We watched the sweet drizzle….

We watched the sweet drizzle, sitting side by side,
As it kept tickling the earth;
I teased you and you teased me in return,
So full, really, were we of mirth.

Each staring into the eyes of the other,
We exchanged glances mute;
Your smiles were lovely and your dimples lovelier still,
So I thought you were, really, cute.

The summer-hut didn’t see my love growing,
Neither, I’m sure, did the Mango tree;
But you did see and you did know of my heart’s love,
So from doubt, I found my heart, so perfectly free.

The temperature fell, and the wind grew steadily cold,
Still, I felt so comfortably warm;
Against the heat of love, the worsening chill was no match,
As (my) love found its way home!

Candlelight: the Maiden Anthology by Tharindu Weerasinghe

Book-Candlelight

Genre-Poetry

Author-Tharindu weerasinghe

Price-Rs.200/ US $ 2

An author publication


“……One Science only one Genius will fit;

So vast is Art, so narrow Human Wit……”

Alexander Pope-Essay on Criticism

Maybe Pope, one my favourite satirist poets, is not entirely right. Or it is possible that there are remarkable exceptions. That is the impression I got upon reading ‘Candlelight’, the debut anthology by Tharindu Weerasinghe, an Engineering Graduate from University of Peradeniya, an institute that has produced quite a few literary icons.

Because “My way is to begin with the beginning…” as Lord Byron says in his epic poem, Don Juan, I would like to begin with the very first poem of Tharindu`s maiden anthology.

“She is the one who converted red into white

She is the one who sustained a world of pain

She is the one who sacrificed her life for us

She is the one who must be worshipped….”

Tharindu dedicates this poem to all the sacred mothers in this world, a small gift to Asian, European, African, American, and Australian mothers who face innumerable hardships and endure endless suffering for their children. I am tempted to quote J.M. Coetzee, The Nobel Laureate South African author in his Nobel banquet speech:

“ ‘But of course I missed the point. Dorothy was right. My mother would have been bursting with pride. My son the Nobel Prize winner. And for whom, anyway, do we do the things that lead to Nobel Prizes if not for our mothers?’

‘Mommy, Mommy, I won a prize!’

‘That's wonderful, my dear. Now eat your carrots before they get cold.’”

Tharindu`s mother herself must have been no less proud of her son`s literary accomplishments. Also, we cannot help agreeing with his wonderful assertion that ‘She is the person who must be worshipped.” In this poem of five stanzas, titled ‘She is the ONE, who must be worshipped’, Tharindu carefully employs Anaphora and slant rhyme, which lends itself to his theme and helps him argue the point home. Robert Graves, who found Shelly`s use of ‘s’, the serpent`s letter, in one stanza of the latter`s celebrated poem, ‘Ode to West Wind’ particularly crude would have hardly less displeased with Tharindu`s poem. But, I, as a fan who prefers Shelly to Graves, have little to object to in this case.

‘Father thinks Far’ draws a significant comparison between the young and the old and highlights the different perspectives from which they look at life. The poet, himself a youth though, shows extraordinary maturity in his poetic depiction of father and his son. It is here, we know, that the clash between the two generations is sparked off. Tharindu, for some reason, chooses to leave it unexplored.

Maybe he wants us, the readers, to continue the exploration from where he has left it.

“…..As Science is growing,

Spiritual aspects of human life is falling

down and down…..”

In, ‘If we could, but see’ where the excerpt above is found, Tharindu laments man`s relentless pursuit of money and other material wealth. With his expression, ‘Money is a disguised demon’, he seems to suggest that money is the root of all evil, a rather pessimistic notion. But he goes on to say that ‘We have to be friendly with him to help us, in our day- to- day life.’ Admittedly, the picture he presents us with is true if bleak.

‘Sacred and Eternal Love’ is a poem about maternal and paternal love that rarely changes or diminishes over time. Particularly in Asian countries like ours, we know family ties are strong and that there is a very close relationship between children and their parents. This closeness is as much physically experienced as it is emotionally felt. So, often enough, parents are there to save and comfort their children when they are in trouble or distress. It`s this reality that this truthful poem emphasizes.

In, ‘A Dead Man, Speaking!’, Tharindu writes:

After having met DEATH, I tell all of them,

NOT the truth,

“Please be careful!”

“It is better there, than here…!”

His lines remind me of Shelly in Adonais:

“…Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep-

He hath awakened from the dream of life…. “

Let me quote him once again from the same poem:

“He has outsoared the shadow of our night;

Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

And that unrest which men miscall delight

Can touch him not or torture not again.”

