t see this it has to be because they didn’t give a hoot or were blind to realities outside their comfort zones.

It reminded me of a Russell Peters clip where kids from different ethnicities in Canada discussed punishment: ‘The white kid said, “I was sent to my room” and the black kid responds, “you have a room?”’

There are so many countries on this island. In some of them suicide is not uncommon. In some, beneficiaries of a corrupt and dysfunctional system get agitated when lifestyles get disrupted. In a country called ‘System’ the beneficiaries and victims co-exist in varying degrees of exploitation and subjugation where the perennially disenfranchised are seen but the disenfranchisement largely invisible to citizens in Comfort City who, moreover, act the aggrieved if forced to forego the most trivial of privileges.    

In a country called Angunakolapalassa, a little girl gives away her most precious possession, an exercise book, by way of appreciating a teacher. In another country there are young people who find it hard to decide where they should have their birthday parties, a grand dinner at Shangri-La or high tea at the Colombo Hilton. And in a country called Thanamalwila, a 11 year old boy doesn’t have even a half way grip on the basics of life and death.

There’s a country called ‘Tomorrow’ too. Some will reach it and among them, I hope there will be a woman who as a child gifted an exercise book to a beloved teacher and a man who as a child wanted to kill himself so he could have a beautiful funeral, a 'lassana mala gedara.'

malindadocs@gmail.com

 

Other articles in this series:

A degree in creative excuses

Books launched and not-yet-launched

The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains

The ways of the lotus

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart The allegory of the slow road

 

 

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Let's unpack the query in 'Tamil National Question'

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has called all parties to get together and solve what he calls the ‘ethnic-problem’ that has remained ‘unresolved’ for decades. Meanwhile, parties that claim to represent ‘Tamil interests’ have put forward a set of demands: a) stop ‘land grabs in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by armed forces the state institutions while releasing all lands so acquired earlier by them in those two provinces, b) hold provincial council elections forthwith after implementing all provisions in the Constitutions and other laws in respect of power devolution, and c)  implement power devolution under a federal framework through a new Constitution are the three demands.

Any private lands acquired by the state for military purposes should be returned to original owners provided that doing so does not compromise strategic interests. It is hard to imagine that there are ‘strategic interests’ that are vital that such an exercise should be ruled out. Using state lands for state-purposes is of course another matter.

State operations may one day be carried out entirely in virtual space. Maybe state institutions would one day be moved to floating facilities in the sea or in the sky. Until then, they need land and there’s no logic in demanding that they should be located in or out of a particular province. Calling it ‘land grab’ is downright silly. The use of the term ‘land grab’ is interesting. A Freudian slip, in fact, considering the entire discourse of Tamil nationalism, sorry, chauvinism.

Holding provincial council elections, on the face of it, is a legitimate demand. However, it is strange that these very parties have been conspicuously silent about elections not being held for years! It’s almost as if they’ve never been serious about devolution of power. More importantly is the fact that provincial council were set up illegally via a constitutional amendment forced on Sri Lanka by India in a do-it-or-else manner following the infamous dhal-drop by that country’s Air Force.

The third demand is fine: power devolution under a federal framework through a new constitution.  Anyone (including Tamil chauvinists who were vociferous approvers of terrorism and terrorists) has the right to demand anything. Whether such demands can be met is another matter. They can and should be considered. That’s what one expects from a functioning democracy. There should be mechanisms for this and if such don’t exist then they need to be put in place.  

There’s a problem though. Why federalism? Why devolution? On what basis? Grievances, did someone say? What grievances? And, if such do exist, what logic dictates ‘devolution’ as the one and only way of resolving them? Well, Tamil chauvinists are pretty thin on all this.  History is not on their side. Archaeology is not on their side. Demography is not on their side. Geography is not on their side. And even economics is not on their side.

