Chulananda's poetic intervention to reconfigure a shattered island

Book Review: ‘දැහැමිද මේ දිවයින’ (Dehamida Me Divayina’) and ‘Glimpses of a Shattered Island’ by Chulananda Samaranayake, Subhavi Publishers, 2017. 

Hiniduma Sunil Senevi, Senior Lecturer in Sinhala, University of Sabaragamuwa, is one of the more informed and insightful speakers among those often invited to grace book launches. Sunil Senevi does his homework, delves deep into the text and offers comments that are of immense value to the author as well as the audience.  

Almost a year ago, Sunil Senevi spoke at a book launch, but this time he didn’t deal with the text. He didn’t provide an introduction or rather a gateway into the matter of reading the text.  He might even have sounded boring to some people.  And yet, as always, Sunil Senevi educated his audience.  

The event saw the launch of two collections of poetry, ‘Glimpses of a Shattered Island’ and ‘දැහැමිද මේ දිවයින' (‘Dehemida me divaina?’  or  ‘Is this island really blessed?’) by Chulananda Samaranayake, a well-known translator and critic.  As the titles imply and as one might expect from this poet, the collections offer cuts into the social, economic and political fabric of Sri Lanka, or to put another way, transcribe for the reader the system-flaws and through their expressions the daily lives of the citizenry, in particular the less privileged classes.  Chulananda’s work is an examination of the political economy of our times; he has an eye for the more immediate micro elements as well as the macro sweep as per the theoretical frames of analysis he privileges.  

Sunil Senevi didn’t speak of any of this.  Instead, he traced the history of the ‘English Poem’ in Sri Lanka.  It was a revelation.  He mentioned names I hadn’t heard of before.  He located these names in terms of the temper and fervor of the particular period of history and the issues that the various poets concerned themselves with.  I would be surprised if students of English in our universities or indeed even lecturers and professors are aware of the ‘genealogy’. 

There was a reason for this lengthy preamble.  Sunil Senevi wanted to make a simple point which made sense given the bilingual nature of the launch and the intervention, so to speak, of the poet of the moment, Chulananda.  Sunil Senevi lamented that the English poet is a relative that the Sinhala Poet does not converse with. 

It’s probably a language issue.  Two relatives living in different continents, separated by seas or mountains or rivers, let’s say.  We could put it all down the ‘language policy’ that easy alibi for incompetence, ignorance and sloth, but then again we much not forget that such ‘islands’ existed even before 1956.  We can quibble about how it happened or when but we can agree that the estrangement exists.  There’s something that Sunil Senevi did not say, perhaps because the audience was ‘Sinhala’ and not ‘English’: The English Poet or rather the English Poetic Circle not only does not talk to the Sinhala Poet, but is by and large ignorant of the latter’s existence or, worse, even if aware is somehow dismissive, not account of quality-lack but some other malady.   And we are all the more poorer for it.  And we could say the same of the relationships or lack thereof between Sinhala poets and Tamil poets, and also English Poets and Tamil poets.

Chulananda’s poetry should be assessed regardless of historical context and the cultural fixations of the present pertaining to literature and the language(s) of literature.  However, since Sunil Senevi painted backdrop, even a cursory ‘placement’ upon it is warranted.  

The two titles and the simultaneous launching might persuade people to believe they contain the same verses, one being the translation of the other, but this is not so.  There is similarity in theme, as indicated by the titles, and as one would anticipate given that they were written by the same person.  The collections, however, stand independently of one another.  

Chulananda is convinced that Sri Lankan society needs to be overhauled and that only a political struggle can set things right.  This requires, according to him, people with open minds committed to political engagement rather than those who have suspended critical faculties on account of political affiliation.  The poetic form, for him, is one medium for the expression of frustration and critique. That’s what he’s done in both books. 

The title Dehemida Me Divaina is actually a query. ‘Is this island righteous? he asks and interestingly has a toilet bowl cleaner on the book cover, suggesting intent. He wants to clean up and part of that exercise is pointing out the dirt.  He does not hold his punches. Here’s his take on people’s representatives. 