Obviously, it is while we live that we need to be careful; therefore, simply, life is infinitely more dangerous than death. But the irony is that death is presumably the end of life. And, once you are dead what remains there for you to take care of? In this poem, Tharindu , in a sense, romanticizes death. I will not call it right or wrong. But I believe it is easier to die than live and agree wholeheartedly with Tolstoy`s view that the fundamental obligation of man is to be in tune with life and that we should love life in all its forms and manifestations.

Tharindu seems to prefer free verse and off-rhyme to rhyme throughout this collection. Also, he, like most amateur poets, if unconsciously, seems to have taken a fancy to the mellifluous sound of ‘l’, perhaps the most musical letter of English alphabet. But, I would like to warn him against overuse of it in order to produce a musical effect in his poems, because Lord Byron himself makes fun at the overuse of soft ‘l’s:

“When amatory poets sing their loves

In liquid lines mellifluously bland…..”

Tharindu`s poem, ‘Story of a Hawk’ seems to have been influenced by a fable. And there is allegory in it too. Pride, the never failing vice of fools, as Pope says, and its big brother Hubris can rarely escape Nemesis. The proud, in the end, pay a steep price. Literature from ancient times has discussed this all important subject of Pride. Sophocles` Antigone is a fine example where Pride is brutally punished:

“There is no happiness where there is no wisdom,

No wisdom but in submission to gods,

Big words are always punished,

And proud men in their old age learn to be wise.”

Tharindu, in his youthful wisdom, has written this simple moral poem to argue that one should not be too proud of one`s wealth, education, power or physical strength. The proud, he warns, risk suffering the same fate as his written hawk.

In ‘The MAN of TODAY is busy’, I like the ironic, almost sarcastic last two lines where the poet asks:

‘Does he have enough room

In his coffin for his golden coins?’

Here, in the quoted lines, I have changed the punctuation marks in the original poem to give them a little more sense. I believe it would certainly have enhanced both the literary value and the linguistic value of his poetry, had he paid a little more attention to punctuation in his poems where necessary.

The social ills brought about by the process of development are a recurrent theme in Tharindu`s poetry. It`s commendable because a writer should be alive to the political, economic and social changes in his environment. His poem, ‘Money versus Humanity’, calls for a tradeoff between economic prosperity and spiritual development.

‘I am in the Race’ is about a kid torn between the necessity to study and his love for play and nature. And we know Tharindu is not exaggerating. Our children today have little time for play or to revel in the nature`s wonders-flowers, trees, birds, butterflies, brooks and so on and so forth. Maybe these kids will run the race and win it, but as Tharindu suggests, they miss out on life in the meantime.

Sometimes, we feel attracted to people who really do not love us or care for us. Because love is a choice and not an obligation, we really cannot blame anyone for not loving us. The famous proverb also has a point: All is fair in the love and war. However, for some strange reason, sometimes, we are tempted to choose a person whom we love but who does not love us in return over a person who loves us but whom we do not love. We know this is downright stupid and completely irrational. Still, we have been doing it from time immemorial and will continue to do the same, perhaps, to the end of time itself. This is what Tharindu intends to tell us in his poem, ‘Is She or She?’

Good poetry, above all, is about images that stimulate the senses. Tharindu must have had this basic rule at work in his mind as he wrote ‘Sweetest Love’, a poem that brought him international reputation.

The vivid images he employs in it, create a wonderful setting for it and highlight its meaning. I need not elaborate upon it because it speaks for itself. I am particularly fascinated by the lines, “….A couple of doves, on a bole of a lone tree-Having a lovely evening…..”, in which I find the interlocked sounds producing a musical effect that lends itself to the poem. We must certainly excuse him for his bias towards ’l’.

‘A Hidden Truth’ is a beautiful allegory, where a rose bud symbolizes a little girl while the poem Victim Beauty is about a prostitute. We can draw numerous parallels between it and the song ‘Landune…’, sung by famous Sri Lankan vocalist, Mr.Amarasiri Pieris. Maybe, Tharindu was inspired by this song to write it. In ‘I`m still waiting for her’, a lover seems to bemoan his departed fiancee. But the last line, ‘Severely punished for a genuine love’ does prevent us from reaching a definite conclusion. ‘Am I a Person with TWO Births?’ must be Tharindu`s own love story.

