| Books |
|
|||
|
Listen
to Him and learn Her writing focuses on her experiences, her relationship with God and the people close to her, their strengths and the life she shared with them. After some time she began to have visions (dreams) that she terms divine messages. These messages from God the formless, Omnipotent and Omniscient had been tangible experiences, helping her cope with difficulties and serving as a guiding presence for all actions. "When I was miserable and in need of love, God manifested as the divine Mother Mary, the mother of love and compassion. When I needed strength, Mother Sakthi, the Goddess of Strength showed me her love and support. The Goddess of Wealth, Mother Luxmi gave me a child," she writes. The divine
experiences as she calls them reinforced her faith and proved beyond
all doubt that God is one. It is immaterial what we call Him, she
writes, "God has no religion." The author firmly believes
that divine messages carry with them the essence of truth as opposed
to psychic messages that one receives through one's intuition. She feels she was guided at different levels as she communed with God through prayer and meditation, explaining that He revealed Himself to her because of her closeness to Him for decades. Others too felt God's presence within her. She often went into a transcendental state where she felt God's presence through the over-powering energy and vibrations that she considers were an unmistakable sign of His presence. The newfound spirituality helped her handle situations without getting into emotional conflicts. She discovered that she had the power of healing, as she was an instrument to God the healer. Prayers, (those mentioned in the final pages of the book) poured out for her in poetic form. Through out the book there is mention of Hinduism, Christianity, crystals, reiki, universal energy (referred to differently), etc., that a reader of a single faith may find difficult to comprehend. The author attempts to explain this. "The science of religion reveals the essence of God. Man created religion and God approved. If not, how can we account for the survival of all major religions till now," she asks. Each religion
was formed at different times under different circumstances when
mankind was at a different level of understanding the truth, she
continues. The book would serve to lead one to spirituality as the author answers many questions on spirituality, healing, the power of crystals and other aspects of religion, wisdom that she gained from her closeness to God. "Experiencing God is actually experiencing everything around me and beyond me. With God's touch on me, as I reach to touch your heart, open your mind to the wisdom of God that flows, from me to you," the author writes. Seeing it all
as it is His Sinhala works remain the best of him - "Atat Sita Asa", "Ganga saha Surangana" and Saladhipati". His passion for history has also given us "Rajarata Sistacharaya ha Niritadiga Rajadhani" and "Madhyatana Lankiava." Of course, he is as Kaduwa-prone when writing in English, and we have had some scholarly presentations, all with a historical perspective. Last year, he gave us "History of Sri Lanka"-a well-constructed and concise work with none of the ponderous ramblings of those who have been the main culprits in making history as dry as dust. Now, this senior Professor of History has given us his latest collection of short stories ‘Hunter’s Dilema’ and I will not look at them with a critic's jaundiced eye. He may like to say to the Peradeniya University, "young men and women, like flowers blossoming at dawn, arrive.. to spend three or four happy or unhappy years..." Uncluttered and as nice a man as he is, he can still look on these hopeful freshers as flowers blossoming at dawn. But is he also trying to tell us that, at the end of it all, they wilt, become blackened, deadened weed-material, destroyed by the many rabid isms, student rampages and violence our universities are heir to? Siriweera is, luckily for us, direct in his approach. He has no patience with the artificial gloss, the songs of the mockingbird. In his first story, "The Warden," he has this to say: The teachers have excellent credentials. They teach well and gather in the Senior Common Room to while away the time or to participate in serious or light discussions on various topics. They talk of the autonomy of the University. But some of them rejoice when the police enter it in full force during times of trouble, and beat up the students, male, female and monks in saffron robes. They talk of scholarly research. Some who talk of research, never engage in any. The writings of many of the researchers are never read by anyone in the country. Yet, they need research publications for enhancement of their careers and recognition abroad. At no time is there any serious attempt made to write up and publish research in their mother tongue. Publications in the mother tongue will only be read by students and less-educated people. Research should be on a higher plane which is acceptable to the English-speaking world, and at the same time, unintelligible to those who cannot read English well." Is this an indictment or what ? This is why I maintain, the worth of this book