Ruwan Bandujeewa and Timran ‘Tima’ Keerthi are among the finest poets of their generation. Tima lives in Ratmahara, somewhere close to Guriulla. Ruwan lives in Kolamunna, near Piliyandala. I did not have Christmas plans. I don’t, usually. I wanted to meet Ruwan simply because we are in the midst of getting a translation of his collection, Meelanga Meevitha or ‘The wine hereafter’ printed. Technical things needed to be sorted out.
Ruwan is busy with a teledrama he is writing even as some episodes or scenes are being filmed. Being a holiday, I figured he would be at home. He was. He simply informed me that Tima had also come to work on the script.
They told me about their writing struggles in this teledrama business, which was new to them both. They were quite impressed by a few short poems from Pablo Neruda’s ‘A book of questions’ I had translated into Sinhala. It meant a lot to me.
Why don’t immense airplanes
fly around with their children?
They had OMG looks. Ruwan kept repeating the Sinhala translation. Tima was cracking up.
Why don’t they train helicopters
to suck honey from sunlight?
Pause. Again.
So they encouraged me to complete the translation. I informed them that I was translating from the English translation from the Spanish original, and that Indrani Ratnasekara is probably the only person in Sri Lanka who could certify fidelity.
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Ruwan’s wife, Nishadi, served coffee, replenishing every now and again. A young man and woman arrived, the former a cameraman also involved in the teledrama, ‘Mal bicycle’ (Flower bicycles), and the latter, she said, makes documentaries. Ruwan repeated those lines from Neruda. They were impressed too.
More coffee. More conversation. They laughed at their trials and tribulations, poverty and incompetency. And thus enriched me.
Tima’s second collection, ‘Yannang Chandare’ or ‘Au revoir Chandare’ won the State Literary Prize and the Godage Prize for poetry in 2014. Ruwan offered that Time’s ‘E jetteke giye samansirimayi’ (It was Samansiri, certainly, who flew in that Jet) was the best or rather was ‘something else.’ I remembered writing about that book some years ago. Ruwan had a copy. I read or rather browsed.
Let’s build a nest, it will not be forever dark
life is beautiful the more troubles come our way
That’s the how the last poem begins. Timran’s original is rhymed, this is not.
Vagrant, true, the beauty of squalor
it’s close at hand is it not, the day you will carry me?
Again, rhymed, unlike the translation.
Let us be thus until death, the love was such
believe me, never have I felt love this much
There are other lines of course but this is how it ends:
True, I have not felt this much love
many other things did she say
before the arrival of cancer.
Floored me. Once again.
So I returned to the title poem. It was about a childhood friend who made paper airplanes.
Teachers only knew of white men who built jets
Father talks of Ravana
I know all about Samansiri.
This is the thing:
It was Samansiri
certainly
who flew in that jet.
Made me fly. Once again.
Now I sit here, in the open space in this enchanting house. There’s birdsong. Sunlight reflects off the walls and streams in through the crack of a slightly open window which has also allowed a grape vine to crawl in. The others left leaving Ruwan and Tima to get lost in the labyrinth of plot twists, character development and visual treatment or whatever it is that scriptwriting is about.
More coffee. Naturally.
Soon there will be lunch. We didn’t sort out the technicalities related to Meelanga Meevitha. Ruwan scribbled a note to himself. I told Nishadi to remind him. There are more important things to attend to. Like just being here. In this place of simple ornaments, vines and ferns, book shelves, and the archaeological extracts of the residents’ ways of being.
Ruwan has gone downstairs to check about lunch. Tima is sitting in front of me at a table. There’s an old water filter. It could be functioning or could be frill. He is rubbing his forehead. Was. He stretched himself out on the long bench where the two poets were discussing the work at hand a few minutes ago.
Birdcalls blend. Plants grow slowly. A dream catcher hangs on the wall. Functional or decorative, I cannot tell.
No bells. No Christmas tree. No Santa Claus. But here I am with two young poets, always ready to laugh even as they tremble at the lives around them and the worlds they are forced to inhabit. They shall be comforted. They shall inherit the earth. They shall obtain mercy. They shall see god. They are the children of god. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
At some point I read another line from the Neruda book:
Those who have not touched my blood
what will they not say about my poetry?
They received this with utmost sobriety.
Ruwan Bandujeewa and Timran Keerthi are poets I know and adore. They delight me no end. They made this day. A Christmas of a kind. Memorable.
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