Malinda Words

BOOK REVIEW

‘Rhythm of the Sea’ by Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe, published in 2007, Reviewed by Malinda Seneviratne.

How can one look at the sea, the waves and spray, the ships on the horizon, sunsets and sunrises, beach and shell when sea and wave have destroyed all or almost all? That is a question I asked myself immediately after the Tsunami of 2004. Then I remembered an anecdote about seafaring folk.

A man asks a fisherman how his father, grandfather and great grandfather died and the answer on each occasion was ‘drowned at sea’. ‘Aren’t you scared to go to sea?’ he asks again. The fisherman asks a question by way of response: ‘Where did your father die?’ The man says ‘In bed’. ‘And where,’ the fisherman asks ‘did his father and his father before him, die?’ ‘In bed,’ he man answers. ‘Aren’t you scared to sleep?’ Silence.

One year after the Tsunami I went to Kalametiya, Hambantota, where the Green Movement of Sri Lanka built some 30 plus houses for families affected by the tragedy with funds collected by my sister who is domiciled in the USA. There was a small ceremony, remembrance, planting of trees in memory of those who died, the shedding of tears. I remember well a comment by a resident: ‘The sea took it all away, but it is the sea, again, that will yield a tomorrow’.

Sri Lankans are resilient. They take the blows, fall at times, but if they have life they stand up again. And smile too. Today, eight years later, there are still signs of the surging waves, the occasional sight of a house that’s lost its roof, doors, walls, furniture and occupants, but for the most part someone who did not know of the tragedy would be hard pressed to imagine the magnitude of what transpired on December 26, 2004. Sri Lankans would know, though, for minutes after the tragedy the entire population, almost, was galvanized into a monumental rescue and relief operation, not by command but volition. To those who know that the country turns into a dansala twice a year and are aware of a cultural norm to set aside difference to celebrate joy and offer strength and presence in times of sorrow, this would not come as a surprise.

Everyone who lost someone or something has a story to tell about the Tsunami. Everyone who knows someone who lost someone or something has a story to tell too. When tragedy is of such proportion as was seen in the last days of that December it is next to impossible to gather all the stories or even read them all should such an exercise be completed. What can be done is to collate a set of stories that capture that overwhelming and word-robbing time. This was the modest task that Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe set herself a few years after the Tsunami. ‘Rhythm of the Sea’ is the result of that exercise, a project sponsorted by the Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce. It is, naturally, a work which required the support of various individuals, all of whom are mentioned. It is a book of text and image, Ramya handling the first while Denise Militzer (a WUSC University volunteer with the Ruhuna Rural Womens Organization in Hambantota) providing the latter, excellent pictures which contain an epic story of human endeavor.

Hambantota, Ramya says, is the backdrop against which ‘the lives of people and the progress of events following the tsunami’. The book covers the moment and the aftermath, the grief and reconciliation with the fact of tragedy, the determination and tenderness of the citizenry who gathered themselves to shoulder the greater part of the relief and recovery effort and the largesse of the world that poured into Sri Lanka. She mentions the institutional arrangement that managed relief operations, treating in passing the weaknesses therein and the opportunities squandered, applauding however the early work of the Centre for National Operations for averting in the first 72 hours what could have developed into a humanitarian disaster.

She has missed, however, the ‘relief-hordes’ that arrived in numbers that India and other countries did not entertain, riding on tragedy to engage in proselytization of a kind that their own countries would never allow had the ‘gifters’ been, for example, of the Islamic faith. Money poured in, but it had to be channeled either through the Government or I/NGOs. The dollar/Euro hungry NGO operators were quick-footed enough to re-invent themselves as disaster-management experts. There were bucks made in the process. Big bucks.

But the focus of Ramya’s task was different. Hambantota was the location and what happened there is what this book is mainly about. A lot of painstaking research has been done in picking up the main strands of the tragedy and the post-tragedy recovery process. It is the little things that cause most vexation. Like the fact that it all happened on a public holiday. Like the fact that the Tsunami didn’t differentiate between house and administrative building. Ramya details how these were made negligible and how selfless courage and human generosity rose above ethnic and religious affiliation, and how the worst elements of human nature were overcome by the human spirit, which she demonstrates ‘tipped the balance’.

There was loss. Indescribable. And yet, Ramya traces with splendid sensitivity the nuances of that fundamental aspect of tragedy. There is enough basic information in this book to give the reader a sense of the numbers and the magnitude of the disaster as well as the resources available and secured and how they were deployed. The narratives of key officials, community leaders and ordinary people are deftly woven into the text not as embellishment but as necessary complement. Indeed, these narratives can be read (as they should and are) as the core of the overall human effort to stand up after taking a terrible blow from natural processes that was beyond their power to stop.

Post-disaster work is not about providing food and water, medicines and medical attention, or providing shelter. The magnitude of the disaster necessitated a rebuilding of a kind that one expects after the end of a war. All of it happened from scratch. Literally. The work moved from immediate humanitarian relief to comprehensive rebuilding of lives and livelihoods, the recovery of economic activity and re-building of institutions. ‘Rhythm of the Sea’ shows how Hambantota did it, how life was infused back into desolate landscapes, how hope emerged from a coastline that had turned into a cemetery.

