Page 1

Arters of a National Imaginary: Essays on
Sri Lanka
Festschrijf för Professor Ashley Halpe
A.
Edited by Chelva Kanaganayakam

Page 2


Page 3
This collection brings together a number of thought-provoking essays, written by academics, critics, and writers, all of whom are concerned with the multiple ways in social, cultural and political forces intersect in contemporary Sri Lanka. The essays move across a range of topics and accommodate several disciplines, but the common focus remains contemporary Sri Lanka. Each contributor brings to the collection a new perspective on the ways in which Sri Lanka is conceptualized and imagined by different ethnic and religious communities. Interspersed with poems and paintings by several poets and artists, the essays forge links in significant ways, offering the reader an opportunity to LLLLLDLLLLLLLL LL LLLLLLLLSLLLLLLLYLLLSLS nation. Written primarily as a tribute to Professor Ashley Halpé, the essays reflect the academic rigor and imaginative depth that Halpé himself insisted on as a teacher and scholar
Professor Ashley Halpé was appointed Chair of the Department of English at the
University of Peradeniya in 1965. Abrilliant scholar, artist, poet, and translator, he was the founding editor of the journal titled Narasily and the author of numerous research articles. His one of poetry, Silent Arbiters (1976), Honing (1993) and Sigiri Poems (1995) a translation of the Sigiri Grafiti, have gained critical acclaim. His paintings have been exhibited in several countries, and he has produced and directed a number of plays in Sri Lanka and in the West.
 

Page 4


Page 5


Page 6
Arbiters of a Na
Essays or

tional Imaginary
in Sri Lanka

Page 7


Page 8
| Arbiters of a Na
Essays or
Festschrift for Pro
Ed Chelva Kai
International Cen

tional Imaginary n Sri Lanka
fessor Ashley Halpé
ited by naganayakan
இ (SÈ
tre for Ethnic Studies

Page 9
Publis lnternational Centr 2, Kynse
Colom
Sri L
2C
ISBN 978-95
Print Kumaran Press
361 1/2 Dam Str€
i Tel: +94

hed by e for Ethnic Studies
y Terrace hbo - 8
anka
)08
55-580-118-8
ed by
Private Limited 2et, Colombo - 12 1242 1388

Page 10
Pri
 

1992)

Page 11


Page 12
Pre
The essays that make up this volu scholarship, career, creative talent, Ashley Halpé. 'Greatness does not ha his lectures, because it is there'. He w; of Bertolt Brecht, but the words are e himself, over a period of several decad to academic life without ever foregrou The essays in the Festschrift are three deal specifically with him and to Solicit academic essays that focus those who value their association wit criticism, and economic policy reflects own work addresses. The essays mo what binds them together is their ce ways, each essay is a meditation on c an arbiter - to borrow a felicitous worc of poems - and the perspective that e. scene gives the collection a sense of co One of the striking aspects of H to inter-disciplinarity, and to compa research articles deal with literature in and his own poetry suggest a much la across fields, languages, religions, ai Art notwithstanding, he recognized t economic concerns in his own writing his work and his pedagogy has been 1 into contact with him. It is thus approl not in any way constrained by narrow to this volume were not asked to wri fact that all the essays intersect in m coincidental. The multiplicity of the es what it meant to be a teacher, a resear and compassionate human being.

face
me were written as a tribute to the and profound humanity of Professor ve to be paraded" said Halpé in one of as referring to the life and achievement Jually true of the way in which Halpé es, has made a remarkable contribution inding himself.
not always about Halpe. In fact, only his work. It was a deliberate decision on a broad range of topics, written by n Halpé, and whose work on literature, some of the larger concerns that Halpé's ve across a number of disciplines, but ntral concern with Sri Lanka. In some ontemporary Sri Lanka. Each author is from the title of Halpé's first collection ach author brings to the contemporary pherence. alpé's contribution is his commitment rative studies. Although many of his English, his translations, his paintings, arger vision that perceived connections nd ethnic groups. His commitment to he need to address larger political and g. The self-reflexivity that runs through ecognized by all those who have come priate that the essays in this volume are disciplinary concerns. The contributors te on any particular topic. And yet the any interesting ways is not altogether says underscores Halpé's own sense of cher, an artist, and above all, an ethical
Chelva Kanaganayakam

Page 13
Contents
Preface
Professor Ashley Halpé - A Personal TISSA JAYATILAKA
And How Can We Know the Dancer Post-Coloniality, the Unified Sensibili Ashley Halpé, Man, Poet, and Much E THIRU KANDIAH
Ashley Halpé: Poet/Translator RANJINI OBEYSEKERE
Aesthetics Under Fire ROBERT CRUSZ
Cogito Ergo Sum CARL MULLER
Poems and Paintings ASHLEY HALPE
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New V Order - the Role of the Private Sector JAYANTHA DHANAPALA
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath W QADRI ISMAlL
If You Must Keep Your Paradise (for J RIENZI CRUSZ
The Ghost's Song R. CHERAN
Pale Flags MICHAEL ONDAATE
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identit Anil's Ghost ERNEST MACINTYRE

Appreciation
rom the Dance? ly, Self-Reflexivity, and Else
World Economic
eerasinghe's Armory
ohn)
y: Running in the Family and
vi
26
33
45
50
58
69
88
89
92

Page 14
A Case for Literature and the Search of Individual and National Freedom: Anil's Ghost
CHANDANI LOKUGE
Modern Poetic Diction and Contemp TISSA ABEYSEKARA
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translat Some Socio-Political and Linguistic Sinhala Literature into Tamil M A NUHMAN
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivim JILL MACDONALD
On Translation
INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM
Displaced and Displeased: Fragile Fr SUMATHY SIVAMOHAN
The Golden Island of Demons and L Sri Lanka in the Indian Imagination HARISH TIRIVEDI
Gendering the Quest in Chandani L APARNA HALPE
The Poetic and the Oral in Contemp Sri Lanka CHELVA KANAGANAYAKAM
Ashley Halpé - Profile
Acknowledgments
Contributors

for Alternative Visions Michael Ondaatje's
orary Sinhala Poetry
ion in Sri Lanka:
Aspects of Translating
larie VanderPoorten
'agments of Conversation
ovely Women:
okuge's Turtle Nest
orary Tamil Poetry from
ix
106
114
123
136
150
155
163
180
193
207
208
209

Page 15


Page 16
Prof. Ashley Halpé - A
TISSA JAY
It was in 1957, while a tiny tot in the Kandana, that I first came acroSS Ashle by graduating a few months earlier w this former De Mazenodian had beer at the annual Prize Day of his second later learnt) happened to be S.W.R.D. Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Little did I know Halpé would be my guru at the Uni insignificant that more than half a cer proposer of the vote of thanks but not it says a great deal about my reverence of my aversion to politicians!
A decade after that first encount Ashley Halpé was addressing. He w, the only Chair of English in the cou Room 'B' in the Faculty of Arts at Pe. on Shaw. Surprising though it may no his opening lines -- The material is ple for himself. I have tried not to resist the t Prof. Halpé standing beside a table fu critical writings from which he indee was the same year I had begun to c to pursue a possible career in medic Halpé on Shaw was thus a defining m resisting my own temptation to read degree.

Personal Appreciation
(ATLAKA
third grade at De Mazenod College, y Halpé. Having distinguished himself rith a First in English from Peradeniya, invited to propose the vote of thanks ary school. The chief Guest that day (I Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister of that some thirteen years later Ashley versity of Ceylon, Peradeniya. It is not ntury later I am able to recall the young the silver - tongued Chief Guest. Perhaps for my teachers and something besides
er I was once more in an audience that as by now the very youthful holder of ntry at that time. This was in 1967 in radeniya during a lecture he delivered w seem, in my mind's ear I can yet hear "ntiful and I am tempted to let Shaw speak emptation. -- and in my mind's eye see ll of books containing Shaw's plays and 2d quoted copiously as promised. That 'onsider moving away from my plans ine and opt for one in the humanities. oment for me. I eventually ended up not English at Peradeniya for my bachelor's

Page 17
2 Arbiters of a
I shall forever be in debt to Ind Peradeniya contemporaries, who ma lecture on Shaw in 1967 while I was y Form at Kingswood College, Kandy. know that Prof. Halpé had himself a devotee of the common pursuit. Hav degree in science on the basis of his U much to the horror of his parents, AS with and secured from Vice Chancel opt for an arts degree. He was to take character upon graduation. In the fas 1957 duly sat the examination for selec placed first. On being presented with as an Assistant Lecturer in English, had no hesitation whatsoever in go his family's initial horror at his pre discipline.
Given his excellent and varied a decision to forsake the Civil Service absolute sense. He was winner of virt at Peradeniya and doubtless the bigg the enormously prestigious and muc in 1965. At the age of thirty-two, he University Chair in Ceylon (Sri Lan Peradeniya men I have had the privil He is above all else a university do teacher, researcher, disseminator contribution to Peradeniya (and to th his brief enforced spell there) has be the only administrative responsibilit of Warden of a Hall of Residence.
Despite the load he carried as a time for his academic and extra-curric record speaks for itself focusing as it c and Shakespeare criticism and Sou Aside from several poems published poems are available. These are Silen Sigiri Verses, an adaptation of the 6th introduction and notes. His labors as versions of some of the novels and sh That painting is one of Ashley Halp exhibitions of his paintings in Bristol, and Peradeniya, Sri Lanka is unknow he has invested in Peradeniya Univer resulted in more than a dozen play him. Among these, my favorite is Stil

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
rani Abeyesekere, one of Prof. Halpe's de arrangements for me to attend that et a student in the University Entrance It was some years later that I came to bandoned science studies to become a ing qualified to enter Peradeniya for a niversity Entrance examination results, hley Halpé had pleaded at his viva voce lor Sir Ivor Jennings et al permission to another momentous decision similar in hion of the day, the young Mr. Halpé in tion to the Ceylon Civil Service and was an opportunity to serve his alma mater however, the young Civil Service Cadet ng back to Peradeniya, compounding vious decision to change his academic
achievements as an undergraduate, his for a University teaching career makes ually all of the glittering prizes on offer est of them all was his appointment to h-prized Chair of English at Peradenya became one of the youngest to hold a ka). Prof. Halpé is among the finest of ege to meet and get to know intimately. in in the finest sense of that term. As of knowledge and administrator his e Vidyalankara Campus in Kelaniya in en substantial and significant. Perhaps y he did not shoulder in his time is that
n administrator, Prof. Halpë found the ular interests. His scholarly publication toes on aspects of Shakespearean drama th Asian Creative Writing in English. in anthologies, three collections of his f Arbiters, Homing and Other Poems and - 9th Century Sinhala poems with an translator have yielded notable English hort stories of Martin Wickramasinghe. é's varied talents and that he has held UK, in Sao Paolo, Brazil and in Colombo in to many. The energy and enthusiasm sity's Dramatic Society (DramSoc) have productions designed and directed by indberg's The Father - the 1966 offering

Page 18
Prof. Ashley Halpé - A Personal Apprec
of the DramSoc with the late Osmun His contribution to education and lite equally notable.
For the extensive and invaluable has been honored both nationally and Lanka has conferred on him the Kalak Governments of Sri Lanka and the Un Senior Fellowships while the Governr dans l'ordre Palmes Academique. He hasb University of Cambridge and Resident for Indigenous Arts and Literature, Dh Fellow at the American Studies Resou All of these achievements and hc Halpe the man. His is an under-ste humility and modesty of the truly ed he did not mesmerize his students as Ludowyk and Doric de Souza, are rep good fortune of sitting at the feet of shall accept the word of my predeces but I certainly am able to vouch for tl watched him perform within the four teacher can be humble to a fault. He His knowledge and erudition were ne classroom. He did not seek to lecture O were directed at ferreting out what we and life. He never tried to poke us in knew. This understated approach, ho befuddled Peradeniya contemporarie actually knew more than he let on! T knowledge and wisdom beyond the f light concealed under the proverbial unobtrusiveness are a crucial part of , It is this Socratic teaching styl students' innate understanding that depths plumbed by great men and wo with the eternal verities. My own und Eliot in particular is due mostly to ti Halpé led me into discovering form Lydgate or the terrifying ambition of across in Macbeth are musical instrur something I learnt thanks to Prof. H careful scrutiny of literary texts.
Of the several admirable qualiti that has stood out during his long a Department at Peradeniya is his cons of change. I think it is not incorrect to

iation 3
d Jayaratne in a memorable lead role. rary activities outside the university is
! services detailed above, Prof. Halpé internationally. The Government of Sri Perthi and the Vishvaprasadini titles. The ited States awarded him two Fulbright ment of France has made him Chevalier een an Honorary Fellow of Claire Hall, Fellow at the Literary Criterion Centre Vanyaloka, Mysore, India, and Visiting rce Centre, Hyderabad, India. nors have sat and sit lightly on Ashley ited personality, with the humanity, ucated person at its core. As a teacher, some of his predecessors, notably Lyn uted to have done. Not having had the the former, the magister magistrorum, I sors at Peradeniya for this evaluation, he latter's virtuosity having heard and walls of a classroom. Ashley Halpé the refrained from histrionics of any kind. ver on obvious display in or outside the r talk at us. Rather his pedagogic labors knew, thought and felt about literature the eye to make us see how much he wever, had its drawbacks. Some of my s erroneously wondered if Prof. Halpé hose who stayed on to benefit from his reshman year were able to discover the bushel. His disarming simplicity and Ashley Halpé's immense civility. e combined with his respect for the enabled him to reveal to us the inner men of letters as they (and we) grappled erstanding of Shakespeare and George he manner and style with which Prof. yself those 'spots of commonness' of a a Macbeth. That the hautboys one comes nents and not arrogant young males is alpé's insistence on close reading and
es of Prof. Halpé's mind and heart, one ld devoted stewardship of the English istent avoidance of change for the sake say that he was and is an enlightened

Page 19
4. Arbiters of a N
traditionalist. He was, however, nev insurgency years of the early 1970s, it into the education sphere ad hoc chang politically motivated, hasty and auto infamous era of University Re-organ were primarily the place seekers of th out and were, for the most part, lacke office at the time -"the rash mandarins courage of his convictions to challenge day. In numerous and various public without, he exposed the eclecticism an proposed changes mooted for the hig humanities and the social sciences. Th with political power and Dress'd in a accepting in the spirit in which it was constructive criticisms of their propo pains, he was forced to build elsewh world of his beloved Peradeniya by fo Kelaniya in the mid-1970s. This is p( albeit a dubious honor in Stark contra removal of Prof. Halpé from Peradeniy "punishment transfer" in Sri Lanka's pu Servant stands up to a meddling or cor what amounts to an illegal administ for his non-compliance. The punishm to an under-developed rural outpost university education of the time hast English Literature at the Vidyalankara at Kelaniya and ordered Prof. Halpé first punishment transfer" meted out
It did not matter that library facil in literature and the humanities inger and that there was no academically jus study of English Literature to an illneed of the hour was to get Ashley H way at any cost as quickly as possible those of us following the Special Degr at the time was enormous. Several of less uncongenial academic institutions utterly strapped for variety and specia was to be made headless and rudderles the under-staffed English Departmen were adversely affected by Ashley H hand was now available only interm Peradeniya as a Visiting Professor!

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
er dogmatic. Especially in the post - was fashionable to seek to introduce ge. This was the time of ill - conceived, cratic educational policymaking - the ization'. The policymakers of the time le academic community who had sold ys and henchmen of the politicians in dabbling in change'. Prof. Halpé had the and question the establishment of that fora, both within the university and ld the shallowness of the ill - conceived her education sphere, especially in the ecoterie of men and women inebriated little brief authority were incapable of given those trenchant but nevertheless psals that Prof. Halpé offered. For his ere', having been thrown outside the ul extrusion'. Hence his brief sojourn in ossibly another first for Ashley Halpést to the other laurels won. The forced 'a is similar to that which is known as a blic service. Whenever a spirited public rupt politician and refuses to carry out rative request, he is usually punished hent often takes the form of a transfer of the country. The 're-organizers' of ily created a 'centre of excellence' for Campus of the University of Sri Lanka to move there. This could well be the to a university don in Sri Lanka! ities for students seeking to specialize heral were only available at Peradeniya stifiable reason to move the specialized equipped Vidyalankara Campus. The alpé out of Peradeniya and out of the '. The damage to the university and to De programme in English at Peradeniya our teachers having left Peradeniya for overseas, the English Department was alized talent. The last thing we needed ss. Despite the valiant efforts of those of t of the time, our studies and progress alpé's contrived absence. His guiding littently as and when he appeared in

Page 20
Prof. Ashley Halpé - A Personal Apprec
Prof. Halpé survived the ma irresponsible dons who had banished continue to nourish Peradeniya. His g at Peradeniya, as pointed out above, w innovation. When less-experienced ; political clout sought to mangle the Per ruinous curricular reform down the successfully withstood these calcul academic adventurism, he did introd such change was called for. The inclus of Sinhala and Tamil literature to th English is a case in point. Given the c complexion of Sri Lanka post - 1956 a the national literatures and other wo Studies at Peradeniya was a far mores the approach advocated by the 're-ol were merely hell-bent on throwing th imperialist) bath water! It was in thi and the Department of English he pres critics who mistakenly sought to acc 'alienated' and 'deracinated' graduates
In my own time, the two 'Specia those following a Special Degree in El were the Romantic' (1770-1832) and \ expected to place against their socia the literary and philosophical texts of we explore. In order to deepen our u English Department enlisted the sel Department whose lectures were bo They most certainly served to reinfo the writings of 18th and 19th century E study of Greek Tragedy and Mediaeva and Culture compulsory for those pu
Two of Prof. Halpé's proposals t accepted at the time they were made and will continue to have an impact Prof. Halpé is gone from the scene. Th inclusion of English among Sinhala, subjects' in a special category within t and his contribution to the strength Lankan Schools. The need for the prote arose due to the greater emphasis pla programs in science and technology it for a job-oriented education. The fut bleak and hopeless with the numbers (

ation 5
chinations of these pathetic and him. He returned a few years later to reatest contribution to English Studies as his steadfast opposition to reckless and short-sighted critics armed with adeniya English curriculum by forcing throat of the English Department, he ated moves. While standing against uce meaningful change as and when ion of instruction on the fundamentals lose following the Special Degree in tramatic changes in the Socio-political und post – 1971, this harmonisation of ld literatures in English with English ensible and profitable innovation than ganizers' and their accomplices who 2 (English Lit) baby with the (colonial/ s exemplary manner that Prof. Halpé ided over responded to unsympathetic use Peradeniya English of producing
| Periods' in English Literature which nglish had to study in particular depth Victorian' (1832-1901) periods. We were l, political and economic background these periods our syllabus demanded inderstanding of this background, the vices of specialists from the History th stimulating and extremely useful. rce our literary critical explorations of England. Later on, Prof. Halpé made the land Renaissance European Literature rsuing Special English.
o the educational authorities that were have had a lasting educational impact on our educational system long after lese are his successful advocacy for the Pali, Sanskrit and related 'endangered he universities' humanities curriculum ning of the teaching of English in Sri ction of these subjects in the humanities ced by students and parents on degree h their understandable, if myopic, quest ure for the humanities thus appeared of those opting for the humanities which

Page 21
6 Arbiters of a Nai
had had been in decline dropping alarm who gave leadership to those members saw the need for urgent preventive stre unfortunate trend in the sphere of highe these subjects was safeguarded and furt special category of admissions. Those wh passing the exam as a whole but had no to secure places in the open competit provided they committed themselves t 'endangered subjects' right through thei a large number to obtain degrees in or w reinforce English teaching in schools ha enable school-level teachers of English w at the General Arts Qualifying (External programs in English at Peradeniya as int what I have perceived to be his traditio juniors to branch out in new directions. post-colonial and post-modernist breeze English though perhaps not entirely cor these breezes
I wish to touch on certain persor freshman year at Peradeniya was su revelled in 'uncivilized fooling" as mos the advantage of hindsight I am now a embarrassed Prof. Halpé as he happene time. Besides the frolic and madness, the nature during my early Peradeniya di close to Prof. Halpé. One such occurr 1971 when I was unwittingly in the wi realizing that all the student hostels exc declared out of bounds for all male und yet at Arunachalam Hall after the new enforced. It is more than likely that I wo to kill' orders in force given the fact that replete with long hair and flourishing as a "Che Guevaristo student revolutiona of crushing the insurgency. I sought ref and was promptly thereafter placed un the Halpé residence! To keep me from a little help from Fr. Augustine the Catl Halpés introduced me to the blessed g coast was quite clear that I was eventu know that Prof. Halpé had taken eveng taken into custody under the hurriedly to deal with the insurgency. It must sure to pursue this course as most members o

tional Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ingly in the 1970s. It was Prof. Halpé of the university community who tegies to arrest this dangerous and er education. The continued study of her strengthened by the creation of a ho had passed in these subjects while bt obtained high enough aggregates ion were given 'special admission' o continuing study of one of these r studies for the degree. This enabled ith English. His specific proposal to d to do with his recommendation to ith three passes (inclusive of English) ) Examination to enroll in the degree ernal students. Additionally, despite inalism, Prof. Halpé encouraged his . He thus left the door open for new s to blow through the Department of nvinced of the usefulness of some of
nal recollections in conclusion. My ffused with boisterous antics as I t new entrants are wont to do. With ware that my early unruly behavior d to be the University Proctor at the re were other encounters of a serious ays that brought me unexpectedly ed during the insurgency of April ay of possible grave harm. Without ept Hilda Obeysekera Hall had been ergraduates by the authorities, was emergency arrangements had been ould have been a victim of the 'shoot my physical appearance at the time, peard, qualified me to be thought of ary by the uniformed men in charge fuge at Prof. and Mrs. Halpé's house der house arrest at Lower Hantane, landing in any further danger, with nolic Chaplain of the University, the ame of Bridge. It was only after the ally allowed to leave. I later came to greater care of those undergraduates promulgated emergency regulations ely have taken much courage for him f the university academic community

Page 22
Prof. Ashley Halpe - A Personal Apprec
were under suspicion and at the receiv forces personnel because there were uprising or were among those who em of the youthful insurgents. Bearing b Prof. Halpé regularly visited the detai among the university authorities who a of sitting their university examination The Halpé residence at Lower F venue for Dramsoc rehearsals, Mus memorable undergraduate activities. I encounters that students and lecturer at us from his vantage point, Sir I blessed the Halpés for keeping alive o university like Peradeniya, viz., - th Social interaction between the teacher were exemplary in upholding this wo some of these events at the home of F undergraduate aspiration was also re they may not have mattered, for us th other emotional entanglements of a during the interactions mentioned abo for transition from young adulthood charmed surroundings, meant a great Of those with an education in th there indeed are only a handful who and values of such an education. Inde can it truly be said that all that's best aspect and his eyes. Prof. Halpé is indi members of this wee tribe. I have ne disparaging words from him about any colleagues is sincere and heartfelt. Two his inherent goodness as a person. Th care of his former teacher and senior c latter's difficult and exceedingly lonely existence, subsequent to the early dea only provided Prof. Passé a home bu inviting him to teach part-time. Duri became a participant in all of the Er well. In fact it was while enjoying hi and colleagues at a Going Down din away soon thereafter. Thus it was Pro Passé to die with his boots on so to would devoutly wish for. The othere At an extremely vulnerable early stag Assistant Lecturer at Peradeniya, I h Succour. Having laid bare my innert

iation 7
ring end of the hostility of the defence dons who were either involved in the pathized with the political convictions books, sympathy and understanding, ned undergraduates. Later on, he was assisted those of the detainees desirous S from prison. lantane was also our not infrequent ic Society socials and several other t was at some of these extra-curricular 's mingled informally. Looking down vor Jennings would doubtless have ne of the finest aspects of a residential at of fostering close intellectual and s and the taught. Prof. and Mrs. Halpe nderful Peradeniya tradition. lt was at rof. Halpé that many a non-academic alized. Although to the world outside he mild flirtations, little romances and more serious nature that originated ve, often the inevitable rites of passage to the real world outside Peradeniya's
deal. he humanities that I know personally, actually live by or reflect the virtues 2d of only a few humanities specialists of literature and the arts meets in his sputably one of the very distinguished lver heard or seen in print harsh and one. His concern for family, friends and ) examples are offered in illustration of e first of these is his taking affectionate olleague Prof. Hector Passé during the last several months of post-retirement ths of his wife and only child. He not t also kept him gainfully occupied by ng this period, Prof. Passé once more glish Department Social activities as mself in the company of his students ner that Prof. Passé fell ill and passed f. Halpé who made it possible for Prof. speak - a consummation any teacher xample is a very personal experience. e in my professional career as a young ad occasion to turn to Prof. Halpé for urmoil, I asked Prof. Halpé for advice

Page 23
8 Arbiters of a
and direction. I qualified my request to a non-believer like myself, you ai 'sentence and solace'. Before he left me he said, 'thank you for your deep faith remain human.
It is possible that Ashley Halpér in his feet. In so doing, he has offered and vulnerability. lf any amongst ush respect, it is perhaps his or her fault fo more than human as I did in my callov despite them, Ashley Halpé is a very It is indeed a privilege to pay this pub

wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
for spiritual assistance by saying 'Sir, e my God on earth." He did offer me : to ponder over his response, however, in me, but, please, for my sake, let me
nay have on occasion revealed the clay
proof of his complex human fallibility as found and finds him wanting in this r expecting Prof. Halpé to be infinitely v youth. For all of his human frailties or true, near perfect, gentle human being. lic tribute to him.

Page 24
And How Can We Know til
Post-coloniality, the Unified Sensi Halpé, Man, Poe
THIRU K
At the First International Conferen Translation Studies Unit of the Univ distinguished speaker, talking of the ( a translation culture in the country, in Sri Lanka's universities for taking literatures in their courses of study. T of Peradeniya's Department of Englis out, with a certain quiet satisfaction years now had a compulsory course i Special Degree syllabus, run collabora and Tamil. That they were able to c when Ashley Halpé was cadre Profe introduced the course, thereby also lau academic interaction across the three of the University.
Halpé's initiative had more thau practical realization within the aca kind of post-colonial cultural nationa liberatory de-colonizing movements a view, the role of the vision in Third of necessity (1986). However, since th been inflicted by empire, with capital rested on other more material matters

he Dancer from the Dance?
ibility, Self-reflexivity and Ashley st and Much Else
ANDIAH
ce on Translation conducted by the ersity of Peradeniya in June, 2002, a onditions that were needed to nurture censured the Departments of English no notice of the country's indigenous oa (wo)man, the members of the Staff h who were present stood up to point , that their department had for many n Sinhala and Tamil literature on their tively with the Departments of Sinhala lo so was because during the period ssor of English in Peradeniya, he had inching the first real act of collaborative major language/literature departments
n symbolic meaning. It gave concrete, demic and educational realms to the list vision that has catalytically driven ill across the Third World. In Jameson's World literary struggles was a matter e dispossessions that it addressed had ism riding on its back, the vision itself that defined the nature of the struggles

Page 25
10 Arbiters of a N
(Ahmad 1992). These matters made Ahmadian eye open to the opposite, exclusionary and repressive, even fast could well help pull out from the othe
Against the background of such take a very crucial step in creating cert conditions that were essential if the S among the most visible custodians afte from empire, were to make real sense These were conditions that would equ meaningfully within the realities of the context and, as inextricable part of that tangibly their responsibilities towards they interactively shared its occupanc Fanon's insights into these realiti led us to recognize that the re-orgar and identity effected by the dialectica a return to a pristine past out of wi emerged (1968). By implication, the c. existence of the members of the depa them together with whom they made of their very nature, be symbiotic, as they would construct for themselves say, they would necessarily hold withi other factors/strands of their historic different ways and in different measu the traditional and indigenous as well they would be held together dynamica all kinds of relationships — convivialit contestation, transformative blending, and define them as relatively stable wholes (Kandiah 2005/1991).
These were the non-singularisi experience, sensibility and existence O quest needed to launch itself. And Hal its members a vital means of making in that quest, by inviting them to see obvious level, it would help secure the always open by virtue of their privile the erstwhile(?) empire and the de facto bourgeois global order functioning u namely the danger of intellectual anc subjugation. It would do so by equipp the models and perspectives associat those that still continued to Trojan-h form of the latest metropolitan avan,

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
it necessary, also, to keep a vigilant negative potential of the vision, the cistic or genocidal, potential that they r side of its dialectic. considerations, what Halpé did was to ain cultural, epistemological and other tudents (and staff) of his Department, er all of an academic tradition inherited of the studies they were engaged in. ip them both for living their own lives air (immediate and global) post-colonial process, for discharging creatively and the fellow human beings with whom
es help us understand them better. He lizations of tradition, experience, self workings of history made impossible nich people and nations had already ontemporary experience and mode of rtment and the fellow beings around their lives and their destinies would, would be the persona or identity that under those circumstances. That is to in themselves the different cultural and ally ever-renewing context, though in res. The factors/strands would include as what had come in from 'outside', and illy, negotiated in a variety of ways into y, tension, accommodation, resistance, and so on - that would nurture, enrich but by no means fixed, homogeneous
ng, non-exclusionary realities of self, ut of which the liberatory post-colonial pé's initiative gave his department and g themselves meaningful participants themselves in these terms. At the most 'm against a danger to which they were ged access to English, the language of first language of the current dominant nder the pseudonym of globalization', l imaginative re-appropriation and reing them to robustly challenge not just ed with the heyday of empire, but also horse their way into the context in the tgardiste epistemological fashions put

Page 26
And How Can We Know the Dancer fro,
out for consumption through adulatir would always be only Self-subverting. Halpé's initiative, by embeddin context of language use and creativity indigenous languages and literatures i such purposes. The invitation to the ( first-hand encounter with the indigen of negotiation, mediation and mutual r involved. This would free its membe parameters of thought already built i allow them to filter their understandi perspectives that would explicitly dra the very nature of the thinking and fee which would feed creatively into the er of and attitude towards their symbiot meet the demands of their post-coloni Halpé's initiative, we must not fo) forward allong the potentially very pri of the Lankan tradition of English charge of the department had alread conditions but with diligent, forward. English Department of Lyn Ludowyk doubt worked out of 'another place an very felicitous one used by Passé him historical to insist that it ought to have But, under the inspiring leadership of taken the best in the then-tradition of E of reference and resisting the temptati bodied to its Lankan students. The inv of it on their own terms, to root it in t of their own best standards of though and transfiguring it in ways that migh both their immediate locale (and not j as well as their larger world context.
We remember, for instance, the Hatthotuwegama, nothing if not a thinker, presents to us (2005), whose English theatre' and use it progressive English and several other traditions ones, and not only in drama. Similarl English“ contributed much to the p front. Demonstrating in rigorous ter. contributed significantly to the found was to challenge the dominant downthe language. These views devalued undermining their capacity to functic

in the Dance? 11
ng mimicry that, contra Homi Bhabha
g the study of English in the wider defined by the large presence of the n it, gave it the resources it needed for iepartment was to engage, through a ous traditions, in the exciting process ourishment across all of the traditions 'rs to go beyond the pre-determined into the study in the metropolis, and ing of it through more encompassing w in much that entered critically into ling and living all around them. All of mergence of the kind of understanding ic realities that would enable them to al quest.
rget, represented a further great stride ogressive path on which the founders studies he inherited when he took y, under less-than-conducive colonial -looking effort, firmly set it. The great , Hector Passé and Doric de Souzano d another time' (the phrase modifies a self) and it would be perversely antibeen able to set itself outside of them. the first-mentioned of the three, it had nglish studies and, respecting its terms on to thin it down, handed it over full itation was for them to take possession heir own realities as a creative source t and practice, interpreting, extending st serve the purposes of their people in ust in its English-using quarter either)
subversive, disruptive Ludowyk' that most exciting and innovative radical 'activism' led him to 'appropriate the ly, all the while mediating richly across , including the country's indigenous y, Passé's pioneering work on "Ceylon ost-colonial cause on the linguistic ms the systematicity of the variety, it ing of the field of linguistic study that putting views of such 'new' varieties of also the users of the varieties, thereby bn confidently in the language across a

Page 27
12 Arbiters of a N
globalized world in which it was the As for that scintillating mind, Doric c came through the radical and highly generations of students. It was a skept through to the epistemological and models and approaches that were b of the country's educationists, layin inappropriacy but even their subversi concerns of his post-colonial context.
Very germane to an adequate un the department is that these features never received proper recognition, ce loaded, stereotype of the department, speaker had innocently drawn. On t colonial awareness began to sharpen, and the egalitarian and socialistic den department was re-figured as a clas: was, simply, conflated with the old u formed the socio-economic pool from drawn both its students and staff, anc fed back, and then transferring onto privileged and less-than-personable out thus as some kind of obsolescent c. particularly relevant role to play or co df its surroundings.
Interestingly, some of the sharp departmentalong these lines have con were then joined by those from outsi virtue of their own social backgrou tradition. This could well have been e questions about the stereotype. The c more likely by the recognition that m long served their country with distinc that is, the democratization of society new areas of activity and new possib these products to be reduced to their
The fact, however, that these ver continued not to be asked, causes c. raised. When these are pursued, web as a whole nor the products of the de pivotally into the stereotype by mean was a loaded rationalization of the act which was to divert attention from tha of this politics extended right across til department. Probing them further w how he set about his tasks.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
indispensable, de facto, first language. le Souza, his profoundest contribution creative skepticism he inculcated in cism that allowed him to cut incisively ideological core of the metropolitan being slipped into the consciousness g bare not just their inadequacy and ve potential from the viewpoint of the
derstanding of Halpé's stewardship of of the tradition of studies he inherited rtainly not in the favored, politicallythe one on which in fact our conference he contrary, as anti-imperialist, postin tandem with the nationalist impulse nocratising movements of the time, the sed symbol of an erstwhile empire. It rban anglophile elite who had mainly
which it had at one time considerably into which it also unfortunately often it all of the negative feelings that that slite had drawn to themselves. It came lassed leftover from empire that had no Intribution to make within the realities
est and most reasoned critiques of the ne from its own products, who, though, de of it, several of whom also were, by nd and class affiliation, insiders to its xpected to raise some rather searching Juestions would have been made even any of the department's products had tion in a whole range of arenas - until, that was going on, by opening out vast ilities of Societal participation, caused due proportions in terms of profile.
y obvious questions have assiduously ertain other suggestive queries to be egin to see that, while neither the class partment were beyond reproach, built s of which that reproach was conveyed ual politics of the situation, the effect of t politics. The process of the articulation he period of Halpé's stewardship of the ill, therefore, help us better appreciate

Page 28
And How Can We Know the Dancer fro
What it is most important to reco that were taking place, by allowing th state itself to remain intact, did not go he basic structures of power. In spite o socialism, no real challenge was issue which, alongside further socio-psych mechanisms, the familiar super-stru course, interacting among themselves was an unregenerate feudal outlook, based feature of the Lankan polity su structure, that seemed almost ineradic but, also, very large segments of the vulnerable to the power plays of the fo
The consequence, Securing along theold anglophile elite but also the den at the helm of power of a new, no-les we might call it that. This incorporate assortment of forces, each with its ol their position of dominance the compt reconstitut-ing/ed bourgeoisie, rural a were the current heirs of the ethnostructures, who crucially helped len addition, there were all kinds of lump increasingly indispensable as the rule ( began to give way to violence, under populist politics fed by ethno-religio intra-class rivalries, growing corrup and so on. Not inconsiderable number bilingual (in English and an indigeno in the process of making themselves S. trilingualism also emerging in the pro had been joined by remnants of the olc remaking themselves in the nationa made expedient, also saw the opport for themselves more than just a sur structures of power.
In spite of nationalist sentiment, whether they were indigenous languag dominant or balanced bilinguals, still of English and also, their means, to f occupancy of a somewhat higher tier C deny some of the more powerful (indig them access to that tier. The Self-rec inveigled their way into this tier had m One of these was to rationalize the e from their former positions of influe

m the Dance? 13
anize is that the various large changes he framework of the bourgeois nation too far beyond cosmetic alterations in f a few short-reached gestures towards d to the underlying economic base on ological-cultural factors, motives and tural features rested (all of these, of ). Prominent among the other factors a quite distinctive family and casteperimposed on the underlying classed :ably to define not only the leadership, populace - which rendered the latter
Drer.
the way not only the displacement of nise of the 'old left, was the installation ss hegemonic, bourgeois syndicate, if 2d a tiered or hierarchically arranged wn appointed role in maintaining in rollers of the system, a nationalistically nd urban. Included among the forces eligious leadership of the old feudal ld legitimacy to the comptrollers. In en-type hangers-on, who had become of law and basic civil and human rights the contradictions of an exclusionary us chauvinism, inter-group as well as tion, inefficiency, maladministration, s of the comptrollers had already been us language) while many others were o at various levels of competence, with ocess among a few of them. Also, they anglophile elite, who, while variously alistic image that the circumstances unities all of this gave them to secure vivalist niche within the rearranged
he bilinguals among the comptrollers, e dominant (now the majority), English tended, by virtue of their knowledge orm a new sort of privileged 'elite, in f the structures, though they could not genous language) monolinguals among onstituted anglophile rump that had any services to render to its occupants. xpulsion of the old 'obsolescent' elite nce. A favorite charge led against the

Page 29
14 Arbiters of a N
department products who represent and perspectives into which they ha political Eliot-Richards-Leavis critica were inadequate to the demands of th sufficed to open the way to the dising of several selected comptrollers, prope of Some of the familiar accoutrements Indeed, the 'standards' of the de crossed-over anglophiles, who populi. paymasters as nothing but an elitist was in practice). In the field of Engli instance, a sustained campaign has lo crossovers to remake English departm language teaching and teacher traini intellectual goal of helping students to think and understand things ha service goal that the post-colonial namely producing desperately need country. From this viewpoint, the sy were deemed to be irredeemably irre unconcerned with the 'real' problem practical language teaching matters, labeled counters and 'skills' rather t. an empowering understanding of a language) and mechanical classroom so on. The intellectual emptiness anc current local world of English langua to the Success of the campaign.
The implications of its success pass unnoticed. The ready adoption o the new, sometimes even anglophobi state, and not just in the field of Englis market fundamentalism that served th of the current global bourgeois orde through the bourgeois nation state ar of globalization, the diktat they issue order they dominated to be determine and its demands for the 'skills, techn service it. Disregarding the need forgo the practical value of these matters f to far exceed that of thinking and the to dismiss as 'elitist', given that the of understanding to see through to 2003).
By readily acquiescing in all of ensuring that the bourgeois State th

Jational imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ted that elite was that the standards d been inducted on the basis of the aal tradition passed on by its founders e rising post-colonial imperatives. This genuous consecration to the succession rly docile and, also, suitably possessed of the language. partment were a favorite target of the stically reconstrued them for their new power-ploy (which, admittedly, it often sh language study and education, for ng been pursued under the aegis of the nents in general as not much more than ng institutes. Implicitly, the scholastic, draw out and develop their capacity d to give way to a new professional, conditions were making important, ed English language teachers for the labuses of the Peradeniya department elevant, too 'abstract', 'theoretical and . The focus needed to fall instead on elementary grammar (seen in terms of han of principles that would promote nd development of competence in the routines, techniques, procedures and i lack of Sophistication of much of the ge study and education strongly attests
for the post-colonial quest, however, f this kind of approach to education by C, bourgeois Comptrollers of the nation h studies, signaled a capitulation to the le interests/designs of the commandants r. Exercising their hegemony across it ld working by way of the phenomenon 'd was for all matters across the world 'd essentially by the global labor market Liques and procedures that would help ood practice to root itself in good theory, or 'employability' and so on was taken ory, which in any case it was expedient y could supply people with the kind what was actually going on (Kandiah
this, the new comptrollers were only ey presided over would discharge the

Page 30
And How Can We Know the Dancer frc
role appointed to it within the curre owing to their self-professed anti-imp ill afford to have this revealed. Morec fig leaf to expose beneath it their unp same hegemonic game that they had a worse, using the same language for and on the basis of seemingly purely considerably as it happens from the v was, therefore, for the accusing finge them to be turned on another target. elite well served the purpose, summo the familiar stereotype as an ever-pres of the virulent hostility latent in natic ensuring suspension of the critical int. of the truth of the situation.
All of these various matters, in Halpé's stewardship of the departme which he had to discharge his tasks hostile and suspicious. Given that the the department had traditionally draw in which the less-than-radical new e as completely as might have been ex the more immediate a danger to wh open. The danger was that the depa the terms of its stereotype, by regress elitist anglophile drawing room of y of its manifestations by its cultivatec superficialities. Halpé, on taking ovi that danger would be averted. Spurni he strove, more difficultly, to ensure as a sanctuary where those invaluab predecessors, including the rigor of t and imaginative excellence they define he knew this would invite to itself, bé even while they were further drawn o them more immediately answerable t fast-changing times.
Leaving aside the many othe recruitment, student selection, admi the effort, Halpe's introduction of represented a major dimension of the calls for special mention that this prom encounters of the literatures involv administrative or pedagogical realms over his own mentors, namely his kn from it into English. No doubt his ch

nn the Dance? 15
2nt global bourgeois order. However, erialist, nationalist stance, they could ver, it would tear down their populist repossessing engagement in the very ccused the former elite of playing, and, the purpose - though obliquely now, utilitarian justifications of it (drawing focabulary of globalization). The need r that might point too dangerously at The specter of the defunct anglophile ned up and then materialized through sent reality, on which was deposited all onalism in its negative manifestations, alligence that would enable recognition
process' during the entire period of int, ensured that the conditions under
were, at best, indifferent, more often a nature of the social pool from which in its members was not, under the ways lite were now extending it, changing pected, these conditions rendered all ich the department had always been rtment could of its own accord fulfill sing into the re-assuring comfort of an resteryear, characterized in too many inanities and its elegantly expressed er the department, made certain that ng a defensive revisionist back-sliding,
that the department would continue ble features he had inherited from his he standards of academic, intellectual 'd, would, in the face of the hostility that a protected, nurtured and transmitted, ut, renewed and transformed to render ) the new post-colonial demands of his
r matters of syllabus change, staff nistration and so on that entered into the Sinhala/Tamil literatures course way in which he went about his task. It notion by him of the mutually enriching ved was not confined simply to the . He himself used an advantage he had owledge of Sinhala, to do translations oice of English as the target language

Page 31
16 Arbiters of a N
in his translations was determined b language. Still, by going counter to th the context, which was to translate fro1 it took on itself another important v practical justification it might have h assumption that the metropolis was th technology, skills, goods, things, what the passive receivers. Halpé's reversal things that the metropolis (and many indigenes, thus contributing to the re the flow of ideas across the world that was critical to the global epistemologic the post-colonial struggle (Kandiah 19 Remarkably, while these accom immediately call up the several critic above, they are themselves not, ge comprehensive, programmatic articul them. Eschewing conscious cerebratic for instance, contains, he preferred r, unobtrusively set about the praxis th Success of both. Impressionistically sp is not so much a theorized position a aesthetic. This was something that, wh the post-colonial issues that were pres even in praxis, in terms that remind u The appeal of the 'aesthetic' lies c it issues from a profound, inborn hur cautious, conscience-salving humani class) liberalism too preoccupied with an impulse that wells instinctively up for him as a fundamental organizing into all corners of his being, it seems t him to draw mind, heart and body or perhaps be best seen as an Eliotian this sensibility it could not but flows among and together with his fellow h of his existence, bearing him into an i areas - scholarship, education, admin music, counseling - even as it nourish relationships, from the most intimate
In each of these, his humanist instinctive empathy or sense of ident simply had to seek concrete creative e thought/feeling that would make a di If they had that potential, th nourishment they drew into themselv

lational lmaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
by the fact that that was his stronger he predominant translation practice of in English to the indigenous languages, 'alue. The current practice, whatever lad, tended to confirm the colonialist le pre-ordained supplier of knowledge, ever to the un-provided indigenes, ever of the practice affirmed that there were others places too) had to learn from the versal of the one-way directionality of empire had set in place, something that al equality that was a major concern of 95). uplishments of Halpé of their nature al issues of post-coloniality dealt with nerally, accompanied by an explicit, ation by him of the thinking that drove ons about them of the kind this paper, ather, as was his wont, to quietly and at the thinking entailed to ensure the eaking, therefore, what he has to offer is what might best be described as an hile sensitively attuned to the politics of sing upon it, preferred to realize itself, s of the creative arts. onsiderably in the sense it gives us that man impulse. Wholesomely unlike the tarianism of a namby-pamby (middle itself to go as far as was necessary, it is from deep within the man, to emerge life principle. Carrying quite naturally o operate with integrating force within ganically together to form what might kind of unified sensibility. Through pontaneously out into the life he lived uman beings within the wider context mpressively wide range of specialized istration, literature, theatre, art, poetry, ned his own personal life and all of his to the formal and the distant. ic impulse un failingly issued as an ification with his fellow creatures that Xpression in instances of fused action/ fference. is was because of the resources of ses along all of their three dimensions,

Page 32
And How Can We Know the Dancer fro
not just out of Halpé the individual hi abundance of the symbiotic realities w beings had together to construct their their dreams, with his humanistic imp features of the realities. Yeats allows Halpé's aesthetic - his labor', embedc was a blossoming or dancing, where or the bole' from its "great-rooted blos dance".
But, there still remain some spec about his tri-natured, symbiotic praxis it so satisfying derives quite transpa from the great European cultural tra on to cultivate at such great breadth ; integral part of who he symbiotically v this was an inheritance that he had b virtue of his privileged "anglo backg have been irrelevant, even reactional and, effectively, betraying the 'ordinar the implicit gravamen of the various 'c Halpé's own irrefutable justification of or of theory or of a protesting faith, doubt, by what he had learned frc humanism. During both of the extende (early 1970s and late 1980s), when man brutal treatment by the powers-that-w to them, he tirelessly, and courageous visits to prisons, comfort, reassurance, of support that helped carry them thro That equal vigilance needs to be when considering the indigenous com made clear when we read his autobiog which he traces the circumstances anc he became. As might be expected, the 'v assumed, but worked for through vora it is the indigenous input, absorbed ea the household servant), to which he a: Some animistic popular beliefs aside, t in the poem by the majority linguistic Sinhala-Buddhist tradition. The ling course, explained, quite ordinarily, by bilingual circumstances.
What initially seems worrying, h any of this of the Catholic faith to wh further, that the Sinhala tradition is rep his legendary act of compassion towa

in the Dance? 17
imself, but also, generously, out of the within which he and his fellow human meanings, their lives, their hopes and ulse protecting him from the negative us to discern more finely the nature of iled deep and firm within its realities, we cannot tell the leaf, the blossom somer', or know the dancer from the
ific points of significance to be noted (or labor'). A great deal of what makes rently from the nourishment it draws dition that Halpé inherited and went and depth that it became an intimate, was. According to the stereotype, since een able to claim in that way only by ground and his class, it could not but y, Subverting the post-colonial cause y' people at its centre. This indeed was harges' made against the department. himself came, not by words of defence but by his deeds, partly inspired, no om the great European tradition of 2d periods of the Southern insurgencies y university students were subjected to ere, panicky over the threat they posed sly, ministered to many of them, with interventions and other tangible forms ough their crises.
exercised against over-simplification ponent of Halpé's symbiotic persona is raphical poem the boyhood of Chittha, in i influences that shaped him into what western cultural input, not just casually cious reading, figures prominently. But lier (be it initially under the tutelage of ssigns priority, marking it with a "n.b.". his input is largely represented for him -religious tradition of the country, the uistic dimension of the situation is, of y his own immediate, Sinhala-English
however, is that there is no mention in ich he was so deeply committed, and, resented for him by Dutugemunu, with rds the 'starved monk". At a simplistic

Page 33
18 Arbiters of a N
glance all of this appears not inconsiste it is the majority linguistic-religious tra the national cultural heritage of the co would then be alien intrusions on it, t because of its built-in forbearance, ass trained forms which they would assu. perspective that would necessarily a Fanonian dialectic there
Latent in the exclusionary maj of course, the destructive violence t. the excluded, with Dutugemunu as i inevitable retaliation, often in like vic instinctive human sense of identificat not possibly allow him to come to term there already is unmistakable recogniti figure, however glamorized he is in t the pernicious rallying symbol of th shoulder-blades, there "reeked copious for the monk (tearing out brilliant ear. But, it was in the immediate wo were to see the most tangible expres identification with others. In early 19, holocaust of July that was being diligen areas of the country was launched ol until then remained a reasonably Satisf acceptance. This involved an attempt of its 'contaminating' minority langu either). The stirring lead that Halpé labors in all possible fora and in all p turn things around in the face of a dem on the part of many of the authorities a even much of the student body for th man he was, and to the deep and ge. fellow beings that inspired him to be t It was entirely natural that the Ha expression in the various creative arts early in his life. It is his poetry, amo discern the man and what he was. In some of the larger challenges and issu Some of his most striking poer realities of his troubled times. Thes youth, including many university stu and hope by a callous Society only tok had bowed (their) shoulders to history militant anti-Establish ment course of at the overthrow of the state by viole

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
nt with the Jathika Chintanaya view that dition that truly, and solely, represents untry. All else, including Catholicism, o which, though, the tradition would, ign their due place, but in the houseme as they filter through the majority nd inevitably preside over it all – no
oritarianism of this approach was, hat was craving to be unleashed on ts populist rallying symbol, inviting ious coin, from the excluded. Halpé's ion with all of his fellow beings could s with much of this. In the poem itself, on of the potential in the Dutugemunu he presentation, that fitted him to be e majoritarian cause – on his golden blood', and even his act of compassion -rings') is not devoid of violence. :ld of actual human dwelling that we ision of Halpé's tri-natured praxis of 83, a trial run of the disastrous racial tly set up by the Establishment in many n the Peradeniya campus, which had ying example of mutual multi-cultural to 'cleanse' the campus, by violence, age users (religion was not irrelevant gave, with his indefatigable, selfless ossible areas of action, to the effort to oralising, if very revealing, unconcern and too many of his colleagues as well, at matter, is eloquent testimony to the nuine sense of identification with his hat man. alpé aesthetic would crave imaginative that had begun to seek him out quite ng these arts, that most allows us to doing so, it also enables us to see into es of post-colonial creativity. ns are situated deep in the historical a deal with the disenchanted radical dents, who, cut off from all prospects enistically concerned with their needs, r' (letter to a student) by entering upon a behavior and action aimed eventually nce (the southern Insurgency of 1971).

Page 34
And How Can We Know the Dancer fr
The bourgeois leadership, unable to c contradictions of their own populist p on the recalcitrant elements, thus ful the privileged and the underprivilege Halpé's sense of identification wi to stay with this, he was impelled to r to try to recognize and know and tou to see you not as an ant/ crawling the The metaphor is apt - that indeed is, way to and from classes would registe some way up a hill overlooking the ca what those on his own side tended inc face I suffered/ of you sitting before shares the suffering of the student wh of discipline. But, it is the face that hal the denotations/connotations of the w the use of the passive structure, sign of its subject to mere object. The stro: student, 'bent over the thoughts/ tha lips,/ weighed on your eyes', heighte his plight. In later poems dealing wit becomes even more graphic: "... the irreducible bone/.../ young bodies te river shadows, awaiting/ the kind in almost brutally, right into the Kurtzi that last phrase is overwhelming.
No excess there; what is describe shows the experience being felt as im the unified sensibility prevails. The si is also at the same time a glimpse int their miseries and defeats' (April). But just in the consciousness of the art, even as the artist venture(s) to love' (l intellectual sense too: "I would know t theirs terrifying faith (April). Not a idealistic fervor here but a mind alert situation and struggling to make ser letting go of its compassionate identif The drama of the struggle is sh prevents it from arriving at any firm p and the effort to reach across the divi shines through a gleam of expectant poet's dream beckon...', their eyes wi hope' ( dreann). But that hope "soon di Savior nor captain, nor messenger/bu (dream). In spite of the straw of future

)m the Dance? 19
omprehend that this was caused by the oys, reacted by crushing brutally down ther reinforcing the distance between d, their separateness. h his fellow beings could not allow him each across the barriers that separated, ch the people on the other side: "I want campus spread below my house' (letter). iterally, how the students making their in the eye when viewed from his house mpus. And as he reaches across, he sees teven to notice, "The horrible suffering us/ being inquired into'. Proctor Halpé Iom he is investigating for some breach ants, its suffering palpably captured by ords used, and further accentuated by aling absence of agency, the reduction ng physicality of the description of the t drew in your cheeks, blackened your ns the immediacy of our experience of h the Insurgency itself, the physicality stench/ of Seared flesh, thes cracked Ingled in monsoon scrub/ or rotting in partial fish' (April 1971), plunging us, an horror of the situation. The irony of
d is, quite simply, the reality. But it also mediately as the odor of its rottenness; :ht of the violated bodies of these youth their anguished Souls, "ravaged by all the thought is also clearly present, not put also in the awareness with which, atter), he tries to 'understand', and in the heir reasons,/ the rigor of their hot hate, blindly indiscriminate, self-indulgent to the disturbing contradictions of the ise of them without, at the same time, cation with the human tragedy.
ot through with a certain tension that bint of resolution, any satisfying closure, de is thwarted. Just momentarily, there hope: the fingers of the guerillas in the den... in welcome', their bodies “stir... in 2d', 'when they saw that I was neither/ t only a problem, not yet/even a friend' possibilities at which the adverb 'yet'

Page 35
20 Arbiters of a N
here (desperately?) clutches, the defea of meeting or communication, for 'th communication/ beyond all our spee (letter), and the ant-figure that the poet only reality that is still there, on the ( 'stooped lone ant with a cigarette,f th sears of your distant hopelessness' (let
The despair is overpowering, supplying the poet with a further r in the writing. Each of the series o penultimate line demands full, delib it contributes its smoldering force to a sense of irresistible, consuming po into the polysyllabic word "hopelessn. its overwhelming power, the despair even necessary discriminations betwe his earnest efforts to reach across and to understand and to know, he conce guilt: "I knows only the thinner reek o / the ashy guilt of being too old,/ salar
And as this negative certainty im to his engagement with the whole frau and thingsbecome immeasurably sim plight of the other gradually recedes more introverted preoccupation with h stage, so that we cease to be able to cause of the other or about the poet h The mind which creates' has not bee who suffers. This loss of the Eliotian be attributed to what must be seen a sensibility through which the poetins disappointment and frustration of his body and heart that defined that sensi suspension of the rational intellect wi important safeguard of Self-reflexivit be installed as the central concern, to
But, Halpé is too concerned and humbly open to growth as a poet, fort but momentary. The mind re-affirms restore clarity of recognition. From th dream in which he had learnt nothir the still warmths of my wife beside m of my children in the next room/st are beauteously evoked, their grate by the poet right and just. Out of the challenge the 'accusing presences in

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
it is stark and final - there is no point ley have said everything/ in dying, a ch' (April). Therefore, "I am rebuked' had striven to get free of returns as the other side and overshadowing all else: afternoon burns with the slow white er).
the re-instated an t-student image metaphor, his cigarette, to re-enact it f monosyllabic content words in the 2rate stress as, slowing the line down, an inexorable, cumulative build-up of wer, the full weight of which is thrust ess' that brings the poem to a close. In Swallows up the poet himself, causing en self and other to be lost. Defeated in commune with his other, to learn and des, "I learnt nothing" (dream) - except f pity,/ the harsh guilt of Self-contempt, ied, safe, and comfortable' (April). poses itself, the tension that lent power ght predicament slackens and gets lost, pler than they are. Worse, the numbing to something like a backdrop for the his own despair that replaces it at center tell whether the writing is about the imself, about the dance or the dancer. in sufficiently separated from the "man "impersonality' principle must, Surely, s a kind of malfunction in the unified tinctively seemed to work, as, under the sense of defeat, the integration of mind, bility is distorted into a kind of willing thin it. This results in the loss of the ally, allowing the poet's own Suffering to gether with the poet himself.
conscious an artiste, too honestly and his loss of self-reflexivity to be anything itself within the unified sensibility to e despairing finality of his nightmarish g, he awakens, "shuddering/.../ glad of e..../ glad of the sleep-sodden voices/.../ irring early..." (dream). These blessings ful acknowledgement and acceptance air strength, he calls up the courage to every shadow' that had so cowed him,

Page 36
And How Can We Know the Dancer frt
self-reflexively cognizant now that th but by himself. How/ should they bla aid, or even understanding?"
Such self-recognition does not a to impose on the situation the stasis exploration, restoring the tension tha to look at himself without fear of selftrue, but only/ in my own fashion'. I recognition, he is now able to reitera none of the self-absorbed defeatism C therefore, still does not bring things force of the but which starts off the it refuses assurance and finality: But speech/ falters, or a gift alters/.../even be the same again, for 'Silent arbiters/h is superb, capturing, in the subdued to the violence of the continuing battlew in the physical military arena outside ago he had conceded "I have learned any inconsistency, "I learn' - this time self-immolating". And how does he lea 'I learn", "I dream – the gramm the identity, and also the perpetuit, watchfulness of the restored self-reflex longer be the emasculating, self-orien But neither can it be the kind of drea perfectly its extended reverie, the hai daughter', whose 'nights are thicks wit and other things which words cannot The end of innocence and the begin knowledge has led to the recognition in fact being engaged with here are the dreaming/learning process to car deep and sincere identification with time seemed so self-sufficiently adequ. about them.
Halpé does not spell these out ex this remarkable poem with, in effect, invitation, to its readers and to hims His elegy for Peradeniya, dealing with of Peradeniya in the early 1970s, offe the challenges of the invitation. The Insurgency of April 1971. The violence by Surprise the feudal-minded, natic country, demonstrating in dramatic te to blind the ordinary people to their ful

m the Dance? 21
sy are not demons made by his others neme, they/.../who never asked me for
flow the former self-accusing despair of its finality, it opens it out to further t enlivens the writing. Now he is able pity: 'Is have tried to understand'; very \o longer needing to flinch from that te, "I have learned nothing', but with f the earlier assertion. The reiteration, to an end - the logical implicational series of conjunctive clause attached to often gladness/ goes suddenly slack, in the giving". Nothing can any longer ave camped in my skull'. The metaphor ne of a dispassionate factual statement, ithin his mind, matching that going on And so, although only just a moment nothing, he is able to affirm, without round, though, Neither crucified nor rn? 'I dream',
har reinforces the equivalence, if not y, of the processes. What, under the ivity, he learns is that the dream can no ted dream he awoke from shuddering. m which began the poem, framing so untingly innocent dream of his 'small in marvelous events and "vast histories' say. Too much has transpired for that. ning of self-knowledge. And that selfthat the post-colonial realities that are so large and complex that they oblige ry beyond all such, beyond, even, his their human victims that had all this ate, to new kinds of dreaming/learning
plicitly, preferring instead to conclude an implicit, intriguingly open-ended elf, to work them out for themselves. is forced transfer from the University 'S us significant insights into some of transfer followed directly from the Df the Insurgency had taken completely nal(istic) bourgeois leadership of the ms the failure of their populist policies ldamental indifference to their real and

Page 37
22 Arbiters of a N
desperate needs. Bewildered and obtus the political crisis into which they had to 'think' within the parameters laid d role within the dominant bourgeois whole series of ill-conceived, panic-dr to retrieve their situation.
Particularly because university S the agitation, several of these measure philistinist finger was pointed at th over-generous treatment of the Hum of 'rationalization' that the limited re were asserted to demand. This invol reduplication of the "unproductiv presumably economizing re-location o centralized site, with a Skeletal Staff le Some cases. Arrangements began the several departments, including the D along with most of their staff, with utt to the huge, potentially disastrous et but even to such down to earth pract resources, among many others.
Halpé took a lead role in the ca calling attention with unremitting vi educational principle it would entailar terms. But, the decisions had already be the face of his refusal to accept them, a planned, resulting in the transfer of Ha of the staff of the Humanities departm For Halpé personally, the transf resonant concluding line of the autobiog of 'the benedictions' he was born to, t 'and Peradeniya claimed him for his joined together and increasing mutua was the 'nursery of our love' (elegy), the between him and his wife, Bridget, th singular whole that, as Catherine in W each could well say, with the other ir vast dimensions to such personal dis was the unendurable destruction of th which Peradeniya's progenitors' had S The elegy was an acid test for Halp Given his own intense personal investr have been nearly irresistible to surrer draw attention away from the dance t comes out of the test impressively. Do

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ely unable to understand the nature of plunked themselves, but still needing own for them by their pre-determined social order, they had launched on a iven, gut reactive measures intended
tudents were at the center of a lot of S were targeted at education. A strong e 'wastefulness' of the purportedly anities, leading to a call for the kind Sources of this post-colonial country ved the elimination of the wasteful e' Humanities disciplines, and the f the departments involved to a single, eft behind in the original locations in refore to be made for the transfer of Department of English in Peradeniya, erly inadequate attention paid not just ducational implications of the move, icalities as the availability of library
mpaign against the rationalization', igor and passion to the violations of ld their cost in educational and human een made and would not be changed in und the rationalization' went ahead as lpé himself along with other members ents in Peradeniya. er was like a sentence of death. The graphical Chittha proclaims the 'fondest' he one that was 'set to shape his glory': own'. Henceforth, he and Peradeniya, lly, are not to be set asunder. More, it at most extraordinary love relationship at so welded them too together into a uthering Heights had said of Heathcliffe, mind, "I am Bridget/Ashley'. Adding possessions that the transfer inflicted lose highest of educational ideals with ought to imbue the place. 3 and the integrity of his self-reflexivity. ment in the place, the temptation would nder to that habit of mind that would o the suffering dancer himself. Halpé ubtless, the 'we' of the poem do claim

Page 38
And How Can We Know the Dancer fro
for themselves the role of prophetic a that Peradeniya stood for would be re is that Peradeniya is never displacec monument', and, Halpé insists, 'not, p. seems to be a fervent appeal to those w important cause involved to Halpé hin centerpiece, victim of his resistance to strong again, has, clearly, led him to would only help devalue the principle
Halpé's retrieval of self-reflexiv. and highly promising new understal in stature and grow as a poet. Perha figuration of that understanding is the ballad of Divnuhamy, whichtells til Millawitanachchi Mendis. One nigh mother a good meal, arranges her con and then, at four in the morning, aft to both his mother and the chopperh He then climbs up a tree to hang hir here. Instead of pressing on with his tree to cut his mother's head off, bur But the resolve has now gone, and th tree, with the intended suicide rope when he, extraordinarily ordinarily, a disturbing sequence of events makes t made Mendis come down the first tir seemingly assured mind, and, irrev, did you want to be sure of/ before y mysteries of the human psyche here v neat or final tidying up. If there arear which we may guess at/but should no
We recognize here how much MW / your confused old eyes/ are qui those mirrors, he seems to have recog something important that finally relea style that had held him back earlier. N to identify with this other will allow "the piquant juice of your privacy' (t him his integrity: "We have no right to your intent/ on your road upward". way diminishing the quality of his res confusions, leads us to a felt sense oft dispelling complexities of the truth o are seeing here is a specific facet of process Halpe launched himself o

m the Dance? 23
gents of a future history in which all 'affirmed. What is important, though, , it remains a commanding 'symbol, ease, of us'. The unusual "please' there ho would deflect attention from the allself, by projecting him as its martyred he 'rationalization'. His self-reflexivity, see that to so distort the actual facts she had fought so hard to preserve. ty had, clearly, led him to an exciting lding of things, helping him increase ps his most mindful and purposeful to be found in that arresting poem, he story of the sixty year old villager, ht, Mendis gives his ninety-year-old fortably in her bed, reads her to sleep, 2r doing obeisance in traditional style e uses for the purpose, cuts her throat. nself. The melodrama turns to drama intent, Mendis comes down from his ies it, and then climbs the tree again. e next morning he is found up in his dangling behind him, by his cousin, sks him for a chew of betel. The whole he urge to understand immense. What ne round, leading to the change of his ocably, of everything else too? What ou hanged yourself?' There are deep which lie beyond comprehension, resist y certainties at all, they are 'certainties ot utter'. Halpé has grown as a poet. Mendis, et mirrors. Looking at his reflection in nized something about himself, learned ises him from those habits of mind and ow, not even his strong natural instinct him to intrude, disrespectfully, upon he reminder here is of toddy) denying ask you/ what deliberations disturbed The refusal to intrude, without in any trainedly affecting response to Menais' he irreducible, non-final, complacencyF Mendis' human experience. What we the growth of the dreaming/learning n in the dream, endowing that ever

Page 39
24 Arbiters of a N
progressing poem with the new kind it, through the awakening recognition complexities of the post-colonial crisis Critical to that growth is the unm. which in turn signals that Halpe h indispensable to that self-reflexivity, within his unified sensibility. Among facilitate is the important one that ider right, be insufficient, indeed even una objects of self-gratifying concern, thus and, in the process, reducing whatev limits of the identifier's own awarer subaltern has no voice (1988), the signi understanding of post-colonial creativ it would remind privileged post-colo actually doing when they identify, as Subaltern, is presuming to mediate that and, very much from the other side. S can, as we have seen, very easily lead the subaltern, given the chance, mig the possibility of subjectivity and a it is underwritten by the kind of sel appreciate.
It is, of course, this self-reflexivity Therefore, the large contribution his a the post-colonial endeavor, and, especi take the form of any blueprinted soluti - the dream, we remember, remains sug through the way in which it helps cl for meaningful responses to such cri it is presumably this same self-reflex engage, as poet, with that most complic crises that the country has ever facec destroyed its capacity for rational thou and violated the humanity of its peo itself, though an invaluable safeguard is not all there is to it. What has most inspirational value and scale is Halpé's to identify with his fellow beings and which expressed itself with such con man, both in his poetry and in his life 'one life, one writing".

