Words like 'sorry'

 

My paternal grandfather didn’t have a library of books. He had an interesting bookcase that could be turned. Whenever the family visited that house, enormous to the eyes of a child as are most things and people, the preference was to play in the garden. There were days however when I, out of boredom or curiosity or the weather, turned that elegant piece of furniture. And that’s where I first encountered the name Jawaharlal Nehru.

I must have been around 10. Maybe a couple of years younger or older but anyway, too young to do cover-to-cover of a book like Nehru’s Autobiography. I do remember an observation about the long intellectual (or was it ‘philosoophical’?) tradition of India (well, not ‘India’ since that name and geographical entity had to await British conquest), ‘from the Buddha to Sri Aurobindo.’ His words.

The other thing I remember is a comment about statues. Today, thanks to the internet, I find he’s said a lot about commemoration, but what I remember is something on the following lines: ‘It is prudent not to celebrate someone during his lifetime, for we can never tell what he might do next.’  Great men and women rise. They can and have fallen. If there are statues they turn from a symbol of celebration to an artefact of disgrace.

People are fallible, in short. People fall all the time, but somehow, for some strange reason, brush aside fall and bruise, perhaps murmur to themselves, ‘never again,’ and recover convictions of invincibility. Overconfidence, arrogance, ignorance, a mix of the three?

I’ve always wondered why the powerful, in whatever field, consider humility a weakness rather than a virtue. Indeed many would have us believe that tripping over one’s own words or actions was deliberate or, if this can’t be sold, that someone else was to blame. A good enough ploy, both in fact, for it suspends indefinitely the consequence of remorse: retrospection and even, god forbid, apology.

The world is full of great sayings by great people, and therefore there’s solace at hand for any and every course of action one chooses. And then there’s that funny and thought-provoking quote, ‘Every 50th quotable quote is a direct contradiction of the first.’  In the end, people must live with their choices, but people do have  potent instruments such as forgetfulness and trivialising that can diminish or erase guilt or discomfort. 

More than twenty five years ago I watched a news telecast where the then Minister of Transport, Dinesh Gunawardena, addressed the media. A question put to him by a journalist made him visibly uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell if he blushed, but he was not only embarrassed, but didn’t try to hide or wriggle out of the situation with a half-truth, change-of-subject or dismissal without response as such we’ve got used to seeing all the time.

There’s something in the human condition that loves to see the mighty (or let’s say those somewhere near the top of any particular structure of authority) fall. And typically the mighty fear nothing more than evidence of fallibility. From all that I know of human beings, however, there seems to be a general tendency to forgive and forget when someone, anyone, expresses remorse one way or another.

I still remember traveling to work (Upali Newspapers) the day following the 9/11 attacks. Around the same time, Dinesh Gunawardena with a half-smile and a hand covering his face, partially acknowledged some flaw. I can’t remember whether it was the 174 from Kottawa, the 103 from Borella or a bus from Pettah to Armour Street, but I was standing and overheard people talking about the attack.

The gist: ‘they deserve it.’

And, the same person who opined on just retribution, in the very next breath, said ‘e vunaata pau e minissunta.’ He felt sorry for the victims. Of course it was a different situation. The victims were not to blame. They did not trip over their own words or actions. But then again, there was acknowledgment of complexity and there was room for compassion. There was separation of general US policy (genocidal and racist) from US citizens, even if the latter by apathy (in general) or through tax dollars facilitated innumerable crimes against humanity.

The point is, human beings are not made of harsh and harsh alone. They are moved to mockery. They are moved to tears. They might not forget easily, but they can certainly forgive. The powerful, especially the politicians, as human as ordinary folk, forget this. Convinced that error would be severely punished they would go to extreme lengths to proclaim innocence. And thus too do they entertain ‘the ordinary folk,’ who are rarely tripped by such side-steps.  

I don’t know if Nehru was as humble as his comments on statues imply. At the very least, he was clearly conscious of human frailty. I don’t know if he ever said ‘sorry,’ but even if he didn’t he may have been haunted by his mistakes. More so than those who strut around as though they epitomise superhuman ability and nobility.

Ivan Turgenev once said, ‘Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?’  Few. Very few. ‘Sorry,’ says Elton John, ‘seems to be the hardest word.’

And right now, I find that these words from Tracy Chapman’s song ‘sorry’ have hit a repeat-groove in my mind:

Sorry


Is all that you can't say


Years gone by and still


Words don't come easily


Like sorry like sorry

Forgive me


Is all that you can't say


Years gone by and still
W

ords don't come easily


Like forgive me forgive me

And so I resolve: I shall use it more often, indeed whenever it ought to be said.

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Laws, lows, lies and lays of the land

There is a rule of thumb with regard to law-making that is probably written in more elaborate terms with appropriate caveats in political science text books: when assessing a draft law imagine the beneficiary parties or individuals being entities you abhor politically or ideologically.

Typically, proposed legislation is coated in flowery terms with the inevitable riders, ‘for the greater public good’ and ‘in the country’s best interest.’ Indeed whenever such riders are articulated it is prudent to think, ‘self-interest.’

Generally, though, both lawmakers and their followers studiously consider the ‘boot on the other foot.’ Indeed, justification is even offered for self interest. After all, one is a lawmaker or supports lawmakers because one is convinced of integrity or, at least, that the alternative would be worse. All kinds of justifications are possible. On another note, lawmakers, especially if insured by the strength of numbers, oblivious to possible changes in the mood of the voter or dismiss such mood shifts because elections are far away, seldom have the compulsion or space to consider the aforementioned rule of thumb.

Boomerang. Come home to roost. Reap what you sow. What goes around comes around. Reap the whirlwind. Just deserts. Face the music. Blow up in your face. Come back to bite. Come back to haunt. Backfire. We’ve heard these. Lawmakers have too — either these or equivalents.  

There are no one-on-one equivalents of the story Pied Piper (of Hamlin), but the principle is known. An instrument that delivers a desired outcome can also be used to obtain a result that is distasteful or worse.

In general, those who make rules willy nilly, focused more on the needs of the moment, the self-interest of the now, say, and suspend consideration of repercussions, are essentially venturing into dangerous ground.

The history of amendments to the Second Republican Constitution (of 1978) tell a story that’s worth taking note of. The 6th, one could argue, was in the larger national interest of territorial integrity, but the counter argument is that it was essentially anti-minority. The 13th was under duress, this we know. It was illegal to boot. The flurry of amendments just before the United National Party lost its two-thirds majority were clearly aimed to protect party interests. The assumption was that no one could get a two-thirds thereafter. Proved wrong of course, partly courtesy a decision by Sarath N Silva to permit crosses over if offered ministerial portfolios, which of course resulted in bloated cabinets. Regime-disgust delivered the two-thirds majority to ‘the alternative’ on several occasions, as did regime-approval on account of defeating terrorism (in 2010).

The 17th, though flawed, was not parochial. The 18th certainly was. The 19th was toilet wash in content and process. The 20th sought to reverse the 19th in part but there were self-interest elements in it. The 21st, passed in the aftermath of the ‘aragalaya’ was decent enough.. The 22nd was controversial and one cannot rule out party interest.

It’s the same with Acts of Parliament. Majorities are routinely used to buttress political expediency, ‘in the name of the people’ of course. That’s what gives us legislative lows.

The legislative branch of power has not been unblemished. Sure, perfection is but a target, but action has prompted the uttering of the term ‘draconian’ too often to be brushed aside. Lows. The lie is typically and as mentioned above glossed over by rhetoric. It’s always ‘the larger interest’ either of the nation or the people. The people are not consulted and consultation is not a requirement. Representation gives authority, that’s the argument. Legitimate of course. On the other hand, there’s a word called responsible and another called irresponsible. Great power or perceptions of invincibility tends to push lawmakers towards the latter. So we have the lie. And that’s the lay of the land. Ours included.

By way of reiteration and mild elaboration, let me offer the following extract from an essay written in 2022 titled ‘Constitutional Reform: the wages of haste, sloth and expediency.

‘There are certain rules of thumb with regard to constitutional reform. First, such exercises should never be predicated on political expediency. In other words, one’s allegiance or otherwise to the immediate beneficiary, beneficiaries or political party/coalition should not be a factor in offering support or objecting, respectively. Secondly, one’s allegiance or otherwise to any person, political party or community losing out from proposed amendments should not be a factor either. Thirdly, it has to be understood that constitutional reform in the form of amendment or total overhaul is a very serious matter that can cast dark and foreboding shadows well into the future; as such such exercises should never be done in a hurry and should always consider possible outcomes well into the future.’

Lies. Damned lies. Statistics.

We have heard the above. Could we add ‘public/national interest’? We could think of the law. We can assess the degree of ‘low.’ We can detect the lie. Add these together and we get the lay of the land (and that's not only about topography). Then we can make a call, keeping in mind those timeless adages whose repetition wouldn't be out of place.

Here goes.

Boomerang. Come home to roost. Reap what you sow. What goes around comes around. Reap the whirlwind. Just deserts. Face the music. Blow up in your face. Come back to bite. Come back to haunt. Backfire. 

