The late Jayalath Manoratne was arguably one of the finest actors this country has seen, on stage and on screen. He made each character he portrayed utterly memorable. Among all of them, perhaps the strangest character he had to play was ‘history.’ Let me explain.
‘History’ was one of a trio of characters featured in Udayasiri Wickramaratne’s ‘Suddek Oba Amathai (A white man — or ‘whitey’ — addresses you.’ So we had ‘History,’ a white man and a woman addressing us. In the initial performances, there was a fourth, ‘baya vuna minihek oba amathai (a terrified man addresses you),’ but that fourth soliloquy, so to speak, was dropped later.
History, in script and portrayal, was quite a character. Udayasiri is a clever dramatist. His scripts are fluid and are amenable to the interjection of ‘the political moment.’ They make people laugh. They also constitute serious commentary on politics and ideology. It’s the same with ‘History addresses you.’
There’s a line or a passage, rather, that I remember well. ‘History is news.’
Things historic come into the ‘news’ frame if someone who is ‘in the news’ mentions something from the past but it would, at best, warrant just passing mention. History can be ‘news’ if there’s some kind of archeological discovery.
For example, not too long ago someone chanced upon a ‘mass grave.’ That was news. Immediately, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachalet inserted this story into the section on Sri Lanka in a report presented at one of the UNHRC sessions. Evidence of mass killings and mass burials during the last stages of the war (against terrorism), she implied. News. Entertaining as news has to be these days. Tendentious and absolutely irresponsible. [see 'When you have a bone to pick']
Now after it was revealed that the skeletal remains in this grave were hundreds of years old, these euphoric news-spinners who got undies twisted went silent. The media didn’t bother to delve into the real story. Happens.
But that’s not what Mano’s character was referring to. It’s about relevant histories that are newsworthy, not only because they are interesting (entertaining?) but they interrupt happy and wooly-headed narratives.
The vilification of King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe was quite effectively subverted in theatre. Mano’s character, History, made the point. There’s a story ABOUT Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe and then there’s Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe’s story. Not the same. It’s about representation and misrepresentation, both open to celebration and dismissal depending on the structure of communicative power. Those who craft ‘news’ (and even theses that are said to be ‘academic’ and therefore dispassionate) don’t necessarily represent truthfully.
Then something happens, an old text, an inscription or some other artefact that cannot be pooh-poohed away pops up. I can be newsworthy and too hard to ignore. The name that the marauder Raja Raja Chola I used to identify this island that is now called Sri Lanka, for example: ‘The Land of the Warlike Sinhalas.’
Raja Raja Chola I had nothing to gain by, say, laying the foundation for some Sinhala chauvinistic historical narrative. He was merely listing the lands he plundered while mentioning the sources of the wealth used to build various temples in his Kingdom. This was more than 800 years before the time that certain historians claim that ‘Sinhala’ came to be used as a name for a collective.
That little piece of information and other such little pieces of information constitute news. Indeed, considering the fact that it has come to a point where news and fake news are hard to differentiate and the latter even having the inside track on representing ‘reality’ (ref Bachelet again), this kind of stuff is certainly newsworthy.
History speaks. In different tongues. Different tongues in different talking heads. Different talking heads framed by different ideologies and outcome preferences.
And so the history of the world turns and, in turning, turns heads this way and that. We choke on too much history. We starve because it is non-existent or we are made to believe it is non-existent or simply because it is not palatable.
And so someone announces, ‘history is dead.’ Some rejoice, some wonder what there is to celebrate if indeed such a death had taken place.
The problem: the dead are buried and what is buried is unearthed or re-surfaces. Narratives get wrecked.
It’s news, then.
Other articles in this series:
Journalism inadvertently learned
Reflections on the young poetic heart
Wordaholic, trynasty and other portmanteaus
The 'Loku Aiya' of all 'Paththara Mallis'
Subverting the indecency of the mind
Character theft and the perennial question 'who am I?'
Saji Coomaraswamy and rewards that matter
Seeing, unseeing and seeing again
Alex Carey and the (small) matter of legacy
The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga
The clothes we wear and the clothes that wear us (down)
Every mountain, every rock, is sacred
Manufacturing passivity and obedience
Sanjeew Lonliyes: rawness unplugged, unlimited
In praise of courage, determination and insanity
The relative values of life and death
Poetry and poets will not be buried
Reunion Peradeniya (1980-1990)
Sorrowing and delighting the world
Encounters with Liyanage Amarakeerthi
Letters that cut and heal the heart
A forgotten dawn song from Embilipitiya
The soft rain of neighbourliness
Reflections on waves and markings
Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra
The right time, the right person
The silent equivalent of a thousand words
Crazy cousins are besties for life
The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis
Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins
Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness
Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable
Deveni: a priceless one-word koan
Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation
'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone
On sweeping close to one's feet
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
To be an island like the Roberts...
Debts that can never be repaid in full
An island which no flood can overwhelm
A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing
Heart dances that cannot be choreographed
Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember
Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal
It is good to be conscious of nudities
Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday
There's a one in a million and a one in ten
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
Hemantha Gunawardena's signature
Architectures of the demolished
The exotic lunacy of parting gifts
Who the heck do you think I am?
Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'
So how are things in Sri Lanka?
The sweetest three-letter poem
Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership
The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace
The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
Live and tell the tale as you will
Between struggle and cooperation
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
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