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
of understanding that so strengthened if the immense, not-always-transparent out of which it emerged.
tigated reinstatement of self-reflexivity, as also saved the rational intellect, from the danger of being suspended other recognitions that such matters tification with others might, in its own cceptable, if it reduces them simply to taking away their integrity as subjects er larger 'cause' they represent to the less. If, as Spivak has suggested, the ficance of this recognition for a proper ity gets considerably heightened. For, nial studies that what they are often they often do, with the post-colonial subaltern's voice, to speak for him/her; Such presuming (presumptuousness?) to the displacement of whatever voice ht have spoken in, the denial even of gency to him/her: unless, of course, f-reflexivity that Halpé has led us to
hat kept Halpéfrom simple certainties. esthetic makes to an understanding of ally, of post-colonial creativity does not Ons it offers to its crises and challenges gestively open-ended. Rather it is made arify some of the fundamental bases ses and challenges. At the same time, ivity that has led Halpé to decline to ated and traumatic of the post-colonial , the horrendous ethnic war that has ght, irrevocably eroded its moral fiber ple. Which means that self-reflexivity hat helps keep things sound and solid, assigned the aesthetic its indubitably deep and instinctive humanistic urge to intervene in their crises, something sistent eloquence in the praxis of the
AS Robert Lowell would have said it,

Page 40
And How Can We Know the Dancer fr
Works Cited
Ahmad, A. (1992), in Theory: Classes, Nation Fanon, F. (1968), The Wretched of the Earth, N
Hatthotuwegama, G.K. (2005), "Unreaso correlative to English - Rescuing the Memorial Lecture.
Jameson, F. (1986), Third world literature
Fall, 65-88.
Kandiah, T. (1995), "Centering the periphery of discourse", Foreword to Para kra Learning from (Post) Colonial Englishes St. Martin's Press, xv-xxxvi.
Kandiah, T. (2003), "De-/Re-centering th language studies: From the materiali of time and place" in N. Srinivasan (e the Medium: A New Intellectual Perspec Faculty of Education, 1-34.
Kandiah, T. (2005), "Perceiving the 'other' Lankan creative writing in English" i. Other Worlds, Singapore; Marshal Cav Press). 284-298.
Spivak, G.C. (1988), Can the subaltern speak: and the Interpretation of Culture, Basing

om the Dance? 25
, Literatures, London: Verso.
ew York: Grove Press.
nable postulates and treasonable practices : liberational impulse", The E.F.C. Ludowyk
in the era of multinational capital, Social Text
of English: Towards participatory communities ma A. De-Hegemonizing Language Standards: about English, London: Macmillan/New York:
ought and practice in Third World English ty of the word to the determinate materiality d.), Critical Discourse Analysis - The Message of tive for English Education in Yemen, Hodeidah:
within one's unique self. Understanding Sri n Thumboo, E. & T. Kandiah (eds.), Perceiving 'endish (first published, 1991, Times Academic
In Nelson, C. and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism stoke: Macmillan Education, 271-313.

Page 41
Ashley Halpé as P.
RANJINI OE
Professor Ashley Halpé is best know writer. His work as a translator is less \ Or rather 'transcreations' of the 7th to Professor Senarat Paranavitana So car wall at Sigiriya, are perhaps Some of t those ancient verses. It is the work of a comes across only very rarely among ti very well known and have been transl. volume of fifty six verses published i. such evocative translations that I will l
5 (26) The golden ones within their mounta Vouchsafe no speech Except the gaze of those unmoving e
9 (69)
Women like you Make men pour out their hearts, My body thrills to you, its hair Stiffening with desire.
14 (106) Dry as a tender bud fallen on rock Are the hearts of these golden ones Who have enslaved me.
1 I give in parentheses the numbers of t
prose versions of Sigiri Graffiti

oet and Translator
BEYSEKERE
wn as a dedicated teacher, critic and well known. However, his translations |0th century Sigiri graffiti poems that efully transcribed from off the Mirror he most sensitive poetic renderings of poet/translator-that combination one anslators. The Sigiri graffiti poems are ated by many. But Ashley Halpe's slim n 1995 under the title Sigiri Poems are pegin by quoting a few.
ain niche :
yes.
he poems as they appear in Paranavitana's

Page 42
Ashley Halpé as Poet and Translator
28 (207)
She returns look for look With eyes like blue water lilies But she has lingered too long on the The stone has gone into her heart.
55 (515) A petal from her ear has leaped to h In one bound; thus it speaks Though she herself is dumb.
60 (559) Lovely the woman, excellent the pai She will not speak, but when I look At hand and eye I do believe she liv
62 (595) The wind raged, denuding the trees In their bud-time beauty - Thousands, hundreds of thousands; The jackals howled, the torrents Roared down the Maleya mountain But the night glowed tender, the lea Copper colour, in the shimmer Of innumerable fireflies. O long-eyed ones I read your message, but What does it hold for me?
As part of a kind of continuum, I wi my own translations of a few Sinhala ten centuries later, but like the Sigiri C brief, using a style of poetry where meaning permitting both the expre occasion as well as more generalized world.
The first set are Pal Kavi Watch but which probably came into the fol rice farmers as they kept watch over comments on the hardships of a far tone seems to convey the Buddhist v understanding of suffering as an in This world view does not prevent th the forest world in which they func forebears, seem familiar with rhetori the play on words and the nuanced probably come into folk usage from of the effects, though seemingly sim into another language and are invaria

27
mountain
2r breast
nter
S.
V8:S
ll add a relatively eclectic collection of folk poems. They were written perhaps raffiti poems they are also anonymous, the very compression evokes layers of 'ssion of deeply personal emotion on
comments on life and the ways of the
-hut poems) now popular as folk songs k repertoire as songs sung by dry-zone their crops in jungle villages. They are mer's life, and their often melancholy world-view of the Sinhala villager - an evitable feature of samsaric existence. nem from responding to the beauty of tion. These folk poets, like their Sigiri cal devices such as rhyme, alliteration, use of language and imagery that have the prevailing literary tradition. Many ple, are almost impossible to transpose bly lost in the translation. One can only

Page 43
28 Arbiters of a N
achieve a degree of approximation in ol of the original verses.
Pal Kavi
1
In lovely lonely fields the big grain ri Grief-giving elephants - wild, I drive Protect me gods, the rice from these f And because I'm poor, in watch-huts
[Lakśana himavatē mā vī päsen Dukdena ali äthun pannā arinn Räkmena deviyanē vel bat budinn Duppat kama nisayi mama päl rakin
2. Only my axe knows I cut fence sticks Only the dyke knows how I watered
Only my mat knows of the nights tha But the gods know how my watch-hu
3
In this back-scorching sun I cannot st These hand-entangling ferns I cannot These firm-grown bamboo roots I car Growing wild rice and this grim life
4
I carry my sleeping mat and climb to I spread the mat on the floor and pre The thought of the hands that wove t Songs rise to my lips to ease the pain
5
The she-frog's clamor beats upon my A wild pig rooting yams I see quite n I dare not now climb down for my m And my body is all weary with this v
6
The plants that once I planted here ar The fence that then I built, by cattle to Having kept watch all through the ni Let us now drowsily compose new sc
2 I have given the Sinhala originals only i my translations, as many readers will b Each four-lined end rhymed stanza is an tend to have a mood of melancholic lone

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
le's attempts to capture at least a flavor
}6onS
away. ields I live on spend my days.
nē nē
nė nē
from the jungles my paddy- field t I spent watching t I did haunt.
and
tear not pull cannot bear
my watch-hut
pare to sleep hose designs - suddenly hits me in my heart.
ear
ear nd is full of fear atching.
e withered
. ght over our small plots ngs.
the case of a few poems. For the rest I give e familiar with the original Sinhala poems. independent poem, though they sometimes liness that gives them a seeming unity.

Page 44
Ashley Halpé as Poet and Translator
7
The rain bird plays above the threate And loaded sacks are put on the bac The rest-shed in the fields belongs to I am not lonely - stop crying, you m
8 With beads and colored baubles rou Came I to this dry, dead village - mo O the coconut trees grow lush there I may yet use you, coconut Scraper, c
This last poem has an ironic twist speaking voice is definitely that of a v of an eager young bride, decked in he second line is a pithy comment on th in an ironic tone of self-criticism rath to a nostalgic evocation of the lush wo of coconut trees and rich vegetation, a she is now in. The last line is address item in any village home where cocon cooking. Again in a brilliant transfe scraper. It is the coconut scraper that neglected, in a world where there are poet to retain her tone of ironic distan implicit evocation of her own harsh gi
Love poems
9
That wisp of a smile how does it gra Flower petals strung upon a chain o How would it look if one added bau Like a moon-burst drowning out a f
[Yan tam sina obe münata kumak Ran dam välaka mal peti ämunuvá An dam ita savi karotin kumak Pandam väta udin sañda pävuv
10
This wild hen walking over the hill The sweat around her forehead rour The rings upon her hands and feet - Will you walk past without one glar
3 I quote the original here to indicate t natural beauty of the woman's shy sn the addition of a few items of externa power of the image conveyed in the las between the opening words "yantam'; repetitive end rhyme are again lost in t

29
ning rain clouds ks of bulls
all men ourn full owl.
nd my neck bre fool I - in my village. lo not cry.
that produces a different mood. The voman. The first line evokes a glimpse r finery coming to her new home. The e reality she has encountered - stated er than self pity. The mood then shifts rld of her former home with its groves a stark contrast to the dead dry village ed to the coconut scraper - an integral uts are an essential part of daily curry rence the poet addresses the coconut must not cry, stuck away un-used and no coconuts. The comment enables the ce but it is at the same time a powerful ief.
ce your face? f gold bles bold? ence of flares!
väni väni
väni vänio
is freckled nds like pearls
gem-speckled hce, my girl?
he poet's clever contrast between the simple nile and the dramatic difference he believes l ornamentation would make. The dramatic tline is hard to capture. The cleveralliteration 'ran dam', 'an dam'; and "pandam' and the ranslation.

Page 45
30 Arbiters of a Ni
11 Little cute-one your small breasts and The golden flush that's creeping up y You fling a roguish glance afar, then, Odainty-footed little one, why do you
12 The Dumbara field is fenced, its now The Mahaveli water is channeled, the Dumbara lasses are lovely, ah! the gla A three-ply tapestry this - an intricat
13
Milk the cow Moon-face Congeal the milk like the moon Then cousin sweet do not answer 'no' But give me a taste of curd soon.
This seemingly simple poem plays on a meaning. Not only is the cow called M for a cow, but the milk when turned to circular clay pots also resembles the mo line is a cross cousin or 'nana". and the cousin marriages. The request for a qui her hand. The last line in the original highlighted by the "na" sound.
[anē näne näta nokiyā di kiri mata
14
Taksala is way beyond the moon Whirlpools of grief churn deep benea Bees come to kiss the flowers at bloss Why is it sleep comes not to me tonig
(Taksalāva sañda mudunen thiyen Duksalāva sita yata kärakäven Malveläva bambarun rõnata en Makvelāda mata ada nidi noyen
The four lines of this poem seem at fil other, yet their underlying meaning m The first line evokes a world of youth, was the ancient 'university-city' a far congregated and where, according to their teacher's young daughters. How Connotes is now a distant, lost world. T
4. The villages of the dumbara valley were but also for the intricate weaving skills v

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
little feet are graceful ou makes your face delightful. in your hair you hide it
avoid this street?
time to be on watch
fields lotus-full inces they give e Dumbara weave.
a lot of implicit images and nuances of Oonface' (Sandavati) - a popular name curd as is usually done in open faced bon. The 'cousin addressed in the next context is a culture of preferred cross ick taste of curd is a subtle request for is a series of clever double negatives
denne. That too is hard to translate.
Ith my mind
Om time
ht?
mã
nā nā nā)
st to have little connection with each akes a powerful emotional statement. Scholarship and young love. Taksala ned center for learning where youth legend, pupils often fell in love with ever, for this poet, Taksala and all it he second line is a powerful evocation
famous not only for their beautiful women with cotton, reeds and other materials.

Page 46
Ashley Halpé as Poet and Translator
of the poet's present state of mind-tr The contrast between the world bey mind is a clever play on words that though a seeming disconnected interp grief. Love which should be a natural blossoms - is absent from his presen sleepless.
After almost a lifetime spent in do from. I will conclude, however, by a tra a more recent poet of the mid-twentie theme of 'the silence of the beloved a in a very different context, complainec
Silence Hands pressed to the ground, weighted backward immobile
she sat;
as a strand
of her soft hair lifted by the wind
grazed
my cheek;
and I,
gazing
on her golden face
decided
to ask her a question I had long been burning
to ask.
The noisy struggling of a fish disturbed the shallow mud-waters of the river bank full of reeds.
On the further bank from the tall growing giant sized bamboo clump a dove
crying out
rose up and wheeled away. Then a great silence descended.

31
apped in a churning whirlpool of grief. ond the moon and that "beneath' his heightens the tension. The third line olation suggests the cause of the poet's
accompaniment of youth - as bees to t world and his nights as a result are
ing translations one has a lot to choose nslation of a poem by G. B. Senanayake, -th century; the poem ties up with the bout which the Graffiti poems, though d.

Page 47
32
Arbiters of a N.
And I gazing on her long, golden face, decided again to ask her the question I had long been waiting to ask.
The stillness increased. Crushed
by the silence that spread enveloping everything I gazed
at her
golden
long
immobile
face
and said
nothing.

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka

Page 48
Aesthetics
ROBERT
The above lines are from a poem by th written. Ashley Halpë, an inspiring te in the best and widest sense, asks th part of my concerns here, namely, to u being torn apart today by civil war an that trinity of the artist, the critic and process, with its outcome of the art obj disappearances, displacements, povert kinds? This question has lurked for y felt when enjoying and later discussin novels, poetry, films and plays whic crisis of the past nearly twenty-five y objects is not directly about violence, c more benign matters of human life, th enjoyment of these with the human cr is a question which concerns Ashley F
His poem 'Concerto was written Lanka. It is found in Halpé's first volur

Under Fire
CRUSZ
in what role can duty and delight restore my Soul?
Concerto, 1976
he person in whose honor this essay is acher, a valued friend and a true artist e question which points to the main nderstand the place of Art in a Society d societal collapse. Where do we place the audience, and the creative artistic ect, in a scenario of death, destruction, y, hunger and injustices of many other ears within a personal unease always g and analyzing paintings, Sculptures, h deal with the on-going Sri Lankan 2ars. Even when the content of the art leath and destruction, but rather about 2 unease is there - how to reconcile my sis just outside my field of vision? This |alpé as well. in an earlier period of civil crisis in Sri he of poetry Silent Arbiters Have Camped

Page 49
34 Arbiters of a
in My Skull, published a few years a of mainly educated rural young men to the Marxist-inspired 'Peoples' Libe Peramuna). They took up arms after t poverty promised by the socialist gov failed to materialize. The insurrection a few days and many of the youth wh makeshift detention camps were stut At that time, in addition to his acader was the University Proctor, concernec security and safety. Hence he found events preceding, during, and after the violence; he knew many of the d he visited the students in prison and welfare and rehabilitation.
In the poem, Halpé is attending classical music - "everybody was there but there was also
... a nobody who was not there a number once a name was once a m perhaps more man now... (Arbiters, p
During the performance, "a disastrol reeled to the clatter of four hundrec evening around him ("dusk at its usu are darkened by
the dull flat plain, the converted hos the stiff young guards the guns the l the endless insult of the wire fences.
As Halpé finds himself 'opaque to Hayc faces probed touched tried in intimate
... yet pity is too easy; in what role can duty and delight restore my sou
Halpé finds himself wanting to knov moral duty towards the incarcerated S music in the concert hall. Simple pity and the delight hegets from the musi his fellow human being. There is a h. pleasure. His soul reels and he asks fo
"Concerto' is one of seven powerf Aprils in this collection. They deal w what went on around him in April 19
1 Ashley Halpé, Silent Arbiters Have Cam
Prakasakayo, 1976).

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ter the April 1971 armed insurrection nd women in Sri Lanka who belonged ation Front' (the JVP-Janatha Vimukthi le liberation from unemployment and ernment they helped bring into power was crushed with massive force within o were killed or captured and put into lents of the University of Peradeniya. nic role as Professor of English, Halpé | with student discipline and issues of imself intimately concerned with the April 1971. He was an eye-witness to ad and the captured, and afterwards was very much concerned with their
an evening performance of western , (scented men and women exquisite'),
3IY . 20)
us whisper spoils the song'. His 'soul dinner plates' as his mind and the al game, dispensing ineffable poesy')
pital ights on towers
... (p. 21)
in and "adrift on a sea of hurt defensive
places, he ends his poem thus;
? (ibid.)
how his soul can be restored by his Iudents and his aesthetic delight at the S 'too easy', not enough of a response, c sits uneasily with this duty towards nt of guilt as he indulges in aesthetic
its restoration.
ul poems in the section titled "All Our ith Halpé's efforts to get to grips with 1, to understand and empathize with
ved in My Skull (Dehiwala, Sri Lanka: Tisara

Page 50
Aesthetics Under Fire
what drove the student insurgents, ar of his own inability to do something, difference;
I do not know the thin reek of blood, the stench of seared flesh, the cracked irreducible bone; I know only the thinner reek of pity, the harsh edge of self-contempt, the ashy guilt of being too old, salaried, safe, and comfortable. I should know their reasons, the rigour of their hot hate, their terrifying faith. But they have said everything in dying, a communication beyond all speech." (p.15)
There are things Halpé knows about things he should know about what hap about how he and those around him not like - "neither crucified or self-imn (p. 16) or "I pray ... they will also forg whining poetry"(p. 22).
Halpé tried to understand the ev for himself about those times, by writ more than three decades later, the pi which Halpé needed in order to releas experience. But their therapeutic purp the realm of Art and are an example pleasure, they delight, they amaze, phrases - to do with structure and tec metre, the word-order, the rhythmic v to be integral to delight and beauty. T the duty the poems seek - sit stran within the reader. This strange pairi Seven poems. But Halpé clearly reco, poems in the volume, while dealing associate with aesthetic products – lo friends - also talk about social justice, problem of aesthetic pursuits in the fac poverty, and a Society in crisis. He ask poetry, as the 'silent arbiters' continue of duty and delight, 'camped in his ski
The Problems with Aesthetics
Halpé's sub-text is an articulation of "Aesthetics as it comes under fire phil

35
hd to rid himself of the pain and guilt anything, which would have made a
himself, things he does not know and opened in April 1971. What he knows, eacted in those terrible times, he does nolating, I dream" (p. 19) or 'we gossip' give me, and mine, my poetry, and all
ents of April 1971 and make meaning ing these poems. Reading them again oems continue to exude the catharsis se himself of the ghosts of that horrific lose is only one aspect. They belong to of Aesthetic activity. The poems give they are beautiful. Other words and hnique - are equally appropriate - the ariations are crafted and formed So as he horror, the pain, the anguish - and gely alongside the delight they foster ng is stark, even contradictory, in the gnizes and acknowledges this. Other with the usual concerns we normally ve, eroticism, nature, new lands, new hunger, Suicide. Halpé is aware of the :e of the stark reality of violence, death, (S forgiveness for his, and all "whining a their cross-examinations in the court ul”.
some of the continuing problems with osophically from within the discipline,

Page 51
36 Arbiters of a N
and from without, as the making of a Of course the question of the role of a over many centuries and not necessar times and 'bad'. However, understand an urgency in times of Social crisis, rich Source of inspiration for the conte 'consumed' - looked upon, sold, judge of the relationship between the work a
My analysis above of "Concerto' common sense appreciation of the art Catherine Belsey argues that 'commo texts, those which are in a special w the period that produced them, about nature - and that in doing so, they e individual insights, of their authors (p This 'quest for expressive realism expressed by the author/artist, takes f out there and that the artist reproduc truthfully as possible. As Belsey expla the Aristotelian concept of art as mime that poetry, as “the spontaneous ove the perceptions and emotions of a p organic sensibility."(p. 7)
Victor Burgin brings the triumvi into his argument about the common In the common sense view the a thoughts and feelings of the artist ( judgments about the world in whi attempt to 'communicate' to this si natural appearance to this scene: thi very nature; the critic naturally assu special 'sensibility"; the audience, nat is essentially as it always has been, a The common sense approach to art fits Brown calls the purist' approach and critique of this approach. For the pu aesthetic is self-contained; it is by de unalloyed: neither religious, cognitiv purist dictum is 'art for art's sake": bea external to it. They go so far as to arg
2 Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (Lond
3 Victor Burgin, The End of Art Theory: Crit
Macmillan, 1986), p.142.
4 Frank Burch Brown, Religious Aesthetic (New Jersey: Princeton University Pres

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
rt continues, especially in a war zone. art in Society has been asked in general ily in specific terms of its role in 'good' ling the issues around its role takes on specially since artists find the crisis a 2nt of their works, and these works are d, and offered awards, mainly in terms and the crisis. is very much within the mould of the object. Using the example of literature, n Sense assumes that valuable literary 'ay worth reading, tell truths - about the world in general, or about human Xpress the particular perceptions, the .2). (, looking for truths about the world as or granted that there is a natural world es, represents and expresses it to us as ains (quoting William Wordsworth), to sis was added the Romantic conviction rflow of powerful feelings", expressed erson "possessed of more than usual
rate of the creator, critic and consumer sense approach to art: rtwork has itself originated in the which may or may not include value ich she or he lives), and is itself an ame audience. There is a timelessly 2 artist creating by force of his or her ming the judgment seat, by force of a urally, attentive to both...... this scene ind always will be.
somewhere between what Frank Burch the 'anti-aesthetics' or "non-aesthetics' rists anything that can be considered finition or by nature, autonomous and 'e, moral, practical, nor political'. The uty is valued for itself, not for anything ue that for something to be aesthetic it
on: Routledge, 2001)
icism and Postmodernity (Houndsmill, London:
s - A Theological Study of Making and Meaning s, 1989), p.6.

Page 52
Aesthetics Under Fire
must be simply autonomous and henc anything else. The aesthetic is linked expressing how we feel, to matters of ' This position developed from the eighteenth century. Kant highlighted aesthetic attitude as being 'detachmer in contemplating something aesthetica concerns with the object'. Our judgm is not determined by any needs or wa Kant, aesthetic pleasure is derived fr understanding' - a mental activity wh capacity to make judgments, albeit jud p.67).
The anti-aesthetics or non-aesthet as irrelevant today. They consider the the 'great narratives of modernity that call for its destruction" and argue tha naive. They reject the idea that aesth "purpose", all but beyond history, or t (inter)Subjective, concrete, universal - aesthetics reduces the artist to being 55). Anti-aesthetics is more sensitive (e.g. feminist art) or rooted in a verna idea of a privileged aesthetic realm."(B The anti-aesthetics groups appro, of Semiotics, politics, psychoanalysis hence they introduce into their analys aesthetics. Yet, as Brown argues, ther 'artistic and related phenomena fu anti-aesthetics] misses what is peculi exchange, for which the term 'aestheti The enterprise of 'art-for-art's sak from being contaminated by politics place in human experience which is ethereal, intuitive, not subject to philosophy of art today understands t in this exclusivity:
Something labeled 'aesthetic' may beautiful, interesting or touching, serious designs on us - no serious suasion, with blindness or insight.
5 Anne Sheppard, Aesthetics - An Introd
University Press, 1987), p.69.
6 Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without (
1999), p.6.

37
e not political or religious or moral or. purely and simply to the emotions, to aste" and nothing else.
philosophy of Immanuel Kant in the one of the distinguishing marks of the ut, distance, or disinterestedness, that Illy, we are removed from all practical ent is simply "This is beautiful", and it nts of ours concerning the object. For om our "free play of imagination and ich is not knowing and yet involves the gments of a peculiar kind' (Sheppard,
ics movement sees this 'purist' position "adventures of the aesthetic' as one of has come to an end".(Brown, p. 9). They t purist aesthetics renders us morally hetic experience exists apart, without hat art can now effect a world at once a symbolic totality"(Brown, p. 9). Purist a “man without content" (Agamben, p to cultural forms engaged in a politic cular - that is, to forms that deny the rown, p.9) ach their critiques from the disciplines , sociology and post-modernism, and ses much that is ignored by traditional e is something distinctive in the ways nction within cultural systems. An ar to artistic mediums of relation and c' is as good as any' (p. 9). e' attempts to keep the aesthetic object religion, and morality. It assigns it a higher than the ordinary, something intellectual understanding. Yet the hat the aesthetic object loses something
be expected to be provocative or put it is not supposed to have overly affiliation with intellectual or moral f it did, we fear, everything aesthetic
action to the Philosophy of Art (Oxford: Oxford
ontent (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

Page 53
38 Arbiters of a N
would be susceptible to the carping ideologues, religious and secular ali moment that (aesthetic objects) are of our human world, they lose some "primitive' cultic object typically doe accompanied merely by a map and a So is reading Halpé's poetry about the a Dogon mask in a museum? Can we features of the poems and not have the to the non-aesthetic aspects - the soc horrors of the period? When walking it emerges from the early morning m beauty not be tainted by some dist architect was blinded by the Emperor Taj Mahal? Halpé asks that both beco delight restore my soul?" Brown sees the two poles of a continuum:
At or near one pole... are qualities of that we can notice or appreciate alı ... Such qualities and experiences and simple'... Near the opposite pc are valued almost exclusively for log cognitive reasons and that therefore It is the in-between, the mix of 'duty an 'meanings-in-process' - that constitu power and beauty of Halpé's April 1 qualities like form and the flavor' of th and psychological impact. Reading one poems, and renders them "meaningles with a Kantian 'disinterested pleasure
Aesthetics and Morality
If the aesthetic combines both duty, emerges then is - what kind of duty a about it in terms of a moral duty. This i the value of Art in society, especially i mean to attend an exhibition of paintir Art can be used to praise war or critic Halpé also wants to know in what rol Hence it is also a question of what art in and not just about the spectator's react Art in society is central to the Aestheti

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
of philistines and to the censure of ke. Yet we also sense that at the very hermetically sealed off from the rest of their interest and power, just as a when placed behind museum glass, label: Dogon mask. (pp. 8–9) 1971 insurgency today, like looking at take delight from the purely aesthetic m 'contaminated' by the duty to attend ial, the political, the moral — and the into the presence of the Taj Mahal as ist, can the delight in its breathtaking Irbing history - like the fact that its so that he would never build another insidered - 'in what role can duty and the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic as
form, process, sense, and imagination most entirely in and for themselves can be regarded as aesthetic "pure le are expressions and objects that gical, utilitarian, moral, religious, or are minimally aesthetic. (p. 12) hd delight' - what Brown calls making 1tes aesthetic practice. The aesthetic 971 poetry is in their combination of he language, with their moral, political without the other only diminishes the
s'. It would be impossible to read them
and delight, one key question which re we talking about? We have talked s a companion to the question: What is none torn apart by war? What does it gs for example, with war as its theme? ue it, to justify killing or condemn it. duty and delight can restore his soul. eans for the person who makes the art on or the critic's judgment. The role of c philosophical enterprise. At its heart

Page 54
Aesthetics Under Fire
is the moral question of whether Arti the world for the better or for the wo Does Art really matter anyway? Is it re practice?
To focus on morality in art is to However, Oscar Wilde argued that we art with its moral effect:
There is no such thing as a moral or or badly written. That is all ... The subject-matter of the artist, but the use of an imperfect medium. No a artist has ethical sympathies. (Shep Wilde is taking a "purist' stance here ('i points out, centuries earlier philosoph art were both politically and morally poets as teachers and that art had n audience (ibid., p. 138). In his Repub of art in governance. He understooc and advised that literary works which should be encouraged while those wi be banned, because such represente citizens, and those citizens with the than those with the latter. Plato atta impact. As Sheppard says, "In his view to art. The effect is immediate and pov and intellect. This is why Plato sees ar that in his ideal state it should be subj Later generations continued with art. According to Sheppard, Tolstoy, effect on the emotions of its audience Both of them thought that the kind kind of people we become' (p. 139). Th bad art. Ils it a simple case of good arti morals? Sheppard reminds us that th and that the excellence of German ar save German Society from moral cor Leni Riefenstahl's classic black and v Nazism in 1930s Germany are aesthet seen today the horror of the Holocau viewing.
Marxist thought insisted that th could only be considered within thes in which people live. For Marxism, reflects the society in which the art ha

39
good or bad for society. Can it change rse? But this begs the added question: levant anymore as a "meaning-making
ask questions about its moral effects. shouldn't confuse the moral content of
immoral book. Books are well written moral life of man forms part of the morality of art consists in the perfect tist desires to prove anything ... No pard, p. 136). no ethical sympathies), but as Sheppard ers took it for granted that the effects of important. Ancient Greece considered oral (and thus political) effects on its ic II and III, Plato deals with the role the power of art to arouse emotions showed brave and courageous heroes th fearful or self-indulgent ones should tions evoke similar responses in the former qualities are better for society ched great importance to art's moral y we have no control over our reactions werful, incapable of direction by reason tas positively dangerous and proposes ect to severe censorship' (p. 138).
the theme of the moral importance of ike Plato, considered art as having an and that this had a moral significance. of art we are exposed to can effect the s then raises the problem of good art vs mparting good morals and bad art, bad e Nazis were highly cultivated people t, music, and literature did nothing to uption in the 1930s and 1940s (p. 141). hite documentary films on the rise of ically stunning, but each time they are st forms the unsettling context for the
2 relationship between art and morals ocial, economic and political structures the moral and political content of art S been produced, and therefore

Page 55
40 Arbiters of a N
art with the right kind of moral and the building of the right kind of soci view which has been put into politica Russia and China (p. 143) For Matthew Arnold, aesthetic value considered poetry as a replacement f poetry to interpret life for us, to cons with the qualities of character express sincerity, largeness of view and king argues,
these qualities involve relatively little One can sit at home in an armchair sincerity, taking a large view of life, or shelter (p. 147) We are reminded of Halpé's self-cri Sheppard also shows how F. R. Le considerations in his critical works. excessive aestheticism (disinterested p on the part of the author. Leavis descr possessing "intense moral seriousn Sheppard is critical of the somewh this approach to linking aesthetics a experience by the individual rather th 149). Also, it cannot be assumed that content will make us mature and self...even if good literature does ma spiritually healthy, if it cannot be sh other sense, its effects are not all of and self-awareness do not make us inclined to feed the starving or she acknowledge that the value we fin remote from moral value in any sigr
The Pursuit of Happiness and/or Jus
However, Sheppard argues that art are included in the equation. She ins central to morality and we cannot sa the world around us" (p. 150). Ashley soul by 'duty and delight' and asks ho relationships with others, especially (his 'duty'), and its connection to art is at the crux of the problem here.
Those who call for the destruct origins of the problem in the 'insinua of "art", confining it to ... the heaven

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
political content will help encourage ty. It is this straightforward Marxist practice as Socialist Realism in both
was closely linked to moral value. He or religion, in that 'we have to turn to ple us, to sustain us". His concern was 2d in poetic works - 'high seriousness, liness...(p. 149). However, Sheppard
in the way of affecting other people. and be full of high seriousness and while outside people go without food
tical 'sala ried, safe and comfortable'. 2avis coupled aesthetic and moral He admired literature which avoided leasure) and exhibited self-knowledge ibed good literature as being "mature, ass' and depicting 'full-bodied life'. at self-centred, "armchair virtues' of nd morality: Value is placed on deep an on any actions involving others' (p. literature with mature and self-aware aware, |ke us mature and self-aware, and own to make us better people in any much moral importance. If maturity more honest or more charitable, more liter the homeless, then why not just d in literature and any other arts is ificant sense of 'moral' (p. 149)
tice?
can have a moral function if others ists that "relationships with others are ve our own souls unless we improve Halpé desires for the restoration of his w this can be done (in what role'?). His with the outcast and the downtrodden und the pursuit of beauty (his delight“)
ion of the aesthetic enterprise see the tions of the spectator into the concept ly place, of aesthetics' (Agamben, p 5).

Page 56
Aesthetics Under Fire
Agamben points out how Nietzschew of the beautiful as disinterested pleas instead of envisaging of the aesthet the artist (the creator), considered a of the 'spectator', and unconsciousl concept “beautiful". It would not ha at least been sufficiently familiar to as a great personal fact and experienc experiences, desires, surprises, and But I fear that the reverse has alw offered us from the beginning, defi definition of the beautiful, a lack reposes in the shape of a fat worm o Agamben sees the restoration of the of the perspective on the work of artapprehension of the beautiful object c by the creative experience of the a promise of happiness, and the "focal the disinterested spectator to the int of happiness' to the 'interested arti Agamben quotes Artaud's descriptio our occidental idea of art that has caus disinterested idea of art an authentic ( magical, i.e., interested idea.' (ibid.)
Agamben argues that this relat and violence was known in ancient ti Greek classical antiquity had very lit enjoyment. The power of art over th that Plato thought it could destroy the advice that the poet should be banish define the effects of inspired imagina benevolent spectators, no doubt find but that nevertheless is found with in in the notes in which modern artists art" (p. 5).
> < AO KO KO what is at stake seems to be not il work but instead the life and deat spiritual health. To the increasing in in front of the beautiful object corres in the artist's experience, for whom the poison that contaminates and di Thus when artists try not 'to produc disinterested aesthetic ideal, but to ch Eden for him', they encounter only Te perhaps in the face of this "absolute tl the 'aesthetic dimension' with its regr

41
as scathingly critical of Kant's definition ure, and that Kant sic problem from the point of view of rt and the beautiful purely from that ly introduced the 'spectator' into the ve been so bad if this 'spectator' had the philosophers of beauty - namely, ce, as an abundance of vivid authentic delights in the realm of the beautiful! ays been the case; and so they have nitions in which, as in Kant's famous of any refined first-hand experience ferror (ibid., p.1) centrality of the artist as a purification - 'the aesthetic dimension - the sensible on the part of the spectator - is replaced rtist who sees in his work only....... d point of reflection on art moves from erested artist' (p. 2). But this promise st' is a violent, dangerous encounter. n of the agony of Western culture: "It is sed us to lose culture....To our inert and ulture opposes a violently egoistic and
ionship between the 'interested' artist mes. The experience of art for Plato and tle to do with disinterest and aesthetic e individual human Soul was So great very foundations of the city. Hence his ed from the city. The term Plato uses to tion is 'divine terror' - 'a term that we,
inappropriate to define our reactions, creasing frequency, after a certain time, attempt to capture their experience of
n any way the production of a beautiful h of the author, or at least his or her nnocence of the spectator's experience sponds the increasing danger inherent art's (promise of happiness) becomes estroys his existence (ibid.) e beautiful works nor to respond to a ange man's life and reopen the gates of arror (p. 7). Agamben argues that it was nreat' that, not surprisingly, art entered hant spectator and his/her 'disinterested

Page 57
42 Arbiters of a
pleasure". After Baumgarten first co identify an independent branch of ph Kant defined the beautiful as disintere Judgement in 1790, the making of art o and the informed judgment of the cr calm, violence-free Zone, the heaver "absolute threat on the one hand, a 'change the world' on the other, were sense notions of the relationship betw encounter become established but we what role can duty and delight restore
The Call of Beauty
A bold attempt to answer this questio On Beauty and Being Just (1999) she arg search for truth and presses us towa casts the spectator and the creator of claims that when something is seen as or act on its behalf and that while thi involuntarily given to the beautifu of heightened attention is voluntar things. It is as though beautiful thi throughout the world to serve as spurring lapsed alertness back to its the world continually recommits us care: if we do not search it out, it cor Scarry says that the enduring phenoi 'distribution'. Even Plato required u are seized by the beauty of one per extended to all people' (ibid). The wo countenance and to the ethical requir 'fair distribution'. Scarry's argument i notion of distribution, to a lifesaving sense of loveliness of aspect but in th relation to one another" (p. 95)
Beauty and justice seem to share balance. Even in periods when a hum had time to create justice, as well as i away, beautiful things ... hold steadil and balance' (p. 97). Using examples (like St. Augustine's De Musica for in conviction that equality is the heart o that equality is the morally highestar
7 Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just
Press, 1999).

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
bined the term 'aesthetics' in 1735 to ilosophical inquiry (Burgin p.149), and 'sted pleasure in his Critique of Aesthetic bjects, the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure itic with rare sensibilities, entered the ly place' of aestheticism. "Terror' and nd obligations to 'moral duty' and to removed from all equations. Common ween the three players in the aesthetic are still left with Halpé's question - 'in a my soul?"
n is made by Elaine Scarry. In her book ues that beauty continually renews our rds a greater concern for justice She the aesthetic object in one mould and beautiful 'there is an urge to protect it, s attention is
person or thing; then, this quality ily extended out to other persons or ngs have been placed here and there Small wake-up calls to perception, most acute level. Through its beauty, to a rigorous standard of perceptual nes and finds us. (p. 81)
menon of beauty pressures us towards Ls to 'move from "eros', in which we son, to 'caritas', in which our care is rd 'fairness' refers both to loveliness of ement of being fair", "playing fair' and S that "beautiful things give rise to the , reciprocity, to fairness not just in the he sense of "a symmetry of everyone's
the features of symmetry, equality and an community is too young to have yet n periods when justice has been taken y visible the manifest good of equality from ancient and medieval writings stance), Scarry shows how there was a F beauty, that it is pleasure-bearing and ld best feature of the world:
(Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University

Page 58
Aesthetics Under Fire
All that is claimed is that the aspiral equality has already entered the w the classical and Christian periods, beautiful if and when it should arriv One can argue that even if the idea mind at the moment one looks on sc abstract: "Nothing requires us to giv enact such symmetries“ (p. 111). But Sce decentering". It is something that is 'al our bodies'. She quotes Simone Weil give up our imaginary position as the place at the very roots of our sensibilit impressions and psychological impres: that "anything which alters conscious objectivity and realism is to be connec most 'obvious thing in our surroundin ...is what is popularly called beauty"
The fact that beauty causes delig being radically de-centred by beauty, (p. 114). This delightful lateralness con the beautiful object but also in the sta in which one acts to protect or perpe the world or instead to supplement it (p. 114). Justice also is dependent on hu on the act of creation. Since the time c justice' argument - 'we have a duty " they already exist and to help bring th established" (p. 115).
The aesthetic enterprise since th beauty to the meaningless, empty pur of any connection to the real human co and disfigured by its central role in t with its presence in the marketplace as treasure in the museum andart galler stark focus especially in times of civil Perhaps there is something in Sca the value of the pursuit of art and beau Ashley Halpé can discover the ways in soul. The equality of beauty which con to all people at all times. But justice i of aesthetic fairness, this 'standing be its analogy, ethical fairness, to be also
8 Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of God or (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pr 113.

43
ion to political, social, and economic rld in the beauty-loving treatises of s has the readiness to recognize it as e in the world. (p. 98)
f ethical fairness comes before one's mething beautiful, the idea remains a up the ground that would begin to rry argues that beauty is also "radically ways deeply somatic, that happens to who says that beauty requires us to center. ... A transformation then takes y, in our immediate reception of sense sions' (ibid). Also Iris Murdoch argued ness in the direction of unselfishness, ted with virtue' and the single best or gs which is an occasion for "unselfing"
ht is crucial here since the person, in takes delight in their own lateralness' tinues not just in the state of beholding ate of creating 'the site of stewardship tuate a fragment of beauty already in by bringing into being a new object' 1man hands and its existence depends of Socrates, there has been the 'duty to to support" just arrangements where em into being where they are "not yet
e eighteenth century reduced art and suit of 'disinterested pleasure, devoid ondition. The art object became gorged he world of wealth and privilege and a vehicle to make profit or as a valuable '. This grotesque emptiness comes into decline, chaos and war.
rry's thesis. At least it gives us hope in ity. And perhaps it is in this thesis that which duty and delight can restore his pels fair distribution is widely present s not. If Scarry is right, this presence ore our senses calls out insistently to present. It directs our attention to the
er Other Concepts: The Leslie Stephen Lecture 2SS, 1967) as quoted in Scarry, ibid, pp 112

Page 59
44 Arbiters of a N
absent partner - justice. Hence it is no evening, Ashley Halpé found the del calling out to him in its analogous for

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
surprise that in that concert hall that ightful' beauty of the Haydn concerto m - the duty to justice.

Page 60
Cogito E
CARLN
In the process of ratiocination, p only by words. Speech is the earliest and it develops the sense of personal this day: Cogito ergo sum — I think, the that this is a decidedly logical conclu lived with and connected my own de thoughts and very existence of Ashle constant friend, mentor, and a mans have me hang on his words, his comu "My God! He neither picks nor choos am.'
The last may be a trite remark. I tried to prepare me for the receptio attempted to tell me of the vocabula telling me one day, long ago: "It may b standards to consider the words of D. Milton. Many think this is now left to of readers, but would you say that th unintelligible and forgotten? Its words of the Christian faith in the purest an theme of living, breathing interest."
Since that day, I continue to dabb from the many convoluted paths I tro eyes and soften my trials with words counts for so much. I still wonder ho unconscious of the truth that lay co: your life over. It came upon you like a

Ergo Sum
vMULLER
roperly called thought, the mind acts organic act of free self-consciousness, lity. What Descartes said holds true to refore I am. I will not make bold to say Sion, but for over twenty years, I have velopment as a writer with the words, y Halpe, who has been a staunch and io brilliantly assembled that he would ments, his advice ... and l would think: es, but his words have made me what I
am not saying that Ashley Halpé has n of academic instruction; nor has he ry of Paradise Lost, but I do recall his e even considered a violation of present ryden, Pope, Spenser, Shakespeare and the antiquary and is of no use to masses he dialect of the Bible is now obsolete, s still remain the authoritative standard d most beautiful form. It still weaves its
le, to entangle, then disentangle myself d. And Ashley would give me his keen that I hold dear: "It is your effort that w you, a sailor, then a soldier, then So ncealed deep inside, Suddenly turned
storm-wind that is still blowing."

Page 61
46 Arbiters of a
He never realized that he has, wit into what smoldered inside me, made the windows of my mind. I began to began to read and learn of all I had pi India, published my first book, I wa a century of my life! But with Ashle understand that all which was true o was conceived to be true of us all, b being. Of course, I am consciously in swept along, nonetheless. I had to sti of Hellenic Literature; the native p industrial Manchester but I did come with their "heroic speech," had emb English genius.
Allow me to make some explana into words began to grow in me, firs Then came deeper political and soc and alarms of turbulent periods, an individuality of our people. Even as I the attachment of special values to c possessions and mine. In Sri Lanka to then assimilate, but the racial war rag has sprung up a spirit of local inquiry I have not immersed myself ir great writers - the late Richard de Jean Arasanayagam — that awakene sympathies of the people even if t concerning the tumult of coming ye enlightened writers should cherish a their earlier being, and thought and bear with a present life-and-death st a morbid consciousness of internal d also, I see the Sri Lankan writer hold f, of the surest safeguard of national in intelligent comprehension of what i history, national institutions, national The committed Sri Lankan write not the throes of death. We are give extinction. I make bold to say that it scholars that stands as a bulwark ag. liberty is threatened, on one hand by and barbaric suicide bombers and r other.
There is undoubtedly an energet agitated minds sinking into forgetful thousands of people, desperately poc

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
h his friendship, his remarkable insight the fresh wind to blow in through all reason from the past to the present. I ut aside for sixty years. When Penguin, S 58 years old I had squandered half y to stand by and with me, I began to f man in the days of Plato and Seneca, e it as a created, dependent, or Social ilanger of error, being no academic, but ll consider the grammatical subtleties hilology in commercial London and to recognize that the former centuries, died the epic and dramatic glories of
tion: this impulse to transfer thoughts t, out of the action of domestic causes. ial conditions, contagions, jealousies i which stimulated the self-conscious pen these lines, there rises around me very thing characteristic - your own day, we seem to seek to denationalize, ges on, and in this eventful crisis there , local pride and local patriotism.
it all as Ashley has, and our other Soy za and the marvelous works of d the dormant moral and intellectual here were feelings of apprehension ars. But is it not but only natural that livelier attachment to the memories of action, and bring modern philology to ruggle of perishing nationalities? I see ecay and approaching dissolution, but ast to a sound, philosophic appreciation ndependence and national honor - an S good and what is great in national
character. I offers readers the pulsation of life and n tokens of regeneration, not signs of is the outpouring of our writers and ainst the dangers when what exists as the ambitious dreams of "nationality" nonstrous political corruption on the
ic awakening and no longer do we find ness and inaction. In Sri Lanka today, Ir, homeless, living behind the barbed

Page 62
Cogito Ergo Sum
wire of refugee camps, have, by thei impulse to the intellectual movement
I insist that I am very much a foregoing paragraphs, I needed to sit so to say - and I tell you, that was a substitute. Let's consider English for w has been vastly affected by extraneou mixed with foreign ingredients and ov With Ashley's blessed guidance, I real naval language, my blistering respo epithets in Burmese whorehouses, v away, but not entirely, for that part c largeledgers of a riotous life, stil kep
Ashley is a soft-spoken, pleasal I soared out of the ashes of my own this new approach to speech and th symbolism - but I also began to real and is as rapacious of words as well to understand that English today no law of progress, but keeps growing more, English is not a language that illustrate this point, allow me to offer penned by Richard Mulcaster in 1582 to demonstrate how educators and centuries ago:
For easie obtaining is enemie to
naturalle speeche, but in greater n & considerat cumming by, as it pro art, where time and trauell be the co both certain tie to reston & assuranc on vsby hurdle, and therefor neuer seldom vsed. And yet, continewal v of such vse, as the natural deliurie saie the truth what reason is it, to b home? To know foren tungs by rule men had been so affected, to make n own, as we seme to do, we had neue much, weshould neuer by compari
Knowledge has its sources in
derives its authority from the example I began to see what I had to do. I ha practical use rather than to philosoph the concrete, rather than the absolute in all things, an appreciable, tangible myself on what I could produce, and ) knowledge cannot be shown to have it because of its worth.

47
r lives and their miseries, given a new
literary dabbler, but even to pen the , listen and learn at Ashley's "fireside", school for which there is no adequate that it was and is: This is a language that us, alien and discordant influences. It is erloaded with adventitious appendages. ized that my School English, all my racy nse to brawling in bars and mouthing was a part of me that had to be wiped of my past, loaded with chains and the st popping up like Marley's ghost. int-voiced man, so easy to listen to. As self-destructiveness, I began to look at ought as a conventional and arbitrary ize that English has a craving appetite as tolerant of forms; I have also come longer moves in its original, organic by accretion, not development. What is teaches itself by unreflecting usage. To the First Part of the Elementarie that was '. I give it in its original spelling if only writers presented their texts over four
iudgement, not onlie in words and natters and verie important. Aduised ves by these tungs, which we learn by impassing means, emplanteth in wites e to rise by. Our naturall tung cometh well known, the other well known and se should enferknowledge, in a thing of our mind and meaning is. And to e acquainted abrode and a stranger at and our own but by rote? If all other nuch of the foren, and set light by their 'r had these things which we like of so ng haue discerned the better.
the heights of humanity, and cultur
of the acknowledged leaders of society, d to present English with reference to lic principle - to aim at the positive and and the abstract. I needed to demand, result. Perhaps I was beginning to pride even assured myself that if a particular a value, there was little need to cultivate

Page 63
48 Arbiters of a
I remember telling Ashley one d and will never be a man of thought. I Ashley crinkled his eyes and said, "E in every knowledge. Every man is a lawyer to himself, as well as a counse involved in the sciences that belong t and magazines and newspapers, an my own part I have written the one a resemble Homer's Margites who prac write in the way that is you."
I did just that and there came the first novel, The Jam Fruit Tree to Ashle He gave me a quizzical look, then saic it back in my hands and said, "I've not amazing and it must remain just the
I sent the manuscript to Pengui loved it. What is more, it won the Gr best English writing out of Sri Lanka the monies he had earned from his ov Let me now tell you of the she tremendous sincerity that has been so the time. Ashley rolled up at my hom him four copies of The Jam Fruit Treet Award judges. Mind you, he had also for this same award. When I won, the Ashley and his wife, Bridget. It brim had tears in my eyes. A wonderful m much love, made way for me. What o I remembered what he had tol bungling it all. Yes we cannot hop we certainly do need a wide comma all the special nomenclatures of Eng English vocabulary can be a dangerou much used inevitably become much phenomena of language that words abrasion simply because of their brisl Imagine what would happen wh of the most profound thoughts, lofties the intellect, fancy and the heart of m vulgarized by corruptions of form or And yet, many tell me today that, for new things, English has made litt any future changes in structure or vo as new designations for familiar thi) ones must grow obsolete. Will it mea will gradually become less intelligib

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ay: "I'm no dreamer. I still like action, like a practical end to what I write of." very man is a dabbler, if not a master, divine, a statesman, a physician, and a lor to his neighbors, on all the interests o those professions. We all read books d we attend learned lectures, and for and delivered the other. You know, we ticed every art and bungled it all. You
day when I took the manuscript of my y and asked if he would please edit it. l, "I'll look it over." And he did, and put changed a word! It's your style and it's way it is." n, India, and the CEO, David Davidar, atiaen Award - a yearly award for the , instituted by Michael Ondaatje with wn Booker Award. er greatness Ashley showed and the much a part of him. I was in Sharjah at he in Kandy and asked my wife to give o be submitted to the panel of Gratiaen submitted his own collection of poetry irst cable I received in Sharjah was from med over with their congratulations. I an, a university don, a dean, had, with ther friend did a man need? d me about practicing every art and to achieve universal perfection. But and and a knowledge, more or less, of glish. But the general use of the whole us cause of corruption of speech. Things worn and it is one of the most curious are subject as coins, to defacement and c circulation. en all the dialect of books - the vehicles it images, the most sacred emotions that an has conceived, become debased and by unworthy themes. except in the introduction of new names le solid improvement and even say that abulary will be for the better. Naturally, ngs and thoughts are introduced, older an that the earlier literature of England le? That, to me, is unthinkable. We will

Page 64
Cogito Ergo Sum
always need those great, lasting wor most potent agencies in the cultivatic bond of union and the strictest holdir and the ebb and flow of opinion an knowledge that England possesses m Of course, the Greeks had their mor tragic trio, their comic Aristophanes a Homer, whose story and speech were of the Hellenic people. The Romans and, at last, only when all seemed lo; Dante and Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto of Njall, and the Chronicles of Snorro. The English have been most fa Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton - mightiest that ever wielded pen. Let been for centuries a daily food - an int into and molded the living thoughtar
In truth, the path of national which long approach the central sou has evolved the best thoughts of a giv choicest forms of expression of whic and appropriated the greatest results subsequent literature but merely repr character. What is then needed is som re-amalgamates the elements of langu
I must confess that whatever motivated by Ashley, who is one of the Somehow, our paths knit, in one way honored by the state and given the h the literary arts. Much later, I was als as Punch. 'So we are both Kala Keerth yourself as “Kala Keerthi Carl Muller. to me, and they like the German "Ka. will start calling me Kala Keerthi K Klan!"
This Festschrift is published by Studies, Colombo, to mark Ashley's October, I will be 73. Two Senior citize other as mad as they come. Happy Birt on your chinny-chin-chin!

49
ks of the imagination, for they are the n of the mind and heart; the strongest g ground against the shifting currents i of taste. But I comfort myself in the ore "volumes paramount" than others. al and sententious Hesiod; their great nd Menander; and above all, their epic more closely interwoven with the whole nad Ennius, and Terence, and Plautus, st, Horace and Virgil. The Italians had '. The lcelanders had Laxdæla, the story
vored of all. There was Chaucer and each in his own field, as great as the us not forget that all these books have electual pabulum that actually entered nd actions of nations. literature is like the orbit of comets rceof light, then recede. When genius ven state of society, and elaborated the h speech is capable, it has anticipated of that cauldron of human life. What is oductive, and certainly not creative in emighty revolution that dissolves and Lage in new and diverse combinations. has come out of this essay has been greatest English scholars of Sri Lanka. or another. In an earlier year, he was onorific Kala Keerthi — an exponent of o honored, and Ashley was as pleased is," he said. "You now need to identify " I shuddered. Lots of people still write il." I shook my head. "My God! People arl KKK. I'll sound like the Ku Klux
7 the International Centre for Ethnic '5th birthday - November 19, 2008. In ns - the first a grand man of letters, the hday Ashley. May God bless every hair

Page 65
Poems and Paintin
Among Commuters
A long-distance traveller
Amidst shortrunners, ruminantly But attention running down and In all the tangled tumult of comm
Then the cool shock of two quiet
We'll soon be at Maradana.
Yes.
What will you do now? The things I used to do before In Well... I'll go, then.
AS
You wish.
At Maradana The surge up stairways to the str Is caught in perfect waves; step to The faces ripple workwards, all i On that pure motion Sacramental

gs of Ashley Halpé
reading energy melting uters quarter-to-eight.
voices
net you.
eet
step ntent

Page 66
Poems and Paintings of Ashley Halpé
April, 1971
I do not know the thin reek of blood, the stench of seared flesh, the cracked irreducible bone; I know only the thinner reek of pity, the harsh edge of self-contempt, the ashy guilt of being too old, salaried, safe, and comfortable. I would know their reasons, the rigour of their hot hate, their terrifying faith. But they have said everything in dying, a communication beyond all speech.
I sit through night hours trying wonted work, compelled into blank inattentions by these images young bodies tangled in monsoon or rotting in river shallows, awaiti the kind impartial fish, and those not deadnumb, Splotched faces, souls ravaged by all their miseries and c

scrub
ng
efeats.
51

Page 67
52
Arbiters of a N
Concerto
Six forty five. I happened to look dusk at its usual game, dispensin ineffable poesy, guessed at a sigh of silence swooning in rich Inside
the first cadenza began the orchestra had just gasped for vast bosoms heaving bald heads the debutante at nth violin Smirking at the double-bass with
And this man stepping delica taking off, without display un a dazzling art of pure humilit his intent skill a pure meditati
I breathed easier and deeper, onl distracted by the evening; everybody was silent, surprised into rare attention: Scented men and women exquisite everybody was there
And a nobody who was not th a number once a name was or perhaps more man now I coul spoke across two hundred mi spoilt the song.
I retched to sit on, my mind
grew dark to the auditorium, the dull flat plain, the convert the stiff young guards the gur the endless insult of the wire opaque to Haydn my Soul reel to the clatter of four hundred borne on the same soft air lave
Adrift on a Sea of hurt defensive probed touched tried in intimate yet pity is too easy; in what role
can duty and delight restore my;

Vational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
out and catch
3.
ecstasy.
breath steaming
curl
tely into the breach folding
у |on
y slightly
by craft
1ΕΥΕ
Ce a la
d not know les A disastrous whisper
SW ed hospital ns the lights on towers
fences
led
dinner places ed by the same charmed light
faces
places
soul?

