Futility of war

K.B.'s plot focuses on the happenings in a kingdom called Videha that existed in the Vedic era about 500 years before the Buddha's time. Vasudeva is the king's counsellor, a peace-loving citizen who unsuccessfully tries to prevent the king from raising an army. The king forces him to form an army which ultimately overthrows the king, takes power and ruins civil society. Vasudeva who decides to lead the life of an ascetic is ultimately killed.

K.B. sees this situation as something similar to what is going on around us today. "A few decades ago we didn't have a war. We didn't feel the existence of the army. It did not affect our lives. But today we have a war culture. Today there is war right round us - we talk of the war, we hear of the war, we see the war. It's not peculiar to our country. As artistes, it's our responsibility to see how we could help in eliminating the destructive forces connected with war," he explains.

Playing the pivotal role of Vasudeva, veteran actor Jayalath Manoratne gives yet another polished performance. He is there from beginning to end carrying the play through. While he stands out, the rest of the cast - Ratna Lalani, Sampath Tennekoon, Lal Kularatne (wish his words can be heard more clearly), Kusum Renu and newcomer Indika Ferdinando - do their roles well.

Mature dramatist

Teacher turned playwright K. B. Herath has not looked back since his first attempt at theatre, 'Sudu Karal' years ago was chosen the Best Original Production at the 1978 State Drama Festival. He produced two plays in the '80s ('Siribo Thattuwa' & 'Mayadevi'), and the next, 'Nagagurula' won the Best Production - Original & Best Script awards at the 1991 Festival.

K.B. came to be talked about with 'Dona Catherina' (1995) which was considered the year's best creation even though judges of the Drama Festival thought otherwise. Reviewing the post-colonial theatre activity, Gamini Haththotuwegame says that Herath triumphed with a historical text in 'Dona Catherina' and adds "he does work up real sympathy for the plight of women pushed around as political pawns."

And then came 'Deveni Mahinda' in 1997 which made a flying start winning the first prize of Rs 75,000 for the Best Script at the Independence Golden Jubilee Drama Festival. 

And now comes 'Vasudeva' which has been selected for the second round of this year's Festival.

A taste of Sinhala -5

Sinhala and Hingala

By Prof. J.B. Disanayaka

It sings, dances and rages

By Alfreda de Silva

Mr. Claussen, the Public Affairs Officer of the American Embassy in Sri Lanka, a poet himself introduced Indran to a highly appreciative audience, which included American Ambassador Shaun Donnelly and Mrs. Susan Donnelly academics, writers and poetry lovers. 

The Elephants of Reckoning, Indran Amirthanayagam's first book of poems won the 1994 Paterson Award in the United States. His poems and articles have been widely published in the New York Times, Grand Street, Kenyon Review and other periodicals. He has also served as a guest editor of special issues of literary magazines, focused on Sri Lankan and American writing. 

In his readings, Amirthanayagam transforms his exciting written word into a resplendently musical voice. It sings, dances, mourns, rages, rejoices and praises. 

His poem "Advice to Young Poets" urges them to cultivate an ear for music. We do not miss the echoes here. 

"Listen to music. 
Do not stop listening to music. 
I lost many years of poems when I
Turned off the record player in 1982." 

His ear seems to be attuned to all the music of the world, whether the music - makers are human beings, birds, beasts, wind, water, flowers, trees or bells. This is so in his first book which depended on Sri Lankan imagery, as it is in everything else he has written. 

In the poem, "You must love" he says: 

"You must love the land!
when you leave to build
your house on the sea
love what's lost
the mango tree
burning in the garden
the curious noose
of the familiar 
coat of arms
love the ball turning
strong, spinning
in a dark faraway land, 
love the tongue
you'll never again
speak that wrapped you and bled you 
and dried up
some everyday
On the other side
Of the sea." 

What he does to the rhythms that seem to dance within him as he writes, is to orchestrate them in a kind of ritual celebration. 

In the remembered joys and sorrows of the land he has left behind and in the interludes of light and dark, desperation, fulfilment, love and passion of his adopted domain, he has forged a new and sensuous music. 

His poem Gifts brings us these lines: 

"Walking to the other side without a map
or an idea of what to find, blind
and dumb yet talking through sleep
remembering the days of grinding teeth
and snoring that lovely woman awake
whose spice cabinet you once unhinged 
with the flowers of a lost island
in Manhattan in your 20s...."

The rhythms cannot be labelled or categorised as those of this country or that. They are a meeting of all sorts of cultures, a universal utterance. 

It is in this music that his audience hears the wail of flutes and conchs and violins, the tinkling of bells, the throb of drums and the crash of cymbals. These are interspersed with compelling touches of family history - memories of grandmother, mother, father - Guy Amirthanayagam, a poet of distinction, who was for some time this country's Deputy High Commissioner in London. 

Indran read this short poem from his father's latest book: 

"The face and the dream"
"A long and frantic search it has been 
To find the face to match the dream, 
Natasha! Now that the face is seen
The dream recedes: It would seem
Another frantic search must start apace 
To find the dream to match the face." 

Indran's reading of the poems falls melodiously on the ear, in the way in which they are almost chanted or droned, with a kind of fierce sonority or drowsy resonance, as the mood takes him. They hold the audience with their tonal quality and remind one of a Dylan Thomas poetry reading. The imagery is vivid and the emotional landscape a rich and moving one. 

The intensity of Indran's poems conveys itself because this poet- musician is also a poet-painter. He uses words for instruments, brushes and paints. 

The elegy for Neelan Tiruchelvam is a most moving piece on the violent and tragic death of that distinguished personality. 

In the poem Indran says he did not know Neelan well but he portrays that he understood the sincerity and scholarship this peace-loving man had. 

The elegy starts with the lyricism of a childhood memory;

"I walked that street as a child under the mango trees, 
Smelling the bushes of white flowers gathered for temples, 
My tongue a sweet shop furnished by my grandmother, 
Crushed with chillies in coconut fed by her servant...." 

They had both lived in the same area down the same road and the opening cameo gives way to grief and climaxes in desperation and rage in the poem's end. 

"He exploded on the corner of Rosmead and Kynsey, 
Fell with all of his blood, his ambition, to the end, 
That waited for him, that named him with another fame, 
One more of the human beings who denied
That the nightmare could touch him...." 

Indran Amirthanayagam has a second collection of poems in English, "The Death Tree" and one in Spanish - "El Inferno de Los Pajeros," which will be out shortly. 

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