There are serious problems with Tamil nationalism and nationalists.  Substantiation is not their thing. Ask them to do so and they twiddle their thumbs. Talk history and they dodge. Talk about demography and they pretend people and land don’t go together. Talk solutions and they start shifting goalposts. Talk economics and the logic or otherwise of devolution (the Western Province has close to 75% of the country’s GDP and if we played devolution-logic to the letter we would see the continued relative impoverishment of certain districts and provinces) and they will talk about human rights violations. Talk about human rights violations and they act as though it all happened in 2009 and that the LTTE was a band of angels.  Insist and they mutter 'Darusman Report.' Ask a few pointed questions about veracity of claim and they rant and rave about something else in the manner of artful dodgers.  

Thus, when they demand devolution under a federal framework they are talking absolute rubbish.  Not too long ago, i.e. in November 2019, the people of this country voted at a presidential election. The winner and the candidate who came second together polled 94% of the vote.  Both pledged to uphold the unitary character of the state. The Tamil National Alliance supported one of these candidates, Sajith Premadasa. So what talk of federalism? If they were so principled, shouldn’t those in the TNA and other ‘Tamil’ parties have disassociated themselves from any individual or party that did not espouse their cause or at least claim that they will consider a ‘federal’ constitution?

The Tamil National Question. That’s what they like to call it. Question. That’s the key word here. Tamil chauvinists do have a problem, a question. They really don’t care about ground realities. They don’t care about history. They don’t care about demography. Yes, we need to say these things again and again, simply because the biggest question about Tamil Nationalism is this: ‘why is the word ‘substantiation’ not in their vocabulary?’ Why cannot they come out with the true dimensions of grievances and explain how ‘devolution’ and/or ‘federalism’ resolves these? Why do they talk of ‘unity’ when that word is not ‘constitutionable’ and why do they fail to acknowledge that close to 100% of the voting population was not interested in federalism?  All these are questions. All questions that Tamil nationalists must answer but will respond with the kind of navel-gazing that they’ve indulged in for decades which of course did nothing in improving the well being of anyone, including Tamil people in this country.

That’s the ‘Tamil Question’ then — simply a misnomer, a proposition of a racist and a land-grabber.  So when Wickremesinghe wants all parties to come together to resolve the ethnic-conflict, he should first get them to agree on the truth about this ‘ethnic conflict,’ which includes the lie that has been the political foundation of racist, chauvinistic, land-grabbing Tamil politicians and parties for decades.  As for the demands of ‘Tamil’ parties, the time has come to politely tell them, ‘how about an audit of history or histories claimed, how about talking demography and geography, how about discussing voter behaviour and how about dumping the 13th Amendment because it was forced on Sri Lanka by the neighbourhood thug?  

Yes, more than one question. Easily answered. All of them. And, in answering, something could happen to the so-called Tamil Question — a problem of chauvinistic Tamils which can be easily resolved if the chauvinistic Tamils closed shop.  Shouldn't have taken decades. Need not take the five weeks left until the 75th Independence Day celebrations. Five seconds should do.

malindadocs@gmail.com

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A degree in creative excuses

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles] 

 

All I remember from Grade 7 is that I never looked forward to being in class. Grade 7, at least as far as formal education went, was made of homework and other assignments not done or half-done, admonishment from teachers, the occasional rebuke from my mother who was on the tutorial staff of the same school and not being enthusiastic about showing either of my parents the school report (marks were jotted down on the Student Record Book — the SRB — and a parent had to sign off, indicating that the bad news was seen).

The good memories are of moments that had nothing to do with formal learning. The bad ones I’ve unconsciously tried to forget. It’s hard because I was bad in most subjects, ordinary in some and good only at English and Western Music. There’s one incident I just can’t forget for both the trauma and the humour.  

Back then there was a category of subjects titled ‘Pre-Vocational’ and we had to choose two, one each from subject baskets. I picked wood work and business studies (that would be ‘Vyapara Adhyanaya’); I still don’t know why. Wood work was fun although I wasn’t any good at it. Business studies — I was clueless. The teacher was a fearsome and absolutely humourless elderly man. He must have been a good teacher, but I lacked even the basic understanding to make a call on the matter.  I can’t remember his name. He was referred to as ‘Kotiya,’ probably because of perceived ferocity.  