කළුම කළු සුදු ඇඳුම් ඇඳගෙන 

ගෑවෙන නොගෑවෙන තරමින් පහතින් 

පියාඹන 

උන් හිටි ගමන් කුණු ඇළට පය ගහන 

ලස්සනට තුඩින් කුණු ඇහිඳින 

හිත හොඳ උපාසක 

Wearing white that’s pitch black

flying so low, close enough to touch and yet leave untouched

landing now and then upon the drainage canal 

picking delicately with beak the dirt

this good-hearted devout. 

There’s criticism and satire in his poetry. Consider for example this verse from ‘Lullaby’:

හිත යට ගිනි ඇවිළෙන්නේ 

අපමය ඉන් පිච්චෙන්නේ 

පුතා දැන් ඉර පායන්නේ 

කරබාගෙන අපි ඉන්නේ 

In the mind there are fires burning

it is just ourselves subjected to scalding 

the sun, dear son, is shining

and with arms folded we are waiting 

Chulananda captures the pathos of those in the margins, the subalterns, the insulted and humiliated. That’s a theme that runs through the collection like a thread, evidenced in accounts of tipplers, prostitutes, lovers arrested for ‘misbehaving’, Sandhya Ekneligoda, the singer in a train and so on.  The anti-establishment sentiment and antipathies to nationalism especially of the Sinhala Buddhist type comes laced with righteous anger (‘Archade’), empathy (‘The prostitute’s lover at her funeral’), tenderness (in most of the poems), pain on account of injustice of all kinds, a dash of nostalgia and prescription. 

The poet is equally at home with the staid four-line rhyming format as he is with free verse. There are times when the strength of the poem is compromised by a tendency to detail and emphasize. The rhythm in the free verse gives more musicality and demonstrates command of the genre.  The activist that resides in the poet will not be stayed; Chulananda’s call-for-action purpose is evident in certain poems which read like a collage of slogans. That might be misleading, however, for it’s not stuff taken from protests; the metaphors and the lines are fresh and powerful. 

Consider ‘Search’ (soyaw) which draws from a news item about body parts being found in different parts of the island. The translation should suffice to make the point:

Right hand on Darley Road

left hand on Cotta Road

right leg in Pitakotte

left leg in Pelawatte

lungs in America

kidneys in Russia

stomach at the Devram Vehera

heart in the State of China

as for the head, friend

it is yet to be found.

I feel Chulananda is best when he is frugal with words. Even the longer poems would read better if they were truncated. He could for example remove the frills and elaborations and retain the essence which in fact he’s captured in some of the verses. They could stand on their own as complete and effective pieces of poetic communication. Consider ‘Our National Government,’ which could be translated as follows: 

where canine swine asses mules

foxes bandicoots vipers and also chameleons

happily cohabit and progeny engender

a brothel it is, honorable 

I shall stop there and move on to the English collection, ‘Glimpses of a Shattered Island.’ The title is preface enough. We know what the book is all about. How about the details and their literary worth, though?

Comparatively, this collection seems more philosophical. There’s distance between poet and subject. The poems are not titled, but numbered and numbers don’t give clues.  The subjects themselves are consistent with his stated objective:

‘In a country where the terms such as corruption, malpractices, abuse, and misuse of power, disappearance, economic crisis and unemployment become the daily vocabulary, the terms such as justice, honesty, rule of law are mere chewing gums.’

This ‘tragedy’ for Chulananda is ‘the balance sheet of 69 years of independence’. For him it constitutes ‘a distortion’ in which he is ‘forced to live blindfolded’. 

He says ‘the picture is torn. The frame is broken. Colors are fading’ and then declares, ‘I am sitting on a garbage mountain collecting those pieces.’  And offers what he collects as glimpses. Naturally,  they are all framed by ideological preferences and preferred outcomes. Naturally too, this makes for conspicuous absences.

For example, a telling take on Mahinda Rajapaksa (unnamed) points out the contradictions of the former president’s practices; he ‘starts the day listening to pirith’ moves to the FCID, addresses the media complaining about revenge-intent and then dabbles in suspicious money transfers even as blames the government for inefficient financial management.

