Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov

Back in the day, Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov worked at Rupavahini. I believe he was an intern there. He was young, as was I. He was partially employed, I was unemployed. I can’t remember if universities were open or closed, but one night we walked along the railway line from somewhere near Bambalapitiya to Wellawatte.

Mahendra Martin Raskonikov and I had not exactly lived parallel lives, but there were commonalities when it comes to matters of the heart. It was as though we were destined to be confronted by all manner of love-facets. What faces we saw were jagged-edged. They reflected unbelievable light, they cut deep without warning.

We talked much in those days and less in recent years. Some conversations are remembered for they are so memorable to warrant re-telling. Over and over again. Among them are a few that have made their way into various articles. Mostly stories he related. Some of his own and others of people he knew.

A young boy once received a note from a girl. ‘I love you, boy; send me 18 yellow roses.’ He was 18 and she was 14. He didn’t know anything about girls. Or roses. Or the color codes of roses. He had to ask around and was told, ‘You are still in school.  Roses are expensive. Yellow roses are very expensive.  You can’t afford it. Forget it.’ He did.

Time passed and pathways crossed. There’s a story there worth telling, but then all his stories are tell-worthy anyway.

But today I remember that evening somewhere in Wellawatte, watching and listening to the ocean. I remember telling him that I was reading Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment.’  Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov, a voracious reader, immediately brought up what to him was the telling moment of the novel. It so happened that from what I had already read, it was this particular moment that had captured me most.

More than thirty years later, the very same moment came back to me. This time, in an observation made by Martin Wickramasinghe in his biography, ‘Upan Da Sita’ or ‘From the beginning’ (or, better still, ‘From the cradle’). I was re-translating the book, an exercise which began as a would-be edit of an effort made more than twenty years previously, in segments, for the ‘Sunday Island.’  

Here goes:

‘As a young man, there was no novel that troubled my mind as did Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I felt as though someone was running a rasp across my brain while reading it. Unable to figure out Dostoevsky's mysterious notions of the human mind at the time, I read the book like one who was trying to find his way in the dark.

'Raskolnikov, who murders an old woman who made a living out of usury, suffers much pain. I felt that the book contained nothing else but the vivid description of his suffering mind. Finding no one to alleviate his pain, the educated murderer finally encounters a word of comfort from a prostitute named Sonia. He finds relief like a thirsty man who drinks a sip of water. Moved by this, he falls at her feet.

‘“I kneel down not to you, but to the untold suffering of humanity that finds expression through you.”

‘When I reached this point of the narrative, I was extremely disturbed. This turbulence acted like a bolt of lightning illuminating for a moment certain mystical points that are found in Buddhist stories and then disappearing altogether. My mind was a vessel that was filled by compassion. It was because of Dostoevsky's stories that certain mystical ideas in the Buddhist stories became clear to me.’

And I remembered something I had forgotten: I had, upon the invitation of Dr Ranga Wickramasinghe, written a foreword to a new publication of his father’s book ‘Buddhist Jataka Stories and the Russian Novel.’ I can’t remember what I wrote though.

I remember Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov, who, not having read ‘Upan Da Sita’ had somehow been as perturbed as the great writer by the very same passage of play in the novel. I had too, but I had not the keen and analytical mind of my friend and of course not of the great man of letters, Martin Wickramasinghe. We shared the same sentiments. Mahendra’s words that night were almost a one-to-one quoting of Wickramasinghe.

Mahendra’s story is a novel that he won’t write. Neither could I. I know only this: there’s untold suffering and inexpressible delight that finds expression through him. Not in what he says, but the way he lives his life.

Mahendra is a Roman Catholic. He knows a lot about other philosophies. He might be one of the very few people I know who could from THAT point of the narrative obtain something that he could (but would not) describe, following Martin, as follows:

‘‘When I reached this point of the narrative, I was extremely disturbed. This turbulence acted like a bolt of lightning illuminating for a moment certain mystical points that are found in the parables of all religious doctrines and then disappearing altogether. My mind was a vessel that was filled by compassion. It was because of Dostoevsky's stories that certain mystical ideas in all religious parables became clear to me.’

That’s how Mahendra Silva, at this moment of writing, I re-christened as Mahendra Martin Raskolnikov.

And I hereby offer this, in lieu of 18 yellow roses, as something he can offer to whoever has captured his heart at this moment, more than 30 years after our Dostoyevsky Moment and probably almost 40 years after that first rose-petalled palpitation referred to above.