Kotiya gave homework. It was alright if you made an attempt but if you didn’t he would punish with sharp strokes of the foot ruler on the open palm.  One unforgettable Monday, Kotiya asked all the boys who had failed to do the homework to stand up. By the time he came to me at least three other boys had got two strokes of the foot ruler. Terrified, I tried to give an excuse.

‘My uncle got married on Saturday and the wedding was in Kegalle,’ I started. It was true. Then I realised that my excuse had to cover the entire weekend. I struggled: ‘We came back on Sunday…’ I was failing: ‘I could have done it last evening,’ I confessed, resigned to the inevitable.

Kotiya, for reasons I still can’t fathom, said ‘You get only one stroke of the ruler because you admitted that you haven’t done the homework!’  I was not a good student but I was, I believe, intelligent enough to quickly figure out that I had been rewarded unfairly — the other boys essentially said ‘didn’t do’ and got two strokes of the ruler for THEIR confession!  

I am sure I must have muddled through Grade 7 with admonishment and punishment. I’m sure I was never any good at coming up with anything close to a creative and memorable excuse. I can’t even take credit for the Kotiya reprieve.  It was about 17 years later that I learned about creative excuses being rewarded.  

Michael Dear, now the Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, and who taught a course on Postmodernism at the University of Southern California at the time, related the story. I can’t remember if it was triggered by a silly excuse for an assignment being handed in late, and if indeed it was, I could not have been one of the culprits (yes, I became a half-way decent student somewhere down the line).

‘I used to work in London and a red line was drawn at the time by which people should have signed in. However, those who were late were given the opportunity to jot down excuses. Whoever came up with the best excuse was pardoned.’

I can’t remember if it was Michael who had come up with the following classic, but all the students laughed: ‘I was on Westminster Bridge and I stopped, looked around and wondered what is the meaning of it all!’  

I still remember recalling the incident with Kotiya and thinking how dumb I had been. Of course, I was just 12 years old back then, but then again I had never been able to come up with any excuse close to the one Michael related.  

Michael, a postmodernist, asked us what we had learned from the class at the end of the semester. Some said ‘I am not a postmodernist.’ I said, ‘Pre-modern’ and Michael asked, good-humouredly, ‘so why did you take this class?’ ‘To learn the terms so that I could do my politics better,’ I said. He laughed and said something to the effect of ‘good enough.’  I never forgot his story about excuses though.

In fact years later, having somehow managed to complete two long essays on the very last day of the year 1999 (Y2K fears prompted the university authorities to declare that all overdue assignments have to be completed before midnight on December 31 or else the particular courses will be marked ‘no credit’), I penned the following ‘excuse’ along with essays duly attached to the email:

‘I am sorry that I am submitting this several years after taking your course. It’s just that I am convinced of my immortality: time just doesn’t make any sense to me.’  I knew that both professors, Phil McMichael and Susan Buck-Morss, were quite laid back about such things. If it had been anyone like Kotiya, I might not have risked being so cheeky.

Looking back, I feel that I did graduate with a degree in creative excuses thanks to Michael, although I’ve not had the opportunity to use those skills — editors are simply unforgiving when it comes to meeting deadlines! 

 

malindadocs@gmail.com

 

Other articles in this series:

Books launched and not-yet-launched

The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains

The ways of the lotus

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart The allegory of the slow road

 

Read more

Books launched and not-yet-launched

 

 

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]
 

Book launches are big in Sinhala literary circles. If one writes a book and it is published, a launch is almost a must. At some level it is about sales. There’s the typical discount and that’s an incentive. Then there’s the publicity. There are notices in newspapers and of late in social media about the launch. There’s live streaming too. It’s not just that though.