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Sujeev Wickramasekara -- unfettered

 

Sujeev Wickramasekara was probably around 17 when I first met him. He was a maths student at Royal College, a couple of years junior to me and I got to know him through his classmate, my friend and chess teammate Lakshan Fernando, better known by his initials, ‘PCL.’ I had heard that he was one of the top students in his class, but I also knew that he was passionate about literature and theatre. Quite rare at the time. He showed a decent degree of respect to me on account of seniority at school but it was clear to me even back then that he was intellectually way above anything I could aspire to.

I remember him as ‘Sujeewa’ and that’s how I addressed and referred to him. Apparently he’s ‘Sujeev.’ Maybe that was a shortened form used by friends which he didn’t bother to correct. He was like that.

We had the opportunity to get more acquainted in Los Angeles more than a decade after leaving school. He was a physics student at the University of Southern California (USC). I was visiting my classmate Kanishka Goonewardena, then a masters student in planning the same school. We were joined by Anil Rupasinghe, then a doctoral student at the New School for Social Research, New York.

The year was probably 1990. Spring break. March, I believe. Kanishka was (and is) a Marxist. My position on the political spectrum at the time was probably close to his but perhaps less red, possibly because I was less read than he. Anil, who was JVP-leaning in his early days at Peradeniya, had ‘moved out’ probably due to the influence of our mutual friend, Arjuna Parakrama, whose ancestral home was in Doratiyawa, Kurunegala, close to Anil’s village. Sujeev? I couldn’t have pinned him even if pinning was an objective at the time. Then, and now, he was a free thinker, unencumbered by ideological fixations.

So the four of us talked about all kinds of things. The conversation wandered to songs and lyrics. This was just after the ‘bheeshanaya,’ that terror-filled time of abduction, torture, burning alive, proxy arrests and a complete suspension of the law, decency and civilisation. The green-red terror, one may call it. The songs and lyrics that won the day (and lost the moment, one might say) were of Nanda Malini and Sunil Ariyaratne. In a word, ‘Pawana (The Wind)’.

Anil, for all the anti-JVP sentiments he had acquired by that time, was quite in awe of ‘Pawana’ and Nanda Malini. I don’t think we spoke about the ideological ‘voice’ of Pawana, Sunil Ariyaratne.  Sujeev wasn’t impressed. He opined that the true worth of a song is better obtained by longevity. The songs in the Pawana album, he said, are ‘for the moment.’ The moment passes and the song is gone. He mentioned some of Nanda Malini’s earlier songs. And of course those of other artists, especially Amaradeva.

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I too liked the Pawana songs, although I liked her previous albums better. In the almost 40 years that have passed, I’ve revisited Sujeev or rather his observations. This is why I, like many in my generation probably did, laughed hearing about Pawana songs blaring out at political events organised by parties whose policies were vehemently objected to by the likes of Nanda Malini and Sunil Ariyaratne.

But we moved across subjects and came to ‘love.’ Sujeev’s observations on this subject cut deep and remained encrusted in heart and mind. Love, he said, cannot be defined, but can perhaps be realised by the ‘visthara nokarahaki aanandaya (the bliss that’s beyond words)’ and the ‘daraagatha noheki vedanaava (the unbearable pain).’


We were discussing romantic love, which I suppose was all the love that concerned us at that time, at that age. Sujeev may have but I had not delved into the discourses pertaining to sorrow in Buddhist philosophy, for example, ‘appiyehi sampayogo dukkho and piyehi vippayogo dukkho (it is sorrowful to associate people one dislikes and sorrowful too the separation from those one likes).’ Likes, loves: both applicable. There’s an unspeakable joy that rises within me when I see one of my daughters, and each time they go away for a long period of time, I cry. But yes, it was romantic love that we spoke of in Los Angeles almost 40 years ago.

Sujeev went on to obtain a doctorate in particle and quantum physics from the University of Texas at Austin and from 2005 onwards taught at Grinnell College, collaborating with research groups such as MathPhys Research Group, University of Valladolid, Spain. I didn’t know and wouldn’t have known, for we never met after that except once in Boston when he pursued a heart-interest, unsuccessfully. I know and I think I knew some years ago as well (but had forgotten) when Kanishka informed me that he had passed away, probably from a heart attack.

This morning, Sujeev arrived from across oceans and decades. He floated through rain, cutting through conversation and cacophony like the strongest wind does (or the lightest rain and softest breeze). I felt him watching me with a half-smile and a knowing gaze as I revisited an old poem:

I'm unperturbed by things
that consume physicists
for the magic of number and formulae
has never mesmerised;
light bends, time too

how many decades erased in a moment
how many generations fled our universe
how many words and silences between them
conjured dust particles of the possible?

This was and is
and that's a poem
that will never get written.

I was not the reference to physicists that opened a mind-window through which he could blow away words and thoughts, rearrange them and wreck the space-time continuum. In fact I was not thinking of him when I wrote that line. But I do believe that the last three lines were inspired by those words uttered in Los Angeles in a different century. I might as well have dedicated it to my friend who, thinking back, had one of the purest hearts I’ve known. I do so now.

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The Kavantissa Programme

 

Google the name ‘Kavantissa’ in English or in Sinhala and you’ll get tons about the majestic tusker who died a few days ago. That’s not unusual. The death was foretold in many narratives. The death was contextualised in terms of human-elephant conflict. The death was of an elephant who was known and had caught the imagination of the curious, the conservationists, those concerned with ecological politics and of course ordinary people who for whatever reason have a soft corner for elephants and are moved by tragedies, majestic or otherwise.

I didn’t google Kavantissa before the condition of this tusker made the news, but my gut feeling is that the top references would have been about him. My gut feeling, again, is that if I googled ‘Kavantissa’ before this particular elephant was named, I would probably have got a short reference about King Dutugemunu’s father.

Today I googled ‘Kavantissa’ along with ‘Waruna Chandrakeerthi’. I googled ‘Kavantissa Vadapilivela (The Kavantissa Program). I tried various combinations. I got the reference to the book written by Waruna, published by Sri Lanka Seehanada Buddhist Institute. And then, pages and pages about the elephant.

Kavantissa the Tusker needs to be talked about. He needs to be talked about in all the context in which the talk has been about. No argument.

But what of that other Kavantissa, known mostly on account of having been the father of a person widely regarded as a hero-king? According to Geiger, Kavantissa is a corruption of Kaakkavannatissa, literally ‘Tissa who resembled (the color of) a crow’. It is claimed that it is an ease-of-tongue version of Kahavan Tissa or ‘Tissa the Golden Coloured.’ Then again, what’s a name is not what the person carrying it, what that person did or didn’t do, said or was silent about?

My introduction to the detailed version of Kavantissa, if I may, owes to Udayasiri Wickramaratne’s lyrical novella, ‘Swarnamali Maha Raja’ or ‘King Swarnamali the Great,’ which details Dutugemunu’s reflections after fleeing the Royal Palace and his eventual acknowledgment of his father’s greatness.  

Udayasiri in turn, owes it all to the work of Waruna Chandrakeerthi. Waruna has spoken of Kavantissa for years. Actually decades. Four, at least. His thesis, in a nutshell: ‘Much has to happen before a Dutugemunu can be the Dutugemunu associated with heroism, leadership and nation-building.’  

That’s why ‘Kavantissa’ is not only a majestic tusker and a king but a program. Unfortunately, we think of ‘Dutugemunu’ or ‘Prince Sapumal’ or a saviour or messiah or some kind of fallen-from-the-sky type miracle cure for the ills of our country. We think this leader or that will deliver. As for the would-be saviours, be it an individual, a party or political bloc, they do toss out ‘programs’ come election time, but they all lack, without exception, the seriousness, intellect, pragmatism and even the flexibility that marked the Kavantissa Program of that other time, the time of Dutugemunu and the Dravidian invader, the good king Elara.

We wait for heroes. And, as Bertold Brecht in ‘Galileo’ noted, we are not an unhappy people because we don’t have a hero, but our tragedy is that we need one.  A Dutugemunu (or whoever you think exemplifies the ‘deliverer’). We don’t think of ‘Kavantissa,’ because that’s too damned hard. It involves work. Involves a deep examination of the present, a long and wide reading of the past, the ability to visualise an end point (or interims towards such lovely telos) and the innovative skills to fine-tune strategy.

Dutugemunu, for all the alleged villainy of his younger days, came to understand his father and moreover to adopt his ways. This is probably best understood in the instructions given to his brother, Saddatissa, to cultivate, cultivate and cultivate. That’s preparation. That’s economic planning. And he, Dutugemunu, knew when enough was enough, for at one point he said as much: Ethi Male (Enough, Brother). That ‘spot’ is marked even today by the name, as the legend goes: Ethimale, somewhere within the jurisdiction of the Siyambalanduwa Divisional Secretariat in the Moneragal District of the Uva Province.

Kavantissa knew that victory (we could call it ‘prosperity for one and all’ or ‘improvement in the happiness index’) was predicated on economic strength, military readiness, strategic alliances, planning to the smallest detail, expectation of the unexpected, courage, determination, the will and support of the general public, all underlined in sobriety.

When all such things are ticked, Waruna says, we can have any number of Dutugemunus or any number of people with names that are not as extravagant to put the finishing touches provided of course that he or she has the intellect and humility to acknowledge the wisdom of the Kavantissas who came before and the plans put in place. If not, he or she could wreck it all. We’ve seen that in our lifetimes. Perhaps this is why we go for personality over program. We don’t have to. After all, we have an amazing template: the Kavantissa Plan.

