கவனிக்க: இந்த மின்னூலைத் தனிப்பட்ட வாசிப்பு, உசாத்துணைத் தேவைகளுக்கு மட்டுமே பயன்படுத்தலாம். வேறு பயன்பாடுகளுக்கு ஆசிரியரின்/பதிப்புரிமையாளரின் அனுமதி பெறப்பட வேண்டும்.
இது கூகிள் எழுத்துணரியால் தானியக்கமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட கோப்பு. இந்த மின்னூல் மெய்ப்புப் பார்க்கப்படவில்லை.
இந்தப் படைப்பின் நூலகப் பக்கத்தினை பார்வையிட பின்வரும் இணைப்புக்குச் செல்லவும்: Aspects of Culture in Sri Lanka

Page 1
DICOVERO
SPECCI
SRI
 
 
 


Page 2
First Published in August 1992
This book is dedicated
lO
VILO, RAM U and ANOJ
Printed in Shri Lanka
by Chamara Printers, 22A, Mallika Lane, Colombo 6.

ASPECTS OF CULTURE IN SHRI LANKA
LeRoy Robinson
in an interview with
K. S. Si vakumaran

Page 3
ASPECTS OF CULTURE IN SRI LANKA
(An interview in five parts given by K. S. Sivakumaran to LeRoy Robinson of the Faculty of Economics, University of Nagasaki,
Japan.)
Part 1
Part 2 :
Part 3 :
Part 4 :
Part 5 :
Reprinted from Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Humanities, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 105 - 137. January, 1988.
Reprinted from Keiei to Keizai, Vol. 68, No. 4 Nagasaki University. March, 1989.
Reprinted from Keiei to Keizai, Vol. 69, No. 2, Nagasaki University. September, 1989.
Reprinted from Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Humanities, Vol. 30,
No. 2. pp. 77 - 1 18. January, 1990.
Reprinted from Keiei to Keizai, Voi. 69, No. 4 Nagasaki University, March, 1990.
A7
Published by the author.
Copyright Reserved. The first edition in present form: August 19, 1992. Printed at : Chamara Printers,
22 A, Malika Lane, Colombo 6.
Available from the author : K. S. Sivakumaran,
21, Murugan Place, Colombo 6, Sri Lanka.
(i)

Le ROY ROBENSON - THE INTERVIEWER
Aspects of Sri Lankan Culture are made known in Japan through English. The Nagasaki University in Japan publishes at least four journals in English. An American teaching in the Faculty of Economics in this University, LeRoy Robinson is the respected academic who is responsible in introducing Lankan writers and others associated with culture in a broad sense. We understand that these academic journals are widely circulated among other universities in that Country.
The four journals publishing the interviews with Lankans are: Keito Keiza (Management and Economics), Kiyo (Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts), Tonan Azia Nenpo (Annual of the South Asia Research Society) and Keizai nempo (Annual of Economics Department).
LeRoy Robinson, 68, an American, is an authority on the radical US playwright and screenwriter John Howard Lawson. Robinson has written more than 40 articles on Lawson. He is a frequent contributor to Kyushu American Literature. His studies on literary people include pieces on Eugene O'Neill and others.
LeRoy Robinson has done more than 30 interviews in English of Lankan people involved in cultural activities. The South East Asia Research Society of the Nagasaki University hopes to collect these interviews to a book from.
LeRoy Robinson used to review books for the Los Angeles Mirror (now defunct), and for the Los Angeles Times. He has also broadcast a 30 minutes show called 'The Saturday Night Review' over Radio Puerto Rico. And over Radio Japan, he has read English news bulletins. He says modestly, that he is more a journalist than an academic.
(ii)

Page 4
C O N T E N T S
1. introduction by Ajith Samaranayake
2. A note by the interviewee
3. The superiors speak
James H. Lanerole: Managing Director, UNL.
Edmund Ranasinghe: Director, Editor-in-Chief, Upali
Group of Newspapers.
Gamini Weerakoon: Editor, Sunday Island.
4. Text:
Reproduction
Reproduction from Part 2
Reproduction Reproduction Reproduction
from
from
from
from
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
of the
of the of the
of the
of the
interview
interview
interview
interview
interview
Back Cover Photo by Balu Mahendra
(iii)

1 м тR o o u с т I о м
K. S. Sivakumaran has for long enjoyed a reputation as a writer who has addressed himself to both Tamil and Sinhala Literatures in our multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society. By writing in English, he has been able to interpret Tamil literature which he is acquainted with at first hand to the country's bilingual intelligentsia. Some of these writings have appeared in translation in Sinhala, so that his insights have reached the larger Sinhala readership as well. When it comes to Sinhala, Sivakumaran does not possess the same first hand acquaintance with the language, but then that is part of our multi-lingual reality. (How many Sinhalese incidentally know Tamil well enough to translate from that language?) But here again Sivakumaran has been able to bridge the gap at least in a seminal way by introducing Sinhala writers of whom he had read in the English press to the Tamil reader and translating them into Tamil through English. English therefore remains dominant in this exercise but that too is part of our multi-lingual reality. That the intelligentsia of this country consisting of both Sinhalese and Tamils should have had to Communicate with each other in the language of a Colonial power has contributed in no small measure to the alienation between the two Communities which remains the dominant reality in inter-communal relations in Sri Lanka today.
Literature being a reflection of emotive experience is best equipped to bring about understanding between the communities. But th9 tragic reality is that very few Sinhalese or Tamils know the other's language well enough to savour a work of literature. So translation and interpretation remain paramount and this has been Sivakumaran's chosen field.
(iv)

Page 5
He has set about it with a zeal bordering on the missionary and this volume itself is enough to bear testimony to his mission. It covers a wide range of issues pertaining to Sinhala, Tamil and English language literatures published in Sri Lanka. It is an ideal window which reveals in particular Tamil writing and other artistic activities in that language but also touches on other literatures as well.
It offers an overview of cultural activity in Sri Lanka from which both the average reader as well as the specialist can benefit.
AJITH SAMARANAYAKE
Associate Editor of 'The island'
(Sunday and Daily) December 1991.
(v)

Α ΝΟΤΕ
This collection of interviews is presented in its original form. They are reprinted from Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Humanities, Vol. 28, No. 2 pp. 105 - 137, (January 1988), Keiei to Keizai, Vol. 68, No. 4 (March 1989), Nagasaki University, Keiei to Keizai Vol. 69, No. 2 (September 1989), Nagasaki University Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Humanities, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 77 - 18, (January 1990) and Keieito Keizai, Vol.69 No. 4 (March 1990), Nagasaki University.
The interview was conducted for a long period through correspondence. The style of conversation has been followed in prSenting or discussing facts, As in a dialogue, there has been no coherent stream of thoughts, and therefore there appears disconnected patches occasionally in this book. However, details and facts are covered, although analysis in depth might not have been possible at all times.
I am indebted to Mr. LeRoy Robinson, for considering me to express my views on certain aspects of contemporary writing and the arts, especially carried out in the Tamil language, and publishing them in the academic journals of the Nagasaki University in Japan.
I am grateful to Ajith Samaranayake, a bilingual critic, for introducing me and my writing.
My thanks are due to Messrs James Lanerolle, Edmund Ranasinghe, and Gamini Weerakoon under whom worked as a journalist during 1985 - 1991, for their estimation of me as a professional journalist.
I also wish to thank the printers for their co-operation, and my wife, Pushpa, for her painstaking efforts in going through the proofs of this booklet.
19, 8, 1992 K. S. Sivakumaran.
(vi)

Page 6
THE SUPERIORS SPEAK
It was with utmost regret that I heard from Mr. K. S. Sivakumaran that he wishes to leave Upali Newspapers Ltd., due to personal reasons.
Mr. Sivakumaran is one of the very best journalists in the 'SLAND'. メ ۔
He will be sorely missed, not only by the management and by his colleagues, but more particularly by readers, who undoubtedly looked forward regularly, to read his very popular features and columns on Cultural matters.
He was recruited in February, 1985 as the Deputy Features Editor of the 'ISLAND'. We handpicked him for this position from among several candidates, due to his extensive association with matters literary and cultural in his earlier assignments. He had been a writer in English and in Tamil for over three decades, and a radio journalist for ten years; and he had held senior positions in both the National Broadcasting Corporation as well as in the Natoina Television Service (S.L.B.C. and Rupawahini). He had also worked at the U.S.I.S., Colombo, as an information Assistant.
Over nearly seven years, he worked for both the DALY ISLAND and the SUNDAY ISLAND. At the Sunday Island he handled subbing, layout and overall supervision except of the news and Sports pages. Subsequently We gave him the task of editing the 'Cultural page' of the Daily Island' - a task which he faced upto with eminent success. He compiled, sub edited and laid out every one of the Cultural Pages', which carried news and features on films, dance, drama and music, as well as literary reviews - many of which were written by him.
When I carried out a Reader Opinion Survey a few months ago, one of the questions asked of readers, related to the grading of their preference in respect of features, I was pleasantly suprised to find that Mr. Sivakumaran's Cultural Features ranked high in reader preferences,
(vii)

Mr. Sivakumaran is a writer in his own right with several Tamil language books and at least one English language book to his credit. He is a recognised literary, drama and dance critic witness his appointments, inter alia' as a member of the English panel of the National Arts Council, a member of the National chapter of the UNESCO, and a visiting lecturer in journalism at the University of Colombo.
Despite his outstanding competence, his extensive reading and his exceptional accomplishments, Mr. Sivakumaran is one of the most unassuming and humble persons I have known. He is not one of those 'assured of certain certainties', but is perpetually questing and questioning.
His mother tougue is Tamil and therefore, his familiarity apart from English, is more with Tamil culture and literature but he has been constantly endeavouring to do what he can to achieve a dialogue between Tamil and Sinhala cultural interests. in this sense Mr. Sivakumaran is a harbinger of National Integration.
Courteous and mild mannered almost to a fault, tactful and eminently Sociable, he is nonetheless a person of firm and honest convictions who is even ready to listen, to discuss, to defate and to learn.
Although Mr. Sivakumaran is leaving our permanent establishment, he has agreed to continue to write to the 'SLAND" whenever he can - and do hope, for the sake of our readers and for the sake of our country, this will be very often
I am sorry to see Mr. Sivakumaran leave us: but I am sure he will be shortly painting on a much bigger canvas and that he has much bigger achievements is store in the future.
wish him well.
JAMES H. LANE ROLLE
Managing Director,
Upali Newspapers Ltd. 26, 11, 1991.
(viii)

Page 7
II
Mr. K. S. Sivakumaran worked for "The Island' newspaper from 1985 to 1991. He joined us as the Deputy Features Editor and leaves in that capacity. During his period of service, he was given the responsibility of producing the feature pages of the Sunday edition of The lsland", apart from writing feature articles for the paper. In 1986, he initiated compiling, writing and making of the 'Culture' page of "The island' daily until October this year. This page was well received by all those involved in the arts in this Country.
Mr. Sivakumaran's own contributions had been mainly in the field of reviewing. He has reviewed books, plays, films, musical concerts, art exhibitions etc, and wrote a regular column called 'Gleanings' on matters of arts and kindred subjects. He covered rot only the Tamil Cultural Scene, but also artistic activities in the English language. He had also reviewed a few plays and films in Sinhala.
Mr. Sivakumaran has cultivated valuable contacts with artists and writers from all communities in Sri Lanka. Before coming over to The Island, he had established himself as a bilingual writer and Critic in this country. He has a multidisciplinary and multi-cultural approach to writing.
Journalist Mr. Sivakumaran had previously worked as information Assistant for the USS and Tamil News Editor for the SLBC. He is also a broadcaster and TV presenter in both English and Tamil.
Mr. Sivakumaran has written three books in Tamil and two in English.
With his long years of experience in the media, Mr. Sivakumaran can be depended upon. He had friendly associations with the staff of both Sinhala and English newspapers published by the Upali Newspapers Ltd.
wish him well.
EDMUND RANASINGHE Editor-in-Chief, Upali Newspapers Limited. 19, 11, 1991.
(ix)

II
Mr. K. S. Sivakumaran jonied the editorial staff of The island' in February 1985 and leaves us at the end of November 1991 due to personal reasons,
On being recruited, he was appointed Deputy Features Editor and in this capacity performed the functions of the Features Editor of "The island" as well as assisted the Features Editor as well as the Editor with regard to local and foreign features.
Before joining "The island" he was already well known as a radio journalist specialising in the arts and cultural fields. In recogs ition of his knowledge and talents, he was also appointed editor of "The island's, cultural page and he continued with this task till he left us.
Earlier, reportage of cultural activities in The island' was confined to a single column and Mr. Sivakumaran's task was to produce an entire page encompassing the varied spheres of Cultural and literary activities. He was successful, in reporting and commenting on cultural and literary events of all three streams - English, Sinhala and Tamil and this page was much sought after by our readers. While editing the page, he contributed copiously in the form of reviews and features on drama, films, books etc.
His speciality has been Tamil literary and cultural activities and he is today, in addition to his reputation as a writer, also an outstanding radio and TV commentator in this sphere. Besides these activities, he also functioned as a foreign news editor of the paper for some time.
Mr. Sivakumaran has been a pleasant and popular journalist among his colleagues and "The Island' wishes him well in a his future endeavours.
GAMN| WEERAKOON
Editor, 20. 11, 1991. Sunday island'.
(x)

Page 8
The Author's Other Works :
1. Tamil Writing in Sri Lanka - a book in English. (1974)
2. Sivakumaran Kathaikal - a collection of short
stories in Tamil. (1982)
3. Kalai lakkiya Thiranaivu - a book in Tamil on
Literary Criticism as applied to Sri Lankan Tamil Writing and the Arts. (1989)
4. Kailasapathium Naanum - a critique in Tamil on
Kailasapathy as a critic.
(1990)
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Page 9

PART --
R: Dr. E. Sarachchandra is usually credited with reviving
Sinhala drama. Didn't Dr. Withiananthan do something like that for Tamil drama?
Professor Vithiananthan is widely recognized here for his popularization of Sri Lankan folk drama. He himself says he re-oriented Nattu Koothu stylized plays to suit modern times. He had seen Sarachchandra's Maname in 1956. In fact, Sarachchandra told Withiananthan that many Sinhala folk plays had some connection with Tamil folk plays, especially Christian Tamil folk plays. Anyway, after that, Withiananthan became more active in folk theatre. In the late 1940s he had already produced Professor Kana pathipillai's Wattavan Wagara Vazkai (Villager's Urban Life.) as a university project. The performers were students. In the early 1950s he also produced the late Professor K. Kanapathipillai's Sankili, an historical play about the last Tamil king of Jaffna. In 1952 he also did Kanapathipillai's Udayar Middukku at the University of Peradeniya. Incidentally, two other later well-known professors acted in this play. Kanagasa bapathi Kailasa pathi and Karthigesu Siva'thamby. Kailasapathi was ar, editor of Thinkaran, a Tamil newspaper. He was a Tamil intellectual who fostered Sri Lankan consciousness among writers. He was also the pioneer in the modern sociological approach to literary Criticism. Kailasapathi was the author of many books in Tamil and one in English, Tamil Heroic Poetry. He also wrote a book on Tamil novels. And he wrote an introduction to my Tamil Writing in Sri Lanka.
Many academics in Sri Lanka are quite active in the production of culture, aren't they? What was Dr. Withiananthan's academic status, by the way?

Page 10
: He was the Vice - Chancellor of the University of Jaffna. He served three terms in that position. He had been at the University of Peradeniya for 25 years. Later he became the President and the Vice - Chancellor of the University of Jaffna. You can say he went up the academic ladder slowly but steadily, starting as an assistant lecturer.
: What was his background?
: He was the son of an attorney in Tellippallai. He went to St. John's College in Jaffna. Then to the then University College. He got his Ph.D. from London University when he was about 26 years old. He wrote his dissertation about Paththup Pattu. That's an anthology of Sangam literature of the 2nd century A.D. It consists of ten works irn Song.
: Briefly, what were some of Dr. Withiananthai 's other aca
damic writings?
: lakkiya Thenral, a collection of literary essays. Thamizar Salpu (Tamilian Civilization). He edited Alankara Roopan Wadagam, a folk play from Batticaloa. He'd also edited folk songs from Batticaloa and Mannar. He'd written numorous articles on literature and the arts. He'd also writton on politics in Sri Lanka.
: Before, you said he re-oriented Koothu. How?
: He didn't chang2 the dances or the songs, but he introduc d an oloment of drama into folk plays mostly taken from Ratnayana and Mahabharatha. He shortened the duration of plays that often were very long. He tightened the production, he said. He made the Annavi drummers be at rhythms in consonance with the singing. He put what you might call the chorus to the side of the stage so as not to distract the attention of the audience from the actors. He did not uso props. Only a black curtair, for the background. He left a lot to the imagination of the veiwers. He said he 'sophisticated' traditional folk plays.

S
: Had he written any plays himself?
: Yes, folk plays. That is, plays in the folk tradition . Rava
nesan, for example. Va/i Vathai.
: I suppose Dr. Withiananthan was a teacher of drama?
: As President and then Vice - Chancellor he had had a reduced teaching load, of course, but he taught literature in post-graduate courses. In the 1950s he was the Chairman of the Tamil Drama Panel of the National Arts Council. He went to Chilaw, Mannar, Mulaitivu, Trincomalee and other districts and put on drama festivals there and conducted seminars on drama script-writing. He helped put on school drama competitions. Now, in conjunction with the Jaffna Cultural Council, he did seminars and workshops in Tamil folk drama. He was a teacher in the best Sense.
By the way, if you're interested in Nattuk Koothu, you might like to know about a book published in Tamil a short time ago, even if you can't read it. The Folk Arts Panel of the Jaffna District Culture Council published it. it's called Kattavarayan Waatakam. It's edited by Dr. E. Balasundaram, a senior lecturer in Tamil at the University of Jaffna. The reason I mention it, is that there are many styles in Koothu and this is a religious folk play associated with the Worship of a minor god, Kaathavarayar. It's usually performed in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee regions where the rural peoples still worship so-called minor gods and goddesses. Dr. Balasundaram had visited various places where this play is performed as an oral operatic play without a Written script. He had gathered scripts where he could and transcribed them and edited the play. To refer to Professor Withiananthan again, in this book he makes a very important observation. That is that the Sri Lankan Tamils can be distinguished according to the regions they live in. That is, they have their own individual cultural characteristics region by region. One of the cultural aspects they have in common is the tradition of folk plays.

Page 11
R: I would like to change the subject to fiction, but before do, you may like to say more about Dr. Kailasapathy, who wrote the introduction to your Tamil Writing in Sri Lanka.
S: Yes, thank you, I would. Professor Kailasapthy was admired in both literary and academic circles in Sri Lanka. He was magnanimous in imparting his knowledge. As I've Suggested, his approach was basically Scientific and sociological. He encouraged awareness of an identifiable Sri Lankan Tamil literature as distinguished from that of Tamil Nadu. As a literary critic, he tried to evaluate Western literary theories and to harmonizo them with parallel concepts in Tamil literature. He radicalized the somewhat insular and tradition-bound art for art's sake Victorian approach to literature here.
R: As long as you're introducing important Tamil professors who are active in cultural affairs, how about saying more about Dr. Karthigesu Sivathamby? I know he's the Head of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Jaffna and has been Chairman of the Tamil Drama Panel and the Tamil Literature Panel of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
S: Professor Sivathamby has a wide range of interests: history, sociology, economics, literature, theatre, cinema, mass communication. His areas of specialization are Tamil, social and literary history, cultural communication among Tamils, and literary criticism. He's also interested in curriculum development, glossary making. He's written about 14 books in Tamil and three in English: The Tamil Film as a Medium of Communication, Drama in Ancient Tamil Society, and Literary History of Tamil. He considers himself a Marxist.
R: You said before that when Sivathamby was a university student he performed on the stage as an actor. Is he still active in Tamil theatre?
S: Yes, recently he's been indirectly involved in three or four productions in the North. Man Sumantha Meaniyar (Those with Bodies that Carried the Soil) is the name of

one. Mathoru Paham is another. These titles come from lines in devotional songs (thevarams) from the depth of Hindu culture. The plays are basically in the Koothu tradition described before.
R: You said Dr. Sivatham by considers himself a Marxist. How
does he view contemporary Tamil literature?
S: He thinks there's a debate going on now as to how social
consciousness could or should be expressed in fiction. He himself finds the whole ideology of progressivism in literature and the arts is not adequate enough in the current crisis. He Says the challenges facing the arts today are new. He says the most important question is to what extent nationalism is a valid and recessary concept in social formation. For example, the theatre he is interested in developing in Tamil culture is what he calls Deshiya lakiyam, nationalistic literature. He thinks nationalistic literature contributed a great deal to the revitalization of Tamil literature as a whole in the 1960s and 1970s.
R: Then let's change the subject to fiction. Particularly, novels. What is the history of Sri Lankan novels written in the Tamil language?
S: Let me answer your question by referring to a book on that subject by Silayool Selvarajan. The Growth of the Tamil Wovel in Ceylon. It was published in Tamil in 1967. Selvarajan says the first Tamil novel written by a Ceylonese - S. Ignacittamby of Trincomalee - was an adaptation of a Portuguese novella called Orzon and Valentine. That was in 1891. According to S. M. Kamaldeen, the first novel written by any Ceylonese was published in 1888. Asenbae by Siddique Lebbe, a Muslim. The second Ceylon Tamil novelist was T. Saravanamuttu Pillai, who wrote Mohanangi
in 1895,
R: Were there any Sri Lankan Tamil women writing novels
at that time?
5

Page 12
: No, Sri Lanka had to wait until 1924 for the appearance of the first woman novelist writing in Tamil, S. Sellammal. The title of her novel was Rasadurai. The Second Tamil Woman novelist appeared five years or so later, S. Rasammal. Her novel was called Saraswathi.
Look, to save time, let's just say that serious novels came to be written in Tamil by Sri Lankans only after 1956. Ilankeeran, V. A. Rasaratnam, S. Ganeshalingan, Benedict Palan, C. V. Velupillai, S. Yoganathan, Chengai Aaliyan, and several others, since the 70's. They dealt with contemporary social themes in an analytical way. Have you ever heard of any of these people?
: Only C. V. Velupillai and S. Ganeshalingan. But, why was 1956 the turning point? Because of the Sinhala Only language policy?
: As you know, Sri Lanka became independent from Great Britain in 1948. Before that time, Ceylonese literary efforts in Tamil did not press for a Ceylonese identity. The lives of Tamil-speaking Ceylonese were depicted as the continuity of a Tamil heritage derived chiefly from the literary tradition of South India. The pre-independence Tamil writers here were mainly interested in the advancement of religion. Between 1956 and 1963 a progressive literary movement in Tamil came into full force. It was the primary force in determining what Ceylonese Tamil literature was or should be. Realism and national identity were emphasized. There was a new political consciousness.
: What was the volume of Tamil literary activity at that time?
: Between 1948 and 1970 a total of 71 novels written in Tamil were published in Sri Lanka. There were 57 collections of short stories. There were 98 anthologies of poetry. There were 49 plays. Keep in mind that Sri Lankan Tami writers had heavy competition from South India. There were not many readers of Ceylonese books in Tamil here.

There was only one main Tamil publishing house here. Many writers had to bear the costs of publication them plves. Many still do. They even had a hand in the sale and distribution of their own books.
One reason for the relatively poor sale of Ceylonese Tamil fiction is that hardly any of those books was used in education. Only a few books by Ceylonese Tamils were recommended as Tamil texts in higher grades. Even the libraries did not display books by Ceylonese Tamils. Another reason was much of the Tamil fiction here lacked popular appeal. Readers nurtured in the South Indian tradition of escapist (eading matter were discouraged by the literary quality of the works I've been referring to. The Ceylor Tamil writers I've mentioned were socially Committed, like S. Gaenshalingan.
R: Before you go into Ganeshalingan's work, could you go a little into fiction about the Tamils of Indian origin who mostly work on tea plantations in Sri Lanka?
S: In the last part of the 1970s, a writer from Badulla by the name of Teliwatta Joseph depicted the life of tea worksers in a collection of short stories called Waam srukkum Wade (The Country We Live In). The title story stres3 is that those of Indian origin in Sri Lanka should consider the Country they live in now as their own homeland. In another Story he describes the backwardnoss of the educational System in the hill country where the tea plantations are located. And yet another story shows how youngstrars in this area are corrupted by third-rate films. One other Story is about a chaste girl who is driven into prostitution because of poverty.
A few years ago, three writers who come from the tea estate area put out a collection of short stories, Thottak Aartinile (In the Jungle of the Estates). It was published by the Matale Tamil Writers' Union. One story describes the dilemma of a married estate woman with two children who tries to avoid being molested by the estate's superin
7

Page 13
tendent. She has to succumb; otherwise, her husband Will lose his job. In another story, an old Tamil woman and a Sinhala foreman (kangany) help people in adversity regardless of their race connection. Ail the stories in this Collection are ironic comments on the life patterns in the so-called jungle of estates in the tea country. This collection is important because it proves Tamil writers from estate areas are equally as imaginative and artistic as their counterparis in the North and East who usually get more attention. Anyway, these three writers represented in this collection write with firm convictions and an awareness of the realities of life in their area.
R: Then, let's take up Ganeshalingan and his work.
S: All right. But I want to iepeat one point. Local Tami
writers like Ganeshalingan wiote realistic social novels. They were aware of the root causes of social problems. Take Ganeshalingan's Weenda Payanam, for example. The Long Journey. His first novel. Weenda Aayanam is about the gradual changes taking place in a small village in the Jaffna area. Mainly social and political changes. In relation to the awakening of the so-called low caste people. The depressed class people. They tear down the barricades of Social values rooted in religious beliefs. Eventually they become Strong enough to gain representations in their own local government. The novel describes their struggle, their long journey, for social and political emancipation. Weenda Payanam, is a novel about caste. The caste problem cannot be said to have been solved here even now. It exists in some form or other in a grades of Society. The irony is that even among the so-called low caste people there is a caste system. This novel ought to be translated into Sinhala or English or both. It ought to be filmed as Martin Wickremasinghe's Gamperatiya was filmed.
R: Speaking of translation, is there much translation going on
between Sinhala and Tamil here?