Those who attend book launches can be divided into three broad categories (with a little overlap of course). First you get the near and dear of the author as well as the movers and shakers of the publishers. Then you have people who are interested in listening to what the keynote speakers have to say, either about the book itself or some pertinent literary subject. Finally there are those who want to have conversation with kindred literary spirits.

A launch, then, makes for gatherings of many kinds.  Enrichment on literature or broader human things is often possible depending on who else had chosen to attend. 

Last night, i.e. the night of December 27, 2002, I met with two writers around 7.30 pm at Hotel Apsara, somewhere in Horagolla. It was not a book launch. Lahiru Karunaratne, a young poet, tasked with designing the English translation of Mahinda Prasad Masimbula’s acclaimed and award winning novel ‘Senkottan’ wanted certain things in the text clarified. Masimbula was with him.

The ‘work’ was attended to quite fast. Then came conversation about poetry, literature, the human condition, poets, the writing exercise, love, relationships, the status of the Sri Lankan novel, short story and poem, and other things. We moved seamlessly from one to the other of these topics. At one point I asked Lahiru if he’s written anything new (he had already come out with three collections of poetry).  He not only had a book that was almost ready for print, he had the manuscript with him.

‘Noim (non-existence, boundless or infinite)’ had a rider, ‘kavithi tikak (a few(!) short 'poemlets').’  One hundred, no less! I was offered the privilege of a peek. I turned to random pages and commented briefly on whatever caught my attention. Here’s one:

After one thousand and one nights
there remains the story of a woman

Remains unsaid, is probably what he wants us to read, I thought to myself. ’Scheherazade’ is the title of this two-line poem.  Delightful. So we spoke of stories that end as far as the author is concerned, but continue in the minds of the reader, in particular a novel where a woman leaves a Sinhala king for a white man but leaves unanswered the question, ‘what next?’

Each of the hundred verses could spark a hundred thoughts, but why a hundred, why not fifty, I asked. Lahiru said that he had made this section from a collection of 300 such verses. We laughed and talked about Sinhala poetry books recently published having at least one really good poem but were pretty ordinary when taken as a collection.  We talked about the importance of having the services of a good editor. We spoke to the works of well-known and lesser known Sinhala poets. We spoke of Ariyawansa Ranaweera, for whom anything and everything seemed to be a poem awaiting transcription, which among other things, made for a highly productive poetic life. We discussed what this does to the quality of the work.

‘What if someone does see poetry in all things?’ Lahiru asked. ‘A bottle, a glass and the three of us…makes for a poem, doesn’t it?’ He seemed to empathize with Ranaweera's dilemma or fortune, depending on how one sees it. I could empathize with Lahiru since that first glance reminded me of Ranaweera's work.

People write as they will. People read as they will. Masiumbula made a pertinent observation: ‘sometimes when I read poetry I feel that the poet has only written down the plot but hasn’t really penned the kaviya.’ He should know this, for the publishing outfit he runs, ‘Santhava,’ comes out with a dozen collections every year.

The book will get published. One hundred poems. There will probably be a launch. Lahiru’s friends will be there. Lovers of literature and in particular poetry will be there. There will be others who will make their way to the venue, anticipating interesting conversation. Last night I had a before-launch ‘launch experience.’
 
I encountered you
only after we parted

That’s another one in Lahiru’s collection. Some poets see things that go unseen even by a thousand passing eyes. Some poets write what we all see but in ways that make us see these things with fresh eyes.

Now, having received a pdf version of his collection, I am re-encountering Lahiru, long after the long night’s conversation ended around 10.30 pm and we went our ways, Lahiru, Masumbula and I.  I wonder about those words we exchanged, the stories we spun together but didn’t write down. Are they already lost among old words and dust, among forgotten authors and over-used used-books? Do we each have a manuscript of the original heart-text? And what of the woman who remained after 1001 nights, 1001 stories and the one story that never got told, the book that never got launched and therefore the conversations that never took place.

