Malinda Words: Arwa Turra, heart-stitcher

I can’t remember whether Prabath Sahabandu, currently the Editor of ‘The Island’ but then a first or second year undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya, said it somewhere near the Kandy Clock Tower or in one of the canteens of either Dumbara Campus or Peradeniya or in the ‘chummery’ of three rooms and six beds we shared with 10 others or at the Marcus Fernando Hall. I’ve had reason to remember and repeat the words: ලේවැල්ලේ කෙල්ලෙක්ට ආදරේ නම් ලේවැල්ලේ බස් එකටත් ආදරෙයි.

True, if you are in love with someone from Lewella then you would be in love with the Lewella bus as well. Or so it would seem. Suppose you are introduced to a group of people and you ask them where they are from, as we usually do. They might say, Pilimatalawa, Gelioya, Wathurakumbura, Asgiriya, Thalathuoya, Walala or any other place in and around Kandy or even outside the district. You would move on to the next person or the next question. But suppose someone said ‘Lewella,’ you would stop. That’s if you were in love with someone from Lewella.

‘Lewella? Really? Hmm’

And then the chances are you’ll spend more time with that person than anyone else, even if he or she had no clue about the beloved.

If you see a bus with the destination board ‘Lewella,’ you’ll stop and watch it pass, even if the beloved never traveled by bus or was at the time most certainly at home or in the hostel, assuming that he or she was an undergraduate.

Association. By association. It’s a trick that the heart plays on the mind.

It is unlikely that Arwa Turra knows the Lewella bus story, but then again it’s an ageless tale and one which most people encounter at some point in their lives, even if they don’t jot it down somewhere or commit it to memory.

Arwa Turra made a note: ‘The evil tricks of my mind, even a person with your name excites me.’

Happens, unless it’s a pretty uncommon name. I don’t know ‘the person’ Arwa referred to. I don’t know if she included that note in ‘Heartstrings,’ a coffee table book containing her ‘poetry and hand-drawn art’ that was published a couple of years ago.

One thing leads to another. That’s how it goes. Things are connected. Heartstrings do that, one might say.

It’s Arwa’s lines that made me remember Prabath’s observation. Arwa’s poetry does that. I’ve not seen her book. In fact I didn’t even know there was a book called ‘Heartstrings.’ I want to and hope to. I’ve only seen what she posts on social media.

What caught my attention was an observation on words: ‘Sometimes words are like needle and thread, stitch your broken heart AND sometimes just the sharp knife that rips it apart.’

Words do both. Double-edged. Silence is as versatile of course, but let’s not dwell too long on the possible philosophical extrapolations. Let’s instead follow the strings of Awra’s heart.

‘Don’t make homes in humans for you will one day be evicted and the pain will be suffocating.’ Left me breathless, that one.

I was like the fresh book just out of the press
and you picked me up, smelled the cover and kissed the outside
and like those thousand others
you never actually opened my pages.

How many people open pages and how often, Arwa made me wonder. ‘You didn’t stay but I will wear you on my skin forever,’ she notes. That’s skin, but there’s more: ‘Tear apart my bones and find your home.’

Strings. Lines. They move from page to page, stitching together thoughts that are familiar but are unfamiliarly stated and connected.

‘Your face is tattooed on my eyes.’ That’s another breath-stopper. That’s how it is when in love and everyone who has been in love would immediately understand. Like Prabath’s story of the Lewella bus. But not everyone can actually say it with such power, finesse and grace.

Not just poetry, but prose as well; Arwa is not just words, she’s also art. I don’t pretend to understand but her drawings, at least those which I’ve come across in social media, speak to me. Two languages, one song. Gathered with strings, stitched intricately and yet seamlessly.

There are buses going to Thambuttegama, Horowpathana, Chavakachcheri, Bibile, Narangamuwa, Angunakolapelessa and other destinations. There are innumerable people in love with these buses.

And so we love Arwa Turra’s words, her lines and her colours, and we remember our loves, from long ago and yesterday, those we wear on our skin and those who are forever happily trapped in our bones and in whose bones we are in turn resident.

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 187th article in the new series but it was not published perhaps because it was seen to be controversial. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

05 August 2023

Arwa Turra, heart-stitcher

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