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Conversations with a Peradeniya sentinel

Two stone lions guard one of the entrances to the Faculty of Arts, University of Peradeniya. The pedestal upon which they’ve stood watch over the comings and goings of students, teachers, non-academic staff and visitors are spacious enough for one or two people to sit. I have sat there often. Sometimes alone and sometimes not.

They’ve been there for decades. Long before I first saw them. They still stand. Observing. Eavesdropping.  

The placement and stature of these beasts make them hard for anyone to miss, especially undergraduates in this faculty. And over the years, naturally one could say, they’ve lent themselves to symbolic expression in all kinds of poetry, love in particular.  

Love and revolution with two stone elements as witnesses. What they’ve ‘seen’ and ‘heard’ are but grist for a poetic mill, nothing more, although one may argue that poetry can feed the resolve to placate the anger of the world. Anger and perhaps sorrow as well.  

Theoretically, a poet can give life to anything and everything and not only as symbols. Inanimate things can be given eyes and ears. Hearts and minds can be conferred upon them. And of course voice. Pablo Neruda has an entire collection dedicated to ‘ordinary things,’ which include a lemon, wine, the onion, salt, tomatoes, a large tuna in the market and a chestnut on the ground. His poetic genius willed life into all kinds of things and he encouraged thereby others to recognise the animate in that which is commonly considered not to have volition.

‘Why don’t they train helicopters to suck honey from sunlight?’

Why don’t they, really, whoever ‘they’ may be? Policy advocates, makers and implementers will not be moved though. On the other hand, such formulation could perhaps persuade the deciders in ‘rooms where it happens,’ to approach matters differently, see that which is almost imperceptible and draw inspiration from the vast world that exists out of easy equations and clinical policy papers framed by theories which are also too easy in that they toss things resisting categorisation and quantification into the easy-bin called ‘externalities.’

But those two lions spoke to me a few days ago when I, along with a few batchmates, decided to visit our undergraduate haunts before moving to the Peradeniya Rest House for a reunion.  

What are your thoughts now
after so many flowers bloomed
so many dreams wilted
and so many convictions buried?
Did soft words grow hard enough
so they could acquire greater tenderness
did betrayal strengthen surviving friendships
guilt obliterated by deliberate forgetting
and nausea cured by new verbal remedies?
There was a girl here, I remember,
two perhaps or more
and words decorated with metaphors
heard so many times that they flew
to untraceable registers smudged by rain
animated analyses flew from determine eyes
but I ignored name-drop and term-drop
(frequency taught me that);
but this is what I need to know:
where is that boy now (forget the girls)
buried in an avalanche,
renamed by tragedy unexpected and enormous,
broken like all great plans
hatched in these gardens,
frozen mid-flight
as he flew on dream-wings
and scattered like raindrops
in monsoonal frenzy?

All of this in a fraction of a second; subliminal communiques that came in code and had to be deciphered somewhere near the waters of the Basavakkulama several days later as a setting sun, a cloud-formation above a stupa and single oruwa in silhouette related others stories in various degrees of animation.  

I don’t know the answers and I don’t think anyone who has been interrogated by one or both of the gal-sinhayas would know either. I figured that the questions were actually an invitation to remember things lost and forgotten, a doorway to nostalgia perhaps. I didn’t accept.  

The university of that other time is no more. The university of that other time, paradoxically, is as alive as it was then. I didn’t say ‘say cheese’ and didn’t have to. The lions never stop smiling, although there are times I’ve wondered if it is a smile or an almost polite laugh. I didn’t smile or cry. No exchanges of niceties. That which was once is no more, as happens and as it should.

I never owned Peradeniya although I believed I did. Peradeniya, all of it, owned me. In another century and in a country I cannot revisit.  I tiptoed away. And that’s my story of the gal-sinhayo of the Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya.

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Pattern-recognition in chess (for life)

 

Years ago, Dr Diyanath Samarasinghe, one of the most alert thinkers on the way the world works (or doesn’t), advised me to look for patterns. Diyanath, as he prefers to be addressed by one and all, even those ignorant about any of the areas that he has acquired expertise in, went on to explain by way of examples.

‘Things are not as random as they appear to be,’ I remember him cautioning me. I think the example he used was of a ‘random’ person shot during a demonstration. That person, he told me, was a leader. Perhaps not THE leader, but maybe a mover-and-shaker kind of person. A thinker. An analyst, perhaps. Eliminating such people makes political sense for those issuing orders. Got the point.

He went on to talk about match-fixing. He gave examples.

Diyanath also mentioned, in passing, that he was once the National Chess Champion of Bermuda. Apparently, he had won the National Novices title back in the early 1970s in Sri Lanka. The Bermudian effort had earned him a box of chocolates.

My interest in chess began around the same period. Back then, I hadn’t heard of the term ‘pattern-recognition.’ I don’t think ‘SWOT’ had entered the general lexicon of planning at the time. But that’s what we did back then, as had the greatest chess players, dating back over 2,000 years (yes, the game, in a slightly different form, was played that long ago, and, according to some accounts even Prince Siddhartha knew of it if not playing it).

Today, coaches teach patterns. They are relentless and sometimes overdo it; neglecting fundamental principles of the game in the drive to produce champions. Young kids (and their parents of course) go along, mostly out of ignorance. But patterns they learn, chess players do.  They learn ‘chess patterns’ but over time recognising patterns becomes intuitive.

Since ‘pattern’ becomes an integral part of ways of thinking, chess players, perhaps more than non-chess players, can spot threats and opportunities faster. In business, finance, personal relationships, organisations of any kind, political configurations, social interactions or anything else in fact. They ‘spot’ systems, they recognise flows and directions, and they plan accordingly.

Pattern-recognition in chess includes tactical motifs, structures, combinations, positional finesse, and end-game visualisation. What in life does not include things that make such things invaluable? What in life has no use for ‘preventative sensing’ or recognising what a particular protagonist wants to do before he or she does it? What in life has no use for such recognition that is simultaneously responded with ‘moves’ that are both preventive in character and also advances one’s position? That’s chess. That’s life.

In life, though we didn’t know or use the word back in Diyanath’s glory days, on the chess board and outside it, there were moments that could be called ‘toxic.’ There is toxicity now too. There always was. Back then, like now, bad structures could cost. Bad structures could be recognised and remedial action taken. Threats were recognised and responded to. Errors were translated into bad positions, but ‘best moves’ or ‘better moves’ could be thought out to mitigate chess-board ‘toxicity.’

It’s the same with life. We deal with situations the best we can. However, if we can recognise a toxic outcome in any process, we can think of strategies to avoid being poisoned in the process.

It takes me to the teachings of the Buddha, in particular sati or mindfulness. It helps cultivate wisdom and insight with regard to one’s own mind and the world.

One can meditate on the five aggregates or the Pañcakkhandha: Rūpa (form/matter), vedanā (feeling/sensation), saññā (perception/recognition), saṅkhāra (mental formations / volitional activities), and viññāṇa (consciousness/awareness).   A different level to the concerns of a novice or a national chess champion, but then again chess hones such attributes. Good for chess. Good for life. Good for the journey through Saṃsāra.

Patterns and pattern recognition have a lot to do with all this. The Anguttara Nikaya or the Numerical Discourses of the Buddha contains innumerable examples of certain patterns recognised and consequently and systematically elaborated upon by the Enlightened One.  

It’s about the cultivation of the mind, is it not? It’s about acquiring analytical tools, devices that can detect, dissect, design ‘moves.’ In chess. In life.

Diyanath wası’t talking about all these things, but today, in a position that has forced me to think ‘chess’ much more than I did, I’ve begun to appreciate and extrapolate.  Today, it’s ‘pattern recognition.’ Chess is much more than that. Life too. For now, Diyanath’s advice from more than a decade ago prompted reflection. Recognition of patterns is what took me to chess this morning or rather ‘pattern’ in chess took me back to that interesting conversation with that remarkable man.  

Now, looking back, thinking of roads taken, avoided and missed, I realise once again the importance of chess in my formative years. It’s not just a game. It’s a guru of deep wisdom disguised as a set of pieces upon sixty four squares.

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Poetic matters

 

The Colombo International Book Fair (CIBF) is a carnival. On the surface, a literary carnival — you get the books, book stalls, book lovers presumably, book launches and various literature-related events. Good stuff, but not for me. I do visit, but only for an hour or two. I prefer to spend that time at the Kavi Poth Salpila, the poetry-book stall run by award-winning author Mahinda Prasad Masimbula.

I stopped by for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was not the ritual stop, but a pause for a quick perusal before proceeding to the ‘Sankhathana Mandapaya’ (The Discourse Pavilion) where I was to be a panelist discussing the question, ‘Does poetry still matter?’

My quick-browse let to the purchase of a few books: verses penned by Masimbula’s for a teledrama based on his book ‘Manikkavatha,’ W A Abeysinghe’s translations of a set of poems by Pushkin, Nandun Yasitha Dissanayake’s long-titled latest collection, Kanchana Amilani’s ‘Kala Rekha (Timeline)’ and Timran Keerthi’s ‘Maduravathi nam tharu rataava.’ They constituted a short answer to that odd but perhaps relevant-to-some question I was supposed to help unravel a little later.