Somewhere, somehow, plots will get written. Some poetry too.

malindadocs@gmail.com

 

Other articles in this series:

The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains

The ways of the lotus

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart The allegory of the slow road

 

 

 

Read more

The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]

 

Sometime in the early eighties, my father gifted me a copy of Rev Nyanaponika Thero’s ‘The Heart of Buddhist Meditation.’ The book was shared among my friends, all AL students in the mathematics stream. One of them had a book titled ‘Dynamic Meditation’ or maybe it was some book on meditation with the word ‘dynamic’ in the title. My friends Kanishka Goonewardena and Chamath Abeygunawardena had long and deep conversations around that time on the topic and meditation was referred to as ‘dynamite.’  

This is not about meditation, though, but I will get back to it later.  

The years passed. Chamath and Kanishka entered Moratuwa University, the former would study engineering and the latter architecture, then planning and eventually the politics or rather the political economy of space from a post-Marxist perspective.  Back then, however, we were all young, hormonal and energetic.Forays into philosophy didn’t stop us from doing fun stuff. Like camping and hiking.

There was a camping trip to Maha Eliya where Kanishka, Chamath and I were joined by Kanishka’s batchmate from Moratuwa, Channa Daswatte, now a top architect, writer and guardian (of sorts) of the Geoffrey Bawa legacy.  This was in December 1986. A year or two before that we planned a trip to Sri Pada. The plan was to climb the sacred peak on the last day of the year, watch the new year dawn literally and get back later in the day.  

Back then, at least in the case of some of us, we had to get permission 'from home' (gedarin ahanna ona). Gedara, home, was of course either the mother or father or both. Kanishka and I could swing it. Chamath had to get past his father, who grilled him on all aspects of the intended trip.  

Objections were raised on account of terrorist threats — this was in the early stages of bombs being set off in crowded places. Chamath must have fielded the questions well, for his father had moved on to other details.

‘Kawda yanne (who else is going)’  

‘Malinda.’

Our fathers had worked together, so he could come up with another red flag: ‘Ugra vaamaanshikayek (an extreme leftist)!’ He knew that my father was a rebel in his university days. A quarter century had passed and he was by then not a Marxist but a Buddhist, but his radical history was never forgotten by those in power who wanted to shove him from one obscure government department to another. Chamath’s father found it convenient in relation to his objective — denying permission.  

I am not sure if questions were asked about Kanishka. If so, he may have claimed that Kanishka’s father, B.S. Goonewardena (a German teacher and scholar, and a voracious reader who would spar with his son on matters political and ideological well into his eighties) was an unrepentant communist!  

After exhausting Chamath with such questions, he had finally asked when they planned to leave.

‘We are leaving on the 31st,’ he said, throwing in an ad or sorts, ‘we will be able to see the first sunrise of the new year!’  

His father had looked at him with an expression that must have been a mix of amusement and contempt: ‘anith davas valata vadaa venas athi neda (it must be different from the sunrise of other days, right)?’

QED. The proof of the argument was complete.

Chamath didn’t go. I didn’t either, for very different reasons.  

It’s the same sun. It rises in the East and sets in the West. And yet, the sunrise looks different from different locations and different elevations. I had read that the shadow of the peak generated by the morning sun seems not to rest on the thick forest cover of the Peak Wilderness below. So I noticed on the three occasions I made the pilgrimage. The power of suggestion maybe.  

We make what we will of the sun, the sunrise and sunset, of cloud formation (Kanishka, watching the play of cloud, light and wind in the skies from the parapet wall outside the Arts Theatre of Peradeniya University said softly, ‘infinite poetry’) and other elemental configurations. We make what we will of that which is before us, that which came before and what we imagine will come later. Different days, different moments, different eyes and thoughts. One truth: impermanence.

From the top of the sacred mountain, if you could fracture a moment into a thousand slivers and had the satiya (awareness) to consider each infinitely tiny flake, they would all have different and distinct signatures. All mountains are sacred, by the way. All plateaus, all alleyways of mind and matter, everything, everyone — all sacred. And the sun is a ball of fire now, and again just a flame of a candle, a spark in the heart and a glow in the mind.

