Thoughtfully heartfelt

When a novel is writ- ten as a passion, while its subject matter, the war in Sri Lanka, is ongoing, the book becomes part of the action, but at the same time, aspiring, presumably, to an independent existence as a literary work. The exercise in "North, South and Death", moves between one and the other, at certain times closing the gap between life and art, at other times revealing the distinction.

In Bamini Selladurai's novel, the North and the South are the two undeconstructed sides (until the author sets about doing so) in the ongoing war in Sri Lanka. Undeconstructed, not in the sophisticated sense of the word in modern literary philosophy, but as generally reproduced in some mass media - Tamils vs Sinhalese, Terrorists vs Legal Army, etcetera, etcetera.

I am reminded that Sivanandan's novel "When Memory Dies" is Marxian slanted, and the relevance of this reference is that Selladurai's work reveals no uses of either political or literary theory. She writes as many millions of Sri Lankan Tamils would if they were given to literary creation. Which is to say that her novel is thoughtfully heartfelt. The subject matter of her feelings and intellect is delivered through a time-sanctified Indian literary tradition which would have become the staple of most traditional Tamils. Selladurai combines this popular Indian tradition with the structure of the pre-modern novel, and I found this engrossing because it is not self-consciously done like in the works of Rushdie in which he exploits the Indian tradition within the post-modern novel. Selladurai's seems to flow out as a natural consequence of a Tamil, steeped in her own story-telling tradition, writing in the West. The two traditions blend impressively in the re- creation of life in the village of Valvettiturai, the idiosyncrasies of which sometimes reminded me of the little Welsh village of Dylan Thomas in "Under Milk Wood".

The stories of the Amman Temple in VVT and of the Dubai man whose wife had no hair are classic tellings, like the many short stories of lives and loves in VVT. The locations of the story shift between the northern Tamil village of Valvettiturai, the southern Sinhalese village of Kuliyanthalawa and the Peradeniya University campus as a meeting place for the youth of these villages that could make it, "up there". So Peradeniya (noteworthily not Colombo, which only gets an incidental mention) becomes the place in between north and south where there are slim lines of hope in friendships made between youth of the two geographical directions now bloodily trying to become political compass points as well. When the story moves to its penultimate stages of violence back in the village of Valvettiturai where it all began, old Peradeniya friendships from the south, now grown to full authoritarian military stature and posted to the north provide the human element that attempts to transcend politics.

"Romantic" fantasy, ethnic confrontation is also discounted by the depiction of crude and heartless Tamils, doctors and traders particularly, exploiting Sinhalese village people and brutal Tamils in Valvetiturai and Peradeniya. But the novel itself does not pretend to be anything other than political, the process that led to the quest for Eelam.

The Tamils become an oppressed people, but the then middle class leadership of the Tamils which in superficial theory could have liberated them through the Ahimsic path of mass passive resistance could not, in fact, do so because they were ill suited by the socio-historical circumstance of middle class professional Colombo lives, for such rigorous self-sacrifice. So history moves into an armed resistance.

The whole story is embodied in the life of Eswaran Ponnampalam, a Valvettiturai youth who leaves his village for the Engineering Faculty of Peradeniya University, only to return without a degree, forfeited by a slow graduation into a very different kind of violent "faculty". In this novel the watershed was a news headline making itself known on the Peradeniya Campus one morning.

"The Jaffna Member of Parliament, Ex-Mayor, Alfred Duraiyappah, has been shot dead by young Tamil extremists."

The Tamil boys on campus, though not the Sinhalese, sense that something crucial is happening in Sri Lanka. In this regard I would count myself amongst the Sinhalese students. For at that time we in Colombo's middle classes went happily along with our dramatic performances at the Lionel Wendt, attending parties in the diplomatic cocktail circuit and readings at the British Council, not in the least sensing that the subject matter of the plays and novels we would be writing at a later time was moving rapidly, underneath us.

The book is an absorbing read, and some may identify the form and spirit of the Indian cinema in "North, South and Death" in the way certain events come together with the aid of the fantastic arm of coincidence and the "sensational" visualization of some important scenes.

This tradition of the Indian cinema, particularly in the south, is an inheritance from classical Indian story telling of Gods and Demons, Good and Evil transposed to contemporary social life in India. So, Selladurai's novel is a notable entry not only as an expression of how a large and significant section of Sri Lankan Tamils think about events that led to the armed conflict, but also as a literary structure outside the European inherited forms that Sri Lankan writers in English usually employ.

Sacred sounds in harmony

The Cantata Singers directed by Satyendra Chellappah in Pergolesi's The Magnificat with string ensemble led by Ramya de Livera Perera; Continuo - Premilla Perinpanayagam, and excerpts from Handel's Samson and Mozart's Coronation Mass accompanied by Ramya de Livera Perera, at the Kollupitiya Methodist Church on August 10.

