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.