‘behind closed doors of his mansion

he polishes hypocrisy’

[after a nap and a promise of protecting democracy]

That’s however not a Rajapaksa preserve. To be fair, Chulananda does take down all politicians. He is however silent on the hypocrisy of the tribe he clearly identifies with (going by his pronouncements at various forums), the left. This is also evident in a play on costume change:

‘One day

he changed his dress to a national suit

What a miracle…

He was honored as a Nationalist,

A pure Buddhist

Though he was a rapist

sadist

nihilist

facist…’

The man, brought to Parliament through the National List, Chulananda tells us, is thereafter a feminist among women, a journalist in the media world, a socialist at workers’ protests and a capitalist in business forums. This kind of observation is fresh not because no one has written about such transformation, but they tend to leave out the last part, that of a politician serving capital interests in the final instance. He could, one feels, write as powerfully about the disguises, deceit and duplicity of the left, the NGOs, academics and self-styled pundits venting in social media. 

The problems of unnecessary elaboration are present in this collection as well and robs from extremely moving stanzas.  Take for example this iteration of the common dismissal of war:

‘In the holy field of war

where large military boots are glorified

the tiny shoe shall be forgotten

history reserves no page for such sundries’

The ‘tiny shoe’ referred to was one at the bottom of a canyon (crater?) created by cluster bombs. 

The marginalized and forgotten are not just people, but things and processes. Chulananda does not miss it:

‘A tear glistens

mournfully

on the stainless steel counter

of (a) pawn shop’

Now that’s complete; devoid of frills and elaboration it communicates more effectively. This is evident in the following poem as well:

‘When words

become swords

slip from the lips

The life becomes

a circus

on a thin ice layer.’

As poignant and in this instance necessarily elaborated is the poet’s experiences of the 88-89 bheeshanaya and reflections on the same which he recounts more than two and a half decades later because he can now ‘write the answer not permitted that day’.

On ‘that day’ he was called ‘son of a whore,’ asked if he has ever seen a mass grave and told he would be buried in one. He points out the ridiculous nature of the question:

‘Dear Sir,

no point of asking such question

from a man who has already been buried

in a mass grave.’

For Chulananda, everyone is buried in a mass grave, ‘some in uniform and some in rags’ and it’s not just people:

‘This is a country

buried in the silence, injustice, betrayal’

There is a lyrical deficit in this as well as in some of the other poems, but Chulananda nevertheless communicates powerfully that which seems to have largely bypassed the English-speaking/writing population of this country or vice versa, for reasons that require no elaboration. 

There’s always a sense of history in his poetry. There’s a tinge of nostalgia, naturally perhaps. Speaking of a cinema hall that’s been transformed into ‘mixed development’ (The Majestic?), Chulananda describes the transformed architecture, describes the multifaceted ethos therein and declares, sadly:

‘But I can never leave this place

because one day

I buried my every hope here’

He is able to capture the residue of what might be called the inexorability of the political economy:

‘At the foot of the

towering buildings

disappearing are

Bonsai people.’

Repeated here:

‘An emptied 

poison bottle

is lying

on a barren paddy field.’

It’s clearly more than a comment on suicide.  It’s a story about a nation, a century and the world. It is a household story too. Chulananda is best when he puts it simply. He is able to do this, one feels, because he counts many decades of serious reflection on the world around him.  

Obviously he is far more fluent in Sinhala than in English, but this collection is a welcome entrant to the world of English poetry written by Sri Lankans because it is at once a venturing to find fraternity even as it is a description of people, events, moments and things unseen, misremembered, misidentified or, if you want to be polite, ‘considered inconsequential, differently remembered, differently identified’.  

He is not bridging a gap, as Sunil Senevi might put it. His poetry is It won’t hurt to say hello to this man, poetically speaking. He certainly persuades one to be hopeful, despite the gloomy elements of the present:

‘Settling comfortably

in a crack

a root proudly

announces

the end of a great wall.’