• In his World
• Nuts and bolts of language
• Long and short of it
• Fascinating tales from the Sinhala cinema giant
• Slums, a golden beach... and vibrant Bombay
• False strokes of original faker
• Little drops of kindness that helped a big project
• Hovering questions over flying objects
• The road to be taken
• Written without fear or favour
• Labai, labai, Lanka labai
• Lessons on impermanence
• A President 'equal' to other citizens
• The Boralugoda 'cub'
• A vision of wonder
• Letters to the editor

In his World

He is so simple, one can't quite figure him out. For a person who has two interna-tionally acclaimed novels to his credit, he's remarkably unassuming and painfully nonchalant. His simplicity baffles you.

Another distinctive feature about him is that he is his own person. You can't rush him. Ask him too many questions at once and he'll ponder for a while, but come up with no definite answer. That's Shyam Selvadurai, the plain- speaking somewhat absent- minded author of "Funny Boy" and "Cinnamon Gardens".

"I'm somebody who lives mostly in my head, who prefers to be alone." Absorbed in a book, he's the kind of person who could be lost to the world. Reading as well as writing is second nature to him. Like any other teenager, he grew up on Enid Blyton, James Hadley Chase and the like. Now well into his 30s, he looks up to Anita Desai as a role model, whose use of language and structure intrigues him.

In retrospect, Shyam fondly remembers his schooldays at Royal College, that time of his life when he used to be a playwright and dream of becoming a director. Whatever happened to that dream? "It died a natural death," he says with a grin. Writing became his one and only passion.

The '83 riots brought the Selvadurais' lives to a standstill. They felt trapped in a hopeless situation where the only solution was to get out, to seek asylum. Canada proved to be the most flexible with immigration laws. Shyam was thus forced to leave his motherland at 19. In Canada, he resumed his studies at York University, graduating with a major in theatre. For a while he taught English at his alma mater. After a year he found himself wondering, "Wait a minute. Did you go through all that just to become a university teacher?" Nothing could subdue his passion for writing, which was soon to become his full-time career.

Christine and David Selvadurai were not very happy about their son's choice. "It's not stable," they reasoned, but they understood him. "They always advise, never constrain," says Shyam gratefully.

Being a good writer, he thinks, is like being a marathon runner. It requires great staying power and concentrated effort. "You have to take things in your stride and the rest will fall into place." With research and background work, it took him nearly four years to complete each book. Working at one go has its disadvantages. You have to put up with all sorts of aches and pains. "Usually it takes me about a year to recover from the experience," he smiles.

Does he ever get writer's block? "Oh yeah, all the time." He always has a masterplan, which he usually sticks to. Working on a monthly basis, he proceeds at a stretch for about three weeks and then takes a short breather. "It's essential for a writer to have a clear fresh mind."

His leisure activities depend on the season. If it's summer he'd go biking or swimming. He has his own cottage by a lake that sometimes serves as a perfect getaway. In the fall, seeing the changing colours takes his fancy while in winter it's usually the theatre or parties.

He enjoys cooking too. "Getting domestic help is annoying. When I clean my bathroom, I clean it the way I want. The same goes for washing clothes and preparing food," which he assures is "quite good". Being his own boss gives him the time and space for all that and it's financially a good move too.

Can anybody survive as a writer? "I seem to be able to do that," he admits. "You see, unlike here, the possibility does exist in Canada to make a living as a writer. If you're good at what you're doing and with a bit of luck on your side, you can't go wrong." Shyam is currently working on his third novel. Based in Toronto, it's aimed at a Canadian readership. He would say no more on that.

What of his sexual identity? The liberal Selvadurai family took the news of Shyam's sexual identity quite coolly, though he feels that back in Sri Lanka things would have been different. "My mother would have been worried. She did say that I could have made a good father though. My father, of course, didn't have a problem with that. Even my sisters were quite okay with it."

He dismisses the law against homosexuality in Sri Lanka as "stupid and something which breeds crime. People think of it as something like smoking, which you can get rid of. But that's wrong. Whether it's nature or nurture, you can't help it".

He feels that the law puts a huge burden on the person, especially those who don't speak English. "The Cinnamon Gardens crowd somehow manages to get by."

Does he see any change since the last time he was here in 1998?

"My God, the traffic!" he says. "It's sickening. Back then, we used to play cricket on Alwis Place and Boyd Place. Now just forget about it. And then these bombs going off all over the place. It's maddening!"

In two days he'll be going back to his more peaceful life in Canada. But bombs or no bombs, he'll always return in search of his roots.

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