Page 68
Poems and Paintings of Ashley Halpé
Sigiri Poems
37 When I think of you my heart ac My blood surges, I cry aloud; yo Enslaves my utterly
40 We, being women, sing on behal “You fools You come to Sihagiri These verses, hammered out wit Not one of you brings wine and Remembering we are women!"
48 Little honeyheart, golden one, All you demanded, I have done, Oh, ecstasy!
Please Tell the golden one what I haves
Ballad
Let the greygreen thunder roll Tremble my soul r Thirtyfour soon, just a few week Half a life done and little to show
SO Let the greygreen thunder roll Trouble my soul, going
Tender Missed two baths this week, gro
Unslender And the trees are tall where the Theresa touch ofgrey in my nel Ah! pain, rain, And let the greygreen thunder r Roll in my soul.

53
hes ur waist
f of this lady: and inscribe h four-fold labours, molasses
aid.
S to go
wing
slopes are bare her hair
ol

Page 69
54 Arbiters of a N
Australia
 

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
Fis (1982)

Page 70
Poems and Paintings of Ashley Halpé
Farily
 

55
(1963)

Page 71
56
Arbiters of a
Crucisīri
 

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
If 1958)

Page 72
Poems and Paintings of Ashley Halpé
Ascetic arid
 

57
Grif (9)

Page 73
Repositioning Sri Lanka i Order - The Role o
JAYANTHA I
As a newly independent developing to the thesis of the Argentinian eco as a result of unequal terms of trade developing countries in the peripher prices in global markets while ma developed countries at the centre secu rich were becoming richer while the p of 77 developing countries in the Un United Nations Conference for Trade
1 Professor Ashley Halpé famously mac Sciences when he entered the Unive scholar of English Literature, a creative musician — a veritable Renaissance man an unspectacular student of English Lite to a career in diplomacy and internatior in my E.F.C. Ludowyk Memorial Lectu creative writing and diplomacy by exar Chilean poet who was also a diploma my offering to the Festschrift honouri before he left for his doctoral studies an Sri Lanka's role in international econor Eugene O'Neill is reported to have sai only the past happening over and ov Lanka will have peace and prosperity i 2 Prebisch, R., "Commercial policy in Economic Review 49 (2), Papers and Pro of the American Association, May 1959

n the New World Economic f the Private Sector
DHANAPALA
country, Sri Lanka reacted favorably nomist Raul Prebisch who said that, 2, primary commodities produced by y of the global system received lower nufactured goods produced by the red higher prices. Thus, he argued, the oor were becoming poorer. The Group ited Nations was able to establish the and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964
e the transition from being a student of the 'sity of Peradeniya to becoming a brilliant write, translator, theatre director, painter and . I made a more modest transition from being 'rature in the years 1957 to 1961 in Peradeniya |al affairs. Drawing on that experience I tried, ire of 1997, to trace common traits between nining the work of Pablo Neruda, the famous
in Sri Lanka and many other countries. As ng Professor Ashley Halpé, who taught me i became a life-long friend, I have focused on hic relations, which is so vital for her future. d of Ireland, "There is no present or future, 'r again". I pray that like Ireland today, Sri
the future.
the underdeveloped countries," American eedings of the Seventy-first Annual Meeting
251-273.

Page 74
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New Wo
with Prebisch as its first Secretary-G Economic Order (NIEO) in which the trade and the capital needed for devel as a permanent escape from the pover Later, Sri Lanka's Dr. Gaimani Corea was able to negotiate a number of Co securing better prices for primary con the South has still not achieved a lev trade despite several useful rounds of for Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and it Trade Organization (WTO). While the unconscionable agricultural subsidies a cow in the European Union (EU) cc day while the average person in Sub S day. Agricultural and other subsidies together with other protectionist me; International Monetary Fund (IMF) a policies of dismantling such self-prot as conditions for loans and other form
While the developing world of
NIEO, there has been an actual emerge countries hitherto in the periphery a their own efforts. The dynamic growt as well as several other developing col Association of South East Asian Natio of Korea and, of course, oil-rich cour dramatically and has helped the wo economy went into deficit and the Japa Historically, this can be attributed to Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPE countries demanding and obtainingh this has had its own adverse impact
like Sri Lanka. A more widespread cau economic policies by developing col based on economic nationalism and/o end of the Cold War, which dominat for over four decades and the Inform (ICT) were certainly contributory fact globalization provided incentives tha many developing countries and chan the East-West conflict during the Colc conflict has been averted largely bec are in fact resuming their rightful pl
3 Hasset K.A. and R. Shapiro, "How Eu 22 June 2003, http://www.globalpolicy.

rld Economic. 59
eneral aiming at a New International South would have equitable terms of opment. Trade not Aid was the slogan ty trap and the dependency syndrome. a, as Secretary-General of UNCTAD, immodity Agreements with a view to nmodities. More than four decades on, vel playing field of equitable terms of negotiation by the General Agreement is successor organization, the World a latest Doha Round has run aground, maintained in the West are such that ountries receives a subsidy of US $ 2 a Saharan Africa earns less than US $ 1 a remain in force in the EU and the USA asures distorting free trade, while the nd the World Bank advocate unilateral ective policies in developing countries is of fiscal support. the South may not have achieved the nce of a new world economic order with chieving remarkable growth through h of the Chinese and Indian economies untries like Brazil and South Africa, the ns (ASEAN) countries and the Republic tries in the Gulf has reduced poverty rld economy to grow, even as the US nese and German economies stagnated. the emergence of the Organisation for C) as a cartel controlled by developing igher prices for oil from 1973- although on oil-importing developing countries 1se was the adoption of market-friendly untries replacing state-centric policies r various forms of socialist policies. The ed the post World War II global scene ation and Communications Revolution ors. The era of 1973 - privatization and t unleashed latent productive forces in ged the global economy. The danger of i War being replaced by a North-South ause of globalisation. China and India ace as global economic power-houses,
"ope Sows Misery in Africa," Washington Post, org/socecon/ffd/2003/0623cap.htm.

Page 75
60 Arbiters of a N
having been among the richest econon before the impact of Western colonialis
The contrast with the era of the the West is clear. The resources, both contributed undoubtedly to the dev flow of development was confined to t was in an era of laissez-faire capitali globalised world when beggar-thy-nei today's WTO-regulated free trade. Dec has led today to interdependence am based multilateral system with the UN accepted by nation states in human ri intellectual property rights, the envirc since shaped development economics a today. Limited resources especially in huge leaps in technology have becom entire populations in countries of t dramatic reduction in extreme poverty such as women. It has also introduce development, good governance, transp; responsibility and other benchmarks ag the South and state behavior are being by the international community and ci South themselves.
In September 2007, I participated of Growth" organized by the World Research (WIDER) in Helsinki, of whi Lanka was the founder-director. It exa the Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and So economy. This would have been unthin external reserves of these four countri if all of them pulled the plug, the US recession and a weak dollar, would b poverty and empowered their people t exporting goods and Services aggressi unprecedentedly large volumes of forei have generated foreign direct inves developing countries' ensuring an incli especially the private sector, should be
II. OPPORTUNITIES FOR SRI LAN
The challenge before growing economi unique opportunity to craft a modern
5 Henley J., S. Kratzsch, M. Kulur and TI China, India and South Africa: A new or old WIDER, March 2008

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
lies in the 16th and 17th centuries just m and imperialism.
post-Industrial Revolution growth in material and human, from the South alopment of the West. But a reverse rade in a limited range of goods. This sm and in a less integrated and less ghbour policies prevailed - unlike in olonisation followed by globalisation ong largely equal partners in a ruleat the apex. Global norms, voluntarily ghts, trade, health, labour, migration, nment and other relevant areas have nd the models that are being pursued h energy are also a constraint, while le a shared asset. This has benefited he developing South, leading to a and empowering vulnerable groups d UN-driven concepts of sustainable arency, accountability, corporate Social ainst which development models from rigorously monitored and evaluated vil society within the countries of the
in a conference on "Southern Engines Institute of Development Economic ch the late Dr. Lal Jayawardena of Sri mined the impact of developments in uth African economies on the global kable twenty years ago. The combined es alone is over US$ 3000 billion and economy, already struggling with a e in dire straits. They have reduced be a huge market for the world while vely. As importantly, while receiving gn direct investment, they themselves tment to other countries including 1sive tide that lifts all boats. Sri Lanka, actively wooing this capital.
KA
es of the South, therefore, is to use this ision of Security and development for
, Tandogan, Foreign Direct Investment from phenomenon? Research Paper 2008/24, UNU

Page 76
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New WC
themselves while integrating their ec world through mutually beneficial r This has also to be achieved within Millennium Development Goals (MD themselves in 2000 at the Millennium this is being enacted in a compressed to the two centuries or so that it too to reach its present stage. That the ec engines of growth has been so impre while being called upon to meet t community, by competitive markets a to their industrious and innovative hu Now how does Sri Lanka Set a Some changes have already taken pl But obviously more needs to be do structurally and to adapt the country' trends. Sri Lanka's patterns of trade, i decades after independence. At first it that dominated Sri Lanka's trade an came trade with Japan and, later, the garments in the USA. Today while Sri from India, Singapore and China, h Japan and, multilaterally, the Asian D is Malaysia. Foreign remittances fron Gulf region, are estimated at $ 2.5 bil forming the backbone of her foreign economic situation what comparative she can exploit? The country is already a Human Development Ranking of 99 on the sea routes and air routes con The two economic giants that have e with both of them - China and India relations that go back to ancient hist Trade Agreement (FTA) - which may which provides the framework for S. in the Indian economy. There are neg Economic Partnership Agreement (CE was, in January 1950, among the fir Republic of China and to conclude the defying the Hickenlooper Amendm Lanka a historical advantage. But w and the highly competitive global I
5 Central Bank, statistics for 2007
6 UNDP, "Fighting Climate Change: Hu Development Report 2007/2008, 375

rld Economic. 61
ionomies more closely in a globalised multilateral and co-operative models. the framework of the United Nations' Gs) to which world leaders committed Summit in the United Nations. And all time frame of a few decades in contrast k for Western economic development ionomic development of the Southern ssive in this changed historical context he highest criteria set by the world nd by the people themselves, is a tribute
1a reSQLCeS.
bout benefiting from this new order? ace in response to the new challenges. ine to change the domestic economy s foreign economic relations to the new nvestment and aid have evolved in the was the former colonial ruler, the UK, d other economic interchanges. Then burgeoning export market in made up Lanka continues to import substantially er largest aid donors are, bilaterally, )evelopment Bank. Her largest investor n expatriate workers, especially in the lion per year or 8% of the nation's GDP, exchange earnings. In the new global advantages does Sri Lanka have which a Middle Income Country maintaining with an excellent geo-strategic location necting different regions of the world. merged are from Asia and fortunately - Sri Lanka has traditionally friendly ory. With India there already is a Free not be working at optimum levels - but ri Lanka to benefit from developments otiations going on for a Comprehensive EPA). With China the fact that Sri Lanka st countries to recognise the People's a Rubber-Rice Trade Agreement in 1952, ent of the US Battle Act, has given Sri ith generational changes in leadership market Sri Lanka cannot assume that
uman Solidarity in a Divided World," Human

Page 77
62 Arbiters of a N
sentiment will guide the economic pol the historical foundations Sri Lanka
possible to open up investment possibi enterprises in these countries, producir with raw materials Sri Lanka produce Lanka into a service sector for those c Lanka's strength. Her advantages sho force, less bureaucracy and efficient
sector forms 60% of Sri Lanka's econor growth of 8.7% in 2007. A proactive p. Lankan products in niche markets.
(a) Tourism
I noticed that in 2006/7, while the cor and abductions and killings were repo country, there were travel advisories in like India and China. Sri Lanka's tour the Indian and Middle East markets
occupying otherwise empty hotels. T in India had already helped Sri Lanka airlines to bring large numbers of Ind shared language between the two cour tradition, should facilitate the conduct Lanka needs, similarly, to mount ama Hong Kong where an economically el To do that, a group of Mandarin- and be built - a step that should have been late. Tours to places of Buddhist worshi could be among the tourist promotic Likewise, tourism from ASEAN cou countries in the Gulf and outside and
(b) Investment
But tourism is only one aspect of th that can take place between Sri Lank; growth in the world. There is no alteri the nation's longstanding conflict. Wh and prevaricate over a consensus,
partisan polemics at the cost of natic to find investors from the 'Souther traditional OECD exporters of capital.
the upheavals of nation building not experienced the post-colonial legacy cleavages caused by Western colonia
7 Central Bank, statistics for 2007

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
icies of India and China. And yet with nas with both countries, it should be lities as part of the production chain of g components for their products either S, such as rubber, or by converting Sri ountries. Value addition should be Sri uld be an educated and skilled labour ports. Already a diversified services my, with financial services recording a ivate sector can create demand for Sri
flict went on in the Eastern Province rted to be taking place throughout the Western countries but not in countries ist industry had intelligently targeted with many Indian and Arab tourists he deregulation of domestic aviation overcome the limitations in her own ian tourists. The fact that English is a tries, together with a common cultural of a sustained marketing strategy. Sri jor marketing campaign in China and mpowered middle class has emerged. Cantonese-speaking tour guides must taken ten years ago, but it is never too p and other places of historical interest in packages sold to Chinese tourists. intries, the Republic of Korea, Arab South Africa must be encouraged.
e economic and cultural exchanges a and the new epicentres of economic native to a durable political solution to ile fractious politicians procrastinate pursuing political expediency and nal interest, Sri Lanka is more likely n engines of growth" than from the For these countries have been through So long ago, and many of them have of aggravated ethnic and religious l intervention in our histories. They

Page 78
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New Wo
will see some of the incidents of viol a general breakdown of law and ord such as those which occur in Londo assuming of course that the Governme committed to democracy, the rule of political Solution.
This political advantage must h provided to the foreign investor. Loc Indicators published by the World Bar investment climates in various coul constraint is rated at 34% for Sri Lank Corruption is rated at 16.9%, th uphold property rights at 31.2% and cr tax rates at 19.1%, electricity 41.3% (Sur labour skills 21.3%. What is relatively as a percentage of management time is customs is estimated at 3.1 days.* Ob' be improved by the private sector w the private sector could, through the avenues of collective and individual di better investment conditions. There a play a role. Corruption can never be feature. China is fighting this canker v extreme measures such as capital pun for giving the bribe as the politician ol it. Sri Lanka has laws against corrupt As conscientious citizens the privates good governance by refusing to gi corruption. Chambers of Commerce monitor corruption and engage in a to time if no action is taken according
(c) Skills Development
The IT sector in India is estimated to the year 2007/8.” That did not happe of Software and Service Compani chamber of commerce of the Softwa the government on policy. Sri Lanka and upgrade existingskills. The priva to take the initiative in this and must arrangements with technical training
8 World Bank, World Development Indicat
9 Reuters, NASSCOM, "Fact Box - I Editorial, 8 December 2007, AO story/2007120705149019000001 findex.h

rld Economic. 63
ence outside the conflict zones not as er but rather as isolated terrorist acts n, Madrid and other Western cities - 2nt remains credibly and demonstrably law, human rights and to an inclusive
owever be justified by the conditions king at the 2007 World Development nk, I see that in surveying the different ntries, policy uncertainty as a major
a. Le lack of confidence that courts will ime at 14%. Othermajor constraints are aly a key disincentive), finance 28% and good is that time dealing with officials only 3.5% and the average time to clear viously some of these statistics cannot tithout Government action. However, ir Chambers of Commerce and other ialogue with the Government, lobby for re areas in which the private sector can accepted as a permanent or inevitable within the Communist Party itself with lishment. The private sector is as guilty official is in demanding and accepting tion and a machinery to enforce them. sector must co-operate to work towards ve bribes and to report instances of 2 could have their own watchdogs to name-and-shame' exercise from time to our laws.
have its exports grow to $50 billion by n overnight. The National Association es emerged in India as the premier reservices industry in India advising needs to create pools of skilled labour te sector cannot wait for the State Sector begin training programs or enter into institutes to recruit those who qualify
ors 2007, World Bank, 2007.
ndia's Software, BPO Sectors' AOL India L News India, http://www.aol.in/news/ tml.

Page 79
64 Arbiters of a l
from these courses. Already linkage computer colleges. Even if some of th the country will still have a corps oft
(d) Research and Development
Another area is research and develop has too often depended on the state se Institute, the Rubber Research Institu to service the needs of our tradition Institute (ITI) has, despite financial c industrial sector. But more enterprise in mapping the future for their prod enterprises in the sale of ornamental vegetables have established their ow that are of direct benefit to local s importance of creating and retaining and research institutions. An estimat to academic institutions as academy the end of 2007 showed that Chinah in the world in comparison to Japan (57)." Both China and India have exc back to the country. Recently Sri Lank announced ambitious plans for nan help of Sri Lankan scientists who h Lanka is becoming a knowledge econ higher education centres of excellen Patent applications are commonly re and the Republic of Korea and Taiw, in this respect. In general, while Sri of opportunity in accessing higher e cannot allow a dilution of standards in with whom she has to interact.
(e) Energy
Energy is another key resource anc especially with China and India. Nor limited and their carbon emissions You have only to read the reports Climate Change (IPCC) or see Al Go Inconvenient Truth to realise the sel longer be dismissed as a problem f Lanka must therefore move to other S( not be sufficient, and projections made
10 Ince M, "World University Rankings November 2007, http://www.timeshigh World Rankings2007.pdf

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
s have been established with foreign ose who qualify leave for jobs abroad, rained workers.
ment (R&D), where the private sector ctor. We already have the Tea Research te and the Coconut Research Institute al exports. The Industrial Technology onstraints, done what it could for the must be shown by the private sector ucts and their markets. Already some plants, canned food, tropical fish and in laboratories and research institutes uppliers. China has recognised the a critical mass of high quality Scholars ed 4800 companies are directly linked run enterprises (AREs). A survey at ad six universities among the top 200 (11), Australia (12), UK (32) and USA ellent programs to attract expatriates a's Minister of Science and Technology otechnology to be launched with the ave worked abroad. Increasingly, Sri omy and a knowledge Society. For this, ce and constant innovation are vital. garded as a benchmark of innovation an are way ahead of China and India Lanka must certainly ensure equality ducation and technology, the country n comparison with the rest of the world
the competition for this is intense, -renewable energy like fossil fuels are ire a proven cause of climate change. of the Inter-governmental Panel on ire's Oscar winning documentary An iousness of the threat, which can no or the developed countries alone. Sri ources of energy. Hydro-electricity will for the Accelerated Mahaweli Projects
2007," Times Higher Education Supplement, 9 "reducation.co.uk/Magazines/THES/graphics/

Page 80
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New Wo
prove that. Cooperation with Brazil in could be actively pursued. The search begun and a wise choice has been mat exploration in production-sharing agre involved in the Norocholai project anc in Trincomalee. The private sector mu energy and the use of renewable sourc
(f) Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility is toda in all countries as a result of the UNhas a special responsibility to avoid th of the industrialised countries and the when they were colonies. The Sri La in the work of community service org other movements and has sponsored r is praiseworthy, it must focus attentio attainment of the MDG. The elimina vital. So is the better distribution of inc sector to ensure that the gap betwee of the worker is not too wide. Conspi cannot be accepted as Socially responsi study has found that income inequali economic growth is not reaching the pc in the past was distinguished first by measures giving it a high Physical Qua reforms, there was a stated policy of co be un fortunate, and indeed dangero Lanka abandoned the admirable dist where lower income deciles grew at income groups.
(g) Environment
China has emerged as the second high Sri Lanka cannot follow that example be encouraged. Reduction of carbon fuels and a transition to renewable sc Some companies are already pursuing have begun using 'green shopping b to replace plastic bags. Urbanisation world and the emerging Southern er signs of this. Location of workplace
11 Asian Development Bank, Key Indical http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books Highlights.pdf

ld Economic. 65
he production of ethanol is a goal that for oil and gas offshore has only just le in giving China and India plots for 2ements. Sri Lanka has also got China | India investing in a coal power plant st set examples in the conservation of es of energy.
y widely practised by the private sector initiated Global Compact. The South emalpractices of the "robber barons" 2 private sector in their own countries nka private sector has long engaged ganisations like Rotary, the Lions and many community activities. While this n on the global agenda, especially the tion of extreme poverty is especially ome. This can begin within the private in CEO salaries and the average wage cuous consumption by top executives ble corporate behaviour. A recent ADB ties are growing across Asia and that por "Sri Lanka's economic performance the distribution of income and welfare lity of Life (PQLI). Later, after the 1977 mbining equity with growth. It would us in its political consequences, if Sri ibution of income she had in the past a rate commensurate with the higher
est polluter in the world after the USA. . Good environmental practices must emissions, economical uses of fossil ources of energy must be encouraged. 'green policies. Some of Supermarkets ags made of bio-degradeable material will be a growing phenomenon in the gines of growth are already showing s and factories by the private sector
ors 2007: Inequality in Asia, 38th Edn, 2007, Key Indicators/2007/pdf/Inequality-in-Asia

Page 81
66 Arbiters of a
outside urban areas can also help to c urban congestion and ease the pres; scandal that so many resources are
of Sri Lanka. The Central Bank of Sri that the Western Province accounted and Eastern Provinces were at 2.9%
the Provinces accounted for 42.3% ( politically unwise and economically i programme of intensive economic dev for the private sector to consolidate
of LTTE terrorism in that region. It i provision of employment opportunit result in a durable peace. If the priva the East because of lack of political sta the challenge to help create that very s of the area richly deserve.
(h) Foreign Policy At
All this must have an impact on Sri L relations, which reveal disturbing sig Clearly the International Monetary Fi on global monetary policy and Sri La the IMF. The World Bank continues to and the Aid Consortium. But Sri Lank her membership of the G15, regiona Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical a and Indian Ocean Rim Association f strong bilateral relations with Indi finally help to service and develop th new centres of economic growth. IM twenty years intra-regional trade has especially in Asia. Skilful marketing is an area in which the private sector assistance. The way the Joint Appare Lankan missions abroad to safeguar the garment sector is an example of to identify with the South in the inter bargaining is clearly advantageous.
With an estimated 2.1 billion airl danger of pandemics like SARS and A other countries, must ensure a strong people. At the same time vulnerabilit context of climate change, must req operation with other countries to ensu management and mutual assistance. missions in those countries with con

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
teate employment in new areas, reduce sure on urban transport. It remains a oncentrated in the Western Province Lanka's statistics of GDP in 2006 show or 50.1%; the conflict-affected Northern and 4.7%, respectively, and the rest of ‘ollectively. This is inherently unfair, nefficient. The “Neganahira Navodya" relopment in the East is an opportunity he gains achieved by the elimination s only economic development and the ies for the people of the area that can te sector Shied away from investing in bility, now is the opportunity to accept tability which the long-suffering people
anka's foreign policy and her external gns of confusion and mismanagement. und (IMF) has declined in its influence nka has begun to rely less and less on be useful in terms of project assistance ca's interaction with the South through l groupings in SA ARC, Bay of Bengal and Economic Co-operation (BIMSTEC) or Regional Co-operation (IORC) plus a, China and ASEAN countries will e economic ties Sri Lanka has with the F studies show that in approximately grown faster than extra-regional trade, pf a composite Sri Lanka brand abroad can give the state sector Some valuable el Association Forum worked with Sri i and advance the nation's interests in what can be done. There is also a need national organisations where collective
ne passengers per annum globally, the IDS is ever present and Sri Lanka, like public health system to safeguard our y to natural disasters, especially in the uire Sri Lanka to enter into closer coe early warning systems, better disaster All this means staffing the diplomatic petent and trained professionals and

Page 82
Repositioning Sri Lanka in the New WC
not using those posts for political pati at the time of writing, the head of Sri L her biggest foreign investor, remains likelihood not just of the majority of h but also of several deputy and other appointees. A simple comparison with and other emerging economies in the S will reveal how hopelessly unprofessi our foreign relations.
III. CONCLUSION
Before entering the Sri Lanka Foreign examination), I worked in the private therefore, that the private business se sector, understands the value of interac And so, while some political partie panjandrums and sections of the pub foreign conspiracies threatening our in obscurantist jingoism, the privati knowing that economic survival depel goods and services and her ability products and Services vital to her ecc picking up trends signaling a downt turbulent events in the country. Priv Lankan exports when prices prove to to competitors in the harsh global ma of foreign currency fluctuations and Lankan Rupee increasing the domes of this in an increasingly globalised relevant for an island-country such traditional trade routes, depending or Business leaders, therefore, have right to articulate an apolitical perspec to do so in Sri Lanka is unique as it rep to positively influence government is unique because Sri Lanka Suffers economy suffer from adversarial poli making Sri Lanka less and less attract amount of parochial polemics, borde small and vulnerable economy from politicians are unable or unwilling to tell them the truth. When the law and under strain, whether by the underw misbehaving politicos, the ultimate t The moment a country is seen as a pla to the rule of force, foreign businessm

rld Economic. 67
"onage. For example, it is a shame that, anka's diplomatic mission in Malaysia, vacant for over a year. There is now a heads of mission posts going to cronies junior positions also going to political how China, India, Brazil, South Africa south organize their diplomatic services onal Sri Lanka is in the management of
Service (through an open competitive sector for over three years. I am aware, ctor in Sri Lanka, more than any other tion with the international community. 'S, politically appointed Government lic go around ranting and raving about sovereignty, wrapping themselves up e sector remains steadfastly realistic, nds on foreign markets for the country's to have domestic markets for foreign onomic life. That sector is the antenna, urn in tourist arrivals as a reaction to late businessmen see the threat to Sri be uncompetitive, yielding advantages rketplace. They read the warning signs the continuous depreciation of the Sri tic cost of living and foreign debt. All world where interdependence is more as Sri Lanka, which has long been on n imports and exports.
2 a special responsibility and indeed a 'tive on governance issues. The occasion resents a challenge and an opportunity policy making and implementation. It from conflict and her democracy and tics. Governance suffers from all these, ive to investors, traders and tourists. No ring on xenophobia, will insulate this the stark reality of interdependence. If grasp this, then business leaders must order regime of a democracy is brought orld, terrorists, money launderers or by oll will be on people and on business. ice where the force of rule is giving way en, except for conflict entrepreneurs or

Page 83
68 Arbiters of a N
predators likearms merchants, will thi uninvestigated crime, every goon (or every politico and his brat-pack not h present economic danger. Repercussio passing Sri Lanka to denial of marke issues (as the European Union threate discussions about national and interna on accountability, transparency, huma economic meaning and business imp have a self interest and duty to talk to consensual approaches to these questi they have the economic clout to make

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
nk twice before arriving there. So every son of a goon) who goes unpunished, eld to account represents a clear and ns can range from foreign business byit access as a result of Human Rights ens to do) and/or labour standards. So tional norms and treaty commitments, n rights and the rule of law have direct lications. Business leaders, therefore, politicians of all sides and to promote ons. They have the right to do this and their approaches effective.

Page 84
Inciting Leftist Intervention:
QADRI
If you trem
On the left and center, books, a mess C - beside each other, piled on top of painted in black, white, yellow, saffr confronting the books - in black and the slightest touch of yellow. In betw. Some pistols and a large oil-lamp on head of a snake. Two more tables a colorful scene - the space beneath one red and blue — in one painting of Jag In another, painted only in red, black the Zographic, or pictorial, Space, push two smaller - to the extreme right. T from left to right, with a few chairs ar lamp, pistols, no snake. A third has f snakes, outlined in Saffron, under two like another to its left, is slanted. Thi large, the rest tiny, around yet anothel of the Snakes, whose body curves aro
1 Translations from the Spanish vary, of c context, that The Communist Manifesto, addresses Europe.

Jagath Weerasinghe's Armory
ISMAIL
ble with indignation at every injustice, then we are comrades. Ernesto 'Che Guevara
f them, lined - spine up, down, angled one another, disordered, disarrayed; on. On the right, a few microphones, white, surrounded by Smears of blue, een, but also occupying the right half, a table. Towards the very bottom, the nd some chairs complete the bright, table has smudges of green, the other, ath Weerasinghe's 2006 series, Armory. and saffron, the books occupy most of ning the microphones - one quite large, wo tables stretch across the painting, ound them, even a filing cabinet; small ewer books, a cabinet, no lamp, many adjacent, parallel tables, one of which, is text has the most mikes: three quite table. The biggest is confronted by one und the books, its tail dropping below.
ourse. It is worth reminding ourselves, in this from its justly celebrated opening statement,

Page 85
WO Arbiters of a
Blue, green and yellow, in addition to the first, especially bright. Every pair — irn color, as well as structure änd sce or cardinal figures - troubling in an microphones, always on the right, anc the left; connected yet discrete, each se space within the Scene. (There are no bottom of any picture.) The reader - v too passive, empiricist — must, if she series, address not just its figures, but must address the structure of the Sce Well as its color and images, the what a painting (also) signifies.
Sri Lakes sa
Armory stages a controntation, a and right, But not in the same old te and rich, proletariat and bourgeois o not rigor, labor and capital. A is not th - that politico-intellectual position v argued, couldn't acknowledge, come t class by the national question. The pos Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has
 

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
the other colors, make this scene, like hting, inevitable in a series, is different ne. In every one, though, the dominant armory - are not the pistols, but the deven more so the books, effectively on 't confronting each other from a distinct books, or mikes for that matter, in the iewer, if you insist, though that term is seeks to be responsible by this text, or their location, placement, association; ne, the how and where, if you like, as and what-it-means; for the structure of
nd Mikes
in opposition: the old one between left rms. The figures do not suggest poor r, for those demanding abstraction, if Le product of pre-83 Sri Lankan leftism which, as Newton Gunasinghe (1996) O terms with, the overdetermination of ition which, on a generous reading, the always occupied - even in 1971, given

Page 86
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagarh W
17
its take on Up Country ("Indian") la oppressively, than at this moment: a pivotal parliamentary and ideologica zealous cheerleaders of our own w (Sometimes, perversely enough, ol directed their brutality at the JVP in th
 

'eerasinghe's Armory 71
тIJry
mills, but ne ver more st ridently, if not s the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)'s | accomplice in our own "war on terror,' arriors, the golden heroes (rn in viru), f the same military individuals who e la te 1980s, during the United National

Page 87
72 Arbiters of a N
Party (UNP) presidency) The positio the 'old' Sri Lankan left - Communist (LSSP) - also always occupied: thus i its surrender, despite manifestos to th SLFP on the national question – neve as the compliant parliamentary acc diminutizing government since the perspective, one closer to the enlighte paintings would represent, oppose, tru simplistic, predictable, boring even. W. appear straightforward; a close readil nuanced, should be read in their sing (detail). They don't bear reduction to a Armory is best approached not just in even as a series, but in the context, or production. The poststructuralist rea on the left and right, the books and mi to terms with their appearance in othe were displayed, of all places, in an arr
If they are opposed by the structu associated, by that title - armory, as relation, in the strict and robust Jakob - related, not homonymous. Books i always disquieting, cannot be entirely soundbite that knowledge is power however, figuring the microphone as One doesn't expect to find it in the sa heading as a pistol, something that thr that kills. Weapon is not its synony a term from a different semiotic voc move, one must turn to two earliers also stage the microphone, if in differ the microphone is a singular figure, to repeatedly in his pictorial produ intervene within Southern Sri Lanka homonymously; its deployment, fra the specificity of its intervention with has itself changed, pivotally, in this ti
2 On the 'system' of a painter-a notion o
(1977).
See Jakobson (1971).
4. Something made, the frame both atten an outside - history, politics - to the pai inescapably connects or associates the to disconnect art from history and pol which, in so doing, reminds us of then

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
in which, on a less generous reading, Party (CP), Lanka Sama Samaja Party tS consistent erasure of its own Script, e contrary, to Sinhala nationalism, the 2r more pathetic than at this moment, omplice of our most brutally otherJayewardene presidency. To a certain nment than this essay, Weerasinghe's th and power. Such an interpretation is eerasinghe's pictorial production might ng suggests otherwise: they are dense, ularity, and with attention to adjective cliché. Indeed, as will be argued here, terms of readings of the paintings, or frame, of the system of Weerasinghe's der, before she accounts for the figures kes, before she reads them, must come r places, in his other series, before they nory. re of the text, the figures are connected, storehouse of weapons; it makes their Sonian sense, metonymic, contiguous inside a picture of an armory, though unexpected - after all, Bacon's famous dates to the late sixteenth century; a weapon is a counter-intuitive move. me space, categorized under the same eatens, intimidates, attacks; something m (to once again, inevitably, deploy 'abulary). To grasp the weight of this eries of Weerasinghe paintings which ent contexts, or frames. That is to say, a metaphor Weerasinghe has turned ction since 1994, to both signify and n politics. However, it doesn't signify ming, changes with its moment, with in Southern Sri Lankan politics, which ime. Separated by more than a decade,
pposed to that of aesthetic 'style' - see Pleynet
npts, more or less successfully, to distinguish inting, or text, from an inside and, in so doing, two, without being (too) visible. The move itics, of course, is foundational to aesthetics; exus between them. See Derrida (1987).

Page 88
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
the three series - Public Rally, Snakes a - constitute a provocative or, better, i this SLFP-dominated moment. One in that of Chandrika Kumaratunga, that nationalism, followed by its re-energi, same presidency and its successor, that Weerasinghe's figuration of the micro and in response to distinct political m to put that in an ideological frame, the It highlights his (re)turning to this fig (metonymic) deployment of color, espe of the paintings, often divided vertical reading, in a word, of the Zography of on the question of leftist intervention on the tensions between ethics and p nationalist Sri Lanka. The intervention own indignant texts, which never su They are this argument's accomplice spur on, to stir up, animate, instigate, "about' Weerasinghe's texts and their the former requires addressing the l incitement, of the paintings.
Put differently, this essay does Weerasinghe series, seek to account political contexts; as symptoms, tha read here as leftist interventions on Lankan politics: that is, as art and po Weerasinghe's pictorial production, c fact - from most anti-war painting of its most banal - and much of it is, of c compares to a predictable but necessa this is not to trivialize such work, bu
5 Following John Mowitt, I understand
here, a pictorial or Zographic and a poli Mowitt (2002), and Ismail (2005). To the reductive: art is outside politics. Inciten solicitation. The term Zography is taker
6 Such a formulation begs the question
the frame: how does one know that particularly, should one repress the fact icons - weren't categorized as art at ot art wasn't, always. And isn't: as Tapat sculpture, even when framed by the sp (or not) as religious icons by practicing term he uses) Marxist analysis of the ca 7 Weerasinghe (2001). The term "pictorial
"production of pictures' (1978:146), an

erasinghe's Armory 73
nd Mikes, Armory (hereafter PR, SM, A) incitive leftist pictorial intervention in which the country bore a presidency, promised peace, a relaxing of Sinhala zation and a return to war, during that of Mahinda Rajapakse. This essay reads phone in the three series, produced at oments during the SLFP presidency or, recent itinerary of Sinhala nationalism. ure, and its associates/oppositions; his cially red and saffron; and the structure ly into left and right halves. Through a these texts, this essay intervenes, itself, - artistic, otherwise intellectual - and olitics in such intervention, in Sinhala n is spurred, solicited by Weerasinghe's urrender their ethics to their politics. and incitement. (OED, incite': "urge, stimulate.) That is to say, this essay is object, Sri Lankan politics. Addressing atter – such is the demand or, better,
n't interpret or historicize the three
for them by reducing them to their t is, of something not art." They are their own right within southern Sri litics. The texture of this intervention, liffers intellectually - brilliantly so, in what he has termed the '90s trend. At ourse - Such painting takes a position, ry political pamphlet or poster. To say it contextualize it. Political resistance,
the text as having many levels"; including, tical. For an elaboration of this argument, see aesthete, of course, such a position would be nent could be understood as a strong form of
from Derrida (1987).
n of art, the old question of inside/outside some objects are art and others not? More that certain objects - ancient pottery, religious her politico-epistemological moments? That i Guha-Thakurta reminds us, some statues/ ace of the (western) museum as art, are read , Hindus. For a non-reductive ("vulgar' is the tegory art, see Hadjinicolaou (1978).
production" rephrases Nicos Hadjinicolaou's anti-aesthetic alternative to 'art."

Page 89
74 Arbiters of a N
especially to decades of brutal war, i is politics by other means. This genen performers, installers - met its resp thoughtful, defamiliarize the militarize At its best, their artistic production cha but to rethink - whether the positions history. To cite a couple of related ins series (1999) isn't only a poignant visu as Weerasinghe observes (2001). By as than the more usual daylight, it both h of disappearances, etc., the Sri Lank and points to the limit of landscape
the dark, the frightening, if not the ter reinforced by the curved, non-rectang another a heart, etc. - of many of the be framed easily, can't seamlessly se question the very discipline of aesthe the Social. Similarly, Chammika Jay staging of Sunlit natural beauty, the co camouflage-painted wall, doesn't simp Sri Lankan countryside; it deconstru notion of landscape itself, the conce ground, aesthetics. As for Weerasing with the very question of leftist posit reader, spur her to address, patiently, from the left, on the left; particularly,
say Sinhala - left. Difficult because, c the left - whether Sinhala nationalist like the CP/LSSP - of treachery, of bet openness, the responsibility, deferenc characterize the left, its ethics. Litera dogmatic statement myself, should b politics, accusations of treachery, of b conviction, ultimately empiricist, that out - left to the military and the mar the LTTE - that find such a term impe the other hand, to call oneself left and
this case, of the Sri Lankan minoritie identification, leftist ethics, into ques such questioning in the three series th (1994), a response to the Kumaratung.
8 The word is in quotation marks becaus as a neutral descriptor of a numerical regardless of the intention of its user, Ismail (2005).

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
is never trivial; and art, just like war, ration of Sri Lankan artists - painters, onsibility admirably. Some, the more 2d everyday of this Sri Lankan moment. allenges the reader not only on the war, of politics or even the categories of art stances: Muhanned Cader's Nightscape al statement of frustration and despair, Sociating landscape with night, rather highlights the fact that, at that moment an landscape was scary (in the) dark; - its inability, as a 'genre, to address rifying. This critique of disciplining is ular shapes — one in that of a kalagediya, 2 paintings in the series. They cannot parate themselves from their outside, tics that would circumvallate art from awardana's Landscape, juxtaposing a Dnventional object of landscape, with a ply mimic the transformed, militarized cts - there's no better word - the very pt of beauty, and its epistemological ghe, his texts entangle, zographically, ion-taking. In so doing, they incite the the difficult question of taking a stand, on the southern - perhaps one should In the one hand, dogmatism, accusing , like the JVP, or just complicit with it, raying a Script, is inconsistent with the e to the other, that must, as Che knew, l/ist readings, at the risk of making a be considered incompatible with such eing outside-based as they are on the tone can easily distinguish inside and ly nationalisms - including the Tamil, rative, if not organic, to their script. On not consistently oppose oppression - in s' - is, Surely, to call such nomination, tion?' Weerasinghe's production spurs hat deploy the microphone. PR, the first a election, is tremblingly hopeful of the
e it is not understood in social scientific terms, fact, a smaller group; the word also means, minor, lesser, insignificant. I address this in

Page 90
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
promise of the left. SM (2005/6), a wa – addresses, engages with, the questi complicity with Sinhala nationalism in responding to the consolidation of su anti-nationalist left, of the peace argur will be argued here, the most hopeful.
In three of the drawings of PR, a tal woman is pictured standing beside suggesting Chandrika Kumaratunga. mike - with her left hand - assume co without human figure: the microphor the right of the pictorial space. In yet there's no podium among the many sh scenes doesn't oppose the mikes, which single other object. The series itself, th mikes, an object, with the right, or a pol they are a metaphor. The texts stage an wait, expectantly, perhaps hopefully, fc explicit response to the optimism of til of Kumaratunga as president. She cam that the question of peace in Sri Lanka the Tamils. Not a matter of implicit Sur. financial/economic constraint; or even matter of concession or compromise; bu righting a wrong, correcting a prior in national question was ethical more tha. That year, 1994, a rare moment of ho nationalism was tired, even if not abc eventually lost patience with her own LTTE incitement - but other, non-mi the sorry script of Sinhala nationalis perverse of Oxymoronities, a 'war for seventeen years of Jayewardene, Prer governments — almost genocidal agai the south, against the JVP and its soc intimidated ineptitude of the parliame anti-nationalist Southern left stopped i
A few of the paintings, though, a precisely because of a lack of mark or i consistently picture that referent. Sc Kumaratunga-like figure, almost expl without adjective, making such an ic certainty; they allow different readin; behind, the podium is figureless. Tha - or cannot-produce hope, even thoug a few black Smudges around the pod

rasinghe's Armory 75
or two later, explicitly - indignantly on of left and right, protests the left's the Rajapakse presidency. A (2006/7), ch nationalism, the diminution of the nent, is the bleakest series; but also, as
l, commanding, Kandyan-Sari-wearing a microphone, almost transparently She is determined, about to seize the ntrol. Three other paintings of PR are es occupy the left; an empty podium, others, the mikes are on the right, but apes on the left. The structure of those overdetermine it Zographically, to any at is, doesn't consistently associate the itics; but with politics as such, of which ticipation, even uncertainty: the mikes or the speaker. Painted in 1994, PR is an he left following the election that year paigned, we shouldn't forget, arguing was inseparable from that of justice to render-ending war out of exhaustion, defeat at the hands of the LTTE; not a ut of justice — in the (Guevaran) sense of ustice. Kumaratunga's response to the n political, arguably non-instrumental. pe in post-83 Sri Lanka, that Sinhala out to retire. Kumaratunga, of course, ethics, Surrendered, if arguably upon litary responses are conceivable - to m; announced and waged that most peace'...and so on. But, in 1994, after nadasa and the brutality of the UNP inst the Tamils, no less murderous in io-political base - not to mention the ‘ntary opposition, the optimism of the }eing abstract, actually had a referent. re impressive, make the reader pause, mpress: Weerasinghe does not, cannot, me drawings, as said before, bear a icitly suggest her - though her face is entification persuasive, but not with gs. In others, the space to the right of, is to say, taken as a series, PR does not hit desires to. In one striking instance, ium make that space ambiguous. Or,

Page 91
76 Arbiters of a N
rather, that text could be read in two the fact that the zographic space behi a pale yellow, than the dark brown that it suggests something different, a break from before. In such a readin the painting, from dark to light, that s other hand, one could subsume its mc whole, note that the space for the spea those black smears; that the top edge c metonymic) blue and green. In this re could appear there, assume that place. between; blue or green, SLFP or UNP. hope. Some of its texts picture Kum promising figure, beside the microp depict anticipation at best, if not uncert that a series could be understood in a paintings that stage a problem from mi to, or turning around, a problem, loo frames. The suggestive strength of th insistence that no problem should be so would, in a sense, and certainly in t be dogmatic. The analogy here - inevi novel: which, at its most complex, turr perspective of many characters, etc. PE about the promise of the organized l wouldn't have been misplaced. One ce stages a desire for hope while prepare gave us both.
A little more than a decade later and Mikes, a series in which the Sce Weerasinghe's production - could be left and right halves: the snakes in ol stages an explicit confrontation betwe space of one very large painting in SM on the left, confronting the microph in either group usurps the opposing: speaker, behind" both the mikes and again, the mikes are associated with scenes have no podiums, don't sugge something different. In many colors, red background, threatening to overw which implies something to the fore accurate; Weerasinghe's Scenes are pi because red - the color of chillies, been an element of Weerasinghe's pa

lational imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
different ways. One might emphasize nd the podium is a much lighter color, S and black surrounding the mikes; perhaps even something new, better, g, which highlights the movement of space would signify optimism. On the ovement to a reading of the Scene as a aker is not just unfigured but contains of the podium has touches of (clashing, ading, the text signifies that anything Anything. Something light, dark, or inPR, then, as a series, tremblingly stages aratunga' as that hope - a confident, hone; others cannot figure anything, ainty, anxiety. In So doing, PR suggests non-linear sense: as a set of singular any points of view, that keep returning king at it from many perspectives, or is particular series lies precisely in its approached from just one frame; to do he Sri Lankan context, given its object, table, from a literary critic - is with the is around or stages a problem from the R, then, as a series signifies uncertainty eft even at a moment when optimism uld say, if a little hyperbolically, that it 2d for horror. Kumaratunga, of course,
, the microphones reappear in Snakes nes - in stark contrast to the rest of divided, vertically, into almost exact ne, mikes in the other. Unlike PR, SM een left and right. Most of the pictorial is dominated by a dozen or so snakes, ones, on the right; not a single figure space. The Snakes assume the place of the table the devices are around. Once a staging of politics; however, these st a public rally, politics-as-usual, but the Snakes are displayed on a bright helm it. (Though the term background, or front of it, implies perspective, isn't ainted flat.) This is especially striking love, leather balls, the left - has not inting, leave alone a cardinal one, till

Page 92
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
this moment.' In another text, the Sr background, occupying one half of th Without further figures it stages the C by the title of the series in the starke snakes here, which have strayed a lit depicted being devoured by larger rel titled, The Peril, has five microphones on top and bottom by two tables, on occupy the right. Four of the mikes ar. on a red surface. Unlike the first pa table, behind one of which is a chail The microphones, that is, don't face be expected to occupy at a public ra highlight SM's difference from PR: the the space before the microphones in SN in two paintings, these creatures col location, away from the furniture. The prepared to attend to the detail of the with, figuration of, the microphone the 1994 series. In PR, the mikes appe them, before the podium at a public r. unfigured. By 2005/SM, the space of Snakes).
The Peril responds to a new devel as it were, breaks the rules. A close re the snakes allows one to grasp the tex reader - the type that pauses befor who never returns - they would app signifying a colorful bunch of snake into sets, differ coherently in color, si: and mass, tiny enough for their bodie towards the bottom of the scene, paint These snakes are blue, a metonym fo that, despite its parliamentary numbe by saffron or Sinhala nationalist polit but form a larger group, in length an of them are the same size as the blues are surrounded, encompassed, on t cardinal figures that dominate not ju They are painted in a color that has for production at this Sinhala nationalist red). These creatures differ from the re have much bigger heads and bodiesin the scene, which doesn't show thi
9 Italso appears in other series around t

erasinghe's Armory 77
akes are on the right, on a light pink e scene, the mikes in the other, on red. pposition - and association – captured st possible terms. Three of the smaller le into the red space of the mikes, are tiles. A third painting, in this instance of varying sizes in the left half, framed with a chair beside it; several snakes 2 painted/outlined in black, one in blue, nting, they are not situated on either , but in the space between the tables. the chairs, the place a speaker would lly. Many elements of their Zography re's no red or saffron in the first series; A is not empty but occupied - by Snakes; nfront the mikes from an unexpected difference signifies - but only if one is scene - that Weerasinghe's engagement at this moment is quite unlike that in ar in a space one might expect to find ally, even if the space behind it is often politics-as-usual has been usurped (by
opment in Sri Lankan politics; one that, ading of the detail of the figuration of :ture of this response. To the impatient 2 a picture for an impression or two, 2ar to be grouped indifferently, simply S. In fact, they are arranged carefully ze and location. The smallest in cluster s to be depicted whole, tail and all, are 2d in thick brushstrokes, without detail. r the SLFP: reduced in size to signify rs, it is overdetermined at this moment ics. The red ones are painted similarly, d number, located in the middle; some nakes, others longer. Both these groups hree sides by the biggest snakes, the st the right of the scene but the whole. cefully imposed itself on Weerasinghe's noment - saffron (a few with touches of st: they are the only ones in two colors, so large they cannot be depicted whole ir tails - and are amply adjectivized.
is time, including Celestial underwear (2003).

Page 93
78 Arbiters of a N
Some have their mouths open, baring appear ready to strike, bite, attack, rat Ugly, scary, the saffron snakes terrif creatures figure the new, disruptive, f. politics that SM confronts. If the light behind the microphones was empty i yellow - Snakes have assumed, occupie of yellow is brighter, stronger, domina is now, almost transparently, horror; p
The patient reader would also not by that of the mikes - which have head that curve, sinuously, much like the te the structure of the picture opposes they are associated by shape, another stages a confrontation between left an pictorially distinct, broken into almos this opposition, calls it into question, between the two positions at this mon by iterating the shapes on both sides. In get displayed as the accomplice, partne amplify, spread the peril. Without the its metonymy, suggests are not mere i the better term - the creatures would in this politico-Zographic frame, the n moment, in 1994, with hope, peace, jus - becomes a disseminative weapon, so of an exclusivist ideology, an argume signifier of, metaphor for, Sri Lankan could be on the right even when on the distinction itself in the Sri Lanka political party. Other paintings in the as mentioned before, the location of th snakes even stray into the space of the occupies the middle of the scene and These texts highlight the fact that SM a problem from many singular points it; that, as a series, it engages with thi itself being smudged by the positions parties, making (non-dogmatic) leftis moment, taking a firm political positi especially fraught.

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
fangs but also, often, large teeth; they her than speak into the microphones. y. Overdetermining the scene, these rightening development in Sri Lankan er colored – beigy, dull yellow – space n the 1994 series, the - Saffron, vivid ed it by SM. In the 2005 series, the color nt. What could have been hope in 1994 ossibility, a (yellow) peril.
that the shape of the snakes is iterated S, too, and handles, connected to wires ils of the snakes. That is to say, while left and right, the snakes and mikes, element of its Zography. The painting i right - the two parts of the scene are t exact vertical halves - and collapses highlights the metonymic association nent, at least on the national question, So doing, left mimics right; the mikes r in crime of the brutes: they broadcast, se instruments, which the text's logic, instruments, or objects - prostheses is lack bite. Associated with the Snakes nicrophone - associated in a different tice, as an amplifier of such possibility mething that attacks, at the command 2nt for, enabler, element of war. As a politics, it suggests that such politics the left. The Peril, that is, addresses n context, blurred by more than one series return to this question: in one, e Snakes and mikes is reversed, Some mikes. In another, the red background invades a little of the left and right. must be read as a series, that it stages of view, (re)turns to it, turns around question of the left/right distinction of certain Sinhala nationalist political it intervention into Sri Lanka at this on without surrendering one's ethics,

Page 94
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
SM was painted, as stated before the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) to JVP; the latter invited to an alliance, SLFP - despite the fact of hundreds of of her husband, Vijay Kumaratunga strategic move. In the form of the JHU Buddhist clergy institutionalized, for the sangha's decades old political inte staged as mostly happening inside, i publicly. Rereading their own doctrina inventing, new ones - it argued that B what appears to be reasonably clear str text, by definition, is infinitely reada parliamentary politics; indeed, that them to intervene in the profane, espec crisis, to protect the land and relig perspective, the JHU advanced, ampl only, other-diminutizing positions oft Sri Lanka as a Sinhala state, desires it acknowledges the minorities, but pron future.' Empowered by that election, ideological alliance, almost seamless its left- and right-wing instantiations in urgency, has come to control south - and, increasingly, militarily - oppre Muslims, obstruct any movement oral with Sinhala nationalist domination doesn't even arise here - of Sri Lanka.
SM responds to this new configure shocking, uncompromisingly tough nationalist politics as low, reptilian, sli slightest legitimacy, organicity or attrac persuasive claim upon the popular. Th ugliest, creepiest in the texts. In one the Smaller blue creatures, giving ov prefiguring the JHU's darkening of th presidency since Champika Ranawak as Minster of Environment and Natur
10 The brief moment of the Wickremasingh presidency, important for the ceasefir LTTE, did not incite a painterly respons
11 See, for instance, Uyangoda (2007). O
generally, see Seneviratne (2000).
12 Deegalle (2004) carries the manifesto.

erasinghe's Armory 79
, in 2005/6." Elections in 2004 brought arliament along with an empowered perversely enough, by Kumaratunga/ murders on its resume, including that ; an ethically dubious but politically , an extreme nationalist element of the the first time in parliamentary form, rvention in Sri Lanka. What was once n the private sphere, was now staged al texts - some would say writing, even uddhist monks could, actually, despite ictures to the contrary - but then every ble — participate in institutionalized, their religion and patriotism obliged ially at a moment of terrorist-provoked ion of the Sinhalese. From a leftist ified the oppressive, Sinhala-Buddhist he sangha: its 2004 manifesto identifies is reconstitution along Buddhist lines; hises them a minor, lesser, insignificant the SLFP(blue)-JVP(red)-JHU(saffron) ly combining Sinhala nationalism in s, dismissing class matters as lacking ern Sri Lankan politics, systematically SS, further diminutize, the Tamils and gument for peace that doesn't coincide - the question of hegemony-as-assent
tion by picturing it as a Snake: an angry, image. Producing saffron or extreme my, constitutes a refusal to grant it the tiveness, despite its electoral success, its 2 saffron-colored snakes are the biggest, painting, as said before, they devour verdetermination a new signification, e always already nationalist Rajapakse a's induction into the cabinet, in 2007, al Resources. (Detail is in order here: in
eprime ministership during the Kumaratunga 2 it produced between the government and e from Weerasinghe.
in the Sangha and Sri Lankan politics more

Page 95
80 Arbiters of a N
the name of protecting the environm to state control of thousands of acres mostly in the Amparai district; chang the West Bank - but Sinhala nationalis the 1950s - the facts on the ground"; Muslims in the only Sri Lankan dist acts could be cited.) Metaphorically, the JHU, has been devouring not only Responding to such politics, The Pe Sneaky, vicious. Sinhala nationalism, o lion, as the icon of its community;' exp possible turn, including the uniforms if not oppressively, in the Sri Lankan f blade of the lion's upright sword confr the minorities. Weerasinghe displac animal, almost literally, slithering do seen as magnificent as malignant. SM is good old-fashioned leftist politics, It acknowledges heterogeneity and S. different colors, sizes, shapes, adject saffron mass. Nevertheless, in context left cannot stray from its script. It mus
Or, rather, figure it as such. Painti if unavoidable. In doing the latter, The without easy or transparent answer, t anti-nationalist Lankan left: the difficu Subaltern, often progressive on class ( any notion of non-class difference, in ground. Selectively indignant, the JVI Lankan state that would work against diminution of the Tamils and Muslims, as equal inhabitants of the country, c. of Sinhala nationalism. Does it have a Or, in the postcolonial Sri Lankan fra
13 To some on the left, the JHU as an or destined to fall victim to its own succ the SLFP further to the nationalist righ instance, Goonewardena (2007). While could very well bear this optimism ou discipline that mimics the protocols o retroactively authorize the past. In any e figuration of this relation: that the blue
14 On the "peopling" of the Sinhalese as o
Gunawardana's classic (1984).
15 The same question, of course, could, an LSSP at this moment, given its consiste

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
2nt, Ranawaka authorized the transfer of land owned by Muslims in the east, ed, in a move analogous to Zionism in m has been colonizing Tamil turf since worked towards the minoritization of ict they dominate. Many similar JHU this particular, dominant, ville Snake, the SLFP, but the smaller, the minor. ril rereads, or refigures it — as snakey, f course, heralds the animal in its name, loses, demonstrates, displays it at every of the cricket team. Most emphatically, lag - where, appropriately enough, the onts, threatens, the stripes representing es the figuration, brings the majestic wn to earth; produces what would be 1 generally, and The Peril in particular, eftist art at its most ethical, indignant. ingularity: the animals are painted in ives; not reduced to one homogenous is like this, The Peril insists, incites: the st, as it were, call a snake a snake. tblue and saffron where necessary; red, Peril addresses a dilemma, a question hat has long confronted, bedeviled the ulty of picturing the JVP - a party of the Juestions but dogmatically opposed to cluding gender, to any politics on such is against any reconstitution of the Sri the further oppression, minoritization, that would, instead, acknowledge them onstitutionally and otherwise. A party persuasive claim upon the color red?' me, given its articulation, amplification
ganization is a passing political happening, ess. The argument here is that it has pushed it and thus vacated its own position. See, for tempting to hold on to, and the next election ut, caution is warranted at the claims of any if astrology. That is to say, the future cannot
vent, this essay is persuaded by Weerasinghe's snakes have been devoured by the saffron.
if the lion, one turns, of course, to R. A. L. H.
d perhaps should, also be posed of the CP and nt abetting of the Rajapakse presidency.

Page 96
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
of such nationalism, should it be pai their self-representation, the red flag them otherwise would be to police, d a favored Weerasinghe term, one rou work with a notion of authenticity, of a (in this case Marx). To close the book or affirming, the claim would legitim a moment in the long, often distin repressive, at its best open, responsive, of opposition and resistance - politica oppression and exploitation, of the in justice, sometimes the successful ins revolutionarily or otherwise, that we national question makes such identifi equally convincing colors for the JV does one, as it were, open the tube party speaking for itself, would repre - all too familiar with being spoken f endorse, at least not ethically. Howeve preclude (the self or subject from) read captures dilemmas like this, situation as the writing of Gayatri Spivak cons situations like this is that they dema makes us rather than we it.' Weerasin being dogmatic: he figures the JVP as When the left takes positions - w that opens by citing Che, is not all it do it, that structures, guides, enables coherently, upon the conviction tha word, injustice - is untenable; that it is possible. A script with so many au from so many heterogeneous strugg the very notion of authority, originali community - comraderie, if you like upon responding to the other, as Che inspired by: the left is not compelled b of nationalism, of identity politics that to the other. Such openness con
16 See Weerasinghe, 2001, 2005.
17 'I use aporia to name a situation where
out and that we, by being agents, have that makes us rather than we it.' (Spiva other, more philosophically complex, w
18. It is difficult not to see the CP and I statements, but otherwise complicit wit the Rajapakse presidency, as tarred by

erasinghe's Armory 81
nted saffron too? Contesting, refuting is that decorate their rallies, painting aw boundaries, circumvallate - to use tine in the discipline of archaeology – correct interpretation of a script or text on them. On the other hand, accepting, ze the JVP's contention of constituting guished, sometimes dogmatic, even inciting itinerary of the understanding l, intellectual and epistemological - to dignant struggle for equity and Social tantiation of equity and Social justice, call the left. The JVP's response to the cation difficult. Red and Saffron - both P. In which case, following what logic of paint? Saffron would preclude the sent, substitute: a move postcoloniality or, replaced, anthropologized - cannot r, red isn't a better move either: it would ing or figuring the JVP. The term aporia is where choice is impossible. And yet, istently reminds us, the problem with nd the taking of a position, one that ghe's response is angry, ethical without red reptiles." which, it should be stressed in an essay pes — it works from a script that 'makes“ response, intervention, consistently, t oppression and exploitation - in a can and must end; that social justice thors, mostly unknown, unknowable, les – itineraries, texts – it confounds ty, and instead suggests collaboration, - as its incitement. A script predicated knew, and spurs us to work with, be y injustice to the self- the compulsion more generally - but every injustice, stitutes its ethics, the difference of its
here are two right ways that cancel each other
already marked in one way, with a decision k, 2008: 275) As she goes on to say, "There are rays of formalizingaporia." SSP, for a reconstitution of the state in its h Sinhala nationalism, parliamentary allies of he same brush.

Page 97
82 Arbiters of a
politics (from the narcissism of the ri selective, inadequate reading of this s or the Muslim, provokes its figurati of indignation, as reptilian; even wh doing, SM doesn't surrender its ethics heterogeneity, painting the JVP red, in figuring the JVP as non-reptilian). For characterize the leftist script; at least politics, the left is difficult to delimi Thus Weerasinghe's staging of this \ for instance, on both the right and le both sides of the scene in some texts necessarily the norm; some leftists irrefutable reading of the script or te) color the snakes should be. But dogm not only with a narrow ethics but a seeking to police, enforce virtually outside from inside, it narrows, push community instead of broadening should not be overdetermined by ant Of course, the leftist script woul followed consistently and coherently sometimes - must enable one's respc meant 'spontaneous"), not follow or b (The popular term for such reading 'religious' text, is fundamentalism.) the call of the other, as Spivak cons open to the possibility, if one's scripti has all the answers? - if it doesn't ei Some situations it would require am other's call;" for even this script, esp heterogeneous subplots, cannot ant prepared to respond to every instanc haverewrite within earshot, as it wei fresh paint at hand, perhaps even a ca be there, where it is supposed to. TI with confidence. In the Sri Lankan presidency, this means opposition, v
19 In the U.S. frame, the dismissal by d as "merely cultural' is a recent instanc open. On this, see Warner (1993), Butl

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ght). In the Sri Lankan frame, the JVP's cript, its inability to abide by the Tamil on by Weerasinghe, in a calculated fit ile granting them the color red. In so (deferring to the other, acknowledging otsaffron) to its politics (playing it safe, dogmatism, circumvallation, shouldn't not at its most open, its best. Like any t, frame, fence-off with utter certainty. sery problem: his mikes being located, ft, in SM and PR, the red straying into of the SM series. Such openness is not are convinced they have the correct, ct, could tell inside from outside, which atism, like any closed argument, works n ultimately self-defeating politics: in blind loyalty, firmly distinguish the es allies out, constricts the colaborative it. Put differently, the leftist response agonism, but tempered by affirmation. i be effectively meaningless if it weren't . But any good Script, sometimes - just onses to be unscripted (by which is not e chained to a literal reading of the text. , Such politics, when associated with a sf response, responsibility, is to answer istently reminds us, then one must be Slacking - but which script is complete, nable or suggest Such response, that in nendment, supplementation, as per the ecially this script, despite its profusely icipate all injustice. Rather, it must be te of it. Nevertheless, while the left must e- or, to use a more apt metaphor, have anvas or two - it must also be consistent, he other should be able to call on her rame, at this moment of the Rajapakse vithout qualification, to the war against
ogmatic Marxism of the gay rights movement e of the failure (of a section of the left) to be sc er (1998).

