When Jagath Kumarasinghe won the Gratiaen Award in 2004, some readers were bewildered that a style which ignored almost all conventional techniques of writing, be it syntax, word order, clarity, the high-lighting of meaning by the use of a structural pattern and also conformity to dramatic presentation, should have won a place in Sri Lankan contemporary writing in English. But the judges sensed in his stories a multi-dimensional approach that was imaginatively fused to catch the reality of the atmosphere which was so vital to the stories.
If an analogy could be given to describe this new style of Jagath Kumarasinghe, then one must go to the history of painting and what happened to line, colour, shape and perspective in the hands of the Cubists and the Surrealists. In their efforts to tap the unconscious, (or subconscious?) they forsook in the ‘modern’ style the surface realities. Jagath Kumarasinghe did a similar exercise in ‘Kider Chetty Street’ and continues to do so in the same style, if one is to judge from the chapter I have been given to read from his latest book, ‘Calf in Milk and Milk Chocolate’.
I cannot vouch for the rest of the manuscript, not having seen it, but if anyone is to judge the book by the chapter titled ‘Nail in an Orange Hue’, I shall attempt to find whether it successfully conveys what the author attempts. At the very beginning of the story is a quotation from the Bible Old Testament, taken from Deuteronomy, Chapter 2 verses 20-21. It goes thus:
‘When thou beatest thine olive trees, thou shalt not go over the bough again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow’.
Whereas earlier in his ‘Kider Chetty Street’ stories there was no thematic banner to spell out the underlying meaning of the story, here we find a reference to it even as the story reaches its final denouement. Its inclusion is integral to the story and as such helps the reader to make the important connection in a collage of descriptive tangents.
The plot at first seems non-existent, but on closer reading what emerges is the writer’s skilful and imaginative getting together of a mosaic of experience. In this story if one is to simplify and order the dislocated parts that lie, in not necessarily sequential order, it would run thus: There is a plantation and its squire is Samuel Davis. Khebiri and Joseph are his employees. Carrots are grown on the plantation and he calls them nails - “and all the nails that you will find in that area descend deep into the soil”.
A lorry is parked on the road to take away the harvest. School boys stand before the lorry, requesting free carrots from the team of lorry driver and crew. A rumour circles around the village that a boy has disappeared - “some rough men wait to catch the small boys after school, and our mom is worried with the sleeping banana by the platter, and she gets angry towards a fly that tries to spoil her son’s diet and she waves her hand towards the fly - a bluebell. The moms in the village are waiting till the children come home from the school, the children who are under ten.
The others can survive even a babe curled in the womb of a mom is safe the mom knows how to behave how to take care, but the isolated three eggs in the nest is not in a safe condition the three eggs can’t fly the three eggs can’t screech for help like the little guys under ten, though the little guys can run. But the running speed of the rough men who wait for the boys will be more powerful. Though the little guys can shout the rough men can threaten them. Though the little guys can hit with their hands the fingers of rough beefy men will be stronger”.
One observes that the tangent about eggs in the same predicament as the boys who are captured helps the reader to emotionally connect with the idea that whatever life that is in danger should get the same sympathetic response. We enter the homes of the villagers:
“First the boys should come home after school and then the moms’ joy will be the first event. Then the red rice will begin to offer its nourishment so is the green salad with the fine smell so is the fried piece of brown dried fish with a fine smell so is the curry made out of Masoor Dhal so is the yellow banana which still sleeps by the platter until the other ritual victuals finish their nourishments.
Some crystal water is filled in a tall white glass and it is sitting on the table and is waiting to smile with the boy as like as the mom”. Later the white glass will speak in the first person. Inanimate and animate objects all have eyes and feelings and what emerges is an atmosphere that is close to the authentic context of a village at harvest time.
The story progresses when Samuel Davis tries to reason with the buyer who has come in the truck with his assistants, that he follows the rule of Moses about leaving a remnant of the harvest for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. At the same time there is a death of a babe “who was sick from the day he was born”. Davis bears the funeral expenses and the author comments - “by that very generosity the squire need to go through the eye of a needle....
A squire’s activities are not easy going there are more disappointments in the daily events of a squire”. Later Kheberi informs Davis - “the buyer says that he can’t spare any of potato bushes on the patches: sir I said according to your instructions we have to keep few bushes on the ground...” “So?” “He doesn’t agree to the concept as he has paid money to you for the whole acre of cultivated potatoes he is not prepared to spare even a single bush as charity”.
The story moves to another death: Roy boy. “The boys have pulled out some of the carrot bushes the carrots spared for the stranger.... the carrot spared for the fatherless.... the carrot spared for the widow and the boys have washed the carrots in the ditch and eaten them immediately. Some pesticides used in cultivation have caused the trouble.
And some other three children are in the hospital in a critical condition. ” The irony comes through very strongly. “Samuel Davis the squire who uses large quantities of chemicals in order to get better results from his vegetable cultivations, Samuel Davis who tries to go through the eye of a needle”.Perhaps the story should have ended with this point about the pollution of our environment to such an extent that even conditions that enabled charity to be observed ages ago cannot be found anymore.
The last few paragraphs contrast with the rest of the story. The author almost asks, directly and in more conventional English to keep our environment clean. Happily, even here the writer cannot stop his inimitable style and humour from peeping through. “It is now a long ago since the glass smiled with each and every mid-day.
To smile with a boy a glass needs to be filled with water. Even if it is filled with water without a boy how can a glass smile with a boy?” Echoes of the Mad Hatter’s tea party? |
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