: This is a very important question. A few Tamil works have been translated into Sinhala and English, but there is more translation from Sinhala into Tamil than from Tamil into Sinhala. There is . Jaffna monthly, Malikai (Jasmine), which publishes many Tamil translations of Sinhala writing. I wish that more and more Writing in the three languages used here could be made available, so that a better understanding prevailed among readers towards each other's Culture.
: What kind of Sinhala works have been translated into Tamil?
Just a couple of examples, please.
: You know a little about Munidasa Cumaraturga. Sarojini Arunasalam has translated his Magu/ Kamae (Kalyama Chappadu), Hathpana (Chettup Pilaitha Chinasamy), and Heen Saraya (Meliyar Midukku). T. Kanagaratnam has published a collection of twelve Sinhala short stories by people like Wickremasinghe, Sarachchandra, and A. V. Suraweera, whom you know. lts title is Setu Bandanam, Wickremasinghe's novel Gamperaliya (Cramap Piralvu) was put into Tamil by M. M. Uwise. Works by K. Jayati lake and Karunasena Jayalath have been translated into Tamil by Thambi Aiyah Devadas. Many other Sinhala writers short stories and poems have also been translated into Tamil and published in Jaffna. In magazines like Malikai and Alai.
: What about Tamil works into Sinhala?
: A couple of old Tamil epics, Silappadikaram and Manimekalai were translated by Hiselle Dharmaratne Thero. A few short stories by Ganeshalingan, Aluth Satanpata, were put into Sinhala by Ranjit Perera, Kanagaratnam, again, has translated some Tamil short stories, Demasa Ketti Kathawa, K. G. Amaradasa has translated a few short stories into Sinhala.
: Have you done much translation from Sinhala or English
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don't translate from Sinhala. May also say I am a bilingual (English and Tamil) writer? I have translated numerous non-fiction articles in English into Tamil. An article by Arya Abeysinghe and ranganie Abeysinghe on contemporary English writing in Sri Lanka from New Ceylon Writing. I've translated poetry by Wimal Dissanayake, whom you have interviewed. I've also translated the views expressed in English by Mervyn de Silva, Reggie Siriwardene D.C.R.A. Goonetilake, Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Siri Goonesinghe, Tissa Kariyawasam, and others, into Tamil and published them in local magazines.
: Has anybody translated your work into Sinhala?
: A few of my articles have been translated into Sinhala by
Susil Sirivvardana and Piyal Somaratme and published in Mawatha and Navaliya.
: To go back to Ganeshalingan, what, briefly, is the plot of
Weenda Payanam ?
: A young man of the Sembattu Pallar caste is beaten up by
Vellalar caste youths during a temple festival. He had slept in the temple premises allocated to the Vellalar or high caste. That's how the novel begins. But, briefly, this Sembattu Pallar young man has three young Women friends. One belongs to a high caste. One belongs to his own caste. One belongs to a lower caste. He marries the last. By having the young man marry the latter young Woman, Ganeshalingan wants to stress the idea that reformation of society takes place first in the young man's own home.
: Would you describe a couple of Ganeshalingan's other
novels?
: His second novel was Sadangu. That refers to ceremonies
or rituals. In this novel it means marriage ceremonies. Sadangu deals with all possible ceremonies and customs

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and observances associated with an average Jaffna Hindu rural wedding. Ganeshalingan laughs at the foolishness of conservative people who only look to the old Customs and ceremonies but who ignore the susceptibilities of the marriage partners whose marriage has been arranged for them. He scoffs at parents who refuse to see a new generation emerging, who thrust on their offspring their own concept of life rooted in a feudal Society. Ganeshalingan's third novel was Sevvanam (The Crimson Sky). It centers around an upper-middle class businessman who accumulated wealth suddenly in the midst of political and social changes. His foil is a trade unionist, university educated, who associates himself with the proletariat. The novelist suggests a Marxist solution to eradicate Social evils.
: understand there are some Sri Lankan Muslims who write
in the Tamil language. Would you say something about them?
Let me mention Zubair, a Jaffna Muslim Who Writes under the pen name of flankeeran. He used to publish a literary magazine called Maragatham, but it died due to lack of adequate financial support. He then edited Thosisalie and then Janavegam, two political weeklies. He's one of the finest political analysts using the Tamil language in Sri Lanka. He himself is the product of the class struggle. As a Marxist and member of the proletariat, he has identified himself as a progressive Writer. One of his novels, Thentrasum Puyallum (The Breeze and the Storm), is set in Ceylon. The story centers on a lower middle class Muslim family in Jaffna. They are torn apart by conflicting values. The son falls in love with a rich girl in Colombo. They have a passionate relationship. She becomes pregnant. Her family forces her into an abortion and then into a hasty marriage with a cousin who has the Wealth and status and education they want in their daughter's husband. This experience, this betrayal, as the young man sees it, Sours his attitude toward life. He falls a victim to both physical and menta disease. He dies. There's another love story running parallel to this
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one. The young man's sister loves a neighbour of a lower Caste. In Spite of severe opposition, their attachment deepens. They have the courage to venture on marriage. Progressive ideology thus triumphs at the end.
There are other Muslim writers like A. Abdus Samanthu, Jalaldeen, M. M. Mansoor, S. M. Nagoor Gany, et al, who have depicted the Muslim life style in Sri Lanka.
: Has any critic in Sri Lanka written about Sri Lankan Muslims,
writing in Tamil?
: Professor Withiananthan included an essay on this topic in
Isakkiya Thentral. The first person to write about this, though, was Professor M. M. Uwise, who wrote his M.A. thesis on the Muslim contribution to Tamil literature. A few years ago, Al-Haj S. M. Hanifa, an attorney at law, published Islamiya //akkiya Valarchchi, a collection of essays on lslamic writing in Tamil.
: What is the name of one Islamic Tamil literary work?
: Probably the most widely known piece is Chirapuranam.
It tells the story of Prophet Mohammed. It's poetry written in the style of a Tamil epic.
: In discussing translations, you referred to short stories.
Would you Say Something about your collection of your own short stories?
: A general comment. The stories in Sivakumaran Kathaiha/
were written in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and so they reflect the limited range of exparience of an adolescent. Most of the stories were on psychological themes. They were experimental in form in the Sense they were tight like a Western short story. Incidentally, the book came out of the printer's at Batticaloa in a battered condition, and then it could not be circulated widely on account of the worsened conditions in the North and East.

: Why "battered?
: Because the pages of the book were not collated into one
unit. Lots of printing mistakes. Fourteen stories were planned but only seven were actually printed. There was no jacket for the book. It was a slipshod job. But I couldn't blame the publisher. He had to print the book in a hurry and under trying Conditions.
: How about describing a couple of these stories?
: Well, one, "lai, is about the quarrels between a married
couple. They separate. unite, separate. used a lot of Tamil regional dialects. Another one, "Uraividam Melidam', is a sketch of a young man with an inferiority Complex.
: My impression is that many writers in Sri Lanka deal with
the inferiority complex theme.
Most Tamil writers, however, ignore this aspect. Most writers concentrate on social realism. Only a few Writers have written on psychological themes. But, yes, there's a story by A. Muttulingam, 'Pakkuvam, which is a good one on the inferiority complex theme. It's written compactly. it's about the attainment of maturity of a young but unattractive woman immediately after her younger sister precedes her in biological change of life. The title translates as 'Puberty. She has an inferiority complex. Her sister is more attractive and very popular, So she begins to be depressed. But a man comes to her rescue. He comforts her psychologically. He tells her she's pretty. He advises her to be more attentive to her personal appearance. Anyway, she becomes emotionally mature. 'Pakkuvam' is a story of the 1960s. It was published in a collection called Fe/athu Parisu Kathaiha/ (Sri Lankan Prize Winning Stories).
Were there any stories in that collection that dealt with less subjective themes?
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Yes. Thiru Senthoorans story "Urimai Enge?“ (Where Are the Rights?), was about the failure of a Tamil tea estate worker to obtain Sri Lankan citizenship rights because of the laws and regulations prevailing at that time. The dialogue was colloquial. The characterization was realistic. On the other hand, another story in the same collection, "Nattukku iruvar (Two for the State) was merely a piece of propaganda.
: Incidentally, what is the Tamil for "stories' and 'short
stories' and 'novels and 'fiction?
: As you must have guessed by this time, kathaihal is stories.
Short stories is ciru kathaisha/. Punai kathaiha/ is fiction. Wavalhall is novels.
: Would you comment then on some of the other Tamil writers
of ciru kathaihal in Sri Lanka ?
: Yes, but to begin with let's go back a little to the late 1930s
and early 1940s. One of the innovators of Tamil short story writing was a Divisional Revenue Officer by the name of N. Sivagnanasunderam. He used the pen-name flankayarkone. ln English, King of Lanka. He usually published his stories in South Indian magazines like Manikodi, Sooravali, Sakthi. He's dead now. As for the stories, Vellipathasaram (The Silver Anklet) was a collection of his stories published in the early 1960s. "The Silver Anklet, the title story, tells about the romantic attachment of a newly married couple. "Manithakurangu' (The Human Ape) deals with the open-heartedness of an ugly man who marries a beautiful but lascivious women. 'Anathai' (The Orphan) satirizes sophisticated women who have the license even to give birth before marriage and discard their children. Ilankayarkone was essentially a formalist but his stories were expositions of humanism.
: Who is one of the Tamil writers in Sri Lanka who mainly
deals with Social problems in short stories?

S: S. Yoganathan. I mentioned his name before. He's a social
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realist, if that's what you mean. He usually probes the minds of his characters instead of objectively reporting the transitional conditions of society, but one of his stories, 'Cholakam' (Southerly Wind), is a vivid description of the poverty and gloom in the lives of a fisher family in the North. Another one, "Kalaignan (The Artist), exposes the character traits of pseudo-artists who refuse to look at and understand the Sordid aspects of life around them. Yoganathan has published a few novels, too. Iraval Thai Nadu (Surrogate Motherland) is one of them. As Professor Sivathamby has said, Yoganathan used to speak of a Sri Lankan Consciousness but now he suddenly feels that Sri Lanka is only a surrogate homeland. This is a story about alienation. Sivathamby says the title of this story sums up the disenchantment and the suffering of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka recently.
Who are other important Tami authors of realistic short fiction of this kind?
must mention the names of A. Santhan, K. Saddanathan, Theniyan and a few others. As an American, you may be
interested in S. Kathirgamanathan. He died young in the early 1970s. At the age of thirty. He was among the
first group of university graduates here who studied in the Tamil medium. Many of them became writers. Kathirgamanathans "Vietnam Unathu. Devathaikalin Deva Vaku.” (Vietnam: The Holy Pronouncements of Your Own Angels) is a short story that makes a strong statement. The main character, a patriotic young Vietnamese woman, condemns the American presence in Saigon. It's a condemnation of imperialism. American or French. That was Kathirgamanathan's last story. Speaking of Vietnam, K. Ganesh, a progressive Tamil poet who once edited a little magazine called Bharathi, has translated Ho Chi Minh's poems into Tamil. Ho Chi Minh wrote these poems in prison in South China in the 1930s. He wrote them in Chinese. They were translated into English by Eileen Palmer. In the
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aely 1970s Ganesh translated them into Tamil from herr English version. Ganesh is interested in introducing South East Asian writings to Tamil readers. He's also translated a collection of stories by Lu Sun, a Chinese writer who died in 1936, and an anthology of Bulgarian patriotic poetry.
Let's get into poetry written by Tamils in Sri Lanka, too, but first would you mention at least one Tamil woman who writes short Stories?
Bhavani Alvapillai. That was her maiden name. She uses the name Bhavani. She startles her readers with highly shocking depictions of characters who attempt to defy the conventional social beliefs and morals of the Tamils. She deals with the romantic and sexual stirrings of young Couples. She makes a sincere effort to put in plain words
the undertones and hidden aspirations that often ripple and
bubble around in the unconscious mind. Her collection of short stories published in the early 1960s, Kadavu/arum Manitharkasum (Gods and Men), is provocative. For example, one story called "Anbin Vilai' (Price of Love) is about the love and marriage of a brother and sister who do not know they are of the same blood and kin. When they learn the truth, the wife Commits suicide after leaving her daughter with her husband's brother. The daughter faces many challenging problems in Society until she is rescued by her sweetheart who himself has to hurdle many obstacles. 'Manipura, another of Bhavani's stories, deals with the sexual relationship between two lovers on the eve of the young woman's marriage to another man. (Manipura is a species of pigeons or doves white in colour). 'Saria Thappa? (ls it Right or Wrong?) is the story of a married woman who hates her husband and her child. She falls in love with a friend of her husband. She undergoes an emotional struggle whether to stay with her husband and child or elope with her lover. The situations and the characters in stories like these Create an impression that Bhavani is indifferent to the prevailing Social barriers. However objectionable the contents of her stories may be, though, there is unity in their form.

I'd also like to mention Kohila Mahendran. She was
trained as a Science teacher. She was a medical student at one time. She writes with psychological dopth. Her husband is a teacher too, and her father, now retired, used to be a School principal. Anyway, she is my favourite among the women writers in Sri Lanka, writing in Tamil. She has an intellectual approach, artistic ability, psychological insight. and concern for tight story structure. One of her stories is about a woman science teacher. The narrator is one of her stude:* At a staff meeting the teacher suggests celebrating the New Year by distributing nutritious food to needy children. One of her students, the narrator, has told her that many of the school's students come from poor families and suffer from malnutrition. She suddenly experiences the shock of learning things she did not know about her own environment. In another Story Mrs. Mahendran exposes employment agents operating in Jaffna who take innocent people for a ride by promising them lucrative jobs in foreign countries and leaving them stranded. In his story an uneducated depressed-class Woman is brought to Colombo by one of these agents who makes her believe Colombo is in Nigeria He finds her a job as a maid-servant in a Tamil household. When she
finally learns the facts, she puts the agent to shame.
Has Kohila Mahendran written any novels?
Yes, as a matter of fact, her first novel appeared recently. Thuyilum Oru Na/ Kalaiyum (Even the Slumber Will One Day Be Disturbed). She raises the problem of the moral and psychological placement of a Tamil woman in a rigid conservative Jaffna society. At a superficial level the Story's about platonic love and marital relationship. At a deeper level, it raises many questions about the freedom of choice or individualism of a woman in a male-determined Society. The idea of revolt against hypocritical practices. The story judiciously includes as passing events current happenings in the North.
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You've mentioned Malikai (Jasmine), a Tamil literary monthly in the North. What kind of a journal is it? Are any of its editors fiction writers?
Its chief editor Dominic Jeeva has brought out four Collections of short stories. His own short stories. Thanneerun Kanneerum (Water and Tear Drops), Salayin Thiruppam (Turn of the Road), Pathukai (Footwear). And Valvin Dharisanangal (Visions of life). Jeeva considers himself a member of the working class. He is proud he was born into a family of hirdressers. He himself worked in his own barber shop when he was young. In his fiction he deals with the problems of the down-trodden. He severely condemns caste differences, social discrimination, literary escapism, bourgeois sophistication. In Pathukai, published in the early 1960s, he portrays characters who belong to the lowest of the low,
the satirizes pseduo-intellectuals, he depicts the love affairs
of middle class people. As an editor, Jeeva, who proclaims himself a pro-Soviet communist, publishes contributions from non-Marxist writers and intellectuals. Even antiMarxists are acceptable if they have contributed in a significant way to Sri Lankan Tamil arts and letters. In that sense, Malikai is a journal of liberal ideas. It's an open forum.
What are the names at least of other Tamil literary magazines?
Alai (The Wave), Thayaham (Motherland), Puthusia (New), Vayal (Field), Vyuham, Munaipu, Waan, Ullam. There were others, now defunct. I want to add that a book called Felathi/ /runth v Oar /lakkiya Kural, a compilation of views and interviews given by Dominic Jeeva, was published a few years ago. His views on arts and letters and the like.
What was the main theme?
His main point was that Lankan Tamil literature has its own intrinsic identity and that most Tamil writers here are socially Conscious and write with purpose rather than just churning out cheap escapist pot-boilers. Literature should not merely reflect contemporary life but also serve a social function to

improve present conditions. Jeeva tends to dismiss anything other than Marxism as useless. For instance, he calls Jean Paul Sartre a fake. Existentialism a spent force.
Now to get to poetry, is there at least one particular Tamil poet you'd like to call attention to?
Eelavanan. His real name was M. Dharmarajah. He's dead now. His Akkini Pookkal (Fire Flowers) was published in the 1970s. Eelavanan's poems express a love of humanity, the urge to see a new world emerging, determination to wipe out social injustices through collective efforts. Eelavanan attacks the 'beauty' poets, the mere aesthetes, who fail to deal with the needs of the time. He wants songs to be sung for those people who burn like flowers in a furnace of flames. He means the underprivileged, the suppressed the exploited. He hates war. He condemns genocide. He dreams of a socialist world in which everyone will live not only for himself but for everybody else.
I'd also like to mention Eelaganesh. His real name is N. Dharmalingam. His Pasikku/Pasi(Hunger within Hunger) was published in the 1980s. He also expresses a genuine concern for the human condition. He also expresses his inability to get things changed. He himself is an unwilling participant in the miseies of life. His poems are about love and poverty. In one poem, Thottattu Pookkal (Estate Flowers) he describes the misery that pervades the life of the impoVerished people working on the tea estates. In another poem, Desame Padil Sol (Nation, what Do You Say?), he Writes sadly about the separation of Tamil and Sinhalese friends in the current crisis.
This last topic leads to questions other than those about literature. For one, how do you yourself view the interCommunal problems in Sri Lanka?
We are a multi-racial society. That's a fact. In these circumstances, it's a good idea for all Sri Lankans to try to understand the psyche of the major communities in this island. Try to understand what their particular problems are. The majority of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese. This community's
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aspirations should be respected so long as they don't lead to a 'tyranny of the majority. It's also an ethical requisite that, however insignificant the minorities may be in terms of numbers, they should not be ignored or treated as aliens.
How should the prevailing enmity be dealt with?
Look not all the Sinhalese are against the Tamils and not every Tamil is against the Sinhalese. Otherwise, how would you aecount for the magnanimity of so many Sinhalese during recent shameful happenings? How would you expect such harmonious working together of professionals, academics, artistes, writers, journalists? I'm glad to say that a Tamil, Ratnanathar Sivaguranathan, was twice elected the President of the Siti Lanka Working Journalists' Association, for example. How do you account for romance, love and marriage of people from various communities here? Only a few of us, say 50 000 out of the total population of 15 million indulge in ugly activities, both in the North and the South of the island.
Some Sinhalese seem to be afraid of Tamils, socially speaking, that is.
Only a very few Sinhalese think that the Tamils have been an obstacle to their progress in the fields of education, business, and the professions. Even if that were the case, it would be sheer foolhardiness to attempt to annihilate an entire community. A few people have been wrongly convinced by rabid racists among us that, by destructive acts such as destroying property or burning libraries, they could replace the hard-working Tamils. If a few Tamils and some members of other minorities in the island have enjoyed prestigious positions earlier, we have also contributed our fair share to the country's development.
Some Tamils express fear of being physically attacked.
in some areas, the army and the police assumed Superiority in their behaviour toward the Tamil people. This has created an understandable fear among Tamils that they may be the

victims of terrorism. That in turn may have produced terrorists among the Tamil youth. What we have in this county is a mutual fear of terrorism. Terrorism of any kind must be condemned. We have no right to take another person's life. Even if he is an enemy -imaginary or otherwise.
Do you have a recommendation on this point 2
One immediate action should be to make it compulsory for the armed forces personnel posted to the North to be acquainted with the Tamil language.
isn't this suggestion rather impractical?
Yes, one may ask why should the Sinhalese armed forces
learn Tamil when they are of the predominant race in this country. Fair enough. But the majority cannot win the hearts
of the minorities if they cannot speak to them on their own wave lengths.
In that case, why shouldn't the minority Tamils learn Sinhala 2 Or English?
Tamils did learn Sinhala earlier on their own accord, before it was thrust upon them. And the Tamils living outside the North and East by virtue of the fact that there is necessity to speak in Sinhala have learnt Sinhala. AS for Euglish, only about 8% of the entire population in Sri Lanka are familiar with the language. Tamil is spoken by nearly a quarter of the people. Sri Lankan Tamils, the Tamils of recent Indian origin, the majority of the Muslims and Some sections of the Sinhalese and Burghers. It's an important language outside Sri Lanka, too. Anyway, for greater harmony and better understanding We need to know each other's languages here, at least in conversational or colloquial usage. The Tamil language is not far removed from Sinhala in idiomatic usage or even in vocabulary, you know. Just as there are many Sanskrit Words or roots in Sinhala, there are many Tamil words of Sanskrit origin. A common ground is there or can be found. Similary, there are some Tamil words in Sinhala and some Sinhala words in Tamil. Both languages have words in Common of Portuguese, Dutch and English origin, too. lt would not be very difficult for most of us to learn either Sinhala or Tamil-if we really want to learn.
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Any suggestions? The right atmosphere should be created.
Who should create it?
The politicians. They can set an example. They can learn these languages themselves. They can popularize them among the people they represent. If the politicians take to this as a Crusade, it is bound to be followed by the people at large. What the politicians can do is institutionalize this mission. The governments in power should formulate a Substantial long term plan to carry out a project of translations. \
Please explain this proposal a little. A Bureau of Translations should be established. It should undertake a series of translations of both Sinhala and, Tamil material into one another and also into English. If direct translations from Sinhala and Tamil into each other are not possible immediately on account of inadequate facilities and personnel, translations can be made first into English and then into Sinhala or Tamil.
: Are there enough qualified translators in Sri Lanka to take
on such a big project? A necessary prerequisite is a scheme to train translators. Both at government and non-government levels, translators should be trained by competent persons. Yes, but what would they translate? Translators should begin with contemporary writing, Creative and simple, The reason is that contemporary Writing reflects contemporary living and current thinking. These translations can be a singularly useful and productive instrument of communication. What We need today is understanding here. To understand each other, we need to communicate with each other more and better.
As far as understanding and communication are concerned, are you satisfied with the role of the press in Sri Lanka?
The terrorists of all camps should sit down together and thrash out their grievances, genuine and imaginary, without using violence. What we need for ethnic amity is large

heartedness to understand each other. As for the media particularly the Sinhala press, they can be a little more discreet in this directlon. There is too much stereotyping.
Would you give an example of what you mean?
Petty beliefs. False images. That the "Demala' (Tamil) is a dark person and a Dravidian. That the 'Sinhalaya is a fair-complexioned person and an Aryan. That the Sinhala is a modaya (a fool or an idiot), sluggish. That the : Demala is selfish and calculating. These prejudices should not cloud our genuine undarstanding of each other despite our mutual shortcomings. We in the press should not always be harping on the negative side.