Page 98
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
not just the LTTE but, effectively, the also opposed to the vicious, univocal, other-diminutizing, with respect to t The two can, and must, be distinguish be predictable. '
However, to call an artist pred mechanical, derivative, clichéd, the \ creative and original. Which raises the identified as leftist, undogmatic but pr even more damningly, is his painting of course, his production would not m essay; which must now, finally, (re)tur, to its framing of the microphone, whi the context of the system of Weerasir for Sri Lankan politics. A metaphor Weerasinghe deploys in orderto interv Sinhala nationalism, but also on the qui zographically, in PR, SM and A. An in which promised peace, incited hope quickly into another horrific moment Such intervention, as we have seen, is I confronts the question of the left min right, and stages the difficulty of locati southern party politics. If SM protests possible accomplice as a snake, PR and the first series signifies anxiety about hope in a few of its texts, trembles wi meet her promise? - in many more, a decade not just by the alliance of the by the positions of the anti-nationalis appear, Weerasinghe has given up thi deploy the microphone, do not cathec A's microphones are not as Zogr prior series: they occupy less space, e The books, on the left and, it must be n most of the pictorial space in these pa title, armory. Even more troubling, the reader, to have replaced the snakes of
20 In his speeches beginning in 2007, R
Sinhala voters, he is only accountable produces himself as a champion of th Palestinian struggle even though it cou such a frame, his presidency's treatmen state's oppression of the Palestinians.
21 The color that dominates his productic
saffron.

erasinghe's Armory 83
Tamils (and Muslims).' Even if one is politically homogenizing - and equally he Muslim - nationalism of the LTTE. ed. In that precise sense, the left has to
ictable is to damn her production as sery opposite of the aesthetic virtues, question: does Weerasinghe's politics - edictable - contradict his painting? Or, predictable, too? If such were the case, erit substantial engagement, incite this n to The Armory series where it opened, ch we are now in a position to read in ghe's pictorial production, as a figure which, one could say with confidence, "ene, from the left, not just on the war or estion of left (and right), politically and tervention during the SLFP presidency, in the anti-nationalist left, but turned in the itinerary of Sinhala nationalism. most explicit in SM, where Weerasinghe nicking or, at best, surrendering to the ng a consistently anti-nationalist left in such mimicry, Surrender, by figuring a icipated it a decade earlier. Or, at least, : the Southern Sri Lankan left: it dares ith uncertainty — would Kumaratunga n uncertainty reinforced over the next SLFP with the JHU and JVP, but also t left parties (CP, LSSP). By A, it would 2 color red; his texts, at least those that tit.21 m
aphically dominant as the ones in the ven if prominent on the extreme right. oticed, also the center of the scene, take intings - something troubling given its y could appear, if only to the impatient SM, as a refiguration. However, quite
ajapakse has argued that, being elected by o, responsible by, them. Despite this, he also e oppressed in general - a supporter of the ld be argued without much difficulty that, in of the minorities resembles the Zionist Israeli
on at this moment is, unsurprisingly enough,

Page 99
84 Arbiters of a N
apart from the fact that the book, as su a metaphor for it, the detail of the tex confront the microphones, they don't the snakes in SM. In other words, th of the snakes, another way of figuri Their color highlights the difference:s body; others, saffron-outlined, black black-white. A good number are w red. In a reversal of The Peril (SM), the rest, the Saffron-colored books he black-white ones. The latter are closer saffron books, sit between them and dissemination, amplification. They de If the books, then, are heterogeneous striking that none are red; and all of t the intellectual left (missing red books the peace argument - it might Sound but such is the reading of the white b that, even if a bulwark against Sinhala done, over; at best uninspired, clichéd presidency's war against the Tamils, c And yet its title remains, armor 'workshop' - a place to make weapo weapons; and, the OED also informs messages) - if you will, the theory signifier as weapon. The title of a commanding its reader; it is, however thinking on the question of the book though not of the kind that kills. For t on the failure of the anti-war argumen book to open it.
Towards the end of 1984, after I'd I still think of him - asked me if I'd li had a job waiting for me, at The Island, 'I can reach 40,000 readers every week Today at the University of Minne to 30 students per class.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ch, doesn't signify the reptilian, or isn't t suggests otherwise. While the books as obviously, directly, emphatically, as ey are not the metaphoric equivalent ng a malignant Sinhala nationalism. ome are outlined in black, with saffron body; a few, yellow-blue, many more, hite; none, significantly enough, are where the Saffron Snakes overwhelm are are completely surrounded by the to the microphones, circumvallate the the mikes, impeding the possibility of ter and constrain Sinhala nationalism. in Color and function, it is nevertheless hem, closed. This text finds no hope in ); which, in turn, is distinguished from crude, a most reductive simplification, Doks that suggests itself in this framenationalism, is depicted here as closed, . A is a bleak response to the Rajapakse heer led as it is by the JVP/JHU.
y: arsenal' - a place to store weapons; ons; 'craft“ — the technique of making us, the 'science of heraldry' (symbols, of signification; making A 'about' the painting need not be understood as , productive to read this one as inciting as weapon, the making of weapons - hese paintings don't just take a position ht, they spur leftists who work with the
finished my finals, Professor Halpé - as ke to stay on at Peradeniya and teach. I So said, with all the arrogance of youth: c. Why should I settle for 40!'
sota, I teach English literature, happily,

Page 100
Inciting Leftist Intervention: Jagath We
Works Cited
Butler, Judith (1998), Merely Cultural", New Deegalle, Mahinda (2004, "Politics of the Ja Ethnicity in Contemporary Sri Lanka', Derrida, Jacques, (1987), The Truth in Paint s McLeod, Chicago: University of Chica Goonewardena, Kanishka, (2007), "Nationa
Asia11 20, 10-11. Guha-Thakurta, Tapati (2007), "Our God.
India's Art Objects", Ari History 30.4. Gunasinghe, Newton (1996), Selected Essays, Gunawardana, R.A.L.H., (1984), "The Pec History and Historiography, Ethnicity Association. Hadjinicolaou, Nicos" (1978), Art History and
London: Pluto. Ismail, Qadri, Forthcoming, "Ivan Peries a Journal of the Humanities, XXXIV (1&2), Ismail, Qadri (2005), Abiding by Sri Lanka: O,
University of Minnesota Press. Jakobson, Roman (1971), Fundamentals of La
Mouton de Gruyter.
Manu ratne, Prabha (2007), “Celestia Postcolonial Art", South Asia Journal foi
Mowitt, John (2002), Percussion: Drumming,
Minnesota Press. Pleynet, Marcelin (1977), Painting and Syste
University of Chicago Press. Seneviratne, H. L. (2000), The Work of Kings, Spivak, Gayatri Chakra vorty (2008), Other A Uyangoda, Jayadeva (2007), "The Tale of a M and Political Weekly, 8 September 2007. Warner, Michael (1993), 'Introduction' in
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Weerasinghe, Jagath (2006)., Performing th (exhibition catalogue), Colombo: Lion
Weerasinghe, Jagath (2005), Contemporary and Social Change: Contemporary Ari Books, 180-193.
Weerasinghe, Jagath (2001), "The Moments ( http://www.theertha.com/htm/khoj20C

erasinghe's Armory 85
Left Review, 227.
thika Hela Urumaya Monks: Buddhism and Contemporary Buddhism, 5.2.
ng, Translated by Geoff Bennington and lan go Press.
Ideology" in a Buddhist State', Himal South
s, Their Museums: The Contrary Careers of
Colombo: Social Scientists' Association.
ple of the Lion: Sinhala Consciousness in and Social Change, Colombo: Social Scientists'
Class Struggle, Translated by Louise Asmal,
nd the Outriggers to Association," Sri Lanka
2008.
in Peace, Place and Postcoloniality, Minneapolis:
1guage, Translated by Moris Halle, New York:
al Underwear and the Challenges of
Culture, Vol 1.
Beating, Striking, Minneapolis: University of
m, Translated by Sima N. Godfrey, Chicago:
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. sias, Blackwell: New York.
onk and his Mercedes in Sri Lanka, Ecolonic
Michael Warner, ed., Fear of a Queer Planet, Press.
2 Male Body, from Nude to Naked", The Maze el Wendt Gallery. Art in Sri Lanka, In Caroline Turner, ed., Art in Asia and the Pacific, Canberra: Pandanus
of Impact: the Art of '90's Trend' in Sri Lanka, 1jw.htm, Accessed 28 May, 2007.

Page 101
If You Must Keep You
RIENZI C
Live your life, my son, without those dark moments trying to understand.
in your yard, saffron of forsyt or stand beneath the catalpa's then step out of your gazebo into the frail nakedness of your favourite Rose of Shal the exotic peonies' crumpled your white ghost of lawn,
and ask not of how or why, about their seasons of life and death the metronome beat of their l and if you wear your elephan you'll hear the king maple wł its eternal song: "I grow in th I have no questions or answe
If you walk down the street, you'll often meet those other faces, mouths sunburnt hands fevering

r Paradise (for John)
TRUSZ
hia,
perfect umbrella; eyes
*On, remains,
l,
iving;
it earS
hispering e innocence of my growing.
f
S.

Page 102
If You Must Keep Your Paradise (for Jo,
the bedlam music
of their gestures, words, but listen carefully and you'll h your precious blood thunde
embrace the darkness
as you would the comfortin laugh from the belly, or cry as the raven over its fallenk but don't ever be another Ac and lose your paradise, you by hanging your head
and trying to understand it
So, go my son, go - as a gentle summer breeze, if you must, an insurgent au and, in time, the world will as your walking shoes take on the certain rhythm

hn) 87
ea ring red through their veins;
g Sun;
ind,
dam r mortal angels,
all.
Or,
tumn gust,
go along with you,
of the stars.

Page 103
The Ghos
R. CHIE
Guns on both
me in the mic
an innocent c that's my nar
I have no city I did,
now it is gon (thanks to ho
Guns on both
me in the mi a burning fir me in the mi
He says 'sit' the other say he says 'go' the other say
He said ''die'
the other sai
he slew the b
the other kill
And I becam a ghost.

it's Song
ERAN
n sides
iddle
Om mOrler
e.
e lly India!)
n sides ddle,
e
ddle.
S 'stand";
s'come.
d live"; body
led the soul.
le

Page 104
Pale
MICHAEL (
Looking back, I find that Anil's Ghost any reader. I'm outside the mechanics when making anything in close focus with another fictional world, with per and set of rules. So trying to remembe working all those years on a secret? and stray facts I picked up here and th loitering,' a Sri Lankan friend told me, did all of that coalesce into a formal fic
It would be easier to draw a serie in peripheral tropical hospitals, inten bodyguard, researching archives at th specialists in various countries, rea almost daily, reading Zimmer's The Ki in Toronto, north of Belleville. Or I coul that became touchstones for me. Or re wrote them into prose and then into fi
I begin a book with shamelessly already know, Surely boredom would five years on a work, the process has to not just passing on what I know. The a is that the writer is just two pages ahea
1 An earlier version of this essay appe Collection. Ed. Gary Ross. Toronto: Gille 2003.

Flags'
ONDAATJE
is as much a stranger to me as it is to of it and that intimacy which comes . I am now someone else, preoccupied haps a different voice, a different place er becomes archeology. How did I feel How did all those stories and images nere – “Architecture is ninety per cent and that is also true of literature - how tion? is of panels: authors talking to doctors viewing a (since disgraced) political e Nadesan Centre, consulting forensic ding Amnesty International reports ng and the Corpse, writing in Colombo, d reprint the two or three photographs print a page of notes that evolved as I ction.
little to go on. If I start with what I win out in half a day. If I am to spend ebb - be one of discovery, not retelling, tmosphere or tension I want in a book ld of the reader, scrambling to hold the
ared in Prize Writing The 10th Anniversary r Prize Foundation and Coach House Books,

Page 105
90 Arbiters of a N
story together. There will be time enol the shifting of furniture.
Related to this is the feeling I har be preoccupied with, when writing ab I distrust - they could be memoir, ficti are basically advertisements for the S all its time, space, and language, is the make indelible a stranger lost to histo) Inventing a novel, I begin from imagined fragments. Gradually these make a scene, then a landscape, event is an "idea" for the book it will emerg have for a book before I begin writing t "No ideas but in things," William Ca feel it utterly true for fiction. That co that "never again will a single story b reflect rock-bottom values for me as a travel with more than one point of v you discover a responsibility to divers deepest intricacy.
Anil's Ghost, of all my books, was the most. This was not the imagined '40s or Toronto at the turn of the centul Even if the central characters are fictio in sight. Sri Lanka was also the worl Anil's return and my journeys there the prawn sellers on Duplication Roac traffic, both she and I remembered th was able to have that pleasure I alway Perhaps because I was aware of t myself, Anil's Ghost in some way beca fiction allow you to delve deeper, more one describes a character is often mo drawing of two lemons by Jack Char London, Ontario, is to me deeply movir I was in no way Anil or Sarath or Gami end of the book that they were in esse In the early 1990s had returned to I had wanted to write about war but a I'd become close friends with an archa were about burial - the digging up c sense they were about death and secre not specifically to do with what had h began writing a long poem about two It was about their courtship and mar translation from a historical Sinhala te

'ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
gh later for rewriting, discarding, and
'e that the last thing the writer should ook, is representing himself. The books on, poetry, or criticism - are those that lf. What the novel should allow with opportunity to enter another life, or to y. the ground up, with experienced or pieces of mica are drawn together to 1ally a vista and social context. If there e now, out of all this. Any idea I may ends to be facile, more smart than true. los Williams said about poetry, and I mment and a remark by John Berger e told as though it were the only one" writer. With them you always have to iew. You go down unexpected alleys, e voices and realize you owe them the
the one where I felt that responsibility world of my parents in the 1930s and y; it was the real contemporary world. hal, there was always a fresco of reality d I had grown up in, so that at times echoed off each other. When she sees i holding up their prawns toward the at unaltered scene from childhood. I s envied in regional writers. he responsibility to something outside me my most personal work. Masks of than memoir and autobiography. How re revealing than the self portrait. A nbers or his painting of a hospital in ng and personal. Similarly, even though ni, I had such affection for them by the nce part of my real family, - Sri Lanka and begun a book of poems. that time I simply did not know how. eologist, and the poems I was writing fruins, ancient corpses - so in some t persecutions and war, but they were appened recently in Sri Lanka. Then I lovers caught up in the present war. riage. As I wrote it, I imagined it as a xt, written by Someone else. A strange

Page 106
Pale Flags
and odd thing to be doing. But after wi the story of Ananda and Sirissa, the t back to writing the shorter poems that
Shortly after that, I began Anil's one point of view, I gave myself two c forced to work together in their attem human rights investigation. The bool narrative, and they were both distin and argument. But then halfway thro from the earlier poem about lovers , investigation. He is now a haunted m and marriage, and his wife is one of th to Sirissa's disappearance became for most difficult to write. And in an une point on, became the central core of th
There were other surprising shif continued. On page 129 we discoverth a doctor in emergency services. Even that very page. (In the same way, Kip er As soon as Gamini became a part of novel had another parallel story. In a characters, now had four. I was lear writing it. "The thing you play at the b is the adventure,' Ornette Coleman or
During all the years of writing, t of the white banners so evident during of the line "the pale flags of death" in the time seemed to like it, though they where "Anil" is a well-known deterge Bandeiras Pálidas, did I get the title I wi

91
iting about thirty pages I stopped, and wo lovers, was never finished. I went
make up Handwriting. Ghost. Not wanting to be locked into entral characters. Anil and Sarath are pt to solve a political murder during a k depicted a double journey, a double ct enough politically to allow debate ugh the book the character of Ananda appeared, hired to participate in the an. It is a few years after his courtship e "disappeared." The pages leading up me the most painful of the book, the xpected way, Ananda's fate, from that Le book. its and forks in the plot as the writing at Sarath has a brother named Gamini, had not thought of that possibility till htered The English Patient unexpectedly) the book he seemed essential and the ny case Anil's Ghost, with two central ning what the story needed as I was beginning is the territory. What follows hce Said. his book was called Pale Flags because , Sri Lankan funerals, and also because Romeo and Juliet. No one around me at all claim to like it now. Only in Brazil, nt and where the book is published as ished.

Page 107
Michael Ondaatje's
Running in the Fam
ERNEST M
Introduction
There is no self consciousness in thi identity is related to the society and with. It is as natural as the flow of wat At the same time identity can be dev and countries; a person can achieve experience and self search. Most ci poet and novelist, who for nearly fif international figure, as being of mixec In Running in the Family Ondaa Sinhalese and Tamil: "My father alway that was more valid about three cent that Ondaatje's ancestor, a south In cure the Dutch governor's daughter w transformation of the Tamil into a C land, a Dutch wife and a Dutch way c
Again in Running in the Family, of families (not those classified as Si closely with the Ondaatjes in Ceylon, was vaguely related and had Sinhale blood in them going back many gene
1 Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Famil 2 Ibid., p. 64. 3 Ibid., p. 41.

Sri Lankan Identity ily and Anil's Ghost
(ACINTYRE
inking and feeling that some of one's people one was born into and grew up er to the level at which it comes to rest. 'oid of any content of societies, people a sense of identity through personal itics describe Michael Ondaatje, the ty years has been a Canadian and an Dutch, Sinhalese and Tamil ancestry. tje is brief about this matter of being 's claimed to be a Ceylon Tamil, though uries earlier'. It comes from family lore dian from Tanjore, arrived in 1600 to rith a rare herb. At this point began the aylon Burgher. He was rewarded with if spelling his old Indian name. referring to some of the larger circles nhalese, Tamil or Muslim) that moved in the 1920s and 30s, he says: "Everyone ese, Tamil, Dutch, British and Burgher rations.'
y (London: Picador, 1984), 41.

Page 108
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identity
They were a small component of officially described (for example ing any document requiring classificatio word originated with the Dutch occu the former Portuguese-occupied parts the Dutch term for the townsfolk of t to be applied to descendants of the va Portuguese, Dutch and British. With a be expected, Sinhalese and Tamil bloo of five centuries.
Students of Ondaatje's writing ma him a Burgher, but only in the Ceylon a Importantly, he is much less a Burgh identity with his writings on Ceylon a that make up his identity, as detailed b Sri Lankan writings.
With independence for Ceylon ir returned to struggles within their ow manifested in anti-Tamil violence a Sinhalese struggles against dispossess of Burghers opted for the reality of Me Minister Bandaranaike enthroned Sin of English.
Ondaatje was sent from Ceylon ti for personal family reasons, not socio joined his divorced mother and may h says the transformation did not take p had every opportunity to become Eng always felt very ironic."
He did not see those four years in saw the film My Beautiful Launderette, It was very important to me. When life in England, endlessly visiting all t hearing stories."
And then to Canada in 1962. By t five years after he had last seen it, important Canadian poet and novelis Man With Seven Toes (1969), The Collect (1973), Coming Through Slaughter (1978), To Do (1979). The establishment of th recognised his work with the Governo
4. Interview with Michele Field, Australia
19, 1992.
5 bid.

93
the citizenry of Ceylon and Sri Lanka, overnment census and statistics and n by "nationality') as 'Burghers". The pation in the 17th century of parts of of Ceylon of the 16th century. It was heir settlements in the East, but came riety of Europeans left behind by the ll of these 'Burgher people, as would ld had flowed into them over a period
y be on acceptable grounds to consider nd Sri Lankan categorization of people. ær in relation to the association of his
below, determine the complexity of his
1948, the Sinhalese and Tamils soon rn social and economic groups which is well as wealthy and landowning ed Sinhalese youth. The vast majority lbourne, primarily when in 1956 Prime halese as the official language, in place
o England at the age of eleven in 1954, oolitical as in the paragraph above. He nave become an English schoolboy. He place: "I went to school in England and lish, but I never felt I had the ability'. I
England in perspective, he says, till he about colonial Asians in Britain (1985): I saw it I thought: God! That was my hose Sri Lankan aunts and uncles and
he time he returned to Ceylon twentythe eleven-year-old had become an t, with The Dainty Monsters (1967), The ed Works of Billy the Kid (1970), Rat Jelly There's A Trick With A Knife I'm learning hat country, following its readership, or General's Award more than once.
n Broadcasting Commission radio, December

Page 109
94 Arbiters of a
Ondaatje had probably becor 'mosaic' in which a variety of cultur homogeneous. Merged but not fusec Ondaatje himself this could well b shape.
Victoria Cook writes about the p whom I will later show to be a silhou
In the character of Anil Tissera..... as something constructed, and yet Ondaatje reveals Anil's transnat changing mixture of a variety of cul and contains various fragments in
In The English Patient there are four lor and the third, the patient who is not English. I was attracted to this in asso Ondaatje possibly demonstrat writing that this kind of open ider human condition.
I came to hate nations. We are de even those with European homes a remove the clothing of our countrie Erase nations Against Such an identity backgrour development emerging from Running
Running in the Family
The first hundred pages of the book a of his family and his getting to know which he did his research. In the secc concentration is closer and closer on to dark and private rooms occupied b writer.
About his family and its Ceylon has this to say about their Burgher Family was a book that in many ways was so set apart from the rest of the snapshots, poems, glimpses, in every
6 Victoria Cooke, Exploring Transnation CLC Web: Comparative Literature anc CLC Web Library of Research and Info
7 Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient ( 8 Noah Richler, Ondaatje on writing (Tor
9 New Statesman, Review (London: July

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
e part of the well-known Canadian s co-exist, inextricably mingled, yet not . Not the melting-pot kind. And inside the kind of formation that has taken
rincipal female character in Anil's Ghost ette of Ondaatje, at times:
Dndaatje explores the concept of 'Self' whole and realizable. In other words, onal nature as being a continually ures, which incorporates, encompasses one unified being."
ers: one is an Indian, two are Canadians recognizable, who may or may not be ociation with Ondaatje's identity. es, (but does not claim) through his tity is more creative in exploring the
formed by nation-states ... All of us, nd children in the distance, wished to S... we disappeared into landscape...
ld I read Anil's Ghost as a progressive
in the Family.
re shared between the researched story parts of the contemporary country in nd hundred pages country recedes and the family, taking readers, in the end, y the father and the imagination of the
circles in Running in the Family Ondaatje separateness: "Actually, Running in the could have been set in Peru; the family country." It was "Created from asides, way unorthodox and incomplete."
'ldentities in Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost (Toronto: Culture: A WWWeb Journal ISSN 1481-4374 rmation. September 2004) Contents 6.3
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 138. onto: National Post, 1 April 2000), 2 983)

Page 110
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identity
As much an unorthodox poetic fo remained of his 1920s and 30s family h glimpses' at the time he was writing in resulted, as Ondaatje says, from his re. slipped past a childhood he had igno that Ondaatje was putting back a mis his being.
It is important to recognise that Family was a book that in many ways was so set apart from the rest of the his next work set in Sri Lanka, Anil's a childhood he had ignored and not for Running in the Family, but after this slipped past a larger society (not a nati Sinhala Buddhist society, which had c in the 1920s and 30s. And now in 1978 Running in the Family these Burghers Sinhalese society so much more to the family and their Burgher circles had s the story of Running in the Family. The was to be wider than Burgher. It wa connected to the Sinhala Buddhist Soc
The woman my ancestors ignored
sits at the doorway chopping cocon cleaning rice'
paddy terraces bu llocks brown men who rise knee deep like the earth
out of the earth'
you long eyed women
the golden
drunk swan breasts
lips
the long long eyes'
His search for the larger society beyor poems - "High Flowers, "To Colombo, Peeler'. These are about working m and Sinhalese court maidens of the Sigiriya." And the young sons and da
10 Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Famil 11 Ibid., p.87.
12 Ibid., p.90.
13 Ibid., p.94.
14 Ibid., p.87–97.

95
Orm as it was a necessity, because what ad indeed become "asides, Snapshots ... n the 1980s. Running in the Family (1982) alization that in his mid-thirties he had red and not understood.' A statement sing fragment, perhaps a large one, of
: Ondaatje's statement "Running in the could have been set in Peru, the family country', has an important bearing on Ghost. Not only had he slipped passed understood which brought him back family work (in Peru') he felt he had on state, as I will explain later), a largely ontained important Burgher segments and 1980, as he researched for writing had become fragments, thus bringing 2 fore of his vision, a Society which his et themselves apart from at the time of part of his identity he was recovering is to be Burgher in context - Burgher iety that contained it.
ut
ld his family's Burghers, is seen in four Women Like You' and 'The Cinnamon en and women of the 1970s and 80s 5th century ACE rock wall frescoes of ughters of these workers:
y,22

Page 111
96 Arbiters of a N
When the government rounded insurgency of 1971, the Vidyalankara was turned into a prison camp. The break their spirit. When the university found hundreds of poems written on of the campus. Quatrains and free v unbroken spirit, love of friends who ha around for days transcribing into thei with whitewash and lye. The average thousands were killed by police and a rivers moved to the sea heavy with b so that the book is now the only rec anonymous, works seem as great as th He seems to have felt drawn, ir Family, to place his Burgher family circ the Sinhalese, back where they should Groundwork for Anil's Ghost eighteel by Ondaatje then, and unseen or not Cane Out.
Though he treats the colonial fa does not mention the Tamil society oft encompass the whole nation-state of S in the Family in 1978 and 1980. The larg family ignored was the extent of his fi his uncle Justice Sansoni, is heading more of that, because he is not involv the pogrom happened just before his
The outbreak in mid-August (197 such outbreak in two decades) has b minority problem in Sri Lanka has rem century, leading to the emergence of as AS on previous occasions, what took riots, but an anti-Tamil pogrom."
For Running in the Family what was within which his Burgher family segn all within a largely Sinhalese milie consulted for his 1978 and 1980 researc Burgher." There is a Colombo Tamil r
15 Ibid., p.84 16 Ibid., p.26
17 Edmund Samarakkody, a Sinhalese poli The National Question in Sri Lanka (Ne 1977), 6-7 and 10.
18 Running in the Family, p. 205.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
up thousands of suspects during the campus of the University of Ceylon police weeded out the guilty, tried to opened again the returning students walls, ceilings and in hidden corners erse about the struggle, tortures, the d died for the cause. The students went r notebooks before they were covered 2 age of insurgents was seventeen and army. While the Kelani and Mahaweli odies, these drawings were destroyed ord of them. ... These contemporary, e ancient Sigiriya art.'
his personal memoir Running in the les, who had set themselves apart from have belonged, at least in those times. n years later, but probably not sensed mentioned by critics when Anil's Ghost
te of Ceylon with poetic economy he his island. Ondaatje was not seeking to ri Lanka when he researched Running ger Sinhalese society his 1920s and 30s eld. He makes a passing reference, that g a commission on race-riots' but no ed with the nation-state, even though 1978 research visit.
7) of the anti-Tamil pogrom (the third irought out the reality that the Tamil lained unresolved now for nearly half a separatist movement among the Tamils. place recently was not Sinhalese-Tamil
S relevant were the locales and Societies nents had their own ethnic formations, u. Ondaatje lists the people that he h and they are nearly all Sinhalese and name too, an elite, highly Westernised,
itician and writer, Behind the Anti-Tamil Terror: w York: Workers Vanguard No. 176, Oct. 7,

Page 112
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Ildentit
well-assimilated one."o From such met , Batticaloa- and Trincomalee-located, be drawn out. At least not in 1978 and In a family memoir, restricting t the family to Westernised Colombo suburbs and provinces should not b Locating his family in a nation-state i Tamils, or dealing politically with S by others to write a different book, out, as he begins discovereing and c of his identity by writing Running in find it not possible to appreciate the c Sugunasiri, Kanishka Goonewarden of Kanaganayakam. In sum they rebu sensibility and his own identity wit history.
However, critics who consider it Ghost. This seems more understanda a period of violent State and anti-Stat the political reality around the book war closely, readers do not separate t of Anil's Ghost, and the nation-state in that State. This issue is referred to lat in which Anil's Ghost is composed is t At the end of Running in the Fami to Canada, he is inside the room of hi Mutwal in Colombo, the bungalow a room from which he set out researchi rough for the book.
Last Morning.... Half an hour before ... but I do not turn on the light yet where I listen and wait. There is no hundred years old, that might noth age of eleven...... the cassette now S monsoon, on my last morning, all t
The book ends as it began; a pers beginning and the end a larger sector investment for Anil's Ghost.
19 Running in the Family, p. 206. Sam Kad
20 Marlene Goldman, Representations of B Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Jo
21 Running in the Family, p. 203.

97
opolitan sources the story of the Jaffnaun-Westernised Tamil war, would not
1980. - he circumference of the society around and the Sinhalese of the surrounding e a matter of any kind of contention. ncluding Tamil-speaking Muslims and inhalese history, would be an attempt not the kind of book Ondaatje worked leveloping the Sri Lankan component the Family. This is the position I take. I riticisms of Arun Mukherjee, Suwanda a, or even the more understanding one ke Ondaatje for concern with aesthetic hout the vital concern for politics and
an issue raise it more strongly in Anil's ble, because a creative work set during e politics tends to get overwhelmed by . As well, following the Sinhala-Tamil he nation-state from the subject matter cludes the Tamils and their war against er in the paper, when the literary form brought into the argument.
ly, on his last morning before his return s brother-in-law's harbour bungalow in remnant of colonial architecture. The ng, in which he made the notes, the first
light I am woken by the sound of rain . I want the emptiness of a dark room thing in this view that could not be a ave been here when I left Ceylon at the tarts up in the next room. During the his Beethoven and rain.
onal family memoir. In between the of the society is registered, unintended
irgarmar is the name.
uddhism in Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost Comparative
rnal.

Page 113
98 Arbiters of a
Anil's Ghost
Anil's Ghost (2000) may be described values met the harsh political events is developed through a story line abo forensic scientist, who is allowed, relu to investigate alleged human rights v Lanka and departed, as a young woma Euro-American. Her foreignness is ne, paired off by the government with a f Sarath Diyasena. The novel begins n uninhabited area in the distant hills only accessible to the government, a also buried, or rather re-buried after k years old. The government's apparent and UN forensic Scientist then become contemporary events and one of the a civilization.
There are three Sinhalese fami Sarath Diyasena the archaeologist ha doctor exhausting himself in field ho brothers and their wives have trouble and there is something un-reconciled gem pit worker and master craftsman the face and thus recover the identi and emotional turmoil due to the mu death Squads, and the disappearance ( epigraphist withdrawn in an ancient body of his niece traumatised back ir watch the way in which the squads m Anil's Ghost becomes political by: so only by incremental seepage into t families. Then by sudden violent en endings in that society, the main cha last few pages, by a humanless, Sinha a giant Buddha statue looking infinit empty of people, after exhaustion v contemplation, after all the terrors.
The novel seems to have had a Family. A book of poems by Ondaatje
The last Sinhala word I lost was Vatura
The word for water Forest water. The water in a kiss. Th I gave to my ayah Roslin on leaving the first home of my life
22 Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (Londo

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
s a novel in which "...Buddhism and its of the twentieth century. This theme ut Anil Tissera, a UN-sponsored female ctantly, by the government of Sri Lanka iolations. She was born and bred in Sri in, to be educated abroad and to become arly complete. In her investigation she is orty-year old Sri Lankan archaeologist, loving when Anil discovers that in an reserved as an archaeological site, and midst the millennia-old skeletons are illings elsewhere, skeletons four or five ly deliberate mismatch of archaeologist 's a paradoxical match, between terrible ncient traditions of the island, Buddhist
lies through whom the story moves. s a younger brother, Gamini, a medical spitals dealing with daily killings. The 'd family histories. The two are distant from boyhood. Ananda Udagama is a helping Anil and Sarath to reconstruct ty of a skeleton. Ananda is in mental rder of his wife Sirissa by government pf her body. And a very old and famous Sanctuary looking after the grown-up to a condition of infancy by having to urdered her parents. suggestion and never directly and even he lives of Anil and the three Sinhalese dings, standing for the many violent racters are stunningly replaced in the lese Buddhist vision of the island, just aly into distant nature. A relief, nearly ith the fates of so many. A calming
preparatory stage, after Running in the published in 1998, titled Handwriting.
2 tears
: Picador, 2000), 300.

Page 114
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identity
More water for her than any other that fled my eyes again this year, remembering her, a lost almost-mother in those years of thirsty love.
No photograph of her, no meeting Since the age of eleven, Not even knowledge of her grave. Who abandoned who, I wonder now
While working on Running in the Fa that post-colonial privileged Sinhales Buddhist culture, could easily be me Burgher families When Anil Tissera ( Running in the Family there are only a f is to see her old ayah of the poem. Ye keep running through Anil's Ghost.
Like Michael Ondaatje in Running 'foreigner' in Anil's Ghost, uses a coloni, cabin of an abandoned ship, the Oror to investigate unearthed skeletons. Or leaves from there, though through vir the feelings are different:
She wanted openness and air, did hold...there was no wish in her to b five tomorrow morning. There's a se
'I arrived in a plane but love the harb Family. He does not need to say he connection of the area of the harbou relationships between the two works.
Running through Anil's Ghost is the Family. Sarath Diyasena's fatherma as Ondaatje's father did in 'Running, dancer, in her youth, who wanted to mother in his earlier work. There was i directed amateur theatricals. St. Thom of the Diyasena brothers. Ondaatje hi
Suddenly Anil was glad to be back, t in her. As a child in Kuttapitiya A grave of a recently buried chicken body through the beak and there wa Anil.26
23 Michael Ondaatje, Handwriting (Londo 24 Anil's Ghost, pp. 283-84. 25 Running in the Family, p. 133. 26 Anil's Ghost, p. 20.

99
23
mily Ondaatje could well have found 2 families, even allowing for professed rged in the imagination with colonial Ondaatje) returns eighteen years after aw scattered relatives. Her only interest t social silhouettes from the first work
in the Family, Anil Tissera, the returned all remnant of the Colombo harbour, the say of the old days of the Orient Line, n her last morning in Sri Lanka she too tue of plot and changed circumstances
n't want to face the darkness in the e here anymore...be ready to leave at ven o'clock plane.*
bour,' says Ondaatje in Running in the left, long ago, from the harbour. This ir as base, is organic, like many other
a silhouette of the family in Running in de the family fortunes go up and down the mother of the Diyasena boys was a choreograph them all, like Ondaatje's in the Diyasena family too an uncle who as College by the sea is the college also mself is silhouetted in Anil Tissera:
he buried scenes from childhood alive nil had once stepped on the shallow ... Her weight pushed the air in the is a muffled Squawk which frightened
n: Bloomsbury, 1998), 50.

Page 115
100 Arbiters of a N
Ondaatje's childhood home in Kuttap features in Running".
I read all these connections be (Ondaatje) continuing his researchin society, by holding on to, even if minil earlier, in Running in the Family.
This time, I knew very consciously th more generally.”
Anil's father died when she was youn died for all practical purposes, when of eleven in Running in the Family. Lik had been older - to learn things from conversation Sarath Diyasena tells A. too. There is a feeling in Anil of thes in the Family hovering between Sarath
These connections lead to, anc expressed, strong culminating feeling a close.
This isn't just 'another job!' I decided shouts Anil.
The author says of Anil's publicly add 'a citizen's evidence'. The words are, Fifteen years away and she is finally
An outsider coming back the first childhood memories. Coming in again embrace of the island, moved by the The predicament is a paradox.
This island was a paradise to be si collected and shipped back to Euro sandalwood, mustard, oil, palmyral horns, elephant tusks, hog lard, cinnamon, pearl and cochineal..."
Tea, a staple of the British occupation nc also is the Sinhalese rebellion of 1818 d native rebels as terrorists, allowing th against the peasants, and large-scale exception of a smaller rebellion in 184 and-a-half centuries.
27 Noah Richler, Ondaatje on Writing (Torc 28 Anil's Ghost, p. 46. 29 Anil's Ghost, p.200. 30 Anil's Ghost, p.272. 31 Running in the Family, p. 81.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
itiya, his father's tea estate bungalow,
tween the two works, also as Anil g, now beyond the family into larger mally, the identities he had discovered
hat I wanted to write about Sri Lanka
g, just like Ondaatje whose father had the boy had to leave Ceylon at the age e Ondaatje she regrets it: "I just wish I him. I wish I'd had that. In the same nil: "We need parents when we're old ilhouette of writer Ondaatje of Running Diyasena and Anil Tissera. i end up as, Anil Tissera's publicly S, as her role in the novel is coming to
to come back. I wanted to come back,
ressed emotional evidence, that it was think you murdered hundreds of us'. s'.30
time after twenty-five years, with only a decade and a half later, with a firmer predicament, to want to be an insider.
acked, every conceivable thing was pe: cardamons, pepper, silk, ginger, h root, tamarind, wild indigo, deer's calamander, coral, seven kinds of
otmentioned, came later. Not mentioned uring which the British categorised the e ruling power a Scorched earth policy extra-judicial killings which (with the 18) finally 'pacified" the island for one
onto: National Post, 1 April 2000), 2

Page 116
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identi
Ondaatje the poet covers the mu by the angry Sri Lankan, Lakdasa W
Don't talk to me about Matisse... The European style of 1900, the tra Where the nude woman reclines fo On a sheet of blood Talk instead of the culture generall How the murderers were sustainec By the beauty robbed of savages: to villages the painters came, and out mud-huts were splattered with gur
In Anil's Ghost, when Sri Lanka is an the conception of such a state, as a by one of Ondaatje's characters. Wa from a victim's photograph that his state death squads. He rushes down before, of the faces of victims.
...every tooth had been removed, with liquids, the ears entered. He hallway, most frightened of seeing went for in some cases. They could But they had not touched Sarath's in had giant sleeves. Gamini knew cuffs. Below the elbows the hands
(For me this was not the writing o which a well-known Colombo actor been dealt with by the State, at the ti Thedreadful inhumanity enge full show — a man is nailed to the gro are dropped from Helicopters, wor refuses to take a political stance.
The evening before Anil depa why she cannot walk even a short d underground passageway, at the "h Sarath Diyasena, referring to Gunes
'Tell him to take me home. I don't I was .... in there....'
...there was no wish in her to be
Running in the Family, p. 85. Anil's Ghost, p. 289.
Colum McCann, On Anil's Ghost (To 2000), 12
Anil's Ghost, p. 282. Ibid., p. 283.

101
urders he does not mention in the poem ikkramasinha:
lition of the studio
reVer
у --
Our remote white-washed fire.
independent nation state, an example of sick and malignant animal is described r-time doctor Gamini Diyasena knows brother Sarath has been killed by the the hallway imagining what he has seen
the nose cut apart, the eyes humiliated had been, as he ran down that hospital , his brother's face. It was the face they in their hideous skills sniff out vanity. face. The shirt they had dressed Sarath why. He ripped the sleeves down to the had been broken in several places ...
f fiction, it was too close to the way in , broadcaster, writer and journalist had me Ondaatje was writing Anil's Ghost)
ndered by the politics of Sri Lanka is on Dund, heads are found on stakes, victims men kneel at gravesides – but Ondaatje
its from Sri Lanka she needs to explain istance. It happened to her inside a long ands' of government officials. She tells ena the driver:
think I can walk there...... I can't walk,
here anymore.o
onto: Canadian National Post, Saturday, April 15,

Page 117
102 Arbiters of a
Relating Running in the Family to An interpret Ondaatje's writer identity as can place himself between the two, to paradox of liberated people withoute Ondaatje sums up this post col beginnings of Western civilization:
The darkest Greek tragedies were ir compared with what was happening
When I read this I unexpectedly I insight into Myth, Epic form and Tr being specially allocated to the religi of the Sinhala Buddhists, The Mahava the narrative in Anil's Ghost calls into c Buddhism and Sinhala nationalism:
Sinhalese and Pali....there are n the myth derived from an epic have material had been taken up in a forr being pitted against either the limits have assigned to him as his proper fie Ondaatje's process of recovery c his identity, in Anil's Ghost, goes som Ludowyk's idea without necessarily b this subject. It is not possible though the time of Ludowyk, scholarship h though the novel can never be purel not a narrative form with dramatic m narrative framework.'
Anil's Ghost is a Tragedy. There ar in classical Tragedy. I could not avoid b way in which Ondaatje brings to an e novel's action, with the assassination o (called Katugala in the novel), narrate State, of Sarath Diyasena. The effect the same time it conflates the Sinhala
37 Ibid., p. 11. 38 E.F.C. Ludowyk, The Story of Ceylon (N 39 S.W. Dawson, Drama and the Dramatic,

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka.
l's Ghost as colonial to post-colonial, I working creatively to discover how he place himself inside the paradox. The vidence of it.
onial in Sri Lanka by referring to the
nOcent g here.”
connected up with E.F.C. Ludowyk's agedy, and the myth about Sri Lanka on of the Buddha according to the epic nsa. The connection was made because uestion the long-standing ties between
tragedies in either literature... would lost some of its intensity, if the same n like tragedy, which sees the human of his own humanity or what the gods ld of activity?*
of the Ceylon/Sri Lanka component of e considerable way in taking up E.F.C. being aware of Ludowyk's thoughts on that Ondaatje was unaware that since lad pointed the way to show us that y dramatic, it is essentially so: "...it is oments, but a dramatic form within a
e suggestions of dramatic movement as eing influenced in this direction by the nd the rapidly built-up final part of the the head of State, President Premadasa d immediately after the murder by the here is of the climactic dramatic. At I insurgency with the Tamil rebellion,
ew Delhi: Navrang, 1985), p. 65 London: Methuen, 1984), chapter 7, p. 79.

Page 118
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identity
because no word is written about wh except that the event is narrated to us i Diyasena the upper-middle-class Colo the state.' A human President killed by the President just before he is dismem
When you looked at the real image for him, no matter what he had dor previous days, as if there was some k if some mechanism he had no contro
A mid-20th century European master
The spring is wound up tight. It w convenient in Tragedy."
Ondaatje has worked the tragic dran framework of the novel, giving him thi human being pitted against the limits
40 Bradman Weerakoon, Rendering unto C commonly believed that the LTTE (the this novel) assassinated President Prem never been police investigated cases fil practice of the quarter century old war the pronouncement of the government were responsible. Ondaatje's placing of way of chapter arrangement, immedia make a reader think of dramatic justic as in Tragedy. In page 301 of Weerakoc even today, that there was no great des the matter further. It was good enough were satisfied and so were the media." photograph, a dark tallman with tous among the dead. Something like a tape strapped to his upper chest. Who was th a foot procession so close to Premadasa that of Babu (the LTTE accused) that thi by referring to the killing, one week be President's arch rival minister Athula President was responsible. Richard de before, had been Athulathmudali's frien the President. It is in this connection th: 41 At the time of Ondaatje's writing Rich, Lankan who was murdered by gover exposing death squad activities. At lea same social status, in the end, exposed t The descriptions of violations of a livir Sarath's brother Gamini (see note 33 ab de Zoysa and reports of his torture had
42 Anil's Ghost, p. 291. 43 Jean Anouilh, Antigone (London: Eyre ! 44 E.F.C. Ludowyk, The Story of Ceylon, p.

103
o is suspected of killing Premadasa," mmediately after the murder of Sarath mbo man who exposed the atrocities of human rebellions. Ondaatje describes bered by a huge bomb.
of the man ... there was compassion ne. ... He had been tense during the ind of foreshadowing in his mind, as }l of had been put in motion.*
of the dramatic form says of Tragedy:
ill uncoil of itself. That is what is so
natic to its limits within the narrative e pathway to what Ludowyk called 'the of his humanity."
aesar (Colombo:Vijitha Yapa, 2004), 301. It is 2 Tamil rebel group included secondarily in adasa (Katugala, in the novel). As there have 2d with the courts in such political killings, a that has come to be accepted by the public is that either the Sinhalese rebels or the Tamils the assassination of the President in a climatic tely after the murder of Sarath Diyasena can e (re. Richard de Zoysa, see note 41 below) on's book, he says, "It looked to me then and ire on the part of those in authority to probe that the LTTE had done it ... The authorities Weerakoon then goes on to describe from a led hair with his crumpled bicycle was also recorder with detached wires still appeared is man and what was he doing on a bicycle in at the moment of his death? His face was not a media was showing. "Weerekoon concludes fore the assassination of the President, of the thmudali and belief amongst some that the Zoysa, whose murder was more than a year d and assistant in the process of undermining at I refer to as 'dramatic justice above.
ard de Zoysa was an upper-middle-class Sri ment death squads. He as a journalist was st in the aspect that Sarath Diyasena, of the he same crimes, there is a parallel to de Zoysa. ig body at the hands of squads, as feared by ove), added to my feelings that the death of influenced the writer.
Methuen, 1976), p. 34. 55.

Page 119
104 Arbiters of a N
Of course the novel as a form co Lanka outside of Tragedy within a literature, in its other forms has bee political writing. Ondaatje takes this u
I didn't want to write formally ... I w ... The question was how to write ab the usual way, which is to say this m
In which case Tragedy suits his purpo
In a tragedy ... everyone's destiny "innocent' as he who gets killed. ... the next paragraph)
Whether Ondaatje himself was 'trapp of matters related to his identity is som because writers of novels, those with even distributed outside as Diaspora \ subject matter, understandably, for pel
But no matter. In tragedy, thoug all you can do about it is to shout. things said that you never thought because you learn a lot from them....
Ondaatje's mastery of his form is suc in the very different way a tragedy v novel does, 'shouting to an individu, which a formal tragedy shouts to a com that is more redeeming for a reader t can do. Associated with the Sri Lank - nationalistic political Buddhism C looks and hopes for the latter, as he w other, raging Buddhism. It is finally e. described below. But what rides on top and the reader is expected to see that t a way no overt literary political writin
And no political formal literary c tragic purgation, as at the end of Anil's He has learnt a lot, and readers have le shouting comes to an end. And we see stricken master craftsman, Ananda Uc bamboo scaffolding, in a desolate fiel end of a tragedy, but with two tall-st giant Buddha statues). Two differentg in nature over large swathes of distan
45 Noah Richler, Ondaatje on Writing, pp. 46 Antigone, p. 35. 47 ibid., p. 35.

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
uld have looked at these times in Sri narrative framework". The novel as
'n known to complement social and p:
asn't interested in the blame element.
out war without getting involved in an is wrong and that man is right.'
SSS
7 is known.... ... he who kills is as you are trapped..." (continued after
ed' into using the tragic form because nething we cannot know. I refer to this integrity, living within Sri Lanka or would not have wanted to attempt this 'sonal and political reasons.
h you are trapped, you can shout: ...shout aloud; you can get all those you'd be able to say....you say them 47
h that he is able to 'shout so loud but within the framework of the narrative a reader, very different to the way in munity audience in performance. And han any formal political literary form an State are, always, two possibilities r a humanistic Buddhism. Ondaatje orks it into the novel subtly against the ncapsulated in the epilogue to tragedy in Anil's Ghost is the raging Buddhism his tragedy includes the Tamil story in g can. onstruction can give a reader the great Ghost. The writer's shouting is all over. arnt a lot, by hearing his shouting. The in a great silence a view of the tragedylugama, his final placement high up on d of dead and buried bodies, as at the anding possibilities of Buddhism (two uards, overlooking swirling movements t Sri Lanka.
7-8.

Page 120
Michael Ondaatje's Sri Lankan Identity
It has the same feel of:
A great melancholy wave of peace in Thebes, upon the empty palace ...on
There has been no other work, of com this era that can occupy the position of it is the writer's identity. This work of '. times.'
48 Ibid., p.71.
49 Ernest Macintyre, Humane Re-telling of
September 2000)

105
ow settled down upon ly the guards are left."
prehensive reportage or creative, about Anil's Ghost. It is fiction and not fiction; fiction' will endure as a history of these
Terrible Times (Colombo: The Sunday Times, 3

Page 121
A Case for Literature and the
of Individual and National F
Anil's
CHANDAN
In his Deakin Lecture "Does the Pl Melbourne in 2003, Edward Said refle of the writer has taken on more of the being a witness to persecution and suff in conflict." The writer-intellectual's v 'active intervention' both to censor the e it with an alternative vision for "peac when applied to recent South Asian di here of course to major international p or the V.S. Naipaul oeuvre, which vali the power of the novelist to challenge, dialogue with alternative visions anc on the dissenting voice and alternati novelist and poet Michael Ondaatje i during the political time and histori 90s when the country was in a crisis th government, the antigovernment insu. guerrillas in the north (AG, Author's n
Naturally, the diasporic positioni a significant slant. Throughout his wri
Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (London, bear the abbreviation, AG. 2 Edward Said, Deakin Lecture, Melbour

Search for Alternative Visions reedom: Michael Ondaatje's Ghost'
II LOKUGE
ublic Intellectual Live' delivered in cted that 'during recent years, the role intellectual's adversarial attributes in ering and Supplying a dissenting voice oice is seriously recognised as one of xisting discordant system and provide 2". This recognition is certainly valid iasporic creative writing. I'm referring phenomena, such as the Rushdie Fatwa date Said's theory and which reiterate a nation's social, political, and cultural i philosophies. In this paper, I reflect ve vision of the Sri Lankan diasporic in his novel Anil's Ghost which is 'set cal moment' of the mid-1980s to early hat involved three essential groups: the rgents in the south, and the separatists ote). ng of the writer invests his vision with ting career, Ondaatje has revealed one
Bloomsbury, 2000). All in-text references will
ne 19 May, 2001.

Page 122
A Case for Literature and the Search for
of the main features of the general dia reclaim the motherland. However, th formative age of 11) has influenced a and of Sri Lanka in particular. By his migrant's double perspective, in the we "re-focussed by Paris". This positioni to his writing, particularly his critiqu and socio-cultural realities in Anil's Gh in the Sri Lankan academic communit years by local/international literati 'reliability as a commentator on the l Ondaatje's case. Among the various this context were Ondaatje's numerou. Sri Lanka and his exclusion (from a bo crisis) of Sri Lanka's ethnic minorities Ondaatje was further crucified for moral stance: that while empathising in the south' that comprised mainly relentlessly critical of the 'separatistg In this paper, my claim is that 't laws of art; they are not justified by the that Surround Anil 's Ghost as a histori less important than the vision and ph the poet, as against that of the histori that the historian tells of what has ha that might happen. For this reason, cc
3 Michael Ondaatje, Michael Ondaatje. Ex
p 23.
4 See for instance, Yasmine Gooneratin Substitutes for Truth, or, "is a Well-Tol fiction of Expatriate Sri Lankan Noveli Chitra Fernando and Chandani Lokug Canberra, July 2001); Makarand Paranja Cultures: Diaspora Writing of the Indian Mohanram (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), Towards Sri Lanka: A Review of Micha
5 Qadri Ismail, ʻA Flippant Gesture...ʼ pp 6 See Qadri Ismail, "A Flippant Gesture',
Victor Shlovsky, 'Sterne's Tristram Shant J Rees (eds), Russian Formalist Criticism: Press, 1965), p. 56.
8 I am supported in this view by an occas as for example, Ashley Halpé, See, his Symphonic Ode," in Phoenix VII, (Jou presented at the biennial conference of Literature and Language Studies, Sabar Sunday Times of Sri Lanka, Aug 25th 20

Alternative Visions... 107
sporic identity: the need to revisit and 2 journey out (especially at the young, hd shaped his vision of life in general, wn admission, he has been "allowed a y, say, someone like Gertrude Stein was ng of Ondaatje as a diasporic in relation e as a diasporic of Sri Lankan politics ost resulted in a plethora of controversy y. A general debate developed in recent about the diasporic creative writer's ocal scene' was relentlessly applied to issues held against Anil's Ghost within showlers' in replicating the realities of ok that dealt with the Sri Lankan ethnic s: the Tamil and Muslim populations.
practising double standards in his with the 'antigovernment insurgents the Sinhala youth intelligentsia, he is uerrillas in the north, the LTTE. he forms of art are explainable by the ir realism'.7 Thus, for all the limitations cal or sociological document, they are ilosophy that it offers. The function of an, as Aristotle defines in The Poetics is opened, the poet of the kinds of things oncludes Aristotle, "poetry is something
ress yourself beautifully (Toronto: ECW Press),
e, "Memory, Observation and Imagination: d Lie really Worth a Thousand Facts"? The sts Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Goonesekera, e' (Paper presented at ACLALS Conference, pe, 'Afterword' in Shifting Continents/Colliding Subcontinent, eds Ralph J Crane and Radhika pp 225—246; Qadri Ismail, ʻA Flippant Gesture al Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost' in Pravada, p 28.
24-26.
24.
'y: Stylistic Commentary' in LT Lemon and R Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
ional but distinguished Sri Lankan academic, review on Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje's rnal of SLACLALS) 2003, based on paper he Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth agamuwa, 2000. Brief version appeared in the 2.

Page 123
108 Arbiters of a N
more philosophical ... than history, universal truths, history treats of pal writing, there is a special slant to ther that diasporics write from outside the are 'obliged' as Salman Rushdie reflec whose fragments have been irretrieva
My paper offers a particular Ondaatje's philosophy in Anil's Ghost. the diasporic's general desire for the homeland. This return journey may again, by 'Some sense of loss, Some urg is that this urge is not an end in itsel more philosophical, a world-vision in to spiritual restfulness. In the Sri Lan of this philosophy is embedded in destination of life's journey takes us fr level, at which, detached from all h samadhi - the awakening to the spirit this paper for the ways in which Onde Lankan diasporic Anil, the local epigre victim Lakma in order to contemplate (the diasporic and the local) and then Anil has suffered many persona her parents to death, her marriage marriage, and her best friend to Alzei and her deep commitment to it, howe many losses. Her happiest moments Lanka to take up a United Nations a investigation into war-deaths, she se identity in that of a well-informed pi to be confident in herself. She enters that the "island no longer held her b long enough (15 years) to "interpret (AG, p 11). As she confidently breeze consciousness of her response to it or locates her in the last category of the p by Hugo of St Victor: Theman who fi beginner; he to whom every soil is as is perfect to whom the entire world is And yet, quite soon after her retu
9 Aristotle, The Poetics, 'Plot' in Classica edited and translated by T S Dorch (H.
10 Salman Rusdhie, Imaginary Homelan 1981-1991 (London: Granta), p. 11.
11 Salman Rusdhie, Imaginary Homelan
12 Cited by Edward Said in Orientalism, (

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
for while poetry is concerned with ticular facts'." In the case of diasporic ovelistic vision springing from the fact homeland, or from its margins, and so its, 'to deal in broken mirrors, some of bly lost [to him).”10 thesis that flavours my reading of It is entwined with the reasons behind physical or imaginative return to the pe inspired, to use Rushdie's thoughts je to reclaim, to look back...' My thesis but an essential desire for something n which lies self-knowledge that leads kan milieu of Anil's Ghost, the concept 3uddhism which propounds that the om the mundane to the supramundane uman desires, we attain the stage of ual truth of peace. I read Anil's Ghost in atje manipulates his characters: the Sri phist Palipana, and the adolescent warthis quest for peace for the individual ation. l losses during her migratory Sojourn: to incompatibility, her lover to his mer's. Her job as a forensic pathologist ver, seem to have compensated for the are lived in it. When she arrives in Sri ssignment to conduct a Human Rights !ems to have submerged her personal rofessional. Though lonely, she is seen Sri Lanka as an outsider and is aware y the past", that she has lived abroad Sri Lanka with a long distanced gaze' s into her Sri Lanka, without the least its response to her, Ondaatje certainly henomena of the diaspora as described nds his homeland sweet is still a tender his native one is already strong; but he a foreign land':'o rn to Sri Lanka, she moves laterally into
Literary Criticism: Aristotle, Horace, Longinus armondsworth: Penguin, 1965), p. 43.
ds' in Imaginary Homelands: Essays in Criticism
ds', p 10.
1978; London: Penguin, 1995), p 259.

Page 124
A Case for Literature and the Search for
lost territory - 'the buried senses fron searches out her old ayah who belong encounter is a failure because she has of her communication with the ayah. I as bonded to the child as is her moth language of Sri Lanka. Symbolically, t cord - the homeland.'
As Anil lives through her assignn in and out of this private journey in a the homeland. This dimension is cer personal quests as a diasporic returni autobiographical novel, Running in the moments of intense aloneness (thanik experienced on his revisits to Sri Lan connections with its landscape and pe moments of epiphany take place when Ananda the eye painter, Gamini the Meanwhile, through the forest lands human influence, Ondaatje introduce the Buddhist philosophy of the conc is also the first step in the attainmel significant lead:
Once she and Sarath had entered th spent a few hours there. ... A monk hours each morning and removed a another thousand leaves and light t its surface was as clear and yellow a itself an act of meditation.
The forest was so still that Anil he listening for them. Then she located if using a sieve in water, catching th who cannot love make places like th passion." It was practically the onl Arankale (the Buddhist forest mona step away from this place. (AG, pp.18
Ondaatje frames the contemporary s this gives power to his vision. In th "Asanga the Wise an ascetic monash v followers lived for decades in Solitud they died the monastery and forest w later, monks began living again the ca concludes that "Arankala perhaps bec
13 The deep connections between the ayah : and the other equally significant forr (water) are given expression also in Or (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1999), p 50
14 Ondaatje, Running in the Family (Londo

Alternative Visions... 109
n childhood alive in her (AG, 15). She
s with her Sri Lankan childhood. The lost the Sinhala language, the medium n South Asian culture, the ayah is often er. Sinhala meanwhile is the national hen, she is severed from her umbilical
ent in Sri Lanka, she constantly moves nebulous search for connection with tainly reminiscent of Ondaatje's own ng home. His writing, particularly his Family, and his poetry, bear witness to ama), of dislocation and displacement ka as well as to unexpected, intimate ople.' Similarly, Anil's most significant she interacts with a few mavericks like doctor, and Palipana the epigraphist. cape that has escaped the destructive S Anil, and through her the reader, to ept of detachment from desire which nt of Samadhi. Here is a particularly
e forest monastery in Arankale and swept his way along the path for two thousand leaves. By late afternoon wigs had fallen upon it. But at noon s a river. To walk this sand path was
ard no sounds until she thought of the noisemakers in the landscape, as e calls of orioles and parrots. Those is. One needs to be in a stage beyond y thing Sarath had said that day in astery). There was no wish in her to 9-190)
acred within a historical context and e 12th century, Ondaatje informs us, who withdrew from the world and his e, the world unaware of them. When vere stilled of humans. Four centuries ves. Digesting this information, Anil ame more beautiful, and more subtle
is the "almost mother' of Ondaatje's childhood native influence, the Sinhala word 'vatura" daatje's poem, 'Wells' in Handwriting: Poems
n: Picador, 1983).