Religious influence is a prominent feature in Tharindu`s poetry. For example, in Journey around the Strange Garden, he upholds the religious values. ‘Sacred May’ is itself dedicated to Lord Buddha. ‘Candlelight’ calls for spiritual development in people while ’I wandered in the Garden of Life’ and ‘Reality of Beauty’ both talk about life`s only reality-impermanence. His scientific religious poem, ‘How can Gravity Exist?’ also about impermanence. TRUTH We DO accept but DO NOT remind emphasizes the importance of detachment as preached by Lord Buddha.

Candlelight, Tharindu`s maiden anthology discusses themes ranging from love to society to religion to war. The slim volume with fifty odd pages is simply written and beautifully presented. The anthology, making Tharindu a versatile personality among his contemporaries, also makes a wonderful reading for those who are really interested in writings by amateur poets. Tharindu is a literary sprout with great talent. Candlelight itself is enough evidence to his talent. I wish to congratulate him on his literary success and look forward to reading even better works by him in the future.

Blank Poem

Sitting at my desk,
Cluttered with piles of papers,
And half-read books,
I keep my pen poised,
And scribble thoughtfully,
Down a blank half-sheet.

I write about a dream,
A blank dream,
A dream that won`t come true,
A dream that`s certain,
To disappoint me.

But these lines I keep penning,
With a hope,
A blank hope,
For, I still wait for the unchangeable,
To change,
And the impossible to happen!

The Dark Link

The yellow bulldozer,
Broadens the road,
On either side,
The sharp, hefty blade,
Cutting the sods,
And piling them clumsily.

Heaps of small pieces of granite,
Lie on the road-side,
By the pot-holes,
With heaps of tiny pieces of granite,
Which from the tripped-up yellow truck,
Cascade with a scraping sound,
Quite without the perilous beauty,
Of a water-fall.

Wearing caps in the scorching heat,
The municipal road-workers,
Are at work,
Filling the potholes with shovelfuls,
Of stones and spreading them even.

An acrid odour hits my nostrils,
As, on the road-side, a few barrels of tar,
Are boiling over, hot tar trickling down the barrels
And over the burning tyres,
Which had once been used to boil the rebellious blood
To evaporate the unrest in the youth,
By and large, with equal efficacy, perhaps.

Wearing a pair of boots,
Already coated with tar,
A gaunt man pours tar into a metal bucket,
With a tar ladle,
From a barrel with tar flowing like tears,
Or like blood gushing from a wound,
And spreads it even,
Like a shroud over a corpse,
Over the stone-strewn road,
To be flattened by the heavy roller,
Snailing along.

When the coat is thick enough,
They will sprinkle sand over it,
As they do in the wake of a cortege.

But they know as well as I do,
That the potholes will outlast this thin carpet,
And that sufferings outlast
The rebellion.

At the End of the End

I found it difficult,
To bring myself to look at you,
Straight in the face,
And smile warmly at you,
Like I would have done then,
Perhaps because the old disappointment,
Still hung heavy on my heart.

We walked along the familiar road,
And turned into the estate,
Housing the posh new administration complex,
And ambled along the tarmac,
Flanked by the big earthen flower-pots,
Spaced almost with mathematical precision,
Where the palm trees grew.

I found my old hurts green as the grass,
On the lush meadow,
And spoke less and smiled little with you.

Now relieved of your former weight,
That had weighted my heart for days on end,
You ascended the flight of stairs,
With as much light-footed agility as I.

Document having been signed,
Letters handed in,
We walked back to the beginning
Of our walk,
To part.

In the privacy of the taxi,
Cradling on your neighbor`s hands
Was the precious little thing,
That mattered to you next to your own life,
And walled us farther apart.

Our friendship, your betrayal,
Were both things of history now.

To turn back, stare blankly into the vast emptiness
Ahead of me, and sigh,
I knew, was useless,
At that point of no return.

And I moved on.

Blood!Blood! Blood!

Kathirinahami seated herself on the pila and looked into the distance, her stare blank. The weedy compound where their house was located in looked more like an abandoned paddy-field than an unkempt home-garden. The mango tree opposite the doorway was being smothered by the creepers of pila, draining its life. Nature, it seemed, had willed it to die in the stranglehold of pila. Had she also willed this woman to die in the stranglehold of insanity?

She was in her mid fifties, tall and had a thin triangular face. With sunken cheeks and bleak eyes and streaks of grey hair, she looked wasted, care-worn. Her jutting front teeth were stained with betel juice as well as her lips. The expression on her face, however, was serene. Was it possible that the silent water always ran deep?