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PART -
You started to discuss famil poetry before, but you were interrupted. Let's go back to poetry. Besides Eelavanan and Eelaganesh, who are some cf the other poets Writing in Tamil here that you'd like to mention?
I'd like to mention more than sixty names, because both traditional poetry and free verse in Tamil are flourishing in this country. There's M. Balakrishnan who recently published a Collection of 28 poems in Tamil. Wisabthamai Thoongurathean? In English, Why Slumber in Silence? The poems in this book are more logical or rational than emotional. That is, his tone is restrained. But they have flashes of fine imagery. His metaphors are somewhat innovative as far as Tamli poetry goes. 'Poems without the music of conjugal love for one. He needs to distinguish between poetry and poetic lines. He should be encouraged.
Another young man writing poetry in Tamil is Cheran. His father was also a poet, a romantic poet in the tradition of Shelley. He was an administrator in the Batticaloa district. He's dead now. As for Cheran, he's a graduate in science, but writes about politics. He expresses his hurt feelings over some of the events of recent times in a shill voice protesting against racism in the name of nationalism. myself cannot equate violence with genuine expression of protest, but his poems are beautifully written. He handles touchy incidents as truly felt experience. He writes under the nom-de-plume of Kaviarasan. A collection of his poems was recently published by Vayal (Field), a

poetry duarterly, under the title Irandavathu Sooriya Udayam. The Second Sunrise. A second volume of his poems is called Yaman, 'God of Death". Some of his poems are translated into Sinhala. Michigan University's Journal of South Asian Literature (Vol. 22, No. 1) carries English versions of Some of these poems and others by local poets.
Incidentally, or not so incidentally, to introduce local Tamil poetry, local Tamil literary culture in general, I have to remined you the days of pure art are gone. Whether we like it or not, politics has become inseparable from the arts. Anyway, poetry here is a vehicle to express the feelings of a younger generation caught up in an age of anxiety and agony.
Then, a third young poet I'd like to mention is Vasudevan. He's still a university student. The University of Jaffna. A book of his poems, Enni/visum Wan, 'The Falling on Me' came out a couple of years ago. He says there's a 'strained sigh of a human being in his poems and agree. He's a poet of positive thinking, though. A recurrent symbol in most of his poems in this book is a tree with roots. In one poem hs says, 'defeat is a visiting card sent by success' - instead of throwing it away, look at it, the visiting card, carefully for the secret address of success. I'd also like to refer to Sillayoor Selvarajan. He writes poetry under the name of Thanthontri Kavirayar. That means self-originated poet. He hasn't brought out a collection of his poems yet, but he recently represented Sri Lanka as a Tamil poet at a recent poetry convention organized by Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, India. It was a meeting of 50 poets from 42 Asian nations. They all read their own poems in their own languages and in English translation.
Would you comment on some of the young Women writing poetry in Tamil these days in Sri Lanka?
Well, there are a number of young women, and some not so young, who are writing fiction in Tamil, but there
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are only a few writing poetry in Tamil. As a matter of fact, it was only quite recently that a collection of some of their poems was published by the Women's Study
Circle in Nallur in Jaffna. The introduction to this book is by Ms. M. Chitraleka, a member of the Department
of Tamil at the University of Jaffna who herself has authored a book in Tamil on contemporary Sri Lankan
Tamil literature. She's an ardent advocate of women's liberation. Poetry aside, what does Chitraleka say about the situation of Women in Sri Lanka in general? In the introduction to this book, Soffatha Seithika/ (Unspoken Messages), she mainly accuses Tamil literary Critics, mostly men, of not viewing the writings by Tamil Women writers from the point of view of these writers. As for Women in gereral, she points out there's a growing awareness among women of their social position, their roles in society. That is, women are questioning how society in Sri Lanka treats them as sex objects, child bearers, and cheap labourers. They ary rejecting the idea that their fate should be determined by the mere fact that they are females. Thay are beginning to reject the male dominance that leads to their oppression. They reject a patriarchal set up that determines value in art and culture.
Who are some of the women poets whose poems are included in Unspoken Messages and what kinds of poems are they?
Most of these women are relatively newcomers as poets. A. Shankari, S. Sivaramani, Sammarga, Selvi, Ranga, Mazura A. Majeed, Avvai, Premi, Renuka Navaratnamthey're new to me. Two others whose work is included in Sollatha seithika/ I know: Maithreyi and Urvasi. As for the poems themselves, take A. Shankari's. In one poem the narrator objects that men, including her husband, treat her as a sex object, or only as a sex object. The narrator of another poem complains that when she grew up to be a big girl she lost all the freedom she enjoyed as a little girl; she says her Womanhood is like a stone or a rock. in a third poem - Shankari has five in this collection - the

narrator says she wants to touch and kiss her lover but can't because of the gap in attitudes between men and
WOle.
Are most of the poems in this book similar in theme?
S. Sivaramani's three are. They're in the first person, too. in one poem, she says that women have not yet got their freedom. In another one she advises her Women friends to stop waiting for lovers and stop paying attention to beautifying themselves. One of Sanmargas poems is about the precarious situation of Tamil women in Jaffna, where the male population in being decimated, and it also laments women's lack of freedom. One of her other poems is the lament of a mother crying over the brutal death of her son in the streets. Ranga's poem is paradoxical. The narrator, 'She', has been raped by an
armed services man, a Sinhalese, and the whole world Condemns her for losing her chastity, but she excuses her rapist for having beheaved that way as an extension of the oppression of Women. What she cannot excuse is that a married man with two children, a Tamil man has also robbed her of her chastity. She waits hopefully for some man with courage to take her as his wife. Renuka Navaratnam Speaks about platonic love but says she's Waiting to be bouget like a product in the market. Mazura A. Majeed's poems have implications of male sadism.
Majeed is a Muslim, Suppose by her name. Are there any male Muslims writing poetry in Tamil?
Yes. One is M. A. Nuhuman. He's a Tamil speaking Muslim from Kalmunai in the eastern region. He has an M. A. in Linguistics and is a lecturer in Tamil at the University of Jaffna. He's co-authored a book in Tamil on 20th century Sri Lanka Tamil literature. Actually, he's recognized more as a literary critic here than a poet, but he's been writing poetry for over twenty years. He's nearly 40 years old. He also edited Kavignan (The Poet), a short-lived Tamil literary magazine. He's published
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personal poems, as he calls them, and political poems. The personal ones are romantic. Romantic in that he sings of the fertile soil of the eastern region in contrast to the hard Soil of the northern region, and he writes love poems. He was also influenced by Mahakavi, that is, T. Roodramurthy whose son Cheran I mentioned before, and also by the late Neelavanan, a poet from the Amparai district.
What does Nuhuman say in his political poems ?
S:He praises Ho Chi Minh. He praises the virtues of Mao
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Tse Tung. He sings of the essence of the Communist Manifesto. He describes the constant struggle for emancipation. These were fashionable themes in the 1970s. He describes the barbaric destruction of the Jaffna Public Library in 1981 by the Sri Lanka armed forces. A reader may suspect the sincerity of feeling flowing from these poems themselves-in my opinion, the transference of sustained poetical feeling is not satisfactorily attained-but they indicate that Nuhuman, like other Sri Lankan poets writing in Tamil, is conscious of the human predicament, whether private or public. These political poems were published under the title Wiazai Watkal Varum (Rainy Days Will Come). They were published in Tamilnadu. Two other books of his have been published in Tamilnadu. One is Thiranaivu Katturaihal (Critical Essays) and the other Marxiyamum Thiranaivum (Marxism and Lietrary Criticism.)
Incidentally, We have one poet here who is a Sri Lankan who writes in Tamil but whose mother tongue is Gujarati. He belongs to the Memon business community here. There are about 500 Memon families living in Sri Lanka. His real name is Razack Larcana, but he writes under the name of Memon Kavi. He's only 28 years old and published three volumes of what he calls poetry. What mean by that is that, in my opinion, his vers libre is not as rich as genuine poetry. By 'genuine" I mean poetry that has a freshness in approach and treatment, that has insight with feeling, and an element of surprise, even bewilderment in dealing with a human predicament or

social experience. All the same, Memon Kavi is imaginative
and image-conscious. He's published three books: Yuga Ragangal (Melodies of the Age), Hiroshimavin HerOka/, about Hiroshima and, lately, Eyanthira Sooriyan (Mechanical Sun). The last received a lot of attention from younger Critics of local Tamil poetry, but the older, more seasoned and more mature ones did not give it the same atte OfT.
R: The quality of his poetry, or whatever you call it, aside,
what are his main themes?
S: Look, I'm not dismissing him as a writer without potentialities, because he shows remarkable concern for social problems. That in itself is a functional aspect of any good literature, even though Social consciousness alone is not sufficient for aesthetic Satisfaction. Anyway, Memon Kavi is basically a humanist and internationalist. He finds, however, that everything is becoming mechanical; even nature is becoming mechanical. In such an atmosphere human beings become alienated and he is sorrowful about that and angry. One nice thing about Eyanthira Sooriyan, which was published in Madras, is a long poem called 'The Saga of Colombo'. Memon Kavi describes scenes in various parts of the city : a boy calling for passengers from a moving minibus: a man begging; a few twilight women; a few white collar workers; a vegetable vendor; a woman bead Seller; a guide. It's sardonic piece. In free verse. Memon Kavi -he figures in this piece himself-is the poet of the city.
R: Your mentioning the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library reminded me of Jegatheeswari Nagendran's poem in English 'The Burning of the Jaffna Public Library, June 1981'.' Charred beams/Books in cinders/The soul of a people became a burning brand'. I understand thousands of irreplaceable old books and manuscripts were destroyed. I suppose this terrible theme is a common one in recent Tamil writing.
S: Well, as a matter of fact, there was a verse play,
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Veriyattu, performed in Jaffna. It English, Rampage. It was written by R. Murugaiyan. It uses a lot of Songs so you could even call it an opera, It's a symbolic piece. The play depicts the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library in symbolic terms. Yes, this was a terrible act. It was an onslaught on the Cultue of Sri Lankan Tamils. It was an onslaught on the intellectual heritage of mankind. As for Veriyattu, I didn't see the stage performance, but I've read it and it doesn't communicate any intense emotion. On the stage it might have come out better. Anyway, it was a Success in Jaffna.
is Murugaiyan a well-known playwright?
He did other poetic dramas in the 1970s when local Tami theatre was showing some progress. One of his plays was called Kaduliyam (Rigorous Imprisonment). It's a play symbolically professing a Marxist approach to overthrow an oppressive regime. Murugaiyan is an Assistant Registrar at the University of Jaffna. He's written about ten books. He once wrote a book in collaboration wilh Dr. Kanagasabapathi Kailasapathi to whon I referred before. The book was Kavithai Wayam (Poetry Appreciation). He has an M.A. in Science and another one in Arts. He writes poetry and criticism. He also writes in English sometimes. He's complied a book called Ma//ikai Kavithaikal, poems by 51 poets published in the magazine Mallikai mentioned before.
When you mentioned Murugaiyan uses a lot of songs in his verse play Rampage, I thought of music. What kind of music, Tamil music, is there in Sri Lanka?
There are all kinds-religious music, folk songs, lullabies, dance music, traditional music and modern music. As a matter of fact, the Music Unit of the Tamil Service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation recently brought out an LP album of traditional Tamil music in Sri Lanka. Two discs. Produced by Navarajakulam Muthukumarasamy. Some of the people referred to before assisted her in

selecting the music. Professor Subramaniam Withiananthan, Profuss or Karthigesu Sivathamby, Dr. E. Balasundaram and others. The music in this album is divided into music for prayer and worship, work songs, life cycle songs, theatre songs, dance Songs, and instrumental music.
I think I understand the other divisions, but what are life cycle Songs?
The life cycle songs include lullabies and children's songs, love songs, wedding songs and funeral songs. Far example, Sainthadamma is a song by a mother while rocking her child on her lap. When the child responds to the song with a Smile, the tempo is increased. Akkandi or Kathaipaddu is a Song sung by children. An Akkandi bird lays eggs-pearl-like White eggs that children like to play with-and the children ask the bird a question. The bird's answer shows its motherly concern for its offspring. Thirumana Unjal are songs at Hindu weddings. A Hindu wedding is usually held in the bride's house. The couple sit on a decorated swing. Close relations of the couple sit around the Swing and rock the Couple. This kind of song is sung while the Swing is being rocked to reflect the glorious future of the Wedded Couple.
: I suppose the theatre songs are from the folk play tradition
you went into before.
Yes. Songs from Then-modi, Vada-modi, Annavi traditions, and from Nattu Koothu Christian folk dramas. For example, from a Then-modi play called Wondi Wadagam (The Drama of the Lame Rascal) there's a song of the gullible trader (chettiar) and his beautiful wife who were duped by the loveable rascal. From an Annavi or Koddakaik Koothu folk play there's a song called Poothathamby Nadagam. A Portuguese official Anthirasai sings that he'll take revenge on the wife of Poothathamby for insulting him. From an Annavi play, Arichandran, a song tells how Arichandran, a crematorium guard, vows to be honest. He reprimands a woman trying to burn a body stealthily without paying the cemetery fees. He doesn't realize the woman is his wife and the dead child his son,
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: You said there were some work songs in this album. What
kind?
There's a Song sung by boatmen or fishermen about the travails of travelling over the surging waves and the pleasure of getting back to land. There's a harvest song. There's pounding Song, a Song about love and intimacy. It's Surg by women while they're pounding rice with mortar and pestle.
You also referred to instrumental music. What kind of instruments?
Nathaswaram. It's similar to a clarinet. It's from the South Indian or Carnatic music tradition. It's played on all
auspicious and ceremonial occasions. Its sound symbolizes
a sense of Cultural fullness. It's accompanied by a thawil, a kind of drum. The song in this album is played at wedding Ceremonies. Thavil players sometimes engage in a musica duel that climaxes an entire performance. This is known as the Thavi Kachcheri. There's also Udukku music in the album. An udukku is a drum, shaped like an hour glass. It's held in one hand and beaten by the othor. It's used in the Mariamman cult. Mariamman is another form of the Mother Goddess, Shakthi. There's also Paraimelam drum music. This is the traditional drum of the Tamils. It's now played only in certain temples and at funerals. Flutes and violins are also used in some of the music in the album.
ls the traditional music of the Tamils in Sri Lanka still widely
performed? Yes, of course. In folk dramas, for example, as I've already noted. To make a long story short, there are two old traditions of traditional Tamil music in Sri Lanka, and both are still alive. When I say old, I mean several hundred years old. One is called the Great Tradition and was developed around big temples patronized by urban people. The other is called the Little Tradition and it was developed around small temples patronized by rural people. Incidentally, wedding Songs and Work songs and funeral songs came out of the Little Tradition. Yes, even today, this is a living cultural reality in the villages in and around Jaffna.

R: Let's return to the topic of fiction, that is, short stories
written in the Tamil language by Sri Lankan Writers. You've referred to Tamil writers of the 1960s and 1970s, the early 1970s. Who are some short story writers of the later 1970s and early 1980s?
There are more than 200 Tamil short story writers in Sri Lanka, and more and more publications are Coming out of Jaffna these days, so we can consider only a few. Take K. Balasundaram, for one. A recent collection of his was published in Jaffna under the title Anniya Virunthali An Alien Guest). Out of the ten stories eight were written in the early 1970s and seven of those were previously published in Sirithiran, a Jaffna humour monthly. Sirithiran is a Coined word meaning one who laughs. The eighth Came out in Rosapoo, a Jaffna annual. Rosapoo means rose. The latest stories were published recently in Amirthagangal, still another Jaffna publication. In English, nectar-giving river. Balasundaram is the principal of Union College, a high School in Tellipalai. He writes plays also, notably radio plays. His special talent lies in the effective use of Jaffna Tamil dialects in dialogue. He has an earthy sense of humour and a satirical way of expressing the foibles of people in the villages of the northern peninsula.
: What are some of the stories in An Alien Guest about?
Most of them are about social and I or economic problems peculiar to Sri Lankan Tamil society. For example, one story, "Muddaip Poriyalum Mulang Kaiyum“ (Fried Egg and the Elbow), implicitly criticizes the unfairness in the standdardization of admission to universities. Another story, 'School Plus Mini Bus Time Tables', describes the anxiety of Tamil parents sending their children to school in an atmosphere of ethnic tension. Another one, 'Moontru Parappum Mukka Kuliyum' (Three Perches and Threefourths of a Grave), deals with the shortage of land in the north and the jealousy and competition arising from it. think you know a perch is a measurement of the size of a piece of land. Some of the other stories in Anniya
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Virunthali are about the marriage problems prevailing in Jaffna Tam sociaty-parents perform different poses to get a respectably employed bridegroom, for their daughter; fast aging women wait for white collar bridegrooms; brothers-inlaw and sisters-in law cunningly postpone the marriages of younger siblings who are employed in order to exploit them financially. Professor Vithiananthan wrote the foreWord to this collection and says these latter stories reflect tha society of Jaffna as it was but Jaffna today is different. Young women there are more liberated than the stories Suggest.
You may b interested in Yoga Bala handran, another
Sri Lankan Tamil woman's lib writer. She writes in Tamil and English. She's a broadcaster and a stage actress. She's travilled a lot and has a global approach, particularly on Subjects like the position of women in contemporary Society. She stands out as a bold and stimulating personality She recently published a collection of twelve of her short stories, six previously published in local weeklies and monthli2s. Realistic stories. Balachandran's view is that tho writer has an ethical obligation to portray society
is it is. She's unlike many women writers who turn out slippy-sloppy tear jerkers.
What are the stories in this collection about?
They're essentially psychological stories but they're based on social realitins here. The characters are Tamils, Sinhalese, Hindus, Christians, professional persons, middle class people, rural folk, cosmopolitans. Balachandran takes up subjects that were once taboo-test tube babies, vasectomy, male inferiority complexes. As for the last in one story a woman finds employment opportunities and the result is that her male partner suffers mental tortures,
in other stories, an educated woman dutifully serves her husband but wants to escape from him to live the rest of her lifa as she wishs; a married woman regrets she hasn't lived a more meaningful life; a woman paralyzed in

bed suggests that her loving husband have an extramarital relationship; a woman kills her husband to annihilate a parasite who has betrayed her and her children. Those are some of the themes of these stories. You could say the publication of this book, Yugamalar, is a happening in the local Tamil literary scene. True, Balachandran's Craft needs a little more care, but she presents a fresh point of view in a reasonably well-shaped form. What's refreshing in this collection is that the traditional values in respect of the status of Tamil women in Sri Lanka are challenged in the context of a changing Society.
Are there many stories around dealing with the educational problems of Sri Lankan Tamils these days?
Yes. In a collection published in Palayankottai in South India a few years ago, called Krishnan Thootu, a writer named Santhan includes a story about a young Tamil public servant Devan,who must sit for the Sinhala Proficiency Examination. You know about the Sinhala Only Bill of 1956. Devan represents the sensitive average Tamil youth, except that his girl friend, Lilanie, is a Sinhalese. Her parents approve of their relationship and they invite him to their place for lunch on Lilanie's birthday, the day of the examination. Devan has prepared for this examination thorougly. He gets private tution from a Sinhala teacher who preaches to him, erroneously, that the Tamil language is an off-shoot of Sanskrit and that the Sinhala language is batter than Tamil. Similarly, the head of his section, a Sinhalese, speaks almost on the same lines as Devan's
UtOf. -
Devan likes the Sinhala language, particularly because it is the native tongue of his sweetheart, but he considers the cultural imperialism that calls one language superior to another, and he wonders if he should sit for the Sinhala Proficiency Exam. He decides to do so. He writes well. Then he cancels his own answer sheet to protest that, though he's a Tamil and a member of a minority in Sri Lanka, his self respect should not be subjected to ridicule.
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A.
During the examination, the invigilator-you say "monitor' - reads the candidates answer sheets over their shoulders and smiles sarcastically at the 'funny' answers produced by the candidates, whose mother tongue is not Sinhalae Devan's anger is not against the Sinhala language, nor against the Sinhalese people or their culture but against those who parochially imagine for themselves a kind of superiority and in the name of the Official Language Policy, impose cultural dominance over others.
Are all of Santhan's stories in this book similar to this ethnic conflict one?
A couple are. The title story, for example, also deals with the language problem here. And Santhan earlier published a novel about the failure of love between a Tamil boy and a Sinhala girl because of racial prejudices. But another story in this collection is quite different, even unusual in its humour. A newly married young man wants to make sure of his ability to have children. He goes to a government clinic to take a test. He's also tensed up, so he finds it difficult to produce a specimen of his Sperm. But, through a little opening in the window of the toilet, he sees an ordinarylooking fully uniformed nurse-she's visible only in partsand he mentally disrobes her, and he is able to produce a specimen. He feels sad for the innocent nurse who helps him in his imagination. The title Krishnan Thoothu, by the way, refers to a message taken by Lord Krishna in the
Mahabharata. w سمي
Can you Commet on humour in modern short stories in Tamil in Sri Lanka ?
There are many kinds of humour in Tamil short stories, of course. In a book of his, Sasi Bharathi Kathaigal, a journalist, Sasi Bharathi S. Sabaratnam, has what you could call a short short humorous story. It's only seven paragraphs long, and each paragraph is only one sentence.
Good. Then you can tell the whole thing.

S :
During an excavation, Some specimens of old bones were found. The bones, decayed and unidentifiable, are studied. They belong to the human species. An order is issued to determine the historical age to which the bones belong. It's learned they are thousands and thousands of years old. Soon a proclamation is issued. It is: Find out the ethnic group.
We almost always come back to the ethnic problems in Sri Lanka, don't we ?
it's very important here, you know. Crucial. It reminds me of a short story by Mullaimani. That's the pen name of V. Subramaniam. It's in a collection titled Arasika/Aluvathillai (The Oueens Do Not Cry) published a few years ago.
i ranganie, a young Sinhala woman, is studying Tamil at
the University of Peradeniya. A Muslim student and a Tamil student Woo her. She's a very Sociable and openminded teen-ager. She's cast away the parochial thinking of people as Sinhalese or Tamils or Muslims or Burghers. She holds such a broad view because she and her family have had a traumatic experience regarding "race'. Having been nurtured in the Tamil north, ranganie and her family have assimilated what could be called traits of Tamil culture. Chauvinists and hooligans misidentify these Sinhalese as Tamils, and, in riots, her brother is killed. This incident has led her to think about the grave problem of race relations here and to take up a stance of broader nationalism. Mullaimani is a lecturer at Kopay Women's Training College. He also writes poetry and plays. He's also interested in history and religion.
Has he written any stories with religious themes?
Yes. In the same book there's one story that you can call religious. In the broadest sense. "Kaththu irukka Vendum". A Brahmin boy has been growing his hair in the priestly style called kondai. He cuts off all his hair and presents it to Angelina, a Christian girl whom he loves.
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Yes, it's reminiscent of O. Henry, but the idea here is that not only on racial grounds but also on religious grounds narrow ways of thinking should give way to larger concepts of humane love, understanding and scarifice.
Humane love. There seem to be many Tamil writers handling this theme in short stories about people of different cultural backgrounds.
Not only in short stories, of course. Vidhya - that's the pen name of Kamala Thambirajah - has a novel, Unakahave Valkiraen (I Love You and You Alone), that's a romance on the theme of undying love. Ayub, a Pakistani student, visits Sri Lanka to spend a school holiday with one of his sisters who lives in Kandy. Ayub attends a Tamil drama competition at the Peradeniya Campus. He's fascinated by the moving portrayal of Anarkali by a young Student actress named Nimmi. Now he's a Pakistani and a Muslim and she's a Tamil and a Hindu, but the attachment between them grows into deep love and sacrifice. This is a highly personalized novel, and it has the unique quality of evoking genuine sympathy with the characters instead of sentimentalizing their situation. In many ways the novel
reveals the experience of the novelist herself. Like her
character Nimmi, she herself also won the best actress award in a drama Competition at Peradeniya. She's also acted in the locally produced Tamil film Ponmani, Beads of Gold.
Let's turn to movies later and get back to novels later, and continue with short stories now. You've mentioned that Sasi Bharathi S. Sabaratnam is a journalist. Are there any Tamil women journalists here who also write short stories?
Annaledohumy Rajadurai. Sometimes she's called Lakshmi. She's published two novels. She recently had a collection of eleven short stories entitled Weruppu Velicham (The Flame) published in Madras. The stories are true to

contemporary life. Her main characters are women. The point of view is invariably that of a woman in a maledominated social set up. The locales are usually Colombo and Jaffna. Let me refer to the themes very briefly: The experience of Tamil housemaids in the Middle East and in West Asia. The lucrative trade of drug trafficking while searching for jobs in continental cities. The deceit of unscrupulous job agents. Spoiled youths finding an easy way to earn money by pickpocketing or robbing. The irresponsible behaviour of selfish husbands and sons. indisciplined students. Foolishly conservative parents. As you are aware by now, these are common themes these days. Anyway, Annaledohumy Rajadurai portrays characters from all layers of society, and this collection is rather representative.
ls there any Tamilshort story writer who deals exclusively with what many people here call the Social underclass?
May be not exclusively. But Muthurasaratnam's Silanthi Vayas (Den of Spiders) is a good introduction to the world of the downtrodden, a world that the average middle and upper class metropolitans ignore. The stories in Den of Spiders deal with the problems of very poor families. They have no regular means of earning a living. Ice Cream vendor. Kadalai man. Compositor. Rice mill worker. Unemployed but artistically endowed alcoholic. A depressed class woman who does household chores in middle class homes. The main subjects that the author treats are sex vices, broken hearts, social imbalances. Muthurasaratnam pays more attention to content than to form, but the collection is worth reading for its observations of the hum-drum life of lower middle class and proletarian people.
You mentioned a story about a Brahmin boy. Are there many Brahmins writing short fiction in Sri Lanka?
There are some. N. Somakanthan is one. He's from the priestly class by birth, but he's a progressive Writer. He's
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been writing for a long time, but his stories were gathered
into a book only recently. Aahuthi. The title refers to offerings at religious ceremonies. The title story is the best
It describes the dilemma of a Hindu priest when he encounters the irreligious attitude and action of an unscrupulous trustee of a Hindu temple. Another story,
"Vidiyal", is also about a Hindu priest. When the trustee
of the temple almost ejects the priest from the priesthood, the priest takes up to farming. This trustee is an opportunistic politician. To Secure votes in an election he asks the priest to open the doors of the temple to people
of the depressed class. When he fails to get elected, he
tells the priest to close the doors of the temple again. The priest protests by walking out of the temple and takes up to ploughing the fields. -
You mentioned music awards and acting awards. Are there organizations that give prizes to Tamil short Story writers in Sri Lanka?
Some but not many. Mostly local. On the national level, the Department of the Registrar of Copyright and Patents is one. It recently awarded Rs. 5,000 to a collection of Tamil short stories it judged the best. The writer is P. Sivanandasarma. He's written five other books in Tamil. He writes under the name of Kopay Sivam. He's won several prizes in local literary contests. He works as a draughtsman in the Irrigation Department. He's in his early 30s. The name of this collection is Wiyayamana Porattangal. in English, 'Justifiable Struggles'. The title story, for instance, is the Sotry of a Brahmin grandmother. She challenges the hypocrisy of her own people who castigate a family in their own circle for marrying outside their caste. Similarly, a story titled 'Oru Marana Urvalam Purappada Pohirathu' (A Funeral Procession is About to Begin) shows up orthodoxy in funeral rites as meaningless when those insisting on such formalities will not help to get the daughter of a Brahmin man married because he had married out of his caste and they had disowned
him. People with false pride like this are a dying breed in today's bitter realities.

