The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga ~ Malinda Words

Kapila Kumara Kalinga is best known for his highly acclaimed work in theatre and television. Brevity is his strongest suit and this fact is best exemplified by the sobriquet he earned for himself, ‘Paeye Raja’ or ‘King of the Hour’ meaning the one-hour, stand-alone stories he wrote for television.

He has a considerable reputation as a short story writer, having published several collections, but the awards he’s so far received have mostly been for novels with one exception, the short story collection 'Nirodhayana charikava (The quarantine journey)' which secured the Godage Award for the genre last year. Outside of all this, he’s known in journalistic and advertising circles as well. Versatile and prolific. That’s Kapila Kumara Kalinga, a man who also sets high standards for himself.

Few would think of Kapila Kumara Kalinga as a poet, even though he did publish a collection of ‘environmental poems., ‘Dumburu Walaakulu (Brown Clouds). His second collection, ‘Keti vunath e kavi,’ a Surasa publication, came out last year.

The title intrigues. It could be translated as ‘poems, even though brief.’ However, one of the hundred short poems, the 100th in fact, clues us to a different message from the poet:

කෙටි වුනත්
ඒ කවි
කියවන විට
හරි දිගයි

Brief they are
and yet when read
quite long
these poems

It is as though he has decided to meticulously affirm the economic signature of poetry. They are brief and yes they are long. ‘Long,’ as in deep. They stop you. They make you think. They may even persuade you to reconsider the order of the universe and abandon received truths.

Kapila Aiya pens thoughts in ways that make me tell myself, ‘explication would require several hundred words.’ Or more. That deep.

Perhaps it is because he has so many words at his disposal and because he was in so many ways used them in innumerable combinations and patterns that he can condense in this manner. Perhaps it’s a function of longevity and life-ways. Not everyone ages well, and not all people become better or wiser with time, but I think he was talking about the entire process and where it has brought him in the following:

"මට වචන
දෙක තුනක් ඇති"
මහලු කිවි පැවැසී
තුරුණු කිවියෙකුට

“I can with words,
just two or three
get by,
to the young poet
said the poet of many years

Of course such brevity doesn’t necessarily require the distillery of time. Kapila Aiya’s poetry reminds me of the work of Ariyawansa Ranaweera, perhaps the most productive of the two-three-words poets writing in Sinhala. This collection, at least in terms of style, is interestingly quite similar to Lahiru Karunaratne’s recent collection of short poems, ‘Noim’ (non-existence, boundless, infinite). Lahiru, quaintly, calls them kavithi (‘poemlets’). Again, distillation.

Of the 100, some are clearly inspired by and are of personal encounters and attendant emotions. Reflection of these, to be more correct.

ඇය එන දවසෙම
ගොළු වූ සැටි
දොර සීනුව

The bell,
it had to go silent
the day she arrived!

Wrong time, wrong place. Buses missed. The moment’s gone and it does not, cannot return, cannot be called or refashioned. How deftly he says it all!

And then there’s reflection on eternal verities where he uses the abundant metaphors in the natural world to draw, capture and hold the reader.

යලිත් හමුවනු ඇත ඔබ
වැසි බිඳු සමඟ
වැව කියයි වාන් දියට

Among raindrops
I’ll see you again,
said the reservoir
to the spill waters

It’s not just the water cycle. It’s about the unities of human things, their seeming transformation and enduring samenesses.

The following, to me, is the most remarkable.

නිදිමත නම්
නිදා ගන්න
සිහින අවදියෙනි

Sleep
if sleepy
dreams are awake

That’s a deft flip at so many levels; it twists and untwists the mind. In fact it is this poem, mentioned in a Facebook post by Priyankara Nivunhella about this collection that prompted me to look for the book. I just had to take a look. Kapila Aiya said Prem (Dissanayake) would have it since it was put out by Fast Publishing (Put) Ltd. I called Prem Aiya. He said ‘come over.’

Now, I can sleep if I wanted to. But here’s the sleep-poem that’s relevant to the poet and also reveals the secret of Kapila Kumara Kalinga’s indefatigability:

"නිදිමහ නැද්ද දැන්?"
දොර දෙසින්
නැඟෙයි හඬක්
"එපා මා දමා යන්න"
පෑන මුමුණයි සෙමින්

ඇඟිලි තුඩු මත දැවටෙමින්

A voice is heard
from somewhere near the door
“Aren’t you sleepy?”
And the pen
snuggling up to the fingers
murmurs
“no, don’t leave me.”

And thanks to pen and fingers, dream and slumber exchanging places surreptitiously, passing a baton made of words back and forth, I cannot sleep either. I don’t want to.

malindadocs@gmail.com

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

04 July 2023

The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga

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