Sapin, her husband, returned home from the paddy field half a mile from their home. He was but an andha goviya(a quasi-farmer), that is to say, he aswaddumized a paddy-field that belonged to someone else. His landlord offered him ¼ of the harvest as a reward for his efforts. From an acre of arable paddy-yard, this amounted to a substantial quantity. Still, his share was far out of proportion with the sweat he shed to aswaddumize it. But, he rarely complained about it. Incidentally, some 25 years ago, it had belonged to him.

He was 60, a stout man with thick-set features. His hair almost grey receded on the forehead. He was almost as hirsuite as a grizzly bear and black as pitch. He was precisely the picture the word ‘demon’ painted in children`s mind. He too used to have a demonic temper in his youth. But, he had so mellowed with age that he rarely raised his voice now. He knew he had suffered a lot due to his ungovernable rage.

As he was about to put down the mammoty on his shoulder, Kathirinahami stared at him, wide-eyed and yelled, ‘Blood! Blood! Blood! You see it is blood! Blood! Blood!’ As she shrieked, her whole body shook and hair fell over her face. It was as if an evil spirit had taken possession of her. He walked over to her and calmly shepherded her into the house as she kept yelling,‘Blood! Blood!Blood!’ He laid her down on the bed covered with a coarse thunhiriya mat and picked up a bottle of ointment which had been lying on the table facing the bed. Taking off the stopper, he poured a thimbleful of oil onto his palm. As he massaged it into her forehead he remembered the day when he had brought all this misery upon her and upon himself.

It all happened one Saturday almost 30 years ago. They had just been married and were both young and healthy. They raised a puppy. Because they did not cage it or had it chained , it used to roam around the neighbourhood. Their next door people who were not on good terms with them always complained about the puppy sneaking into their kitchen, peeing and turding in the garden etc. That fateful Saturday, when he had just returned from the paddy-field, he heard his neighbour`s wife Sisilin chasing away the puppy. When he reached the fence in the backyard where the sound came from, she exploded, ‘Why do you rear dogs unless you can keep them caged or chained? Can we always put up with your bloody dog?’ Without saying so much as a word, with cold eyes, he regarded the puppy now lying curled by the pila near where the mammoty stood. The devil came over him, and his fury knew no limits. He covered the distance in just four strides and picked up the mammoty. He held it aloft and with all the force of his demonic fury, he bore the sharp blade down on the puppy`s neck just as it looked up at him,’Blam!’ So effective was the stroke that its neck was cleanly severed from its body.

With his fury yet to subside, he lifted the headless carcass, dripping blood by its hind legs walked over to the fence and showed it to Sisilin, ‘Are you happy now, bitch?’ who ran back back crying. It was at the same moment, Kathirinahami who had been taking a bath at the well got there. She had heard Sisilin scolding but had not given it much thought as such altercations were little foreign to them. The moment she saw the bloody carcass in her husband`s hand she froze on the spot, and shrieked, ‘Blood!Blood!Blood!’

Sapin heaved a deep sigh as he heard his poor woman mutter ‘Blood!Blood!Blood!’

Temptation and Fear

I`m strongly tempted to leave
The claustrophobic exam-hall,
As one by one,
My fellow candidates stream out,
Across the vast hall,
With their answer-scripts,
Lying on their vacant desks,
‘Don`t take your answer-scripts with you;
Or else you`ll get zero marks!’
I`m amused by the wise, ironic words,
Of the genial invigilator,
Counseling humorous caution,
To the early leavers.

‘Why can`t I follow them out?’
I ask myself,
Feeling smug at the knowledge,
That I`ve already answered,
The whole question-paper,
To my heart`s satisfaction,
But fear re-slips into my heart,
Spoiling my sense of self-complacency,
And impels me to doubt myself,
‘What if I`ve made more mistakes?
Why shouldn`t I stay a little longer
and recheck it?’

And I re-examine my answer-script,
And kill my time,
Between many a temptation,
And many a fear….

Teaching English at Government Schools

While I was schooling, I remember, it was when I had entered the third grade that I began to study English at the school. Of all that I was taught then, all I can remember now is Muru, the Nigerian lad, and Taro, the Japanese lad and Mr.Wolf, the time-keeper(or was he Mr.Wulf?) At the very beginning, now I see, it was a monumental failure. Our English teacher could hardly inspire us to learn English, the foreign subject, with enthusiasm. I am not certain whether it was her fault or mine that I started to hate studying English almost as soon as I had begun to learn it. At the time, I think, none of my peers was genuinely interested in studying the damned subject, either.