May I add that the first Sri Lankan writing in Tamil to win a prize by a government organization - the same one - was Pulo lyoor K. Sathasivam. He's an assistant medical practicioner. He also won Rs. 5000 for a collection of short stories. That was a few years ago. In a competition that was the brain child of Lalith Athulathmudali, the former Minister of Trade and Shipping, which the Department of Copyright is under. The title of Sathasivam's book was Oar Adimayin Vilangu Aruhirathu (A Slaves's Chain !s Broken). Sathasivam has published another collection of short stories and two novels, which also won prizes. AS far as A Slave's Chain is concerned, the stories are mainly realistic. The first story is about the generation gap. It's in the form of a monologue by a wife who cannot conceive a baby. She foresees that if a child was born to her he would ultimately disown his parents, anyway. So she takes her own life. Another poignant story is about the precarious life of a pensioner in. Wellawatta.
A friend of mine lives in Wellawatta. Godfrey Lorenz Andree. He used to be a jazz critic on the radio in Sri Lanka. He sometimes writes newspaper articles about the Burghers in Sri Lanka.
In the story, the pensioner bears the burden of living with limited income. He has two sons, both unemployed. He also lives in a tense atmosphere and is under great stress. He has a heart attack. The Story ends as his wife rushes him to the hospital in a taxi. In her hand she has their last Rs. 100.
Almost all the stories you've referred to so far are gloomy in one way, or another.
Yes, but gloomy or not, if you read them all, you'd get a very good impression of the actualities of life for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka these days, when common or accepted human relationships are getting eroded as attitudes harden. Anyway, the realities are gloomy,
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and many of these stories I'm telling you about may not be wholly satisfying as creative pieces but they are Social documents in a Way.
Take the stories in Uyirpuhal (Coming to Life). They express what the writers themselves feel about the situation in Jaffna. They represent the mood of the people of Jaffna. The writers of these stories - they're 12 in all - are teachers or civil servants mostly. One is a banker. Another is an assistant medical practitioner. They're all from the Vadamaratchy region in Jaffna. They were all born in the 1940s and 1950s. They do not belong to a generation who had a shared cultural tradition with the rest of the communities here. At the same time they do not belong to that band of young firebrands who turn to militancy at the slightest provocation. Like most Social realists they tell it like it is, or at least the way they see it is, and they hope that they can change the thinking of people for the better. The caste problem here. for example. There's a story by S. Yogarasa - his pen name is Karunai Yogan - that focuses on the class stance of some people who exploit a grave situation. A person collecting funds for the rehabilitation of Tamil refugees declines to release the funds for an emergency relief operation because those affected are only low caste people. This story shows the hypocrisy that sometimes hide behind the shield of ethnic consciousness. Caste-ism still prevails in Jaffna while Jaffna is bleeding for the sake of a Tamil nationhood. Another caste story in this book is by Kana Maheswaran. A high caste man has the audacity to prevent a lower caste tom-tom beater from beating his paraf mesam at the funeral of his own son.
Some of these stories portray the northern battle front through the eyes of ordinary people who have not taken part in armed militancy or terrorism. A person returns to Sri Lanka from Nigeria in a story by Nellai K. Peran. He finds his way home in Jaffna through circuitous routes amidst hardship and risk. When he reaches

home, he finds his family trying to avoid being killed by an aerial bombing by the government air force. He tears up his passport in protest and determines to resist further onslaughts like this one. Raja Sri Kanthan's story describes how the common people manage interrogations and attacks by members of the government's armed forces who Suspect them all of being terrorists, which they aren't. The last story, by K. Sinnarajan, is about a young man who loses his family members in attacks by the armed forces. He turns to militancy himself. He is killed.
To go back to Tamil short stories dealing in caste themes, Kavaloor Jeganathan came out with Yuga Arasavam a few years ago. Birth of an Age. It was published in Madras. His stories often link the caste problem in Jaffna with the class problem in general. One character exploits caste differences for his own advancement in business. A co-op, manager poses as a good man in society but is actually a swindler. Another mudalalfthat means businessman, you know - feels sorry not at the death of one of his employees but at the fact that the death affects seasonal sales negatively. Speaking of prizes, Jeganathan won several for his short stories. It's believed he was killed in India. He died young.
But, yet, I must say in fairness that a reader Sometimes
can get exhausted reading these kinds of themes over and over again.
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PART
As a cultural journalist, have you written much about film in Sri Lanka 2
Yes, of Course. I'm very interested in films. I've served as a member of the jury for local film festivals. I've a certificate from a workshop sponsored by the State Film Cor
poration and conducted in Sinhala for film Script writers.
write and broadcast film reviews in both English and Tamil. I was one of the founding members of the Film Critics and Journalists Association. That's now defunct. But I am a committee member of the newly formed Sri Lanka Film Critics Association.
Then you often interview local movie stars?
Yes. Not so long ago, for example, interviewed the actor Sillayoor Selvarajan. In local Tamil cultural circles he's popularly known as Pal Kalai Vendar, the master of multi-faceted arts. He recently played an important role in an English film produced here, 'Sacrifice'. Directed by David Keith, a son of former Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie was also in the cast. Soloro Selassie. Selvarajan also appeared in the B. B. C. TV film 'Lord Mountbatten' and acquired international notice. He played the part of a Muslim friend of Mahatma Gandhi. He's performed in local Sinhalese films too. "Aadarae Kathava" (A Love Story) and 'Sathyakriya (Fruits of Good Behaviour) are two that come to mind. In "Aadarae. Kathava' his own son Dileepan played the role of the hero. Selvarajan wrote the Tamil sections of the

script himself. His wife Kamalini is an actress, and they played together in "Komaligal" (Jokers), a Tamil film produced here. Kamalini is a graduate in Fine Arts. She has a weekly radio program on the arts. She broadcasts in Tamil. I participate in this program quite often. She writes short stories in Tami too. You asked me earlier about local Tamil music, so let me add that Selvarajan is also a songwriter. His song "Kanmani Aadava'" (Come Dance with Me, My Love) was used in a film, a Tamil film, "Nirmala", and became quite popular. Nirmala is the name of the heroine. Selvarajan's quite versatile. That's why he's called Pal Kalai Vendar. He's a poet, a literary Critic, a copy writer, a broadcaster. He started out as a journalist. He's also produced a large number of documentry films. He's also produced five children
Let me warn you that we'll have to go into children's literature too, but first who's one of the more famous Tamil women film actresses in Sri Lanka?
: I'd like to mention Helen Kumari. Her name comes quickly to mind because she was recently honoured by the Young Men's Tamil Cultural Organization here for her contribution to the local cultural scene via the Tamil language. She's performed on the stage as well. She began acting as a child. She's married to an actor, Rajasekeran. She played the role of the heroine in the comedy 'Eamalikal' (The Deceived Ones) and in two sentimental melodramatic films, "Nenjukku Neethi' (Justice for the Heart) and "Thentralum Puyallum' (The Breeze and the Storm). All locally produced Tamil films. She's an Oriental dancer too and was the dance director on several Sinhala films. She choreographed light dances. m
ls there much interest in movies among Tamil fiction writers in Sri Lanka?
Well, we do have, or did have, a writer like Bala Mahendran. He wrote short stories in Tamil. Experimental stories - he handled sex themes that were taboo in the 1960s.
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And he published a Tamil literary magazine, a monthly, "Thenaruvi". That's Stream of Honey. At the time - in the mid 1960s - he was a draughtsman in the Survey Department. He'd been educated at St. Michael's College in Batticaloa and at Jaffna College in Vaddukodai His father was a teacher of Mathematics. But to get to the point of your question, he's now a film maker in Tamilnadu.
He lives in Madras. He recently did a movie called "Veedu" (Home). He wrote the original story and the screen play
and did the photography and edited it as well.
Some years ago a Tamil novelist here who writes under the name of Chempian Chelvan - his real name is A. Rajagopal - did a film script adapted from a Tamil novel by a friend of his, Sengai Aaliyan, a civil servant who is one of our prolific local novelists. "Vaadai Kattru' (Northerly Winds) was one of the important Tamil films of the time. It's about a love affair, a love triangle, in a fishing village.
Did Bala Mahendran move to Madras for political reasons?
No, I'd say professional reasons. You see, he'd studied film making at the Film Institute at Pune, in India. In case you didn't know, the Pune Film Institute is a cinema centre that is shaping the quality of Indian cinema. Mahendran - he's called Balu Mahendra in India - had already been a professional photographer here, and in India he first became known as a photographer for the movies. A cinematographer, a film cameraman. Anyway, he'd come back to Sri Lanka with high hopes, but he was disappointed here professionally and returned to India.
What disappointed him?
He was disappointed that local film producers - both Sinhalese and Tamils - did not make much use of his talent even as a Cameraman. There was an anti-South Indian film mood in Sri Lanka then. Even now the Sinhala Critics call South Indian Tamil films 'trash'without realis

ing these films have come of age. it was alright condemning the earlier films in the initia stages of the development of the 'truly Sinhala cinema' but to continue with the same usage, leaves room to suspect racial under
OneS.
What is 'Veedu" about?
It revolves around the problem of building a house. It's set in Madras. A lower middle class woman lives in a rented place. She's an average woman, a working woman, the breadwinner of her family.
Offhand, this doesn't seem a subject for drama.
I haven't seen 'Veedu" yet - yes, it does seem low key - but Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby - we referred to him before - has seen it, and he compares it with Ozu's "Tokyo Story" and Satyajit Rai's "Mahanagar". Mahendran himself has said he threw all commercial compromises into the air to create the film. There are no songs or dances. Songs and dances are customary in Tamil films. There are fewer than usual spoken sequences. That is, less dialogue. The film received an Indian National Film Award as the best Tamil film produced in Tamilnadu.
Are there any women film directors or producers in Sri Lanka's Tamil communities?
No, none.
: Then, let's go back to Chempian Chelvan. What kind of
writing does he do? −
He's a critic. He's written poetry and drama and, as
say, fiction. He's edited a few literary magazines and a few anthologies. Incidentally, he's a geography teacher in Jaffna.
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What's one of his novels?
Weruppu Malikai. mentioned the Tamil literary magazine "Mallikai' before. To repeat, Mallikai means jasmine, and
Neruppu Mallikai means red coloured jasmine flower. It's
what I call a Jaffna novel. It deals with a slice of life in Jaffna. In 1978 it won a prize in a competition sponsored by the Tamil daily paper Virakesari, which used to publish books, as the best regional novel depicting aspects of life in the peninsula. It's a kind of social novel showing the residue of the feudal system still operating in some parts of the north. But the accent seems to be on sex.
A petty businessman is trying his best to outrage the modesty of a widowed woman, to put it euphemistically. Her husband died prematurely. She has a daughter and
a son. But because she's 'low caste" her dead husband's
family do not help her in any way. To make a living, she opens aboutique. In local usage, I think you know, boutique means a small shop of any kind not necessarily a shop specializing in women's clothing. In this case a boutique selling hoppers baked from rice flour. The mudalali I mentioned before, the businessman, is "high caste". He's already carrying on an illicit affair with another man's wife, but he wants to conquer the widow also. But she's true to her Tamil tradition and keeps him at bay. So he commits an act of arson and she burns to death in the fire he sets. As for the title, in the widow's
compound there's a "neruppu mallikaia jasmine plant with
red flowers. Her wrath and curses are symbolized in the burnt plant's ashes. There's a suggestion that people like the businessman who commit such murderous acts should be tried and condemned.
liked the novel. It touches upon social realities - the problem of marriages determined by fat dowries, the problem of existence without adequate income, the problem of relations between the sexes, the problem of politics. All these are touched upon in the novel but

they're not analyzed. So to me there's some kind of confu sion. It's not one of the best Jaffna novels written in Tamil here, but it's a fairly important work by a local writer' We have many Jaffna novels here, most fair, a few very good.
Mallikai reminds me of another Tamil literary magazine that you mentioned before. The Wave'.
Yes, 'Alai' it's edited by Jesurasa. In the late 1970s he published a book of his own short stories. Tholaivum fruppum Enaya Kathaika/um. The Distance, the Being, and other stories'. Most of them introduce a theme of alienation - private agony - and they're candid subjective observations of a narrator who's an outsider trying hard to strike a balance with the environment he lives in. You've visited the University of Peradeniya, and one of Jesurasa's settings is there. The other is the fishing village area of Gurunagar in Jaffna.
Who is this outsider who tells the stories?
He's an educated youth from Gurunagar, but he lives in Colombo - and Kandy - where he works for the Posta Department. He's a sensitive young man. He enjoys reading, seeing artistic films. He wants to rise above his environment. He wants to live as honestly as possible. He has problems of unrequited love, maladjustment. But he overcomes pessimism and becomes skeptical and rational. I think he speaks for Jesurasa himself who has - or had - an inclination toward flirting with existensialism. Anyway, as Shanmugan Sivalingam - he's a sensitive poet and critic himself - says in his foreword, the outlook is based on practical social, political, psychological and philosophical concepts.
Let's come back to short stories later. But to go back to India, so to spaak, several people in Sri Lanka have mentioned visiting India. Have you ever gone to India?
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Yes, I've made five trips. I've been to New Delhi, Bombay, Agra, Thirupathy, Bangalore, Madras. My last trip lasted one month. And, back to film, in Madras attended a two-day German film festival at the German Cultural Institute. Thanks to the German Cultural Institute in Colombo. And I also saw a couple of Tamil films and a Malayalam film, all three made in India.
Again I won't question you about the details, but what was your impression of Tamilandu, say?
Well, let me put it this way - as a Tamilian I felt proud to be in Tamilnadu. The Tamil consciousness reigns supreme there. Having lived in a cosmopolitan city like Colombo for over thirty years - most Sri Lankan's are more 'westernized' than most people in India - I'm used to the lack of an exclusively Tamil context. But in Tamilnadu - in Madras and other places - could feel a cultural at
mosphere springing from a Dravidian foundation. On the
other hand, also experienced a sense of degradation. Let me explain this. Earlier quoted to you the old Tamil saying “Yathum Oore Yavarum Kealir". "Any country is my country and all the people are my relatives'. In
Tamilnadu that saying seems to have been forgotten.
A strong tendency toward parochialism was evident to me. There's a lot of corruption, charlatanism and philistinism masquerading in the name of more than 2500 years of Dravidian culture. mean that While the 'Brahmins', who are educated, think that they're superior to the illiterate masses, the non-Brahmins think that since they belong to the Dravidian race, the Aryan Brahmins are exploitive. But most Brahmins in the South are Dravidians themselves. Anyway, as for India as a whole, it's a nation of many
contradictions. It's a disintegrating conglomeration of
different national identities grouped together artificially.
Before we get too far afield, let's go back to the local music scene - and women. You referred before to Arunthathy Sri Ranganathan, a music controller at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. w

Yes. As I said in passing, she's interested in African as well as Oriental music and she has an album she recorded in Nigeria with musicians from there. Is this too far afield? She also took part in a music festival in Lusaka, Zambia, sponsored by the Zambia Tamil Arts and Cultural Association. You're in an economics faculty, so you may be interested to know that she graduated from the University of Sri Lanka with honours in economics. She hails from a talented family. One of her sisters, Ambika Thamotheram, is a vocalist. Another, Jayalakshmi Kandiah, is a dance teacher who produces ballets. She's presently the Director of Music and Dance at the Indian Fine Arts Centre in Singapore. Arunthathy herself plays veena and sings. She's produced several Tamil music cassettes. She's performed in Singapore, Malaysia, the U.K., the U.S.A., Zimbabwe, Botswana and, of course, Nigeria and Zambia. She has a certificate for the teaching of Carnatic music - South Indian classical music - and she's a visiting lecturer in music at the Open University, about which Mr. Herat has told you a little. She was recently awarded the title Gana Pooshana Thilagam by the Minister of Regional Development and Hindu Cultural Affairs. This title means, "a star among accomplished musicians".
May continue? I'd like to say something about her sister Jayalakshmi. A Sri Lankan Tamil holding such a prestigious position like hers in Singapore is a matter for local pride, you know. She used to operate her own school of music and dance and veena in Colombo. She's also taught in London. At the School of Oriental and African Studies there she produced a dance ballet, Ramayana. She also had a weekly program on B.B.C., for a while. Here in Sri Lanka she presented the first veena arangetram - arangetram means debut, in this case the first public dance performance after graduation - and she produced and choreographed the first Tamil ballet for the Rupavahini. Henry Jayasena has told you about Rupavahini. Also at one time Jayalakshmi was a visiting lecturer in fine arts at the University of Kelaniya. Her
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husband, Dr. A. Kandiah, is an academic. A lecturer in
Tamil at Kelaniya University. He obtained his doctorate
from London University. He's written a few books in Tamil. As for versatility again, Jayalakshmi's also a make up artist, a professional beautician.
As long as we're touching on dance, is there one man you'd like to mention?
Yes, Sesha Palihakkara. Hes a well-known Sinhala dancer. What's important is that he's set up a trust, a foundation you'd say, to keep our traditional arts alive
and to help talented young artists.
What's the name of the foundation in Colombo?
The turst is called Gandharva Yatra. It operates a small school at Ugugoda. That's a village situated about 11 miles from Kandy, between Wattegama and Panwila. it's in the foothills of the Hunnasgiriya Range. At an elevation of over 2,000 feet. Anyway, geography aside, some children in that area are already being trained there.
Why was the school established in such an out of the way place?
Well, Sesha Palihakkara's idea is that the simple life style of an agricultural community will gain an added dimension from the rehabilitation of traditional art forms. And vice
versal
How do you translate Gandharva Yatra?
Yatra refers to the search for truth and excellence. It
also refers to movement. Gandharva stems from old
legends - excerpts from Jataka stories, Hindu mythologiesabout classical dancers, musicians and actors who performed at the heavenly courts of Indra, Brahma and Sakra.
What traditional arts are the children being trained in ?

S : The curriculum is divided into two sections - folk and classical. Folk includes all the rituals, songs, dances and dramas from the Wap Magula to the Aluth Sahal Mangalya. Folk dramas like Sokari and Kolam, for example. Dr. Kariyawasam has told you about these. Certain old dances - Leekeli, Savarang, Pantheru, Udekki - will be re-styled. The students who show special aptitude will then be given the classical training. Ragadari music, vocal and instrumental. Kandyan dance - you've seen Chitrasena's group doing that. And Low Country and Indian dance. Also contemporary dance. There'll also be instruction in the fundamentals of painting and sculpture. And, to refer to English again, the School intends to give, instruction in English. Good instruction.
R : As far as painting and sculpture are concerned, Donald Ramanayaka has described the local art scene. Who are some of the well known Sri Lankan Tamil artists?
S : I'm glad you asked that question. The truth is, although there are many good Sri Lankan Tamil artists, painters and sculptors, they're largely unknown outside the Tamil community. So, for example, a great artist like. A. Marku remains unknown to many Lankans. One reason is that there are no serious art critics in the Tamil language who can introduce him in English to other Sri Lankans. And the rest of the art critics on the island don't seem to care to know about the activities of Tamil speaking artists. This is not a healthy sign in a plural society like ours. might add that the Sinhala cultural scene is adequately covered in the Tamil press. I don't think culture should be a one way traffic.
R : Then please introduce us to A. Marku.
S : Actually, his name is A. Mark. He signs his work as A. Marku, in the Tamil way. He was born in 1933 in Jaffna - in Gurunagar, the fishing area mentioned before. He's created more than 1000 paintings and Sculptures. He's a modernist in style. He likes Gaughin, Roualt,
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Cezanne, Picasso. He likes to quote Gaughin. Go to nature. Study nature. Take nature's essence, then create. He first studied art in Jaffna under an artist named Benedict. An amusing story is that he was also a student of a Jesuit priest - a general student, not an art student - Father Marcelline Jayakody, who used to teach at St. Patrick's College in Jaffna. He - Father Jayakody - writes lyrics in Sinhala - he's a Sinhalese - and he composes. Oriental music. Well, Mark drew the priest's portrait, and the priest blessed him as an artist. Donald Ramanayaka told you something about David Paynter. Mark or Marku was a student of his too, at the Government College of Fine Arts. Mark himself used to teach at Hartley College in Point Pedro. Now he's the art teacher at Kokuvil Hindu College. Not too long ago he organized an exhibition of paintings by some of his students.
What are the names at least of some of the other Tamil artists in Sri Lanka?
Well, in the north, say, in the Jaffna area, there's Benedict; there are M. S. Kandiah, Ramani, S. Ponnampalam and others. In Colombo, Samy, Moraes, D. Raja Segar, and Mrs. Satyendra.
Do any of these artists live off their work as artists?
Segar says that he does. He claims that he's earning a substantial sum of money every month from his paintings. He's a modernist too. He's self taught. That is, he didn't go to any art School. Actually he was in the field of accountancy but gave that up to be a full time painter. He told me sometime ago that he'd been interested in photography and the plastic arts and used to read a lot about
painting in encyclopedias. He adores the paintings of
Leonardo da Vinci. He says he was also influenced by Vincent Manan Sela. He's a Filipino painter who's not widely known in this part of the World. Segar likes to do water Colors and pen and wash collages. His work is rather exotic. It seems to appeal to foreigners. They're
his main buyers. Incidentally, he sometimes does covers

for books. For example, S. Muralitharan's Koodaiku/ Desam (Nation in a Basket). This may be the first collection of Tamil poems written in Sri Lanka following the pattern of haiku, by the way.
You say "exotic'. What kinds of subjects does Segar work, with?
It's not only the subjects, of course. But in a recent exhibition at the Lionel Wendt, his fifth one man show, he showed paintings on the ill treatment of children, the abuse of child labourers, cruelty to animals, fruitless eroticism, the frustrations of prostitution. Poverty is a recurrent theme in his work. One of the pictures is about a bull
taken for castration.
This is not exactly my notion of exotic.
By exotic I mean elements characteristic to this part of the world but unusual to Westerners. The pictures speak for themselves. -
What is Segar like in person? How old is he, anyway?
He's in his early thirties. He has a pleasant appearance. There's an outer cover of cheerfulness, but I feel a mood of sorrow. Of disenchantment. I asked him a direct personal question: Is it unrequited love? Maybe, he said.
didn't want to probe, so I left it at that.
Earlier you said that Segar goes along with Gaughin's idea of studying nature. Do you know how he approaches
a painting?
He says a painter should control his own painting and not the painting the painter, so he has a preconception of what to draw or paint. He doesn't totally depend on whatever form a painting may take in process. He says an artist's own individualistic style should be recognizable to a viewer even if the painting is not signed. In fact,
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some of his paintings do not include signatures. He says he paints only when he has an urge to paint. He has to be in the right mood. He says if a painter improves his technique and concentrates on Craftsmanship then creativity is lost. You ought to know that this is a representative attitude here. ソ
Apparently he has a formula for making money.
Look, I don't want to give the wrong impression about Segar. I'd like to point out one other interesting thing about him. He doesn't try to sell everything he paints. For instance, he's done a water colour of Lord Buddha which he does not want to sell. The spirit of the picture is personal to him, he says. He's also done paintings that he feels are unique to him that he doesn't sell to foreigners. Most of his buyers are foreigners, but he does not sell a painting he likes to a foreigner because, he says, then that painting would go out of the island.
Going backward again, Rupavahini reminds me of broadcasting. Are radio or TV scripts ever published in Sri Lanka as they sometimes are in the United States? Norman Corwin's, for example?
Rarely. As you know from your own broadcasting experience, what goes on the airwaves is almost invariably gone with the wind. Broadcast scripts are seldom published. It's partly due to the ephemeral nature of the subject, it's partly due to the spoken language of the medium. But, yes, quite recently two former broadcasters S. K. Pararajasingham and N. Shanmugalingan, selected about twenty five scripts on a single theme - various aspects of Tamil Culture in Sri Lanka - and collected them into a book entitled sthayaranjani. Pleasing to the Heart'. The scripts were originally broadcast over commercial radio, by the way. The book's an excellent handbook of some of the finer points of the cultural traits of the local famil community.