It was an interesting discussion. The discussion was live-streamed and there does not require transcription even in condensed form. As always, my fallback to being chronically unprepared was the fact that others always say something interesting. I owe the moderator, Tinaz Amit, and the fellow-panelists, Dr Sujeeva Sebastian, Shirania Rajapakse and Anupama Godakanda. As always, the discussion stayed long afterwards and inspired further reflection.

Does poetry matter? Does anything matter, for that matter? Once the second question pops up, the first is rendered meaningless. Matter-less, if you so wish.

People do make careers of their art. Some become wealthy. Most, historically, die in poverty. Extravagant spending can land the best in dire straits. I had thought Shakespeare died poor and said as much, but apparently he did not. The lives artists get to lead are not always related to the worth of their art. The point, however, is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if art pays. It doesn’t matter if no one understands. Or rather, it matters very little. Some do enjoy accolade-glow. It’s nice to be recognised. Recognised or not, however, people write, paint, compose music, dance, act etc. There’s reward in the act and that’s not always something one whispers to oneself by way of consolation.

There are poetry-matters moments. I mentioned a couple. The first was about Pablo Neruda. He recounts that he got into a brawl with someone in a bar. That someone was tossed out. When Neruda walked out sometime later, the man was there and came towards him. Neruda’s initial thought was that the man wanted a second round of fisticuffs. No, he had been distraught when he learned that he had dared to attack Pablo Neruda, whose poetry he had recited to the woman he eventually married. And then he proceeded to recite the poem. Poetry mattered then.

Three years ago while visiting my niece in Madison, Wisconsin, I observed a demonstration condemning the genocidal attacks by Israel on the people of Palestine. There was a young man carrying a placard with the following legend: ‘Every Beautiful Poem is an Act of Resistance.’

Worth a write. Back then I wrote a daily article for this same paper, the Daily News. So I wrote about beautiful poetry and resistance. That day, coincidentally, poem popped up in Facebook Memories:

So let there be stones
beautiful ones
cut by hand or time
with edges that can wait
for moonquake and anarchy
those necessary preconditions
for bloomage and bleeding
mirrors that fracture desolate skies
and trigger
the eruption of rainbows,
stones gathered
from every stoning
that turned broken bodies
into words
to re-cleanse
our desecrated hearts.

Related. So I related the relationship. Poetry mattered. Matters in matters of the heart, matters in acts of resistance. Like pavement stones.

Matters very little, someone might say, although others would argue that poetry did play a role in preparing hearts for resistance and rebellion. The true dimensions of the matter at hand was perhaps best articulated by Neruda. It’s a line I’ve quoted often and which I mentioned during the discussion as well: ‘Ah! If only with a drop of love or poetry, we could placate the anger of the world; but that requires resolute hearts.’  

There was a drop of poetry in Madison, Wisconsin. There was a drop of poetry outside a nondescript bar somewhere in Latin America many decades ago. Drops of love, they could also be called. The anger of the world does not subside easily, but something distasteful was nevertheless quelled. Dissolved. Just with a drop of poetry.

And here I am, more than fifty years later, talking about love and war, tears and poetry. Matters. And in this way are hearts made more resolute, I do believe.

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The Stern General Efstratios Grivas

I have always had a problem with his name. I first met Efstratios Grivas, a chess grandmaster from Greece, in Tromso, Norway in 2014 when he was the coach of the Sri Lankan team for the Chess Olympiad and I was the non-playing captain cum coach.  ‘Grandmaster’ seemed too formal. ‘Grivas’ was too casual. ‘Efstratios’ was hard to pronounce. I called him ‘captain.’ 

Now, 12 years later, he is once again our coach and I am also here in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the Chess Olympiad or rather the Congressional Sessions and Election of the world body for chess, FIDE. He is the official ‘captain’. I am the official delegate of Sri Lanka.

A few weeks ago, when we came to an agreement about this particular assignment, I told him that I never knew how to address him. He laughed and came up with some suggestions. I asked him what his name meant. ‘Efstratios,’ he said, meant ‘General.’ Seemed apt.  Now, when I address him either in text or in conversation it’s ‘General’ or ‘Captain.’

Today, I decided to investigate the name. Etymology. Historically, it meant 'commander of a good army.' 'Ef' means 'good' and 'stratos' is 'army.' General’ is a decent enough equivalent. Stratos 'moved' to 'strategy.' Makes chess sense as well.  But Grivas? Well, apparently it is from Slavic languages and it means 'the mane of a horse'. Apparently one of his ancestors was a big warrior who was feared. 

 

He’s had his battles. On and off the chess board. His exploits in chess are well documented and include dozens of medals in world events. He has represented Greece in international competitions no less than a staggering 186 times and he’s competed in eight Chess Olympiads between 1982 and 1999. 

General Grivas has not played much competitive chess in decades but he’s spent all that time honing the competitiveness of hundreds of thousands of chess players. He holds top coaching credentials in the world body for chess, FIDE, and has coached dozens of top grandmasters. He’s a champion-generating machine and that has a lot to do with his knowledge, his ‘generalship’ and being a ‘stern one’ long before the ‘greyness’ arrived and through the passing years. He has coached and he has helped people self-learn through over 130 published chess books and other educational material which have been translated into nine languages. There’s even a chess opening in his name, the Grivas Sicilian variation.

So he’s won medals for his playing and awards for training and leadership. He would shrug these off with a characteristic wave of the hand and a laugh. Yes, General Grivas can laugh and can make people laugh. But I’ve seen him being stern. When he has to. Decades of teaching has probably given him an array of training techniques he can draw from to get his players to be the best they can be. He can instill fear but also obtained respect for he ensures that at the end of a session self-confidence is left intact or strengthened.  

Battles off the 64 squares are for anecdotal articulation. He says things in passing but only if asked. He has let things go. He lets things stay 'gone.'  Wise man. 

Last night, outside the Bogishamol Hotel in Samarkand, I listened with fascination as he tossed out examples of things that worked for him and the theories behind certain coaching decisions including team selection and which complement of players should play each round of a team tournament like the Olympiad. 

I offered, ‘you keep learning as you teach, don’t you?’  

He didn’t laugh. He was not ‘stern.’ He simply said, ‘Of course; if you think you know it all, you are finished.’  As a teacher, that is. 

It’s not some amazing ‘truth’ that he has chanced upon of course, for the best teachers always know there is more to know than is already known. Not all teachers operate that way. They prefer to display a wizard badge or wear the relevant trappings in words, voice, tone and advertisement. 

Grivas, a FIDE Senior Trainer who once served as the Secretary of the FIDE Trainers’ Commission and of the European Chess Trainers’ Commission, has credentials tough to match, but he has in the  curriculum vitae of demeanour and conduct that which is rare among teachers. Humility. 

It's been 12 years since I first met him. We’ve aged, both of us. He has become a better coach. I can say that because simply by walking through the years I read people better than I did 12 years ago. There’s more grey than before, less hair too. The mind is young. Virile. And he gives the best lessons without reservation.

‘What a teacher!’ That’s what I might have said 12 years ago. ‘What a student!’ That’s what I say today. I know he will laugh if/when he hears/reads this.

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The Colombo Telegraph and Uvindu Kurukulasuriya

 

A few days ago the website www.colombotelegraph.com ‘celebrated’ its 15ht birthday. Over the years dozens of political commentators have been featured on Colombo Telegraph (CT). They’ve mostly written about the political upheavals of the particular moment, but have for the most part drawn from longer histories and been framed by happier extrapolations. Eminently readable. As Carlo Fonseka might have put it, ‘even if you are not enthused by the substance, you could still read for style.’

Each piece inspired much commentary, not all of which could be saluted either for substance or style of course. My fellow journalist (at one point) and good friend Hafeel Farisz once made an observation about comments on my articles. He said he would be very upset. I told him that I don’t really care.  

There were times when I did scroll down and even engage. If it was downright stupid and caustic I would just say, ‘at least you read what I write, but I am sorry I don’t have time to indulge because I have other articles to write which of course you could rant about later….have a nice day.’ And I would add a smiley.  My hunch is that such a comment would irk the ‘offender’ no end. But I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go there. As I said, I had other things to do.

I haven’t written to CT in years. I haven’t written much anyway, not since the end of 2024. I haven’t visited CT much either, except when something pops up on my feed or if the evergreen curator, Uvindu Kurukulasuriya alerts me.  

Anyway, a few days ago, i.e. on CT’s birthday, I wrote a short appreciation. Uvindu’s comment was that it was like an appreciation written for someone who has died! That’s true. CT, at least for me, is more about Uvindu than anything else; the man’s energy, commitment, passion and relentlessness. Maintaining all that, almost single-handedly, for 15 years is no mean achievement.

Uvindu is still alive. For the record. And kicking too, in his own way if with less verve. I didn’t mean it to sound like an obituary, but then there’s so little praise and so much blame penned about people that encomiums of any kind tend to be read that way.

I remember writing about the veteran sports journalist R L Fernando for the Sunday Island. I had left that paper when ‘RL’ passed away. He had his idiosyncrasies of course but was quite a personality nevertheless. Rex Clementine’s voice broke when he called and said, ‘Sad news, RL has passed away.’ So I write and Manik De Silva, the Editor-in-Chief carried it the following Sunday.

