In Sakuntala Sachithanandan’s garden in Wattala, the Flamboyant tree is in full bloom. Its red petals are strewn across the grass, and some float in a small pond. Above it is a sturdy little tree house – this one built for her six-year-old grandson. (The one in which his uncle used to play has long since fallen to pieces.) The garden, filled with fruit trees and flowers, is one of Sakuntala’s loves and she says she spends a lot of time puttering around in it.
“We built this house in 1996,” she says, leading us toward a corner in which she nurtures a healthy vegetable garden. At a quick glance, we spot spinach, chillies and aubergine plants. Looking at her now it might come as a surprise to some that this petite, amateur gardener walked away with the Gratiaen Prize last week, but to those who know her best, Sakuntala has long had the soul of a poet.
A week after her book ‘On the Streets and Other Revelations’ won, she is still besieged by wellwishers. “It feels strange because it’s not as if I have practised a performance and gone on stage, these are simply poems I have written over many years…they’re just me, things I wrote for myself,” she confesses. Though the panel of judges may not have known it, by praising her poems for their sensitivity to social issues, they offered Sakuntala a vindication of sorts. “Having a soft heart is not such a bad thing now,” she says, “people, even my parents, used to laugh at me about how sorry I felt for animals or for people being mistreated.” Now poems such as ‘Kalu’ and ‘The True Tale of the Stolen Potatoes’ win her accolades.
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| Sakuntala with two of her pet dogs (above) and below, receiving the Gratiaen
Prize last week from Dr. Walter Perera, Chairperson, Gratiaen Trust. |
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She’s always been sensitive to such issues, she says, revealing that it’s why she had at one point convinced her husband to share their home with six dogs and 16 cats – all strays adopted by Sakuntala. Of her many pets, “all of them have long tales behind them,” she puns happily. Though she took oaths as a lawyer in 1972 and practised for three years afterward, she claims that she has never been a ‘careerist’.
“I was a dreamer, the slightest excuse, I’d be at home.” Despite their brevity, her professional experiences did shape her. When her first child was a toddler, she worked for a spell at the Janatha Estates Development Board in Hatton. Working as a Labour Relations Officer, she describes herself as “shocked” at the level of stratification on the estates. Such social disparities would later inspire poems like ‘Thalaivar at a Labour Conference’ written in 1978.
Retreating into domestic life, Sakuntala says she found plenty to occupy herself. An avid reader, she is a fan of Steinbeck and Chekhov among others, but admits that “my childhood tastes also persist. If I can get hold of a little Lulu comic that will be my favourite read for the day.” Reviving another childhood pleasure, she also dabbled in painting – the evidence that she was quite good hangs on her walls.
The paintings we see are of village scenes – the paddy crop being brought in and piles of luscious, red rambutans for sale. (“Most of the paintings were sold many years ago,” she says.) As a natural progression, when it came to illustrating her book for children ‘Tales from the Tree House’ she chose to do the work herself.
However, while the upcoming publication of another collection of children’s stories – ‘The Adventures of Sokadi: The Line Room Mouse’ - will soon provide a distraction, ‘On the Streets’ is still the focus of attention. The spotlight must be uncomfortable for such an intensely private person, but Sakuntala is slowly making her peace with it. “I never shared my poetry for years, I used to hide it in a file…There were some poems I didn’t even show him [her husband, Thirukeswaram], poems about my sister who died.
They were so painful and so very private that I showed them to my husband and son only last year, though my sister died in 1983,” she says. It’s another instance in which her family has been of tremendous support. It’s why she counts her children as blessings and has dedicated the book to her parents, and to Thirukeswaram – ‘her rock of Gibraltar’. |
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