Rajpal's Column

7th March 1999

So so, talk about writing that is so so.....

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Micheal Ondaatje, the Booker prize winner who gave his takings to donate the Gratiaen award for Sri Lankan writing in English, decided to coincide the annual Gratiaen awards with the annual Royal Thomian cricket match. He figured out that this way he could be in Colombo, and be at the Gratiaen awards at the same time.

Since the inaugural awards, many Gratiaen awards nights have come and gone , the high point of the awards ceremony being the cocktails at Gallery 706, also presumably funded by the Ondaatje largesse. Last year was not a particularly good year for Sri lankan writing in English, but then which year was?

1998 was also the year in which the Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies sponsored an international conference which was titled "Writing the nation.'' This conference was almost entirely dominated by the Indian academics and poets such as Jayantha Mahapatra who spoke of Indian writers such as Rohinton Mistry who have approached literary - giant status in the sub continent.

Their attitude to the hosts was extremely solicitous , one reason and perhaps the only reason being that the hosts were the hosts. But there was a veiled patronising streak in this attitude because the Indians probably were aware that the conference hit the extremes in terms of the standard of the presentations . Some were of startling quality, and Jayantha Mahapatra, said to be the best English language poet of India was outstanding even though he often appeared to be a mystery wrapped in a riddle, because his personality seemed enigmatic.

The man's joie de vivre is infectious, but his work is almost morbidly depressing and pessimistic.

He writes bout the tribulations of life in Orissa, his home state, and he is a poet for Orissa as much as Narayan is a writer for imaginary Mulgudi.

All things taken in all , the Indians ignited the conference with renditions of Rohinton Mistry's writing, and with Mahapatra's cool interpretations of what good poetry should be.

All this blended heavily with the misty Peradeniya atmosphere in late October, and with mist mystery and Mistry the conference had it made, almost from the start. But, juxtaposed with all of this were presentations of writing by Sri Lanka's Young Writers, and presentations by some of Sri Lanka's not so young writers who were given some cheers and encouragement by Mahapatra and the solicitous and gentlemanly Indian lot.

This is not a major gripe, but what the juxtaposition of standards (brilliant and infantile as the impish lecturer of English Gamini Hatthotuwegama, my good friend put it ) showed was that Sri Lankans cannot pretend there is good writing happening here when there just isn't.

In a paper presented by myself on media and writing, the passing observation made that "there is no creative Sri Lankan writing in English to speak of" was greeted with furrowed brows . .

One conferee privately made the argument that the young Sri Lankan writers were a bunch of rich kids who have been given amazing opportunities to produce juvenile inanities.

The young writers are in a splendid laboratory , and again, as the same critic said , its good they are not spending their money on drugs and have taken to writing instead. But, does a schoolboy athlete qualify for the Olympic pool or does backyard cricketer qualify for the world cup squad? ( Neither can a college chorister sing at Carnegie hall.)

So it's good perhaps if Sri Lankan writing in English is put through the paces of some criteria that would ensure the establishment of standards and in this respect it is questionable why the Gratiaen trustees cannot consider making no award, in years when there have been no entries that come up to scratch. It is a bit of a comedy and a farce to see the panels of judges make wordy critical judgments on work that in some years has turned out to be piffle.

Of course the going sentiment among the you - kiss - me - and - I - kiss - you Sri Lankan literary community is that anything that is written by putting pen to paper is a service done to the Sri lankan literature by the mere fact that such a piece of writing has been created. That's the same criteria that old Mac Donald would have used to feed the pigs in his farm — as long as there is any food for the critters, the food must be good.

The good thing that came out of the SLACLAAS conference in salubrious and romantic Peradeniya was that it would have dinned in the truth to at least some discerning souls who want to see a true elevation of standards in Sri Lankan writing.

They would have seen, in the backdrop of that unbeatable Peradeniya ambiance, that writing is something more than what passes off for literary endeavour in Colombo and Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Via Mahapatra and Mistry by proxy, the Indians showed that writing that moves the reader is rarely borne out of platitududinal back-slapping encouragement.

It is created by long lonely hours of work at a typewriter, by people who have been involved with their milieu almost to the point of being inebriated by it.

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