Letters that cut and heal the heart ~ Malinda Words

Dineth Mallikaarachchi once related a fascinating story about a book of poetry. Mine, actually. He had visited a used books store and, having come across the only book of poetry that I had published, at that time, decided to buy it.

He had read it cover to cover on his way to the University of Peradeniya. The poetry, he claimed, had made him feel he was walking on air as he got off the bus at Galaha Junction, for it had helped him sort out some issues related to a girl he was enamoured with at the time: ‘The lightness I felt was such that to my mind gravity had lessened.’

More interestingly, for me, was what he had to say about a note I had written to the person I had gifted it to, the person who for whatever reason had given it to the used books store.

'He had written a poem that was not in the collection by way of dedicating this to his friend. It was a divine poem that surpassed any in that collection. She must have left it at the used book store, a fact that he had predicted with the observation “this is how it should be.” And thereby, this friend had elevated him to divine status.’

A lot of exaggeration there, but I’ll take it.

There are notes like that penned in books one finds in such places. Some of them come with dates. Some are of the ‘from so and so to so and so’ type. Some are poetic and others philosophical. They all speak of people and hearts, relationships and landscapes about whom and which we can only speculate.

Just the other day someone named Kasun Sameera Cooray posted a photograph of a letter he had found in a book, ‘Suicide,’ by Emile Durkheim. It was written in 1976 by someone named K A Premawathie to a teacher, informing him that she had got an appointment as a graduate teacher at Ganthiriyagama Maha Vidyalaya, Anuradhapura. She expressed her happiness, informed him about where she was staying, promised to visit him when next she went home for the vacation and wished him good health and happiness.

We don’t know where she is now, how her life unfolded in the almost fifty years that have passed since she wrote the letter. We don’t know the name of the person she refers to as ‘sir.’ We don’t know if it was he or someone else who had given this book to a used book store or library or someone else. We don’t know the pathways that brought the book to Kasun so many decades later.

There are so many stories in a letter, in a letter misaddressed, in a letter misplaced and misread even. The things we write and say take on lives of their own. I am reminded of the letter inadvertently dropped by a postman and picked up by a boy whose life was forever changed when he decided to read it as depicted in Jayantha Chandrasiri’s movie, ‘Samanala Sandviniya (Butterfly Symphony).’

Kasun posted that photograph with a note: ‘It's remarkable how a simple letter hidden within the pages of a book can evoke such curiosity and fascination. Let's uncover the story behind this letter and celebrate the power of human connections.’

Maybe Ms Premawathie will hear about it. Maybe someone who knows her or of her will see this letter. Maybe we are all being too inquisitive. Kasun is correct though: human connections are powerful and there’s nothing wrong in making a note and celebrating.

What are the things we have not said or said it all wrong? What are the things we wished we said but didn’t? What kinds of winds would we have precipitated if we had said something at a particular moment and in a particular way? What kind of perfume would have been manufactured had someone got to read something we had written, had read the words we couldn’t say at the time?

In the here and now, there’s a ‘sir’ and a ‘Ms Premawathie’ we know. There’s a ‘sir’ and there’s a Ms Premawathie in each of us. Letters we’ve written which we forgot to post or decided not to do so, letters posted but may have not been read or read and forgotten. Visits we postponed until it was all too late. People who touched our lives but didn’t know they left a mark. Correspondence of hearts and minds no one else knows about.

One letter of how many, we do not know. We know this: communication tells an incomplete story. Most chapters live and die with the authors who penned them or stored them in some corner of the heart and mind. We see a few rays of light and they tell us about who we are more than about the people who sliced the sun into so many shards.

The title of the book, coincidentally, is ‘Epistles.’ Letters. Written and tossed into winds whose sources are long forgotten and anyway are as relevant or irrelevant as a reader wants them to be. Can cut the heart. Can heal it too.

['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. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

12 June 2023

Letters that cut and heal the heart

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