lies not in its word-choice (which, incidentally, is good) but in the meatiness of what is said. To Siriweera, a spade is a spade. The "academics", he tells of may wish to express a spade in their own research language gobbledygook, but, as I say, Siriweera is both direct and uncluttered - the most refreshing academic one is privileged to know. He takes on the problem of University food and allows his "Warden" to think of his own undergraround him. There is no elaborate state-setting, only the writing of a direct, uncluttered man who sees it all as it is. ad days when there were no student food queues, the food was tasty and spoons and forks were used; days when there was fruit salad, ice cream or fresh fruit for afters; days that are never to return. The now- scene is too awful to contemplate: The dining room is not spacious enough to accommodate all the students. Especially at lunch time, they form queues like prisoners to obtain their food... The rice (often with grit or sand) is served on a plate with meat or fish and two vegetables. As they get their quota and walk back, they stop at a huge cauldron filled with a yellowish liquid called the 'gravy", which they spoon onto their plates of rice... There are only a few glasses or cups for them to drink water with... So they wait for their turn to obtain a cup or a glass.. A thought strikes me. Rice with grit or sand! Is this why students become most obstreperous at times? Too much sand in the craw? We meet the "Gajayo", the "Kadu Karayo", the "Thadaya' and "Thadawathi" and the "Gatawathi". We also meet the hordes of beggars who forage in the kitchen garbage pails, perhaps also looking for the sand so essential to their craws. Worst of all, we meet the University maintenance Unit whose every so-called repair open up more seams that demand repair. Is the University a patchwork quilt of sorts? The story is more than that. It is the story of sudden blazing realization. The undergrad Punchi Kumar does not challenge the Warden's injustice. Instead, he welcomes the Warden to his poor home, offers his ripe papaw, makes what poor show he can with a gentleness that puts the Warden to shame. Apparently, truth will not prevail, but to Punchi Kumar, his sick father, his undernourished younger sister, the wattle and daub hut, the older sister who the Warden's friend Chickera regards with other thoughts, it is honour indeed. Now, the University has come to him! This collection
of stories tells of life's many cross-currents. There is a sense
of exactitude, karma, human resolve that is tattered by human failings.
In "Hunter's Dilemma" it needs an angered elephant to
show the hunter what a trapped animal endures before slaughter.
Truly
does the hunter say after that first shining resolve; "Our
whole life is a trap." Will he continue to slash the necks
of the deer he traps. That Siriweera is close to his stories holds true. The story of Kalubanda is written with deep feeling for the deprived, the underprivileged, the poverty-stricken . The picture of this humble, loyal villager tells of a strange kind of heroism too. To the artist, in his award-winning "The Artist, Aesthetics and the Woman ", the observations are so typical. The artist, on seeing a large group of armed soldiers, thinks: "How sad that they do not serve life, but death." It's the girl of the mischievous smile, the water reeds, the reservoir, that kindles him. But he learns also that she is a true child of nature, that the only real permanency of love is a bed in the tall grass with the sky looking down on this spring-flowered new Eve, rising to adjust her skirt after she has given herself to the man who clasps her. "Hunter's Dilemma' is a collection of eight stories, each a piece of personal encounter, each telling us that there is nothing stranger than the human condition. There is Asanka's quick-to-condemn wife; Ranbandiya who weeps of his poverty in the sweetest notes of the flautist's art; and there is Dayananda, torn between reality and dreams, duty and being the dilettante he wants so much to be. It is the child that puts his marriage back on even keel but there is also his cowardice and unwillingness to venture on a road where the sign warns. "No Admittance". These are things that screw up relationships, be they legal or illicit and, as Siriweera puts it, "There is no harm in dreaming in a society where people had laid down restrictions. No one else sees these dreams except the dreamer. But for how long can one continue an imaginary or sentimental relationship?" Fantasy, even
of the most avid kind, is part of our dream time, certainly. In any event, "Hunter's Dilemma" I encountered some annoyance with the book that has to be expressed. Publishers Dayawansa Jayakody & Co., have been most careless in releasing copies where the binder has made a mallung of the pages. It was tiresome to find an utterly mixed-up page run that gave me, in order, pages 64, 67,68, 65, 66, 71, 72, 69, 70, 75, 76, 73, 74, 79, 80, 77, 78, 81 and 82 . It is even more disturbing to realize that another copy of the book has all pages in correct sequence. is a readable, excellently crafted collection-truly the voice of the inner world. |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