He called me, probably on the Monday afterwards and said ‘I realised you hadn’t mentioned that RL had died!’

So, such things happen. We write of the dead as though they are alive and the living as though they’ve passed on.  

Be that as it may, it goes without saying that we can’t ever write a person fully, for we don’t know all or enough. People are seen in fragment; in terms of the particularities of encounter.

I have many Uvindu stories. That happens when you know or know about someone for many years. He and I have had our differences of opinion, which would be normal even among those who are in agreement politically and ideologically. We were not. But there was one equaliser that made it all ok: we were and are convinced that the other’s conduct was framed by ‘best interests for the country,’ and not personal gain.

Anyway, let me relate one Uvindu story. I can’t remember when it happened, probably more than 10 years ago, but I am not sure.

It had to do with something nefarious indulged in by someone on the same (broad) political/ideological boat. Now it is well known for people to be lenient on political fellow-travellers. ‘In the larger interest of the party,’ is the excuse frequently trotted out. Uvindu was and is different. He couldn’t turn the other way. He told me about it, not as a fellow-journalist but as a friend. The following is a rough translation of what he said:

‘He took money from innocent people who believed in him. There was a widow of a principal who had donated her widow’s pension. A small amount, but the whole pension! I am sure my mother would have or must have done the same.’

This…….(fill in the blank space with choice Sinhala expletives)!

It was a Skype call. He was sobbing.

That’s Uvindu Kurukulasuriya. And that I believe is why CT is what it is. All heart. And a lot of mind besides.

 

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Colombo Telegraph: the year 2011 and thereafter

What was Sri Lanka like in the year 2011? That’s fifteen years ago. Long before ‘The Aragalaya,’ before the crisis that was the logical end-point of decades long dabbling in patently flawed economic think and perhaps precipitated by key policy errors of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, not to mention the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war.

It was a time of political stability which of course doesn’t necessarily mean things were all rosy on the political front. Mahinda Rajapaksa had just won a second term on the strength of policy direction that ended a decades long war on terrorism. His main rival at that election, Sarath Fonseka, the former Army Commander who played a key role in the defeat of the LTTE, was behind bars for reasons of political expediency more than anything else.

The opposition was in disarray: the United National Party had to ‘borrow’ a candidate to face Rajapaksa. The JVP was just a tag-along political outfit. The people, at least going by the numbers, were not unhappy with a Rajapaksa second term. The economy was doing well, perhaps thanks to the ground being cleared for economic activity following the end of the war rather than any policy-magic of the political leadership.

In other news, Sri Lanka made it to the World Cup final. Things weren’t too bad. The year 2011, upon reflection, was another country in another century.

Things happen during any calendar year. Always. Of the political and economic ‘overall’ certain things stand out, but what’s remembered depends on what’s important and inconsequential for the person recollecting. Academics, especially economists and political scientists, on the other hand, would be better positioned to offer diagnosis and prognosis. The rest, for the most part, probably remember that which was too important to forget at a personal level.

Few would think ‘Colombo Telegraph’ if nudged to recall ‘2011.’ Understandable. Things such as newspapers and websites start slow. It takes years to secure a memory-slot in the minds of the readership. And even when this happens, it’s just one of those things taken for granted. When and how things started aren’t really important.

Uvindu Kurukulasuriya had to remind me. Uvindu didn’t exactly launch the website that’s known as ‘Colombo Telegraph’ and what came to be known as ‘CT.’ There was no elaborate or even modest launch. One might say ‘a whim’ but Uvindu isn’t your typical whimsical journalist. He was, even at that time, well-known and respected as a journalist who understood the importance of research-generated facts. He had the added advantage (or maybe ‘disadvantage’) of a conscience. Ethics were important to him. He knew the meaning of the dictum ‘facts are sacred, comment free.’ He had the ideological and political drive to comment, and the memory too, but for the most part he drew from established facts.  

Uvindu lived in the UK. Self-imposed exile and a generally laidback lifestyle sans any significant personal ambitions, materialistic or otherwise, offered him enabling ‘leisure.’ That said, the work was anything but leisurely, as anyone engaged in content-creation of a political kind would know. It’s relentless. He mined Wikileaks. He offered comments. And, by and by, people started contributing analytical pieces. FoC. Over time, I believe ‘getting it into CT’ did much for the personal/professional profiles of some authors; a clear indication that CT had risen to a certain degree of prominence in the firmament of online discourse.

I cannot remember how my association with CT began. I do remember visiting Uvindu or being invited to his place a few days before he left Sri Lanka. I can’t remember the year. We weren’t buddies. In fact, the first time I met him, at the Borella Kanatta. I can’t remember whose funeral it was. Uvindu punched me (in a good hearted way) for my involvement in a response-ad to a full page ad that the Free Media Movement had inserted in the Daily Mirror. He appreciated my political engagement and critiqued something I had written (I believe it was an article on H L Seneviratne). We became friends, even though ideologically and therefore politically we were in two different camps.

Anyway, at some point, Uvindu asked me to write to CT. I think he was kind enough to accommodate articles I wrote for newspapers. I may have written a few pieces just for CT, but they were exceptions. My recollection is that for the most part Uvindu wanted people to write fresh pieces for CT.

We communicated. He sometimes called. Sometimes there were Skype calls. It’s those conversations that told me how meticulous Uvindu was in processing content for CT. He insisted that I stop using double-space between sentences. I complied simply because I knew it was tedious for him to correct that particular error. And eventually I got used to ‘single-space.’ It was not just such technical things; like any good editor Uvindu would now and then get back to me on spelling and sentence structure, and at times even claims made.

He was kind. CT generates a lot of commentary and for the most part Uvindu doesn’t filter. On occasion, though, he would point out a particularly acerbic comment on something I had written (and there were many, by the way, for most of the readership were ideologically aligned with Uvindu’s positions and therefore opposed to mine!) and ask if it’s ok to go. I can’t remember saying ‘not ok,’ ever. Such courtesies there were.

From my first editor, Manik De Silva, I had learned that a good editor should have a liberal editorial policy. Uvindu accommodated me. Others may have not. And have not, actually.

It’s about friendship, but not only that. There were commonalities that counted. For example, our histories in that amorphous country called ‘left politics,’ particularly the LSSP. In my case, by association. There were values we shared.

We were friends and ideology and political preferences notwithstanding we supported each other. Sometimes he would get me to ‘fix’ a headline or ‘clean up’ some news item, even if the content or slant might be disagreeable.

He would often inquire about my financial situation, knowing well that it is never easy being an unemployed (and unemployable, perhaps) graduate. He has helped me with whatever he could afford at various points over the last 15 years. As he has many people. Millions, I am sure, if it were all added up. CT generates income, but not the kind of bucks that could be mined if Uvindu was that way inclined. He just did what he thought needed to be done. He just lived a modest life, satisfied with basic ‘necessities.’

I’ve seen it all. In 2017, when I visited the UK with my family, Uvindu took us on a rudimentary tourist-round. And invited us to his place for dinner. As always we talked politics, but more than that about just being, the lives we led, our friends (and political opponents). We laughed. We always do when we talk over the phone.  

I can’t think of a man more principled than Uvindu when it comes to ‘The Left.’ Unlike most ‘leftists’ he didn’t look the other way when ‘comrades’ erred. He held them to high standards and if they strayed he called them out.  The late Victor Ivan, for example.

There are things I know about Uvindu which I will not mention because it’s too personal. The emotions, I mean. He has a sharp, inquisitive and analytical mind, but the organ that endears him to me and which is what CT is all about, come to think of it, is Uvindu’s heart. I’ve seen it.
 
The year 2011. A lot of things may have happened in those 12 months. Uvindu Kurukulasuriya started the Colombo Telegraph. Whether CT precipitated or in some way contributed to the political unfolding of the past 15 years, I cannot say. Shaped thinking, that it did. And that’s good enough.

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Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov

Back in the day, Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov worked at Rupavahini. I believe he was an intern there. He was young, as was I. He was partially employed, I was unemployed. I can’t remember if universities were open or closed, but one night we walked along the railway line from somewhere near Bambalapitiya to Wellawatte.

Mahendra Martin Raskonikov and I had not exactly lived parallel lives, but there were commonalities when it comes to matters of the heart. It was as though we were destined to be confronted by all manner of love-facets. What faces we saw were jagged-edged. They reflected unbelievable light, they cut deep without warning.

We talked much in those days and less in recent years. Some conversations are remembered for they are so memorable to warrant re-telling. Over and over again. Among them are a few that have made their way into various articles. Mostly stories he related. Some of his own and others of people he knew.

A young boy once received a note from a girl. ‘I love you, boy; send me 18 yellow roses.’ He was 18 and she was 14. He didn’t know anything about girls. Or roses. Or the color codes of roses. He had to ask around and was told, ‘You are still in school.  Roses are expensive. Yellow roses are very expensive.  You can’t afford it. Forget it.’ He did.

Time passed and pathways crossed. There’s a story there worth telling, but then all his stories are tell-worthy anyway.

But today I remember that evening somewhere in Wellawatte, watching and listening to the ocean. I remember telling him that I was reading Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment.’  Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov, a voracious reader, immediately brought up what to him was the telling moment of the novel. It so happened that from what I had already read, it was this particular moment that had captured me most.