The sunrise of the first of January in the year 1985 was indeed the same as the one on December 31, 1984 and each sunrise of the first day of all the 37 years that followed, but Chamath, who reportedly spends all his time in deep contemplation of eternal verities (dynamic or otherwise we don’t know), may have the answer he didn’t have back then. 

He may say nothing and if so he would have a reason which will not get said or written and about which we should not speculate.

malindadocs@gmail.com

 

Other articles in this series:

The ways of the lotus

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart 

The allegory of the slow road

 

Read more

The ways of the lotus

 

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]

I may have seen a lotus before entering school, perhaps in a temple among other flowers on the altar, but if so I cannot remember. My first encounter with the lotus was in the first grade (or was it Grade 2?). The text book for Buddhism was titled ‘Sadaham Maga (The path [recommended by] the great doctrine) and the tale was of the Prince Siddhartha, who immediately upon birth walked seven steps with a lotus flower miraculously blooming each time he put a foot down.

I am not one for miracles and legends of any faith; the word of the Enlightened One is fragrant enough. The lotus, it seems, has stayed with me. A year or so later, Sri Lanka became a republic, unfettering (politically) herself from the British. That momentous event was forgotten now after 1977 when the then government reverted to February 4, a day marking a partial independence which arrived and with it installed in power the ‘founding fathers’ of the same party, but I remember the commemorative ‘lotus stamp’ proudly announcing the ‘Janarajaya (republic).’

 In later years, the lotus came to be associated with Martin Wickramasinghe’s novel ‘Viragaya,’ translated as ‘The Way of the Lotus’ by Ashley Halpe who drew from the name of the principal character, Aravinda. Aravinda is one of several Sinhala names for the lotus. 'The lotus way' is drawn from Buddhist scriptures, essentially the recommendation for and the virtue of rising above the water, even though the roots in murky depths reside.

Then it became politicised, first with Mangala Samaraweera’s notorious Sudu Nelum (White Lotus) Movement peddling federalism in the name of peace and reconciliation and later with the adoption of the lotus bud (Nelum Pohottuwa) as the party symbol of the newly formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. They were both launched with pomp and pageantry. Both wilted fast.

 Of course we are left with the Nelum Pokuna (Lotus Pond) performance centre and the Nelum Kuluna (Lotus Tower), physical representations of the political symbol even as they, it could be argued, fulfil certain functions.

 

 

Trope and symbol
rises now and now reclines
in the currency of power
and yet so  non-aligned,
bloomage of an artist’s imagination
watered by histories
and preferred extrapolation —
the unpaid stamp-duty
of commissioned omission
and republics squandered;
pavements meanwhile
agitate for compensation
speak of narratives obscured
the footnoted stories of the submerged
the roots that sifted soil
picked nutrients
made for fragrance and texture
and reed songs wrecked
by excessive love
equal to hatreds unresolved;
and as for the lotus
through abstraction and misrepresentation
away from metropole and galleried effusion
it rises, the lotus does
as it has, as it must,
again and again.

The lotus. Rests on water and yet is above the surface. As for the mud in which its roots lie, that’s a metaphor for all kinds of appropriation and abuse. Since it is a pretty flower and one which has been used to explicate a philosophical point, it screams out to be picked by the not-so-virtuous and indeed the downright vile.

The loveliness of the lotus, however, does not for long decorate the ugly, does not fool forever those meant to be fooled by association. We see the flower and not the mud for the lotus transcends the circumstances of its birth. Similarly nauseating odours of villainy and deceit obliterate the symbol of transcendence.  

Daisaku Ikeda, the Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator and author, has offered the following reflections on the lotus:

'The lotus flower is invested with profound significance in Buddhism. It is thought to be the only plant that simultaneously produces both flower (cause) and seed-pod (effect). This unique trait is used to indicate the Buddhist principle of simultaneity of cause and effect.'

