Way back in the late eighties, a group of students silenced politically on account of holding views that were at odds with those of the ‘Action Committee’ of the University of Peradeniya, ventured into theatre. The intention was probably not one of finding a different platform to express themselves, but that invariably happened.
The late Gamini Haththotuwegama, known variously as GK, Haththa and Hatha, widely accepted as ‘The Father of Street Theatre in Sri Lanka,’ who was at the time a visiting lecturer attached to the English Department of the Faculty of Arts, organised a ‘drama workshop.’ Haththa casted the ‘outcasts’ into various roles over the course of several months.
‘Sarasavi Kurutu Gee’ or ‘Campus Graffiti’ was episodic. It was a collage of skits that commented on the condition of ‘studentship’ of those tense times which the students themselves didn’t really know would quickly move into a theatre of abduction, proxy arrests, torture and mass slaughter (there’s no other word for what happened in 1988-89).
This was pre-bheeshanaya, but the ominous clouds hovering over the entire island did not spare the universities either. So they ‘played’ the conditions of not just studentship but citizenship. At least one of the players, a student from the Medical Faculty named Atapattu, would be ‘disappeared’ not too long afterwards. Most of the boys had to endure untold hardships just to survive.
Typical of Haththa’s productions, ‘Sarasavi Kurutu Gee’ was full of political commentary, but laced with humour, song, clever turn of phrase and theatrical innovation, throwing light on what was as well as what was likely to be. All of these were evident in one particular piece or episode.
There were three chairs on stage. Three players were stretched out on their stomachs behind the chairs, their heads protruding through them. The audience therefore could see just their faces. They were supposed to be television presenters of news. So they ‘read’ the news. At one point another player walked on to the stage, which was by the way the Sarachchandra ‘Wala’ or the Open Air Theatre. He recited a few lines from Wilfred Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth.’
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
If I remember correctly, it was just the first four lines or maybe just the first two. Sinhala and Tamil versions were also recited. Then there was silence.
Then one of the presenters blurted out, ‘ගැŕ·„ුŕ·€ා නේද ŕ·€ැරදි ඇන්ŕ¶ŕ¶¸් එක! ගහන්නයි කිŕ·€්ŕ·€ේ හරි ඇන්ŕ¶ŕ¶¸් එක! (Essentially, ‘That was the wrong anthem, now you’d better sing the correct anthem!)’ And so the all the players, huddled at that point on one side of the stage, broke into song.
Jana Gana Mana Adhinaayak Jaya Hey,
Bhaarat Bhaagya Vidhaataa
Panjaab Sindhu Gujarat Maraatha,
Draavid Utkal Banga……Sri Lanka….
Vindhya Himaachal Yamuna Ganga…..Kadinam Mahaweli Ganga
‘Sri Lanka’ as just another state of India, following the Indian invasion a year before. The Mahaweli not just another ‘Indian’ river but an ‘accelerated’ one; the reference being to the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project of the then government.
Funny. Political. Creative. Nicely executed as well — the full audience appreciated.
And today, with all the noise about the national anthem, it’s alleged butchery and its alleged meaninglessness, I wonder which country’s national anthem would we sing (with a few twists) if 'Sarasavi Kurutu' Gee was played again with adjustments for time, personality and event. The Indian, Chinese or the American?
Come to think of it, we could have played with the lyrics of the Sri Lankan national anthem too (the tune after all is the same as ‘Olu pipila vila lela denava,’ and there’s nothing sacrosanct about music, lyrics and even nation and nationality).
People have a right to criticise. People have a right to ridicule. People have a right to scoff, innovate and critique. They will hurt feelings and they will in focus, target and brashness reveal who they are, where their loyalties lie and which flags they would love to have flying over land and citizenry.
Meanwhile, there’s a country that bears the full weight of leaders’ sins, citizen-complicity and machinations of enemies, within and without.
This is not a time to sing the national anthem, I feel, unless one feels it is useful to whip up courage and resolve. This is the time to do what is necessary to make it possible to sing all the songs that resonate nation and citizen, history and heritage, vision and moment, in whatever language we like.
The players went to their hostels after the show. The time for song and laughter came to a halt. They scattered to places of refuge not too long afterwards. Blood was shed. No one talked of flag and anthem. A nation survived.
Other articles in this series:
Do you have a friend in Pennsylvania (or anywhere?)
A gateway to illumination in West Virginia
Through strange fissures into magical orchards
There's sea glass love few will see
Re-residencing Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
Poisoning poets and shredding books of verse
The responsible will not be broken
Ownership and tenuriality of the Wissahickon
Did you notice the 'tiny, tiny wayside flowers'?
Gifts, gifting and their rubbishing
Journalism inadvertently learned
Reflections on the young poetic heart
Wordaholic, trynasty and other portmanteaus
The 'Loku Aiya' of all 'Paththara Mallis'
Subverting the indecency of the mind
Character theft and the perennial question 'who am I?'
Saji Coomaraswamy and rewards that matter
Seeing, unseeing and seeing again
Alex Carey and the (small) matter of legacy
The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga
The clothes we wear and the clothes that wear us (down)
Every mountain, every rock, is sacred
Manufacturing passivity and obedience
Sanjeew Lonliyes: rawness unplugged, unlimited
In praise of courage, determination and insanity
The relative values of life and death
Poetry and poets will not be buried
Reunion Peradeniya (1980-1990)
Sorrowing and delighting the world
Encounters with Liyanage Amarakeerthi
Letters that cut and heal the heart
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