What I want to emphasize here is that it is easy to begin with the beginning only if a particular English teacher is equipped with sound teaching skills and the ability to inspire the beginners in addition to adequate academic qualifications. Bungle it all at the starting point and the forty odd students in the classroom would squander years before they are able to grasp the basics of English language they are supposed to understand at the outset itself. If the worst comes to the worst, some of them would never really be able to make it to the required level.

The challenge is then up to those who train government school teachers at various training colleges and academies. Given the English language skills of the majority of children from the outstation schools, and the ever rising failure rate of students at the G.C.E. O/L English paper, I really doubt the effectiveness of those training programmes/courses designed to equip the teachers with sound pedagogical skills. Also, a great many of English teachers from government schools I know are only really interested in sticking to the text books and cover the syllabi within the pre-determined time frame. The last thing they seem to want to accomplish is to inspire students to learn this beautiful language. New teachers, I am aware, are only too willing to follow the ways of their senior counterparts. Or it is also possible that they reserve their teaching skills for the tuition classes conducted by them in the after-school hours. In Kuliyapitiya, my home town, I know there are a couple of guys who continue to practise this apparently under the aegis of the principals of the schools. I suppose so because whereas it is public knowledge that they continue to engaged in this little action has been taken against these fellows.

Getting back to the beginning, I must admit that I picked up something from all those who taught me English up to my O/Levels. And it would be both incorrect and unethical for me to say I learned nothing from them. Also, what I had gained from them was certainly helpful to me when I started to study English in depth and more systematically. But, I remember, while at school, my peers who had some English background ie. children of teachers and of other white-collar professionals were at a definite advantage over me when it came to learning English probably owing to the fact that neither of my parents knew the superior tongue. Had my English teachers been able to convince me that I had to study English as a language and not as a subject and there was a great deal more to it than just to score higher marks at the term tests, I would have learned English much sooner than I did, in reality.

It is not that I bear the pessimistic view that all the English teachers of all the government schools are perfectly incapable of teaching English, but that I see the majority of them only really aim at completing the syllbi in time. They do not seem to mind whether students learn English or not. However, my letter will hardly be impartial unless I admit that there are teachers who are really doing a great job. But the sad fact is that they are very rare and constantly run the risk of relegating themselves to the position of their more practical counterparts. Therefore, it necessary to teach all these teachers to teach students and also to learn from the latter to teach them better.

A Magnificent Tale of High Adventure and High Seas

Fiction: Birds of Prey
Author: Wilbur Smith
Macmillan/Pan Books
Price: £ 5.99

“The boy clutched at the rim of the canvas bucket in which he crouched sixty feet above the deck as ship went about. The mast canted over sharply as she thrust her head through the wind. The ship was a caravel named Lady Edwina, after the mother he could hardly remember……….”

”The scope is magnificent and the epic scale breath-taking…Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared…”, says The Times. And having read this splendid story, certainly, I cannot help agreeing with what it says in spite of its high flown language.

Sir Francis Courtney, a Nautonnier Knight of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail, is an English privateer carrying a Letter of Marque signed by Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor of England, in the name of His Majesty King Charles II and authorizing him to hunt down the ships of the Dutch Republic, with which England was at war; his crew in the caravel, Lady Edwina, comprise Hal or Henry Courtney, his only son and Aboli, a remarkably loyal black slave, and Ned Tyler, the boatswain and some ruffian, belligerent tars.

After about 65 days of waiting in the high seas, they capture ‘De Standvastigheid’ or ‘The Resolution’, a galleon belonging to the Dutch East India Company and navigated by Colonel Cornelius Schreuder. She carries in her holds a rich cargo of spice, of oriental timber and of bullion. Further, the Governor Incumbent of the Cape of Good Hope, Petrus van de Velde and his nymphomaniac young wife Katinka happen to be among the passengers on board the opulent galleon. Having confiscated the entire cargo, Sir Francis Courtney then goes on to hold them to a whopping ransom of two hundred thousand guilders in gold coins. Colonel Schreuder is dispatched with the letter demanding ransom money back to Holland on board Lady Edwina, now stripped of all her fire-power…

The story running into 774 pages is a magnificent tale gripping the readers` attention with its vivid descriptions of blood-curdling sea battles, of exotic landscapes, of African wildernesses teeming with ferocious beasts, and of erotic encounters between Katinka and her numerous lovers including Hal.

And Smith writing in the third person never spares his readers of the most gruesome details of ruthless killings and savage executions. The heroes, however, are but a little less evil than the villains. Clearly the legitimized piracy leads to justifiable blood-shed from which the civilized people recoil as they do from an adder or a mamba.