More than thirty years later, the very same moment came back to me. This time, in an observation made by Martin Wickramasinghe in his biography, ‘Upan Da Sita’ or ‘From the beginning’ (or, better still, ‘From the cradle’). I was re-translating the book, an exercise which began as a would-be edit of an effort made more than twenty years previously, in segments, for the ‘Sunday Island.’  

Here goes:

‘As a young man, there was no novel that troubled my mind as did Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I felt as though someone was running a rasp across my brain while reading it. Unable to figure out Dostoevsky's mysterious notions of the human mind at the time, I read the book like one who was trying to find his way in the dark.

'Raskolnikov, who murders an old woman who made a living out of usury, suffers much pain. I felt that the book contained nothing else but the vivid description of his suffering mind. Finding no one to alleviate his pain, the educated murderer finally encounters a word of comfort from a prostitute named Sonia. He finds relief like a thirsty man who drinks a sip of water. Moved by this, he falls at her feet.

‘“I kneel down not to you, but to the untold suffering of humanity that finds expression through you.”

‘When I reached this point of the narrative, I was extremely disturbed. This turbulence acted like a bolt of lightning illuminating for a moment certain mystical points that are found in Buddhist stories and then disappearing altogether. My mind was a vessel that was filled by compassion. It was because of Dostoevsky's stories that certain mystical ideas in the Buddhist stories became clear to me.’

And I remembered something I had forgotten: I had, upon the invitation of Dr Ranga Wickramasinghe, written a foreword to a new publication of his father’s book ‘Buddhist Jataka Stories and the Russian Novel.’ I can’t remember what I wrote though.

I remember Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov, who, not having read ‘Upan Da Sita’ had somehow been as perturbed as the great writer by the very same passage of play in the novel. I had too, but I had not the keen and analytical mind of my friend and of course not of the great man of letters, Martin Wickramasinghe. We shared the same sentiments. Mahendra’s words that night were almost a one-to-one quoting of Wickramasinghe.

Mahendra’s story is a novel that he won’t write. Neither could I. I know only this: there’s untold suffering and inexpressible delight that finds expression through him. Not in what he says, but the way he lives his life.

Mahendra is a Roman Catholic. He knows a lot about other philosophies. He might be one of the very few people I know who could from THAT point of the narrative obtain something that he could (but would not) describe, following Martin, as follows:

‘‘When I reached this point of the narrative, I was extremely disturbed. This turbulence acted like a bolt of lightning illuminating for a moment certain mystical points that are found in the parables of all religious doctrines and then disappearing altogether. My mind was a vessel that was filled by compassion. It was because of Dostoevsky's stories that certain mystical ideas in all religious parables became clear to me.’

That’s how Mahendra Silva, at this moment of writing, I re-christened as Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov.

And I hereby offer this, in lieu of 18 yellow roses, as something he can offer to whoever has captured his heart at this moment, more than 30 years after our Dostoyevsky Moment and probably almost 40 years after that first rose-petalled palpitation referred to above.

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Anuruddha Karnasuriya’s sloth

Sunimal De Silva was my Grade 6 class teacher. That’s 50 years ago. It was a bad year for me in terms of studies, but then again one of many. Sunimal Sir, as we called him, taught at Royal for decades and was iconic in his own way.

While in school, I always greeted him if I saw him and we exchanged pleasantries. I met him once in a bus. That was in the year 2000. That conversation indicated to me that he kept himself informed about the world around him. I also met him during a pilgrimage to India. But the ‘iconic moment’ happened in Sri Lanka. At the Royal College pool.

My sister-in-law suggested that we take our two daughters to ‘a coach who is like a kiri-aththaa (grandpa),’ so my wife and I went looking for him. He found us. It was Sunimal Sir. Kind, generous and good humoured as usual, he blurted out (in Sinhala), ‘they must be your daughters….I will coach them.’

Then he asked, ‘is this your wife?’ I affirmed and he said (in Sinhala): ‘of all the students I have taught, he is the one who did nothing with his abilities!’ I laughed and said, ‘sir, aathma thrupthiya neveida vadagath (is it not contentment that counts)?’ He became serious and said, ‘that’s true.’

Maybe it was just sloth that I was clothing in philosophy. But today, reading a poem I found consolation: Anuruddha Karnasuriya is way more slothful!


‘E handa methana (That moon, here)’ is the title of his maiden collection of poems (43 of them), published by Sarasavi. More than twenty years ago, he came out with ‘Sikuraadaavaka kathaavak (A story of a Friday),’ which I found to be a compelling read. A non-practicing lawyer and a senior lecturer political scientist at the Jayawardenapura University, I first met him sometime in 1993. He was just out of school. We belonged to a political group that later came to be known as ‘Janatha Mithuro.’ He entered the University of Peradeniya a few years later and was a prominent student activist.

He passed his law exams but never practiced. He opted for an academic career. We became close friends over the years not only because of general ideological agreement. The conversations on politics, international affairs, constitutional matters etc., were stimulating, but the more interesting exchanges were over literature, arts and philosophy. And love.

He wrote a few books. Too few. Excellently written and hopefully read with attention, I wouldn’t know. Off and on he would send me a verse or post something on Facebook. Each time I chided him for writing so little and so infrequently. The man not only has things to say but has the ability to communicate more effectively than those who have a far greater ‘literary’ and academic presence in social media and elsewhere.

Anuruddha never fails to point out when I err in my Sinhalese. My standard retort is that he didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘kuseetha (sloth).’ He didn’t know the word but he epitomised it. When one has acquired certain skills, it is good to use them. We can’t hold anyone to it, but then again, beneficiaries of free education owe a debt and people with intellect and words can pay simply by expressing themselves. He doesn’t do it enough. He’s just too lazy. He should have completed his PhD but hasn’t. Neither did I, but then again I opted out of academics altogether.

Anuruddha owes his writing/thinking skills to his father, who, being a leftist, would bring home the ‘Aththa (Truth),' the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (Moscow). His task: copy the editorial (mostly written by the legendary and inimitable B A Siriwardena) and re-draw Yunoos’ cartoon. I don't know whether Anuruddha delved into drawing or painting, but he acquired a political language that was sharp and could be elegantly acerbic when required. He would have made an excellent lawyer.

I remember many conversations and that indicates how remarkable his insights have been. That’s another article. Or maybe a book. Maybe they’ve already made it into the book that’s going to be launched on the 9th of September. He does stuff like that. For example, he ‘stole’ an exchange between my wife and I (before we got married) that I had recounted, inserting it in one of his short stories.

But enough. That’s the word. Enough. He just hasn’t written enough and when I wish him a long life, it is in the hope that the years alone would allow a reading public access to what he has to say. I don’t believe his frequency would change. He was, is and will probably remain slothful. He might ask ‘Is not contentment that counts?’ I would have to say ‘that’s true.’

But enough. The following is a quick translation of a poem in his forthcoming book. It is titled, ‘Nopamaava danvanna (Inform without delay)':


Is there a tavern
of a different kind
somewhere nearby
so I can with love
become intoxicated

Thereafter can I not
scream and inquire
why no space has been
so far allocated
to bury love’s secrets
vast cemeteries
though there are!!

Carrying secret-clumps
as heavy as Mount Meru
in my mind
can I walk any further?

Be there such a cemetery
please inform me
without delay

I need
to be drunk beyond belief
and upon that earth 

senselessly sleep
and to the warmth of those dreams
awake

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කපිල අයියට පිං සිද්ද වෙන්න ඕන

 

සාහිත්‍ය සම්මාන උළෙලකට, පොත් එළිදැක්වීමකට හෝ වෙනත් සාහිත්‍ය නැතහොත් ශාස්ත්‍රීය වැඩසටහනකට එන අය කොටස් තුනකට බෙදින්න පුළුවන්. එක, කතෘ ගේ නෑදෑ හිතවතුන් සහ ප්‍රකාශන ආයතනයේ සේවික සේවිකාවන්. දෙක, උත්සවයේ කතා සහ වෙනත් අංග අහන්න/බලන්න එන අය. තුන, එන අය එක්ක කතා කරන්න බලාගෙන එන අය. විදර්ශන සාහිත්‍ය සම්මාන උළෙලත් ඒ වගේ. 

මම අයත් වෙන්නේ තුන්වෙනි කණ්ඩායමට වුනත්, මුළු වැඩසටහනටම සවන් දෙන්න වුනා. ඒ තරම් ආකර්ශනීයයි. ඒ තරම් විචිත්‍රයි. ඒ තරම් ගැඹුරුයි. ඒ තරම් කාව්‍යමයයි. අමතරව, වේදිකාවට පැමිණි සියලු දෙනා සහෝදරයි. තුන, ඇති තරම් කතා කරන්න කට්ටිය හිටියා. ඇති තරම් කතා කරන්න දේවල් තිබුනා. සම්මාන ලැබුණ පොත් කියවන්නම හිතුනා. ලියනගේ අමරකීර්ති, රංජිනී ඔබේසේකර ගැන කරපු දීර්ග ඇගයීම හේතුවෙන් ඈ ලියු සියලු පොත් කියවන්න හිතුනා. පරාක්‍රම කොඩිතුවක්කු ලියු කවියක පරිවර්තනය ඈ කියවද්දී ඔහුගේ පරණ කවි නැවත කියවන්න හිතුනා.   