The lotus rises, as it must. The lotus gives out seed, as it will. In both and in their unity there are lessons that outlast appropriation and abuse of the flower, i.e. the lesson about eternal verities as taught by Siddhartha Gauthama.

Somewhere, right now, someone is placing a lotus upon an altar. Somewhere, someone will be murmuring ‘poojemi buddhang kusumena nena…(I worship with these flowers the Buddha)’. And the next time we come across the lotus, as flower or trope, perhaps the word of the Sakyamuni will give us the sight to see through them all and most importantly to acknowledge the lotus and recognise that it too is symbol which is but facilitator of comprehension and not the truth itself.  

malindadocs@gmail.com

Other articles in this series:

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart 

The allegory of the slow road

 

 

Read more

Isaiah 58: 6-12 and the meaning of grace

 

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]

A few years ago, I was requested to write a weekly column for ‘Happinez,’ a tabloid for youth offered with the ‘Sunday Morning.’ I had, in a previous journalistic avatar, written a weekly column titled ‘Notes for a Rebel,’ where various aspects of rebellion were discussed based on personal experience, observations and the reading I had done in my youth. I told Shailendree Wickrama-Adittiya, the editor of this magazine that I can’t repeat all that. I suggested a more general delve into rebels and rebellion in poetic form. She agreed.

In my ignorance, I thought the structure of the Old Testament would offer a convenient framework for chapter separation. I knew only of ‘Genesis’ and ‘Exodus,’ two words I knew I could work with. Following the structure faithfully, I wrote 50 verses under ‘Genesis,’ 4-6 verses every week, and got quite a long way in the 40 that would correspond to the number of chapters in ‘Exodus.’

At some point, I realised that I had erred badly.  Thirty nine books, 929 chapters in total — I would have needed around three years to complete it. I knew I would have to sweat to work rebel and rebellion into ‘Leviticus’ and ‘Deuteronomy’ or any other chapter-title, but I was confident that poetic license would come to my assistance. I would have, I’m sure, found a way to the historical, poetical and prophetical in chronological order. I never got to find out. And now, having abandoned the structure, I am left with the substance, some of it written and much of it unsaid. So far.

All this is preamble. Tomorrow is Christmas and I won’t go into issues of authenticity, the lost-in-translation and historical veracity. Instead, I revisit one of my favourite sections in the Old Testament: Ch 59: V 6-12.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loosen the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

“Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"

Christmas is a holiday. A day of celebration. It’s also one of those market-days, a moment for commerce and the raking of profits. The ‘temple’ for some is a marketplace and few reflect on Jesus’ word on such phenomena.  I did, a few years ago and came up with a ‘Christmas Advertisement.’

And so they went
from one store to the next
                to the next and next
all bedecked in Christmas color
melodied with Christmas cheer
the fake mistletoe, the red-nosed reindeer
and Santa too
the glitter and shine
the bells and lights,
all screaming ‘Purchase!’
all carrying the soft small print tag
‘In the name of Jesus’
(or was it the other way about?),
all laid out for them folks
armed with crisp currency notes
and easy plastic.
And they came,
they saw
they were glad too,
for they went away
duly garmented
while the raiment of the Savior
so visible all over
remained unvisited.
The eyes of the faithful
were fervent in prayer,
elsewhere.

This Christmas falls on a Sunday. Sabbath for Christians. A day of religious observance and abstinence. An abstinence or fasting that could include reflection on loosening the chains of injustice, untying the cords of the yoke and  freeing the oppressed with the Lord as rear guard as righteousness goes before you. Obviously not only at Christmas or on Sunday.

That’s an option, one among many, and something that can be thought about (for a change) during the réveillon that’s not atypical this time of the year. The Sabbath of the Lord as explained by the prophet Isiah is all about prayer, of bringing hands together, bringing people together, making the world that much more tender. It’s about rebels and rebellion no doubt, and one doesn’t have to be a Christian or a theist to see its grace.


malindadocs@gmail.com

Other articles in this series:

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart 

The allegory of the slow road

 

Read more