However, in Birds of Prey, as in all other Wilbur Smiths, what surprises me is his use of English language. His remarkably lucid and almost lyrical writing reflects an extraordinary command of English language backed by the limitless word-power of a very rich vocabulary. With metaphors and similes coming naturally to him, he writes so easily, so effortlessly that I almost begin to envy his talent for writing fiction. And we see him switching among the role of correspondent, of historian, of philosopher, of barbarian, and, most wonderfully, of poet. The novel is as much about love, loyalty, trust, glory and friendship as it is about insatiable greed, distrust, virulent hatred, gross betrayal and barbarism.In fact, this wonderful mélange of disparate and/or contradictory natures with which the novel is shot through from the first page to the last one is vintage Smith. The following passage from the novel certainly bears irrefutable testimony to Smith’s extraordinary talent for writing.

“The fabled flat-topped mountain seemed to fill most of the blue African sky, a great cliff of yellow rock slashed by deep ravines choked with dense green forest. The top of the mountain was so geometrically level, and its proportions so pleasing, that it seemed to have been designed by a celestial architect. Over the top of this immense table-land spilled a standing wave of shimmering cloud, frothy as milk boiling over the rim of a pot. This silver cascade never reached the lower slopes of the mountain, but as it fell it evaporated in mid-flight with a magical suddenness, leaving the lower slopes resplendent in their clothing of verdant natural forest…..”

If you prefer to improve your vocabulary through reading fiction, then this is a novel you cannot resist; or if you have a natural penchant for gutsy adventure stories, you will be tempted to read it for hours on end. Certainly, without a rich receptive vocabulary, it will be a little difficult to comprehend Smith’s writing. But what I am even more certain is that once you read Wilbur Smith, you begin to love his writings!

A Fascinating Tale of Tide Country

Book: The Hungry Tide
Genre: Fiction
Author: Amitav Ghosh
Price: Rs. 200.00

“They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?”
Robert Frost-Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

“Kanai spotted her the moment she stepped onto the crowded platform: he was deceived neither by her close-cropped black hair, nor by her clothes, which were those of a teenage boy-loose cotton pants and oversized white shirt. Winding unerringly through the snack-vendors and tea-sellers who were hawking their wares on the station`s platform, his eyes settled on her slim, shapely figure. Her face was long and narrow, with an elegance of line markedly at odds with the severity of her haircut. There was no bindi on her forehead and her arms were free of bangles and bracelets, but on one of her ears was a silver stud, glinting brightly against the sun-deepened darkness of her skin…..”

Piyali Roy, an American cetelogist of Indian parentage arrives in the Sundarbans, an immense archipelago of islands on the easternmost coast of India, between the sea and the plains of Bengal to do a survey of the marine mammals of the Sundarbans. Kanai Dutt, a sophisticated Delhi businessman too happens to visit the same area for personal reasons. The two protagonists are joined by a third Fokir, an illiterate but proud local man whom Piyali hires to guide her through the backwaters, as she is on the track of rare river dolphins. It is Kanai who becomes the translator between them. And here the tide begins to turn…..

Amitav Ghosh, the author, was born in Calcutta and spent his childhood in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and northern India. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Egypt and has taught in a number of Indian and American universities. He has also authored The Circle of Reason, the Shadow Lines, In an Antique Land, The Calcutta Chromosome, Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma, Countdown, The Glass Palace, the Iman and the Indian.

The main characters in the novel are Piyali Roy, the American cetelogist; Kanai Dutt, the Delhi businessman and Piya`s translator; Fokir, Piya`s guide; Nilima Bose, the social worker and the founder of Badabon Trust; Moyona, the ambitious worldly-wise wife of Fokir; Tutul, the child of fokir and Moyona; Horen, Fokir`s uncle; Kusum, the late mother of Fokir; and Nirmal Bose, a political radical and the late spouse of Nilima Bose. The last two are perhaps the most important characters of the novel, because, although they are both already dead, in the flashbacks, they are frequently referred to. Also, Nirmal`s notebook, bequeathed to his nephew Kanai shortly before his death threading through the same plot sheds light on the political history of the Sundarbans even if it appears to be an insignificant personal account written by a failed revolutionary in his senility.