Page 125
110 Arbiters of a N
without humans... when they were no these words remind us of the ancient also move deeper into its philosophy - liberation lies in ascetic pursuit of the The mood, however, can only be so to the world of war and its corrupt court case where she is repeatedly prev her findings, Anil suddenly and une: Listening from the sidelines, her par that "Fifteen years away and she is fi belonging is a lonely one, however. Th intervention in mainstream politics. I for daring, as an outsider, to interfere havoc and offer an alternative philos towards the diasporic, its rejection of confront its unsavoury realities, drives politics of belonging relies not only on t homeland, but on the homeland's dem Anil is representative of a now vi younger generation of diaspora. She have left the mother country a bit too too late to discard it. Their story runs whimsically names Sailor (and I feel t the part of the author with the name' identity). Like him, Anil has been buri to be uprooted and moved around in until finally transplanted in the sacre neither she nor Sailor belongs with t reports, her identity, and her equipm Her case is closed, as is Sailor's. We are the country, confined by the narrow bo the diaspora thatallows forgreater visi In fact, the novel begins with Anil in and frequently spotlights her in a nu that she inhabits with wholesomeness such a horizontal and liminal identity her, Ondaatje is in fact illustrating stri diasporic may reach stability.
In the search for an alternative the chaos of war, Ondaatje delivers a contemporary war-situation in Sri Lanl per se, but its effects on innocent peop is war“. His censor is transparent:
But here it was a complicated world
15 See Bill Ashcroft, Postcolonial Transform

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
) longer in the currents of love. While roots of Buddhism, through them we which is that the individual's spiritual idea of peace.
transient. Anil returns to her job and politics. Fighting her way through the ented by the authorities from revealing xpectedly sides with the war victims. tner-investigator Sarath then reflects nally us." (AG, p 272). Anil's claim of e country unceremoniously rejects her ronically, this was also Ondaatje's fate with Sri Lanka's political and cultural sophy. This reaction of the homeland Anil because of her determination to us towards other truths, that diasporic he desire of the diasporic to reclaim the |ocratic acceptance of the diasporic. brant if deeply ambivalent voice of the pelongs with those young people who early to be deeply rooted in it and a bit oarallel to that of the skeleton that Anil his is a provocative choice of name on S connotations of a floating, travelling ed in surface soil outside the homeland the ambiguous terrains of anonymity, d history of the motherland. However, his history. Anil is deported sans her ent symbolic of the job she holds dear. a made aware that her future lies not in orders of closedness. She must return to on, freedom of thought and expression. the more global spaces of Guatemala, mber of other less constricting spaces and wholeheartedness. Only through perhaps can she find peace. Through ategies of transformation by which the
philosophy of national freedom from harrowing profile and politics of the
ka. What interests him is not its violence le. His view is that "the purpose of war
morally. The streets were still streets,
itions (London: Routledge, 2001), pp 15-16.

Page 126
A Case for Literature and the Search fo
the citizens remained citizens. Th Yet the darkest Greek tragedies v was happening here. Heads on sta in Matale. At university Anil had t the hospitality of war we left then here there was no such gesture to information of who the enemy was
The bodies turn up weekly now. Th and eighty-nine, but of course it v side was killing and hiding the evic war, no One wants to alienate the
and squads. Not like Central Ameri one doing the killing. You had, an - one in the north, two in the sout sophisticated posters, censorship. In West or manufacturing homemade v just started disappearing. Or bodi recognition. There's no hope of affi the victims are. (17)
This is no fantasy. As Ashley Halpéno in Anil's Ghost in a specifically Bud still persists'. "We must always reme the screams, the gunfire, the evil - compels writers to search and resea miasma of blood and the reek of burn undertakes dual responsibilities in A. The descriptive tends towards exposi the prescriptive tends towards orderi some of the stark realities of the ti. passes judgement on it. He blames th rootedness in history and culture; he towards its rejuvenation. The prescrip Anil) in the search for peace lies not and historical boundaries but in the c to be re-visioned and re-interpreted i of the past are meaningless if they a meaningfully for the present.
The strategy that Ondaatje offe meant for nostalgia. His interest in t their relationship is eloquent in illus Palipana has once been the most res in Sri Lanka. He could move within own historical homes from past lives Ondaatje inter-connects history and E
16 Ashley Halpé, "Sharp Shooting at Sa Http://www.angelfire.com/iurnal/rotar

Alternative Visions... 111
ey shopped, changed jobs, laughed. vere innocent compared with what kes. Skeletons dug out of a cocoa pit anslated lines from Archilochus - In their dead to remember us by. But he families of the dead, not even the (AG p.11).
a height of the terror was 'eighty-eight as going on long before that. Every lence. Every side. This is an unofficial foreign powers. So, it's Secret gangs ca. The government was not the only d still have, three camps of enemies - using weapons, propaganda, fear, nporting state of art weapons from the weapons. A couple of years ago, people es kept being found burned beyond xing blame. And no one can tell who
otes, while the violence has been placed ldhist perspective, it is a violence that ember’, continues Halpé, "the Silences, vibrations of utter evil. It is this that rch the terrible times of terror - that ing, screaming human flesh'." Ondaatje nil's Ghost: to describe and to prescribe. ng disorder, the chaos in Society, while ng this disorder. Thus while depicting me in which the novel is set, he also !e country's traumatised identity on its consciously resists it and looks forward tion is that hope for the country (as for in stifling within the narrow cultural ossing of such boundaries. History has it is to have some meaning. The riches re not translated into and re-visioned
rs is that the country's history is not he novel of Palipana and Lakma, and trating his general vision. The recluse pected and celebrated of epigraphists archaeological sites as if they were his ..." (AG, p 191) Thus through Palipana, uddhism. He entwines this connection
paragamuwa’ in The Island Midweek Review. do/sabaragamuwa2.htm

Page 127
112 Arbiters of a N
with Palipana's other characteristic, h categories, to find everything in one la hadn't seen before'(AG, p 191). Ondaat the interlinear re-reading of history,
our spiritual liberation. The less tied and nation, the less influenced we al that leads us to spiritual restfulness. C an alternative vision that is rejected b explores the interlinear texts of history Palipana. He then withdraws into the fo the 12-year-old war-victim Lakma (iu Lanka), whom he rescues from her mt country's hope really lies in Palipana
not in the recorded history of a place,
the intricacies of people's lives and er can read Palipana as a symbolic of th of the war-torn motherland's ultimat corresponds to the length of the war) crossing the boundaries that form a se Lakma enjoy moments of spiritual lil through their rejection of mainstream minimum and have been extricated
spent in an ambalama, that simple tra the road of life. Here is another simpl powerfully affects Anil, and as it mus
Anil undressed by the well, unstra reddha cloth, and dropped the buck Smash far below her. The bucket San bucket flew up, and caught the rope cold water over herself and its glow ... She understood how wells could b necessity and luxury. She would gi an hour by a well. She repeated the When she had finished she unwrap the wind and the last of the sunlight over and beat the water off her hair. Sometime later she woke and sat or turned to see Palipana at the well, th naked body. He stood facing Anil, h like some lost animal, some idea. Lak they were both gesturing and laugh
If the novel develops as Realist fictio) at its conclusion, when, after Palipana Wordsworth's Lucy celebrating her
seemingly rolled round in earth's ( with which the novel ends is also hig when a new Buddha is re-visioned th

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
is ability to eliminate the borders and andscape, and so discover the story he je thereby leads us to recognise that in and in reading its unwritten story, lie we are to man-made dogma of Society re by them, do we reach for the truth )ndaatje concedes, however, that this is y mainstream Sri Lanka. For, when he , its palimpsest, the country ostracises orest and lives as a hermit with his niece, in Sinhalese this name means 'mother utely suffering world. For Ondaatje, the and in Lakma, for whom the truth lies but in its unacknowledged secrets - in notions - not in fact or even event. We e blind seer, and Lakma as metaphoric e realisation of it (her age in the novel . The searcher for truth discovers it by lf-contained community. Palipana and beration and intimate communication dogma. They have stripped life to the from urbane luxury. Their nights are ditional resting place for travellers on e life-rejuvenating experience that also t, the reader:
ɔped her watch and got into the diya at into the depths. There was a hollow k and filled. She jerked the rope so the near the handle. Now she poured the entered her in a rush, refreshing her. become sacred. They combined sparse ve away every earring she owned for mantra of gestures again and again. ped the wet cloth and stood naked in , then put on the dry sarong. She bent
the bench. She heard splashing and e girl Lakma pouring water over his his arms straight down. He was thin, (ma kept pouring water over him, and ing now (AG, 90).
n, it assumes a deeply Romantic mood 's death we suddenly spot Lakma, like freedom in the verdure of the forest, diurnal course. The nethra ceremony hly symbolic. It suggests that it is only hrough the memory of the old and the

Page 128
A Case for Literature and the Search for
old destroyed, when fresh new eyes, reintroduced to the nation, spirituall The novel's ending recalls an extra Literature does not simply make a rep. layers and reaches deep into the inne illusions, looks down from great heigh broad perspective reveals happenings
In the final analysis, then, Anil's complex diasporic philosophy that is re culture from which it emerges. If thi makes up for it by its coherence of a view. And this is one of the reasons fo
17 Gao Xingjian, "The Case for Literature' Literature Laureates, 1986-2005, Melbour

Alternative Visions... 113
are opened, can the truth of peace be iberation developed in the individual. сt of Gao Xingjian's Nobel Lecture: lica of reality but penetrates the surface r workings of reality; it removes false hts at ordinary happenings, and with a
in their entirety.'” Ghost can be read as a thoughtful and sonant but independent of the national a novel lacks authenticity of detail, it deeply humanist and humane worldr the existence of literature.
Nobel Lecture, 2000 in Nobel Lectures fro the ne: Melbourne University Press, 2006, p. 84.

Page 129
Modern Poetic Diction and C
TISSA ABE
My love for poetry began with a soun prose, and I do so even now, not only essentially a prose man, but even ther a habit rooted in childhood.
I have a memory. A long ago tim even a little less - I was ill one day ar reading to me from a bound volume called the New Penny Magazine. It wa inherited, or perhaps appropriated f have targeted the bourgeois ladies wl Father was reading to mean anecdote experience he had had with his one-y for no reason at all. Nothing settled th he improvised a verse with only soun
Toddledy food ledy up-l-dee Jimmity jammity jingaree Riggity jiggity rummity ho Blimmity blam and away we go!
According to my father who was reco crying, became calm, and even smile mantra this nonsense verse, hurriedly had to Soothe a restless child, but for it repeatedly and loudly too through illness had gone to my brain. I still rer
Years later, as a young man read: lead me into the secrets of poetry - he possible sense to include both verse ar the lines - I was going through Graha

ontemporary Sinhala Poetry
EYSEKARA
d. I sought euphony in both verse and when I read but when I write too. I am e I seek a certain cadence. Perhaps it is
e, when I was a child of five - perhaps hd lying in bed with fever. Father was containing many issues of a journal as part of an ancestral library he had Dr himself. The magazine would also ho read Mrs. Henry Wood's Eastlynne. from a reader, who was recounting an ear-old child who had begun bawling le little one, when in sheer desperation d and no meaning. It went like this:
unting the incident, the child stopped d Sweetly. I did not know what magic cobbled together by a desperate father, the next few days I remember reciting the fever, that my mother thought the member the lines.
ing compulsively anything that would are I am using the word in its broadest hd prose where the muse sang between am Hough's seminal book An Essay on

Page 130
Modern Poetic Diction and Contempo,
Criticism. There on page 101, in the se I came across this passage:
The beating of the heart, the act which we are unaware. To stress of or movement gives an enhanced ser cause of pleasure in verse entir independence persists. Children o any understanding of the meaning and it is to be suspected those who them.
And I immediately remembered the childhood. Using this memory and observations in this brief survey cou and Language: Of Rhythm and M relevance to contemporary Sinhala when a prose writer who specialist Senanayake, almost unwittingly intr been embroiled in the polemics of rhyme - that has been a central quest
When Senanayake broke down difference if presented as prose, to re do when writing poetry, fragmenting punctuation, but to synchronize with he was influenced by what Jeremy Be in his essay as having said, "...he kn prose because in prose the lines go to do not. Obviously he was distinguish slyly implying that any other distinct
Here we are at the heart of the expression become or not become something Graham Hough says ind discourse, whether in prose or verse, Having declared verbal radiance as claims for it the central position in at the centre of imaginative literatur may be distributed through the who literature. But when it comes to decre becomes uneasy, tentative, and nonco) 'and what is expressed somewhat vag is a distinguishable quality of disco form but not exclusively confined to he alludes to here is that which we c in a certain heightened register crea and that intensity can be found in b poem and a prose passage, both from Lankan, but now living and creating

ary Sinhala Poetry 115
ction subtitled Verse Prose and Poetry,
f breathing, are vital movements of reinforce them consciously by sound se of life. Here we have a fundamental ely independent of meaning. This ten delight in verse as jingle without . Many adults on occasion do so too, ire most sensitive to poetry are among
jingle of my fever days in that distant what it implies now, my comments and ld be more appropriately called "Music eaning in Poetry". This has a special poetry because since the late forties, ld in the form of the short story, G.B. oduced free verse into Sinhala, we have prosody in poetry. To rhyme or not to ion.
sentences which would have made no arrange the words on the page like we them not in deference to semantics and the movement of some emotion, perhaps ntham had said. He is quoted by Hough ew the difference between poetry and the edge of the page and in poetry they ning between verse and prose - besides ion of poetry was unreal.
issue. When and how does linguistic poetry? Once more I seek refuge in efining poetry. "(P)oetry is that kind of that makes radiance its dominant aim. the essential quality in poetry, Hough reative literature. Poetry, he says, "is eas a whole; that however unevenly it le, it is the vital essence of imaginative ing poetry as exclusive to verse, Hough mmittal. What we actually feel, he says, uely in our common usage is that there urse, associated primarily with verse verse form that we call poetry.' What ill poetic diction. Language when used !es that radiance which we call poetry oth prose and verse. I wish to quote a two outstanding talents, originally Sri in exile.

Page 131
116 Arbiters of a Na
Carpe Diem
I pass
yesterday's crooked milepost, take in night for erasure,
fireflies, timeless hour of dreams.
Where closure marks
the death of pain and sweetness lingers on.
And tomorrow 2
Will monsoon rain
havoc among the tender paddies,
expectations
slip like jello
through my grasping fingers?
Time tomorrow,
you are the mercury hour, and I'll not try
to read your tarot Soul or clasp your ghostly hands So today, is the hugging moment
when dawn walks in like a dear friend coming up the driveway,
today is apple between my teeth, sing
fevered in my throat, the baila that moves my old legs
to muscular dance.
And when the good earth
sizzles its high-noon fire, I shall laze under this old Maple
read Neruda and think, of Haputale's gentle rain, embracing mist
how poetry stalks the elephant, fashions the raven into profound metaphor,
And then at evening,
I'll still forget the clocking hour, hunt memory
for the small boy chasing sand-crabs with blue ocean,
roaring in his ears honey in the fruit-bat's mouth,
dusk that takes in the raven to autograph its Gaugin sky,
and remember
the sun, the song, the dance, the dance, the song, the sun.

tional Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka

Page 132
Modern Poetic Diction and Contemport
That is, in my opinion, the finest poet songs of exile in the winter country of of his birth forty years ago, still carries from the island in the sun. That is po not rhyme, but they are metred, measu there is emotion, and of course dazzli
There were nights when he did no that hung in the doorway of his tr. stepped down the three laddered st his other hand. 'I don't work, I appea Reinhardt's and imagined the great grandly and disappearing efficiently arrive, as most musicians did, like a city, preceded by great fires on the h border and then by the ringing of bel Dissolving perhaps, aware of nigh hearing. His open palm brushed a ch He had not yet stepped forward. Th: year he met Anna, and he had no return to the corralling work that ar make even a simple song. Dissolving
That is Michael Ondaatje in his latest this prose sings, moving effortlessly li music which enhances the meaning, glow in twilight. This is certainly the about. It is poetry, though not verse.
Poetic diction is all about this fac un-poetic. However, I hastento qual of semantics, but of phrasing, of id resonance, where a word or a combi creates a meaning which transcends beautiful allusion to the difference be poetic expression in the last paragrap the collection Dubliners.
Yes, the newspapers were right; sno falling on every part of the dark cent softly upon the bog of Allen, and fu dark mutinous Shannon waves...
From a line almost from a weather re key to gentle syllabic chords creating Sigiri Graffito, #492, superbly reworke The Mirror Wall.
This act of his
in sewing up words he thought was making poetry.

try Sinhala Poetry 117
Sri Lanka has produced, warbling his Canada. Rienzi Cruz, who left this land with him that fistful of nostalgic earth etry in its purest form. The lines may red like musical bars; there is euphony, ng verbal radiance. What, then, is this?
it bother to even light the oil lamp ailer. He reached for the guitar and eps into the field, carrying a chair in r' - he remembered the line of Django man slipping out from the shadows into his craft. The alternative was to neighteenth-century king entering a ills that signalled he had crossed the ls. But Rafael was not even appearing. t bugs, the river on the edge of his ord that was response, just response. is was the late summer of his life, the idea whether he would ever be able t was, to have whatever he needed to
g into darkness was enough for now.
novel, Divisadero. It is prose alright, but ke a Beethoven sonata; there is a subtle not in a cerebral manner but like the radiance Graham Hough was talking
tor. There is language both poetic and ify, that this is not primarily a matter iom. It is also something to do with nation of words in a particular order
or transforms etymology. There is a tween the journalistic manner and the h of James Joyce's story "The Dead' in
W was general all over Ireland. It was iral plain, on the treeless hills, falling rther eastward, falling softly into the
port, clinical and specific, Joyce shifts a mood. A similar concept occurs in a d in English by Richard Murphy in his

Page 133
118 Arbiters of a N
He sat down and wrote
on the reflective wall plainly of things we could see. With no nectar in the sound
no quicksilver at the core it can't be poetry.
Poetic diction cannot be "manufactur constantly on, and drawing from, pas acquires multiple meanings, layers of r usage. The 'nectar in the sound' and th of long years of refinement and honin
Another issue surfaces now. It equally widely contested view that between poetic diction and commo Coleridge and Wordsworth. The latter when he says: "There neither is nor ca the language of prose and metrical c and quite stubbornly that: "(T)he lang of poetry.“ Regi Siriwardene, in his b Poetry, extols quite convincingly the simple and unadorned language and poetry at the opposite pole from Milto Wordsworth himself called this in a 'cumbrous splendours.
Graham Hough in his book atte that the living speech of the age is a but that living speech cannot be sin as Wordsworth puts it; the life of ve ever varying tension between the rhy metrical Scheme.
This to me has been the central take it up to make my observations, I againsta possible allegation, that I ha western poetics in examining our o erudite friend and scholar, Professor S However, I am sufficiently aware of i no fundamental conflict between the reference to a 'system of words at once use, echoes a similar value expressed the poet should not be that of the uncl Sarachchandra in his Kalpanalokaya, pu sun bavatama vatay. The gross colloqui pleasure. Isn't Wordsworth's predilec the unadorned direct statement, the Sanskrit? Paranavitana in his monum refers to the interpretation of Svab

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ed', it has to evolve and grow, feeding st usage. The reason is clear Language nuance, texture, and resonance through he 'quicksilver at the core' are the result 3.
is connected to the widely held and there is and should be a separation on speech. It was the issue between expresses his position quite positively un be any essential difference between omposition. Coleridge took the view guage of the age is never the language brilliant monograph, The Pure Water of translucent power of Wordsworth's places the 'pure water of Wordsworth's n's latinised, highly wrought language". reference to Thomas Gray's poetry as
ampts to strike a balance. We realize
constant source of vitality in poetry, nply "fitted to metrical arrangement" rse springs from an ever-present but thm of current speech and the formal
issue in Sinhala poetry, and before I wish to take an anticipatory precaution lve applied certain critical values from wn verse. I am not as learned as my ucharitha Gamlath, in Sanskrit poetics. ts basics to say that here, I have found East and the West. Samuel Johnson's refined from the grossness of domestic in Sanskrit poetics that "the language of ultivated man of the village". Edirweera uts it in Sinhala: “Ganvasi wadanaruth rasa al of the village folk effects no aesthetic tion for "humble and rustic' speech and same poetic value as Svabhavokthi in hental introduction to the Sigiri Graffiti havokthi given by Mahimbatta as 'a

Page 134
Modern Poetic Diction and Contempora
description bringing out the very soulobject which the intuition of the poetg Coleridge-Wordsworth issue to the one - the latter being the orthodox "culture Having made this brief statement on a let me proceed with this issue with rel, It has been a critical habit to main as its metric structures and prosody 15th century when the epistolary poe Gunadasa Amarasekara observes in l Sinhala verse, Sinhala Kavya Samprad, a paradigm shift in Sinhala poetry; erudition of the two-line gee form. It the quatrain, first popularised by the S most dominant metric form in both cla However, there is a change of key i beginning in the 18th century in the c Gajaman Nona as its central figure, ca century. This shift in diction was cal in tone and content. All Sinhala poet adhered to a decree laid down by the verse should necessarily be in praise C when poetry strayed into erotica like i it was done strictly within the narrati early as the late 17th century in the W rapidly through the intensely erotic pc the 18th century Matara poets. This p when, in 1851, James de Alwis transla difficult treatise on the grammar of th century. In his long introduction to th: for the Elu dialect, a form of non-infl predominant language of classical Sir the famous literary debate known as de Alwis challenged certain conter Mihiripenne Dhammalankara, on poe in Sinhala poetic diction becoming mc the expression of a new sensibility see though I need more time than is avai modern period of Sinhala poetry has i In the poems of Ananda Rajaka Alwis phase and the period of the 20 spareness, an attempt to avoid the Sans poets. James de Alwis's long and schola translation is also an attempt to estab form of Sinhala as our legitimate p Rajakaruna that one finds this note pu

ry Sinhala Poetry 119
- Svalakshana - the thing itself-of any rasps". Would it be facile to equate the between Svabhavokthi and Vakrokthi d' poetic diction - in Sanskrit poetics? matter that requires much elaboration, ation to contemporary Sinhala verse. tain that Sinhala poetic diction as well have not changed basically since the ms called Sandesa came to be written. nis critical survey of the evolution of haya, that the Sandesa genre effected it acquired a popular base from the would be convenient to conclude that Sandesa poets, has continued to be the assical and folk verse in Sinhala. in poetic diction in Sinhala verse which, ompositions of the Matara poets with ame to its apex in the mid-nineteenth used by a progressive secularisation ry, barring the folk forms, faithfully poetic canon Siyabaslakara, that "all of the Buddha”: “Peden budi Sirita". Even in the 14th century classic Kavsilumina, ve of a Jataka tale. The shift begins as lar Poems, Hatan Kavya, and develops Detry and the deeply personal voice of aradigm shift first drew critical focus ted into English Sidath Sangarawa, the e Sinhala language written in the 13th is translation, James de Alwis claimed active sibilant usage of Sinhala as the nhala literature. This was followed by the Savsathdam vadaya, where James tions of a learned Buddhist priest, tic metre in Sinhala. All this resulted ore flexible and perhaps more tuned to ping into Sinhala literature. I contend, lable now to prove my point, that the tS genesis here. aruna, the link between the post-De th century Colombo School, there is a skrit rhetoric so beloved of the classical irly introduction to his Sidath Sangarawa lish Elu as the purer non-Sanskritised poetic diction. It is in the poems of shed a little further. The non-inflective

Page 135
120 Arbiters of a
Elu diction is used within metric for were the metres in which the popular Nona and Pattayame Lekam sang. Th essentially folk rhythms, eminently si were the metric forms inherited by Ra It was he who passed the baton to C greater poet and one of the great nigh were he not to dedicate himself to th Sinhala vocabulary, semantics, and g Piya Samara, a requiem, Cumaratunga fine-honed twice-refined poetry.
The narrative becomes clear fro becomes crowded and confusing. T Piyadasa Sirisena, J.P Wickremarachc where the Stars were P B Alwis Perer Chandraratna Manawasinghe, and of times and sensibilities changed faste the prosody with the dominant Samu portray the socio-political complexitie This was a crisis, and it was l representative of a deeper and a wide. express this situation better? In the c. in his seminal book New Bearings in clearly and perhaps for all time:
Poetry tends in every age to confi poetical which, when the condition bar the poet from his most valuabl significant to sensitive and adequate and adequate minds are barred out the kind of poet who is more alive th age. He is, as it were, at the most cor
The genuinely poetic spirit in the imm was at this 'conscious point of the ra have stumbled unwittingly upon Sor there was Siri Gunasingha to pick it the manifesto of a new poetic sensib had 'quick silver at the core' nor 'ne stone cast against a façade which was It generated a cleansing force. And the the most genuine poet of our time, imposed wilderness in one of the gr life of our country. Here let me quote
...Amarasekara embarked on a que the lost voice of the Sinhala muse. It now, a lone crusade, mainly beca Amarasekara began his journey w

Vational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ns closer to the colloquial idiom; these poets of the Matara Period like Gajaman e Seheli and the Savudam metres were uitable for colloquial expression. These akaruna and he used them extensively. umaratunga Munidasa — potentially a -have-beens in modern Sinhala poetry, e mission of cleansing and revitalising rammar - and in the wonderful poem has made the Seheli metre a vehicle for
m here onwards, though the scenario hrough early 20th century poets, like hi, there emerges the Colombo School a, Sagara Palansuriya, Kudaligama, Sri course Wimalaratna Kumaragama. But r and by the forties, the quatrain and draghosa metre seemed inadequate to
S.
ike the proverbial tip of the iceberg, r reality. Who else but F.R. Leavis could hapter Poetry and the Modern World' English Poetry, Leavis makes the point
ine itself by ideas of the essentially is which gave to them have changed, le material, the material that is most minds in his own day, or else sensitive of poetry. Poetry matters because of an other people, more alive in his own
scious point of the race in his time.
ediate aftermath of WW II in Sri Lanka ce' in our time. G B. Senanayake may ne form between prose and verse, but up, fashion it, and hone it and make it ility. All what he wrote may not have ctar in the sound", but it was the first already threadbare and disintegrating. n came Gunadasa Amarasekara, easily before he voluntary went into a selfeat tragedies of contemporary cultural myself from an earlier essay:
'st to rediscover what he maintains is had been, for well over four decades use it lacked institutional support. hen academia was on the verge of a

Page 136
Modern Poetic Diction and Contempora
tragic slide into insipid political anar recall. If the Peradeniya University, of the Hantane hills, provided a wor renaissance in our cultural life of the was echoed only by himself. In hi. years, paralleling his odyssey and m Geetha, Sakzyalilıi11i, A mital Biso and Av his principled aesthetic stance withs finest exercises in contemporary Sin)
But others have come and they keep co go deep and wide and shall grow le in the aftermath of Siri Gunasingha' have survived and inspired new one anthology of translations into English one of the finest and consistently serio Ranaweera. I shall not try to examin with translations. Regi Siriwardene observed that poetry is what gets lo once headed the English Department that translations like women should his inimitable sense of humour and w biologically not possible.
But translate we must. It is imp literary landscape be transmitted ev speaking readership. When Paranavi English they were literal and lacked But if not for those 'translations, cou have reworked them into glorious stal I commend Tilaka Dharmapriya 1 constraints of translating poetry from
Is it from the light of my loving heart that flows like a song From the window of mine eyes that only her face is so lit up? Does a column of fire Unbearable emanate from my heart? Do numberless rays shoot from mine eyes? Bashful and scared You close your loving eyes and only steal glances at me turning this way and that

try Sinhala Poetry 121
chy, and which has now gone beyond freshly sited in the idyllic seclusion ld of intellectual balance to inspire a fifties, Amarasekara's call for action s poetry written over the last forty arking the pilgrim's progress - Bhava arjana - the lone crusader illustrates ome pieces which remain among the hala verse.
ming. The roots of our poetic tradition af. Most of these new voices singing s daring challenge in the early 1950s S. Most of them are represented in an by Tilake Dharmapriya and edited by ius Sinhala poets of today, Ariyawansa e them. I am by nature a little uneasy in his charming translucence once st in translation. Doric de Souza who at the Peradeniya University had said be both beautiful and faithful, and in fit he had added, it was a combination
ortant that something of the Sinhala an in a bleached form to the Englishtana, translated the Sigiri Graffiti into the linguistic radiance of the original. ld Richard Murphy or Ashley Halpé nzas which have a life of their own? for a task well accomplished within the
one language into another:

Page 137
122 Arbiters of a
This is a translation of a poem from Gunasingha, and I have no quarrel wi to translate, because his metaphors ar I come back to my opening note in Sinhala verse continues unabated. Amarasekara defected from the ranks prosody. Sinhala poetry after the brie. the fifties and sixties has gone back Sul borderlines overlap, as poets move fr In the best of Sinhala poets like Ariy moments of free verse alternate with e metricality. Poetry in Sinhala has reg it disowned wilfully in the heady d Amarasekara. Perhaps it was Mahag toying with forms, idioms, and diction seriousness of poetic intensity, who spawning a whole generation of Song the electronic media.
However, there are and have bi work reflects the complexity of the as head this list, with Monica Ruvanpat Sunanda Mahendra bringing up the Buddhadasa Galappatty and Ratnasir compositions, one detects a fine ble but for me the most significant eleme rhythms and diction to convey an ess Poetry can never grow up and b to by George Steiner as the "private S the lamplight from the printed page Gutenberg Revolution, which killed of imaginative literature, perhaps ha the pleasures of recitation, the soun more let me quote Graham Hough: meaning, the hexameter, the Alexand structures logically anterior to any pa into them."
Father! I still hear you reciting years of time, and perhaps I shall r forgotten Eliot and Ezra Pound.
Works Cited
Graham Hough. (1966). An Essay on Criticis Michael Ondaatje. (2008). Divisadero Toront James Joyce. Dubliners (1914;1988). New Yor Richard Murphy. (1989). The Mirror Wall Ne

Wational imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
the man who cast the first stone, Siri th it. Perhaps Gunasingha is the easiest ld images are so thoroughly modern.
to rhyme or not to rhyme. The debate It has been a long time since Gunadasa of free verse and led a grand retreat to finterlude of flirting with verse libre in pstantially to rhythm and metre. But the eely between tradition and modernity. awansa Ranaweera, startlingly bright qually impressive exercises in orthodox ained much of its oral resonance which ays of Siri Gunasinghe and the early ama Sekara, the maverick, constantly but never settling down to a consistent morphed verse into popular lyricism, writers seeking instant success through
een a handful of serious poets whose ge. For me Ranaweera would certainly hirana, Parakrama Kodituwakku, and rear. There are those who came after: i Wijesinghe to name just two. In their hd of the traditional and the modern, "nt is their successful reworking of old entially modern sensibility.
OSSom in that disturbing state referred ilence' of the modern man reading by , bespectacled and all to himself. The he sound of not only poetry but of all s run its course. We are rediscovering d of music in the poetic phrase. Once However they may come to subserve rine, the English heroic line are formal rticular meaning that may find its way
Toddledy foodledy' across the many emember the sound long after I have
r1 New York: Norton. o:Vintage, 2008. k: Washington Square Press. woastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books.

Page 138
Ethnic Conflict and Literal Some Socio Political ar Translating Sinhala
MAN
Introduction
Sri Lankan ethnic communities are I with territorial continuity; their lang but still they are divided by langu understand each other and there is ar which divides them. Neither their e their politics promote mutual unders ignorance of the aspirations and world cultural neighbours and fear, Suspici as the people are divided without un Suspect each other, no one can resolv the people against war and move tow It is in this context that translat divided nation. Translation is a bric communities. In fact, translation is ( linguistic communities, especially lit very close to each other. It gives us th other culture. It brings us their feeling pain and their aspirations. If we war their literature, and if we do not kno translation.
However, the politics behind tra translating extensively between lang the Socio-cultural and political neec economy of the publishing industry always dominate translation activitie:

ry Translation in Sri Lanka: hd Linguistic Aspects of
Literature into Tamil
UHMAN
heighbours and live in close proximity juages and cultures are closely related age and ethnic politics. They do not invisible curtain of misunderstanding 2ducational policies and practices nor standing and coexistence. The result is i views of their very close linguistic and on and hostility towards them. So long derstanding each other and continue to 'e the continuing conflict and mobilize 'ards peace.
ion has an important role to play in a ige-building activity across linguistic ommunication between two different erary translation, which brings people Le living experience of the people of the S, their problems, their happiness, their ut to understand others we should read w their language the only alternative is
inslation activities prevent people from guages. Translation mostly depends on is of a given society and the political 7. The dominant culture and ideology
S.

Page 139
124 Arbiters of a l
This paper surveys the Sinhala during the post-Independence period, in order to assess the quality of the problems of translating Sinhala creati
Tamil and Sinhala
Tamil and Sinhala have co-existed anc and contexts in Sri Lanka for many Silva (1961) and Hettiarachchi (1969) the structure and lexicon of Sinhala f. de Silva (1969) and Godukumbura ( earliest grammar of the Sinhala langu influenced by the Tamil grammar Viirl Lankan Tamil to a certain extent, mai the present political conflict between both the languages are mutually usec day communication, at least in certail Although Sinhala and Tamil ha Tamil literature has greatly influence ages. Peter Silva (1963), Charles de Silv (1963) and recently Sunil Ariyaratna Tamil on Sinhala literature. There a Tamil to Sinhala during the late-medic of several verses from Thirukkural anc late classical period, are found in the raya, which were written in the 17th literature, however, did not in retur until very recently, maybe because of the Tamil language in the region duri The situation changed during the Despite the ethnic tension and violen the recent past, the Tamil-speaking their interest in learning Sinhala, in translating the same into Tamil. They made the (only) official language in dominant, so that they were compell Whatever their reasons for learning S culture of the majority community.
Tamil and Muslim writers wh number of contemporary Sinhala cre
1 Some of the translators of creative writ S.M.J. Faisdeen, Junaida Shariff, T. K M.L.M. Mansoor, Madulugiriye Wi M.A. Nuhman, A. Piyadasa, Raja Sril Arunasalam, M.H. M. Shams, Sinnai Subramaniyam, Sundaram Saumiyan,

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
literary works translated into Tamil , focusing on the Socio-political context, :ranslations and highlight some of the ve writing into Tamil.
interacted in different social situations centuries. Sinhala scholars like Peter recognized the influence of Tamil on rom the historical periods. Sugathapala (1950) admit that Sidat Sangarawa, the lage written in the 13th century A.D., is acO:liyam. Sinhala, in turn, influenced Sri nly in the area of its lexicon. In spite of the Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, | by these communities for their day-ton bilingual areas in this country. ve a long literary history of their own, 'd Sinhala literature during the middle 'a (1964), Hissalle Dhammaratana Thera (1995) have pointed out the impact of re some instances of translation from aval period. For example, the translation | Na:ladiyar, the two famous texts of the Sinhala texts Subashita and Lo:kopaka: and 18th centuries, respectively. Tamil n get anything from Sinhala literature the political and literary dominance of ing the ancient and medieval periods.
post-independence period in Sri Lanka. ce which occurred from time to time in communities in Sri Lanka have shown reading Sinhala literature and also in learned Sinhala mainly because it was the late 1950s and had become socially ed to learn it for their official existence. inhala, this opened the windows to the
no learned Sinhala have translated a 2ative pieces into Tamil. Most of these
ings from Sinhala into Tamil are Al-Azoomath, anakaratnam, M. Kanagarajah, Lareena Haq, jeratna, Neelkarai Nambi, Nilar N Casim, Kandan, P. Ratnasabapathy Iyar, Sarojinidevi ya Kanagamoorthy, Sinnaia Sivanesan, Siva Tambiaiya Davadas and M.M. Uwais.

Page 140
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translatio1
translations were undertaken with a communal dialogue through literatul between communities, and to create It was a one-way effort until very ri contemporary Tamil pieces had been ti This means that, unlike in the mediev political importance in this country. of the intensification of the ethnic c the emergence of Tamil militancy, an progressive Sinhala writers, journalist. have a dialogue with the minority com to translate contemporary Tamil writ into Sinhala. Some Muslim and Tam them in their meaningful efforts. So like Mawatha, Viwarana, Ravaya and Y conscious effort during the last two Tamil literature into Sinhala.io
A brief description of translati during the last few decades is given b
Translation of Sinhala Short Stories
More than a hundred Sinhala short S during this period. Four Sinhala short Ce:tu Pantanam, translated by Kanaka
2 Some Tamil classics have been trans and 1970. Sri Charles de Silva (1964) have translated Tirukkural of Thiruval translated Nalatya:r an anthology of die Tamil epic, has been translated by Ama Dhammaratana (1959). Rev. Hissalle D classical Tamil Buddhist epic Manime: modern Tamil creative work that has b It is Narist ra:va, (Kallo: Kaviyano) a no M.C.M. Sayir and P.D. Wijedasa.
3 I gathered information about the follow since 1970 in Sinhala translations whic (1) Kulahiinayo 17 short stories by C
Nanayakkara. (2) Alut Satanpa:tha 12 short stories
Perera. (3) Demala Ketikata 12 short stori
Kanakaratnam (1979). (4) Kalimuuttuige: Paravasi Bha: vaya 11 s Ibnu Azoomat and Pushpa Ramla (5) Demalakerikata 12 short stories by S
is not given. (6) Asal vesi api 17 short stories
Wicramagamage and M A Nuhm

'n in Sri Lanka: .. 125
purpose; that is, to promote an interre in order to create an understanding communal harmony in this country. cently, however, because only a few anslated into Sinhala till the late 1970s. ral period, Tamil had lost its social and However, from the late 1970s, because onflict after the 1983 Communal riot, d the escalation of the civil war, some s and intellectuals took positive steps to munities through literature and started ings, mainly Sri Lankan Tamil poetry, il writers willingly collaborated with me of the progressive Sinhala tabloids sukthiya and Some individuals made a decades to promote the translation of
on activities from Sinhala into Tamil elow.
tories have been translated into Tamil story collections have been published. ratnam (1979), consists of twelve short
lated into Sinhala between the years 1950 and Misihami Gorakagoda (1961a, 1961b) luvar. Misihami Gorakagoda (1968) has also iactic poems in Tamil. Cilappatika:ram, the first rakoon Dassanayake (1956) and Rev. Hissalle Jhammaratana (1950) has also translated the kalai. I could gather information on only one een translated into Sinhala during this period. vel by M. Varatharajan (1966) translated by
ing six Tamil short story collections published h include 81 Tamil short stories, . Rajagopalachari (1973) Translated by D.D.
by S. Kanashalingam. Translated by Ranjith
es of different authors. Translated by T.
hort stories of different authors. Translated by line Ratinayake (1991).
S. Thillai Nadara (1994). The translator's name
by different authors. Edited by Carman an (2006)

Page 141
126 Arbiters of a N
stories of different authors. Cinkallac C includes ten short stories of different by eight different persons, and they h a Tamil literary monthly. Valai, transla! consists of five short stories of differe Nam Ayalavar (2006) includes sixteen stories have been published in variou the past thirty years.
Most of the prominent Sinhalash to Tamil readers through these transla
Translation of Sinhala Novels
The following Sinhala novelists have Illangaratne, K. Jayatilake, Karunase Wickramasinghe, Meril Kariyawawam Three of Maritin Wickramasing Tamil. Gamperaliya was translated by Lanka Sahitya Mandalaya in 1964. Vir by Sundaram Saumiyan and publish 1993, respectively. Thambiaiya Theva Thunak. It was published in India in 19 Jayalath's Golu Hadavata into Tamil. R.R. Samarakoon's Ge Kurullo in 1992; Ambayahaluvo and three stories for ch namely, Hatpana, Hinsaraya and Magul translated into Tamil by Junaida Sheriff Gedara has also been translated into T. published by the Socio-Cultural Integ
Translation of Sinhala Poems and Pl
Tamil translations of Sinhala poems a Thera's Selalihini Sandesaya, the medie Tamil by Navaliyur S. Nadarajan anc Mandalaya in 1963. Apart from this c Sinhala have been translated into Te
4 Here are some of their names: Ariyarat Sarachchandra, Gunadasa Amaraseke K. Jayatilaka, Jayasena Jayakody, Jayal Karuna Perera, Lakshmi Bombuwala, K S. Ratnayake, Madulugiriye Wijerathne Piyasoma Perera, Sarath Wijesu riya, Tilak Kudahetti, Litanage Amarakeertl Jayathilake Kammalaweera, Araw wal Ranaweera, Ajit Tilakasena, Keerthi W Wijemanne, Sarath Wijesuriya and Anu I must stress that this is at best an incor who have been translated into Tamil

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
irukataikal, published in India in 1982, authors. These translations were done ad already been published in Mallikai, ed by Madulugiriya Wijerathne (1994), 2nt authors including one of his own. contemporary short stories. The other is magazines and newspapers during
ort story writers have been introduced tions.*
been introduced to Tamil readers: T.B. na Jayalath, Leel Gunasekare, Martin h and R. R. Samarakoon. he's novels have been translated into M.M. Uwais and published by the Sri gaya and Madol Doova were translated ed by Tisara Prakasakayo in 1992 and thas translated K. Jayatilake's Charita 79. He has also translated Karunasena Sarojinithevi Arunasalam translated she also translated T.B. Illangaratne's ildren by Kumaranatunga Munidasa; "kama. Leel Gunasekera's Pethsama was in 1986. Meril Kariyavasam's Daruvange amil by Sinnaiah Kanagamoorthy and ration (project) Ministry.
ays
nd plays are noticeably few. Sri Rahula val Sinhala classic, was translated into d published by the Sri Lanka Sahitya lassic only a few modern poems from mil. In contrast to this, more than a
na Vithana, Dayasena Gunasinha, Ediriweera ra, Gunasena Vithana, Gunadasa Liyanage, ath Manoratne, Jayatilaka Kammallaweera, . Layan Perera, Leee, Gunasekera, Madawala e, Martin Wickramasinghe, Oswin de Alwis, Somarathne Balasuriya, A.V. Suraweera, ni, Asoka handagama, Eric Ilayapparachchi, a Nandimitra, Simon Nawagattegama, Eva Welisarage, Nissanka Wijemanne, Piyaseeli la Wijeratne Menike. mplete list of the Sinhala short stories writers

Page 142
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translation
hundred contemporary Tamil poems ) the late 1970s. The first Sinhala poet w Sinhala readers is Parakrama Kodituvi anthology of thirty-three Tamil poem Sri Lanka and India in 1979. The next published in Sinhala is Donkaraya by thirty-four poems by eighteen conten M. Casim and Madulugiriye Wijeratine Tamil poems into Sinhala and publi newspapers: however, no single volur published in Tamil so far. Rohana La gap recently. His bi-lingual antholog Api (1995) consists of twenty poems b language. Another important attempt has translated and published an anth Tamil from English. Some of these po and many of them were translated frc English as an intermediate language t
Although there is a visible impac development of modern Sri Lankan have been translated into Tamil. Th Naribana. This was translated by Sinna also published. Two decades after thi: translated the other two Sinhala play Giya and Sunanda Mahendra's Socr form.
Quality of the Translations
Most of the Tamil translators of Si servants, clerks or teachers and the learned Sinhala, as mentioned earlier, of Sinhala literature is also limited. Gi a high quality in selection and trans the literary works seems to have beer any basis underlying the choice, hov can be selected for their popularity relevance, if not for that of their indi have been introduced to the Tamil re criteria mentioned above. However, i do not sufficiently represent the indiv writing. One cannot think that the poems have been translated. A few Viragaya, for instance-have been tra good translations. The editors of the ai made an attempt to improve the sele translation

n in Sri Lanka: .. 127
have been translated into Sinhala from who introduced modern Tamil poets to akku. He published lindu Saha Lanka, an is of twenty modern Tamil poets from important translation of Tamil poems y Seeta Ranjani (1993) which includes nporary Sri Lankan Tamil poets. Nilar have also translated several Sri Lankan shed them in various magazines and ne of modern Sinhala poems has been kshman Piyadasa has tried to fill this y Inayppo.nikaranikal or Atvalak Tanamu y twenty different poets, ten from each has been made by S. Pathmanathan. He hology of poems by Sinhala poets into ems were originally written in English om Sinhala into English. He has chosen o translate the Sinhala poems.
it of the modern Sinhala theatre on the Tamil theatre, only three Sinhala plays e first is Dayananda Gunawardena's iya Sivanesan in 1971. It was staged and Stranslation, Madulugiriye Wijerathne s, S. Karunaratne's Gangata Udin Kokku ates. They are not published in book
nhala literary works are government ir fluency in Sinhala is limited. They for their official needs. Their knowledge ven this background, one cannot expect slation. In most cases, the selection of made at random. It is not easy to find wever broad the selection. The writers or literary importance or ideological vidual work. The Sinhala writers who aders seem to satisfy one or the other in most instances, the translated works idual writers as well as modern Sinhala best Sinhala short stories, novels and good Sinhala novels-Gamperaliya and nslated, but unfortunately they are not nthology Nam Ayalavar have consciously action of the stories and the quality of

Page 143
128 Arbiters of a N
Most of the Tamil translations literal. That is, those translators are n and the style of the Source language translations seem to be alien to mod example I would like to discuss the tra The transliteration of the original is gi
demasakata pamana pasu je:mis y hitiyan dedenaku pirivara kotagat | anikaku nova jinada:sa lama:he:va:y nanda: balanu pinisaya. A muttan bulatvalin ha: suruttuvalin ha: te:pe hamaimine: hondin aenda palandag laye: a:tin vu: asunuka va:digatta:ya. (Martin Wickramasinghe 1944; 1967:
The Tamil translation of the above pas
irantu ma:tankalukkup pinnar je periyararkal cu:lavarum oru va:lip lamahe:va: anri ve:roruvanum alla vayp pa:rkkave: vanta:n. virunta:lik, vettilaya:lum cruttukkalina:llum ten ttaray ammaya:rnanku ututtu a:par ca: layil atika tu:rattil irunta oru a:ca. (Martin Wickramasinghe 1964:p. 69)
This is obviously a literal translation concerned about the syntactic and original which are alien to Tamil. F description of a fictional event and it i prose in Tamil which has been richly years.
The original text consists of f different pattern, which is somewhat translated passage also consists of fo original Sinhala sentence patterns. FC last sentence "amuttan muhandiram suruttuvalin ha: te:paninda sangraha the noun phrases except "amuttan" ar. cases. This pattern is totally alien to Ta in Tamil do not co-occur with verbs Tamil it is not appropriate to say virum means literally "they entertained the sentence would be viruntailikalay teni: means "they entertained the guests g faithfully translated the Sinhala sen using instrumental noun phrases - w text can be re-translated into Tamil as

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
of Sinhala literary works seem to be hore faithful to the syntactic structure han the target language. Hence, their arn Tamil fictional prose style. For an nslation of a passage from Gamperaliya. ven below:
alit maha gedarata paminiye: vadi arunayaku samangaya. e: tarunaya: a. ohu paminiye: manama:liya nohot muhandiramgen da birindagen da ninda sangraha labu: pasu: ma:tara jena sarasunu nanda: samaga gos sa:
p. 77)
ssage reads:
misu mi:ntum peruvalavukku iru anutan vanta:n. avva:lipan jinata:sa n. avan manava:ttiay ata:vatu nanta: al muka:ntirattina:lum pa:riya:ra:lum i:ra:lum upacarikkappatta pinnar ma: anankalanitirunta nanta:vutan pory nattil amarntar.
of the text. Here, the translator is more grammatical patterns of the Sinhala or a Tamil reader it is not an artistic s not in an appropriate style of fictional developed during the past seventy five
our sentences. Each of them is in a strange to modern Tamil syntax. The ur sentences which are similar to the or example, the adverbial clause of the igen da birindagen da bulativalin ha: labu: pasu... is in the passive from and e marked for ablative and instrumental mil because instrumental noun phrases ike upacari (to receive or entertain). In tinarkalay te:ni:ra:l upacarittarkal, which
guests with tea". But the appropriate r kotutu upacaritairkal - which literally iving tea." However, the translator has tence into Tamil in the same pattern, hich are awkward in Tamil. The above follows:

Page 144
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translatio
irantu ma:tankuilakkup piraku je: n. avanutan iru periyavarkalum
lama:he:va ta:n av va:lipan. avan
viruntinarai muha:ntiramum ma vettilayum valankinar. curuttum pa nakaykalum anintirunta:l. ma:ttar tolayvil irunta oru a:canattil amarn
This passage consists of nine sentenc a fictional event in a more appropriat The English translation of the above
About two months later Jamis cam persons and a youth came with him He came to see his bride Nanda.
the guests. They offered tea, betel beautifully dressed. Matara Hamin which was at a distance in the parlo
Another example of this type of listle the Tamil version of Viragaya. Martin reads:
ma: samanga eka pantiye: ugenin vitayata atulu vu: pasu da ma: asur me:vara ma: ginpataliye: ohuge: niv
The above paragraph consists of only clause and four subordinate clauses. syntactic pattern which is rendered w
enno:tu on ra:ka ore: vakuppil pati impattiya va:lvi l ii: tupat ta pimpun navayk ka: na immuray na:n kinpatt varutattukkuppinpe: cenre:n.
(Martin Wickramasinghe 1992: p.1)
This translation, like our first exam to Tamil fictional style and unreadab translated the same passage into Eng
Siridasa Jayasena and I had been fri together and his marriage to Saroji was more than a year since I had la:
Halpé has utilized the liberty of a crea passage into English using the syn style.
There are two processes in any the structure to get the meaning or me The second is reconstructing it in the t patterns and stylistic norms. A propel

in in Sri Lanka: ... 129
mis mi: ntum peru valav u kku vanta: oru va: lipanum vantanar, jinata:sa nanta:vay p penpa:rkkave: vanta:n. nayviyum upacarittanar, te:ni:rum rima:rappattatu. nanta: alaka:ka ututtu ay ammay:r alvo;tu po:y mantapattil ta:r.
es and is a more effective description of e descriptive style developed in Tamil. passage would be as follows:
he again to the mansion. Two elderly 1. The youth was Jinadasa Lamahewa. Muhandiram and his wife received leaf and cigars to them. Nanda was e went with Nanda and sat on a chair
U.
ss, literal translation can be given from Wickramasinghe's opening paragraph
nin ekata kelisellam kala viva:ha ji: 'u kala – sirida:sa jayase:na daki:mata asata giye: avuruddakata pasuya.
one complex sentence which has a main The Tamil translator follows the same "ord for word as follows:
ttu onra:kave: o:tippitittu vilaya:ti ta: in enno: tu palakiya cirida:sa jayase: aliyavil ulla avanuntaya vi:ttukku oru
ple, is more literal and therefore, alien le as such. Ashley Halpé (1985.p.1) has lish more creatively as follows:
ends ever since we had gone to school ni had not altered our relationship. It st visited him in Ginpataliya.
tive translator in translating the Sinhala tactic patterns appropriate to English
translation. The first is deconstructing SSage of the text in the Source language. arget language according to its syntactic reconstruction is absent in many of the

Page 145
130 Arbiters of a N
translations from Sinhala into Tamil. structural and stylistic differences bet they have produced translations of p( appear as if it were originally written few Such translations in Tamil from Si of R. R. Samarakoon's Ge: Kurullo (19' example of a good translation.
Problems of Translation
There are some linguistic and extra lin literary works into Tamil. Translation involves decoding a message encode of a particular language and encodin translate a text from a source langu discover equivalent linguistic units o Only the equivalent constructions equivalence is a notion intrinsically co translatable constructions (Krzeszows constructions have the same meani translation equivalents. The concept ( very important in any translation thec
Finding translation equivalents practice and it is more difficult in c creative language because the langu aesthetically charged than non-litera think that poetry is untranslatable. A 434) “poetry by definition is untransl. possible." In practice, however, we co do not regard it as a mere transpositi whether it is more close to the origina We should accept the fact that an be exactly the same as the original. "source language texts and items are absolutely translatable or untranslata Something in translation, specifically i we can say that any translation of a the original, and filtering occurs wh equivalents in the target language bec Linguistic untranslatability o grammatical categories or grammatic is absent in the target language "it is original which we translate into the 1987: p. 432). Although Tamil and Si in grammatical and cultural aspects, pronominal system of these language here. འ༤༢༠

Jational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
The translators are insensitive to the ween Tamil and Sinhala; consequently, oor quality. A good translation should in the target language. There are only nhala. Cittukkiuruvikal the Tamil version 92) by Sarojinidevi Arunasalam is an
guistic problems in translating Sinhala is primarily a linguistic activity which d into verbal signs or linguistic units g it by means of another language. To age into a target language one has to r constructions in both the languages. are mutually translatable. Hence, innected with the meaning of mutually iki 1971: p.37). If two or more linguistic ng in two languages they are called of translation equivalence is, therefore, Dry (Catford 1965:p. 21, pp. 27-31). is the cardinal problem in translation reative language rather than in nonage of literature is more complex and ry language. That is why most people According to Roman Jakobson (1987.p. atable. Only a creative transposition is bntinue to translate literary works and on, but always consider it a translation l or not. y translation of creative writing cannot As Catford (1965:p.93) points out, the more or less translatable rather than ble" which means that we always lose in translating a creative text. Therefore, creative work is a filtered version of en it is impossible to find translation ause of linguistic or cultural factors. r filtering occurs because of some cal elements. If a grammatical element more difficult to remain faithful to the e target language." (Roman Jakobson nhala show a good deal of similarity there are striking differences too. The S is a good example that could be cited

Page 146
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translation
Tamil has only two second perso different forms with varying degrees o and gender distinction (Nuhman 1994 the socio-psychological senses carried Tamil. For example, the sentences oya ka piya differ in meaning in Sinhala. This which exists in this language. A simi or even in Tamil. English has only one four contextually different sentences a honorific levels expressed by the four two equivalents to the four different S the equivalent to oya kanna 'you eat' ar the other three sentences. ninka is the well as plural form in Tamil and ni: is t maintains only two levels of honorificn is difficult to overcome in translation.
Another fact that we can observe second person pronoun to address an e Instead, a Sinhala native speaker tends a proper noun plus a kinship term, or This peculiar linguistic behaviour is proper second person pronoun Suitabl (Nuhman 1994). For example, the Sinh interpreted differently according to th sentence is uttered. Sunil is in the thir about Sunil's movement. Then the mea is Sunil going?" On the other hand, Sur asks Sunil directly about his moveme into English as "Sunil, where are you is not marked for honorificiness. How Tamil sentence is obligatorily marked endings. Hence, the above Sinhala sen Tamil according to its conversational the sentence should be translated intC sunil enke: pokirar, the first sentence i honorific. The verb po: 'go' here obliga is in the second person the same Sente (ni) enke: po:kira: y or sunil (n:nikal) enke: || respectively.
Although in Tamil the second pe singular and ni:nikal you, honorific sin they are given in brackets), the persona the second person non-honorific and obligatory. While the Sinhala finite the Tamil verbs always take a perso obligatorily. Some of the translators

in Sri Lanka: .. 131
n pronouns while Sinhala has twenty if honorificiness and also with number !). It is extremely difficult to translate oy these pronounsinto English or into nna, thamuse kanna, umba ka:pan, tho ka: is due to the socio-linguistic situation lar situation is not found in English 2 equivalent sentence you eat' for the nd it does not reflect the four different different Sinhala sentences. Tamil has inhala sentences. ninka cappittinka is nd ni: cappitu is the only equivalent to a second person honorific singular as he non-honorific singular form. Tamil ess. This type of grammatical problem
! in Sinhala is a tendency to avoid the lderly person, a superior, or a stranger. to use a kinship term, a proper noun, a common noun as an address term. to avoid the problems of selecting a 2 to the honorific level of the addressee ala sentence sunil koheda yanne may be le conversational context in which the 'd person if the speaker asks someone ning of the sentence would be “Where lil is in the second person if the speaker nt. In this case it should be translated going?" In both the cases the sentence sever, this is not possible in Tamil. A for honorificness because of the verbal tence has four different equivalents in context. If Sunil is in the third person o Tamil either as sunil enke: po:kira:n or s non-honorific and the second one is torily takes -ain or -air ending. If Sunil nce should be translated either as Sunil po:kiri:Irkal, non-honorific and honorific,
rson pronouns — ni: you, non-honorific gular. - are optional in this context (as alendings -acy and -irkal which denote honorific, respectively, in the verb are verbs do not take personal endings, n, number and gender (PNG) marker of Sinhala novels and short stories in

Page 147
132 Arbiters of a
Tamil have ignored this linguistic have tried to be faithful to the Sinhal produced unacceptable and artificia impairing the quality of the translat from the Tamil translation of Gamper
1. ammaya:r ivva:ru ceyala:ttat ta
apa:ya mta:n varum.
2. ammanikkuk ku:riyirunta: yirukkum...atana:tta:n ammi vittatu.
3. je:micu colvatu poy ena nant
The nouns ammayar, ammani andjemi original as alternatives to the second structure they represent the third per and has produced unacceptable sent norms of the source language and wa and stylistic equivalence.
Like these linguistic aspects, the are not adequately translatable or a differences which are always reflect lexical items, idioms, and proverbs c Sinhala lexical items like sil, pirit and signs which have specific meaning These meanings in their full sense readers in a language like Tamil. Tar items and they have to be borrowed. aspects. The pronominal system disc Thus, as Catford (1965: p. 103) point that we face “is ultimately describab untranslatability."
Apart from these linguistic pro problems pertaining to the translatio Two such problems should be mentio The first is the lack of competent t of Tamil translators, most of them are language and literature and also with few Sinhalese who are engaged in Ta not competent in the Tamil language very important in the translation of c. work is also a creative activity and ol poem or a work of fiction into a target and destroying its aesthetic value in is not by itself the qualification for a A good translator is not born but ca translation techniques. There was r

National lmaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
act in translating such sentences and a original pattern; as a result, they have | Tamil sentences in their works, thus ion. Below I give only a few examples liya.
layppatta:lemakku m pillaykalukkum
tiruttayp pitikka mutiya: mat po: aniyitam itanay e:tkanave: colla:mal
a: cirittukkondu ku:Irina:ll
cu in the above sentences are used in the person pronouns. In Tamil grammatical son. The translator has ignored this fact 2nces since he was more faithful to the is not conscious about the grammatical
re are some cultural features too which re untranslatable due to the cultural ed in a language. Culturally charged ome under this category. For example, poya are linguistic as well as cultural s deeply rooted in Buddhist culture. cannot be conveyed to non-Buddhist mil has no equivalents for these lexical Grammar itself reflects some cultural Issed earlier is a good example for this. s out, the "cultural untranslatability" le in all cases as a variety of linguistic
blems there are some extra-linguistic n of Sinhala literary works into Tamil. ned here: ranslators. Although there are a number not conversant enough with the Sinhala translation techniques. There are also a mil translationS; but they are, likewise, . The translator's creative talent is also reative literature. Translating a creative nly a creative translator can translate a language without distorting its content the process. Knowing two languages translator to translate a creative work. in be produced by proper training in to formal forum or institution which

Page 148
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translation
can provide training for translators in Department of Linguistics, University course in translation for the last few Sinhala and Tamil, University of Pe Diploma and Post-graduate Diploma years. The Official Language Departm organization, also conduct translation students. These are recent attempts an The second problem is the non-a support for Tamil translation work been mostly dependent on individua publishing house to promote translati In India there are two major stal Sahitya Academy of India and the In translation of creative literature in th have published hundreds of books in
The Sri Lanka Sahitya Mandala the importance of the mutual translati and made the first attempt to transla into Tamil and Tirukkural into Sinhal any further. Without institutional su progress in the kinds of translation attempt, however, has to be mentior Three Wheeler Press organized by M writer living in Canada, initiated a p Sinhala and Tamil and from these lar a dialogue between the linguisticall communities. As the first phase of thi of Sinhala and Tamil short stories, was Seventeen Tamil short stories were inc the second phase, Sinhala stories were into Sinhala, and the two volumes wel Gratiean Trust committed to continui Translating literary works of Sin is not only a literary activity but also political context. Mutual translations promoting mutual understanding a that is divided on communal lines an us hope our academic community wi mutual translations between our natic

in Sri Lanka: .. 133
hour country until very recently. The of Kelaniya has been offering a degree years. The Departments of English, radeniya, have jointly been offering courses in Translation for the last five ent and Vibhasha, a non-governmental courses for graduate and non-graduate d there is no immediate harvest. vailability of financial or institutional S. So far translation activities have l interest. There is no organization or On activities in Tamil. e-sponsored institutions: namely, the dian National Book Trust to promote e Indian national languages and they translation. ya, too, in the early 1960s recognized on of Sinhala and Tamil literary works te Selalihini Sandesaya and Gamperaliya a. But they did not continue the work pport it is not possible to achieve any referred to in this paper. One recent led here. The Gratiean Trust and the ichael Ondaatje, a reputed Sri Lankan roject of literary translation between guages into English in order to create y and politically divided Sri Lankan S project A Lankan Mosaic, translations published in 2002. Sixteen Sinhala and luded in this volume. Subsequently, in translated into Tamil and Tamil stories e simultaneously released in 2006. The ng the project in the future. hala into Tamil and Tamil into Sinhala a Socio-political activity in our present can make some contribution towards nd communal harmony in a country d presently involved in a civil war. Let ll take Some positive steps to promote Dnal languages.

