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.
Other articles in this series:
A forgotten dawn song from Embilipitiya
The soft rain of neighbourliness
Reflections on waves and markings
Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra
The right time, the right person
The silent equivalent of a thousand words
Crazy cousins are besties for life
The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis
Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins
Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness
Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable
Deveni: a priceless one-word koan
Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation
'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone
On sweeping close to one's feet
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
To be an island like the Roberts...
Debts that can never be repaid in full
An island which no flood can overwhelm
A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing
Heart dances that cannot be choreographed
Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember
Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal
It is good to be conscious of nudities
Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday
There's a one in a million and a one in ten
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
Hemantha Gunawardena's signature
Architectures of the demolished
The exotic lunacy of parting gifts
Who the heck do you think I am?
Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'
So how are things in Sri Lanka?
The sweetest three-letter poem
Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership
The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
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
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
