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of parippu and madness in all of us Over the years, the name 'Ashok' kept cropping up in the most unexpected of places, in different stories, until its creator began to recognise the character. It was in some ways the creator himself - the one who experienced the life of the story, while the creator could keep writing that same story dispassionately. And so the writer became Ashok. And then, there is the other name - 'Ferrey'. "That's the maiden name of the mother of a Nicaraguan friend of mine living in England." It's certainly travelled a long way, and sits comfortably at the tail end of Ashok, becoming for the writer a name of adoption so that he, like his character, can confront life from that same unhinged space. We must then be satisfied with 'Ashok Ferrey' - for that is all we know of him. The only other insights into his person are that he is passionate about architecture, lives somewhere in Colombo with his wife and two children... and his cholesterol. And that just last week he launched his Gratiaen nominated manuscript Colpetty People. At a quiet, lamp-lit gathering at the ICES, Ferry read from his work and then moved into a very inconspicuous corner, behind a pile of books, where he spent most of the evening signing book after book, so obviously content! And that is something he desires - the freedom of being inconspicuous - for he yearns to be read as he wrote... dispassionately, without preconceptions. The finished product in the form of the collection of short stories Colpetty People is "substantially different" compared to the manuscript, says Ferrey. The process of putting the manuscript together saw more stories coming in, some being taken out owing to the fact that they were "very raw" and yet others rewritten. The collection put together after years of work is written from the perspective of the outsider looking in. It's a device Ferry "finds" himself using, as he takes life for what it is, looks at it with all its warts and decide not to "prettify" his perceptions. This is not to say he is out to cast aspersions - what is striking about his attitude is that he finds the dark edge of life much more exciting than the silver lining. "Don't obliterate the edge, live with it!" Ferrey tries, as a writer, to portray life for Sri Lankans - wherever they may be located; Sri Lankans who live simultaneously on so many different planes and refuse to fit into that stereotyped image of people skipping along happily in some paddy field. His take on life, which he carries into his work, is that life, for us, is sophisticated and is that much more complicated, in comparison to places where sometimes life has been made monolithic. "You can't repress human life," enthuses Ferrey - and Sri Lankans are living examples of that. "We cannot be compartmentalised, we are not one-dimensional and we cannot be simplified. So let's be cool about it!" His stories are what Ferrey calls, "tricky stories", which embody a kaleidoscopic, now you see it, now you don't quality to them. While at one level you can just read and enjoy it, if you bother to scratch beneath the surface there is more to the story. The disparate elements in the stories can be linked and in your mind you may slot it, but, says Ferrey, life is hard enough as it is without us having to read stories and piece them together. Although the collection has its serious moments they are tinged with the characteristic Ferrey "off the wall", "zany" sense of humour, which is not meant to be offensive. Embodying perhaps the Ferrey motto - Let's look at ourselves from the outside and enjoy how slightly absurd we look, for sometimes we tend to take ourselves a little too seriously! Writing since he was 19, Ferrey admits that he has been putting pen to paper for nearly a quarter, no wait, a third of a century! Literally putting pen to paper is what he does, for here is a writer who has problems sorting through his thoughts when face to face with a computer screen. So he writes long hand in exercise books, and writes, crosses out, scratches out, leaves it aside for weeks, sometimes months and then comes back to it - "It's quite a laborious process," he grins - but it's certainly one that works for him. For Ferrey, so full of life and energy, it's the funny and the absurd that get his attention. Keeping his eyes well peeled for a strange situation, he then uses it, slightly tweaked and almost caricatured, as a reference point to a completely different bottom line! "I'm not the only person who does this," comes the line of defence with a string of his favourite writers who are also known for the same style. Writing has, however, never been something Ferrey worked at consistently. Sporadic would be a better word to describe his bouts of writing over the last couple of years. Yet he finds that incidents, ideas, experiences, images that have remained dormant in the mind for maybe ten, fifteen years come out when least expected and that a major portion of his best work came out during times when he was struggling to make ends meet. When life is harrowing one sees the underbelly of life - and this perhaps spurs the writer to capture something of it in a creative work. Ferrey's technique though, irrespective of at what point in his life the writing bouts came, is to just sit down and keep writing. And then one day the work is born. For him, this time (for there is a very strong possibility of another creative work in the pipeline) it was Colpetty People. The quaint title to the collection of short stories, at first may seem misleading, for the stories are not literally about the people of Colpetty. It's more of a generic term, that takes on the spirit of the vibrant Colpetty area and the people that inhabit it. Colpetty stands in as a larger metaphor denoting that little bit of madness you find in so cosmopolitan an area, the eccentric culture of active people living in a hub, which is in many ways as equal a society as you are going to get. It's a term that appreciates and celebrates the richness and diversity of small places and connected people. Wherever in the world we may be, says the writer, we are all connected by the Grandma Google that is often spot on and, doesn't break down quite so often. It is a connection has made "a village" of the country and the Sri Lankan Diaspora and thus, claims Ferrey, we are all in some way Colpetty people. "Our parippu is there in all of us, and we take it with us wherever we go!" The
British Council launches its website for writers "Our aim was to create a virtual workspace for writers," said British Council Director Tony O'Brien. The site however is far more than just a display case of writing. A community is slowly building around Writeclique, a community that the British Council hopes will encourage new writers, and strengthen established ones. The site is well designed and easy to get around, making it the perfect choice for a new web user. The homepage is divided into a few sections containing the Write Clique Top 10, Poem of the Day, a Featured Publication, a What's New column and a search box. The web savvy writer however will also not be left out as the site contains a plethora of advanced features under its seemingly simple exterior. The system that is used for rating writing 'remembers' your literary tastes, and provides you with a 'Writeclique Recommends' column, featuring other pieces of writing which it thinks you might like. Membership on the site is free, and comes with a number of added benefits. Members for one get their very own 'member page' where visitors can see a brief description and links to their writing. Published authors too can take advantage of this space by submitting the title, publisher, cover image and ISBN numbers of their books. Members also have complete control of their writing. They add, delete and modify their pieces when they please. Writeclique also has an advanced method of copy protection for writers ," said Delon Weerasinghe, editor cum webmaster of the site. The website prohibits the direct copying of text from its pages and only lets the user take printouts with the author's by-line and other credentials attached. Above all, it offers a kind of instant feedback not found in any other medium. Writeclique brings together a large section of the English writing community in Sri Lanka. Although the brainchild of the British Council, the website is really the culmination of a number of forces. The design and development team revolved around the trio of Delon Weerasinghe, Arjuna Koralagama and Neomal Weerakoon while the name 'WriteClique' came from Lilamani Ebell of the Wadiya Group. Gratiaen Prize winning author Nihal de Silva, speaking at the launch summed up the mission of the website, calling it "a click in the right direction". Check it out - http://www.writeclique.net |
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