What kind of cultural traits are you referring to ?
Karagam jewellery, for example. Farmer's festivals. Draupathi Amman worship. Worship of Murugan or Krishnan or Kavadi. Omens. Cinema. Sarasvathi Pooja. Folk cultural traits as depicted in ancient Tamil literature.
Then how about something on the two collectors - Pararajasingham and Shanmugalingan?
Well, Pararajasingham is a graduate in science. He also studied carnatic music. He began his career as a teacher. Then he went into commercial broadcasting, starting as an announcer. He's a singer, and he announced with a cultivated melodic voice. He rose up to the position of music controller at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. He was also one of the pioneers of light classical Tamil music in this country. I mean music that is not intricate and complex like Carnatic music. Ragas, melodies but semi-classical. Perhaps Pararajasingham's greatest contribution is his effort to crystallize a consciousness for indigenous creative music. As for Shanmugalingan, he's now a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Jaffna. You see, we have quite a few versatile people here He's a lyricist, a singer of light classical Tamil songs. He produced one musical program, Kala Kuyil, "The Cuckoo Bird of the Times". That was widely acclaimed. He once functioned as an assistant director of an Indo - Lanka co-production film. Both he and Pararajasingham have songs on Gangaiyalae, the first Sri Lankan light classical Tamil music disc.
"Yal" is a musical instrument. An ancient musical instrument like a harp. It's not in use now. Swami Vipulalnanda the first professor of Tamil at the University of Ceylon wrote a magnum opus on it. Yal Wool. now to continue. You may be especially interested in knowing that Shan mugalingan is also a writer of sorts. He recently produced an offbeat publication. A kind of elegy to his dead father. His father was a teacher, an important figure in the
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Myliddy South area in Tellipalai in the Jaffna Peninsula. And in this book - really a booklet - En Appavin Kathai, "The Story of My Father', Shanmugalingan tries to give life to his father's past in an emotive poetic style. The booklet was published by his mother Naguleswari Nagalingam.
Why do you say offbeat?
It's customary among the Tamils to publish the life story of a deceased person in verse form. It's called 'Kalvettu". It's rather formal. In recent times the elegy has sometimes been expressed in fiction such as Appiah by S. Ponnuthurai and even in drama. Appiah is an endearing term for father. in Shanmugalingan's case, he writes in the first person as if he's talking with his father.
Let's get into a broader Subject. As a journalist who deals with all aspects of local culture, do you have any particular thoughts on the relationships among the various strata of culture? High brow, middle brow, low brow?
“Culture” connotes many things to different people. High culture. Folk culture. Popular culture. Subculture. Yes, we have to have Standards. Ouite legitimately. But one cannot impose a uniform standard on all expressions of culture. The reality is that in Sri Lanka the socalled high culture is a bore for the majoirty of the aesthetically untrained masses. Scoioiogically untrained, too. On the other hand, the so-called popular culture here does not satisfy the more refined tastes of the few. There's a conflict of interests, so to speak. The sensible approach to this uneasiness is to evaluate these respective 'Cultures' in their own moulds. Aesthetic pluralism is inevitable. It's one thing to condemn pretentious, half-baked, puerile, hotch-potch productions. It's another thing to dismiss anything as culturally 'untouchable' that appeals to
wider sections of the people.
Now, wasn't just kidding about children's literature before. Really, who are some of the local Tamil writers of children's literature ?

Will, earlier we were discussing the publication of broadcast scripts. Coincidentally, a few years ago a collection of short stories by P. M. Puniyameen, a Sri Lanka Muslim who writes in Tamil, came out. The stories were originally broadcast in Tamil over the Muslim Service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Wilalin Arumai. The Usefulness of Shade'. The stories as a whole describe aspects of the daily lives of Muslims - Moors - in the Kandy region, which you've visited. Most of the stories centre around children themselves. Their behaviour is contrasted with the behaviour of adults. A couple of the stories show the situation of youngsters in search of motherly love. They lack it because their mothers have gone to the Middle East to earn a living. Puniyameen is still in his 20s. He graduated from the University of Peradeniya. He's the head mastef of a school in the hill country. He's also written a couple of other books.
Then, recently. Thimilai Thumilan, a teacher of Tamil at the Batticaloa Teachers' Training College, published a collection of poems for children. Over fifty poems. A lot are on lambs and Cows and crows and Cuckoos - you know, that sort of thing. Some are on important writers in Tamil literature - Thiru Valluvar, Bharathi, Vipulananda - and Some are on Lord Buddha, Jesus, the Prophet Mohammed, and Mahatma Gandhi. I think you can guess that these poems - shall we just say verses? - are basically meant to present moral values to children.
Would you please briefly identify these Tamil writers?
Briefly. Thiru Valluvar was a great Tamil poet of the 3rd century A.D. who composed Thirukkural. This contains over 1300 couplets on ethical values, similar to the codes of Manu in North India. Subramania Bahrathi - think you know his name at least - is a great 20th century Tamil poet who fought for the independence of India. Vipulananda is a Sri Lankan swami from Karaitivu in the
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Batticaloa district. Belonging to the Ramakrishna Mission, he was the first Tamil professor in the University of Ceylon. He produced a magnum opus on 'yal' as said before.
And, before you go to the next topic, let me refer to Dr. S. Maunaguru. He teaches in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Jaffna. He's interested in koothu, the Tamil folk plays we went into before, and he does research on the Sri Lankan Tamil drama tradition. He himself is a performing artist - a dancer and actor - and has written plays. Sankaram (Destruction). Sari Pathi Malai (Real Half Rains). Wammaip Pidditha Pisasukal (The Devils That Have Enslaved Us). Anyway, I know you're interested in theatre. But to the present point, Maunaguru recently published Thappi Vantha Thadi Aadu (The Lone Goat That Escaped), his two plays for children. These plays were originally performed a few years ago by the young students of St. John Bosco School in Jaffna. They were about nine or ten years old. Maunaguru used the koothu technique in writing and producing these two dhildren's plays. He says that plays presented for children - and by children - should be presented without . inhibition. He means a polished performance is not so important. But the story should entertain children, like games do, or sports. Make-up should be exaggerated. Facial expressions, too. Costumes should be bright.
Let's go back again. Earlier you referred to R. Murugaiyan's edition of Malikai Kavithaikal, poems published in the literary magazine "Mallikai' (Jasmine). Would you like to describe the poems in this anthology?
Well, in general. The collection is fairly representative of the trends in poetry written in Tamil here. There are poems by 51 poets in all. Even so, not all the important Tamil poets in Sri Lanka are represented. For example, M. A. Nuhuman, who we discussed earlier, is not included because he had not published poetry in 'Mallikai'. One good thing about the anthology is that it contains poems with regional undertones and styles.

What are regional undertones?
I mean the Tamil language is being spoken by nearly One quarter of the people of Sri Lanka, and it has its own regional dialects, and many of them are reflected in this Collection.
Again in general, what are the subjects of these poems ? Earlier you said the editor of 'Mallikai' Dominic Jeeva is a communist, so may I presume most of the poems fall into the category of social realism?
Yes, that's correct. The poems as a whole have direct relevance to contemporary life in this island. They are protest poems. Protest against exploitation and oppression. Against injustice and corruption and discrimination. They are poems in support of the working class in the sense that they express feelings that Stress the power and glory of labourers. Some poems in the book praise the great achievements of humankind and encourage hope in the capability of people to change society for the better.
As long as we're on poetry again, can we go back to S. Muralitharan's poems in the haiku form?
: Koodaikul Desam ? No, they're not the same kind of poems. The book contains about seventry five three line Statements. Statements of ideas. Really verse instead of poetry. Some of them are refreshing. Our tears are rain drops above the desert. Cigarette packets, little coffins at cheap price. May be that one's not so refreshing Hey, who's there pouring milk into the river howling? But the book as a whole fails to form into a whole structure. But Muralitharan's still in his 20s, so he has time to develop. Incidentally, he's a student at the University of Peradeniya, in science.
I'm glad you almost always give us some brief biographical information about all these people, which reminds me
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of another question. Have you read any good biographies
lately?
Yes, of course. Don't forget I just referred to Shanmugalingan's elegy to his dead father, En Appavin Kathai. But Golden Bud comes first to mind. A biography of our President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The writer is a Sri Lankan, a Malayalee born here, K. Rajappan. Golden Bud's unusual because it's written in all three of the languages spoken in Lanka - Sinhala, Tamil and English. (Rajappan's wife is a Sri Lankan Tamil singer of light classical songs.) This in itself is laudable when you consider the compartmentalization that is delaying the evolvement of a single Sri Lankan identity. Briefly, the book traces the major events of R. Premadasa's political career. What may especially interest you is that Premadasa has written six novels. One of them was turned into a popular film. For your information, a few other politicians in the island have interests in literature and the arts -
T. B. langaratne, Lakshman Jayakody, Tyrone Fernando,
to name only three. R. Premadasa himself has been active in encouraging artistic enterprises here. The Tower Hall Project for one. Besides he's interested in sports, poverty alleviation, and so on. R. Premadasa learned the rudiments of politics from A.E. Goonasinghe in the 20s and 30s. Rajappan stresses Premadasa's desire for ethnic harmony in Our Country.
Then, I mentioned S. M. Hanifa earlier, didn't I? He's an important scholar and publisher. He used to be a journalist too. He's worked for 'Thinakaran', the Tamil newspaper referred to before, and the Ceylon Observer and the Daily Wews. Like me, he was also a Tami Duty Editor in the news division of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Well, P. M. Puniyameen - I mentioned him before - recently published a biogrphy of S. M. Hanifa which gives a good picture of his importance in the world of contemporary Tamil literature as the editor and publisher of the Thamil Mantram, a small publishing company. Since 1953, for example, Hanifa - heʼs a Sri Lankan Muslim,

by the way - has put out more than thirty books. Literary studies. Religious Works. He's a very religious, man hear. Poetry, including folk poetry and children's poems. Novels. Short stories. Hanifa himself has had a biography published by the Muslim Times. A biography of A. O. M. Hussain, who was an attorney in Kandy. He is dead. He was reported to have awakened a remote Muslim hamlet in the central region. He was a reformer. The son of
A. Omar Lebbe Haiar. The biography is called The Great Son.
As for Dominic Jeeva again, who's been editor of 'Mallikai' for over twenty years, a collection of biographical articles about him, Malikai Jeeva, was published recently by a group of Tami writers in honour of his 60th birthday. There are twenty nine articles, so I'll just mention the names of a couple of the writers. Neela Padmanaban. K. M. Gothandam. May be I'm repeating myself, but let me say that Jeeva is one of the best examples of the revolutionary effect the progressive writers movement of the 1950s and 60s had on Tamil writing, demanding the depiction in literature of the poor and oppressed as opposed to that of the Socially privileged and traditionally high placed. This movement highlighted the social relevance of literature and insisted that the writer be an activist for social change. There were many debates, of course, and Jeeva - and K. Daniel - I mentioned him before too - both came from underprivileged and Socially oppressed castes, were able, because of their Courage, to write about Social inequalities from the inside, as it were. They wrote about their own sufferings.
Now, biography aside, let me tell you about Anthony Jeeva, too. Also a Sri Lankan Tamil and also born a Catholic. They haven't publicly renounced religion, but my guess is that they don't believe in a religious faith now. He - Anthony - is from the hill country. Dominic's from the north. Anyway, Anthony is a dramatist and free lance journalist. He's written a booklet called Eelathil Thamil Wadagankal. That's Tamil Drama in Sri Lanka'. He also
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runs a small publishing house - almost all the publishing houses here are small- and he's started a literary maganize called 'Kolunthu' that he edits himself. Kolunthu means tender tea leaves. It's a journal covering the hill country political, Social and cultural Secnes. As for biography in the first issue of "Kolunthu' - it's a fairly new journalC. V. Velupillai has a biographical article on Kothandarama Natesa Aiyar. Other articles deal with the cultural activities of Sri Lankans in India, especially Tamilnadu, with hill country Tamil workers, with the history of the hill country and so on. There's also a piece on new poetry in Malaysia and a short Story by Karuna Perera and a Bulgarian poem translated into Tamil by K. Ganesh. I told you about
him before.
Who is Kothandarama Natesa Aiyar?
was just coming to Aiyar because Anthony Jeeva has
just published a biography of him by Saral Nadan. He was
a brahmin from Tamilnadu, from Tanjavur, but he was a pioneer in the trade union movement in Sri Lanka. Aiyar had a tremendous impact on local politics, particularly in relation to tea plantation workers, for nearly thirty'seven years until his death in 1947. Aiyar was the first to start a daily Tamil language newspaper in Sri Lanka, "Desa Nesan'. He initiated many extensive Studies on our plantation workers, the real "wretched of the earth". He first came to Lanka in 1919. He saw for himself the pitiable conditions of plantation workers under European estate owners. He came back in 1920 and started Desa Nesan'. He began to take an active part in trade union activities and in politics. Like Ranasinghe Prema dasa he came into contact with A. E. Goonesinghe.
Aiyar learned that Sri Lankan born Tamils looked down on these Tamil 'coolies' of Indian origin and that the Sinhalese hated them and that the European ownersBritish and Dutch mostly - treated them as slaves. Let me say that there were about 150 Indians who owned estates in Sri Lanka at that time. The 20s and 30s. They

were against Aiyar too for fighting for the rights of estate workers. As you know, the world wide economic depression resulted in large Scale unemployment in Sri Lanka. It may interest you that Aiyar was a novelist too. That is, he wrote at least one novel. Moolayil Kunthiya Muthiyon A/lathu Thupparium Thiran. That's mouthful for you, isn't it? In English, Moolayil Kunthiya Muthiyon translates as 'The Aged Person Squatting in the Corner. Allathu is 'or'. Thupparium Thiran, "the clever detective'.
Then, briefly, and finally, who is Saral Nadan?
He's an important hill country writer. He's the manager of a tea estate, actually, but he's published poetry, fiction, criticism, and non-fiction, as in this case. Another of Nadan's biographies, as long as we're on that Subject, is one of Cannapan Welsingam Velupillai, who wrote the article on Aiyar in the first issue of "Kolunthu". He - Velupillai - was a humanist writer who loved hill country folklore and folk Songs. He was among the first to Spotlight the plight of the estate peolple in his writings in English. He also wrote in Tamil, of course. He was once a member of Parliament here and he was a trade unionist. He was married to a Sinhalese woman. As you should know by now, intercommunal marriage is very common in Sri Lanka. Velupillai edited a trade union periodical called "Maveli" and sometimes included articles on literature and the arts. He died five years ago. In fact, one of Velupillai's novels has a trade unionist as its protagonist.
Was it written in English? What's its name?
No, it's in Tamil. Ini Pada Maataen. "I Won't Bear lt Any Longer'.
What was the name of that Hollywood movie about fifteen years ago or so in which city people cry out "No, no we von't tako it anymore?" Do you think Velupilai got his title from that?
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It's possible, but I doubt it. In any case, the novel is set in the Tamil speaking hill country. It covers two or three decades. Velupillai describes the frequent ethnic violence in the plantation sector, the plight of refugees. The narrator - he's the protagonist - advises the hill country Tamils to fight for their rights in a constructive way. He tells his son to design houses for the displaced plantation workers. Velupillai implicity affirms the idea of a Sri Lankan identity. It's a constructive theme. The style is direct and simple. It's a realistic novel. It reflects regional cadences. And it's well structured.

PART -- V.
Let's return to Tamil fiction writing in Sri Lanka later, Now, I mentioned reading Southern River by Kenneth M. De Lanerolle earlier, but you've interviewed him, so could you give us some background on him? -
Kenneth De Lanerolle is in his late 70s now. He retired as Principal of Carey College, in Colombo, a few years ago. As you may know, earlier he was Principal of Wesley College in Colombo and Kingswood College in Kandy. These schools are secondary education institutions. They prepare students up to the General Certificate of Education (Advanced Level) Examination. De Lanerolle used to be involved in the affairs of the University of Peradeniya as the head of a council that conducted two inquiries into the administration there. He pointed out a lot of shortComings, he told me. And these persist even today.
De Lanerolle is a linguist. He has an M. A. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan. He's done comparative studies of Sinhalese and English intonation, for example. He's published two other books besides Southern River and Princes in All the Earth and Pale Hands.
As a linguist, what does De Lanerolle think about the language situation in Sri Lanka?
He told me the introduction of education in our indigenous languages was desirable and correct but that it should have been combined with the teaching, the good teaching of English as a second language. At the university level,
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English should be the medium - the language of instruction. To quote him: "That is essential for a small country which has to play its part in the world." He's also pointedout that the early school administrators of the Sinhala Only policy of the 1950s were carried away by nationalistic feelings. So English was badly taught in Sri Lanka, for a long time. As he put it once, village children in Sri Lanka got a daily dose of mutilated English.
What does he have to say as an educator about education
in Sri Lanka in general?
In the interview with me - that was a couple of years
ago - he said he could speak with Some knowledge rather
than with some authority, but his opinions were quite strong. I asked him to comment on the major transformations in education in Sri Lanka in his time. 'Il quote him again: "Frankly, I don't think there have been any changes in education which could be chalked up as achievements. . . There are many more children receiving education. More Schools. More children. . . But qualitywise I don't think there has been any improvement.' He added that what we call free education here is not truly free education because it isn't tied to a means test. Therefore, poor children have a difficult time completing their
education.
Has De Lanerolle published much on education in Sri Lanka? How does he define education?
Let me give only a Couple of examples. In 1979 he published an essay entitled "Towards Relevance in Education" that gives a good idea of his basic philosophy of education. Ouoting again: ". . . if a School were structured and treated like a home, the demon of indiscipline would recede, for it cannot thrive in a climate of hard work, cooperation and commitment.' In Arinces in A// the Aarth, which was published more recently, he wrote something similar: "If only the confrontation between adult and child could be broken, if only adult and child could face the future

together, through renewed family life, through schools which are homes of love and concern, and similar structures of comradeship, then their respective human rights will Complement each other and Sri Lanka will have a fair chance of developing a life style that is the envy of all."
You say De Lanerolle referred to the need for the 'good teaching' of English as a second language in Sri Lanka. What is your own thinking on the use of English?
Let me remind you of what I said before. Only a small percentage of our people know how to use English for effective communication. This is a fact. But there is a fear in some quarters that English has brought in a cultural colonialism that is upsetting all our cherished values. But take journalism. Except for the elite few who can read English, the vast majority of the people in this country depend largely on their mother tongue newspapers. Divaina, Davasa, Dinamina, Riviresa, Sri Lankadipa, to name a few. In my opinion, one result of this is that issues are getting Confused, getting Coloured. And, again in my opinion, this is responsible for the continuation of unsolved national questions here. At the same time, to answer your question, a large number of people here are studying English. Despite selfish politicians who decry the use of English but who send their children abroad to give them the best education available - in English. But, yes, particularly the young people are eager to learn such a useful language.
What do you mean when you say issues are being Confused or Coloured?
I'm referring to mother tongue journalism. A lack of a high standard of balanced political consciousness. A lack of understanding of issues. A lack of objectivity. A kind of nationalistic mindedness emanates from the indigenous language newspapers. English is often in contrast with this. Anyway, although English is taught in many Schools here, it is an optional subject, an elective
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subject. Students, particularly those in the rural areas, find it difficult to assimilate the universality found in the
English language. I'm not saying that the idiom of Sinhala
or Tamil is parochial. No. But I think they fall short of assuming a world view. To repeat: they stress a nationalistic character rather than an international one.
Can you give one example of the nationalistic mindedness you're talking about?
Well, my friends who are knowledgeable people from the Sinhalese community point out that the Sinhala newspapers concentrate on the theory that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese and the Sinhalese alone and that the other "races' are alien to this Country. They are interested in fostering Sinhala and Buddhist culture only. They are less interested in World affairs. These newspapers keep the people less informed of what is happening in other parts of the world in politics or culture and so on. This is to keep the people believe in the theory of the superiority of the Sinhalese culture.
To go back to what you call effective communication, how effective do you think English education is in Sri Lanka?
As i've suggested, learning English in high schools here, say, has its own problems. As far as university education is concerned, teaching English as a second Inguage has been a perennial problem here. Professor A. J. Gunawardene points out that the universities here have been turning out graduates who, despite years of instruction can neither write nor Speak English effectively.
Would you please identify Professor Gunawardene?
He's presently the Director of the Institute of Aesthetic Studies at the University of Kelaniya. He used to be the head of the Department of English at the University of Sri Jayawardenapura. He started his career as a journalist

with the Ceylon Daily News. He wrote a literary columnArts and Letters - under the pen name Rasika. He has a Ph. D. from an American university. Some time ago he edited a special edition of the Tulane Drama Review featuring Asian theatre. He now writes for The Islanda column called "Marginal Comments" - under the penname Jayadeva. He's also written film scripts in Sinhala, including the one for Baddegama, the Sinhala film based on Leonard Woolf's The Village in the Jungle. By the way, Gunawardene's wife Trellicia is a stage and film actress.
Backing up a bit, 'effective" and "effectively" are matters of definition, but does Professor Gunawardene offer an explanation of this inadequacy?
Well, he points out that teaching a second language to adult learners, university students in this case, is very difficult. He says it's Sometimes frustrating. He wrote an article about this, by the way, in The Island last summer. One point he makes is that by the time they get to the university, students' language habits are already fixed in their mother tongues. They are not familiar enough with English, but they are expected to apply English actively in the gathering of knowledge while they are still trying to acquire basic communicative skills. The point is that English is not a cram Subject. To acquire it you need regular and consistent practice. I think one way to help the young learner here is to make English a compulsory subject in both primary and secondary Schools.
It's interesting to me that there's still So much discussion of this topic in Sri Lanka.
Yes. As a matter of fact, we recently had a big international Conference here on English language teaching in universities. Sponsored by the United States information Agency, the Asia Foundation, and our University Grants Commission, covered the story for "The Island." The main theme of the conference was Teaching Techniques That Work."
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Who were some of the participants? what did they say?
From your country, there was Linda Hillman. She's the chief co-ordinator of E. S. L. courses at De Paul University
in Chicago. She's also a special consultant for the Orien
tation Program of the Asia Foundation. She stayed in the island for almost six weeks helping the English Language
Teachers' Unit.
From Sri Lanka, the head of the E. L.T. U., Mrs. Lalitha Gunawardena from the University of Peradeniya, was there.
So was Dr. Stanley Kalpage, the former chairman of the
University Grants Commission. He's the Sri Lanka High Commissioner in India now. Others participating were Mrs. Sarojini Knight of the E. L. T. U. at Peradeniya, and Mrs. Trellicia Gunawardena from the Institute of Aesthetic Studies. I mentioned earlier that she is also an actress.
What were some of the topics discussed at the meeting?
: Audio-visual aids in the teaching of English for science
and technology, for example. The conference was divided into two groups, you see. Arts and Humanities. And Science and Technology. So, communication activities
in the teaching of English for science and technology
students and agriculture and medical students. That sort of thing. In Humanities: Communication compe
tence in real life situations, and so on.
Were there any talks at the conference that especially
interested you?
Yes, of course. The first that comes to mind is Sarojini
"I Knight's description of a technique of reading and note taking tried out at second year level in the Faculty of Arts
at Peradeniya. She identified the main problems of the
students: the inability to distinguish main points from supporting details in reading, and in writing notes in an organized manner. Mrs. Knight pointed out that many
students do not read much in their mother tongues, let

alone English. In school they have no training in taking notes. In fact, many teachers give summaries of their lectures to Students, who then lack motivation to read and make their own notes. One disturbing thing was the comment by Mrs. Lalitha Gunawardena, in another
talk, that in Sri Lanka we still have a lot of untrained teachers teaching English incorrectly.
incidentally, almost 95% of the English instructors in the universities here are women. May be that's because teaching English to adult students is a frustrating task.
Only the women have the patience to drill and guide the Students.
I'm interested in this kind of shop talk, of course, but, if you don't mind, I'm going to change the Subject again. One of the people you mentioned interviewing was James Rutnam. I understand he was a very distinguished man -
that is, he was active in many areas including politics, radical politics and archaeology.
Yes. As I've written about Dr. Rutnam, he was a legend of our times in Sri Lanka. Politician - a radical nationalist - and archaeologist, yes. He was given an award by our former President for distinguished service to archaeology in Sri Lanka. Also genealogist, historian, anthropologist, teacher. He was well over 80 years old when last met him at his residence. He was ill. He was rather frail. But he was still alert. He was the oldest surviring member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Ceylon. Thinking in terms of Survival, he was the last surviving candidate who contested the State Council general elections in 1931. In fact, he was the only surviving delegate to the Ceylon National Congress sessions held in 1926. He was a delegate of the Progressive Nationalist Party. You might say he was one of the angry young men of the 1920s in Sri Lanka. In 1929 he led a strike against the Lake House Group of newspapers. He was influenced by the strong nationalism of A. E. Goonesinha of the Ceylon Labour Union. And he was the only surviving
member of the Labour Party. That's now defunct too.
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Without going into all the details, would you mind giving us an idea of James Rutnam's way of thinking?
The details are important, you know. he called himself a progressive liberal humanist. He said he was a cosmopolitan at heart from his early years. As he put it, he went from tribalism to communalism to nationalism to internationalism to becoming a humanist. He said the life and thought of Thomas Henry Huxley and Bertrand Russell influenced his own.
Can you give the title of one of James Rutnam's books?
He didn't publish any books of his own, but he wrote extensively for newspapers and journals. He wrote in English, by the way. He'd done his research here and abroad - the British Museum, university libraries in the U.S.A. and in the U.S.S.R.
What was Dr. Rutnam's background?
He was born in Inuvil, in Jaffna. He had his early
education in the Tamil medium. His father was in business.
He was too for a short time, in the family's transportation business. Before that he did his secondary schooling at St. Joseph's College, Colombo, and at St. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia. He was a Christian, you see. Then he studied law, but he did not become a lawyer. Later - after leaving business - he became a teacher. He later became the Principal of St. Xavier's College in Nuwara Eliya. At Law College he had edited a journal. He won a prize for legal research. Not long before he passed away, the University of Jaffna conferred a doctorate in literature on him. At Thinnavely, on the premises of the University of Jaffna, he estblished the Evelyn Rutnam Institute of Inter-Cultural Relations. The Tamil motto of this institute is "Anbum Unmayum', 'Love and Truth. Evelyn was his wife. Evelyn Wijeratne. She's a Sinhalese. They met in church, fell in love, got married
and enjoyed a very happy life together until she died about