කතා කරන්න ආස හිතෙන අය ගොඩාක් හිටියත් හැමෝම එක්ක කතා කරන්න බැරි වුනා. කතා කරන්න ඇති තරම් වෙලාවක් චෙන් කරලා තිබුනත් මට කලින්ම යන්න වුනා. එහම වෙනවා සමහර දවස්වල. ඒත් ඉතින් කතා කරපු දේ මදැයි කියල හිත හදාගන්නත් පුළුවන් වුනා. 

මේ හැමදේටම විදර්ශන ප්‍රකාෂකයින්ට, විශේෂයෙන්ම ජනක ඉනිමංකඩට, පිං සිද්ද වෙන්න ඕන.  

මට සුවිශේෂ දෙන්නෙක් හිටියා. පළමුව ප්‍රේම් දිසානායක. දෙවැන්නා කපිල කුමාර කාලිංග. 

මීට අවුරුදු දෙකකට පෙර, ප්‍රේම් අයියා හමු වෙන්න ගිය වෙලාවේ, සුපුරුදු ලෙස ප්‍රේම අයියා මට පොත් කිහිපයක් පරිත්‍යාග කෙරුවා. ඉන් එකක් කපිල කුමාර කාලිංග ගේ 'කෙටි වුනත් මේ කවි.' කෙටි කවි සංග්‍රහයක්. අනතුරුව ඒ කවි ඉංග්‍රීසියට පරිවර්තනය කරන්න හැකි වුනා. සරල බසින් ලිය වුනත් සියුම් වගේම ගැඹුරු අර්ථ ඒ කවි වල තිබුනා. පසුව කපිල අයියා පොතක් හැටියට මුද්‍රණය කෙරුවා. 

කපිල අයියා හඳුනාගත්තේ 2004 වසරේ. ඒ ෆීනික්ස් ආයතනයේ. ඒ කාලේ බොහෝ දේවල් කතා කළා. බොහෝ දේවල් ඉගෙන ගත්තා. ඉන්පසුවත් එක එක තැන්වල් එක එක අවස්ථාවල කපිල අයියා මුණ ගැසුනා. කතා කළා. හිනා වුනා. පරණම දේවල් මතක් කරා. හැමදාම හැම හමුවීමම සුන්දරයි. කපිල අයියව හැමෝම දන්නවා. ඉතින් එයා ගැන වැඩිය ලියන්න අවශ්‍ය නැහැ.  ප්‍රේම් අයියත් එහෙමයි. හැමෝම දන්නවා.

කොහොම වුනත් කපිල අයියා කරලා තිබුනේ ආදරය දනවන වැඩක්. ඒ ආදරය දනවන වැඩේ මට ලැබුනේ ප්‍රේම් අයියාගේ ආදරණීය ගති පැවතුම් නිසා. ඒ ආදරයට සාධාරණයක් කරන්න තමයි මේ පරිවර්තනය සඳහා මහන්සි වුනා. දෙන්නටම පිං සිද්ද වෙන්න මටත් සම්මානයක් ලැබුණා. ඒ නිසාම උළෙලටත් ආරාධනයක් ලැබුණා. ඒ නිසාම සහෝදරයි කියල දැනෙන සාහිත්‍යකරුවන් වේදිකාවට පැමිණ අදාළ සම්මාන ලබා ගන්න විට සතුටු වෙන්න අවස්ථාවක් ලැබුණා. ඒ නිසාම ලස්සන වැඩ සටහනක් දකින්න ලැබුණා. ඒ නිසාම සාහිත්‍ය සමාජයේ ආදරණීය අය මුණ ගැසුනා.    

ජනකට වගේම, ප්‍රේම් අයියටත්, කපිල අයියටත් බොහොම පිං.

 

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Sunil Ariyaratne in the then and now

 

More than forty years ago, in my first days at Dumbara Campus, University of Peradeniya, a senior whose name and face I no longer remember, quizzed me about Sinhala songs. At some point in the conversation he asked me about Sunil Ariyaratne. I didn’t know the person nor the name and said so. He chided me for being ignorant and went on to educate me about the songs he had written for Nanda Malini.

I knew songs. Sometimes I knew who sang them. I didn’t know the lyricists. Back then access to music was limited to what the ‘owners’ of the radio played. So it depended on what they preferred of programs aired by the less than half a dozen radio channels.

Campus life changes all that. I had friends who knew and could sing songs. They sang. They talked about the lyrics, the sentiments and sometimes the vocalist, composer and lyricist.

By the time ‘Pavana (The wind)’ came around, thanks in part to the political turmoil of the late eighties, the name was familiar and intricately tied to the songs of Nanda Malini.

The late eighties were made of fire, of people being burnt alive or after being shot on tyres, of bodies floating down waterways or piling up in street corners, of political assassinations, indefinite  curfews, abductions, torture, proxy arrests, burning of ID cards etc. The capture-all word was ‘bheeshanaya.’ Terror, in English.

As the nation moved almost inexorably toward that time, it was natural for artists of all kinds to take sides and some of them to express their opinions freely in word and deed. The late Nanda Malini used song as her vehicle. Sunil Ariyaratne chose her as his vehicle for he was the principal lyricist of the concert that swept through the country, expressing the fears, hopes, determination and of course pathos of it all: Pavana. Literally, ‘The Wind.’  

Since then, there have been critics who have opined that the concert and therefore singer and lyricist ‘pushed’ the youth of the country into the cauldron wherein there was so much killing and being killed that everyone lost whatever moral high ground they may have had. They have even argued that in the matter of taking sides, the singer and lyricist forgot to take a stand that kept them distanced from culpability, if that were possible in the first place.

In short, Nanda became political even as Ariyaratne was political. The concert marked them both. Ironically, the songs have since been used by those they opposed and critiqued to further agenda that neither espoused. That’s another story.

The bheeshanaya ended. Perhaps the outcome was unanticipated or, at any rate, made for disappointment rather than celebration or even relief, as far as they were concerned. He continued to write, she continued to sing. He was vocal outside his lyrics, she was relatively quiet.

Now she’s gone. He remains. Answerable, one might say, but then again, the generous reading is that Sunil Ariyaratne never felt he had to apologise. He wrote what he believed was right. He spoke the truth of his conscience. People are free to cheer or decry. I, for one, haven’t been impressed, especially in the positions he has taken on issues of nation, nationalism, conflict dubbed as ‘ethnic’ and so on, although many other political songs do resonate. The pre-Pavana commentary still stands and I do celebrate and am still inspired by the substance and of course the poetry. Sunil Ariyaratne was and is an amazing poet who has the words and the sensibilities to immediately capture a reader.

Maybe it’s the way in which I was brought up or the ideological preferences I embraced and the love and appreciation of all things Sri Lankan, including history and heritage, but when I listen to the songs of the album Satyaye Geethaya (The Song of Truth), I feel that she sang to me and of me. Of course, this means that Ariyaratne wrote to me and of me. This is true of the songs he wrote for other artists as well, for it was not only for Nanda Malini that he wrote and it was not only Nanda Malini who sought and sang his lyrics.

He has changed his tune, so to speak, over the years. He has not explained nor apologised, but he didn’t have to. He just wrote. Differently. But then again, even when he wrote what some might think were lines that were ill-informed or deliberately misleading, the poetry was really great. The command of metaphor, the ability to draw from many social, cultural, political and environmental wells and mix it all tastefully was always exceptional. One might add that this is as true of his cinematic endeavors as in his poetry.

More than forty years ago, in Polgolla, as a first year student of the University of Peradeniya, I wasn’t too embarrassed by my ignorance. I feel that I have been harsh on Sunil Ariyaratne since. Political and ideological disagreements notwithstanding, I can and will return to Nanda Malini in all my remaining years. Unlike in those early years when I knew songs but not singer and lyricist, I will think of Sunil Ariyaratne and tell myself that I am privileged to know the language that Sunil Ariyaratne writes in. Sinhala.  

 

See also: 

Her name is 'Lanka' 

A mild critique of Nanda Malini and Sunil Ariyaratne 

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Her name is ‘Lanka’

More than twenty years ago, the late Pundit W D Amaradeva, with great kindness and much indulgence, taught me what to students of music would be a very basic lesson in singing. ‘It’s not in the throat, Malinda; it’s in the mind and heart.’

Then he lamented that most singers, including those who were popular and even highly acclaimed, had not grasped this fundamental principle. I didn’t know anything about music. I didn’t sing. I was simply curious about how ‘good’ was measured. That’s after he said all this. 

‘So who sings with the mind and heart?’

‘After all is said and done, Nanda,’ he said or at least that’s the English translation of his answer. 

More than twenty years later, Nishad Handunpathirana,my friend, batch mate from Peradeniya, neighbour and virtuoso in the dilruba, introduced me to the Hindi musical term ‘pukar,’ which refers to the way in which a vocalist projects the voice with intense feeling. Heart. 

Today, for obvious reasons, Nanda Malini's songs come back to me. And I, a little less unenlightened than I was more than twenty years ago, am compelled to agree with Pundit Amaradeva.  

Today I remember two conversations I had with this incredibly accomplished singer. The first was during an interview for the Sunday Island. I believe it was in 2002. I had things to say about the album ‘Pavana (The wind)’ that was released sometime during a series of concerts under the same title in those exhilarating times that would eventually bleed, literally, into the ‘bheeshanaya (Terror or Time of Terror)’ in the late eighties. 