Page 149
134 Arbiters of a li
Works Cited
Halpé, Ashley, MANuhman and Ranjini Ob of Sinhala and Tamil Short Stories, Co
Azoomat, Ibnu, and PR. Ratnayake (1991).
Tamil short stories. Nugegoda. Ariyaratne, Sunil (1995). Sinhala Sahityayeh Department of Cultural Affairs. Catford, J.C. (1965). A Linguistic Theory of Tr Dasanayake, Amarakoon (1956). Pattini up, raya. Nugegoda: Modern Book. De Silva, Sri Charles (1964). Siri Giya. Transla
Mandalaya. De Silva, M.W.S. (1969). "Sinhalese." In Thom Vol. 5, Linguistics in South Asia. Mouto Dhammaratana, Rev. Hissalle (1959). Pattini Dhammaratana, Rev. Hissalle (1950). Manim, Dhammaratana, Rev. Hissalle (1963). Sinhalt Gorakoda, Misihami. (1961a). Tiruvalu varge Gorakoda, Misihami. (1961b). Tirukkural (Dh Gorakoda, Misihami. (1968). Na:laliyar. Nug Godakumbura, C.E. (1946). “The Dravidiar Oriental and African Studies vol. II. 194 Godakumbura, C.E. (1950). Sinhalese Literatu Gunasekara, Leel. (1988). Pettislam. Tamil
Galhinna, Kandy: Tamil Manram. Hettiaratchi, D.E. (1969). "Linguistics in Ceyl in Linguistics vol. 5, Linguistics in South Jakobson, Roman. (1987). Language in Literal Jayatilaka, K. (1979). Mul:nru Pa:tirankal. Tam
Davidas. Madras: NCBH. Kanakaratnam, T. (1979). Demala Ketikata.
Pradipa Publishers. Kanakaratnam, T. Se:tu Pandanam. Collectio
Tamil Sangam. Kanesalingan, S. (1974) Alut Satampa:tha. 7
Perera, Colombo. Kodithu vakku, Parakrama (1976). İndu Sah,
Translation, Colombo.
Krzeszowski, Tomasz P. (1971). "Equivalence Nickel (ed.), Papers in Contrastive Li Press.
Nadarajan, Thillai (1994). Demala Keti Kata.
Kurulupot.
Nuhman, M.A. (1994). “Pronominal System of the Humanities vol. XVII & XVIII No

Vational imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ayesekere (2002). A Lankan Mosaic. Translations lombo: Three Wheeler Press.
Kalimutuge Puravasi Bhavaya. Translation of
i Diswana Demala Sahitya Salakuna. Colombo:
anslation, London: Oxford University Press. ata Hewat Silapadikaram Maha: Ka:vya Kata: Sa:
ation of Tirukkural. Colombo: Sri Lanka Sahitya
las A. Sebeok (ed.). Current Trends in Linguistics,
.
Deyyo: Maharagama. tekala Champu. Colombo: Oriental Press. ye Dravida Balapanı, Colombo. : Kural. Colombo: Anula Press. arma Kandaya). Colombo: Gunasena. egoda:
Elements in Sinhala" Bulletin of the School of 3-46.
tre. Colombo.
Translation of Petsama by Junaida Sheriff.
on." In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends 1 Asia, Mouton
ure. Boston: Harvard University Press. il translation of Charita Thunak by Thambiayya
Translation of Tamil short stories. Colombo:
n of Sinhala Short Stories, Colombo: Colombo
ranslation of Tamil short stories by Ranjith
Lanka. Collection of Tamil Poems in Sinhala
, Congruence and Deep Structure." In Gerherd guistics. Cambridge: Cambrige Univerisity
Translation of Tamil short stories. Rajagiriya:
in Tamil and Sinhala" in The Sri Lanka Journal ,1&2,1991一1992。

Page 150
Ethnic Conflict and Literary Translation
Nuhman, M.A. and Carmen Wickramagama; short stories. Colombo: Three Wheeler
Piyadasa, Rohana Lakshman (1995) ed. lina
Tamil poems in translation. Colombo. Ranjani, Seeta. (1993). Doinka:raya A Collectio Samarakoon, R.R. (1992). Cittukkuru vikal. Te
Arunasalam. Colombo: Gunasena. Silva, Peter, M. H. (1961). Influence of Dravid
University. Silva, Peter, M. H. (1963). Lokopakaraya. Colo Sri Rahula (1963). Pu:vay vitu tu:tu. Tamil Tra Colombo: Sri Lanka Sahitya Mandalay Wickramasinghe, Martin. (1964). Kira:mappiri Uwais. Colombo: Sri Lanka Sahitya Ma Wickramasinghe, Martin. (1944; 1967). Gamp Wickramasinghe, Martin. (1985). The way
Viragaya by Ashley Halpé. Dehiwala: T Wickramasinghe, Martin. (1992). Pattatta Va:ik Saumian. Dehiwala: Tisara Publishers. Wickramasinghe, Martin. (1993). Matol Ti:wu
Saumian. Dehiwala: Tisara Publishers.
Wickramagamage Carmen and M.A. Nuhm short stories. Colombo: Three Wheeler
Wijeratna, Mududugiriye (1994). Valay. A
translation. Colombo.

in Sri Lanka: .. 135
ge (2006). Nam Ayalavar, Translations of Tamil "
Press.
yppo: ni Karamkal A collection of Sinhala and
in of Tamil poems in translation. Ratmalana. imil translation of Ge:kurullo by Sarojinidevi
on Sinhalese Unpublished Ph.D diss. Oxford
mbo.
nslation of Selalihini Sandestiya,by. S. Nadarjan
a.
alvu. Tamil translation of Gamperaliya by M.M. andalaya.
eraliya, Wellawatta: Wesley Press.
of the Lotus Viragaya. English translation of 'isara Publishers.
kay Tamil translation of Viragaya by Sundaram
famil translation of Madol Doova by Sundaram
an (2006). Asal Vesi Api. Translations of Tamil
Press.
collection of Sinhala short stories in Tami

Page 151
Silence Audible: The Poetry
JILL MAC)
When my fat My mothers. He did this ti The nurses st It was inevita The blood ba We did our b The doctors S What did yo His friends s. You could all His relations Aiyo, what a Not even six His daughter Nothing, Grief has no
In giving expression to the wordless and the need nevertheless to articula achievements of Viviemarie VanderF poetry, Nothing Prepares You. In poetry d
1 Vivimarie Vander Poorten, "They Said",
2007, p. 16. Subsequent references to poei by title and page number.

of Vivimarie VanderPoorten
DONALD
her died
aid
o himself
aid
able nk said
eSt
said u expect aid ways count on him
said
Waste
:y
's said
words.
ness of our most powerful emotions te these lies one of the most striking 'oorten's remarkable first volume of istinctly of Sri Lanka and yet universal
rom Nothing Prepares You. Colombo: Inscript, ms from this collection will be identified only

Page 152
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimari
in its reach, VanderPoorten repeatedly the transience of joy and the infinity ( is reminded of the words of Anne Mi silence helps you carry them". Arising no longer obscure but rather illumi emotions, VanderPoorten's poetry is a space for silence; when words evoke reach of language. In this category is preoccupations: the experience of pai the title makes such stark reference. E are more profound and diverse still, e of sadness but also our personal and c. or even in any sense to mitigate suffer in that of others; whether in our perso. in community. Silence in VanderPoor the transcendent quality of the huma it represents that which we cannot col that which we dare not.
Nothing Prepares You is dedicat presence in the collection. The expel seem so incapable of accounting, cle work, lending to it both its darkest an this experience, suggests the poetry, have a definitive starting point, it has end. The opening dedication refers hyphen in the second word suggest shared experiences of difficulty, of pri (of what is "unsound"), they have shar sound: or indeed, of its undoing. This silence is critical to the sensibility oft and prison, salvation and suffering, : belying the slim size of this volume, ac Indeed, it partakes of the nature of ete contrast, sound; like Milton's 'darkn more acute by virtue of a previous pre suffering it so often denotes; VanderP yet vividly experienced nature of joy w endlessly, as impenetrable as it is imm contrast between the very nature of fil
2 Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces. Toronto
3 John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, line { "No lights but rather darkness visible'. once made by Professor Hugh MacC University of Toronto, who said to me who had experienced sight and then los visible'.

e Vander Poorten 137
suggests the seeming contrast between of pain. Throughout her collection, one chaels: "Some stones are so heavy only from that elusive moment when words nate, even briefly, our most powerful it its most arresting when it creates the ather then define concepts beyond the certainly one of the collection's central n to the unending challenges of which But the uses of silence in this collection xpressing not only this eternal quality ollective inability adequately to address ing, whether in our own experience or nal lives or in the lives we live together, ten's work denotes, paradoxically, both nexperience and that which lowers us; nvey in words and, more compellingly,
ed to the poet's father, a deeply felt ience of losing him, for which words arly dominates the poet's vision and ld its most redemptive moments. From she has learned that whilst pain may no corresponding and clearly defined to 'sound and un-sound shared, the ing perhaps that in addition to their ecarious or unsafe situations or people ed an understanding of the absence of deft articulation of the double nature of he collection: portrayed both as refuge silence is at all times of an immensity cording to it the power of timelessness. 'rnity. It is a silence that has known, by ess visible' it is an absence rendered sence. In this it shares the nature of the porten repeatedly contrasts the fleeting rith the Sorrow that seems to stretch out easurable. Further, the poetry evokes a hite action and its consequences; in this
McClellan and Stewart, 1996, p.77.
2 ff. Milton describes the flames of hell giving The comparison arises from the observation allum of the Department of English at the in conversation that only a man like Milton t it could conceive of the oxymoron "darkness

Page 153
138 Arbiters of a N
her sensibility is startlingly evocative articulated this opposition in his early
Action istransitory - a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle - this way of
Suffering is permanent, obscure and And shares the nature of infinity.'
Living, like Wordsworth, in a time sensitive to the shared nuances of confrontation, VanderPoorten's poetry conduit to areas of thought and explor children whose queries appear like sig left with more questions than answers
Nothing Prepares You opens wit parental joy:
No Madonna and Child
Could rival this
Image on
boxing day television:
A woman and a man Each holds a dead baby
The silence separating the living from of the collection's offerings, in which those who have succumbed to the A moving brush strokes quite belying th of the artistic problem central to the c
How difficult to depict such dignified sorrow to capture on canvas this mother and this child.
In this first poem the writer seems, all her collection, seeking our support or on "Questions without Answers, as
have it. Imagining that it would be ea a happy, fulfilled mother and 'a baby draws attention to the idyllic quality
of course, which would soon enough excruciating experience of maternal p ideal in contrast to the scenes of pain a poet prefigures the theme of separatio death and through the circumstances collection. How readily the contrast
4 William Wordsworth, The Borderers Act 5 Tube Painting, p.9.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
: of Wordsworth, who so expressively
play The Borderers:
that -
dark,
of political and Social upheaval and personal and political conflict and is deceptively simple, its accessibility a ation in which we will always, like the nposts along the path of her poems, be
h a challenge to an iconic image of
the dead is vividly evoked in this first the movements of Survivors amongst sian tsunami is rendered in delicate, le Speaker's Own anguished expression ollection:
most Chorus-like, to offer a Prologue to at least our understanding, as she takes the title of a subsequent poem would asy, by contrast, to present a picture of 7 that's rosy-cheeks alive', the speaker of the Madonna image. It is an image, give way in the Virgin's life to the most ain. In invoking a visual reference of an ind betrayal by which it is followed, the n of parents and children both through of life, which animates so much of her between the blissful fulfillment of the
3, scene 2.

Page 154
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimar
Madonna and the parents of the child to suggest that the protective power of immediately and forever outdated, o' natural disaster. And yet as we beho devastated parents with
arms wrapped tenderly around tiny bodies Un-trying to bring to life now Children they once gave life to
we are surely reminded instead c for lost children. Such a lament long p may be certain that it will long outlive first poem sets out, almost in the ma speechless dramatic presentation of th relationship and the grief that is its c. poet exhibits her characteristic abili finite and the infinite ramifications o life moving amidst death and decay those of the Madonna whose Son wi clearly take their place in the canon of human history.
This opening tableau of loss is in opposition to Subsequent depictio can ascribe no human agency. Like t childless by the tsunami have playe children. And whilst it seems difficult that they might at some time partake ultimately by the knowledge that her life, they do share with her the certair hasten this premature separation fron them. By contrast, the Subsequent po the relationship between living pare speaker of another poem,
I tried to get you to notice me Yearned for the warmth of your hug Strained to hear one word of praise Fantasized about love in your eyes Imagined that you whispered to me That I was your bright, brave, Beautiful child."
Here the silence that lends such dign been victims of the tsunami is preser mother and daughter, as an imprisol
6 All my Life', p.47.

te Vander Poorten 139
ren dead in the tsunami appears at first the Madonna image has been rendered vercome by the power and Scale of the ld through the agency of the poet, the
of the agelessness of the parental lament redated the pain of the Madonna and it it. Indeed there is a sense in which this nner of an Elizabethan dumb-show, a he slim space between the joy of human orollary. Already in this first piece, the ty simultaneously to explore both the four experience of this life: images of in the aftermath of the tsunami, like ll bring death in the midst of life, will the most arresting icons of natural and
immensely significant, for it sets out, nS, death and destruction to which we the Virgin Mary, the parents rendered 'd no part in the early deaths of their in the newness of their grief to imagine of the transcendent joy afforded Mary Son's death would bring with it eternal nty that they have not done anything to n offspring who ought to have outlived etry is full of gaps and silent spaces in nt and child: "All my life' laments the
ity to the parents whose children have hted, in the strained communication of ning force. Escape from this self-made

Page 155
140 Arbiters of a
prison of wordlessness proves enorm up, notes with dismay:
Now that you're lonely too You sometimes say That you love me and your voice breaks into a millio on the bad telephone line
Not only has the physical distance be a longstanding emotional barrier, emotional engagement, so long rebul ԱS€:
All my life I wanted your love. Now
my answer gets stuck In my throat...
Such wordlessness is also of course a the face of such a long-awaited outco inarticulate, the words that come so considerable distance between speal and out of reach. Perhaps, indeed, th that words do not yet exist to describ are inadequate to describe an emoti which the poet-speaker has had no amidst and despite the destruction resolutely and ironically
Out of a broken window of a damaged cardead driverthe radio . . . unscathed on a commercial break a man's pleasant voice announced that big or small, insurance protects them all?
Untouched by the impact of the bomb nature of its words, this mechanize undying anything' warned against the poet's Ode to Sadness. And how is the portrayal of this destruction a In images turning upside down the vegetable seller's hands 'severed like their eyeballs in their hands". Furth
7 Explosion', p.35.

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ously difficult, as the child, now grown
n fragments
tween mother and adult child enhanced out the 'child's' very impulse towards fed, is now rusty, and unaccustomed to
response to overwhelming emotion. In me, the speaker is rendered temporarily 2asily to those for whom there is a more ker and subject matter proving elusive, ey are more than out of reach: it may be e such a moment. What words we have on beyond present experience, and for preparation. In "Explosion, by contrast, of the central bank bomb, words blare
and unaware of the utterly inappropriate d jingle epitomizes the "false ballad of/ elsewhere in the collection, in "A Gift, very different from that of the tsunami rranged and executed by humankind. natural order of things, we learn of a cucumbers, while women in sari “held er, "blood spattered the streets/erasing

Page 156
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimari
memory'. So comprehensive is this memories helping the poet speaker th it; it is as if the very substance of men words through which it has been rende disabled, temporarily deprived of the represented. Perhaps words do not yet so distinct to this time and place. Th the lexicon haunts the collection, parti addresses the question of origin, as in
I have come home, But it's no longer home Since you are not here
More poignantly still, the poet-speak to us her unwillingness fully to desc question about where she is from:
. . . I explained That it's the island Shaped like a teardrop Off the coast of India: I didn't say That it has a splendid past But no future That its rich soil is drenched in blood And that there's hopelessness In the eyes of its children. When they asked me 'So what's it like?'
only said 'It's home'
So patiently has the poet-speaker ex the geographical location of Sri Lanka subsequent question inviting her to sh understanding of the place invites ou this poetic rendering of the experienc time of the conversation. In contrast ti her country on the map, the burden
to her feeling for it seems too heavy previously unknown to the speaker. Si locate the island on the map of her he strangers, particularly this perfectly
this conversation to have heard of the
8 'Going Home", p.71. 9 Visiting Giants', p. 23

• Vander Poorten 141
explosion that even the sustaining rough other losses are obliterated by nory has been erased, and with it, the -red. At the very least, words may been ir power by the extinction of all they exist to describe this particular reality, e pain of this forced reconfiguring of cularly in moments when the speaker the poem "Going Home":
cer as tourist finds herself describing ribe her own country, in answer to a
plained to her mystified interlocutors , that her reticence in response to their hare something of her more subjective r attention as readers with whom, in e, she shares her silent thoughts at the D the relatively simple task of locating of explanation of the sadness central
to take on in the company of those uch words as she finds herself using to art are too revealing, too intimate for beautiful' family of four who seem in place for the first time. Undone by the

Page 157
142 Arbiters of a N
changes wrought by war, unknowab perfectly beautiful family, home' is through words whose power has been experience of speaker and listener. A the speaker's subjective understanding in silence.
By contrast, the power of words astonishing ability to defy the arbit language from another. Such words even from the poet-speaker herself the later, locked/in a dusty drawer of ch life again by an encounter with a par casually at university in a foreign la childhood insult about ethnicity is sta
the shock stained like
ink
on fingers the first time with a fountain pen."
The menacing power of words is felt t in a continuing play on the dedicatio a young man who has been interroga hearing instead his dead sister's voice helplessly in hospital. Like the reler meaningless message, the torturing of pain, repeatedly and unavoidably have lost all constructive meaning. T a situation of unfathomable pain, hal instead, in the bitterest of reversals, th repetition consigning him to a place in
In the course of his very moving
of 2001, for which he chose the theme C Amitav Ghosh explored the puzzling how remote the area in which they a historical memory, whereas civil confli seems rapidly consigned to oblivion.
library's bookshelves . . . is enough a small war counts for much more th Ghosh went on to explore the reason generating extensive media coverage to disappear from public and recorde of the difficulty in trying to write o the subcontinent in 1964, Ghosh ren
10 “Doppelganger', p.60.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
le in its devastation to this seemingly no longer susceptible to description n eroded by the vast differences in the ccordingly, the most revealing part of ; of her own country remains shrouded
as weapons lends to speech the quite rary quality seeming to separate one paint memories so masterfully hidden at she is startled to discover them years hildhood distress'. Vividly brought to ticular insult's doppelganger, 'exhaled and, the recollection of the effect of a rtling:
hroughout the collection: in Unsound', n's reference to 'sound and unsound, ited loses the silence of peace of mind, and 'strange Sounds, as he languishes tless noise of the radio with its now sounds of this young man's memory running through his mind, seem to hese sounds in his head, arising from ve lost their power to accuse the state; ey have turned on him, their ceaseless n a ward for the mentally ill.
Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture of joy recalled in times of wretchedness, fact that territorial conflicts, no matter are fought may be, seem imbedded in ict, regardless of its Scale or importance, Pointing out that "a cursory glance at a to establish that in historical memory an a major outbreak of civil violence', s why civil violence, while sometimes while underway, seems subsequently 2d memory. Citing his own experience f the violence that swept the much of hinds us of the way he expressed this

Page 158
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimari
struggle in his novel The Shadow Lin Delhi following Indira Gandhi's assa. tells us, much influenced by his imm and what seemed a fruitless search fo violence might lead ultimately to rene world. Such an outcome, while not ei he suggests, at least make one feel thi in vain. One can imagine therefore t which instead, he found himself artic events of 1964. Indeed in this search h bewildering silence, for which he acco
The enemy of silence is speech, but tl and there can be no words without I the manner of syllogisms, that when do not know the meaning, we lose o gap between words and the world... banality, and that is what this silenc defeated - because it is the silence of
This bitter analysis of the power c collective memory of events which provides a startlingly apt reference p recognition articulated so artlessly i. man of "Unsound', for example, altho by people in human rights, remains because back in the village, where til really matters, he is simply known as Schoolmaster's crazy son). He who is continuing play on the dedication's re to inhabit a lonely world, unable to e engaging with or contributing to thc his is a static existence; there is in its 'endlessly' at a lightbulb, no apparent we see no hope of present pain leadir of pleasure. Rather, the opaque qual villagers in the most banal of expressi which Ghosh writes. For how can thi language properly to address his ex lexicon nor village slang even approxi to us by virtue of its silencing impact
A number of characters within perilously close to this thin line betw. inhabit that border region alluded to
11 Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, quotec
in Wretchedness, the Second Neelan pp. 13-14. Subsequently published by I

e Vander Poorten 143
es. Written not long after the riots in ssination in 1984, this novel is, Ghosh ediate experience of this new unrest, r some sign that this new instance of awed hope, to a positive change in the asing grief for what occurred, might, at the loss of human life had not been he bitterness and sense of defeat with ulating the attempt to write about the e finds himself hampered by a stifling, unts in this way:
here can be no speech without words, meaning - so it follows inexorably, in we try to speak of events of which we urselves in the silence that lies in the ... Where there is no meaning, there is e consists in, that is why it cannot be an absolute, impenetrable banality."
of silence to obliterate personal and seem therefore bound for repetition oint for the challenges of memory and n VanderPoorten's poetry. The young ugh written of 'in important journals' sitting in the ward for the mentally ill he analysis of what happened to him s /Isokole mahattayage pissu kola“ (the 'unsound' has, quite literally, and in a ference to 'sound and unsound, come rase the sounds in his head either by )se of the outside world. Accordingly, present state, in which he sits staring room for growth or redemption; in him ng to a more acute future appreciation lity of his situation, described by the ons, partakes of the impenetrability of S young man re-enter a world lacking perience? Neither the social scientist's imates the reality of an experience lost on this unfortunate young man.
the pages of Nothing Prepares You veer een mystery and impenetrability: they in the title of the play by Wordsworth
i in No Greater Sorrow: Times of Joy Recalled iruchelvam Memorial Lecture, 29 July, 2001, CES, Colombo.

Page 159
144 Arbiters of a N
to which earlier reference was made. whispered, overheard descriptions of the young speaker of the poem to pie thirty-something. This process of crea arrested by meeting this aunt for the f coffin. More tellingly, a photograph ne spoken of her in life, and shows instea
... just her stunning, ecstatic at a new life beginning.'
Telling this story through the eye banality of the words used socially ti been cut so short. By contrast to the superficial remarks about the woman' smoker', the child's perception that the more inherent in her aunt's very per the description of the village schoolr relations to speak in disapproving to clearly proved utterly inadequate as de of the roots of her despair. This exp might have struck a chord with Jane the absurd banality of so much socia on describing what she perceives to be for her sister, is sharply, if affectiona Gardiner:
But that expression of "violently in indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It isas ofte
a half hour's acquaintance, as to a rea was Mr. Bingley's love?'
Mrs. Gardiner's question is an impor heroines depended So crucially on un of their suitors' affections. Her gent phrases and expressions in eighteent interesting point of comparison for \ words uttered without sufficient thoug power to convey the real nature of tha complains to the niece of whom she i on this matter. It is the tragedy of the village appears similarly willing to e
12 'Meeting my Aunt", p.55. 13 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volum

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
in Meeting My Aunt' for example, the a relative living abroad have allowed ce together a picture of this woman of tion is both fulfilled and permanently irst time, surrounded by flowers in her 2ar the coffin belies all the petty asides d
s of a young person sets off in relief the o describe this woman whose life has hackneyed 'always a bit extreme", and S lifestyle and habits: 'divorced', 'chainphotograph captures Something much 'sonality is particularly striking. Like master's crazy Son, the words used by nes of this way ward nurse aunt have scriptors of her situation and certainly, oSure of the careless use of language Austen, who was so startlingly alive to l discourse. Indeed Elizabeth Bennet, a the strength of Mr. Bingley's affection ately, reproved by her wise aunt Mrs.
love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so
in applied to feelings which arise from l, strong attachment. Pray, how violent
tant one, for the happiness of Austen's derstanding the real nature and origins le mockery of the overuse of certain h century Social discourse provides an /anderPoorten's current exploration of ght. Such words have long since lost the t which they describe, as Mrs. Gardiner SSo fond as to wish to set her straight schoolmaster's son that no one in his Xpose the banality of the word 'crazy'
e II, Chapter ii.

Page 160
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimar
to describe the state into which he ha writing of human rights activists, wil to the reality in which he lives, and s a community whose use of the most own deep fear of exposing the origin
In their own voices, by contrast, use of language, allowing each to pen of things. And So VanderPoorten, exp the themes of 'Meeting my Aunt", ab with which her relations approached into a personal exploration of what 'ti
Nobody and nothing To rise towards me From the mirror Anymore...'
And, unlike the commentators wh embarrassing social manifestations asks probing questions about the responsibility for it:
Desire is a moth.
drawn to the flame we are told:
S SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SSL SSS S SS S SS S S SS SS SS SS SS SS SSL SSLLS
I can't help but wonder Does the flame bear no blame For the ruin of gauzy wings?"
Always this exploration of responsibil testing the power of language to co Pausing to wait for the traffic lights to questions her about a handicapped b he was in a bomb blast?' The casua the part of a child born in a time of incorrect, nevertheless highlights th poor in a variety of political and ec piece on the theme of war the poet ha Lebanon of July 2006: Housemaids re to poverty's blaze'). The small girl's that the poor may be terrorized in a
14 Fish, rising", p.15. 15 Desire', p.17. 16 'Signal', p.89. 17 Haiku: War", p.73.

te Vander Poorten 145
is been plunged by his experience. The hile well intentioned, lacks connection o he seems condemned to isolation by banal language reflects, perhaps, their of his condition. both authors exhibit the most exacting etrate with startling clarity, the essence loring in a more mature voice, some of andons the Superficial Social language suicide, delving instead, in Fish Rising, he final poem', would be like:
ose only interest seems to be in the of personal upheaval, Vander Poorten causes of pain, and wherein lies the
ity for pain sees VanderPoorten's poetry nvey reality, even as it aims for truth. change, the poet-speaker's Small niece eggar seeking coins: Punchi, that man, l assumption behind this question on civil violence, while strictly speaking le striking sameness of the fate of the onomic contexts. (In an earlier Haiku ld noted, with reference to the events in turn home/From the flames of Lebanon/ query unwittingly serves to remind us variety of ways: the bomb explosion to

Page 161
146 Arbiters of a N
which the child attributes his missing title, "Signal", is, like each of her titles, as the strongest of signals of the bar may come to have even for the very yo expect the greatest shock, and surpris In "Disappearance' the questi powerfully accusing voice. Aimed di poem forces us, in turn, to confront c us, even where we have not wilfully c sets an incident in the natural world enabling us to see the parallels betw against injustice, and the willful rept some way, the poem suggests, we w of others. There will always be an ac in which our indifference allowed an another infinite pain. During a period as two polecats remove and kill a ba resourcefully constructed between her empty nest, the mother crow loc 'did you see did you see did you see more damningly, 'did you not did yo stop them?' These simple words of by the student wrestling with her fee very opposite of the banal commen poems of the collection. By contrast, by overuse, the simple, probing worc endless repetition, being as importan mother bird is highlighted by her cea information; by contrast the student account for her failure to prevent wh direct victim of the violence, the baby moment of Squawking, death forever story for which witnesses will proves power of this poem is very remarkabl encounter a distillation of the Surrou. rare concentrate of the age-old questic for one another and for all living bein results in endless pain - for what cons as helpless in the face of her despair as the tsunami? And what has been ach face of which we remain silent, as Iag his motivation in seeking the destruc lives, of Othello and Desdemona. Ev poet, was rendered incapable of any bi
18 "Disappearance', p.81.

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
; hand is only one of these. The poem's powerfully placed, for this piece serves hal appearance the results of violence oung, from whom we might by contrast
e. on of responsibility finds its most irectly at the poet-speaker herself, the ur collective guilt for the pain around ontributed to it. This remarkable poem against a background of civil violence, seen our own failure actively to work ression we may denounce in others. In ill always be inadequate to the needs tion we failed to arrest, a split second occurrence with the capacity to cause of curfew a university student watches by crow from the nest its mother has two gutters and a pipe. Returning to ks intently at the student as if to ask, did you see/who took him away? and ou not did you not did you not/try to/ the mother crow, imagined into being alings of guilt and inadequacy, are the ts and reflections so mocked in other far from being rendered meaningless ls of the crow's questions seem to bear t as they are rare. The innocence of the seless articulation of her just quest for bystander has no words with which to at has taken place. The silencing of the crow, is more ominous still; after a brief deprives it of the opportunity to tell the such reluctant narrators. The restrained e: it is as if, having found in this natural nding civil conflict, the poet achieves a on as to the extent of our responsibilities ngs. The short space required for action olation can there be for the mother crow, the parents robbed of their children by lieved by it? These are questions in the o famously was when questioned about :tion of the relationship and finally the en Othello, the masterful speaker and ut a monosyllabic response in the face of

Page 162
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimari
the realization that the very moment his was consigned to hell. It was, inde to write the dramatic work, earlier cite the brevity of action and the endlessn
Although shot through with the between action and suffering, Vande pure joy in the sensual appreciation derive their power precisely from a sh will cease; yet it is, paradoxically, in th is to be found.
What you will remember long after
I have vanished
from the margins of your
life is
... what you felt for me For one moment in time
that intense hot, razor-sharp feeling
aS true
and as fleeting as a new-born's cry."
The poet's anthem on this theme m. contrasting the competing claims of to of every tomorrow, this beautifully cri to the latter, unhappy prospect in th more apocalyptic possibilities for the word "Tomorrow' at the beginning of charged; and again, the infinite possib to in the stanza's concluding lines:
Today in your arms I find a never-ending afternoon.
Further, in a surprising although not the very last word in the poem:
Tomorrow, let the storm come: I have Today. --
For this poetic voice, so conscious ev.
19 Not my Words', p.83. 20 'I Have Today', p.77.

e VanderPoorten 147
he sent Desdemona's soul heavenward, 2d, this play that inspired Wordsworth d, in which he so strikingly contrasted ess of pain.
onsciousness of this central opposition rPoorten's work includes moments of of earthly experience. Such moments arp awareness of the certainty that they is finite quality that their lasting value
ay be found in "I Have Today'. Deftly day's known joys with the uncertainty afted poem appears to give precedence ree stanzas articulating progressively future. As a result, the replacing of the the fourth stanza with "But", is highly bilities within a finite space are alluded
altogether unexpected turn, today has
an in times of joy that "the cemetery. .

Page 163
148 Arbiters of a N.
../is the only destination I shall driv the proclamation of "I Have Today" is poems remembering those closest to he to what Michael Ondaatje has in his ov pleasures of finite things' In this way n are replaced with those repeated pleas life:
You, making a toy for me with a coconut shell, lighting a Petromax lamp with your lips pursed answering my many questions
- - - - making a Swing for me out of a plank of wood
and pushing me high so I could touch the sky.
By associating the repetition of finite p the limitations of our finite world, Va these pleasures with an element of th finite carries with it the possibility of in conundrums of Vanderpoorten's poetr much of her verse that sadness is the indeed, as 'a gift':
s : w w w & a blanket wrapped around a damaged Soul A freeze that keeps the bacteria of transient joy from breeding in the heart
is able to find in the happy recoll enough to push her in memory to thos touch the sky". Like the never-ending a of the gift of aspiration, of ascent, best of the silence of the poems of mourni poet-Speaker's capacity for joy are deel in brief bursts of brightness more pow appearance of a child, this time in the Answers' ends, provides a signpost for seeming imbalance. Musing on the fact
21 Reward', p.79.
22 Michael Ondaatje, 'Wells, Handwriting. 23 "Talisman', p. 11.
24. The Gift", p.66.
25 "Talisman', p.11.

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
e to/with certainty', the strength of astonishing, and invites reflection. In er, the poet celebrates something akin wn poetry referred to as 'the repeated hemories of a father's illness and death ures with which he was associated in
leasures with memories transcending underPoorten imbues the memory of e eternal, so that her depiction of the lfinity. It is one of the most compelling y that she, so deeply persuaded in so only reliable emotion, describing it,
ection of her father, a blessing strong e moments with him when she could fternoon of "I Have Today, the memory owed by her father, animates an area ing. While rare, such glimpses of the ply redemptive, piercing the darkness erful for their very brevity. Again the simile with which “Questions without us on the path to understanding this t that sadness gives rise to more of her
London: Bloomsbury, 1998, p.48.

Page 164
Silence Audible: The Poetry of Vivimari
poetry than joy, the poet suggests th Perhaps, she writes, happiness is frigh
does happiness hushed refuse to tempt fate, hold close to its bosom clench tightly the few treasures collected from the debris
like a child who on the beach has found a few bits of
coloured glass??
These are, indeed, questions without rare achievement of VanderPoorten's
to locate these questions: to give, like a name' to concepts and mysteries w obscured by too many words, or silenc paper that VanderPoorten's emphasis
deepest distress from the superficial c be confused is evocative of Anne Mic us the strength to carry the heaviest bu meditation on the redemptive possibi submerged in deep and seemingly ir to excavate from deep within his expe beauty and power. Seeking to accoun another character observes that he "lo the right question"? I believe Vanderl and so transparent in its honesty, as important silences. Drawing attentior of her expression to the vast expanse
a fine and significant contribution to
poetry in English in Sri Lanka.
26 'Questions without Answers', p.10. 27 'Questions without Answers', p.10.

• VanderPoorten 149
at joy, "fearful of envy/remains silent' tened; she asks,
answers. However I believe it is the poetry, and its lasting gift, to help us Theseus' poet, 'a local habitation and hich might otherwise forever remain ed by too few. I remarked earlier in this on the silence distinguishing the very lismay with which it might otherwise haels' remark that only silence affords |rdens. In the same novel, a remarkable lities of the past, a poet spends years reversible difficulty, rising ultimately rience, poems of the most astonishing t for the remarkable aura of this man, boks like a man who has finally found Poorten's poetry, so spare, so exacting, ks the questions that frame our most by contrast with the dense economy beyond words, Nothing Prepares You is the expanding body of contemporary

Page 165
On Tra
INDRAN AMIR
I am tempted to quote or paraphras and am wriggling against the wall. I to wanton boys. I am black but oh m mimic man, obsessed by forbidden fr the Tamil myths. I wonder if there is and Eve as well as the rape of Leda by the Bhagavad Gita, these founding boc and the Odyssey than with the one Gc My father wrote in a poem to m the food you fed me/Would surely d what am I made: father, certainly, a fi Lakdhasa Wikramasinghe? I can nam made it bear fruit. Strange fruit.
I have also elected to write out into Spanish wells and draw their m doubt, seeps in like the juice of the a the cross-cultural encounter, that it overcome human difference and fear. I have experimented by crossing through the glass darkly and douse sought love with abandon and in riot not be stoppered by convention, the me on trial, he demanded? Why are r Where even one man gathers, ht the offerings blessed and turned int The mass, friends, was my first bliss Christ can be crowned with thorns a

nslation
THANAYAGAM
e the old masters. I have been pinned am to colonial administrators like flies y soul is white. I am also paralyzed, a uit. I do not recall a dangerous apple in Some equivalent to the story of Adam the Swan. I imagine the Mahabharatha, oks, keep easier company with the Iliad bd dominion of the Old Testament.
ly mother, "This body all composed/Of ecompose/If you were to leave me. Of he poet and critic, Neruda, Yeats, Blake, e many poets who have tilled my earth,
side of English, to send a plumb line inerals out. But a momentary spasm, a ople, and I think how silly to believe in can lead to the marriage of continents,
over in my own skin and have walked d my inherited Sorrows in Scotch and ous ignorance of social rules, and I will man shouted in the dock. Who has put ny translations of interest to the state?
e can break bread, pour wine and have to the body and blood of Jesus Christ. ful celebration of the crossing point. If ind made to drag his cross through the

Page 166
On Translation
stony streets and suffer nails hammer Golgotha, only to rise again, to give us we can carry his sustenance in our b and kiss her feet, offer alms to the ul translate ourselves away from our pre mind and darker body.
I have been distracted in recen householder's duties. I am not sure h reflection on bringing one culture tow have battled viruses gamely on my co one begins to think there must be a course war has been a faithful compal to write.
How does one translate war into gun to shoot, or a knife to thrust, into does that make crossing over impossil my hands to wander about the planet violence, in the push and pull and ha understand these rages that swirl ab house, the screaming multicultural m We are born to eat the bread, bitter or s floating up on the oil-slicked sea.
What have I learned translating truthshave I encounteredin moving f the oceans, to England, Oahu, Manhat aways titled Poetry where all the sire I first translated from Spanish ir of my late friend Manuel Ulacia. Man lines were shimmering ponds paintec that light in English. I think of Pablo N thanks to Alastair Reid's translations, version of Neruda's poem That Light: ' death at the same time,/because livin in being buried/is like turning into a t sky and says goodbye."
I found Manuel's most moving the halo painted about the Virgin M drowned while swimming in the oc 2001, just months before his first coll the publisher dropped the project o translator included some of the poem: Mexican Poetry, Tenochtitlan Blues begi
Evening falls
and you finish your trip Tomorrow when you go

151
ed in hands and feet before expiring at hope, to show us the light, then Surely bodies, kneel before Mary Magdalene nfortunate, the left-out. Surely we can judices and tastes into the other's dark
t weeks by obsessive attention to the how to translate these into productive wards the other in a writer's flourish. I imputer as well. After a hundred scans
finer solution than constant war. Of hion to the Sri Lankan as he or she tries
everyday speech? I have never taken a the flesh of another human being; yet ple? Must 1 carry my brother's blood on and tell his story? Why are we born in ard labor of the delivery room? I don't out me as I wander about the ruined ix-up that has become my daily bread. weet, until we are bloated and breaded,
; poets from sea to shining sea? What rom the original island to islands across tan, and to metaphoric refuges and getns gather for the weekend?
1999, in Mexico City, from the poetry uel wrote in a limpid, pellucid way. His i by Seurat or Monet. I tried to capture Jeruda, a beacon for me in Spanish and, in English one as well. Reid begins his That Ceylon light gave me life/gave me g inside a diamond/is a solitary lesson ransparent bird/aspider who spins the
g work graced with quiet light, like lary in a 12th century woodblock. He ean at Zihuatanejo, Mexico in August action was to appear in English. Sadly, f the now dead poet. Meanwhile, his s in Reversible Monuments: Contemporary
S.

Page 167
152 Arbiters of a N
I will look for you in the you left everywhere.
Cae la tarde
y termina tu viaje. Mañana cuando te marches
te buscaré en el vacío que dejaste por todas partes
"Por todas partes' becomes the sweep English version. The poet schooled in the axiom to cut half the first draft out Sapphire, insists always on economy a rhetorics exist throughout the polis, th versifiers.
This live and let live, in the mu translation is an intimate act like wa eating curries with your fingers, or mu forth from the washroom into your lo I am not sure what one is expe the blank page, facing the dilemma c languages. We all have our particula: guitars. There was a first Kilroy, and v I wonder if Christ introduced the before the crowds and history on t Mount.
I speak about Christ because m forward despite the left hooks of fate the calling to account for twenty-five this just a midlife crisis, and do I dare I asked a friend the other day his but the one he calls himself. He said "I trying to understand my particular p with us Smiled when I called her a bor new-found impulses of the host cour steps.
We are all border-crossers when \ where different fish somersault over of the falls. I remember Chennai whe and other streams as it evolves, whil version persists. And there you havi language. Adultery. Transgression. H French or Spanish? And what makes Hindustani in the novels of Rushdie? W as a violation, an adulteration rather t language does the divine address the when we translate?
I write a lot about religion and b

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
emptiness
bing and desolate 'everywhere' in my laconic use of language, remembering to make the poem brilliant like a blue though he can recognize that different at we can learn to live with all sorts of
lticultural paradise, reminds me that shing hands quietly in a basin before itering the names of God before issuing ver's arms.
acted to say at such moments, before f moving music across the borders of r utterances strummed on hand-made who said "I love you' for the first time? phrase, in private, to Mary Magdalene, he Cross and in the Sermon on the
y Catholic faith has kept me striding and circumstance, the misjudgments, years of pleasure and attention. Or is to digress?
name: not the one given by his parents, historian. I said “poet' many years ago erspective. A classic kathakali dancer der-crosser in that she incorporates the try into her old country gestures and
we step into language's Swirling waters 2ach other before going over the edge re Tamil draws on Hindi and English e in Jaffna an earlier, less adulterated a the dilemma and problem made of )w do you name the god in English or p English: old high German, Norman, Why describe the browning of a tongue han an anthem to hybridity? In which masses? Are we intrepreters, priests,
elief in these few pages. I grow older

Page 168
On Translation
and my body has to be disciplined a immortal, yet I am aware of the en passing and the sudden shock of the from the shore. What shall I leave for 1 Hybrids.
Do I write for you, growing o countries, full of people who have amnesia about the minor irritations ( - they walk among us - there are peo fishmongers, stationers, law courts, sc dodged the bombs and learned to tell flight, the clatter of an AK-47, the silen at night, without license plates, and sp Life beats us up. We walk on thor friends, work. We learn to shed regrets We must float like the butterfly. Give the translation give new life to the pc wealth in our literary coffers. We have thousand lifetimes. Yet, we must inter still lives in the city he must have hi. prayer.
'Let us murder and create wrote let us celebrate the translated man. N Yet somehow Naipaul became his g kerchiefed figure in 2007.
Yet even Naipaul must walk to h Rushdie and Walcott and all of us, as for believers and non-believers alike. English, Sri Lankan, Canadian when with his keys? How can we say wear of the waterfall and made light and h quite. Words fail us. Bob Lax wrote:
108
years old today and
not
Oe
perfect haiku writ
ten.

153
nd my mind focused. Time is infinite, ds of lives ... the slow, unstoppable 2 undertow that pulled Manuel away my children? My friends? Translations.
lder in these new-made, immigrant left elsewhere, engaged in judicious of the new home? Yet, in our lifetimes ple who remember Jaffna bustling with hools. And there are others who have a menacing dive from a reconnaissance t engine of the white van which comes irits away the future.
ns. We make howling errors with love, slike the butterfly the caterpillar's skin. e our beauty for a day, a lifetime. Let pem. Let it contribute to the boundless far too much to read in a lifetime, in a pret again and again. If One good man S bread and butter, his poetry and his
Eliot in a not unfamiliar poem. Now, vary Shelley did not spark his bones. uru. He seems out of place, a quaint,
his assessment at the gates, along with Suming of course that there are gates And how can we say we are Tamil or we reach the guardian waiting for us a writers, that we channeled the power eat? Engineers of the human soul? Not

Page 169
154 Arbiters of a N
Faster, my dear carter, faster, wri translation, "let's head for the new tow faster."
I think of Tristram Shandy; hov how his creator, Laurence Stern, was r of time. Let us leave our blood in out children. Let us write the almost perfe metaphor, transfigured man.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
tes Nilaawan in A.J. Canagaratne's vn/Before night falls/ Faster, my dear,
v he wrote faster than he could live; unning out of time, dying. We are out words, in the Sand, inscribed in our ‘ct poem in the new tongue: translated

Page 170
Displaced a Fragile Fragmen
SUMATHY (along wit
Purse
Will hold anything, everything. Will h I too have a purse. When I was ten my is what I got at a shop in Puttalam.
A purse is useful in so many ways. I anywhere. My heart likes this purse h it anywhere, when I travel, to take whi
My son and my daughter, they both h purse. When I came from Jaffna I di money
Nadheera-One who can speak

nd Displeased: its of Conversation
SIVAMOHAN h NAZEERA)
old money. Will hold the identity Card also. father bought me a purse. What I have now
tfits inside your palm and you can take it ere. It is like another hand to me. I can take at I have - it is useful.
1ave a purse each. I bought my daughter a d not bring any purse. I did not bring any

Page 171
156 Arbiters of a
பிறர்? சிக A ( -1-
♔ 'f3'al
' 62Stry4ror 4 c cis , s
طعمة?ఉర్తి گلور II وی
!Lé -Sನ್ತಗ್ವಿನ್ಸಿಗಿ-سLلق ہم 《ལ་ , مرگها ణా ‰D ፳rፈ& ‰ሏ› ፱ኡ__ % ) & بخمحصمیم *
. . ) گیم را که گه بر ها 5。一 مارzوصۂ*oج
>''' ??. {?حمد للا قصہ مسلم۔۔-rtر تھی۔ 4پھر گھگر . - س ما هر > < :ಫ್ಲೆ اېناوه دشتی Cം. - ടിനെ ??? '?
ci مهد؛ مو؟؟ ہارسی محلہ کہتی تہہ جمع جھنمر 1^ہ
Identi
ae Nazeera
other names Nadeera; date of birth 61 01.01
previous place of Osmania residence
current place of Saltern ca residence
Occupation Coolie
LOSS . . . veedu, va
property Qualities hope, ora
in life
dislikes hopelessi Desire to bring .
tO Wear in Memory the photo
The doors and chairs in my house
When we left Jaffna, I was carrying belly. At one time, when we stopped my child then and there. Sixteen days

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
veg - /o3
agچطضی 3۔ کچG
ty Card
courage
college Road, Jaffna
mp I, Puttalam
asal; house and home or house and
tor, woman who has suffered much
less in my heart
p my children well ice clothes
of my mother
a baby in my arms and another in my walking, I thought I was going to have after arriving in Puttalam I gave birth

Page 172
Displaced and Displeased: Fragile Fra
to my child. I was happy in Kuwait. was in the house of one Mohammac He put jewellery on me. I can speak With my earnings in Kuwait I Osmania College road. My father installed doors on all sides; for he s sides to his own house. He died in th When we came from Jaffna wefi We had no means for a doorway eve protection. It is harder now than be comfort of lights (electricity). In Jaff who does what in the toilet. Here thi the lavatory. It is difficult for us wom Work? I want to work, anythir have gone to the fields for onion wo Now I have great pain in my legs an eyes. Doctors used to come to the car only I've got the sickness. We are sa have help from all around. l, Nadh If there is a fight I am there at the But everything happens outside thi everything. Kaccheri, police, medicin have current (electriticity) here. You
You see this chair. The governm chair. It is right outside our door step this rain. They can stop the war. The in the camp. We have to keep pushi also like a government.
Our children suffer like us. I w well. I would like that.
Jaffna is in the heart
I have over the years lost my intimacy monsters have turned into dwarves on the television screen, the streets c a beat up bicycle.
Over the long 15 years of exile witness to so much going on in Jaffn of life shifting over miles and miles
I tell you, it was with a wrench cared for Jaffna. I had always been total blindness, but had longed for i of nostalgia. Mild sunny days, storm
1 The title is a borrowing from the polit is in the heart (New York: Harcourt, 19

gments of Conversation 157
I did house work there for five years. I | Hassan. He is a jewellery shop owner. a little Arabi too. ouilt a large stone house in my land on took a great interest in the house. He aid he wanted people to come from all e Saltern Camp. rst put up tent in a village near Puttalam. n. Just put Sacks up around the shed for fore. We had a house then; we had the na your own household will not know e whole camp knows about who goes to
e. ng I work in my house. Coolie work. I ork too. We work till six in the evening. d cannot work. There is a growth in my mp those days. But then I was well. Now fe inside the camp. If there is a fight we eera, too, I will not stand for anything. forefront. I am on the side of justice. e camp. We have to go to the town for e, everything. Only about 12 households have to give money for it. ent is just like that. It is perched atop the J. But, they, the government, cannot stop y cannot stop the flooding of our homes ng pushing the water out. The home is
ant them to do well, my husband to do
with Jaffna, and its landscape, childhood . I stare hard at the gala opening of A-9 of Jaffna that I had for years trampled on
(not displacement here), we have been a, the slow militarization and the breath of bare land, sand.
that one day I realized that I no longer critical of it, its superior assertions, its t, to breathe free, with all the tear drops ing out of school protesting the deaths of
cal activist and writer, Carlos Bulosan's America 46).

Page 173
158 Arbiters of a N
martyrs, we neither loved nor hated. Ju prose clashed with a long line of wom pick chillies, dreaming of other marty he sun and the Vellala men. I wrote a But today, only flitting images of ill my head, choking all memories artistes and activists turn their lens up its feelings toward death. Now the vul no dreaming anymore.
A tourist visitor, here, there, even place. One day after a long dreamin memories of a people swept along in d travel were taken over by the staging alienated, traumatically and dyingly, dictionary. The stamp of feet, the cry, th the repeated look of fear and hope on taken over by newspaper headlines, th composition after composition of mou Everything became a hyped-up m celebrated in a joyful parade of media peace in Jaffna. We shall wait for a sec There may be other reasons. I had Jaffna, and while I related to the no around me in charitably or genuinely confined to an urban setting. And I h marriage and children, dowry and lan turning away from the killings, again woods here.
Yet there are fleeting moments, Jaffna, forever I thought, would one corner of the world, in a secluded resta relief amidst the babble of a language a Tamil I now myself speak, and I cau of colloquiality, the rough and read Jaffna, forever transient in politics, lc travel, possession and dispossession, c themselves only in their unaccounte and profound, colloquial and refined; and perverse. I sharply turned to look detesting him, her, myself. I knew th over with fear, ridicule, petty fogging how travelers from place to place, c freezer boxes, carried their world in th that speech, my language, my land. V an accent indescribably hard to beat a everything else has died out of our pl

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
st rebellion in my heart. When steamy len walking across the paddy land, to yrs, their gaze forever trained against gain and again.
Free Media, MTV, YATV, Rupavahini out. Young men training to become on land that marched forward with all tures are in, for the pickings. There is
iywhere, no place in my heart for any g day, the meaning of its touch, the aily mutterings of ritual work, sex and of a protest from which I was forever Worn clichés strung together in the he surprise of protest, the curiosity and every face in my mind was gradually e weeping was overtaken by virtuosity, rning in the preSS. edia event: even deaths are deliriously theatre. An activist protesting war and ond coming.
grown up largely within Middle Class n-middle class sections of the people humane terms, my socialization was lave come to detest it, for its chatter of d, caste and property. And its repeated and again. I cannot see the trees for the
when I, who has turned her back on day get the drift of the accent in my aurant in Kandy, standing out in sharp I had not learnt, amidst the Sounds of ight not the words, but the very world iness, the always already contingent »ve and life: the world of land, place, of men and women watchful, revealing d speech; a language at once flippant insular and yet visionary; ideological at the offender, hoping for recognition, at world, the world infested over and quibbles over dowry and land. I knew ity to city, hiding in cargo ships and heir hearts, in their lips and mouths, in We have only memories and speech, in nd to erase out of memory, even when
ay. :-

Page 174
Displaced and Displeased: Fragile Frag
Your people and my land: place and
I say I am from Jaffna and I teach at among the hills in Kandy, at the Engli is given over to teaching Shakespeal men in high collars at Faculty Board I Arts Faculty. I was also awarded a soc out a project with displaced women and conversations with Nazeera. Nac each other immediately. We were bot that last time in 1990. We both left ou when around 90,000 Muslims of the October 1990 in the middle of a long ( Tamils trekking their way to the South and exiled.
We have both been driven out c whose faces I recognize in the dowr out over cadjan fences separating on - that I witnessed as a young person of the excitement of taboos. The midd to do with the Muslims in our mids my father who greeted us pleasantly guest at the wedding house perhaps. tailors, all friendly, chatty and distan the class room. An occasional literary the university. This of course is my h curious breed steeped in insularity; cl and cautious, often uncaringly, indiff When we both learnt that the ot We do not speak sometimes as we ho of untouchability written in that touch Nallur, a long, straight road, extendi name changes to something else. In N the Muslims had resided in large nu Tamils' had slung slaughtered pigs i taboo. The Muslims were pushed to ti end of Navalar Road. The margins, Navalar becomes something else, a M
2 This presentation by me, Sumathy, the carried out with a select group of displ 2004. Nazeera was one of the participa is writing and narration that she gave
as researcher translated her work fro) supported by an SSRC award. An exter and Water: Movement and Citizenshi forthcoming anthology on women anc Sri Lanka.

ments of Conversation 159
the ontology of self
the University of Peradeniya nestling sh Department; much of the time there e and his likes and also battling little meetings and along the corridors of the ial science research fellowship to carry in Puttalam. Hence my acquaintance iheera/Nazeera and we warmed up to h from Jaffna and had left the place for r homeland in 1990. Nazeera left Jaffna north were evicted by LTTE decree in irawn out war. I joined countless other , fleeing terror from all sides, displaced
of Jaffna by the LTTE, Tamil militants, y quarrels and border battles - carried e mother's plot of land from another's in Jaffna. Growing up in Jaffna is full le-classness of our Tamil lives had little t. There were a few trading friends of enough when we went downtown, a The people at the meat market and the ht, or an odd student now and then in friend and acquaintance, a lecturer at listory of Jaffna Tamil Christianness, a oistered and sheltered and yet watchful arently inclusive. her was from Jaffna we did not speak. ld hands in silence for there is a history of hands. I also lived on Navalar Road, ng into the Muslim quarters where the allur, along our part of Navalar Road, mbers in pre-British times, when local. nto the wells, turning water, salt, land, he margins of the city then, to the other are marked clearly on the map where uslim name I cannot recall.
researcher, is an offshoot of a writing project aced Muslim and Tamil women in Puttalam in nts there. The material presented here as hers me as representing her position and her voice. m Tamilinto English. The writing project was ded research paper on the subject, "Salt, Sand p among Displaced women" will appear in a violence, to be published by ICES, Colombo,

Page 175
160 Arbiters of a N
Nallur is the high seat of worship point of pilgrimage, the Kandaswam Tamil revivalist, Arumuga Navalar, h notorious for his religious hostility this road daily on my way to School College and finally Pommai Velli on t lower classes of the Muslims lived, b. Kallundai.
When the LTTE drove the Musl places they gave two days' grace for t it was two hours. Things fall apart, t splitting at the seams perhaps for the Society. From Ireland, Nigeria to Sri empire and culture have posed great have? Terror-stricken LTTE, unable t grip of brute force and manipulation, their leave-taking.
I have no means of returning to all had returned, then I could have to junction. Now, he, my husband, does c we have here. But we need a proper apart and the thatched roof gapes wic I went about four months back, been razed to the ground. Even the S and sold. We do not know who has c trying to strike a bargain for that floo Our house is by the side of a b cemetery of the people of the Vedam ( not take land by the side of funeral pl Place becomes land, ethnicity, a Jaffna, my land, the wretched eth1
3 W. B. Yeats's poem "The Second Com the widening gyres the falcon cannot h cannot hold' impacted greatly on the Chinua Achebe who called perhaps h (London: Heinemann, 1958).
4 Interestingly, in October 1995, five ye around 500,000 Tamils from the north the approach of Sri Lankan armed f private tales that northern, Jaffna Tan books, stories that one whispers only t interviewer. Neither the free media no south, who insistently and exclusively to exploit and bring out the theoretica 1990 of the Muslims and the exodus of

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
for many Hindus, the site of a popular y Temple. The road is named after the is statue adorning a corner of the road, and hide-bound casteism. traversed assing a number of temples, Osmania he very outskirts of the city, where the efore we hit the bare stretch of road to
ims out of the north in 1990, in most hem to leave. In Jaffna peninsula itself the centre cannot hold; the centre was LTTE, as happens in every postcolonial Lanka and Jaffna, the centres of the problems of stability. Now what do we o hold the centre together, Jaffna in its doles out two hours for them to prepare
Jaffna, there is nothing left there. If we po. We ran a hotel by Osmania College roolie work in Vavuniya. It's only a shed roof. When it rains the cadjan comes de.
in January, 2004 or so. The house has stones on the walls had been taken out lone this. Only the floor is there. I am r only. rurial ground - on one side there is a Christian). Problem is, your people will aces, will they? nd I too recognize in Nazeera's words, nic conflict, my home and my place,
ning" which begins: "Turning and turning in hear the falconer;/ things fall apart; the centre 2 postcolonial imagination including that of his most well-known novel Things Fall Apart
ars later to the month, LTTE would drive out hern peninsula into LTTE-controlled areas at 3rces. Tales of the now infamous exodus are nils carry in their meagre wallets and pocket o one's close friends, family or a highly trusted or the political theorists and activists from the perform the peace campaign, have been able land emotional nexus between the eviction of
1995.

Page 176
Displaced and Displeased: Fragile Frag.
(mis) taken as Hindu, and as LTTE. W other sites, other houses and homes, lands and places and other worlds.
Afterword by Sumathy
Why do I present this partial story of by Nazeera's story of eviction and c of ethnicization of identities in Sri L. irrevocable role, one that roots and ti reinvent ethnicity. In my exposition c discussed the way I became conscio the heartland of what is seen as Tam the surveillances of the State and the one's ethnicity anywhere in the count of ethnicity as 'Sinhala' was one of pl the bus at Kurunegala to come to Kar Peradeniya, in 1980, I with great alacrit of seats for the three of us traveling to for my thorough-going foolishness. T discovered, after I had become more 'S a greater self-conscious awareness of on my part marked me not only as ar northern Tamil as well.
It also indicates to me today, in probably did not reach into the in psyche at that time. The story I recol and homelessness is a story that cha Sri Lankan state and the state of dom encounter 'ethnicity' at Peradeniya b marked almost always as Tamil, I al and the 'other' in other inexorable felicitating Prof. Halpé, the questior: Englishness of our being as a loss, a as undergraduates that Prof. Halpé i and Tamil literature for the Hons. syllabus of the Department today course unit system, the course has s of it, sections of Tamil literature anc Sinhala and Tamil Departments, I h value for students, particularly Sinha background of Kandy and its surrou who has embarked on a series of tra Tamil women's poetry and fiction. W poem "Murder", Rashmi's poetry of eastern province, or Shoba Shakthi's them are engaged in a series of disp

ments of Conversation 161
e need other places and other travels, other selves and other peoples, other
my life here, mediated and disrupted lisplacement. In the continuing story anka, place and displacement play an es one to narratives of movement that n the rise of Tamil nationalism, I have us of the Sinhala while still being in nil, middle-class Jaffna. Today, within a LTTE, one cannot be unconscious of ry. But one of my earliest recognitions ure incomprehension. When I boarded dy, on my first trip to Kandy and then y claimed the first, curiously empty row gether, only to be scolded by my father he front seat is reserved, as I gradually Sinhala', for "Buddhist' priests. Today, in theory I say that this incomprehension other and as displaced, but as Tamil',
another vein, that the Sri Lankan State erstices of the Jaffna-Tamil-Muslim anthere, of place, displacement, home allenges the state of occupation of the ination of the LTTE. As I continued to oth as a student and later as a teacher, so became marked as "English," Kadu ways. For me, today, in this volume I wish to ask is, how do we remark the loss of place? It was during our time introduced an entire course in Sinhala Degree in English. In the revamped
readjusting to the demands of the urvived. But today as I teach sections coordinate it with lecturers from the ave come to understand its immense la Students hailing from the cloistered ndings. I see its immense value for me, nslations of contemporary Muslim and hen we discuss Sivaramani, Nuhman's thnic violence against Muslims in the novel mm, the students and I along with lacements that open up spaces for the

Page 177
162 Arbiters of a N
displaced among us to find points of er for praxis. We open a pedagogical sp and place, displacing the centres occ thinking. This displacement has also h my own 'otherness, and that is what wi opening up spaces for manoeuvre and among all English department curric knowledge. In no other Department c an introduction to the literatures of o introduced and we continue with to t One may ask how prepared are we, ir Tamil and Sinhala literature? Does it r the part of those inhabiting the advai Despite all, its strength may also be its and its dis/placed status within the cu own self, it brings up in more ways th my own dis/placement.
I still cannot claim the front seat il about the fraught nature of ethnicity. not only Tamil and Muslim, but also c a sneering smile at the empty row of it in a class full of Sinhala Buddhists 'new comers' from Jaffna and talk abo man' who will not deign to stand up Nazeera, the concerns of Tamil, Sinha much meaning. She is a theorist and in trauma of the displaced, which lies be identifications, assertions and longings state of ethnicity, place and displacem wanting to live in a better place.