25 years ago. Incidentally, his son Chandran Rutnam is a film producer with an international reputation.
Earlier you said James Rutnam received a presidential award in archaeology. What was one of his main contributions to that field in Sri Lanka?
To put it simply, he resisted the prevailing interpretation of Sri Lankan Culture as existing only in Aryan-SinhalaBuddhist framework. In other words, he believed that Sri Lankan Culture cannot be extracted from Indo-centrism. Details are very important in this, of course, but we can say he resisted the interpretation that certain Buddhist remains in the North and East were Sinhalese relics. Another local journalist who also writes in English and Tamil, A. Theva Rajan, has put this succinctly: Most Sinhalese are Buddhists but Buddhism has no special attachment to Sinhalese.
Speaking of archaeology in Sri Lanka, remember reading that the University of Pennsylvania has done some excavation work in the Northern areas. I went to graduate school at Penn, So. . .
Perhaps that explains your interest in understanding aspects of our culture. Yes, as a matter of fact, the University of Pennsylvania Museum conducted the only systematic excavation at Kantharodai in Jaffna. That was one of the early settlements in the Jaffna Peninsula.
gather from your previous comments that like so much else in Sri Lanka these days even excavating early settlements has important contemporary repercussions.
It's important for us. As Dr. Ponnampalam Raghupathy has said - he's one of our leading Tamil archaeologists; he used to teach at the University of Jaffna; he was a pupil of Dr. Karthigesu Indrapala, who is now in Australia - the first inhabitants of this island probably migrated here across a land bridge that existed between north-western
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Ceylon and south-eastern Tamilnadu. in short, both Sinhalese and Tamil identities stem from a common cultural stratum in the distant past.
: Now, let's change the subject again. In discussing the
career of Sinhala actress Prema Ganegoda, Dr. Tissa Kariyawasam referred to numerous people and plays in the Sinhala theatre of the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, what has been going on in the Tamil theatre in Sri Lanka?
Let me confine my observations to the theatre l've personally seen in Colombo over the last twenty years or So. Frankly, I've lost my enthusiasm for the Tamil theatre here. There's hardly any creative dramatic activity here now. Many of the leading figures in Tamil theatre here have left Sri Lanka for greener pastures.
Henry Jayasena seemed to dislike the attitude of Sri Lankan professionals who left the country for better opportunities elsewhere. How do you feel about the Tamil theatre people leaving the country?
One cannot blame them. Neither our government nor foreign agencies have done much to help Tamil drama, people with scholarships for training or study visits abroad. Theatrically inclined Tamils have sought foreign jobs - in places like Sweden and Nigeria - in order to enlarge their experience.
Incidentally, in his interview with me some years ago, Henry Jayasena Said he was also disappointed with the local theatre World as it exists today. He used the word 'disenchanted'. In recent years, he said, organizers of plays who come to book a play of his do not seem to know anything about his plays. He says they don't know anything about plays in general. Or playwriters, either. Before they book plays, they don't see them. They don't treat writers as artistes should be treated. That's why Jayasena is cool toward our local Sinhala theatre. On the other hand, he's still enthusiastic about the possibilities

of televison. At the Rupavahini Corporation, anyway. At the time he was writing a 13-episode teleplay on the theme of ethnic harmony. He said he was trying to look at both sides here - Sinhalese and Tamils - without any prejudice. He wsa hoping the play could bring about some kind of sense and understanding. Reggie Siriwardene, another of our local playwrights, has recently written a play - his second - called Prometheus whose main theme is the relationship between rationality and emotion - a philosophical kind of drama - but it also touches on this theme of ethnic harmony.
To go back, can you give us a quick historical review of modern Tamil theatre in Sri Lanka? s
Yes. But first let me mention that Henry Jayasena recently directed excerpts from five plays, older ones, three of which he's associated with - at the Awards Presentation of the State Sinhala Drama Festival. So he's still doing theatre work.
In the 1950s there was a series of disheartening farces and Comedies. In the 1960s a series of historical romances, semi-classical themes. The types of plays I've seen in Colombo have been mainly these social dramas. Political orientation, you knovv. The concentration here is on problems of caste and class among the Tamil-speaking Community here. Of course, verse dramas still draw the attention of Some playgoers. And folk plays with folk dances and folk Songs have also been staged in Colombo. Also, as in the Sinhala theatre of the time, there were many translations and adaptations of foreign plays into Tamil. In the choice of foreign plays, too, the most important criterion was its Social relevance. In any case, these adaptations served a useful function in bringing American or European themes to the attention of Tamil theatre goers.
According to what I've been told, the Drama Society of the University of Peradeniya was quite important in the
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: English and Sinhala theatres here. Was there a similar
phenomenon in the Tamil theatre?
Yes, of course. Universities contributed toward the development of local Tamil drama. The university Tamil stage had been in existence for over fifty years. R. Sivanandan - he's a dramatist, an actor, and a poet - has even Written a book on that Subject. He pays special tribute to the Reverend Francis Kingbury and the late Swami Vipulananda as the pioneers of Tamil drama in the university. I mentioned Vipulananda before - the first Tamil professor in the University of Ceylon. And I've already mentioned the effort of Professor Subramaniam Vithiananthan to popularize traditional Tamil folk plays and to sophisticate them, so to speak. Sivanandan thinks that the outstanding Tamil plays produced by university people were Apasuram (Discordant Note) and Vilippu (Awakening) by N. Sunderalingam, and Kadoolyam (Rigorous imprisonment) and /ru Thuyarangal (Twin Sorrows) by R. Murugaiyan, who, by the way, is an assistant registrar at the University of Jaffna. He also writes in English occasionally. Sivanandan's own play Kalam Chivakkirathu (The Times Are Reddening) was also one of the best Tamil university
plays.
What kind of plays did the Tamil drama groups at universities do?
There too almost all the plays that commanded Serious attention were directly concerned with the lives and problems of common people. In terms of form they followed the realistic tradition. Naturalistic settings. Naturalistic dialogue. They gave us a fresh look at Tamil society in Sri Lanka. Not that they are in-depth looks into contemporary Tamil society. No. But they presented
at a fundamental level Some aspects of Tamil life in
Sri Lanka.
Would you describe some of these social dramas?

At random. Without critical consideration. To give an idea of what they're about. Sadliga/ //laiyadi Pappa (There are not Castes, My Little One) is about a high caste man spending the night in the house of a scavenger. Wambikkai (Hopes) rejects superstition. Rejects fear of ghosts and spirits. Malai (The Rains) is about a woman's Selfimposed mental illness. Conflict arising out of a guilt complex and woman's traditional inhibition. Koodi Vilajyadu Pappa (Join and Play, Little One) explores the Communal celebration of joys shared in common. The collective sharing of each other's pain. Thahuthi (Fitness) is about the decay of the old Social order in caste Society. Kalam Chivakkirathu says the old order will have to give way to a new socialistic Society. The collective Struggle of peasants to gain ownership of the land on which they've toiled so hard. Vilippu, suggested that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved by wire-pulling and going back to the village but only by a radical trnsformation of Society.
While we're on this topic of school drama, for your information, Dr. S. Maunaguru - he wrote a play called Sangaram (Destruction) - and Kulanthai M. Shanmugalingam have recently published a book of seven plays Staged by students at Chundikuli Girls College in Jaffna. Ezhu Wadakankas (Seven Plays). They're both in the Fine Arts Department of the University of Jaffna. Both are actors, too. Maunaguru also writes poetry and literary criticism. Shanmugalingam is also a director and playwright. One of the plays, Mathoru. Paham (Woman-an integral part) - there are four by Shanmugalingam - is written from the feminist point of view. Shanmugalingam's dialogue brings in all the traditional degrading viewpoints on women and then contemporary feminist views. The play drives home the theme that men and women are equal and have to jointly restructure the stystem into an equitable society. Did you know that Lord Siva is known as "Mathoru Pahan", one half male and one half female P
Another of Shanmugalingam's plays among these seven is Pullahi Maramahi. This title's from a Tamil devotional
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hymn about the evolution of humankind. You can translate it as 'From plant to Plant'. It's a staire. In Jaffna parents want their children to be professionals. Not necessarily as people educated in the humanities or liberal arts or fine arts. Professionals who make money. The students in the play challenge their parents. They demand the right to choose the course of study they want. Dr. Maunaguru's three plays in the book are all operatic ballets. One of them, Sari Pathi (Right Half), also says that by joining hands both men and women can remove the road blocks to progress.
While we're still on the Subject of theatre, let me ask about Sugathapala De Silva. Dr. Kariyawasam gave me some background information on him already, but earlier : you said you interviewed him a few years ago, so I wonder what you talked about.
Well, one of the interesting topics was De Silva's idea of total theatre. His main point was that modern theatre has returned to something like ritualistic theatre in which it includes all forms of theatrical entertainment - music, dance, mimicry, pantomime, absurdism, expressionism. In short, as he puts it, reality as opposed to realism. As for the purpose of theatre, he said theatre should not celebrate the accepted values of Society but should challenge them. He himself writes, he said, because he has something to say. What he writes is not preaching, but it can help people to think. He's not a Marxist, but he's a Socialist. He's a novelist too, you know, and his latest novel describes the last forty years of Social upheaval in Sri Lanka.
When I asked him about his work as a translator, playwright, director, actor, novelist - I asked him which of these roles was most important to him - he answered that although he's won prizes as a playwright and as a novelist he questions their importance. 'I'm really afraid when someone says I'm good," he said. That nn. kes him cautious and apprehensive. He tries to improve all the
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time. He also said he enjoyed producing plays but he's not satisfied with any of his productions so far. So you can see Sugathapala De Silva is rather modest. He tries to understand the World all the time, and now and then he tries to interpret it as he sees it. As for the details of his work, I guess Dr. Kariyawasam has filled you in on De Silvas career. v
You said that among the other theatre people you've interviewed, there was Ediriweera Sarachchandra. Many people in the arts in Sri Lanka praise him very highly. It was several years ago, but what did you and Sarachchandra talk about?
| met Professor Sarachchandra at his residence, in Pitakotte. We spoke about local culture in general and, of course, about Sinhala culture in particular - drama, fiction, poetry, criticism, films. He spoke warmly. With friendliness. And listening to him was a treat for me. He seemed to feel, as many do, that there has been a decline in the arts in Sri Lanka. He also pointed to a general decline in morals here. Mainly because of the iure of money. Crime. Prostitution. Gambling. Narcotics. Pornography. So many kinds of corruption The sale of children.
As for writing, Sarachchandra thought there were few new writers - good writers - coming up these days. No more than three or four good books a year, he said. He mentioned that the cost of publication has gone up. So have book prices. Many readers cannot afford to buy books. He also complained that the habit of reading is not encouraged in schools and that children do not read very much. He referred to the fact that the people in the higher stratum of society usually read books in English but seldom books in Sinhala.
Did Dr. Sarachchandra talk about his own work For example, Maname, which everybody says had a big influence on Sinhala theatre in the 50s and 60s?
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Yes, he referred to Maname in passing - its relationship to nadagama and folk drama - but he said more about his poetic drama Pemato Jayathi Soko (Lovels the Bringer of Sorrow). It's been performed over 100 times. He called it a kind of opera with songs set to music. He was proud, I think that it had been performed over 100
times. He said he'd like to write more operas like Pemato,
but he felt the present atmosphere in our society didn't permit him to do that. As for Maname, which he calls a lyric drama, he said before he wrote it he had done research in nadagama for a long time. He emphasized that nadagama owes its origin to Tamil Nattukoothu and Therukoothu which moved from Tamil areas to Sinhala areas here a long time ago, in the form of adaptations. All the music was purely of Tamil origin, though.
Did Sarachchandra say anything about other contemporary theatre people, Sugathapala De Silva, for example?
Well, yes, he pointed out that, while people flocked to the theatre to see Maname because of its indigenous style, its Buddhist Jataka story, its music that fascinated Sinhala
audiences, there was a movement against stylized drama.
A movement led by Sugathapala De Silva. I think you know that De Silva's argument was that modern themes could not be expressed in stylized drama. And the tendency was toward dialogue drama talking directly of present day realities. A very strong protest theatre. Incidentally, Sarachchandra said, De Silva was a great director. He also liked him as a playwright - along with Dayananda Gunawardana, Buddadasa Galapati, Bandula Jayawardana and Simon Navattegama. "
What was Sarachchandra's opinion about these social protest plays?
He said they're more sloganizing than real art. You See,
he thinks that theatre can be used for political purposes
but that such pays can never become permanent litera

ture. His point was that drama ultimately has to say Something about universal themes.
Y Then he himself has not written this kind of drama?
Oh, no. Before /Maname in the mid-50s, he wrote naturalistic plays. And he's written one recently with a contemporary theme based on what he called the 'Dubai Syndrome". Kirimuttiya Gange Giya, "The Milk Pot Went nown the River'. It's been performed at Sri Jayawardenapura University. But Sarachchandra's preference is for the aesthetic type of drama. Social theme - Social relevance. But it must be universalistic in appeal.
AS for Sinhala theatre today, he said it has become a money making concern. Producers are not interested in the quality of plays. Producers make a lot of money by providing entertainment. There's also a new class of playgoers today. Business people who like to be entertained. Laugh and go home, you know. They're not as Serious minded as earlier audiences were. They're certainly not discriminating in their tastes. They don't understand what drama is. Sarachchandra hopes that the State, will assist the development of local drama, as the National Theatre Trust used to do - selecting good plays and presenting them to the public at subsidized rates. He thought people would go to see good plays if the tickets weren't so expensive. He also thought it would be helpful if newspapers chose the right people to review plays. They shouldn't send people who know little or nothing about drama to review plays.
What does Sarachchandra think about Sinhala films these days?
He thinks that TV has practically replaced cinema. Soap operas are very popular. The tendency is to exploit sex.
Finally, and briefly again, what did Sarachchandra had to say about poetry and fiction and criticism?
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He said that poetry is not a flourishing art here these days, either. Although there's a lot of poetry published in newspapers. He liked the poems of Buddhadasa Galappathy and Ratnasiri Wijesinghe. He liked Sunil Ariyaratne as a lyricist. As for fiction in Sinhala, he referred to novelists Ranjit Dharmakirti and Kulasena Fonseka and a couple of others but he didn't go into any detail. On criticism, Sarachchandra was down on drama criticism, as I justmentioned. Low ebb, he said. Playgoers can't distinguish between good and bad, and the drama reviewers merely describe a play without offering critical analysis. As for academic critics, they're in their own vory tower. *Jawa
You've given us a good opportunity to change the Subject back to fiction. You say Sarachchandra referred to Kulasena Fonseka. You've interviewed him too, know, so please say something about him too.
Well, first of all, his full name is Wanniarachchige Kulasena Fonseka. He's in his mid fifties. He writes in Sinhala. He's a novelist and a short story writer and a TV script writer. He's won a couple of prizes for fiction. One for 5,000 rupes from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He also translates foreign fiction, short stories, into Sinhala. He started off in the printing department of the Colombo Municipality - he was a mono-typist - and then became a reporter for Radio Ceylon. That ws in the 60s. He rose up as a radio journalist, and now he's retired as the Sinhala Duty Editor in the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation's New Division. Interestingly, Fonseka is quite frank about this. I asked him whether his job helped him in the writing of fiction. He said that on the contrary his creative ability is being killed by his being a newsman. He said that newswriting killed the creative use of language. But, as you know by now, it's very difficult to be a full time creative writer in this country and earn a livelihood. Like Sarachchandra, he also Complained that a general deterioration in Sinhala culture has set in. As for his novels and stories, almost all of

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them end in tragedy. He doesn't have a romantic view of life. He thinks that life is tragic in reality. About writing, he said writing is a discipline. A writer has to work hard. It's the writer's responsibility to depict life as it is, but it's also his responsibility to help people become aware of the need to uplift the living conditions of the people. Particularly those of the urban working class. You see, in his fiction he's mainly interested in describing the actualities of the lives of the poor and oppressed in Sri Lankan society. Fonseka himself is an unassuming person.
This is a good chance for us to get back to writers in Sri Lanka who write fiction in Tamil. The novel, say?
That's fine. Well, earlier I told you about.P. M. Puniyameen, a Sri Lankan Muslim who writes in Tamil - about Wisalin Arumai (The Usefulness of Shade), a collection of his short stories about children that were originally boradoast over the Muslim service of the Sri Lanka Boradcasting Corporation. Wnted to mention that his first novel was recently published, in Madras. Its title is Adivanathu Olirvuhal (Sparks in the Horizon). It's mainly about certain general Cultural factors that affect the Moors . in our country. Particularly those living in the central region. In the novel Puniyameen describes these central region Moors as generally backward. They lack social consciousness. They lack political consciousness. They need employment. They also need educational facilities. One interesting aspect of the novel is a debate about the formation of a separate political party for the Moors in Sri Lanka. The novel Suggests that the time's not ripe yet for such a party. The main reason is that the Moors here are scattered all over the Country. They gain what
ever influence they have by being affiliated to the other
national policital parties.
The hero of Adivanathu Osirvuhal is a socially conscious university lecturer. He's interested in writing. Puniyameen is at his best when he depicts the encounters
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this man has with two women. The woman who loves him is a doctor. She's also interested in writing. At first the lecturer is slightly confused because of his infatuation with a younger Woman. But he begins to have a deeply understanding love affair with the older, more
mature woman.
: Earlier you talked about a Tamil woman short story writer
who was a medical student once. Does she also do novels? Kohila Mahendran?
Yes, Kohila Mahendran. As a matter of fact, I referred to her first novel. Thuyilum Oru Wa/ Kalaiyum (Even the
Slumber Will One Day Be Disturbed). It's also a love
story on the surface. But, more than that, a questioning of a woman's place in a male-dominated Society. AS
said before, the idea of revolt against hypocritical practices
is raised. Yes, Mahendran's most recent novel is about the danger of AIDS in Sri Lanka.
AIDS? But understand there have been only two cases of AIDS reported in Sri Lanka.
This novel is set in the future. In early 1991. It's title is Thoovanam Kavanam (Watch Out, it's Drizzling). Mahendran uses the stream of consciousness technique. The story is imaginary. That is, it takes place in the mind of the narrator, the mother of two daughters. Her name is Veena. She's a teacher. Her husband's an engineer. He married her even though she did not offer him a dowry. He's working in Saudi Arabia. There are two locales in the novel - Saudi Arbia and Jaffna. The narrator imagines her husband contacts AIDS in Saudi Arabia by having a sexual relationship with a male companion. The husband comes home to die. Kohila Mahendran
wants to warn us that people here may have to face not
only an ethnic war but also even an epidemic of AIDS, because of the worsening conditions here.
Another novel comes to mind because the novelist is a medical doctor in Bandarawela who referred to earlier too.

Pulolyoor K. Sathasivam. He hails from Jaffna. Pulolyoor is a village in the Jaffna peninsula. Wanayam, is his latest novel. It means 'Uprightness'. It's the story of a middle-class rural Tamil family in the Vadamaradchi region of Jaffna. Dr. Sathasivam seems to be stressing that honesty - uprightness - should be the criterion in judging a man's success. The novel starts with a wedding. Mangalam - She's the main female character - is educated in a leading School in Colombo. She prefers the Western life style there to that of her home town. She marries a Socially conscious psychiatrist. She really wanted to marry another man, a Colombo Chetty. But her father and brother broke up that affair and got her married to the psychiatrist for Social Status. She doesn't seem to like her husband. She's brought him a fat dowry, so she expects him to dance to her tune. Conflicts arise. Finally, she elopes with the Colombo Chetty Before that, though, her brother who is a spendthrift leads a very corrupt life, enters local politics. He gets involved in a murder. He ruins the family and runs away. He dies pathetically. No one at his bedside. This may not be a major novel, but one of its welcome features is the way Sathasivam captures the rural flavour. Regional nuances. The rural idiom.
Sathasivam was a doctor in a plantation area, and, through his first hand experience living in the estates, he knows the rural areas quite Well. And he has another novel on the lives of Tamil-speaking plantation workers. It's called Moodathinulle. In the Mist", in English. It's set in an estate in the Uva province. You could say that in sub-human surroundings Some people learn about the human condition - its positive possibilities. Young men and women who believe in human rights and Social justiceand conditioned by trade union discipline - safeguard themselves from all kinds of onslaughts. They ultimately realize that human understanding can transcend racial and class barriers. But the sordid details of plantation life have been recounted in most Tamil fiction here. I've already referred to K. Ganesh and C. V. Velupillai and
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Anthony Jeeva. Some of the Tamil writers of the socalled immediate Indian origin.
The Tamils who work on plantations in Sri Lanka seem to be in a precarious situation.
When racism periodically runs high in this country, they are the main victims. Strangely enough. They originally came here from Tamilnadu as poorly paid labourers during the coffee plantation era under the British. They were exploited to the full in the building up of the British crop economy. Even now, under the State plantation sector, their conditions haven't improved very much. say strangely enough because the main reason for singling out these poor Tamils of recent Indian origin seems to be that they are considered a threat to the uplift of the Kandyan and up Country areas. The situation is so bad that in the eagerness to have everything mono-racial in this country the inhuman beasts among us take revenge on the hapless estate people whose only fault is that they are Tamil Speaking.
As for the fiction written about their, plight, basically all of the stories speak of their sub-human standard of living. How they're exploited by the estate bureaucracy. How hard they have to toil. How their women are sexually assaulted even if they're considered Kallathonis - social outcastes.
How about other doctors in Tamil fiction?
Yes. There's Kamala Thambirajah's novel - her secondWan Oru Anathaf (I'm An Orphan). I've already mentioned her first novel. Unakkahave Walkiraen (I Live for You Alone). An exotic romance involving a Pakistani and a Lankan Tamil. In Wan Oru Anathai - to come back to your Suggestion - Vidhya - that's Thambirajah's pen-name - has a Tamil woman doctor as her heroine. She's attached to a nursing home in Colombo. She's the product of a semi-feudal family in Jaffna. Her father

is of a somewhat lower caste than her mother. He has to struggle to exist in the caste dominated Society in the north. The woman doctor - she's a spinster - gradually moves into high Society in Colombo. She's orthodox in behaviour, but she's a free woman capable of making her own decisions. Not necessarily as a Tamil woman but as an intelligent enlightened woman.
Then Orphan is also a Social consciousness novel like many you've referred to ?
Not exactly. Narayani - that's the heroine - Narayani's problem is more psychological than Social. It's a romance that ends in tragedy. Three men cross Narayani's path. She willingly Submits to one who loves her deeply. He's an orphan, too. (Her parents were killed in an automobile accident after she completed her medical training.) He's an engineer by profession. The irony is that before their relationship can be legalized, Narayani also dies in an accident. There's more to the Story - her own brother calls her a loose woman, and her friendship with another man makes the engineer Suspicious. But what's refreshing is that Kamala Thambirajah has selected Colombo as the locale and portrays the life style of middle class or upper middle class people. Reading most of the time about the hardships of the proletariat only tires most readers. And, after all, bourgeois life also needs to be treated in fiction.
Does this Orphan novel appeal to Tamil women readers?
I think it does. Because Thambirajah shows an awareness of the changing values of many Tamil women. She suggests that the conventional Tamil woman is getting harder to find in Society now. Neither, in Sri Lanka nor in Tamilnadu. And that's the impression I get too reading Tamil fiction. Most women these days are challenging male chauvinism.
Earlier you also said Kamala Thambirajah was an actress as well as a writer. She played in the Tamil film Ponmani
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(Beads of Gold). Would you mind going a little more into her background?
She's worked at the Rupavahini Corporation as a producer of children's programmes. She also reads news in Tamil over the TV and the radio. She graduated from the University of Peradeniya. She worked as a journalist for the Virakesari Publishing Company. That's the publisher of Wan Oru Anathai. She was a press officer in the government's information Department. She worked in the Maldives. A public relations officer for the Iranian Embassy in Colombo, too. She played the main role in Ponmani. Kavaloor Rasadurai was the screenwriter. The director was Dharmasena Pathiraja.
The Maldives. It's not related to our theme of aspects of culture in Sri Lanka, but. . . .
I'm not an expert on the Maldives But, if you're really interested in the Maldives, I did read a book, The Wew Maldives that can tell you about. The writer used to be the Royal Neplalese Consul General in Sri Lanka. Now he's a citizen of Sri Lanka. A Justice of the Peace. He is Dr. Subash Chawla. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Delhi. He's a Punjabi Hindu. He was born in the mid-1930s in Rawalpindi. He's the head of a sports goods company, in Colombo. His doctoral dissertation was on the sports goods industry. He also has an M.A. in Retailing from the University of Pittsburgh. He's also an industrial and marketing consultant here.
As for what he says about the Maldives, it's impossible to sum it up briefly. The book's an account of the history of the Maldives. The land and its people, you know. The constitutional history of the Republic. The economy. Education. It's rather comprehensive. But it's not too long, and it has colour photographs and maps and charts.
Did anything in Dr. Subash Chawla's book on the Maldives strike you as a cultural journalist?