This concert was an act of worship whose sanctity was shared by a large and appreciative congregation.

Voices and music blended and resounded in harmony to project excerpts from three great composers of sacred music.

It opened with Pergolesi's The Magnificat, where his skill as a composer is evident in his structuring of the melody for the voice, without too elaborate an orchestral score. Mary's song of praise and thanksgiving was a joyous uplifting of the human spirit. ' My soul magnifies God the Almighty. My spirit glorifies the Lord my Saviour.'

Its fourth movement Suscepit Israel was sung soulfully as a duet by Rajah Christopher (Bass) and Srimanthaka Senanayake (Tenor).

The five excerpts from Handel's Samson, a dramatic work, started with the sombre and poignant Total Eclipse with Dayan Fernando, expressing vividly in song, the horror and gloom of Samson's predicament in his blindness.

Total Eclipse also tragically highlights Handel's own blindness and suggests that this was his daily prayer to God. Samson' s strength helped him bring down the pillar to which he was manacled, by his legs, thus destroying the Philistines and himself.

The Israelite women mourned their dead hero and their lament was followed by a lilting song of victory, jubilantly sung by Menaka Sahabandu (soprano soloist) - 'Let the Bright Seraphim in burning row, their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow'. Naveen Fernando was on trumpet.

Mozart's Coronation Mass began with the Benedictus sung, as always, as a quartet, with a greater emphasis on the solemn spirituality than the exuberance of the celebration. The Agnus Dei, with strands of secular music woven into it, was given a moving and sensitively eloquent rendition, by Anushka Dodanwela in her soprano solo.

The other members of the quartet, besides her, who brought the programme to a glorious close, were Sharmini Wickramanayake, Srimanthaka Senanayake and Eshantha Andrado, whose voices blended harmoniously in that pleading prayer: Dona nobis pacem (Give us your peace).

The Cantata Singers and musicians and their Director had worked with dedication to give us this lyrical evening. - R.L.

Camera-eye tribute to our island home

Why we are what we are

The People's Bank has come forward to present a 'portrait on film' of Sri Lanka in her many moods and manners - "a tribute to our island home on the occasion of her 50th anniversary of Independence," says Dr. Gamini Fernando, its Chairman.

Directed by none other than Tissa Abeysekere, the film avoids the conventional touristic approach and attempts to take the viewer beyond the surface and into the inner essence of Sri Lanka, its people and their way of life.

Titled 'The Sun and The Moonstone' the post production work for this 40-minute film was done in Germany so as to ensure the highest technical standards. According to Dr. Fernando, the film was in production for well over 10 months and is a fitting tribute to Mother Lanka. "We are bankers, but since we are a state bank as well as one which pioneered the move to bring banking within the reach of the common man, we believe strongly in being a part of the mainstream of life in Sri Lanka - hence patronising the arts is a major strand in our policy," said Dr. Fernando, who went on to say that art and culture are as vital to life as food, clothing and shelter.

Ceylon as Sri Lanka was then known, has been likened to Cleopatra, infact William Hull - Professor of American Literature at the University of New York has described Sri Lanka thus - "Ceylon like Cleopatra is infinite in her variety," and it is this feature of our beautiful island home that Tissa Abeysekere endeavors to bring out.

Sri Lanka is multi-faceted. Within a 25,000 square mile territory, it packs in an amazing variety, not only in climate and topography, but also in culture and ways of life, speech, mores and manners.

'The Sun and The Moonstone' is in Director Tissa Abeysekere's own words, "an honest effort to go beyond the surface of what one would see and hear as he or she moves through Sri Lanka". Mr. Abeysekere goes on to say that a good film is one that transcends the limitations of the physical world, where the camera duplicates not the naked eye, but the mind's eye.

"This is my country, my people, my heritage and I have had the good fortune to travel extensively through its territory." Mr. Abeysekere says that for him 'The Sun & The Moonstone' is a deeply personal film, where he has tried to transmit the emotions he has always felt deep within himself about his country and people. "If the viewer can feel even a fraction of that emotion he would see beyond the visuals and get a glimpse - fleeting maybe, of who we are."

"He may also begin to understand, vaguely perhaps, why we are what we are," says Abeysekere, who states that if he has achieved this among the viewers of The Sun & The Moonstone, then he and his sponsor - the People's Bank have been amply compensated.

Dr. Fernando says this particular tribute of the People's Bank is free of the profit motive, as the return on such investments has to be viewed not in monetary terms but in the qualitative improvements in life of the communities where such creative activity takes place. "In making this film, the People's Bank hopes to have made a substantial contribution to the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of our Independence and we seek the co-operation of those who are in such positions to help take this film to as wide an audience as possible," says Dr. Fernando.

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