Blending imagination with myth and embellishing fiction with poetry from Rainer Maria Rilke, a great German poet, Ghosh in lucid, poetic, if a bit formal Indian English narrates a superb story. Quite unlike a Dan Brown, The Hungry tide flows as slowly and as rhythmically as water on a river. But, it has its own tides and ebbs, rises and falls, and peaks and troughs. The languid fury of water whose outburst causes destruction beyond imagination is masterfully depicted throughout the novel. The last message/warning is both sharp and clear: no matter how intelligent, how industrious, how ingenious man is. In his dealings with Nature, it is damned foolish of him to seek to have the upper hand. Man is but a miniscule, utterly insignificant part of Nature. Or a mere strand of one gigantic web. If Nature wills it to happen, it will happen whether man likes it or not.

In the novel, obviously, the pathetic lot of humanity is in sharp contrast to the all-powerful Nature, the destroyer and the preserver. It is the tides and the ebbs that rule the tide country. It is the flood that makes or mars it. That is why Ghosh writes:
“……At low tide, when the embankment is riding high on the water, Lusibari looked like one some gigantic earthen ark, floating serenely above its surroundings. Only at high tide was it evident that the interior of the inland lay well below the level of water. At such times, the unsinkable ship of a few hours before took on the appearance of a flimsy saucer that could tip over at any moment and go circling down into the depths…...” Can anything else be more eloquently symbolic of the vulnerability of Man and all his inventions with which he tries to defy the Nature?

Be that as it may, man should always count his blessings and does not have to be overwhelmed by the power and the force of Nature. Still, compared against the infinity of Nature, man has little to proud himself upon, either. I remember a few Shakespearean lines.
“….Man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assure'd –
His glassy essence - like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep….”

The power the flood wields over the Sundarbans reminds me of Shelly in ‘Ode to the West Wind’ which I have already alluded to:
“… Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and presever; hear O hear!....”

The simple wisdom of the god-fearing, if illiterate, rustic, Fokir saves Piya`s life when the tsunami strikes home. His bravery and generosity, exemplified in the sacrifice of his own life to save a foreigner cannot help but touch the readers` hearts. Fokir, in his own way, that is by worshipping Bon Bibi, the protectress, he willingly submits to Nature`s will. Maybe he knows little about conservation of marine life. But, then, he knows how to live in harmony with Nature not against it. It might strike a chord of sentimentality to say that he transcends all others-Piya, Kanai, Nilima, Moyona and others in the ultimate sacrifice he makes in the end; nevertheless, it is obvious that an ordinary man can hardly do such a thing.

Also, in the novel, Ghosh places side by side the necessity for conservation of wild life and the human cost of it. The moment one side of the equation get smaller or greater than the other, the balance is tipped and the problems arise. Like the human-elephant conflict in our country, the dilemma is ever-lasting. Because of this conflict of interest, the situation worsens by the day. In conclusion, I believe, Ghosh has written a remarkable novel. I certainly feel privileged to have enjoyed it.

I stopped at the solitary summer-hut

I stopped at the solitary summer-hut
Beneath the large mango tree,
And waited for my friend to come,
My heart singing with glee.

With the soft rays of the morning sun peeping,
I felt no great heat;
Delighted was I over the thoughts of the friend,
Whom I was now going to meet.

Fancy nursed my heart’s sweet hope,
And set my passion ablaze;
The sequestered summer-hut, being so pleasantly shaded,
Was a splendid place.

Perched on a branch, I heard a bird sing,
A melodious murmur of love;
I asked myself over and over again,
‘Why`re you getting late, my dove?’

Up the road when I saw you come strolling,
Beaming at me with such pleasure,
I felt my heart stop for a moment,
With happiness beyond measure!

A Yell in Retrospect

For Gowri Pathiraja

“….If you are the wind`s leap,

I am the buried fire….”

Octavio Paz-Motion

I stared, frozen with terror,

As she spewed out,

A terrible torrent of invective,

And marked ignorant terror,

On the onlookers` faces.

Burning with rage,

At the public humiliation,

I walked off, I remember,

With a spiteful apology,

Muttered through the gritted teeth,

‘I`m sorry to have troubled you here!’

Swearing to myself,

Never to forgive her,

Never to look at her again.

But now your yell lies on my memory,

Thin, feeble, almost dying

Sans its inflammable venom:

The thickest cloud,

Can only obscure the Sun;

Only for a moment.

A Masterpiece of Sri Lankan War Literature

Book: The Road from Elephant Pass

Genre: Fiction

Author: Nihal de Silva

Vijitha Yapa Publications

The guerilla war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for a separate state for Sri Lanka`s Tamil community against the government security forces and lasted for nearly three decades and dragged to a close on May 18, 2009 with the killing of the movement`s leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran is arguably the most significant event in our post-independence history.