Yes. But, as I said, I'm not an expert on the Maldives. What interested me most was the claim that the Maldivian people - they're almost all Sunni Muslims - inherited at least part of their civilization from India. Dr. Chawla thinks that the original settlers were Hindus. That was 3500 years ago. He thinks - the Maldivians' language, Dhivehi - is based on Ely, an offshoot of Sanskrit. Chawla says Dhivehi has a strong affinity to Hindi. He thinks that Islam came to the Maldives only around 1150 A.D. In the pre-Muslim days the local people were the Redi. And then the Hoin. According to Chawla there were Tamil predecessors among the pre-Dhivehi speaking people of Giravaru Island. These people were called Tamila. Be all this as it may, Chawla Substantiates his views by reference to the discovery of a Phallus Temple in Nilandu with many Shivalingam, and a coral slab in the National Museum in Male. There are some hieroglyphic characters on the slab that he says resemble the pre-historic script of the Indus valley civilization that flourished on the banks of the Indus River over 3500 years ago. On the other hand, he admits that the Maldivians are more similar to the Indo-Gangetic people than to the people of the Indus Valley.
Let's come back to our own mainstream. The name Muslim allows me to ask you again about Sri Lankan novels written in Tamil by Muslims or Moors as you call them there. You've mentioned a couple, of course, but are
there others you've liked?
There's one readable one that comes to mind. Charithiram Thodarkirathu. It doesn't give full artistic satisfaction, may be, but it's welcome in its depiction of the lives of Muslims in the Kalmunai district. You can translate the title as History Continues. It's the second novel of M. P. Muhammed Jaleel. It's set in Kalmunai, as I said, and all the characters are Muslims. it's about a widow who tries to continue the good work begun by her late husband - a doctor and active Social worker - but who
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meets opposition from her parents - and from her brother in-law who she thinks was responsible at least indirectly for her husband's untimely death. Her parents oppose her doing social work because they think she is behaving in a way not in keeping with the traditions of Muslim women. Her father even burns down a cottage she started to promote the Spinning and Weaving industry in Kalmunai. The novel ends on a tragic note when this Muslim widow kills her two children and herself. The main theme of the novel is that often the good intentions of socially conscious people are thwarted. The odds are against them. The main villain here is the wicked brother-in-law. Critically speaking the novelist's enthusiasm for ideas leaves the characterization flat. Most of the
characters are vehicles for Jaleel to peg ideas on. Their
inner feelings and thoughts are seldom expressed either in monologue or dialogue. As for the dialogue, it's not
colloquial. And it's not intrinsically the Tamil idiom of
the Muslim community in Kalmunai. A realistic flavour is
missing. Somehow it fails to ring true. But as I say it's
readable.
Earlier you referred to what Ediriweera Sarachchandra called the Dubai Complex. Are there many Tamil novels on this theme? I
There are a few. Nellai K. Peran has published one-really a novella-called Vimanangal Meendum Varum. That's 'Planes Will Come Again. The airplanes in the title are those that take loadsful of human cargo from Sri Lanka to the Gulf States where they're employed as manual labourers, often in very unfavourable conditions. In this case, the main character works as a labourer in Kuwait. Nellai K. Peran seems to be saying that industrious young Tamils from Jaffna will continue going to alien lands to work so that their sisters are married with dowries. Peran is a postmaster. On officia leave he himself worked in the Middle East. He's had experience in journalishm, and the novella is written more like reportage than fiction. Vimanangal Meendum Varum is about Shankar, a Jaffna Tamil youth

of lower middle class origins. Like many Tamil young men in the feudalistic set up remaining in Jaffna he goes to the Middle East a couple of times to earn money for the dowries of his three sisters. Family obligations, you know. He's a man of character and responsibility. But not all those who go out there to earn money are so good. Some become corrupt. One big irony that Peran plays on in the novel is that people in Jaffna who are so proud of caste 'superiority' do not know their own children working in Gulf States do jobs that so-called low caste people do in Jaffna. Also Shankar is something of a progressive. So, when he learns that one of his sisters is in love with a young fellow whose caste is a shade lower than hers, he feels happy but also indignant that his own family are still so caste conscious.
Nellai K. Peran has written other novels. One is Valaivuhalum Wer Koduthafum (Curves and Straight Lines). He's also published short stories. Oru Patta dari Wesavukkup Pohira/ (A Woman Graduate Goes for Weaving). One of his stories, 'When Truth Gets Accumulated, narrates the experiences of Lankans employed on a ship in the Persian Gulf. Dubai Syndrome again. Peran writes in naturalistic style. Usually he tries to convey the contradictions in contemporary life in Jaffna. It Will Die Slowly shows how caste conscious people in Jaffna are gradually facing realities and slowly changing their views. "Children' shows how the fear psychosis now prevalent in Jaffna is eating into the psyches of the children there. Some of his stories are psychological. 'Sigh' describes the turn of events in the life of an arrogant girl who realizes later in life that she has missed the bus by her superiority complex.
And mentioning Kalmunai reminded me of Udayapра Manickam Varatharajah, who happens to be from Kalmunai. From Pandiruppu. His father was from Tamilnadu and his mothor is a Sri Lankan Tamil. Varatharajah used to be on the editorial board of aittle magazine called 'Viewham'. Actually, he's the manager of a sewing machine factory.
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The book of his I'm thinking about is U// Mana Yathirai (A Mental Pilgrimage). It's a collection of thirteen of his short stories. We talked about film a little while ago, and most of his stories could easily be made into short films. or telefilms. The stories are clever expositions of falsehoods, vanities, and charlatanism. Most of them depict conflicts he has encountered in his own life, I think. The main characters are not alienated, and they manage to accept realities.
You've taken us well into short stories written in Tamil in Sri Lanka, So why don't you just continue bringing in the writers you'd care to.
Yes, let's do that. The name Pulolyoor reminded me of another Tamil short Story Writer, anyway. Pulolyoor A. Ratnavellon. I've already told you about Kohila Mahendran. She and A. Ratnavellon have jointly published
a collection of their short stories. Arimuga Viza (The
Opening Ceremony). In fact, they've jointly written one of the stories. He did the first part, she did the second part. The title story. The story centers around the question of whether a newly married woman should tell her husband about all her previous infatuations. Shouldn't there be a kind of privacy even in marital intimacy? In Ratnavellon's part, written from a male adolescent point of view, the husband should know everything about his wife. After marriage they shouldn't keep any secrets from each other. Ratnavellon's tone is typical of pulp romances. Anyway, the story pauses when the husband who is waiting for his wife to come home discovers something of her untold past. Ratnavellon Successfully depicts the expectations of an inexperienced young man at this point. Then Mahendran picks up the story. She continues it and concludes it on a constructive note. The woman in a man's life can be a creative source. Shakthi. The wife assures the husband that though she had some kind of affair before marriage she is faithful to him now. She had not considered her 'passing phases' as serious

enough to be told to her husband. Most of all, as an individual, she has the right to withhold from him anything she thinks is trivial. She comforts him with her gentle touch. He becomes assured. Mahendran's kind of stance is quite new in local Tamil fiction.
Kohila Mahendran has also published Muranpadugalin Aruvadai (Harvest of Conflicts). In one story - there are fourteen in this collection - she describes the attitudes of different generations regarding property in conjugal relationships. The pathetic feelings of a woman caught in the conflict both as wife and mother. In another story, a man promises to marry a woman but deceives her. Both are Muslims. The woman remains a spinster. Then the man pleads with her to marry him and look after his sick wife and child. She refuses. Mahendran again avoids sentimentalism and expresses a view new to present day Muslim woman in Sri Lanka. A Muslim man, by the way, may have more than one wife. W,
Before you continue, let me ask you a question about the teaching of Tamil literature in schools in Sri Lanka.
have the feeling that out-moded methods of teaching Tamil literature have dulled the sensitivities of many students in our Schools. Dulled their critical acumen. I say this because in conversations with many teachers have often found they consider literature as something remote. Something inviolable, you knoW. Meant only to be admired and not critically evaluated. This attitude is a residue of the medieval commentarial tradition. Frankly in many instances teachers don't seem to know their purpose in teaching literature. They're clearly ignorant of critical standards as we know them today.
I guess that answers my question. To go on, you've been reforring mostly to Sri Lankan Tamil writers who seem to bo fairly well known. How about at least one who is not so woll known but who interests you ?
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A Comparatively unknown writer, K. Thanikasalam. He's a compositor in a printing company in Jaffna. The National Arts and Literature Association published his Pirambadi
(Caning), a collection of short stories. Thanikasalam
has had some kind of Marxist education, and his stories are somewhat analytical. Those in this collection were originally published in Thayaham', a Tamil literary magazine
in Jaffna. They're among the most representative writings
focusing on the wretched life of the average Tamil people in the North during the past few years. The stories - Such as 'Towards the South' - are realistic portraits of the people who because of class and caste, encounter unbearable difficulties. 'A Road is Being Opened', tells how all the people in a hamlet get together and ConStruct a needed road against the wishes of a few of their oppressors. "Relationship is Coming To Be Felt", concerns the transcendence of racial animosities and the communication of the feeling of brotherhood. Similarly, 'Sons of the Land' describes how Sri Lankans who belong
to different ethnic groups travel together abroad and develop comradeship. v
On this last theme, the title story of A. Santhan's /nnoru Ven Iravu (Another White Night) is about four people who meet at a restaurant in Russia. A Tunisian, a Tamil girl from Tamilnadu, and a Tamil boy and a Sinhalese girl from Lanka. They have tea together. Georgia tea. The Tamilnadu girl says "Georgia tea cannot come close to our tea' - Tamilnadu tea, that is. For her the best tea in the world is Indian tea. But both the Sri Lankans - Sinhalese and Tamil - ask at the same time: 'What
are you saying?' In a foreign country both Sinhalese and Tamil speak as one. Sri Lankans consider Ceylon tea to be the best in the World.
You mentioned Santhan earlier too. What's his background?
He's in his 40s. He graduated from Katubedde Technical College. He worked as a draughtsman for the government for over fifteen years. Now he's an instructor

in a technical education School in Jaffna. As Innoru Ven 1ravu suggests, Santhan's rather international in thinking. In the early 60s he won an all-island Tamil essay contest on the Subject of peace, World peace. A little later he got a consolation prize in an English essay contest sponsored by a journal in Czechoslovakia. He's participated in a Russian language teachers' workshop in Lumumba University in the U.S.S.R. Also in a training course for teachnical education for teachers, in Moscow. One of his books, Oli Sirantha Wattilae (in a Country with Brightness) is a travelogue on the Soviet Union. Some of his Tamil stories have been translated into English and published in journals like the Illustrated Weekly of India.
You mentioned a Muslim Woman character in Kokila Mahendran's story in Harvests of Conflict. How about another Sri Lankan Muslim woman writer writing in Tamil?
Sulaima A. Samee. She's from Dharga Town. She began Writing in the 70s. On Tamil radio she presents the Muslim Women's magazine programme. She's also a trained teacher of the blind. She writes articles, poems, short Stories, plays, criticism - for local newspapers and magazines. She's Won prizes in all-island short story competitions. Her most recent book is Mana Chumaikal in Tamil. In English, Burdens of the Mind". It's a collection of ten short stories. Almost all of them pinpoint Social disparities, Corruption and other evils. Her style is simple and direct. Her characters are all ordinary people. They're all Muslims. Samee tries to show that a lot of these people are 'cripples' of the mind. It takes a long time for them to see other people and things as a whole. Perhaps the most interesting story in this collection is one on a deceitful marriage. A wife is unfaithful to her husband. She is also jealous of a woman, who is a neighbour. So she spreads false rumours about her and Spoils the young Woman's opportunity for marriage. Then the husband discovers his wife's illicit sexual behaviour. He divorces her. He gets married to the young woman.
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A lot of the stories in Mana Chumaika/ deal with ironical situations. In one, showy people mistreat a helpless old beggar. They drive him to his death. Then they bear his funeral expenses to earn good names for themselves in society in another Story, Samee has a man Suddenly die. He's the father of four children and looked after his own family very well - and the members of his wife's family too. At his funeral these relatives promise to take care of his widow and children. Actually, they hate spending 40 rupees a month on her. They tell her that directly. Then the widow's own mother suggests that she, the widow, go to Dubai - Dubai Complex again - and earn enough money for herself and her children. The power of money is shown in another story too. A philanthropic businessman fails in his own business. But even when he goes down in life he remains basically human. For example, he has helped a young man come up in life. The young man is grateful. Even when the young man's leg is amputated, the kindly businessman offers him one of his daughters to be his wife. But the young man's parents - they had been poor but had become prosperous because of their Son's earnings in the Middle East acquire an attitude of Superiority toward the once wellto-do man who had helped their son.
The main theme in most of these stories by Sulaima Samee is 'cripples of the mind', as said. But amputation and other physical handicaps come up again. In another story, two pen pals fall in love. One day they meet. The boy finds out the girl has a slight limp. He tells her he cannot marry her because of her "handicap". The girl is very hurt, of course, and she tells him that Some day he will have to suffer for his cruel behviour. Then she gets married to another man, her cousin, and she bears children. Then the boy meets with an accident and one of his legs is amputated. He writes a latter to his former pen pal and apologizes for his bad behaviour. Here Samee underpins
belated realization of folly - and retribution. Another
Story in this same collection of hers deals with the conflict

between traditional Muslims and converted Muslims. A man runs a barber salon in Alutgama. When he is thirty five years old he converts to Islam. But he is considered an outcaste by the rest of the Muslims in that area. Then a progressive thinking young man from the upper echelons of the Moor community there comes forward to marry the barber's daughter. He succeeds in changing the attitudes of his conservative parents for the better. −
From what you say there are many Tamil women writers too pursuing similar themes - changing attitudes for the social better.
Yes, but aside from the ones I've already mentioned, there's also Kavitha. That's the pen name of Nageswari Kanapathipillai. She's a teacher at Akkaraipattu. She's married to an attorney at law who's also a politician and writer. Segu Issadeen. He uses the pen name of Vedanti. Kavitha's most recent collection of Short stories is called Yuganga/ Kanakkila (Epochs Are Uncountable). Actually, Kavitha has a bias toward traditional Tamilian concepts of womanhood. In "Waer Kodu" (Straight Line) she has a Tamil father and a Burgher mother who pull in different directions to make their daughter adopt their respective customs. The daughter leans towards her father's Tamilian way of life. And in the title story Kavitha suggests that even among the present generation of young women feminists can be as tender as has been idealized. Her characters are mostly women. They're idealists trying hard to adjust their lives to opposing environments and situations. In short, her women characters attune themselves to realities without sacrificing their noble character traits.
As far as changing for the better, I mentioned Kopay Sivam - that's the pen name of P. Sivanandasarma, a draughtsman in the Irrigation Department - has a story - the title story in Wiyayamana Poruttangal (Justifiable Struggles) - about a Brahmin grandmother who challenges
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the hypocrisy of her own people who castigate a family, in their own circle for marrying outside their caste. In a similar story "Oru Marana Urvalam Purapadda Pohirathu' (A Funeral Procession is about to Start), orthodoxy in funeral rites is shown as meaningless when those insisting on Such formalities cannot help to get the daughter of a Brahmin man married because they disowned him long ago for marrying outside their caste.
Kopay Sivam often writes about his own class of people - Brahmins in the local Tamil community. Despite the conservative social milieu from which his characters are drawn, he succeeds in expressing a progressive point of view. In this same book, Sivanandasarma has a rather unusual love story interpreting the woman charatcter as a person growing mature in this changing Society. "Nilalhulum Nijanggalum' (Shadows and Realities). It's about a kind of love between two young people who cannot make up their minds to declare their love to each other. Being educated they both analyze their own sentiments. and reactions, and so hesitate. Then, surprisingly contrary to expectations, the girl, devoid of any sentimental feeling, chooses to marry somebody else, and it is the boy who suffers.
Before we go on. . . You've been kind enough to teach me a few words in Tamil - I don't remember all the Words in the titles you translated for me ! - kathaiha/ for stories and ciru kathaiha/ for short storis and navalhas for novels.
May ask you the Tamil words for poetry and poet, book and literature ?
Literature is illakkiyam. Book is puttakam. Kaaviyam is epic poetry. Poetry is Kavithai. Poet is Kavignan. And - chauvinistic traditions : poetess is penn kavi. Penn is female. Then, to end this lesson in the Tamil language - and this part of our interview - how do you say peace in. Tami?
Yes, let's hope for peace here and every where. Amaithi

R
PART - V
Let's go back, briefly at least, to poetry. As you know, I've had the pleasure of meeting Heather Loyola, a Sri Lankan Tamil woman who writes poetry in English. Is there any other local Tamil writing poetry in English?
Of Course. You know, Jegatheeswari Nagendran writes poetry in English. So does C. V. Velupillai, who's also done fiction in English, like S. l. Francis and Rajah Proctor who do short stories. You've met Francis, of course. Anyway, take John Regis. He has an unusual name for a Sri Lankan. He's a Christian from Kerala who settled down here. He's a journalist writing for Virakesari. He used to write a column on local affairs; he's planning to put out a collection of Some of his interviews with local politicians. A few years ago he published The Magic of Life, a collection of fifteen of his English verses. Most of them were illustrated by Sketches. Most of the verses, unfortunately, read like mere narratives of events or incidents. The poetic Sensibility is lacking - you know, feeling, thought, freshness, evocativeness. But at least Regis is not pretentious. He speaks directly. "The Blast of a Closed System" is quite explicit that a closed society such as that in the U.S.S.R. cannot stand the pressure of the communication explosion. The system has to crack. Another verse seems to me to be inspired by a poem of Subramania Bharathi, the Indian poet mentioned earlier. "Eththanai Koadi Inbam Padaithai raiva". Regis's title is "Magic of the Morning". The theme is the need of the hour is not a revolution, not a change in Structure, but a
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change of heart to build a better world. Earlier you asked me the Tamil word for peace and one of the Striking poems in this collection is a peace poem called, 'The Enlightenment". Regis says the architects of acceleration dream of a new civilization, the Mahaveli civilization.
The Mahaveli is our longest river. A diversion scheme was accelerated in 1977. A massive multi-purpose scheme - irrigation, electricity. lt was accelerated with large amounts of foreign aid. There's human settlement along irrigable land. Villages evolve. So a new
civilization arises. The furture belongs to those who dare and act. Distrust is a venom that poisons the flowers of peace. The crying need of the hour is understanding on all sides. Peace and justice go hand in hand... nor can we have peace by force. Let peace dawn on my country and the world over. This is very prosy, but Regis does have a few good lines. 'Truth flashed in effulgent splendour. Life is a dewdrop on a blade of grass.' Of course, this too was inspired by another Tamil poem.
Again, then, how about another Sri Lankan Muslim who writes poetry in Tamil?
Anbu Mohideen. Mathulam Muththukka/. It was also published a few years ago. Mohideen is from the Ampara district. The book was published in Kandy, though, in Galahinna, by Thamil Manram, which is headed by S. M. Haniffa, the attorney who used to be a journalist who referred to before. The theme of most of the peoms - there are 29 - is human relationship born out of compassion. The expression of feeling is spontaneous. The images are plausible. Mohideen's art is in his simplicity. Let me translate some of the lines I found refreshing. Like an unsaleable product on the street. No buyers. Women who have no dowry to give in marriage are compared to products that have no buyers. Like an object in an unlocked house. And especially this one: Fake poets, why have you come in rain, jumping over

fences? The insensitive aren't going to rise in anger by your songs to win over the world. Your coming isn't going to relieve the hardships of the pain-infested friends of ours. I'd say these poems are representative of the Tamil-speaking Muslim community's experience of everyday life in the Eastern part of the country.
Then how about a few other Sri Lankan Tamil men poets who write in Tamil?
Let's see. I've already told you a little about M. Balakrishnan's Wisabthamai Thoonguvathen? (Why Slumber in Silence?) But, I might translate a few of his lines too, to give you a better idea of his sensibility. In one poem, “Sita’s in a Land without Rama", he has some metaphors that are somewhat innovative in Tamil. Poems unadorned with flowers on the head. Poems without the music of conjugal love. Peahens without plumes of money. In another verse called "I'm Walking Back", he says his body "tunes itself to receive the heatwave of a dancing girl'
And did tell you about A. Yesurasa's poetry? I mentioned he was the editor of the Jaffna literary magazine "Alai' (The Wave). There's a collection of almost 50 of his poems called Ariyap Padathavarkal Winaivaha (in Memory of the Unknown). This is how Yesurasa describes Ruwanveliseya. Coning whitish curve filling the space. Curling helmet feeling gently the sky. Ruwanveliseya is a Buddhist shrine, a dagaba. It was built by an ancient Sinhala king. It's a large White dome-like structure. Testimony to the engineering capability of the ancients. In another poem, Yesurasa addresses the Kerala poet Sangam Puzai, who ended his life because of unrequited love. He says even though he lost in love he would live beyond death in resurrection. A few other poems speak of the uncertainties faced by the youth in Jaffna in recent times. Recently poetry has become a convenient vehicle to express the feeling of the younger
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Tamil generation caught up in an unprecedented age cf anxiety and agony.
Not only in the North. In A. Santhan's short story 'Aaraikal' there's a good description of fear and anxiety among the Tamil people living in Colombo shortly after the communal troubles of 1977. I'm going to go into detail so you can learn a lot about certain 'aspects' of our culture from this story. Krishna is a public servant. Newly married, he and his wife live in Colombo, in an annex. The landlord is also a Tamil. One day Krishna
and his wife have a lovers' quarrel. On the way to his
office he kicks up a row with the landlady. In the bus he meets a Tamil conductor, Siva, an old friend from the same village. Siva speaks Sinhala very fluently. And even when he knows some of the passengers are Tamils he speaks to them in Sinhala. This makes Krishna Curious. He asks Siva why he does this. Siva replies fear prevents him from speaking Tamil even to a fellow Tamil. It is best to avoid trouble. Krishna gets off the bus and meets Baddurdeen, a Muslim boutique keeper. Baddurdeen also speaks Sinhala and Tamil fluently. He greets Krishna in Tamil in a loud voice. Krishana wonders how it is that Baddurdeen can be so fearless when he and Siva fear being noticed as Tamils. In his office a majority of Krishna's colleagues speak with him in Sinhala.
They are all friendly with him. He's popular. He's the trade union leader in the office. On trade union business he goes to the head office. He meets some other Tamil public officers there. They are nice to him. One of
them has not spoken to Krishna before because he thinks Krishna belongs to a different caste. When they
learn that both of them belong to the same caste they have tea together. While he is waiting to meet the Head, Krishna spends the time reading a foreign English magazine. That's how the story ends. Santhan is trying to show the breakdown in personal communication here and its social causes.