‘We were young and those songs resonated with the energy, hope and even convictions we entertained, but a friend told me that great songs outlive political moments; those of “Pavana” do not, unlike the songs in “Shravanaaraadhana (Invitation to listen)” and “Sathyaye Geethaya (The Song of Truth"). The songs of “Araliya Landata (To the Araliya Grove)” which was released after “Pavana” will be remembered, I think.’

She smiled. A few years later, when I ran into her at Sudarshi on Bauddhaloka Mawatha, she remembered and told someone that I am a harsh critic. She was laughing. This, by the way, was after I had written '[A] mild critique of Nanda Malini and Sunil Ariyaratne.'

That is all by way of encounter. Now all I have are her songs. The political choices. The lyrics and the voice.

Some may say that Nanda Malini ‘evolved’ from what they might believe was a Sinhala Buddhist chauvinistic phase. Others may think ‘evolved’ is debatable and that anyway the (virtual) rubbishing of her own songs without explanation was odd. She didn’t write the lyrics. The more overtly political songs were written by Sunil Ariyaratne, so fingers that may be pointed would first be directed at him. She did sing them, so fingers would point her way as well. 

Nanda Malini alone would have known if Sunil Ariyaratne was her political conscience. It was her choice, perhaps, or his or of both to drop ‘Me sinhala apaage ratai (‘This is the land of us Sinhala people’ or, ‘This “Sinhala” is our nation,’) even disavowing it in not so uncertain terms. Perhaps it was a decision made in the best interest of the nation and all citizens. But then again, ‘Pavana’ was littered with chauvinistic interjections, for example, ‘Bamunaa vunath…(even if a Brahmin)’: no less, no more, than songs which contained ‘Sinhala,’ or ‘Hela.’   

In contrast, consider children's songs such ‘Rukkaththana mala mudune (atop the rukkaththana flower)’ and ‘Surangeeta duka hithuna (Surangee felt sad).’ Consider love songs such as ‘Kanda udin ([from] above the mountain)’ and 'Kalaa vaven gath diya dothak se (Like a handful of water from the Kala Wewa).' Devotional songs such as 'Budddhanubhavena.' Consider even political compositions of the more general kind such as ‘Sakura mal pipilaa (Sakura flowers have bloomed).’ All this, before Ariyaratne took on political projects and found in Nanda’s voice a powerful communicative vehicle. Exquisite. 

What troubled me most with regard to the politics, though, was the grave injustice done to Mahinda Algama who wrote the lyrics of what became of her most popular early songs, ‘Chandra madulu yata suranganaavan (fairies under the penumbra).' The last stanza was edited out. It wasn't about ideological prerogatives (understandable), but the way the lyricist was treated (dodgy): he was not informed; instead an excuse about length was offered. 

All of it is questionable and understandable.  Forgivable or unforgivable depending on how mild or harsh one wants to be respectively.  And all that was a long time ago. Critique stands but it’s lost in the enormity of all that she was and all that she’s given, as should be and as acknowledged even back then. 

Today as I ‘listen’ to her songs and walk through the political milieu that she lent her voice to, I recall a comment that Gabriel Garcia Marquez made about Pablo Neruda: ‘He was a King Midas of literature — everything he touched turned into poetry; even when he got into trouble with his politics, the poetry was very, very good.’ Something to that effect; he was of course referring to Neruda’s defence of Stalin’s Russia. She was very, very good. 

That voice!  

I remember it when she spoke about her journey, such a long time ago. She has since detailed her story and spoken candidly and without regret or disdain. In her public persona Nanda Malini was soft. Humble. In her political persona, problematic perhaps. She has had the humility, however, to admit error of judgment. She has returned again and again to lyrics that last. Ephemeral or enduring, political or apolitical, regardless of whether she sang of or for children, love, justice or hope, she sang with feeling. All heart. Always. 

Looking back, I realise she was kind and indulgent. Like a mother. And I remember ‘Mege nama lankaa ya (Her name is Lanka),’ ‘Sanda eliya gangak vee (Moonlight, having become a river)’ and ‘Avurudu dedahas panseeyak (Twenty five hundred years),’ all penned by Ariyaratne by the way, and the last two for ‘Pavana.’ They were first performed decades ago. The words are still relevant and that’s Sunil Ariyaratne at his best. 

Nanda Malini, by admission, had less control with high notes, but there was and is so much voice in the vast regions she could hold, so firmly and yet with such grace. 

The introductory lines of ‘Me jeevana gangaadaaaraye (This river of life)’ the signature song in ‘Satyaye Geethaya’ were foundational for me, politically, and probably for many others: ‘asatyayen satyayata, swapnayen yatharthayata, andakaarayen alokayata (from falsehood to truth, from dream to reality, from darkness to light).’ It was a task she set for herself, a tough road she chose to walk along, with courage but with human frailty. In his own way, Ariyaratne made it easier for all of us but that ease is as much or more attributable to voice as words.  

Her name is Lanka in all our little island’s fortitude and failing, strength and frailty, heroism and cowardice, and all that is nevertheless resplendent, resilient and musical. The invitation to listen, stands. 
 
 

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A poet's obligation

 

‘Poet’s obligation’ is the title of one of Pablo Neruda’s poems. Obligations are not laws; they speak more of ‘reethi’ or norms than ‘neethi’ or laws, for there are of course obligations associated with the law. The poet may or may not feel obliged by some legal, moral or social duty to act in a particular way or write about certain things, but in the end, like all artists and citizens, a large part of being is indulgence. We write or act because we feel  we owe ourselves something.  

Neruda believed that it was his destiny ‘to open the doors’ of prisons wherein there could be someone who for whatever reason ‘is not listening to the sea.’  He is therefore compelled to ‘ceaselessly listen to and keep the sea’s lamenting in [his] awareness.’

The ‘prisoner’ may hear and ask, ‘how can I reach the sea’ thereafter. And, as answer, Neruda offers the following:

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,


the starry echoes of the wave,


a breaking up of foam and quicksand,


a rustling of salt withdrawing,


the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea


will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

That’s a social task but it is at the same time a personal choice. No one held a gun at Neruda’s head and told him to stand witness to oceanic turmoil, the coronas of the galaxy, unnecessary but nevertheless ceaselessly produced poverty, the foam and quicksand of promise and pledge, the irreverent and insightful babble of the nondescript, or the grotesque interplay between god and devil. He chose to write so that through him the elements will offer salve to hearts shattered by unrequited love, injustice and humiliation.

If I were to think of the work of all the poets I have read, I am sure there will be multiple answers to the question, ‘why does/did he/she write?’ It’s like asking someone ‘why do you live?’ Such questions should never be grasped with intention to obtain a definitive answer. They will hover around the sensibilities of writers, readers and the illiterate who script their questions and answers in other ways. You can’t swat them away and you are not required to do so either. You can observe them, though.  

Lakdasa Wikkramasinha had obligations. He laid it out in a poem titled ‘The Poet.’

He is the one that, tossing a bomb into

The crowd, takes notes;


The one who, from an unseen distance


Levels on the tripod that black rifle


With sights that see as far as his soul

Trains and levels, manoeuvres for a clear sight


Of the speaker on the platform;


Waits, watching the clock, for the onset of a car


In the left corner of its back seat


Carrying the enemy

He explains why: [The poet], ‘unable to bear the circle of the seconds in his heart, is the bomb in the city, waiting to burst.’ That’s his ‘destiny’ or rather the task he set himself.

Both poets were acutely conscious of the world around them. We all are, more or less. Matthew Arnold in ‘Dover Beach’ wrote about the the sea, the tide, the long line of spray, the roar or pebbles, and it reminded him of Sophocles, who, hearing it ‘on the Aegean, ‘ read in it ‘the turbid ebb and flow of human misery.’

Moving to ‘the sea of faith’ Arnold is consumed by disenchantment and retreats or moves to a more assured if not less tumultuous sea; that of love. ‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another,’ he pleads almost in search of consolation because he believes he is being ‘swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.’

His obligation is to himself, his peace of mind. And escapist, one might say, but then again, that’s a choice no one can or should quarrel with. It is all about reading the world and self in terms of what James Baldwin called ‘system(s) of reality.’

No one has the authority to determine the dimensions of reality. The poet sets it up and reads that universe, be it as small as a grain of sand or as immeasurable as the Milky Way, as he/she will.  

And the reader will pass judgment. One might call Neruda an intruder, Lakdasa a trouble-maker and Arnold self-indulgent. Another might applaud Neruda and Lakdasa for being inspired to report and change, and Arnold for being more cognisant of ‘long time’ and eternal verities.

But…

Sometimes poetry is a cup of tea
black without sugar but not too red
a herbal concoction infusing antidotes
medicine that won’t hurt but may not heal;
and yet made curative by sentiment
the will to manufacture a smile
and a prayer to lessen weight.

Neruda, Lakdasa and Arnold are long gone. Their words remain and are wrapped in layers of meaning they were perhaps unaware of. They’ve been crucified and resurrected, vilified and praised, ignored and cherished. Much like all things: subjected to the dharma of the following four dualities: joy-sorrow, praise-blame, profit-loss, fame-oblivion. Their work: medicine that won’t hurt but may not heal.

We have to live with all that.

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