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
try into the dialogue, opens up spaces ace for dialogue on region, ethnicity upied by Sinhala-English hegemonic elped me to open up a dialogue with a need to hold on to: the possibilities of negotiation. The course stands unique ula in the country, to the best of my f English in the country do we have ur ‘own' languages. What Prof. Halpé his day may not be without its faults. the Department of English, to teach lot Smack of a patronizing attitude on ntaged position of English literature? own faltering nature, its uncertainty rriculum of English literature. For my han I can theorize here, the specter of
n the bus. But I have learnt much more , the interstices, the trauma of being of being Sinhala. I have learnt to turn seats in the crowded bus, to discuss students, explain the phenomenon to ut the superior ways of the “northern
for some measly looking priest. For la or English literature may not have her theory, I find the ultimate point of yond the point of middle-class ethnic s. In it I find a place of dialogue on the ent that I think is useful to all those

Page 178
The Golden Island of Den Sri Lanka in the Ir
HARISH
The Indian perception of Sri Lanka, t the south of India, probably began as S Lanka was an entity distinct from Ind it is quite as old as the very first anc Valmiki in Sanskrit. Based on earlier
lost, the Ramayana was finalized in i century BC, i.e. after the Vedas and be makes it probably as old a literary re. another as any.
I. The Arch Demon Ravana
As we all know - or perhaps not any in which the Demon King of Lanka, wife of the Indian prince-in-banishm as Rama crosses the Sea to march in rescue Sita and redeem his own hono the story of the Trojan War, except tha and starkest religious and Cultural sig full incarnation of God and Ravana i in order to restore the ascendency of purpose of each earthly incarnation o In this religious story, there are circumstances or considerations, and R than Satan (who too had beguiled

mons and Lovely Women: hdian Imagination
TRIVEDI
he pearl-shaped island just 30 kms to oon as there was a perception that Sri lia. In terms of literary representation, i foundational epic, the Ramayana by narratives of the story which are now its present form in the 7th or the 8th efore the Buddha. (T.S. Kr., 3563) That presentation of one modern nation by
more - the Ramayana narrates a story Ravana, deceitfully abducts Sita, the ent, Rama, and is then killed in battle to Sri Lanka to defeat Ravana and to Dur. In broad outline, this sounds like t it is imbued in India with the highest 2nification. For Rama is no less than a s the arch demon, whom he must kill Good over Evil. Such is the need and f God.
a therefore and can be no mitigating avana remains a figure no less devillish if not abducted a primally innocent

Page 179
164 Arbiters of a N
woman, Eve). However, the Ramayana i epic poem, and Valmiki's verses are n comes to depicting Ravana and Sri La a subliminal ambivalence when he first comes to Sri Lanka by himself to locate and make contact with Sita, ini Mandodari for Sita! (Valmiki 888).
Ravana (and the name means he by Valmiki and by other narrators of Goliath to Rama's David, which has t more like a Superhuman heroic warri meanwhile serves to aggrandize Rav huger stature, or perhaps alongside a given the further mythological benef that when Rama in battle isableto ch more heads for him to deal with. As endlessly multiply, just as by indulging multiplies one's desire for them." (Tuls Ravana is also given, in Valmik hegemonic version of the Ramayana language c. 12th Century AD, the Hin the status of being a Brahmin. He is Rama who belongs to the next highest learned and cultivated man, Ravana i stirring hymn to Lord Shiva, which b such pounding rhythm and pulsating to attempt to translate it: Dhagaddhaga, counteract Lord Shiva's blessings upol battle between them, Rama is obliged worship and seek the favour of Shak complements the male valour of Shiva Two other aspects of the Ramaand nuanced. Not only is Ravana h mighty chariot when he comes out to be quite like an impregnable armoure is without any chariot at all and ind mismatch, the person who is most p Ravana who has defected and joined by Tulsi Das, there now unfurls a pas if not material superiority of Rama. Ir the only impregnable chariot is that in wheels, might, discrimination, self-co are the four horses, which are yokec compassion, and even-handeness, et Somewhat reassured but still, like a tru until Rama actually triumphs

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
is not only Scripture but equally a great more humanizing than Satanic when it anka. For example, Valmiki introduces has Hanuman, the monkey god who reconnoitre the enemy terrain and to tially mistake Ravana's beautiful wife
who makes the others cry) is depicted the Rama story as rather like the giant he effect finally of making Rama look or when he defeats Ravana but which vana as well. As against Goliath's far similar physical advantage, Ravana is it of having not one but ten heads, so op off one head, there still remain nine Rama cuts off Ravana's heads, so they g in the pleasures of the world, one only i Das 749) i, in folklore, and in what now is the story after Sanskrit became a 'dead di Ramayana by Tulsi Das (1532-1623), thus in the caste hierarchy superior to caste of kshatriyas or the warriors. As a s widely believed to be the author of a egins with a one-word opening line of galliteration that it would be pointless ddhagaivalallalaatatpattapaavake. It is to n Ravana that the night before the final , in Some versions of the Ramayana, to ti, the female principle of Energy that
l. Kavana story seem especially complex uger and ten-headed; he also rides a fight Rama, a vehicle that can be said to d vehicle of our times. Rama in contrast eed barefoot. Looking at this seeming anic-stricken is Vibhishana, brother of Rama's forces. In the Hindi Ramayana Sage asserting the moral and symbolic it, Rama expounds to Vibhishana that which valour and patience are the two ntrol and the desire to do well for others i together by the reins of forgiveness, c. (Tulsi Das 735). Vibhishana is now le defector, rather fearful of the outcome

Page 180
The Golden Island of Demons and Lovel
Even now, the name of Vibhishi a true devotee of Rama but, in sharp Hindi proverb says: 'Ghar ka bhedi La within who brings down Lanka. This damning of Vibhishana for it does no may have led an impossibly virtuous (which incidentally is called simply Li the nationalist honorific Sri as in the only in 1972) — like the poor tongue si as Tulsi Das puts it - but his ultimate is why it comes to the Indian visitor the temple at Kelaniya just a short dist of Vibhishana which is actually wors temple to Vibhishana in India, and ha
And this despite the fact that R ally Vibhishana as the rightful king defeated and killed, in fact even bel monkeys and bears has crossed from premature and proleptic coronation estate that Lord Shiva gave to Ravana ten heads, Rama now gave with som seemed so small a a reward as to be h
The final de/valuation of Lanka happens when immediately after w Rama sets off home in the aeroplane had not but Ravana had (by appropri the God of all wealth, for whom Lar all Craftsmen himself, Vishwakarma now asks him if he would not like to I kingdom of Lanka that he has just col
lyam swarnamayi Lanka na me Laksma Janani janmabhumishcha swargadapi ga
This Lanka made of gold does not One's mother and one's motherland
Many schoolchildren in India know detachable quotable quote, without ev to and explicit comparison with the g negatively expressed, this is probably Sanskrit literature to the covetable r too an alternative traditional name fo Sanskrit form, Svarnadwip, means the "serendipity, asif the eastern El Dorac the western El Dorado could never be Even now, in every town and vil south India, being closer to Sri Lan

ly Women: ... 165
ana is all over India not a signifier of contrast, a metaphor for a defector. A anka dhaave, i.e., it's the betrayer from may be thought an especially effective t even (need to) name him. Vibhishana life in the devils' citadel of Sri Lanka anka in all the Indian Sources, without name of the country officially adopted tuated between thirty-two sharp teeth, fame in India is that of a betrayer. That as something of a shock to see that in ance out of Colombo, there is an image shipped. There is, so far as I know, no rdly a good word said for him. ama has coronated his valued insider of Lanka even before Ravana has been Fore Ram with his makeshift army of India into Lanka. Tulsi Das imbues this with rich mythological irony: "The rich after he had offered in sacrifice all his e embarrassment to Vibhishana for it ardly worth giving“ (Tulsi Das 655). in this grand and collective narrative inning the battle and reclaiming Sita, , called the Pushpaka Vimana, that he ating it from his elder brother, Kubera, hka was originally built by the God of ). Rama's younger brother Lakshmana 'etain any part of the resplendently rich inquered, and Rama replies:
na rochate.
'riyasi. (Valmiki 1426)
attract me, Lakshmana.
are preferable even to heaven.
the second line above as a Subhashita, a er finding out that it is said in reference olden splendour of Lanka. Even though the greatest compliment paid in all of magnificence of Lanka. It corroborates r Lanka, Serendib, which in its proper' Golden Island, and from which derives to could be found by sheer luck whereas
found at all.
lage of north and central India (though ka, is more quiet about it), the victory

Page 181
166 Arbiters of a N
of Rama over Ravana is celebrated ev of the year. In many places, large gia) also his brother Kumbhakarna and sc real, human size actor playing Rama heart, the effigies burst into spectacu in a reiterated triumph of good over e" in India but also wherever Indian Hin acceptance speech, Derek Walcott re child when growing up in the Caribbe enactment of the Rama-Ravana story w city of Banaras (also called Varanasio whole month and moves from day to city, with the (erstwhile) king's palace Ayodhya, and the area directly across the sea, where the Banaras Hindu Univ Lanka
With the Ramayana as with ma been numerous retellings some of w these, Rama and Sita are said to be s be Sita's father — both outrageous ince to be hostile Buddhist interpolations. modern inversion of the story is to b (1861; Epic of the Killing of Meghana Madhusdan Datta, who was so utter Western modernity that he converte woman and went off to live in France, but then returned to Bengal and to E his greatest works. In this epic in bla depicted as not a villain but instead th and content here being Milton who ir devil's party without knowing it. But D was on, for he self-consciously attempt be "the un-Hindu character' of his poer has observed, Ravana appears in the The many major controversies indeed divine Rama which keep erupt over his birth-place and recently over Lanka, testify to the abiding power of important distinction, it is not Sri Lan vilified and demonized with his whol the same time, the word rakshasa has monster beyond the pale of civilizat used, to take a random example, in a F of the Bengali famine of 1943 finally b grandchildren because they cannot se had all turned into rakshasas, a survi

'ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ery year as the biggest Hindu festival ht-size effigies of not only Ravana but in Meghanada are set up, and when a aventually shots an arrow at Ravana's lar flames and resounding fireworks, vil. Not only is this a ritual celebration dus have migrated; in his Nobel prize called seeing these celebrations as a an. In an especially elaborate dramatic hich leads up to this climax in the holy r Kashi), the annual staging lasts for a day to different parts of the sprawling standing in for Rama's home kingdom the river Ganga, which does duty for ersity is now located, still being called
ny other Sanskrit classics, there have hich are deeply subversive. In one of siblings, in another Ravana is said to 2stuous versions which many assume But probably the most thoroughgoing e found in the Meghanada-badha-kabya da) by the rebel Bengali poet Michael ly swept off his feet by the winds of d to Christianity, married a Western wrote only in English for many years, engali to write in his mother-tongue nk verse, Ravana's son Meghanada is e hero; Datta's role model in both form his Paradise Lost was allegedly of the batta knew perfectly well which side he ed to justify what he acknowledged to m (cited in Das 154), in which, as a critic alory of a tragic hero." (Das 155).
over the mythical, pre-historical and ing in contemporary India, for example the bridge that he built from India to this master narrative. But, to make an ka but rather Ravana who is generally earmy of rakshasas, the very devils. At come to connote generally a barbaric ion or acceptable human conduct, as Hindi novel in which desperate victims egin to kill of their own children and ea way of being able to feed them: 'We vor later recalls, into very Rakshasas.

Page 182
The Golden Island of Demons and Love
(Saraogi 146) This signifier has thus extreme circumstances can apparently why there was some ironic and even Sri Lankan ministry of tourism rece more visitors especially from India, Ramayana and to market the places i been held captive by Ravana: the Sita Kotuwa, the Sita Tear Pond, the Sita P It is again a measure of the diffe in India and Sri Lanka that the next arrival from India of the first propag Mahendra and his sister Princess San much larger in the Lankan rather th is not the Indian proselytizers who v came later to India to gain Buddhism and Xuan Zang. Meanwhile, in succe India, from both Kalinga (modern Ori had sailed from as well as from Tai Tamils went out to settle in Sri Lanka, overwhelmingly large proportion of as distinct from the 'Moors' and the E and constitute the rest. But that's an i
II. The Lovely Padmavati of Sinhala
After and beyond the many Ramayan literary narrative concerning Lanka or Hindi epic, Padamavat (1540) by the po It is not of course comparable in circu at all, which is a story everyone in read it, but is instead a systematical sufi narrative which at the same tin subtle tale. It opens in Sinhala Dvip, then to Delhi, revisits Sinhala Dvipa Kalinga which then entails crossing t culminates in a battle in Chittaur bet and the Muslim ruler of Delhi. In the (whatever remains of) Chittauris con But that is so far as the men ar is the incomparably beautiful Prince up in Sinhala Dvipa. She marries th by the Muslim king of Delhi who t she finally commits Suttee when it
1 (http://www.srilankatourism.org/rama Tourism," & http://www.tourslanka. lanka)

ly Women:... 167
loated free of Sri Lanka, for anyone in act like a rakshasa. That was one reason cynical amusement in India when the tly announced that, in order to attract t proposed to revive the legend of the n Sri Lanka where Sita had supposedly Eliya area generally, including the Sita okuma and the Sita Amman Temple." ence in perceptions of the same events major transaction between them, the ators of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Prince ghamitra, in the 3rd century B.C. looms an the Indian imagination. In India, it ent out but the Chinese pilgrims who from us who are more famous: Fa-hien assive waves of migration, it was from ssa) where Mahendra and Sanghamitra mil Nadu, both the Sinhalese and the where they together now constitute an the Sri Lankan population, about 92%, surghers etc. who came from elsewhere ssue to which we shall return later.
Dvipa - but not Lanka!
as, probably the second most significant Sinhala Dvipa (the Sinhala Island) is the et Malik Mohammad Jayasi (1492-1542). lation and popularity to the Ramayana India knows without ever needing to y allegorical and sometimes abstruse he tells a stirring and psychologically , travels to Chittaur in Rajasthan and again through a Sea voyage starting in he mythological Seaven Seas), and then ween the Hindu ruler of that kingdom end, the Sultan of Delhi triumphs, and verted to Islam.
2 concerned. The heroine of the story S Padmavati who is born and brought e Hindu king of Chittaur, is coveted hen attacks Chittaur to gain her, and become clear that Chittaur cannot be
yana.php, the "Official Web Site of Sri Lanka om/blog/2008/04/05/ramayana sites in Sri

Page 183
168 Arbiters of a N
defended, thus frustrating Muslim e great bone of contention in the epic ( also a fabulously lovely flesh-and-bloo beauty is repeatedly described by S feeling, elaborate poetic invention, anc many points in the epic, with the liste a male) or flying into a rage (if a femal role in Jayasi's epic is simply to be the altogether as to be perfection itself, r being the embodiment of true discrim between illusion and reality. In sufi explains:
Chittaur is the Body, and its Raja Ih Sinhala the heart and Padmini (Padi
.... (the Muslim Sultan Alauddin]] I h Let those understand it as such who
Rather than being like Helen just the (or Padmini as she is more popula others) is thus central to the vision o protagonist.
And she not only happens to c elaborately particularized. After the i the epic in fact opens with a detailed Dvipa in the second canto. Right a landmass/continent is acclaimed as th Indian conception of the world was t the five continents today in Western t
Everyone speaks of the Seven Dvip But no other divipa can compare wit The Diya dvipa is not so bright.
The Saran dvipa stands nowhere in The Jambu dvipa is not at all like th And the Lanka dvipa is not even its The Kusha-sthala dvipa is full of fo And in the desert of the Mahu-sth At the beginning of creation, we ha But none of them is excellent as the
We have here an elaborate mytholog identify these dvipas definitely with Jambu Dvipa is the traditional puran text, Vasudevasharan Agrawal, has “Swarna dvipa” now called Sumatra to the the Serendib which is Sri Lanl

'ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
xpansionist concupiscence. She is the ather like Helen in Homer) but she is d character, whose surpassing physical averal different narrators with much | all the possible rhetorical flourishes at ner at each narration either fainting (if 2). In fact, it could be said that her main paragon of all beauty, who is So lovely ot only physically but also morally as ination between the false and the true, allegorical terms, as the poet himself
ave made the the Mind, mavati) True Discrimination
ave depicted as maya illusion
Cal....
initial cause of a great war, Padmavati rly called in this work and in many f the poem and indeed its eponymous
ome from Sinhala Dvip; that locale is nvocatory and introductory first canto, description of the magnificent Sinhala t the beginning, this divipa or island/ le best among the seven dvipas that the hen divided into, rather as we speak of erms. As Jayasi puts it,
S h this one.
comparison. 1S Orne.
shadow.
rests ala dvipa men can only get lost. d seven dvipas in the world. Sinhaladvipa.
(Jayasi 28)
cal crux, in the form of our inability to iny land-formations today, as While the ic name for India, a Hindi editor of this suggested that the "saran dvipa" is the (in Jayasi 29) -- but what happens then a? Agrawal is forthright enough in his
{pxr浔

Page 184
The Golden Island of Demons and Love
inference: 'Clearly, Jayasi's Lanka Dvi 29), while the British civil servant A. ( century in the part of India where Jay is even more categorical and even ad be aware that Sarang-Dipa (Saran-dipa (Shireff 22)
But if we stay with what the poe translator knows better, we get to a fu another distinct dvipa that Jayasi now called 'Lanka, which seems to indica knew though we may not be able to distinction he is here making, Jayasi king of the Sinhaladvipa, Gandharva in his possessions than what is repute (Jayasi 29) The other dvipas named h perhaps in terms of their secondary their amenability to fit into modern g The descriptions of the Sinhal quite fabulous and fantastic; for exa 56,00,00,000 soldiers (Jayasi 29) which populations of Sri Lanka today. Late Chittaur is returning from Sinhala Dv Padmini and laden with fabulous w offend the Sea who asks him to donat a Muslim practice sanctioned by the F ship is blown away and finally washe and India, in a place called Lanka () or demon who had survived the Ram that with Padmini arriving in Lanka, with Ravana and it was the same old This is one of the numerous inte and Sita in Jayasi's epic which he depl the most original and unlikely of the may seem as inapt as possible -- the f here) of love-making between King Ra their wedding in Sinhala Dvip.
I now narrate that battle which was He seized her by the waist and the (
This may seem to be an almost profa was of course a Muslim. Besides, his d making is witty and full of word-play to ‘waisto the word for which in Hinc meaning of the word lank(a) is waist

ly Women: .. 169
p was different from Sinhala' (in Jayasi G. Shireff, who served in the twentieth asi lived and who translated the poem, lmonitory: "The poet does not seem to
or Serendib) is actually Ceylon itself."
't knows rather than what the Western urther twist in this geo-cosmology. For names as inferior to Sinhala is actually te that he was quite clear as to what he follow him. And, as if to underline the speaks only a few verses later of the Sen, as being "even more magnificent 2d of Ravana when he ruled in Lanka' ere also form a more coherent picture allegorical significance rather than in eographical knowledge. a dvipa in this epic are in any case mple, Gandharva Sen has an army of is about three times as large as the total r in the epic, when King Ratan Sen of ripa to his home in India after marrying 'ealth received as gifts, he happens to e one-fortieth of his riches (as in zaqaat, (oran) and when Ratan Sen refuses, his s up somewhere far from both Sinhala sayasi 478-81) A five-headed ‘rakshasa“ a-Ravana battle now laughs and thinks it might seem as if Sita herself was back Lanka again. (Jayasi 483) rtextual references to the story of Rama oys to a great variety of effects. Perhaps se references occurs in a context which irst bout (for that seems to be the word tan Sen and Princess Padmini following
as between Rama and Ravana........ Golden Fort was breached.
(Jayasi 382)
ne conceit fora Hindu poet, but Jayasi escription of this whole episode of lovey, as for example in the reference above di here is "lank(a)'! Indeed, the primary not only in Hindi but also in some other

Page 185
170 Arbiters of a N
languages such as Bengali: 'the waist, loins“ (Das Gupta 773); compare also S| on the reference to Lanka as one of t dvipa is the land of waists." (Shireff 2 probably the first major literary wou Indian language into another when i c. 1645, attesting not so much perhap connection depicted in it which was, a as to the allegorical Sufi meaning und Jayasi may have instituted a mu Lanka' and 'Sinhala' (for the word 'S but the island) but a subsequent narrat for mythology, had little doubt that the was the rational liberal British write son of missionary parents who had ser as a young man to serve in his own rig riend, translator and biographer-critic eight novels, four plays, many poems lndia. He also wrote, inter alia, a play source was not Jayasi and his Padama into English but Lt-Col James Tod and and retelling of the tales of Rajasthal Rajast "han in two volumes (1829, 18323 story either preceding Tod or subsequ examined by Ramya Sreenivasan in Queen: Heroic Past in India, C. 1500-190 It may or may not be relevant Thompson was the father of the semir any case, he gave to the semi-mythical locational cultural significance as no In one of the Three Eastern Plays: with published with his wife Theodosia na revisited the tale to interrogate the pr ends her life. Incidentally, while the dead husband on the same pyre is c the practice of a woman burning her husband to go and fight to death in a any fear of subsequent dishonourin often adopted by the Rajput royal fam Muslims in medieval times includir which, besides referring to this pra excellence, virtue, and when used w mettle, or what one is worth. (McGr seldom respected in English-languag In Thompson's play, just befo. Padmini challenges this Rajput code

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ower back" (McGregor 876), and "waist, hireff's almost cryptic explanatory note he seven dvipas cited above: 'Lanka2) Incidentally, Jayasi's Padamavat was k to be translated from one modern t was rendered into Bengali by Alaol is to wide interest in the India-Lanka is has been seen, mainly mythological, arlying the narrative. utually exclusive distinction between inhala' in Hindi means not the people Dr of the Padministory, who had no use two were one and the same place. This Edward John Thompson (1886-1946), ved in India. Helater returned to India ht as an educational missionary, was a of Rabindranath Tagore and published and several works of non-fiction about about Padmini or Padmavati, and his at which had not then been translated | his supremely influential compilation ni valour, the Annals and Antiquities of ). (Numerous retellings of the Padmini lently based on Tod have recently been her study, The Many Lives of a Rajput 10 92007).
to mention here that Edward John al Marxist historian E. P. Thompson. In Padmini a local habitation and specific teller of that tale had ever done before. a terminal essay on Suttee (1927) which he med as a co-author, Thompson radically actice of suttee through which Padmini practice of a widow burning with her alled Suttee, more correctly spelt Sati, self to death first and thus freeing her lesperate and all-but-lost battle without g of his wife by the enemy, a practice hilies in their repeated wars against the g by Padmini herself, is called jauhar, ctice, means 'essential quality, worth; ith an auxiliary verb, 'to show (one's) egor 384) This significant distinction is e discourse. re she dies through self-immolation, of valour and female honour which led

Page 186
The Golden Island of Demons and Love
to Suttee and which seemed divinely
blasphemous protest againstit, the fie Kali herself appears before her to jus in a spirited and sustained argument one dialogue which runs to seven p, that this code of Kali is not universal, and more peaceful (Buddhist) land of and were not thought to be heroic immolation was unknown. She has e goddess and the customs of her new r point nevertheless. Incidentally, notw of suttee offered here by Thompson, G much revised version of her discussi denounces him as an ignorant propag endorsement of the practice of Sutte because Spivak appears to have read
historical and philosophical enquiry into th that too somewhat catechrestically, bu (or indeed two other plays by him whi through depicting the stories of two despite her reinvention as a spirited r Thompson, the lovely Padmini of exot and most celebrated of all the Suttees
III. Tamils and Sinhalese -and Crick
Though the mythological Sinhala isl been a gentler and more peaceable plac has known more ofinternecine war ar of the world. The conflict between ag Sinhala community who constitute 74 the minority Tamil community who with a similar division of the populati 15% who follow Hinduism, has amo some quieter interludes of cease-fire w Solution, the continuing conflict still has recently been characterized by a two nations in one, in a formulation of The Sri Lankan situation is unique in one nation, and the government has does not control all the territory.' (Kal
From India, the war looks both closest from the Southern Indian state historical fact that from about the tent Sri Lanka was subjected to what an off 'Chola intrusions, "invasions and cor the country, and indeed 'a wave of Sc

ly Women:... 171
ordained. When she articulates a nearrce goddess of war and blood sacrifices tify Suttee, and Padmini takes her on,
with her in a confrontational one-onages. She argues, among other things, for where she was born, in the gentler Sinhala, constant war and blood-shed and glorious practices and such selfventually to succumb to the will of the natrimonial land, but she has made her ithstanding such radical interrogation ayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in the latest ons of Suttee, still singles him out and ator of the orientalist-imperialist British e. (Spivak 230-1, 303) But this may be only Thompson's monograph Suttee: an le Hindu rite ofuvidov-burning (1928), and ut not at all his play centred on Padmini ch too subject Suttee to a radical critique other comparable heroines). Anyhow, ebel by the little-known and little-read ic Sinhala Dvip remains the best known of India.
Ket
and of Thompson's Padmini may have e, the actual Sri Lanka of recent decades hd bloodshed than most other countries overnment dominated by the majority % of the population of the country, and onstitute about 18% of the population, on into 69% who follow Buddhism and unted virtually to a civil war. Despite shen attempts were made to negotiate a hreatens to tear apart a country which literary critic as virtually constituting remarkable delicacy and Sophistication: that two national imaginaries make up sovereignty over the entire island but naganayakam 189).
close and distant. It perhaps looks the of Tamil Nadu, especially in view of the h century AD to the fourteenth century, icial history of the country calls initially quest and rule of the northern parts of uth Indian invasions' that necessitated

Page 187
172 Arbiters of a N
a tactical change of capital in Sri Lan Anuradhapura to Dambadeniya to Ya presence in northern Sri Lanka, of the is much older than even these invasic Tamils, brought in through the Briti nineteenth century, is far more recent.
While the 'Sri Lankan Tamils in the native population of Sri Lanka as than half of the total number of India to India under an Indo-Ceylon agree ancestors may have once come from known or visited. There is a little kr of these repatriated Tamils, who had around Nuwara Eliya, by Gopal Gan the office of the Assistant High Comm and 1982 and was thus a close witness called his book 'a documentation of th published in 1987 under the ironic Buc Buddham/Dhammam/Sangham Sara Refuge (1989). Towards the end of the Manners, says:
Nowhere in the world, to my k grandparents, parents, youth, childi get out. These people have lived here three generations; they know no oth history, a fold-back of a whole sequ in space-time evolution."
But, to complement and compli ethnic emotional investment on the p there is an even older historical fact Sinhalese. The foundational narrati moment of its inception to the arrival Sinha with a contingent of seven hunc it is not always explicitly acknowledg men came from. For they too came fri Nadu as the Tamils did but from Kal period in India from where the origin. Sanghamitra too were to come to Sri 13th century, also King Ratan Sen of
Thus, if both the Sinhalese and t which is thus doubly the Mother Co India as did the older religion of the may be forgiven for failing to unde Lanka. In contemporary times, not (
2 "Sri Lanka History," http://www.priu.g

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
ka successively from Polonnaruwa to pahuwa to Kotte. But the Tamil ethnic community called "Sri Lankan Tamils, ins, just as the immigration of Indian h colonial system of indenture in the
ust be seen as being as much part of the Sinhalese, about 5,25,000, i.e. more in Tamils, were in fact repatriated back ment of 1964, to a country which their but which they themselves had never own but moving novel on the plight mostly worked on plantations in and dhi who served as a First Secretary in ission of India in Kandy between 1978 and supervisory agent the process; he is experience. (Gandhi viii). It was first ldhist title Saranam (as in the holy chant nam Gachhami) and later reissued as novel, a visiting Englishman, Ronald
nowledge, have a whole people -
en - been told that they must up anc
nor for some few years but for two or
ar place...This amounts to a reversal of
ence in human progress, a turnabout
(Gandhi 174-175)
cate any presumed special interest or art of India in the Tamils of Sri Lanka, relating to the other community, the ye of the Sri Lankan nation traces the in the island in the 6th century of Vijaya red men (see 'Sri Lanka History') - but 2d as to where this Vijaya Sinha and his om India, not from neighbouring Tamil inga, the major maritime centre of that al Buddhist proselytizers Mahendra and Lanka in the 3rd century BC, and in the Chittaur to wed the Princess Padmini. he Tamils came to Sri Lanka from India, untry, and if Buddhism too came from amils, Hinduism, at least some Indians 'stand what all the fuss is about in Sri inly did India take back most of the so
v.lk/Tou rCountry/history.htm

Page 188
The Golden Island of Demons and Lovel
called Indian Tamils' to oblige a Sinha the peak of the LTTE hostilities, it actu and eventually counter-productive II help the Sri Lankan government put di That was the provocation for the Indi this arrangement, Rajiv Gandhi, bein suicide bomber in May 1991. Earlier, Lankan naval rating during a guard Colombo on 30 July 1987, the very day with the Sri Lankan President J. R. Jay to Rajiv Gandhi that, in the Sri Lanka do to help resolve the conflict would S
There was published, at the peak short stories in English, titled Yukthi a writer Punyakante Wijenaike. I happe Indian journal, from which I gathered a word which translates into Sinhala who had taken a mighty swipe at the his ceremonial rifle. The highly wrot as he later awaited court martial in a by the author with much partisan sy the reviewer feared that the circulati its racist bias, majorityism and emo dangerous.
Now it so happened that not to my first opportunity to visit Sri La This was at the Triennial Internatio, Commonwealth Literature and Langu in August 1995 in Colombo. Ms Wije mild-mannered middle-aged lady wl she spoke into a microphone, she coul Pleasantly surprised and even embo her after her reading and told her wh turn now to be surprised and in fact c read Yukthi and I said no, as book impossible to find in India. The follo at that crowded conference and gave couldn't help but notice, showed a rifl may well have been not her idea but th inserted in the book a (clearly hastil which read:
This story depicts the mind of a yo influenced by the media and politic facts of the situation. He is motivate and is convinced the foreign visitol today, that India and we, have a comi

y Women: . 173
ala-dominated government but later, at ually sent its army, the much-maligned ndian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF), to Own the Tamil rebels from 1987 to 1989. an prime minister who had agreed to gassassinated by a Sri Lankan Tamil he had already been attacked by a Sri of honour parade on a visit by him to after he had signed a peace agreement awardene. It may then have appeared n perception, nothing that India could eem enough or right.
of those turbulent times, a collection of nd other stories (1991), by the Sri Lankan aned to see a review of this book in an that the hero of the title story Yukthi, as "justice, was in fact the naval rating head of Rajiv Gandhi with the butt of ught state of mind of this young man, prison cell, was apparently described mpathy and emotion, so much so that on of a literary work such as this with tive populism could prove politically
o long after reading this review, I had nka and actually to meet this author. nal Conference of the Association for lage Studies (ACLALS) which was held naike turned out to be a silver-haired, ho was so soft-spoken that even when dn't be heard beyond the first few rows. ldened by what I found, I went up to at I had read in that review. It was her uite taken aback. She asked me if I had s published in Sri Lanka were almost wing day, Ms Wijenaike sought me out me a signed copy of her book (which, I e prominently on its cover, though that he publisher's). What was more, she had y) typed note on a half-sheet of paper
ung naval rating in the midst of war, :al propaganda, not knowing the true ed purely by what he sees and hears is an enemy. He must have realised, mon enemy. This he must have realised

Page 189
74 Arbiters of a N
after Rajiv Gandhi was assasinated si (sc. when) the vision of many was ab Please explain to whoever told you I not out of print - to find out what we It is a mere reflection of a period in h
On return to Delhi, I sought out the rev colleague (though one of over 600 col University of Delhi), and told him wh to hear of my meeting, but remained Ms Wijenaike had said, and saw no book. Later I myself read the book, an and a gut fear of the 'enemy' i.e. India, Vijayamunige Rohan de Silva but nov was indeed strongly evoked, through a helicopter by Yukthi appearing as and naked below, or India looking 'b Sri Lanka looked 'green and fertile' Gandhi being described not as a hun at the moment of the assault on hi. ... Automatically he raised his rifle, se (Wijenaike 21, 26, 31) The preface to the close to what Wijenaike had written in t cover a brief, dark period in our recen it went on to add: YUKTHI and other of the events during that unhappy til came across as a mediated version by claimed, as 'a mere reflection of a peric
Some other works of Sri Lankan f different perspectives on and interpr early such narrative must be Acts of F treats of the race riots of 1983, the ever triggered the current ongoing conflict. (1989), is a satirical work lit up here a hope. For example, he begins by desc Sri Lanka a long time back, when the pushed the indigenous Dravidian including some right into Sri Lanka -- Aryans had got there before them, wi Aryans' preferred to call themselves liberal stress on the commonalities bet symbol of the blue lotus typifies all th east,...it brings together two nations th religions that should never have been did from the self-same soil. (Wijesinh optimistic and even utopian note, wi

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
). The period covers 1987-1989 where icured [sic] from [sic] reality. am against India to read this book, all undervent [sic] during that time. | story. (signed) Punyakante Wijernaike
"iewer, who happened to be a younger leagues who all teach English at the at had happened. He was interested unimpressed and unmoved by what eason to change his mind about the d found that the emotional patriotism felt by the naval rating (in life named v fictionally renamed simply Yukthi) images such as Sri Lanka seen from his mother land (sic) lying stretched rown' and barren' from the air while enough for India to 'covet' it, or Rajiv nan being but as an abstraction even m: 'Closer came the foreign power. lized it with both hands and struck." ' book, dated July 1991, said something that note to me in 1995: The stories here thistory - 1987-1989, but significantly stories are my interpretation of some me" (Wijenaike, n.p.), so that the book a particular writer and not, as she later od in history.' iction in English offer, of course, rather etations of the conflict. A remarkably aith (1985) by Rajiva Wijesinha which it which is commonly believed to have Another novel by him, Days of Despair nd there by not only humour but also ribing how the first Tamils arrived in Aryan invaders of India from the north population further and further south for these escapees 'only to find that the th the difference that these 'Ceylonese 'Sinhalese" (Wijesinha 5). There is a ween the two nations: for example, the at is best in the ancient cultures of the at have the same interests at heart, two considered separate, springing as they a 4) And the novel ends on a distinctly h all the countries of the South Asian

Page 190
The Golden Island of Demons and Love
region uniting into a peaceful confe treaty signed in Delhi. The terms of extremely generous to all the minors participants except Hind." (Wijesinh about India even if under thin disgui Another novel, Love Marriage (2. an old Tamil Tiger who has been allov for treatment of his cancer, and who relatives, in marked contrast to his country as soon as the troubles had past events, the tone is not only wis spent: They, we, are very intelligent. one. We even drove the Indian forces We did all this with nothing. We had Sri Lanka, the armies of India... (Gar These four novels thus happe wrenching discord that has domin century, and they display a wide val looming shadow. And if the Sri Lan large in India, it is possibly because w own. After eight hundred years of sh space, the Hindus and Muslims of the and Pakistan in 1947 on the basis of further divided with Bangla Desh br all of religion but this time of languag in Sri Lanka, especially after the 'Sir 1956.
This must lead to a question of c not only to India and Sri Lanka but tot some other parts of the world as well. and linguistic communities co-exist and assimilating, and beginning to co an inseparable melting-pot or mosai thousand years as in India, or over seem to be nearly enough. How true or diaspora holds out of a home else diasporic multiculturalism in currer a mirage, and is it truer to say, as Vi indentured labourers in Fiji who we Lanka) has said: "All diasporas are un its own way'? (Mishra 1).
In the case of India and Sri Lank to the West or to far-flung countries know whether they are East or We multiple bond of commonality based indeed of shared history and culture

ly Women: ... 75
deration under a more than equitable he treaty were generally thought to be gnatories, which in effect meant all the a 190), which seems a nice thing to say SEO. }08) by VV. Ganeshananthan, portrays ved by his comrades to travel to Toronto se life is then recalled by him and his brother's who had moved out of the started. As the Tiger Kumaran recalls ful but as if of a man with all passion ...We bombed the airport and killed no out of Sri Lanka. We were very clever. nothing compared to (sic) the armies of eshananthan 49). n to form a quartet of voices on the ated Sri Lanka over the last quarteriety of attitudes towards lindia and its kan crisis does not loom even half as 'e have a long history of discords of our aring the same territory if not cultural a sub-continent were divided into India religion, and the Muslim Pakistan was eaking away in 1971 on the basis not at e - both vital issues in the current crisis hala only' policy was promulgated in
ommon concern and some importance he whole of South Asia- and perhaps to For how many years must two religious before they can succeed in integrating institute (in the metaphors of our times) or tossed salad or whatever? About a two thousand as in Sri Lanka, do not or false then is the promise that exile where? Is the celebration of exile and t postcolonial discourse no more than jay Mishra (himself the descendant of re much like the Indian Tamils of Sri happy, but each diaspora is unhappy in
a, unlike in the case of Indian migrants such as Fiji or Trinidad which may not st, there abides, however, an old and not only on geographical proximity but To adduce briefly the culture shock or

Page 191
176 Arbiters of a
at least frisson with which I first ex depths of this connection, let me rec the inaugural session of our ACLA government minister told us (perhaps Lanka was the oldest civilization in and Mohenjodaro - places which lie ( of India and beyond, deep into what is Yasmine Gooneratne made a referenc two academics from India promptly fashion, that she was mixing up the those of another one and had got the
At another conference I attend Sabaragamuwa University in the ye speech told us visiting Indians that we world in terms of natural beauty, whi that as Sri Lanka looked no greenero only a few kilometres away, I had per coming to Sri Lanka. She also spoke ( a Sri Lankan literary invention, possil Meghadutam (4th Century AD). In alm smaller and cosier conference I seem or precedent in India. To cap this in students on our bus-ride back to Rat "Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai, even thoug others discussed the relative merits C passionately comparative perspective In fact, from the earliest of times seem to have been bound and intertw popular culture. Some of the more rei came when Sri Lanka won the cricke the sub-continent in 1996, a feat whic over 10,000 Indian fans who participa closed before the tournament had re winner. What some of the prize-winn and playful recall of our religious an
The cricket world trembles in silenc They have with them the Sun (Suriy (Guru), Justice (Dharmasena) and t Having Arjuna, Surya, Dharma, Ra win the cricket Kurukshetra (sic).
It is true that for many Indians, the l Sri Lankans bear even now are redd past, say of the times of the Jataka te seem frozen in a kind of time-warp migrants in the nineteenth century
in Naipaul's early novels, have an ol

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
perienced personally the unsuspected all my first morning in Sri Lanka. At LS conference in Colombo in 1995, a as ministers anywhere would) that Sri the world as it dated back to Harappa of course right across the whole length now Pakistan! In a subsequent session, e to the goddess Saraswati, whereupon got up to tell her, in a rather proprietal attributes of this Hindu goddess with whole thing wrong.
ed of the Sri Lankan ACLALS at the lar 2000, a local dean in her welcome had come to the seventh heaven in this ch provoked in me the wicked thought rprettier than say many parts of Kerala haps seen the sixth heaven even before of the genre of the messenger poems as bly because she had not read Kalidasa's ost every academic presentation at that led to recognize its comparable double terms of popular culture, some of the napura sang the latest Bollywood song, h they did not follow a word of it, while of Sri Lankan and Indian cricketers in a
to the present day, India and Sri Lanka
ined together in terms of both high and markable and amusing examples of this t World Cup held at different venues in ch had been anticipated by some of the ited in a newspaper competition (which ached the half-way stage) to predict the ers said represented a lay person's deep d mythological bonds.
e at the roar of the 'simhas." ya), Jewel (Ratna), Silver (Silva), Master ne ever-winning Arjuna. tna on their side, modern Ravana will
ong sonorous Sanskritic names that the blent of a hallowed and more virtuous les or the Panchatantra, while they also - just as the names of indigent Indian to places like Trinidad, such as evoked 2posite kind of non-classical, subaltern

Page 192
The Golden Island of Demons and Lovel
ring). But even with “Dharma' nomina
still not exempt from the original my
competition put it,
The land of Ravana cannot be 'monk Kalyug days are here again. Lankesh
Like Ravana took away Sita, Ranatuu Sri Lanka would defeat India in the
This seems to bring us right to the con millennia-old palimpsest that compris and the cultural bonds between the tv and deep as between any two countr Sinha to the early Tamils to Mahendra the Kandy Tamils to the IPKF to the In Lanka (in July-August 2008), the traffic and fast, and if the flow in the other c may be because that half of the story n But it may partly also be because of ab; the two sides. After all, Sri Lanka is of both area and population, though greater modernization (arising mainly colonization) and its higher per capita Even in modern times, perhaps t exercised a huge if largely unwitting in Lanka was granted independence by freedom struggle in India, says the ed Sri Lankan literature, published by Pe has recently come to be published, w Lankan literature has suffered a cruel blind eye to it' thinking it to be "of no regarded it as "mere extension of the But matters have improved considera not only for the wrong and unfortun in Sri Lanka has made it international also in literary terms with the rise of and in sporting terms because of its write this, the Sri Lankan cricket team match played in Colombo, and an Ind explaining why Lanka loves beating that kinship just about sums it up!

y Women:... 177
lly on their side, the Sri Lankans were th. As some other participants in the
eyed' with (again).
is there to capture Sita. nga will grab the World Cup inal and avenge Ravana's defeat.
("Lanka Comes Alive")
temporary topsoil of the multi-layered es the Indian perceptions of Sri Lanka vo countries, which are perhaps as old tes of the world. From Rama to Vijaya and Sanghamitra to Raja Ratan Sen to dian cricket team currently touring Sri from India to Sri Lanka has been thick direction does not seem as constant, it eeds another better informed narrator. asic and God-given imbalance between one-fiftieth the size of India in terms it makes up for it partly through its from longer and more thoroughgoing income. he sheer mass and weight of India has fluence on the destiny of Sri Lanka. "Sri Britain mainly as a consequence of the itor of a widely circulated anthology of nguin India as much other Sri Lankan hile he adds at the same time that Sri fate' as outsiders have either 'turned a consequence' or (perhaps worse still?) literature of India" (Goonetilleke ix). bly since 1991 when that was written, ate reason that the unending conflict ly more visible as a distinct entity, but half-a-dozen mainly diasporic writers, world-beating exploits in cricket. As I has crushed the Indian team in a Test ian newspaper has published a report big brother" India. (Dwivedi 19). And

Page 193
178 Arbiters of a N
Works Cited
This article, long on the back-burner but novo fin Halpe, incorporates parts or versions of two pape conference held in Colombo in August 1995, and at the University of Sabaragamuwa from 30 Nove of Ashley Halpé. İtalso cannibalizes some formu of mine listed below, Where two dates are given in the list below, the fi and the second that of the edition used. All trans, Das, Sisir Kumar (1991). A History of Indian Response. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi Das Gupta, Bidhu Bhushan (1977). Tribhasha Calcutta: Samanvaya Bharati/Das Gupi Dwivedi, Sandeep (2008). “Why Lanka lov
Express, 29 July. Ganeshananthan, V.V. (2008). Love Marriage: Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A., ed. (1992). The Per
Penguin Books India. http://www.srilankatourism.org/ramayana.p http://www.tourslanka.com/blog/2008/04/05,
July 2008 'Sri Lanka History' at the Government of Li TourCountry/history.htm, accessed on Jayasi, Malik Mohammad (1540; 2042 Vikrar with a commentary by Vasudevashara
Kanganayakam, Chelva (2007). 'Nation and
in The Nation across the World: Postcolon et al. New Delhi: Oxford University Pt Lanka Comes Alive' (1996). The Indian Expre McGregor, R.S. (1993). The Oxford Hindi-Eng
University Press. Mishra, Vijay (2007). The Literature of the Indi
imaginary. London: Routledge 2007. Saraogi, Alka (1998). Kali-katha: via Bypassi Shirreff, A.G. (1944). Padamavati. Translati Jayasi). Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1999). A Critiq Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Ha "T. S. Kr.” [i.e., T.S. Krishnamurthy) (1991; 1
Indian Literaure, ed. Mohan Lal. New Thompson, Edward and Theodosia (1927).
Stittee, London: Allen and Unwin. Trivedi, Harish (1995). Historical double-bin bully for the Sri Lankan." The Indian El Trivedi, Harish (2001). 'South Asia as a Lite
March.

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
illy come to a boil to honour a dear friend, Ashely spresented respectively at the Triennial ACLALS at the conference of the Sri Lankan ACLALS, held milier to 3 December 2000 inder the chairmanship lations from the two considerably shorter articles
'st one is that of original composition/publication lations from Sanskrit and Hindi are mine.
Literature 1800-1910: Western Impact, Indian
-Abhidhan or Hindi-Bengali-English Dictionary a Prakashan.
es beating "big brother.' India." The Indian
A Novel. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. guin New Writing in Sri Lanka. New Delhi:
hp, accessed on 27 July 2008. framayana sites in Srilanka, accessed on 27
anka official website http://www.priu.gov.lk/ 1 August 2008.
m era, i.e., 1985). Pada navat {in Hindi|. Edited n Agrawal. Chiragaon, Jhansi: Sahitya Sadan.
Nationhood in Modern Sri Lankan Literature," ial Literary Representations eds. Harish Trivedi ress, pp. 187-201.
'ss Sunday Magazine, 24 March. lish Dictionary. New Delhi: Oxford
an Diaspora: Theorizing the diasporic
in Hindi). Panchkula: Aadhar Prakashan.
on from Hindi into English of Padanavat by of Bengal.
te of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the rvard University Press.
999) 'Ramayana (Sanskrit) in Encyclopedia of Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 5 vols.
Three Eastern Plays: with a Terminal Essay on
d: India remains the perpetual neighbourhood (press Sunday Review, 10 September.
rary Category, The Book Review, XXV: 3.

Page 194
The Golden Island of Demons and Love
Tulsi Das (1579; 2054 Vikram era i.e., 1997).
Hindi). Gorakhpur: Gita Press.
Valmiki (7th c. BC; 2044 Vikram era i.e. 1983
vols. Gorakhpur: Gita Press.
Wijenaike, Punyakante (1991). Yaukthi and Ot,
Wijesinha, Rajiva (1989). Days of Despair. C.
Lanka.

ly Women:... 179
Shriramacharitamanas (i.e., the Ramayana; in
7). Shrimadvalmikiya Ramayana [in Sanskrit]. 2
her Stroies. Kelaniya: New Kelani Printers. olombo?: English Writers Cooperative of Sri

Page 195
Gendering the Quest in Cha
APARNA
Turtle Nest by Chandani Lokuge depic returns to Sri Lanka in search of her bir diasporic woman who, due to the em with her adoptive family in Australi her roots. Her search is constructed a tortured history of a small fishing fami questions of failed nationhood in cont constructed as a tragedy in which the to her fall. Among novels of the Sri L Anil's Ghost and Romesh Gunesekera's
narratives with a diasporic protagoni whether inadvertently or not, the protag mistranslations of their encounters wi circumstances that confound at the m (TN) brings a further level of comple gender plays a key role in the misalign tragic endings. Lokuge uses the notion ( as the emotional wounds/core of the r that shapes the moral force of Aruni's
its heroes, more so because the heroes
that Lokuge constructs, Mala's and AI because, despite the distinction betwee their bodies are sites on which subjecti
1 Lokuge, Chandani. Turtle Nest. New Del 2 Ondaatje, Michael. Anil's Ghost. Toronto 3 Gunesekera, Romesh. Heaven's Edge. Lor

ndani Lokuge's Turtle Nest
HALPÉ
its the story of a young woman who th mother. Lokuge's Aruni is a young otional dislocation she experiences a, returns to Sri Lanka in search of s a quest which, while outlining the ly, is also inextricably linked to larger 2mporary Sri Lanka. Her narrative is collapse of a world order is linked ankan diaspora, Michael Ondaatje's Heaven's Edge construct similar quest st at their center. In these examples, gonists become locked in Sociocultural th "Sri Lanka," which leads to tragic ost deeply personal level. Turtle Nest xity to the issue by suggesting that ments of power that causes the novel's of a transgression against the feminine ovel. It is the disappearance of Mala quests. In Turtle Nest, the nation fails are women. In the doubled story-line uni's lives are fated to end tragically in the local and the diasporic woman, vity is inscribed in violent patriarchal
hi: Penguin India, 2003. : Random House, 2000. ndon: Bloomsbury, 2002.

Page 196
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Lok
terms. Lokuge's reading of the femini that depicts the indigenous, local male in rather ambivalent or decidedly ant of the masculine is also inextricably and depictions of the sociopolitical st patriarchal.
Turtle Nest differs significantly Lokuge constructs Aruni as an alle identity and selfhood is intimately lir and people of a small fishing village for Anil, who is resolutely an outside woman becomes a means by which to particular notions of the local. Lokug kinship with the fisherfolk in stark cc pettiness of her circumstances by Seel other. Functioning like a palimpse through the cracks in Aruni's quest is oracular. By narrating Aruni's and uses tragedy as a mode by which to that shapes her vision of Sri Lanka. T of the diasporic heroine as tragic thus within a dialectic of despair and los is fated to failure, and the voice of t on which anxieties of national hege histories of Lokuge's characters are such as wars and bomb blasts and th Sri Lanka, which gave rise to indust commodification of the local. Lokug bleak. Each character in her novel (wi is trapped within a predatory cycle which directly shapes their construct the quest for selfhood as unremitting to bring about a sense of exculpation a horrific trade in notions of self and c politics in Sri Lanka.
Lokuge uses the struggle betw level as a trope that explores the dia impossible to separate the story of M the past fifty years of social and ecc war in post-independence Sri Lanka not epic heroines, Lokuge's construct
4 Gunesekara uses a similar character in 1994) and Heaven's Edge as a foil to the
5 Lokuge used the trope of the failed ma
(Victoria: Penguin Australia, 2000).

ge's Turtle Nest 181
he invokes a discourse on the masculine as a foil to the central protagonist, often gonistic terms." Such a characterization linked to constructions of nationhood ructure of the region as fundamentally
from a novel like Anil's Ghost because gorical figure whose failed quest for ked to notions of belonging to the land in Sri Lanka - concerns that never arise r. In Turtle Nest, narrating the diasporic demonstrate the difficulty of reclaiming e sets the naivete of Aruni's search for ntrast to Mala“s desire to transcend the king sexual liaisons with the privileged st, Mala ́s story continuously appears and invokes a sense of fatefulness that Mala's stories within the tragic, Lokuge scrutinize the collapse of a moral order he implications of narrating the figure involve a vision of the nation as locked st agency. In such a vision, the nation he local male subject becomes the site monies can be inscribed. The private inextricably shaped by public events e economic shifts in post-independence ries such as tourism that traffic in the e's vision of the local is unrelentingly h the exception of the Australian, Paul) of being either a victim or a victimizer ions of selfhood. Thus, by constructing ly tragic, Lokuge questions our ability nd catharsis through recognition of the ther that shape contemporary identity
'een man and woman at the familial ectics of power within the nation. It is Lala's family from its context, which is nomic collapse due to corruption and . While Lokuge's Mala and Aruni are on of the feminine as both liminal and
poth Reef (New York: New Press, dist. Norton, central protagonist.
culine to similar purpose in if the Moon Smiled

Page 197
182 Arbiters of a
tragic has resonances with the 20th Ediriweera Sarachchandra.“ Aruni’s domestic tragedies in which the emerg the rise and fall of the protagonists. In Sarachchandra outlined his approac exploration of the theater of the famil The best of world drama has expl are true for all time, irrespective of So forth. Whatever social order we may with their personal lives. These are u they are eternal. Ceylon is launched all our economic problems are solvec be faced with the same kind of unive plays are based on legends and dea between father and son, husband and variation and interpretation, you nev Sarachchandra's position rests problem" as the stuff of drama and su vehicle for recognizable patterns of r "human" because they are perceived the theater of gender as a prototype fo relationship in his works.
Lokuge uses tragedy to similar family becomes the foundation from of patriarchal value systems at a natio) which she bridges the distance betw the larger his-story of nation. Aruni's on the collapse of an entire sociocu to the village to walauwwa to the th construction of Aruni and her moth that saw its precursors in Sarachchan of the feminine ultimately serves a Jayasena and Sarachchandra, Lokug: in the collective misrecognition of its constructions that are "always alread of power that shape their lives.
lokuge is reworking a recurrer which we may trace thematic proto modernist theater with Maname C
6 Henry Jayasena's Kuveni (1963) likewis as a protoype in which the imbalance c the failure of governance within then
7 Gunawardana, A.J. 'The Uses of "Trad The Drania Review 15.2 (New York: Ne
8 Sarachchandra, first performed in 195

Vational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
century Sinhala dramatic tradition of and Mala's stories are constructed as ging concerns of class and gender shape an interview with A.J. Gunawardana, h to tragedy as having to do with the y which he conceives of as universal: ored universal human situations which cial context, political conditions and so have, people will still have to grapple niversal problems - not only universal, on the course of socialism. Yet even if l in the years to come, people will still rsal human problem. Practically all my with the basic relationships as those wife. The material is capable of infinite er exhaust it.”
on the recognition of a "universal uggests an understanding of plot as the narrative, patterns which are primarily to be "universal". Sarachchandra used r his exploration of the notion of human
purpose, as the microcosm of the failed which to relate the history of the failure nal level. Her genius lies in the ease with een the personal family romance, and story is simultaneously a commentary ultural system - from the family unit ree-star hotel. I would locate Lokuge's ær Mala within the allegorical tradition dra and Jayasena. Lokuge's construction s a commentary on nationhood. Like 2 suggests that the failure of nation lies subjects who are locked within identity y' inadequate in the terrifying matrices
nt Sri Lankan myth of the feminine for types in the mid-20th century Sinhala or Kuveni. However, her concerns are
e used the founding myth of Vijaya and Kuveni of power in gender relations was an allegory for ation's political arena. ition: An Interview with E.R. Sarachchandra." w York School of the Arts, 1971), 197.
6.

Page 198
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Loku,
very much within the sociopoliticale state. Lokuge's Aruni is a link in the that could only have arrived at this Sri Lankan literary tradition due to t and of a global market wherein the found mobility which enables her to t adopted lands, and in the process, the Aruni obsessively searches for a los construction. Her attempt to claim cc ties is not based on collective inherital a sense of nostalgia that she herself c playfully refers to herself as a "Coconu realize that her laughter is hollow, and Australian companion Paul: "...even h tourist nor local. The villagers addr But Paul has heard the beach boys, w kinship, surreptitiously call her kalu does not share the cultural determin characters. She returns to her country possessed by her neurotic negotiatio is pathologically unable to comprehe sociocultural narratives of Sri Lanka.
Aruni appears emancipated and She is, however, ill-equipped to deal about to enter, specifically becauses of the place, and thus, "blind" to th woman and outsider. As an outsider, Jason or Oedipus, raised without the her "heroic" passage through the unk the illegitimate child of a young beacl narrative of deprivation and the strug of prostitution. Aruni is adopted by the daughter, and whisked off to Aust touches all parties concerned. She ret searching for her mother's story amor among the fisher folk. Tragically, Aru the cultural norms of the fisherfolk, ar being gang-raped by the young mens kin. At the conclusion of the novel, we, act seems to parallel that of her moth giving birth to her second illegitimate sea she is tossed in a final "turn' towal alternate conclusion to the novel wher
9 TN 72.
10 TN 241.

ge's Turtle Nest 183
ionomics of the contemporary nationchain of a long tradition - a character particular moment within the larger he emergence of transnational issues young, urban, female enjoys a newly averse the various fences of her many poundaries of the self and other. While t home, this "home" is an imagined ommunity via shared racial or ethnic nce that informs the local, but through oes not fully believe in. When Aruni ut," invoking the pejorative epithet, we see her, rather, through the eyes of her ere, in her motherland, she is neither ass her as missy - that is endearing. rith whom she so passionately claims suddhi - she's heard it too'." Aruni ants that are the markers of localized of birth to "rediscover her roots', but, hs of inner landscapes of trauma, she ind her subjectivity within the larger
confident in her capacity as a woman. with the realities of the worlds she is he is unbound by the cultural norms e particularities of her position as a Aruni is a changeling, like a female 2 cultural parenting that would ease nown original place of birth. Aruni is h girl, Mala, whose life traces a steady gle for agency through the economies the family of whose patriarch she is ralia to avoid the stain of scandal that urns to Sri Lanka as a young woman, g the few remaining relatives she has ni's willful femininity is at odds with d she is punished for her otherness by he has looked on as close friends and nre unsure about Aruni's fate: Her final er, who “disappears" into the sea after hild. However, as Arunisinks into the d "land" that figuratively suggests an e the protagonist does not die.

Page 199
184 Arbiters of a N
Northrop Frye's notes that: "Th heroic size, but his fall is involved bot and with a sense of the Supremacy o in reference". As Frye's definition de ine depends on the hero/ine's relati 'supremacy of natural law'. While Frye Classical tragedy, in Domestic tragedy to include features of the middle clas epic struggle to self recognition. Wha of tragedy is Frye's assertion that bot In other words, in each case, the hero, which s/he is crucially blind to a part and natural law, a fact which eventi central characteristic of tragic narrati of irony is based on the emergence c tragedy. While Frye ignores the multi western cultures, his schema nevert tragic is intrinsically related to the co feudal hierarchy. In Turtle Nest (as in m this sense of tragedy is reworked into nation-state as post-lapsarian. Lokuge orders that are very much at the forefr The collapse of Sociocultural values i environment which is inextricably li: that depend on Small industries like f for both of these orders to exist, there notion of country (not nation) as idylli through the course of the novel in pa fisher folk in happier times."
Caught within a frame of refere of self, Aruni's attempt at articulating tragic consciousness. Her understand of change is "outside" the common co of her grief or loss. However, the pa the tragic depends on the Suggestion an incorruptible, if individual, sense the bounds of the society she is par are "othered" by their persistence in seeming a radical outsider because fact, stands for a set of values that is in her contemporary society - it is a nor Paul can understand. She shares participate in her narrative via the trc
11 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism. (L 12 TN 20-21.

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
le tragic hero has to be of a properly h with a sense of his relation to Society f natural law, both of which are ironic 'monstrates, the tragic fall of the hero/ onship to Society and a sense of the writes primarily of the hero/ine within , the principle of heroic stature extends is every-man as a figure worthy of the at is central to a modal understanding h these notions are ironic in reference. line is fixed within a matrix of irony in of his/her participation within society ually leads to the tragic fall that is the ve. Frye maintains that this perception of a new world order in the genesis of faceted traditions of the tragic in nontheless suggests that the sense of the llapse of social/cultural order based on any contemporary postcolonial novels) a perception of the post-independence focuses on the collapse of two distinct ont of Sri Lankan consciousness today: n times of war; and the collapse of the nked to the destruction of the peoples ishing to eke out a subsistence. In order has to be the implicit construction of a c precedent, a notion that is resurrected storal images of Mala's family and the
ince that is at odds with her definition g her subjectivity is at the center of her ing of self as a desiring/desirable agent de of behavior, and therefore, the cause rticipation in this particular notion of that as a tragic "heroine" Aruni holds of moral consciousness that transcends t of. The Maname princess or Kuveni following an inner moral code. While of her stubborn persistence, Aruni, in outside the morality that is prevalent Set of values that neither the fisherfolk her moral code with the audience, who ope of the pharmakos, or purifying force.
ondon: Oxford University Press, 1957)37.

