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Channels' is a brave
little journal of cre-
ative new writing in English that has been a lively presence in our literary scene for the last decade - no mean achievement. This is a celebratory volume and contains a representative selection of the best contributions it published during this period.
It is far from easy to make general comments on an anthology of 'little pieces' which have only one thing in common - that they were published in the same journal. One feature, however, strikes this reader is that most writers have been sensitive to the violence and bloodshed that engulfed our land during much of this period expressed most poignantly in Arjuna Parakrama's lament on the killing of Richard de Zoysa
"They say they didn't kill him, so may be Richard didn't die,
Like thousands less famous that have disappeared before.
The Police inquiry has absolved the Police of any blame
And now the government will surely rush to perpetrate the same.."
Has anything changed? I felt that the poems on these themes were more effective, in their compression of expression. Amila Weerasinghe writes feelingly on a "Suicide Bomber". Balayogini Jeyakrishnan's "October 1987" has a harsh simplicity of expression:
" There were no bodies
Only lumps of flesh
Gummed to the bloody mats.."
Premini Amerasinghe's "A Villager's Tale" speaks of horror in disarmingly conversational tone.
"We don't eat fish any more" she said
"Their bellies are bloated with putrefying flesh.."
More elliptical in statement, and very moving, is the quiet build up to the tragic loss of young lives in Kamala Wijeratne's "White Saree":
"No. No, I will not put back the saree
On its shelf in the almirah;
I will put it back on the towel rack.
I can't say when I will need it again"
The horror is enhanced by the mundane domesticity of daily lives, in which it is now embedded.
There are other poems too that approach the compression of heightened emotion. Alfreda de Silva's oblique retelling of an old legend in "Stone Girl in an Indian Garden" is one. Jean Arasanayagam's "Remembering Peradeniya" disarmingly evokes nostalgia until the sinister contrast of its last verse with its presentiment of horror.
"Now I feel panic as the tall grass moves
Outside my window, unkempt, wild and untrammeled.."
Regi Siriwardena's brief poems beautifully contrast present passion with old memories:
"I tried to imagine you
at that age, but the thought of your long-limbed beauty
encased in a school uniform was too grotesque"
Or lost passion with present indifference:
"She was sitting next to me at the lecture, with a bad cough...
just two feet from me. It amused me to think that at one time
I would have been happy to have her (infection and all) sit there."
Their disarmingly sophisticated simplicity of expression shows the hand of a master. Lakshmi Wijesingha's 'Home Town' vividly recalls a fishwife in action. Bill McAlpine's poignant 'Old Age' is a beautifully phrased confession and acceptance of inevitable dissolution:
"forever aware my going forth will be no different..
Momentarily to be remembered
and soon to be forgotten in time's decline"
Sadly too many of the other poems bury a little kernel of poetic feeling in a profusion of words. I for one, found it saddening that juvenilia meant for Children's Pages has been given the same weightage as the work of serious writers. The editorial blue pencil should have been wielded with greater discretion and less compassion.
The short stories have much that is excellent. Tissa Abeysekera's extract from 'Bringing Tony Home' is masterly in its sharply observed detail and the running parallel between the predatory Kabaragoya and the fierce Mr. Jayakody. Thiagarajah Arasanayagam's 'Aunt Yogi' is a brilliant recollection of a land and a way of life now lost forever. A superbly realised eccentric aunt and her belated slide into passion are described with wry amusement and compassion.
Aditha Dissanayake's 'Gravel' and Punyakante Wijenaike's 'Monkeys' both sensitively handle the tension between monasticism and youthful impulse. A. Santhan's 'The Cuckoo's House' is a fine evocation of terror centred on the felling of a nesting tree. Sita Kulatunga's 'Diptych' interestingly balances the emotions of two people shattered by the war in different ways. Faith Ratnayake (The Gift), Maureen Seneviratne (In Company with Pain) and Sithy Hamid (Death in Life) are deeply introspective stories of loneliness and despair. Ransiri Menike Silva's 'The House Across the Street' is a sharply observed vignette. Ashley Halpe's 'Wilderness' is a brilliant little piece of mood music on the lonely call of a loon.
Careema Jayaweera's ' The Infidel' is a disturbing piece of documentation of undergrad harassment of a non conforming 'other'. Basil Fernando's 'The visit of the Japanese Team' almost lulled me into wondering how a journalistic account of a field trip had sneaked into this collection - till Sato's emotional trauma surfaces, with quiet understatement, at the end. Vijitha Fernando (Menika) and Chitra Fernando (Cousins) probe the social divide so dear to our middle class. Yasmine Gooneratne's 'My Neighbor's Wife', told in an Australian accent, is a welcome touch of humour in the, I am sorry to say, all-too-pervasive gloom that characterizes too many of the pieces in his collection. Uthpala Gunatilake's 'Continuity' is a beautifully imagined fragment on the making of the great Aukana Buddha.
'Channels' has been the launching pad for many talented writers - seven have won the Gratiaen and fourteen have been short-listed. A tremendous achievement now appropriately celebrated in this anthology.
What intrigues me, however, is the great preponderance of women in this company of writers.
The explanation eludes me and is best left to a social anthropologist! It has been a fine and worthwhile endeavour. Keep it up, good ladies - and brave gents!
The Church of St. Michael and All Angels in Polwatte, Colombo 3 will have an Easter Carol Service on Sunday March 31, at 6 p.m. as part of the celebrations for Easter.
The Service will commence with the a cappella singing of the Easter Anthem at the West Door. This is followed by a procession to the Easter Alleluia Hymn, "Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky" sung to the melody "Lasst Uns erfreuen", more popularly known as " Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones".
There will be five readings, both from the Bible and from poems by Edmund Spenser and Andrew Young. The "Hallelujah Chorus", from Handel's Messiah will be sung as it ought to be at Easter, after the Gospel Reading, followed by the Soprano solo "I know that my Redeemer liveth". The congregational hymns are all the well-known Easter Hymns, including "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" sung to the words of Charles Wesley's, "Christ the Lord is risen today". Members of the choir of the Kollupitiya Methodist Church will be joining in the service.
-Dr. Lalith Perera
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