No doubt, it led to unthinkable carnage both in and outside the battle-field and took the lives of many great men. At the same time, it wrought irreparable damage to the socio-political fabric of Sri Lanka. Its influence on our political landscape, economic climate, social discourse, education, culture and literature is remarkable more for worse than for better.

When it comes to the influence of this ethnic strife on our literature, two English novels stand prominent among a host of other books, both of which have been awarded with the Gratiaen Prize offered by the Gratiaen Trust established by the Sri Lankan born Kanadian author, Michael Ondaatje after winning the Booker Prize for his novel, ‘The English Patient’. Those two novels are ‘Sam`s Story’ by Captain Elmo Jayawardene and ‘The Road from Elephant Pass’ by Nihal de Silva. The latter draws even more on war and its influence on the individual as its plot is unraveled. Also, it was awarded with the State Literary Award in the same year (2003). Incidentally, it is a tragic irony that Nihal de Silva himself was killed in a land-mine blast at Wilpattu National park.

De Silva, the author is a product of St. Joseph`s College, Colombo and the University of Ceylon. He ran his own business dealing in the purification of water and the supply of mineral water. Starting with ‘The Road from Elephant Pass’, he delivered three novels in three successive years. Although this was his maiden novel, it earned him both the Gratiaen Prize and the State Literary award in 2003. In the words of Prof. D.C.R.A. Goonethilleke, an eminent scholar in Sri Lankan Literature in English, “….he (Nihal de Silva) is a phenomenon embodying the essence of recent efflorescence of Sri Lankan literature in English…..”

The novel starts with Captain Wasantha, the narrator of the story and one of the two protagonists of it waiting for a woman, a senior tiger activist, who, his boss Major Kiriella says, has vital information and wants to negotiate a deal with the government army. Reluctantly though, the former takes up the assignment of picking up her from a checkpoint at Palali and taking her to Jaffna. Kamala Velaithan, his charge, turns up but much later than he expects her to. Perhaps, it is her delay that changes their lives so dramatically. With her revelation that the tigers are to launch an all-out offensive against the army camp at Elephant Pass, it all turns darker, harder and more dangerous for both of them, for the woman soldier accompanying them and for Piyasena, their driver. Practically stranded in the hostile terrain, Captain Wasantha has little choice but to follow advice offered by Kamala to whom it is no alien landscape. But, is this woman tiger all that trustworthy? Is her information so reliable that he should undertake a perilous trek through the dense forests of Wilpattu National park to take her to Colombo via Puttlam?

Set against one of the darkest periods of our recent history, ‘The Road from Elephant Pass’ is a novel where the ruthlessness and the brutality of the ever-worsening conflict is in sharp contrast to the human values like love, forgiveness, kindness and compassion. It tells us how people forced by the irreconcilable circumstances take up arms against their brethren on the other side and imperil themselves to pursue the elusive dream of a separate motherland. In a sense, it manages to estimate and explain the human cost of conflict while occasionally hinting at the hypocrisy of the leaders on either side, which is totally discordant with the lofty ideals they pretend to stand for.

The author, it seems to me, has a comprehensive understanding of the reasons that stoked the burning conflict on either side. He is aware of the inevitable consequences of the riots in July 1983. He is aware of the upshot of dirty politics of the narrow-minded leaders from the South hell-bent on self-aggrandizement. He is aware of the difficulties encountered by the government armies as they fought the Tamil tiger rebels. In short, he is aware that, in the final analysis, the country`s ethnic problem has political roots.

With his thorough understanding of the nature and the scale of the country ethnic strife and with his remarkable ability to devise ingenious plots and tell marvelous stories, Nihal de Silva has a written a great novel, which, by any standard, is a masterpiece of Sri Lanka`s war literature. I am certain few readers will dispute the validity of the citation awarding it the Gratiaen Prize and delivered by the panel of judges-Shermal Wijewardene, Priya David and Lakshman Gunasekera:

“For its moving story, for its constant feel of real life, for its consistency of narrative momentum, for its descriptive power, for its dramatic use of dialogue to define social context, capture character psychology and trace the development of a relationship, for its convincing demonstration that resolution of conflict and reconciliation of differences are feasible through mutual experience and regard, and last though not least, for its eminently civilized handling of the last degree of intimacy between a man and a woman, our choice for the 2003 Gratiaen Prize for creative writing in English is, unquestionably, ‘The Road from Elephant Pass’ by Nihal de Silva.”