Some words just cannot be translated. Not in a word-to-word sense anyway. Like ‘vakkada.’ It’s that place somewhere along the ridge separating one liyadda (again hard to translate) from the next in tract of paddy or a vel-yaaya where the earth is pushed aside or ‘broken’ to release water from a higher liyadda to a lower one. That’s a lot of words, some of which would require more words to properly define.
The word ‘vakkada’ reminds me of three stories. Actually, I wasn’t thinking of writing something about ‘vakkada.’ The word is in the title of a song that contained something I wanted to comment on.
The stories. The first is a song and not the one that inspired this piece. Muthu varusavata themila (roughly, ‘having been drenched by a soft drizzle,’ i.e. where the rain drops were like so many pearls) was written by the incomparable Premakeerthi De Alwis. Victor Ratnayake sings it. Here’s the line: සිතක සතු වක්කඩ කැඩුවා වැනිය (the joy felt is like a vakkada being ‘broken’).
I remember another ‘vakkada’ moment. Happened about twenty years ago. A young girl who was married but strangely, yes, didn’t know the fact (she didn’t know that ‘registration’ is a legal bind!), but was in love with another man, explained the difference thus: ‘he (the husband) doesn’t hear the sound of water trickling through the vakkada.’
The third story is from a song that kept playing in the mind for some reason. Lyrics by the inimitable Mahagama Sekara. Amaradeva’s voice. ‘Vakkada langa diya vaetena thaalayata…(to the beat of water dripping from a vakkada).’ It is not that opening line which I wanted to write about but I had to bring in these vakkada stories simply because the song is referred to by this particular line.
කිව්වට වස් නැත
නිල් නිල් පාටින්
කටරොළු මල් වැට වට කෙරුවා
‘It is not inauspicious to point this out: the fence was surrounded by the blue blue(ness) of katarolu flowers.’
It’s the නිල් නිල් or the blue-blue or blue blueness that fascinated me. I have not come across blue-blue or anything similar in the English language. Sekara could be referring to the flowers separately, as in ‘a blue katarolu flower here and another blue katarolu flower there and so on…’ He might have also wanted to stress the blueness and repeated the word to obtain that effect.
In this blue planet, there’s an abundance of that color, naturally. So much water, after all. We are blue-blessed as a nation and a people. We are an island and therefore surrounded by sea. Our heritage, if it must have a color, is blue, considering the amazing irrigation works all around us — the lagoons, massive reservoirs, innumerable canals and even the small ‘village tanks.’ There’s blueness in the hills. Blue-blueness in the sky at certain times of the day. Less-blue and yet spectacular dawns.
‘Blue’ just doesn’t describe it. Blue-blue is better, but to my mind නිල් නිල් (nil-nil) is perfect. And that’s what great poets do. The insertion of the right word at the right place. Caresses the mind in ways that the simple නිල් or blue just cannot.
I know two people at least who have the eyes to see a blue-blueness that others let pass. Tharindu Amunugama and Kasun De Silva. They are so blessed. And we are blessed because they capture blue-blueness in amazing photographs and share it with us. The sky belongs to all but is no less private, my father once said. Tharindu and Kasun know this and they remind us of the fact. Quite blue-blue of them, I think.
Other articles in this series:
A forgotten dawn song from Embilipitiya
The soft rain of neighbourliness
Reflections on waves and markings
Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra
The right time, the right person
The silent equivalent of a thousand words
Crazy cousins are besties for life
The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis
Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins
Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness
Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable
Deveni: a priceless one-word koan
Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation
'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone
On sweeping close to one's feet
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
To be an island like the Roberts...
Debts that can never be repaid in full
An island which no flood can overwhelm
A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing
Heart dances that cannot be choreographed
Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember
Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal
It is good to be conscious of nudities
Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday
There's a one in a million and a one in ten
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
Hemantha Gunawardena's signature
Architectures of the demolished
The exotic lunacy of parting gifts
Who the heck do you think I am?
Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'
So how are things in Sri Lanka?
The sweetest three-letter poem
Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership
The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace
The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
Live and tell the tale as you will
Between struggle and cooperation
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
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