Page 200
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Loku
Her presence and her need for nurtur failure of the village to protect her n symbol of conscience, her search for h articulation from within the commu becomes a site in which the transcend contained. Lokuge's audience however sense of the tragic she invokes is buil nostalgia and anxiety surrounding tragedy lies in the renewal of the lar hero, in Aruni's story, this sense of re up several questions about the link b local masculinity and notions of the la In Aruni, we see a distinct "incor - she believes that she has the right is emblematic of the central thematic despite the chaos of her childhood, th people. She wishes to reclaim her peop story. Locked within her figurative vis she wishes to construct (her quest fo) she is fundamentally incapable of com sociocultural and geopolitical matrice Nowhere is this more apparent than i: sets the voice of Aruni's desire for belor of her "fortress" by the sea: "These my the sand as far as they will go, her ar - this my land, my home. But the wa around her feet and withdraws, leavin inner voice needs to believe in the con moral absolutes. She seems purposefu act of laying claim - unable to fathom these categories to which she cannot 1 figure of the sea, which we encounter away subterfuge, is set against Aruni' Lokuge constructs the sea as a p outside the concerns of community or dynamic agent of change is develope the text. Though a fragile economy ru sea/beach as commodity, both for tou Lokuge's depiction of the sea is as paradoxically remains a constant thr and nationhood. It is the sea that prov in the face of economic decline and the tourism, that are based on the commo that figuratively gives birth to the oscil
13 TN 9.

ge's Turtle Nest 185
e provide a moral commentary on the nother Mala. Aruni thus functions as 2r mother's story forces its Confessional nity. As pharmakos, Aruni's body thus ent force of both good and evil can be , is the transnational diasporic, and the it precisely on issues of displacement, the local. If the formal resolution of ld through the sacrificed body of the newal is necessarily vexed and brings etween a rather problematic vision of
nd. ruptible moral code" being played out to claim her people. It is a code that of loss and belonging. Aruni believes, hat she holds a kinship with the fisher ple through her search for her mother's ion of "home" and the family romance the truth is mostly beside the point), prehending her subjectivity within the s of the place at which she has arrived. n the following passage where Lokuge ging against the relentless dismantling people, she thinks, digging her feet into ms closing around herself in embrace iter rushes in. It sucks away the sand g them uprooted, defenseless." Aruni's struction of kinship, land and home as illy deaf to the desperation in her very the hollow, purely figurative cores of pring experiential understanding. The for the first time as a force that strips s figurative universe. rimordial force that is fundamentally nation. The significance of the sea as a d as a sustained metaphor throughout Ins on the premise of constructing the "ists as much as for the local fisherfolk, mercurial medium of survival that ough the shifting forms of community ides the fisherfolk their livelihood, but ' rise of neo-colonial industries, such as dification of the exotic, it is also the sea lating cycle of the predatory currencies

Page 201
186 Arbiters of a
that circulate within the book. Lol metaphor for the mutually beneficial describe the lives of the fisherfolk. Wh turtle, her mother, Asilin, comforts h better dead...Or else when it grows as meat". Asilin punctures the beautifu turtle, reminding her of its (and by e socioeconomic structure of the beach set free of her destitution and live lik on the beach, at the bottom of the sea", that the turtles become in the hands ( to be exhibited and then killed for me Setting Mala's story within the lar suggests that the fragile economies of the rising tide of ethnic violence that due to socioeconomic reasons. His ra history he bequeaths to Aruni:
But long years ago, missy, before most of the younger fishermen pac monsoons. They were nicely establ there. (...) But then the Tigers started in the East. Village after Village was migrating that way. As the war wen coming over, so all those others in the went empty handed."
While Simon's neat summary c cultural politics echoes the somewha by many in the majority Sinhalese, he marginal community due to reasons ( narratives on war. By attempting to nevertheless reconstructs popular cc its effects on geopolitically marginal communities. The "Tigers" become a on violence and reactionary ethnic cl the more vexed issues of cultural he sustained political mismanagement Simon's version of history is somewha offers us no mediating vision that cou Stance.
The sea provides the figurative Mala. Mala is constructed as a creat
14 TN 18.
15 TN 18
16 TN 46-47.

Wational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
(uge uses the turtles as a sustained cycles of fascination and violence that en Mala weeps over the death of a baby er saying “... that miserable creature is big as a house, it will be cut up for raw | illusion that Mala conjures around the xtension her own) fragility within the people. Though Mala may wish to be e turtles "out of contact with everyone her life mirrors the Sordid freak show of the beach boys - a beautiful creature at.
ger political context of Sri Lanka, Simon the fisherfolk are directly influenced by causes the collapse of the community icialized anxieties temper the sense of
the terrorism started up in the country, ked up and went up East during the ished and even had fishing colonies attacking the Sinhalese fisher colonies destroyed. Then Mala's father stopped t on and on, the rich tourists stopped fishing village who lived off the tourists
of the effects of war on contemporary t simplistic view of ethnic conflict held 2 nevertheless outlines the collapse of a butside the concerns of the conventional ) give voice to the subaltern, Lokuge ommunal mythologies about war, and ized groups like the Sinhalese fishing somewhat convenient site for narratives eansing which do not take into account gemony and economic collapse due to of national resources. The facility of at problematic, more so because Lokuge ld provide a critical commentary on his
link between Aruni and her mother ure of the sea, at one with its shifting

Page 202
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Loku,
tides which mirror her own mercuria and beach become symbiotically linke become a haunting memorial shared b Simon's narration of Mala's story is co of the sea in which he locates Mala: “L says. Aruni holds her breath, but it is them. She sinks into herself. Her mo others."7 Aruni's perception of her m It is also in this sense that she needs t custodians of Mala's story. However, serve to further alienate her from the a song about the Sea that she believes attempts to construct a line of kinship people of the beach. Nevertheless, as to the sea and to their interdepenc constructions. For Simon, the fisherf the song that an outsider cannot com knew about being cast adrift. They'ds a woman's arms raised to light a lamp can sing the same song as her "people her mother's story is thus lost in trans It is significant that Aruni remail story at a personal level. Even as she Aruni keeps skimming over meaning of Mala's misjudgments. Significant concern for social norms that Mala do is constructed as a character who glo Aruni appears to possess a similar seems unconcerned about wearing friendly with the beach boys who unlike her mother, Aruni's lack of se upbringing rather than a willful desi and the other inhabitants on the beach is too compelling, and they cannot her mother. Mala is symbiotic with th her story involves a reclamation of th fisherfolk. Significantly, their failureb and sociocultural failure in the contem of place that Lokuge invokes in relatic in her lifetime and beyond, as she is c feminine much in the same way the l is rapaciously scoured for the nourish
17 TN 28
18 TN 26
19 TN 25

ge's Turtle Nest 187
1 sensuality. In Mala's absence, the sea 'd to the memory of her voice and thus y the remaining members of her family. ontinuously punctuated by the Sounds isten, that's your mother's Song, Simon the wind rasping in the Scrub behind ther belongs, has always belonged, to bther's story is as communal narrative. ) belong to the community that are the Aruni's several attempts at belonging fishing community. When Arunisings to have inherited from her mother, she that links her to Simon, Priya, and the Simon point out, Aruni's relationship lent livelihoods is one of imaginary olk bring the weight of experience to prehend: “they sang it differently. They succumbed to the isolation, dreamed of in the darkened world.' While Aruni ", her voice "skims over meaning" and lation. ns incapable of translating her mother's istensas Simon unfolds Malas tragedy, and is unable to grasp the significance ly, Aruni displays the similar lack of pes, but for very different reasons. Mala ries in her sensuality and wantonness. ack of self-restraint. For example, she revealing clothing and appears overconstantly surround her. However, lfconsciousness is born of her cultural ire to seduce. Unfortunately, for Simon n, the living memory of Mala's life story tead Aruni except through the lens of he land and sea and the reclamation of eland and its custodianship among the y Mala is also constructed as communal porary nation. Mala, like the geopolitics on to the fishing village, is a commodity ‘onfigured as the primordial and tragic and/sea is constructed as an entity that ment of the village.

Page 203
188 Arbiters of a
Lokuge relentlessly focuses or consequent consumption and commo in this novel, whether they be fisherme the stray tourist, are constructed as w the central problem of the text, for essentially as failure. Most significar broken masculine is Simon, the narrat we witness Simon's refusal to protec Priya from the predatory cycles of the power to do so. His systematic betray, minutes of her life — lead to her grov But Simon's betrayals extend to Priya, when Mala first goes to the hotelsin se to stop her, nor to assuage the fearanc his own house. He kept glancing bac He noticed, with a hollow feeling, th where their footprints changed direc a pillar in his veranda and waited fo Then he lit up a cigarette, and went ir
Simon's inability to act is set ir that both Priya and Mala enter in th of Simon's helplessness momentarily position he adopts. His gaze, which po of the child's footprints and their ever of his inaction. Thus, despite the sym it is impossible to ignore the complac allows the two children to become v problematic is the sense of voyeurism makes him a vicarious participant i course of the novel. The fact that Sim is never defined further establishes dialectics of power that he narrates to Aruni that he "did not do anything"? had fallen into, he places on Aruni th negligence that he committed agains second self, Aruni's preservation an salvation and restitution that Simon SI is to bequeath her mother's tragedy to
Aruni learns that Mala is "bet encounters, beginning with her father
20 TN 76.
21 TN 99.
22 We note that Priya's story is outside t narration of Mala and is an example abject and unredeemable "other".

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
the issue of the male gaze and its dification of the female body. The men n, merchants, the educated elite or even eak, predatory or effete. This produces Lokuge's reading of the masculine is ut in the many characterizations of the or of Mala's story. Throughout the novel, It both Mala and her younger brother e beach, even when it is well within his als of Mala - from heryouth, to the last ving disillusionment and desperation. as well. We notice that Simon is present arch of foreigners; he makes no attempt i grief of Priya: "Simon turned towards k, hoping that Priya would follow him. a way the waves washed over the sand tion. Once home, Simon leaned against r some time for the children to return. to town.'
counterpoint to the cycle of despair nis moment. Lokuge's aestheticization draws us away from the problematic letically describes the changed direction tual disappearance, masks the violence pathy Simon might evoke in his reader, ency and lack of agency with which he ictims of their circumstances. No less that we encounter in his glance, which in their respective violations over the on's relationship with the abused Priya his participation within the perverse Aruni. Thus, when Simon confesses to to stem the tide of destitution that Mala le burden of absolution for the crime of t Mala.* As Mala's child, and symbolic i nourishment thus become the key to eeks. His only means to accomplish this
Aruni as allegory. rayed" by every single man that she through Simon to her many lovers and
he redenmptive dialectics that inform Simon's of the construction of a gay character as the

Page 204
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Loku,
finally to Mohan, the master of the ho bid for social betterment. Lokuge thus the masculine as morally bankrupt. M leads to the tragedy that claims her stability disintegrates and sets in mot the tragedy of Mala's story, Mala and h burgeoning sex trade and sell their b economic circumstances. Mala's stor failed ambition stunts her capacity fo concern is to become a lady, and sed is her only means to achieve this end. taken advantage of her sexual favors, the desired conclusion to her sexual abandons her second illegitimate chi led to believe that she commits suicid
Shifting to the present day, in parallels her mother's desire for chang vulnerable as her mother in her will first-world privilege is no guarantee beach boys, for whom she simultane the tourist and yet the taint of her mc naive in her treatment of the beach b her Australian lover, Paul.
The beach boys cluster around Aruni - a beautiful coral ornament sh as they trace its curves and hollows forward to kiss his cheek. She thinks she lived amongst her mother's people Aruni knows what she is doing - be boys who seemed so feral to him. Th at him.
We note that Aruni is pathologi circumstances. Possessed by the neec of dominance that surround her as h Premasiri eventually leads to the trag out by the beach boys under the pret violently gang-raped by them.
What is intensely problematic i inner voice that rises within Aruni sensed a voice that compelled silenc within a sudden hollow of Stillnes disembodied voice clearly belongs to
23 TN 162.
24 TN 51.
25 TN 238.

ge's Turtle Nest 189
use whom she seduces in a misguided sustains the persistent construction of Mala's cycle of victimization eventually life. As her family's fragile economic ion the cycle of destitution that frames her brother Priya become victims of the odies in a desperate bid to better their y traces a trajectory of despair where br moral consciousness. Mala ́s central uction of men with apparent privilege Her desires are crushed when, having her lovers turn from her, refusing her escapades. When Mala delivers and ld, Aruni, she disappears, and we are e by drowning in the sea. the ironic revision that, nevertheless, ged circumstance, Aruni is rendered as to belong to the fisher community. Her of safe passage among the predatory ously carries the desired exoticism of other's history as a prostitute. Aruni is oys as is observed both by Simon and
. Premasiri has brought a present for aped like a woman. Their fingers touch ... It glistens like her eyes as she leans of how it might have been for her, had 2. Paul draws near. He wonders whether having with such familiarity with the ey crack crude jokes look suggestively
ically incapable of comprehending her i to belong, she is as blind to the cycles ner mother was. Aruni's misreading of edy which ends the book as she is lured ext of finding a nesting turtle and then
in the text is Lokuge's depiction of the during this horrendous scene: "...she e. "Don't be afraid, it said to her from is, 'I'm here, I'll be with you." The one of the rapists. However, its tenor

Page 205
190 Arbiters of a N
recalls the comfort of the familiar, an mother whose "voice" has all along b and its people. The fact that Mala sp profoundly troubling, and we are left of the metaphor that Lokuge construct reaches for the rapist, once more resul wondered if her mother had lain in sı desire." That a young girl allows her invokes a sense of horror that is insul it, or read it figuratively. Nevertheless of agony in Aruni's circumstances. F the complex sign for home and belon raped, she submits to rape in the nam and their nation - in other words, Sri narrator: "Her rigid body began to me that held her down,/ Did she begin to at last by those to whom she wanted st in the narrator's tone adds to the horr reinforces the grotesque ideology that We cannot partake of it or accommod, give it relevance.
Lokuge's construction of desire a is so terrifying that it erases all possibi as pharmakos, we need to be able to hubris. One has to ask whether we ca figure perpetually outside our capacity Aruni's tragedy we are required to rea bankrupt; we are required to submit hollow, weak or terrifyingly predatory, of tragic naivety without the relief of c tattered protection of her beach cloth we are tempted to read her action as the horror of experience, the young h the sea. This reading is complemente describes a woman at the break of day ... far out, among the rocks of L hatch under the sand, and crawl out. T silver sea. The eagleswoops. In mid-ai trustingly into the shell-crushing talo On the mainland, a woman rests and circled around it. She sees, in sill dismembering its prey. She bends ove
26 TN 239.
27 TN 239
28 TN Epigraph

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
d, I would argue in this case, the lost een symbiotically linked to the beach eaks through Aruni's rapists is most struggling to comprehend the weight S. As Aruni "relaxes' into her fear, she recting the absent Mala: “She [Aruni] uch arms as this. Had awakened such self to be raped in her mother's name 'mountable - we cannot move beyond it is this horror that propels the force urthermore, because Mala represents ging, when Aruni allows herself to be e of belonging to the beach, its people Lanka. In the words of the omniscient alt, turning soft and pliant in the arms relax? Did she begin to feel protected o much to belong?" The implicit irony or we experience, it is out of place and is being stamped into the girl's body. ate it within a moral frame that would
nd the weight of inherited subjectivity lity of catharsis. In order to read Aruni enter into her subjectivity, her tragic in indeed do so, or does she remain a for meaning? In order to participate in d the nation as fundamentally morally to a sense of masculinity that is either : we are also required to inhabit a sense atharsis. When Aruni relinquishes the and turns from the sea toward land, a last act of salvation wherein, despite eroine turns to the land "cleansed" by d by the epigraph of the novel which
ihiniya Island, dozens of baby turtles hey search blindly, and scramble to the the infant splays its limbs and reaches ՂS. against a coconut tree, her arms raised houette, the eagle on the craggy ledge, r and into herself.'

Page 206
Gendering the Quest in Chandani Loku
However, Lokuge withholds dr between the woman of the epigraph a thematics of the novel, with one sign a woman, not a young girl. If we are that the woman who witnesses the st is Lokuge's vision of the Sri Lankan spectral of Aruni, Mala, and all the w
We can only hope that Lokuge's al is perhaps the author's call for consci fundamental original sin — the crime alone, for Sarachchandra's Maname p) self same burden. The Maname print attempting to break the bounds of a p she has been little more than a comm and then devoured by her own peopl the sexual norms of her people by suc Vijaya. In the case of both these chare arouses the anxieties of cultural and and death. Lokuge follows in this tre mythical narrative to the concerns o includes now, the fluctuating migrat desire, ironically, is for oneness with a tragic flaw lies in her incapacity to full that comes with any real understand fisherfolk. Lokuge's vision is intensel the Maname princess abandoned in t kin who are about to stone her to deal
If we return for a moment to the earlier in the text, we see that the “ur as myth in narrative is a means by intractability of nationhood. When v diaspora within the larger corpus of are forced to reckon with an image of Lokuge's vision is separate and distir Gunesekera's, it nevertheless gives vC that uses the figure of the woman purity and nationhood. If the Aruni their traumatic collisions with Sri Lan of return, and with it, the dawn of Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost: Anil has got a only because of Sarath's crucial inter escape have been organized by him. V Kali Yugaya and, equally, of the migra

ge's Turtle Nest 191
awing anything but a figurative link nd Aruni. The image outlines the major ificant difference - the female figure is to read this figuratively, we would say uggle between the turtle and the eagle every-woman and she thus holds the omen of the text. legory of Sri Lankan female subjectivity ousness to what she perceives to be the against the feminine. In this she is not rincess and Jayasena's Kuveni carry the cess is abandoned by the Vedi Raja for atriarchal system of exchange in which nodity. Kuveni is abandoned by Vijaya e for her transgression - the betrayal of cumbing to her desire for the foreigner, acters, the heroine's desire for the other ethnic pollution that lead to her exile adition, while adapting this petrifying f contemporary Sri Lankan life, which ory patterns of the diasporics. Aruni's constructed notion of the local self. Her y comprehend the weight of subjectivity. ing of her role as a woman among the y problematic, and yet no more so than he forest, or Kuveni surrounded by her th. a quote from Sarachchandra discussed liversal human problem" reconfigured which to negotiate and subvert the ve situate the voices of the Sri Lankan iterature in English from Sri Lanka, we the nation as beyond redemption. While hct from Michael Ondaatje's or Romesh ice to a particular diasporic sensibility as a trope that invokes discourses on s and Anils of this new world survive kan nationhood, they bear the promise a new age. As Ashley Halpé wrote of way, her mission accomplished though vention and because her survival and Which is part of the reality of our terrible ant experience. The Anils, the Michaels,

Page 207
192 Arbiters of a N
can arrive, probe, exacerbate or expc however, is that Lokuge's Aruni can r her eventual suicide situate her, etern thus offers us a chilling portrait of th privileged than the local. At the end narratives of destitution as her mothel has not brought freedom from desire
The emergence of the new quest change, no matter how tragic, is signi a diasporic clearly does not insulate h and loss, and perhaps, expands the confines of petty geo-political range ir within us. Ondaatje quotes the poet Ro of our time, is the coming of all men echoed in the skeletal structure that st still have the capacity to sustain and only hope that the future of Sri Lanka the Lankan subject the agency of a vo
29 Halpé, Ashley. "Ondaatje's Symphon eds. Proceedings of the Second Bieni Alternatives: South Asian Literatures a of Phoenix. Vol VII (2005): 22-3 (Kandy
30 AG 203.

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
f/2
)se - and leave.” What is significant, lot leave. The violence of her rape and ally, within Sri Lanka. Lokuge's Aruni e diasporic female subject as no more of the novel, Aruni is as bound by the r Mala, and we discover that migration for the abject self. hero as diasporic female, and agent of Ficant, if intensely vexed. That Aruni is er from the lived experience of tragedy sense of tragedy outside the narrow to the imaginary homes we each carry obert Duncan as saying that "the drama into one fate", a fact that is curiously irs under Turtle Nest. However, if myths nourish our sense of community, I can n diasporic fiction in English will allow ice that can speak outside the tragic.
ic Ode," in Ashley Halpé and Carl Muller, nial Conference SLACLALS, "Attitudes and nd Languages in the Year 2000“ special issue : Graphic Land, 2005).

Page 208
The Poetic and the Oral in ( from Sr
CHELVA KANA
The publication of Maranothul Valvon anthology of Sri Lankan poetry in Ta 32 poets, marks a turning point in cor written by one of the editors, himself the title and the thematic grouping C of the collection was to bring togeth new political reality, the climate of ur country. In some senses, such a colle escalation of violence, starting in the of 1983. But the collection is also sym the role and function of literature in literature had been a somewhat specia that Cheran (one of the editors who w note in particular that the collection w. in which literature, together with oth by the public as a constitutive elemei nationalism and ethnic identity. As he for silent reading or for the sole enjoy
R.Cheran, A. Yesurasa, R. Pathamanba (Coimbatore: Vidiyal Pathippagam, 198

contemporary Tamil Poetry i Lanka
\GANAYAKAM
1 (We Live Amidst Death) in 1985, an mil, comprising 85 poems, written by temporary Tamil poetry.' The preface, a major poet, provides a rationale for f the poems. The immediate purpose er a body of poetry that reflected the certainty and political violence in the ction was almost inevitable, given the 1970s but culminating with the riots ptomatic of a larger process involving a society where, for several decades, lized activity. Among the observations writes the preface) makes, one needs to as seen as part of a larger cultural Scene er cultural forms, was being embraced nt in a larger framework that involved puts it, in our context, poetry is hardly ment of intellectuals. It must appeal to
Iyer, P. Nadarasan (eds.). Maranothul Valvom 35).

Page 209
194 Arbiters of a
the common person.' Poetry, togeth much more vital role to play, and thi sensibility and in poetic practice.
The shift in perspective becon anthology is juxtaposed with anot Kavignarkal (Eleven Sri Lankan Tamil Yesurasa, published one year earlier in a pre-emptive gesture, claim in th be seen as a personal anthology, one excluded, but those included are clea spanning five generations. In the pr editors intended offering a trajectory moved through various phases to what was attempted by the editors, so removed from the concerns and t Valvom that one would almost wonder the same Social scene or appeared w preface of Pathinoru Eelathu Kavignarka language, ethnicity, caste hierarchy e the poets, the dominant impulse in th range of poetic forms and artistic ski in the anthology. The collection provi poet, and the poems give very little in of political crisis in the country. Amol only one really addresses the politica are probably the only exception in a c a clear preference for a certain kin from Social and political concerns. T remarkably striking in that one is, for is entirely political. The appearance of each other, also suggests the confl feature that becomes increasingly ap publication of Maranothul Valvom."
To make this point is not to clai collections, something drastic happen
2 Prefact to Maranaththul, p. 11. Unless o and secondary material are mine.
3 A Jesu rajah M A Nuhman, ed., Pathi
Kalachuvadu, 1984;2003).
4. To make this point is not to suggest the other. In fact, it has been argued are tendentious to the point of ignori of such poems does not invalidate th reveals a radical shift in perspective. F. Sivasegaram, Vimarsanangal (Madras: S

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
er with fiction and drama, now had a is collection points to a radical shift in
nes all the more apparent when this ner collection titled Pathinoru Eelathu | Poets) edited by M A Nuhman and A in 1984. The editors of this anthology, eir preface that this collection needs to in which many poets may have been rly among the best poets in Sri Lanka, ocess of showcasing eleven poets, the of poetry that began in the 1940s and the present. Despite the relevance of both the preface and the poems seem hematic preoccupations of Maranothul how they could have been drawn from ithin one year of each other. While the l talks about Social consciousness, about atc. as matters of social concern among he entire collection is to foreground the ll of the eleven poets who are included des a sampling of five poems from each dication of political turmoil or the sense ng V I.S Jayapalan's poems, for example, l backdrop of country. Cheran's poems ollection that, for the most part, implies d of aestheticism that distances itself he gap between the two anthologies is the most part, apolitical, while the other of two such volumes, within one year uence of the artistic and the political, a parent in the two decades following the
m that in the one year between the two ed in Sri Lanka to change the sensibility
therwise noted, all the translations of primary
noru Eazhathu Kavignarkal (Nagercoil, India:
that one collection is inherently better than that Maranothul includes several poems that ng aesthetic merit. Nonetheless, the presence e claim that the collection, taken as a whole, or an insightful review of the collection, see, S. South Asian Books, 1995).

Page 210
The Poetic and the Oral in Contemporar
of writers. In fact many poets from the offering a very different perspective. be that by 1985 it had become increasir disappeared, giving way to new conce conscious poetry that was self-consci of poetry which becomes part of a la being altered in entirely unanticipatec of 1983, it was also becoming apparen in Tamil literary history, was being r moments of upheaval affecting an ent and responds to its new role by accom the local. With all its energy and art few decades held firmly to conventio in the way it accessed social concerns aware of social oppression no doubt, shaped by convention. Although criti homogenous and that there was a di were traditional and those who were writing within a framework that was the "oral dimension takes centre stag makes clear, this is a significant pha: manifestations of this ethos are evide folk dances, documentaries, and in p new heights' (p.8).
Maranothul Valvom thus marks th to this day, as poets who live in Sri La the diaspora produce a large body of p political and oral. The idea of orality idioms or speech patterns in literature the rhythms and vocabulary of ordin and unordinary. The poets do not aba reshape them to make the ordinary li that sets this poetry apart from muc Tamil Nadu. Poetic language is ultim for an idiom that lies beyond the ordin that poets felt the need to identify w The challenge for critical practice, ther and the exigencies of the moment to new poetry marksa nev and importa significance be judged beyond its inve The objective of this essay is to f writing around the same period, to marks a certain kind of resurgence, in by the realities of diaspora. Two of th now diasporic poets while the third

y Tamil Poetry. 195
first collection reappear in the second, The more plausible explanation would gly clear that the old world had all but rns and priorities. Instead of a Socially iously poetic, now we have is a kind arger world view in which lives were i ways. In the years following the riots t that a certain pattern, always evident e-enacted in Sri Lankan literature. In ire community, literature renews itself modating and employing the oral and listic skill, the poetry of the previous n, not only in its poetic forms, but also . The poet as witness still stood apart, but still faithful to an idiom that was cS claim that previous poetry was not istinct dichotomy between those who modernist, the fact is that both were literary'. It was really in the 80s that e. As the preface to Maranothul Valvom se in the history of Tamil culture. The nt in plays, street performances, Songs, Joetry. In poetry this impulse reaches
he beginning of a trend that continues nka and those who are scattered across Joetry that is in some fundamental way implies more than the inclusion of folk 2. It suggest a mode of writing in which ary speech are moulded to Sound new Indon conventional forms. They simply ook extraordinary. It is this dimension h that is written in, say, Singapore or lately about difference, about reaching tary, but embracing the oral also implies ith the spoken rather than the written. , is to move beyond subjective response appraise this poetry as literature. If the nt phase, it is equally important that its astment in contemporary politics.
ocus on three poets, all of whom began demonstrate how their recent poetry spired as much by the political scene as em - V I SJayapalan and R. Cheran are - Puthuvai Ratnathurai - has remained

Page 211
196 Arbiters of a
in Sri Lanka. They are, arguably, thre claim that several others are worthy C striking features of contemporary po poetry of women, for instance, particu struggle, adds a dimension that is c beyond the scope of this study. This e create a hierarchy but to offer some t Tamil poetry in Sri Lanka, based on poets do not represent, for example, t Muslims, or women. In that sense, the part of Sri Lanka is restrictive. But t consistently for over three decades, ar reading contemporary Tamil poetry f three poets, at their best, are capable ( argument of this essay is that in all different ways, to establish continuit oral and the local in the last two deca
At the very outset it must be ac Puthuvai Ratnathurai occupies a diffe anthologies mentioned at the beginni because of his strong ideological po from a Left perspective to one that fu From the mid 1980s he has been Seer much of his recent poetry has focuse the political scene in Sri Lanka. His p
5 Jayapalan is the author of five volume titles are Suriyanodu Pesuthal (1987), N Engal Mukangazhum (1987), Oru Akathi For his collected works see, V.I.S. Jay Sneha, 2002). Cheran's publications inc (1984), Kaanal Vari (1989), Elumbu Kood Neram (1993). For his collected poems Irangum Aaru (Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu: , is titled Meendum Kadalukku (2005). Put Vanam Sivakkirathu (1970), Oru Thozha (1980), Ninavazhiya Natkal (1993), Viyas, see Puthuvai Ratnathurai, Poovarasam Ve 2005).
6 Even a sampling of major titles wou (Colombo: National Association fc Sivalingam, Neer Valaiyangal (Chenni Kanavu (Adaiyar, Chennai: Ponni, 199 (Colombo: n.p., 2002), K.P. Aravind Natchaththiran Sevvinthiyan, Eppothav P. Ahilan, Padhungu Kuzhi Natikal (Erod Sivarannani Kavidaigal (Toronto: Vizhip Women's Study Circle, 1986), R. Muru Art and Literary Association, 1992).

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
e major voices, although it is possible to of equal recognition. In fact, one of the etry is the range of its expression. The larly those actively involved in political rucial to this period, although that is ssay, then, is not so much an attempt to houghts on poetics and contemporary the work of three poets. These three he voice of the hill country Tamils, the choice of three poets from the Northern hey are poets who have been writing nd their work offers a significant way of rom Sri Lanka. In their own ways these of spellbinding power. The overarching three poets the impulse has been, in ies with the past while embracing the des. knowledged that, in ideological terms, rent niche from the other two. The two ng do not include his poetry - possibly sition, which shifted in the mid-1980s illy endorsed the ideology of the LTTE. as the cultural voice of the LTTE, and d on the role of the LTTE in relation to osition as the 'official' poet of the LTTE
s and a complete collection of his poems. The amakkendru Oru Pulveli (1987), Ezhathu Manum yin Paadal (1990), Uyirtheluntha Kavithai (1998). apalan, V.I.S. Jayapalan Kavithaikal (Chennai: lude Irandavathu Suriya UIthayam (1983), Yaman ukalin Urvalam (1990), and Erithu Kondirukkum s, see, A. Yesurasa R. Cheran, Nee Ippozhu thu Kalachuvadu, 2000). His most recent collection huvai Ratnathurai has published five volumes: nin Kathal Kaditham (1976), lratha Pushpangal anin Ulaikalam (2003). For his collected poems, liyum Pulunikkunchuhalum (Jafna: Nanguram,
ld include, S. Sivasegaram, Poerin Muhangal r Art and Literature, 1996), Shanmugam ai: Tamiliyal, 1988), Solaikkili, Kalam Kalitha '1), M. Ponnambalam, Poriyil Akapatta Thesam an, Kanavin Meethi (Chennai: Ponni, 1999), athu Oru Naal (Chennai: ThamaraiSelvi, 1999), le, Tamil Nadu: Kuruththu, 2000), Sivaramani, pu, 1994), Sollatha Sethikal, (Jaffna, Sri Lanka: igaiyan, Naangal Manithar (Chennar: National

Page 212
The Poetic and the Oral in Contemporar
has led to that facet of his identity be Even a generally laudatory critic su importance of ideology in the poetry add, is possibly the only critic who h the poet, placing him against the bac Puthuvai thus occupies an ambivale for his fiery political enthusiasm, and has been acknowledged more readily that many of his poems have been sel tradition of Song rather than poetry. Th Jayapalan, have been political, but no ideological position. They were, inevit thinking that shaped the ethos of the 6 one form or another to the political sc to one particular movement as Puth both Cheran and Jayapalan have also consciousness that is absent in Puthu arguments of this essay is that Puthuv not because of, but in spite of his tend In very different ways, these three p that would examine what it meant to idiom that was ordinary and poetic at Almost four decades ago, in 197 with a collection called Vanam Sivakkir distinct sense of conviction that his po the literary traditions of the past, no nature appeal to him. His poetry mus There is, of course, a paradox in his even then - was indebted to literary poetry are suggestive of a tradition th of departure. Making the familiar thi the artifice of poetic form becomes his his subsequent ones. In fact there is in from ethnic identities as he identifies There is also an implicit irony in the role as a champion of the marginalist traditional. What was perhaps seen a the poetry of, say, Subramanya Bharat than conviction. Interestingly, he spec his poems, calling him the source of three collections (it is interesting that the title page of the third collection), reach of an original poetic idiom. Th the dominant divide in Jaffna societ
7. Since he is best known as 'Puthuvai',

y Tamil Poetry. 197
ng foregrounded in critical accounts. . ch as K. Sivathamby recognizes the of Puthuvai.” Sivathamby, one might as attempted a long critical study of 

Page 213
198 Arbiters of a
number of writers responding to the titles are a clear indication that his sy is only at his best that he is able to esta without forsaking his own voice. The Sneeze Does not Topple a Mountain' and originality:
A sneeze does not topple a mountai brother, empty words do not put fo
like chillies mashed on stone, the bo mash them we must, join forces wit
Here (at least in the original) the rhy) the poetic idiom as it were, while the the tone, establish a sense of poetic di By the time Puthuvai brought ou passed, and his commitment to Left p with nationalist politics, and specifi Puthuvai wrote under a pseudonyr then published as a collection in 200 are clearly intended to be tendentious best of them - in the way in which pu and the personal. Political poems ar. are predominantly message-driven. It many poems written during this peri At the time that these poems we other poems that were published and primarily in this collection titled Puvi that one sees the full range of Puthuv ordinariness of life among the Tamils the natural speaking voice shocks the of the familiar. In his own introducti in terms that are strikingly ordina human, to recording the joys, disappo Interestingly, he titles his introduction - rather than the tall fence. And this i within this mental frame of looking a something rich and revelatory.
Writing about Puthuvai's poetry, even in the didactic poems, there is a In short, the human dimension of central to Puthuvai's poetry. Even mc to the everyday, as a source of immen unnoticed, moments that are so com become charged with emotion and s sound of a temple bell, people bathin suggestive of a way of life that has r

National Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
pull of a Marxist ideology. Puthuvai's mpathies lay with the oppressed, but it blish a sense of continuity with the past reis, for example a short poem titled "A which finds a synthesis of convention
n, nor does a drizzle make an ocean; od on the table;
»urgeoisie, h me. (Iratha, 27)
me scheme retains the sense of artifice, familiarity of the image, together with fference. this next collection, thirteen years had olitics had changed to a preoccupation cally the LTTE. For the next ten years, n - Viyasan - and these poems were 13, using his own name. These poems s, but their strength lies - at least in the blic events are seen through the private e not necessarily inferior because they : is difficult to dismiss the poignancy of od. rewritten, there were also a number of recently collected in an anthology. It is arasim Veliyum Pulinikkunchukalum (2005) ai as a poet, and the ways in which the becomes a cause for celebration, where reader into recognizing the poignancy on to the volume, he speaks of himself ry. The commitment now is to being intments, failures of those around him. Pulunikunchugal - the diminutive birds s no false modesty. His poetry succeeds it the ordinary and transforming it into
Sivathamby makes the observation that sense of personal and private anguish. violence and struggle becomes quite re noticeable is a shift to the quotidian, se beauty. Moments that may havegone mon that they are hardly noticed, now 2nsuous beauty. The empty streets, the g at wells in the morning- all these are low become precious. Even a domestic


Page 214
The Poetic and the Oral in Contempora
scene such as the poet's wife wakingh a poignant significance.
the temple bells, the sound of prayer, and my wife's beauty as she wakes me
her hair and cloth entwined in a plait
all converge. December, a thing of beauty.
In such poems there is very little rhe simple and almost mundane activitie of cultural significance. In a landsca of mountains and rivers, it is the rit responding to silence that becomes pi Interestingly, the sacred and t without all the polemics or the exoti preceded the 80s. Temples are no lo discrimination, although there are sev the most part, they become focal point care lavished on descriptions of thes own background as a sculptor of temp function in that they move beyond sec consciousness. At a time of fragmenta a constant, and rituals become a wa ostensible connections. It is almost r the populist religious movement wa establishing a sense of unity.
In Puthuvai's poetry the sense ( with accommodating the transcende private and the social are now able t includes the quotidian and the sacre deities do not necessarily testify to th opportunism, and the lack of sincerit endearing and unfailingly human. , Puthuvai, the temple provides a way acts as a foil to human claims of piety affirms the richness of a culture, even In some ways, the oral dimensio Puthuvai's recent poetry. Sivathamby recalls a moment when he personally caused by his poetry. And while the
8 Says Sivathamby: 'In oder to recognize to be heard as songs. I have witnesse poetry with rapt attention' (21).

ry Tamil Poetry. 199
im in the morningisnowimbued with
(Puvarasam, 48)
oric, very little posturing; instead, the s of ordinary people become emblems pe that has very little to offer by way ual of bathing, plucking flowers, and "ecious.
he religious now re-enter his poetry cism that one saw in the decades that nger symbols of social hierarchy and eral poems that are deeply satirical. For s of social cohesiveness. The meticulous sacred is partly a result of the author's »le chariots. But the descriptions havea tarian divisions to appeal to a common tion and dispersal, the temple remains y of linking those who may not have eminiscent of the Bhakti Period when s a way of mobilizing the people and
of being human has a great deal to do ntal. The personal and the public, the o merge through a consciousness that i. Temple rituals and the splendour of le richness of a culture. In the failings, y among devotees, there is something As in the medieval Bhakti Period, for of confronting the human. The temple but the language of Puthuvai's poetry in its failures.
of poetry is most easily discernible in in his preface to the recent collection witnessed the kind of popular appeal e is a distinction between such poems
the full impact of Putuvai's poetry, they need d the most ordinary people listening to his


Page 215
200 Arbiters of a N
and ones that are meant to be read, ev oral in that they draw on folk rhythm becomes far more noticeable at a ti Puthuvai relies heavily on tone and language acquires a certain kind of f is his forte, and often the poems ca. energy of the language. A rich tradit contemporary Tamil poetry through of the autochthonous at a time of crisi Jayapalan began writing at prob although his first collection appeared collections before his collected works, was published in 2002. Surprisingly, v are available, and even the special iss picture on the cover has only a thre essay praises him for what he is now b about the injustice done to the Musli North. His political stance has won h strength lies not in his political views shaping the conventional lyric into a his prose is un failingly lyrical. For i island of Neduntheevu - a small isla: - where he grew up: "Beautiful beacl grassy plains, lands surrounded by st have created fertile gardens, the sigh walking in rows, carrying pots to fet of crafts - this was my lovely island' (' they are consistently redeemed by th angel, walking across the dusty stre heart and my poetry, placing the imp in his poetry.
In retrospect, he could not haves without the intervention of a turbuler of the 70s and his sympathies with th that are interesting but fail to connect in his early poetry often reflects the a reality. To say this is not to discount Straddling both the rigor of tradition verse, his early poems still appeal to poetry at their best. In his early po tropes that establish a pattern of tem with contrary images that juxtapost and public, he then uses a motif or fruitful and dynamic ambivalence. H have always been evident in his poet not intervened he would still have b

ational imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
in in the latter, the rhythms are clearly S. It is almost as it the oral dimension me of social and political upheaval. rhythm, with the consequence that reedom. Simile rather than metaphor 'ry themselves forward by the sheer on of alliterative verse now re-enters is writings, affirming the significance
ably the same time that Puthuvai did, in 1986. He published another three comprising a large number of poems, ery little critical appraisals of his work ue of the journal Mallikai featuring his e-page write-up about him. The brief est known: his uncompromising stance ms when they were evicted from the him both friends and enemies, but his so much as his remarkable capacity for very contemporary poetic form. Even nstance, here is how he describes the nd off the Northern coast of Sri Lanka nes, the sight of horses trotting across one hedges where the labour of people ht of beautiful women in the evening, ch water, villagers versed in a number 9). The images smack of stereotype, but e language. He adds: "This is where an ets to collect water, walked across my rint of first love' (9). Language is truth
ustained the lyricism of his early poetry it political climate. Jayapalan's activism Le oppressed led to a number of poems the poetic with the literal. The referent rtifice of convention rather than a lived he sheer power of his poetic language. al verse forms and the elasticity of free the reader as examples of conventional etry he works best with a number of poral and spatial disjuncture. Working : the past and present or the personal a pattern of repetition that sustains a is imaginative strength and his lyricism y. Had the political events of Sri Lanka een a major poet, but the poetry would


Page 216
The Poetic and the Oral in Contempora
have lacked the sense of a distinctly the entire experience of exile, brough sensibility. At its most obvious, the written for children. More significant the language of everyday dialogue, i. juxtaposed with a language that is po its formal balance. The casualness wj reminiscent of classical Tamil poetry to that sense of artlessness and extren Memory is quite central to Jayap events are often remembered and tr. exoticism are constant dangers to poe journey to Norway was a difficult o number of countries. Each land hei marginalized poet. Whether he speak note is one of regret and longing. In ordinary, the rhythms of ordinary sp of the poem. Lines such as
Those from afar,
now enjoy all;
those from here,
now own grief. (Suryah
are a testimony to the ways encapsulates the oral to produce a ric
There are at least four distinct such division need to keep in mind first phase is that of a nature poet in serves to frame human relations inha second phase begins in the 80s when increasing tension between the LTTE a focal point of his poetry. Deeply sy were evicted from the North, he write harmony between the two groups. Th exile, first in India and later in Europ a re-engagement with home' but w distance.
In fact, even a brief reading of an with his more recent long poem (whic and Our Faces' provide a sense of th over three decades, moving from con Naturally, the epic poem, stretching flexibility. The latter allows for a n imaginary and 'real' characters, and decades. As the title indicates, it is in latter is clearly his major work to da

ry Tamil Poetry. 201
personal voice. The events of 1983, and t to Jayapalan's poetry a very different change is evident in the songs he has y, it is the rhythms of ordinary speech, mages that are quotidian, that now get etic in its repetition, its alliteration, and th which he combines images that are with contemporary tropes contributes ne artifice in his work.
alan's poetry. Landscapes, people, and ansformed into poetry. Nostalgia and ts who suffer displacement. Jayapalan's ne, taking him to different cities in a 2.htens the sense of dislocation in the is of Coimbatore or Oslo, the dominant such instances it is the presence of the eech that preserve the deep conviction
odu, 42)
in which a poetic idiom suddenly hly textured poem.
phases in Jayapalan's poetry, although both continuities and departures. His which the backdrop of an idyllic nature rmony with the rhythms of nature. The both the escalation of violence and the and the Muslims of the North became mpathetic to the plight of Muslims who S a number of poems recalling a time of e third phase begins with his period of e. The more recent phase demonstrates ith the changes brought by time and
early poem about the Pali river together h he calls a minor epic) "Sri Lankan Soil 2 ways in which his poetry has altered ention to a distinctly indigenous voice. over 3000 lines, affords much greater arrative involving the poet, a cast of a sequence of events spanning several ended to be the story of our times. The te, but its significance lies in the ways


Page 217
202 Arbiters of a N
in which the range of voices - parent nature etc. allow for a language that d. As with his early poems, it is ultimate belong to a land, and it is nature that against this backdrop is a whole Saga o from a range of sources to transform th about love, suffering, and hope. Somet white horse speaks in English. Someti as in dialogue or in folk songs. The tra of the self-contained lyricism of Sang the narrative poem. The analogy is no with classical poetry is not only evid accounts about his boyhood familiarit In his prefatory note to his coll period 1987-95 as a dark interim. It wa but it probably was a period of persona poems may well contain a note of opt may not have been present in his ear appears to have occurred during this from a measure of solipsism to one th sharply conscious of the need to accor voice that was both familiar and stran
Cheran's intellectual genealogy the son of Mahakavi, arguably one of Cheran himself acknowledges in an ir poetry, and his own habit of memoriz and then reciting them in public pl stage in his career, the influence bec became clear to him. Nonetheless, in important to reiterate that it was his fat a tradition of conventional poetry to o that accommodated the idiom of ord his plays enabled a distinct break frc Tamil Nadu in that it was neither ex but one that was receptive to both important to remember that Mahaka was still the possession of a small grc accommodation of the local and the f of conventional poetry. Even in a famc where the speech rhythms interact m effect of artifice leans towards conve from the major contribution of Mahak belonged to a particular time and a p Cheran's significance as a poet ha more fully than perhaps any other Sri the best known in lndia and interna

lational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
S, siblings, friends, lovers, oppressors, raws deeply from a number of sources. ly nature that defines what it means to becomes a repository of memory. But f human activity, and the diction draws le poem into a contemporary document :imes the artifice is overt — as when the mes the naturalness masks the artifice, nsition is reminiscent of the movement am literature to the subsequent age of it far-fetched - Jayapalan's engagement ent in his use of tropes, but also in his y with classical poetry. ected poems, Jayapalan refers to the S certainly not a period of poetic stasis, al uncertainty and conflict. The present imism, an assertion of life in ways that ly poetry. But the real shift, ironically, period when his poetic voice changed at was more open, more dynamic, and mmodate the local and everyday into a ige, ordinary but poetic. is a particularly interesting one: he is the foremost poets of the 50s and 60s. nterview the deep impact of his father's ;ing large chunks of his father's poetry aces. He also claims that at a certain ame less prominent, as his own voice any account that relates to Cheran, it is ther who played a major role in steering ine that was socially conscious and one inary speech. Mahakavi's poetry and om the tradition of Tamil poetry from perimental nor entirely conventional, in a distinctly Sri Lankan way. It is vi was writing at a time when poetry oup of writers and critics, and his own olk was shaped within the framework ous poem such as "Therum Thingalum' host forcefully with poetic diction, the ntion. To say this does not take away avi: it simply highlights the fact that he articular place. S been both documented and discussed Lankan Tamil poet. He is also perhaps tionally. Among Sri Lankan scholars,


Page 218
The Poetic and the Oral in Contempora
Sivathamby and Sivasegaram have while in Tamil Nadu the novelist S has drawn attention to his work. Alt 70s, he is some ways the product of beginning to change rapidly, and the becoming a crucial part of the transfe of writing to another was thus less dı of Jayapalan and Puthuvai. In addit politics and culture, his poetry was necessarily jettisoning a commitment it differently, the distinctiveness of h together the traditional and the mode. at its most abstract, the poetry retai. various tropes insist on a complex tra If the river is a constant trope in t time and again in Cheran's poetry. It i first poem was titled 'Sea' when it app is titled Meendum Kadalukku (Back to t after the Tsunami hit South Asia. For that the sea is important in both a provides freedom and security; it is a alienates and makes people insular an significance as it embraces various fo so forth. His collected poems, publisl title: Nee Ippozhuthu Irangum Aru (The the 70s, the sea was benign:
Evenings caressed by the night, the palmyrah leaves then lift their heads and sway, now the waves rise in
the caress of the night the caress of the night.
In the post-1983 phase, the imagery a
From this shore to the next, long, heat-carrying tubes, run across the bottom; the water torn apart, icebergs shattered the path they create day and night
ships ply the sea. (Meen
Between the tragedy of ethnic viol finds himself writing a poetry that of commitment. In poems such as 'D

ry Tamil Poetry. 203
written incisive essays on his poetry, undara Ramaswamy, among others, hough he started writing in the early a time when the political scene was cultural forms of representation were rmation. The transition from one form amatic in his work than in the writing ion to being deeply concerned about meant for a large readership, without to a noticeable intellectual rigor. To put is poetry lies in his capacity to bring in, the lyrical and the intellectual. Even ns the tone of oral delivery, while the in of thought. he poetry of Jayapalan, the sea appears s not without significance that his very eared in 1975. His most recent collection he Sea), published, coincidentally, soon an island people, it is hardly surprising literal and metaphoric sense. The sea protection against outsiders, but it also d vulnerable. The sea takes on a special rms of water - rivers, wells, tears, and ned in 2000, has an equally interesting River You Now Step Into). Writing in
(Nee Ippozhuthu, 24)
nd the diction change:
dum, 25)
ince and the sorrow ofexile, Cheran combines restraint with a deep sense amon Eyes' the contemporary political


Page 219
204 Arbiters of a N
scene becomes the occasion for unrest religious, Cheran often alludes to the c trope for the excesses that people face a a sense of distance, while the rhythm Sivathamby says quite rightly, "Chera generation recognizes, respond to and in society.' Negotiating this change is about style and language. Often th from one voice to many becomes a stre perspectives.
Cheran's first collection of poem (The Second Dawn). Ironically, the s engulfed the Jaffna Public Library w with each book, the title has a story emotional story through tempestuol The imagination that captures these r capacity to accommodate the inhumar a demonic goddess can become the s remains both grounded and strange swept along by the rhythm, the repeti a certain familiarity between the poet of the poem is deliberately allusive, r implying layers of complex meaning. T poetry that Suggest a genealogy very One wonders whether his academic something to do with the ways in wh poems. In fact, in his critical writing notion that the social and cultural b thought of not simply as nostalgia or concept prevalent in Sangam poetry. age was dependent on particular asp of diaspora draw on the specificities practices. His notion of diaspora as st and conventions allows for his poetr while being different. Thus a meeting Elder is both unusual and predictab between the unfamiliar and the famil A comprehensive account of the the last two decades is beyond the sc is strange that poetry should flouris suffering. On the other, the massive the imaginative intensity to poets. W kinds of issues that have attracted the
9 See K. Sivathamby, Tamil Elakkiath
Manithan, 2000: 101

ational Imaginary: Essays on Sri Lanka
rained satire. If Puthuvai turns to the emonic and the supernatural to find a ll the time. Often the imagery provides is retain that sense of familiarity. As n's poetry demonstrates how the new understands the experiential changes is as much about subject matter as it e shift in perspective, the movement tegy for including multiple voices and
s is titled Irandavathu Soorya Uthayam econd dawn symbolizes the fire that hen it was burned down. Since then, to tell. These stories chart the poet's us times, leading to exile in Canada. narratives is often quite startling in its and the non-human. A severed leg or ubject of his poems, but the language at the same time. The reader is often tions, the refrains, all of which suggest and the reader. And yet the structure noving across time and space, always here is an intellectual dimension to his different from Jayapalan or Puthuvai. training in Science and Sociology has ich he conceptualizes his best known he has advanced the very interesting backdrop of the diaspora needs to be exile, but as an extension of the tinai nasmuch as the poetics of the Sangam ects of landscape, so does the poetry s of an alien landscape and its Social alf-sufficient space with its own norms y to acquire that sense of naturalness ; between the poet and a First Nations le. Such poems maintain that balance iar that is crucial to his poetry.
remarkable burgeoning of poetry in 'ope of this essay. One the one hand it h during a time of fragmentation and changes that have occurred provide nile it is important to keep in mind the poets and given rise to richly sensitive
hadam 1980-2000, Colombo: Moonravathu


Page 220
The Poetic and the Oral in Contemporar
poetry, it is more important to recogr from the overtly poetic to the every not entail a drop in aesthetic standarc something to read by all allowed for broad sense. At public meetings, in h small magazines and newspapers, po poetry of Puthuvai, Jayapalan, and Ch. forms. For Puthuvai, the ordinariness celebration. Jayapalan and Cheran shar quite rightly suggests, unlike Cheran, himself in the social experience of th experiences, looks at the experience o framework' (Tamil, 98). Sivasegaram suffering alone does not ensure good p be allusive, not descriptive." But when reading public, when it must be read the form transcends earlier categories colloquial, the folk, and the everyday.
10 See Vimarsanangal, 33.

y Tamil Poetry. 205
hize that recent poetry marked a shift day and the quotidian. And this did ls. In fact, the broadening of poetry as the recuperation of the oral in a very igh School and university settings, in etry became a natural presence. In the eran, this impulse takes three different of the sacred becomes an occasion for 'e much in common, but as Sivathamby Jayaplan looks at the 80s while locating e early 70s. Cheran, eschewing these f the new generation from within that points out in a perceptive review that oetry, and that good literature needs to Suffering must be shared with a large in academic settings and in trenches, and reaches out to accommodate the


Page 221
206



Page 222
1956
1957
1957
1962
1965
1971-91
1976
1976
1978
1986
1990
1993
1994
1995
1995-96
1996
1997
Professor Ashley
B.A. with First Class Honors
Placed first in the examina Service
Assistant lecturer, Departm
Ph.D, University of Bristol
Appointed Professor an
Peradeniya
Dean, Faculty of Arts, Perad
Silent Arbiters are Camped in 1
Madol Doova (Translation of
Editor, George Keyt felicitati
The Way of the Lotus (Tran novel)
Editor, An Anthology of Con English
Homing and Other Poems
Awarded Kalakeerthi
Sigiri Poems (Based on Paranavitana)
Visiting Professor (Fulbright NY
Awarded Vishvaprasadini
Awarded Chevalier dans l'Or

207
Halpé - A Profile
in English
tion for selection to the Ceylon Civil
ent of English, Peradeniya University
d Head, Department of English,
eniya
Vy Skull
Martin Wickramasinghe's novel)
on volume
slation of Martin Wickramasinghe's
itemporary Sri Lankan Short Stories in
prose translations by Senerath
grantee) Nazareth College, Rochester,
tre des Palmes Academiques


Page 223
208
Acknowl
I am indebted to R. Cheran for his undertake the publication of this volu and Mr. Varathan who took so much
all the events in Colombo. Thanks to the printing. My gratitude to Michael thanks to Jagath Weerasinghe for pern Nayananda for his portrait of Ashley
helped in numerous ways. I am gratef project a reality. There were many ot made the task of editing the Festschri to all of them.

2dgments
support and for persuading ICES to me. I am grateful to Mr. Thambirajah interest in this project and facilitated Kumaran for taking such care over Crusz for designing the cover. Many hission to reproduce his paintings and Halpé. I am thankful to Aparna who ul to the staff of ICES for making this hers, including the contributors, who ft such a rewarding one. My gratitude


Page 224
Contri
Tissa Abeysekara is a writer and a the National Film Corporation c present Director of the Sri Lanka Gratiaen Prize in 1996 for his nov author of In My Kingdom of The Si D.Litt (Honoris Causa) by the Un
Indran Amirthanayagam won th Of Reckoning. The Splintered Fa Galle, Sri Lanka in January 200, indranamirthanayagam.blogspo publishes in Spanish, French and
R. Cheran teaches Socioolgy in
Anthropology, University of Wir six volumes of poetry: Irandavatl Kanal Vari (1989), Elumbu Kuduka Neram (1993), Nee Ippozhuthu Irang (2004).
Rienzi Crusz was born in Sri Lanka A prolific poet, his publications Ice, Singing Against the Wind, A The Rain Doesn't Know Me Anymc Gambolling with the Divine.
Robert Crusz is Coordinator of the Tu Centre for Encounter and Dialo researcher, filmmaker and artist, teaching of the art, craft and th media.
Jayantha Dhanapala graduated wi University of Peradeniya in 1961 Studies from the American Un is a former United Nations Un Ambassador of Sri Lanka to thi published four books and several and honorary doctorates. He is cu Council and President of the Pug Affairs.
Aparna Halpé is a doctoral candidat the collaborative program, Centri Toronto. Her research is on the fu from South Asia, South East Asia

209
butors
filmmaker. He was the Chairman of f Sri Lanka from 1999 - 2001. He is at Television Training Centre. He won the ella, Bringing Tony Home. He is also the in & The Holy Peak. He was conferred a versity of Colombo in 2007.
e Paterson Prize for The Elephants
ce: Tsunami Poems was launched in
3. He writes a blog on poetry at http:
ot.com. Amirthanayagam writes and
English.
the Department of Sociology and ldsor. A major poet, he is the author of u Surya uthayam (1983), Yaman (1984), lin Ulrvalam (1990), Erimthukondirukkum um Aaru (2000), and Meendum Kadaluku
, and immigrated to Canada in 1965. include, Flesh and Thorn, Elephant and "ime for Loving, Still Close to the Raven, re, Beatitudes of lice, lnsurgent Rain, and
ana Media Unit of the Tulana Research gue in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. A writer,
he specializes in the researching and heories of communications and mass
th a B.A.(Honours) degree from the and obtained a M.A. in International iversity in Washigton D.C. later. He der-Secretary-General and a former e USA and to the UN in Geneva; has articles and received numerous awards rrently Chairman of the UNUniversity wash Conferences on Science & World
2 in the department of English and in ! for South Asian Studies, University of nction of myth in contemporary fiction and the Caribbean.


Page 225
210
Qadri Ismail teaches postcolonial stuc was introduced to close reading a He is the author of Abiding by Sri L (2005).
Chelva Kanaganayakam is professor for South Asian Studies, Universi Structures of Negation: The Writing of Exile; South Asian Writers and Paradise: The Poetry of Rienzi Crusz Fiction (2002).
Thiru Kandiah, former Professor o presently, Adjunct Professor, D University of Technology. Has tau linguistics and literary study.
Chandani Lokuge is the author of nin moon smiled and Turtle Nest (Peng Oxford Classics Reissue series. Postcolonial Writing and coordin School of English, Communicati University, Australia.
Jill Macdonald is the founding Princi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at whichs level examinations of the Londor Headmistress of The British Schc of the Colombo International S English Literature at each of thes
Ernest Thalayasingham Macintyre, Halpé in theatre activities, has Peradeniya University . The Edu Riot, and Let's Give Them Curry ha texts both in Sri Lanka and in last thirty four years. He is curr influenced by both the Antigon, yearnings for family burials dur Sinhala youth uprisings of post-i
M.A. Nuhman is professor of Tamil of Tamil, University of Peradeni published four volumes of poe Azhiya Nizhalkal (1983), Mazhai Palestine (2000).
Ranjini Obeyesekere taught in th University till her retirement in Dept. of English Literature at t

lies at the University of Minnesota. He It the English department, Peradeniya. anka: On Peace, Place, and Postcoloniality
of English, and director of the Centre ty of Toronto. His publications include s of Zulfikar Ghose (1993), Configurations Their World (1995), Dark Antonyms and (1997), Counterrealism and Indo-Anglian
f English, University of Peradeniya, )ivision of the Humnanities, Curtin ght and published in the fields of both
ebooks including the two novels, If the quin). She is the Editor of the scholarly She is the Director of the Centre for lates the Creative Writing Programme, ons and Performance Studies, Monash
pal of The Study, a Sixth Form College students are prepared for the advanced Board. She formerly held the posts of bol in Colombo and Director of Studies school, additionally teaching A-level e institutions.
a long time collaborator with Ashley written plays from the time he left cation of Miss Asia, Rasanayagam's Last ave been used as School and university Australia, where he has lived for the ently launching his new play Irangani, 2 of Sophocles and by the unfulfilled ing the mass disposals of bodies in the ndependence Sri Lanka
, and former Head of the Department ra. A critic, translator, and poet, he has ry: Thathamarkalum Perarkalum (1977), Natkal Varum (1983), and Poems from
e Dept. of Anthropology, Princeton 2003. She has previously taught in the he Univrsity of Peradeniya, Sri lanka


Page 226
and at the University of Californ Sinhala Writing and the New Critics Lanka, (co-edited with C. Fernan Saddharma Ratnavaliya, Sri Lankan in a Permitted Space, Portraits of Bu
Michael Ondaatje received his B.A.
and his M.A. from Queen's U acclaimed author, he is best kn Kid, Coming Through Slaughter, In The English Patient, and Anil's C Award four times, as well as the was named to the Order of Cana
Sumathy Sivamohan is professor of
She won the Gratien Prize in 20 directed two films: Piralayam (2 author of Like Myth & Mother (20
Harish Trivedi is Professor of Englis include Colonial Transactions: Eng edited Interrogating Post-colonialis colonial Translation: Theory and Pri and India 1800-1990 (2000), The N Representations (2007).

211
ia, San Diego Her publications include: , An Anthology of Modern Writing from Sri do), Jewels of the Doctrine: Stories from the Theatre in a Time of Terror: Political Satire tddhist Women, and Yasodharawata.
From the University of Toronto in 1965, niversity in 1967. An internationally own for The Collected Works of Billy the the Skin of a Lion, Running in the Family, Ghost. He won the Governor-General's Booker Prize and the Giller Prize. He da in 1988.
English at the University of Peradeniya. 01 for her play Thin Veils. She has also 005) and Oranges (2006). She is also the 08).
h, University of Delhi. His publications lish Literature and India (1993). He has cosm: Theory, Text and Context (1996), Postactice (1999), Literature and Nation: Britain tion across the World: Postcolonial Literary


Page 227



Page 228



Page 229



Page 230



Page 231



Page 232

Chelwa Kanaganayakan teaches English at
the University of Toronto and is currently interim director of the Centers Asian Studies. He has published several books, including Structures of Negation. the Wing of Zalfikar Ghose (1993) and Conterealin and Indo-Argian Fiction (2002).


Page 233



Page 234
978 9555'80 1 188
الكتلة ذاتينية .
sBN: 978-955-580-118-8