'English magazine'. That reminds me of ''Channels'. It's a new quarterly here. Published by the English Writers' Cooperative of Sri Lanka. Anne Ranasinghe is on the Editorial Board, along with Rajiv Wijesinha, and Maureen Seneviratne, who edited its first issue. Besides Anne Ranasinghe, you know some of the other writers represented: Basil Fernando, Kamala Wijeratne, Jean Arasanayagam. What strikes me is that the contributors are among the important writers in the country. They use the English language. They've inherited a tradition of cross cultures. They're a little different from the writers here whose background is exclusively Sinhala or Tamil. Some of them, of course, have cross married, so to speak, married across ethnic lines, and this gives them a kind of cosmopolitanism. Many of them are women. Of course, all of then write within a Sri Lankan context.
Talking again about the problem to inter-communal Communication here, Tamils write mostly about Tamils and Sinhalese mostly about Sinhalese. Not only about them, but also for them. In my opinion, if it's to be truly Sri Lankan writing, writers from one Cultural background ought to write about the cultures of other Communities. We ought to learn more about each other here, to begin with.
Did you know that Some people have accused me of writing mostly about Tamil writers? But the strange thing here is that non-Tamils don't seem to know much about their fellow community. That's one reason tell the 'outside' world about what's happening on the local Tamil scene, the cultural scene. And I always welcome observations on Tamil cultural activities in my columns from non-Tamil speaking people.
And lot me finish this point of discussion by also refer ring to "Anarvana'. That's a Sinhala quarterly published by the Coordinating Secretariat for Plantation Areas. A
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recent issue had an interesting article by Gunasena Vithane, a Moscow wing Communist writer, on the duty of Sri Lanka's writers to write or behalf of ethnic unity here. Althony Jeeva contributed a piece on the Contribution of hill country writers to Lankan literature.
Now, to be quite fair, I should add that "Mavata", a Sinhala literary magazine recently dedicated a whole issue - its 46th - to Tamil literature in Sri Lanka. It was edited by Piyal Somaratne, a film and literary critic, S. Wijesuriya, a teacher interested in politics and the arts and Arthur P. Weerasena, a translator. This kind of issue is rather rare for Sinhala literary journals. must say, as I've said to you already, Tamil magazines like 'Mallikai" and 'Alai' are in the forefront when it comes to introducing Sinhala literature to their Tamil readers. Anyway, 'Mavata' (Highway), translated into Sinhala an article of mine dealing with local Tamil novels and novelists.
Now to get back to the question about poetry. Let me tell you a little about S. Sivasegaram. He used to be in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Peradeniya. He's a specialist in mechanical engineering. He's published two anthologies of his poems. Wathikarayil Moongif (Bamboo by the River Bank) and Seppanidda Padimangal (Polished images). He's also published his Tamil translations of Mao Tse Tung's poems and admits that his own poetry is politically motivated. I'll just give an idea of a few of his themes. The irony of an F.A.O. conference the delegates enjoy the lunch, and the dinner, but after the conference the poor consume the left-overs. The ultimate failure of counter-revolutionaries all over the world. The liberation of Trincomalee from racists of all types The indifference of a middle class individual with no time to spare for people in dire need. A puzzle that the almighty computer cannot answer. From all this you may assume Sivasegaram's a very cerebral poet. Actually, he's a sensitive writer. He's clever with words. His

poems are rich in imagery. He may even be one of our major Tamil poets in Sri Lanka.
Another poet I'd like to call your attention to is Kurinch Thennavan. He's been writing poetry in Tamil for over 30 years but his poems were published in book form only recently. Some of them were in the Vilippu anthology I've already commented on. The book is called Kurinchi Thenna vam Kavithaikas. Unusually, it's been translated into Sinhala and English. Thennavan himself is unusual among the writers of this country in that he did not have much formal education. Yet, his familiarity with poetic language is surprisingly goed. So is his ability to express ideas in a compact manner. Most of his poems - their tone is often pathetic - are descriptions of the actual hardships of the plantation workers in the hill country. Sometimes there's a kind of satire, biting satire. I've translated one of his short poems :
Those who didn't care for me Till yesterday
Cry dead and soul
Today.
Such a fund of affection After my being deceased Or is it for the Providend Fund?
The Providend Fund is a government institution. It's a savings scheme for non-government employees. They Collect at retirement.
Then let's go back again - to Tamil novels written in Sri Lanka. Are there others that you'd like to refer to ? Then we'll go into short stories again too. And some of your interviews with local people engaged in cultural activities.
How about love stories ? Meedhatha Veenai (The Unfiddled Veena). It's an impressive first novel by
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A.T. Nithiyananthan. Its theme of adolescent love is almost idyllic. Six young men and women - teenagers - in a northern village try to change the thinking of the village elders through the example of their own love and marriage. They're not altogether successful. One has to go a long way to change conservative thinking in Jaffna. Despite Some beneficial material changes, there are areas in Jaffna soceity where the basic orientation towards an engalitarian society is still lacking. A lot of our Tamil Writers deal
with this problem.
There's Arul Subramaniam's Wan Kedamadden (Won't Get Spoiled). A girl of 18 from a lower middle class family in Trincomalee is drawn into a pre-marital relationship with a boy younger than her. The boy seduces her. He's her cousin, the son of her aunt, her mother's sister. The gir gets pregnant. The boy stops visiting her. She tells her mother of her plight. Her conservative parents are stunned. The father of the girl approaches a doctor friend, but he refuses to perform an abortion. The girl is given pineapple acid to kill the foetus. Then the boy's mother is told. To make amends for her son's sins, she arranges a marriage for the girl with another man, an orphan who works in a mill. The couple live together happily. Then they happen to see 'Arangetram', a Tamil film in which the heroine takes to prostitution to support her family. The young wife is upset by this film because of her guilt complex. She confesses to her husband - she loves him deeply - about her affair with her cousin. He is shocked. At first he finds it hard to deal with. It takes then both a long time to wholly reconcile, which they do only after the young husband loses one of his legs in an accident in the mill. Almost like the young man in Sulaima Samee's Mana Chumaikal, il mentioned before. Anyway, in Wan Kedamadeen, Subramaniam shows his skill in the handling of subjects usually taboo in Tamil literature at the time. He's from Trincomalee. He was a clerk in a government department. He's goile abroad.

"Arangetram" literally means coming on the stage for the first time, the maiden effort, a debut. Here it metaphorically means deflowering. In the film the heroine is a Brahmin who takes up to prostitution to maintain a big family. K. Balachander wrote the story and directed the film. He's a slightly off beat film maker from Tamilnadu.
There's another Tamil novel dealing with love between cousins. Gnanarathan's Oomai Ulsanga/ (The Silent Hearts). Unrequited love is the main theme. Ever unexpressed love between two first cousins. Family responsibilities keep them apart. He has two sisters to marry off. So he needs a dowry, which his cousin, whom he loves, cannot provide. So to solve their financial problems, the boy marries a rich girl. She looks down on his people. She does not associate with her husband's relatives. The marriage breaks down. Later, though, she gives up her class consciousness. She leaves her parents and rejoins her husband. Meanwhile, the young woman cousin seeks employment to support her family. She has two younger sisters too. Re-employment, because she had Worked in a cooperative store but had had to give up her job because a fellow employee made advances to her.
One thing that interests me is that among all the novels you've mentioned, there hasn't been one that could be called an historical novel. Like, for example, A. V. Suraweera's one in Sinhala about he construction of Sigiriya in the 5th century. Or Colin de Silva's in English, The Winds of Sinhala, also set in ancient Ceylon.
Oh, of course, We have them. I'll give you one example. V. A. Rasaratnam's Krouncha Paravaigal. Now I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it's a readable historical romance. Actually, it's the first time that a Sri Lankan Tamil has interpreted the ancient history of Sri Lanka from a Marxian point of view. The novel's set in the period around 240 B.C., or a little earlier. The background
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is the reign of Suratissa, a Sinhala king, and the ascendancy of Sena and Guttaka, Tamil kings. Rasaratnam's protagonist - he's fictional, of course; his name is Bandula - thinks and acts as an anti-royalist would do now. He challenges the establishment by organizing a youth to force Suratissa to give up his religious mission - during this time more attention was given to building vihares and dagabasthan to developing agriculture - and to devote himself to agriculture and the welfare of the people. Rasaratnam sympathizes with his Bandula, but the novel ends with the failure of the youth movement and the tragic end of Bandula and his aristocratic lover, Prabha. The last sentence of the novel translates into English something like, 'The red blood of the youth who dreamt of independent villages turned the island of Ceylon into a riot of red'. Rasaratnam is a retired school principal. He writes short
stories and articles, too. His famous short story "Boat'
was one of the earliest Tamil stories to portray the way of life in Muthur, in the east coast, in realistic terms. Krouncha Paravaigal refers to an ancient eagle-like birdr
Santhan's story about a civil servant brought to mind this question. In your work as a cultural journalist do you ever have to deal with public officials?
Occasionally. Not so long ago I did an interview for The lsland with P. P. Devaraj. He's the Minister of State fo. Hindu Religious, Cultural and Tamil Affairs.
What did you speak about with him? What is his background?
Background first. Devaraj had his secondary education at St. Sylvester's Cillege, in Kandy. He graduated from the University of London. In the early 1950s he was active in the trade union movement here. In the C.W.C. - the
Ceylon Workers Congress. When S. Thondaman and A. Asiz, the Congress leaders, went their own ways, their separate. Ways, Devaraj divorced himself from active trade union work. He devoted himself to his own business

activities. In the '70s, though, he rejoined the C. W. C. he did some research concerning the development of the plantation sector. Now he represe its the C.W.C. on the National List. He did not have to contest an election. But as far as the Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka are concerned he has a key post. He seems to have a progressive outlook, anyway. Thondaman is the present head of the C.W.C. Aziz- he's a Sri Lankan citizen of Pakistani origin - is head of the Democratic Workers Congress, which is more left of centre.
As for what we spoke about, I asked him right off if he feels comfortable in Parliament as a National List memuer without much direct contact with constituents. He said he welcomed the chance to participate in parliamentary debates. They limited his time, but as a Minister he's able to do something. He said he wants to contribute intellectually to the body politic. He's worked in political movements and with C.W.C. and in intellectual associations social groups in different communities here, so he feels he has a broad outlook. He doesn't have any difficulties in interacting with people with different political beliefs, he says. He added his Sinhalese associates feel comfortable with him.
Can you describe the Ministry for Hindu Religious, Cultural and Tamil Affairs?
The Ministry has two segments. Hindu Religious Culture promotes Hinduism and related cultural affairs. For example, the Ministry has sponsored a seminar on 'The Social Dimensions of the Hindu Ethos' - the Hindu concept of nature, living in harmony with nature, keeping the environment clean. They Ministry is participating in the Environmental Authority's campaign of tree planting by
focusing on trees sacred to Hindus and the flowers used in poojas.
Tamil Affairs promotes Tamil literary activity, music, dancing, painting, and so on - all the aspects of Tamil
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culture in Sri Lanka that we've already gone into. Minister Devaraj pointed out that the Hindu view of the fine arts
is basically integrated with the Hindu religion. The
Ministry is also trying to organize workshops and per
formance of Tamil folk arts to give a boost to folk drama
and folk music.
Devaraj is also interested in the implementation of
Tamil as an official language here. For that he's getting advice from eminent legal and political Science groups among the Tamils. He'll prepare a comprehensive report for the Ministry of Public Administration and the Commissioner of Official Languages. The government is planning to set up a special department to look into matters relating to the implementation of Tamil as an official language. Devaraj emphasized that the Tamils themselves must become more aware of the nature of the process of implementation. The Tamils themselves do not know in great detail what the government has planned to do. In other Words, lack of public information. Tamil is an official language but there is a lack of staff, like clerks and typists, who can work in Tamil in government offices.
ls there any cooperation between Devaraj's Ministry and those relating to Sinhalese cultural activities?
He mentioned the possibility of cooperating in the making of translations. Sinhala into Tamil. Tamil into Sinhala. He's already been allocated funds for that and he and his people in the Ministry are looking around for books to be translated. The Ministry is also preparing a bibliography of books written in Tamil by Sri Lankans.
In relation to literature here, you've spoken about the serious problems of the Tamil workers in the plantation sector. Did you speak with Devaraj about that?
Yes, asked him if he had anything to say about the specific cultural problems of the hill country Tamils. He pointed

out that in the hill country certain facilities are hard to come by. Education is often poor, for example. Even in town areas in the hill country there aren't enough teachers. Except in Kandy. He seemed annoyed by what he called the invasion of video and film into the plantation areas. People like to see these films rather than indigenous folkarts alive. Traditional folk culture is being slighted. So he's trying to activate folk culture in the area. Giving encourgement to Carnatic musicians, for instance.
Here's a question I wanted to ask you much earlier. You said that Ratnanathar Sivagurunathan, also a Tamil, was the President of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association. I wanted to ask you about his background.
Well, Sivagurunathan is editor of 'Thinakaran' and "Thinakaran Vara Manjari". He started out at "Thinakaran" as a sub-editor. He interviewed such famous people as Nehru, Macmillan, Chou En Lai, and King Mahendra. He became news editor, then, chief editor. That was around 1961. He also edits the Lake House Tamil daily and weekly. Sivagurunathan's also an attorney at law. At Law College he's a visiting lecturer. He graduated in Arts from the University of Peradeniya in the early 1950s. For the last ten years or so he's been the chairman of the Dance Panel of the Cultural Council of Sri Lanka. One of the reasons he was elected as President of the Journalists' Association is that he is tri-lingual : Tamil, Sinhala and English The Association itself includes print, radio and TV journalists, from all fronts, right, left and centre, and languages, Sinhala, Tamil, English.
I'm glad you asked this question. I'd like to stress that
Sivagurunathan's election is a happy augury. I hope it
shows that parochiaism is gradually fading a way from. tht) national scene, at least to some extent.
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On the complicated language problem here - again - think you know, some Sinhalese intellectuals cannct read Sinhala or even speak it, and there are some Tamils who don't know Tamil very well either.
I'm reminded of Aloysius Jeyaraj Canagaratna. Among Tamil-speaking authors, he's known as A. J. He graduated from the University of Peradeniya in the 50s too. He was an English major. He was fluent in English but not very fluent in Tamil. Now he's a leading Tamil writer, a literary critic. He once wrote a book called Mattu (Grinder) - it's an instrument used to extract butter from curd - that was dedicated to the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 that many people have told you about. Ironically dedicated. It was the Sinhala Only Act, you see, that made Canagaratna begin to Write in Tamil. Ironic in that he felt this Act caused immense injustice to the Tamil-speaking citizens of Sri Lanka but at the same time it helped them indirectly by Creating a Tamil consciousness in them - and him. He began to work hard and became competent in Tamil, and now he even translates from English to Tamil and vice versa. He's in the English Department of the University of Jaffna now. He used to work for the Daily News. Then he was the editor of "Cooperator', an official publication of a cooperative federation. He's in his late 50s. One of his two brothers is also a university teacer and the other, a former journalist, is now a managing director of a firm in Colombo.
Are there any other prominent Tamil journalists in Sri Lanka you'd like to tell us about?
know you're interested in the professional versatility that many Lankans display, so I'll introduce you to Mohammed Mana Mackeen. He sometimes uses the pen-name M - Three. He's a Muslim. He works as a stenographer for the Ceylon Electricity Board. He used to work for the former Radio Ceylon. He also used to be a guest producer at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. He's been a

free lance journalist in Tamil for more than 25 years. He's still in his 50s. Mackeen himself says he owes a lot to R. Sivagurunathan. He used to write a daily column on political and cultural affairs in Thinakaran - Sivagurus nathan is the editor - and now he edits a feature page called "Light Reading'. He's contributed to literature here, and theatre, and broadcasting and even musical entertainment. That's versatility. Also, in the 1960s, Mackeen was on the Islamic Fine Arts Panel of the Arts Council and, in the '70s, on the Tamil Dance Panel. He's written a lot about film for regional Tamil newspapers here such as "Eelanadu" and "Cheithi'. He's covered the Sri Lankan film secne for Madras publications like "Devi' and 'Cinema Express'.
As for his contribution to the local literary scene, in the late '50s he won the second prize in an island-wide short story contest sponscred by "Kalaichelvi", a Jaffna literary magazine that's now defunct. The title of the story was, 'Revolution'. In the mid-1960s the first anthology of Muslim short stories came out. Muslim Kathai Malarkas. And his story 'Rahummathumma' was included. The title could be the name of any Muslim woman. Now, Tamil theatre. He's been involved in it for over 20 years. He was once awarded a plaque of honor by Chelliah Rajadurai for his theatre service. He was the first to present a Sinhala play in Tamil. Dayananda Gunawardena's Ibbikata (Tortoise Shell). He's the first theatre man from the local Muslim community to direct a play in both Sinhala and Tamil. A message play about the need for better housing. Thottathu Rani (Oueen of the Garden). That was in the mid-1970s, and it was selected as a festival play by the Tamil Drama Panel. Chelliah Rajadurai is a former minister of Tamil Cultural
Affairs.
AS for music, Mackeen likes to organize popular music shows. He enjoys being a master of ceremonies in the '70s he did Hare Krishna Hare Rama. He introduced a number of popular entertainers of the '70s. We talked
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about radio scripts before. Well, Mackeen has written
radio dramas, too. As a teenager he himself took part in many radio programmes. And he's still young at heart
: Then let's do short stories in Tamil once more. A couple
of Sri Lankan Muslim short story writers, say, then a couple of Sri Lankan Taimis?
Let's summarize the themes in Pirarthanai (Prayers) by M. I. M. Muzzammil, a fairly new writer, a Muslim who writes in Tamil. Like many of the writers I've been telling you about, Muzzammil, wants his stories to contribute
to social change. He stresses ethical values. He questions
the dowry system. He questions the tradition of early marriage for Women. He's down on false pride and jealousy and pseudo-love. The stories are written in a simple style. They're all set in a provincial milieu.
So, are most of the stories in Maruthur A. Majeed's Panneer Vasam Veesukirathu (The Scent Throws its Fragrance All Around). The milieu is similar -- the Muslim villages in the Eastern province. Their life style. The centra theme is infidelity.
As for short stories in Tamil by Sri Lankan Tamils, two
more collections of what you could call hill country stories
come to mind. One is N. S. M. Ramiah's Oru Koodalik Kolunthu (A Basket of Tender Tea Leaves). Ramiah began his career in the late '50s when a conscious effort was made here to evolve Tamil writing based on Sri Lankan life. Ramiah tried to depict plantation life of that era. He's a realist. Most of his characters are old people with old values. For instance, an old woman, having borne six children, and living in dire poverty, and now disgusted with children, wcrks as a baby sitter for the children of estate workers. Ironic. In another story an old man does
home gardening to get enough money to buy a petromax
lamp for the family on whose earnings he lives. His garden gets washed away in a rain storm. Checkovian. Selfishness and deceit figure in other stories. In a couple of

others, some Hindu rituals provide Ramiah's pretext to depict the conformist life of most Tamil people here.
Then there's Thotta Kaddinidae(In the Jungle of the Estates). There are nine stories by three writers. Three stories each by Malaranpan, Matale Somu, and Matale Vadivelan. My overall impression is that all three of them write with firm conviction and with an awareness of the realities of estate life. Let me explain one thing. "Thotta Kaadu.' and "Thotta Kaddan' are derogatory terms in Tamil applied to the estates and the estate people of the hill country. The title is rather daring.
'Parvathi', Malaranpan's first story, describes the dilema of Parvathi, a married estate woman with two children who tries to avoid being molested by the superintendent of the estate. She has to succumb to the power that is. Otherwise, her husband would lose his job. This story has a familiar theme. Unfortunately, the reality it depicts is commonplace here. In his second story, 'Dharmikam' (Virtuosity), Malaranpan shows how an old estate woman and a Sinhala kangany, a line foreman help people in adversity regardless of their ethnic connections. During an inter-communal disturbance a mob tries to attack Tamil labourer families in a line. The Sinhala kangany defends them. The old Tamil woman goes out to help deliver the new baby of the leader of the mob, who is a Sinhalese. This situation may seem contrived, but such incidents have actually occurred in real life here. 'Uravukal' (Relationships) shows that even the relationships among members of the same family, any family, rest on money dealings. Two married sons of a widow try to squeeze as much money as they can out of their mother. They pretend to look after her, but once they have their way they drive her away. After she dies, they fight each other over their inheritance.
Now, Matale Somu. Let me remind you that Tamil writers here often identify themselves according to their hometovns. Somu is from Matale. Sois Vadivelan. Incidentaly,
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Thotta Kaddinilae is published by the Matale Tamil Writers'
: Union. Somu's first story is "He Is Not Just Another".
It's about the attempt of a young man to educate his family in a very backward estate. In 'Dogs Do Not Be come Men”, Somu shovs that dogs do not shov distinctions, unlike human beings who are caste and class Conscious: 'The Fellow from the Lines' decribes distinctions between two old friends who become conscious of their class differences. These are also common themes in local Tamil fiction, as I think you are becoming aware of.
Then, Vadivelan's "The New Year ls Not News'. An old woman gives a gift to her grand-children to help them
celebrate the new year. The second story's about the
employment of very old people to fell trees to continue
existence. The last story concerns the life and death of an
old couple who, after giving body and Soul for the betterment of others, are left helpless to die miserable. As
you can see, the estates are like a jungle You should really get out there and see them for yourself.
Then, Thalayasingam. Puthu Yugam Pirakirathu. (A New
Age is Being Born). There are eleven stories. 'Veelchi',
(The Fall), describes a young man whc tries to emerge from the depraved tastes of our time but fails, and becomes one of the philistines himself. This is like Atman's fall, brought about by modern conditions. "Thedal' (The Ouest) is allegorical. A coward faces himself for the first time and realizes he hasn't lived well at all. In "raththam' (Blood),a young man brought up in the Jaffna Tamil culture, desires to face the truth in all its nakedness. In the title
story, a left-winger whose wife tells him, 'Your progress
has killed our God' blames God for a personal calamity. What Thalayasingam Wants to say is the means is as important as the end. 'Kottai' (The Fortress) is symbolic, New ideals clash with old values. Difficulties encountered in establishing new ideas. The ultimate failure of individuals striking out against the hardcore of society. In "Koyilhal' Thalayasingam speaks about the ideal that will transcend death. 'Koyilhal' means temples. , 'Sabatham's
#ኳ8 ' -

(The Promise) says sex is an obstacle to attaining the ultimate purpose of life, but 'Thouhai' (Worship) treats sex as a symbol of divine creation. In other stories sex is treated as a natural part of life that ought to be enjoyed without inhibitions. On the other hand, Thalayasingam considers over-indulgence in sex brings mainly V. D. In 'Veli'', (Space) he tries to show the failure of an age of reason-over - indulgence in reason - shunning every other human feeling could bring about a world-wide catastrophe. The hero of 'Veli' is Vedantic, so he's calm. Remaining calm is the best way to protest, Thalaya
singam says. Until he died recently he had been toying with the idea of spiritual reformation.
Finally, M. Kanagarasan. He's a fairly well known writer here. Poetry, fiction, drama, criticism - he does them all. Also he's translated short stories from Sinhala to Tamil. He's one of the most important Tamil short story writers in Sri Lanka. Absolute mastery of form. A deep concern for the people. His Baghavanin Pathangalil (At the Footsteps of the Lord) is worthy of praise. The title story pictures a few quick episodes of a chain of events in the heart of Colombo. A teenage girl living in an upstairs flat looks at a bo-tree through her window. Under the tree a statue of Lord Buddha is enshrined. A poor little girl near the tree has a piece of bread in her hand. A crow snatches the bread out of her hand. The child's mother beats her. That was the only food they had for the day. Then the child's father beats the mother in turn. The teenage girl comes downstairs with a ten rupee bill to give to the poor family. On her way, a passerby steals the bill out of her hand. The girl is stunned and goes back to her room. She sees another scene. A father ard child come to the bo tree to offer flowers to the Buddha. The poor girl who was just beaten watches them. They watch her. They put a few cents in the till and pay their tributes to the Buddha but they ignore the need of the poor child. The teenager upstairs can only Cry.
This concludes the interview.
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K. S. SIVA KUMAR AN
K. S. Sivakumaran Maldives. Previou jy he has v of Industries (1960), Local Go Office (1961), Sri Lanka Bro United States information Newspapers Ltd. (1985), and (1991).
He continues to be a f (Radio | TV) and has authore in English. This collection of to LeRoy Robinson is his fifth
A graduate of the Univ K. S. Sivakumarian majored irClassical culture.
He is engaged in writin and is 55 years old, having bee Batticaloa. He is married to Pu Raghuram and Amanthalam
 
 

THE NTERVIEWEE
W. teaches English in Male, voked for the Ceylon Chamber vernment Service Commission adcasting Corporation (1969), Service (1979) the Upali Bank of Ceylon Head Office
eelance Writer and broad Caster three books in Tamil and One
the interviews he has given Ook
ersity of Peradeniya (External)
English, Tamil and Western
and broadcasting since 1953 in born on October 1, 1936 in Shpavilo chani and has two Sons