Sybil: Farewell to a legendary storyteller
When I wrote this I had just returned after paying my last respects to Sybil Wettasinghe, the legendary storyteller. According to her family members she was in good health just a week before, which was proved through the bright and vibrant colours of her last illustration done just a few days earlier, which we were lucky enough to glimpse.
How could one person make such delightful stories which were treasured, and embraced by generations? The world changes rapidly in the blink of an eye and every day the context of one’s life is renewed in numerous ways with so many complexities. But Sybil, her writings, and illustrations still stand out, waiting to delight one’s heart and soul, bringing out love, faith, compassion, and mostly an enchanting beauty which never fades. I believe it is the intimacy of her work that has made generations love her. We still breathe in those beautifully worded works intertwined with the subtle beauties of nature and the hidden innocence of the human being. It’s because of her capacity of describing the world in unforgettable ways. It’s because of the magical feeling she creates through eternally being engaged with things which otherwise are yet to attract our attention.
There was a time nearly 40 years back that I was impatient for Thursday to read the “Dinamina” where in a corner column appeared Sybil Wettasinghe’s “Sooththara Puncha”. That is an engraved memory of my childhood. The only book I had then was Sybil’s “Duwana Rawula” (The Runaway Beard). Never did I dream at that time, that I would, in another 40 years have the same craving to read her stories. Today, hugging the pile of her books I told my younger son, “Putha, take care of these precious books even after I die. These books will continue to share your life.”
I am a middle-aged woman now with young children and here I am with my mind still revolving around the beautiful memories of my childhood. When my boys sit with me and listen to all those stories, I feel I have given life again to my cherished memories. When I read Sybil’s books about the times she spent with her grandmother in Ginthota, these stories carry me back to the times I lived in a village many miles away from Colombo with my family, where my grandmother played a prominent role in my life.
On July 1, I was reading the story of “Matigedara Lamayi” to my son and his friend when I got the sad news. It was a coincidence. My heart cried out. But I thought to myself it’s just her physicality we would miss. Her heart and soul cannot be taken and described as separate entities as they represent each and every storybook and illustration. All her stories depict love, beauty, innocence, and the purity of little hearts. They are like intangible substances which blend together to make a vivid painting on a canvas. Through them, she creates all imaginings into which a little mind could deeply excavate. Her unique illustrations enhance the beauty of the aththammaas, seeyaas, muththas, devils, animals, gamaralas, princes and princesses of her stories. Though she is no more with us, her works will enlighten generations to come.
Three years back I was fortunate enough to meet her at the exhibition organized for her 90th birthday. It was such a pleasure to see her vibrant at that time. Seeing her I felt it was all the love she has for children that made her look so. Elegantly dressed in a Kandyan saree, she enjoyed meeting the little boys and girls and men and women of different ages, who surrounded her.
I have no doubt she regretted today’s world. She lived for close to a century, through which rapid changes took place in society. That day in 1933 when her family decided to shift to Colombo to offer English education to Sybil, she says she felt like her vivid childish dreams were bundled up and loaded in a lorry with the other “materials” to be brought to Colombo with them. But the child in her didn’t vanish, it couldn’t be bundled up; instead, it was strengthened, becoming wings to soar high revealing more and more of her unique capacity to embrace society.
So let us make a pledge to make this world beautiful in her absence. Let’s make our children blossom, surrounded by magical beauty as in Sybil’s enchanting stories. Let’s pave the way for them to enjoy the beauty of a crawling line of ants, to listen to the harmony of croaking toads after an evening of torrential rain, to embrace the rain and the darker clouds, not just the shining sun and the blue sky, to gaze at a squirrel digging into a ripe fruit on a tree. Their lives then will be filled with eternal love, the love towards humanity which we long for.