Ramya brings all her well-established literary skills to turn a compelling story into one which inspires readers to recognize the vast stores of human energy, creativity and determination, and transform inspiration into something tangible and lasting.

She collects the uncollected, i.e. things that the untrained and less-sensitive eye passes over. ‘The conch shell collection’ is a case in point, the details of which I hold back for Ramya describes it best. These are all real people with real names and real lives. And real losses of course. Magnitude tends to obliterate name and turn it into number. That’s necessary too because we are talking of vast amounts of money, provisions and personnel involved in helping vast numbers of displaced and distraught people. And yet, it is the focus on the ‘real’ that makes this book different from other Tsunami accounts.

Eight years have passed. Ramya’s account was published in 2007, just three years after the Tsunami. Even then, the transformation achieved was remarkable, especially (as Ramya observes) considering the strange incapacities demonstrated by the USA in dealing with what ‘Katrina’ left behind (or took away). Hambantota is a different town, a different district now, clearly not only because of the post-tsunami work. But the Hambantota recovery story is not uncommon to other coastal towns and districts.

‘Rhythm of the Sea’ calls out for other narratives and narration, not just because it is good to remember things but for all the lessons learnt, not least of all the inhumanity that tragedy spawns but more than that the immense reserves of human goodness and the dignity that no wave, however tall, can crush.

[Published in the FINE Section of 'The Nation', December 23, 2012]

Saturday (May 1, 2010), I was in Peradeniya. Well, Kiribathkumbura to be precise. I was with about a dozen of my batchmates from Peradeniya. We meet like this now and then, but this time it was a families-included affair. The ‘group’ was made up of a set of people who had opposed the JVP-led Student Action Committee of Peradeniya or were at least critical of their methods.

The conversation went around old times, recollecting incident and personality, remembering those who were not present and those who will never again be present, due to natural and unnatural causes, children and their future and politics.

There was talk about using the collective that we are and have been for almost 25 years to do some useful political work.

There was talk about objectives, strategies, specific actions and possible outcomes. There was concern expressed about things done in good faith producing unanticipated results. This made me remember Ven Uduwela Nanda Thera.

Ven Uduwela Nanda entered the Arts Faculty, Peradeniya University in October 1985. He was a recipient of a Mahapola Scholarship. Politically, he leaned towards the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP). Almost 20 years later he would tell me that he had resolved to keep away from all kinds of extremism, Marxist included. Preferred political ideology notwithstanding, Ven Nanda Thera hadn’t changed much when I met him somewhere near Thalawakele in 2003.

I spoke about Nanda Haamuduruwo. I repeated a conversation that took place in that temple in Thalawakele in 2003. Nanda Haamuduruwo told me he wanted to disrobe.

‘I am from Galagedara. I have done a lot for the village. One day an unpleasant incident occurred in Galagedara. I’ve helped so many people over the years, but no one came to my assistance. I am very disillusioned.’

Now Nanda Haamuduruwo was very different to other bikkhus at Peradeniya. Those who were ‘political’ were very pro-JVP. They were for the most part poorly read and their ‘understanding’ of Marxism and Leftist politics was derived mostly from Wijeweera’s missives and a set of books that was ‘standard reading’ for those associated with the JVP.

Nanda Haamuduruwo stood above them all in terms of ideological sophistry, nuance in reading the political equation and its unfolding and of course as a conversationalist on a wide range of subjects. Nanda Haamuduruwo purchased books every month, when he received the Rs 350 monthly Mahapola allowance.

He built a library in his temple in Galagedara. That was for the children of the area. He was a student, a teacher, a friend to the young people of the area and an exemplary citizen. I didn’t know what the incident was about and didn’t ask. He felt let down and that’s all that mattered to me at the time.

I remembered my teachers. They all gave me wings and didn’t worry at all where I flew or if I came back to say thank you. I shared this thought with Nanda Haamuduruwo: ‘We can’t expect those who we help to help us back.

We give them some tools, some skills and hope they will put them to good use, for themselves and society. They might very well end up doing something we never dreamed they would and this could be good or bad in our eyes.

We are not responsible for the bad they may do. We can’t take full credit for the good they may do either. What is important is the doing. We wish them well and hope for the best. Our task with respect to that particular individual is done. We move on.

This was almost seven years ago. I haven’t seen Nanda Haamuduruwo since then. When I mentioned this encounter, Sri Shantha Wickramanayake, our batchmate and resident of Danthure, said ‘I have something to add’. He updated us about what Nanda Haamuduruwo had been doing in recent time.

Apparently Nanda Haamuduruwo had ‘taken over’ a school that was on the verge of being shut down and turned things around. It was a small school in a village called Dehideniya. He had taken charge and today that school produces very good results at the O/L examination.

There are people like that. These are our ‘natural resources’, the ‘human resources’ honed not just by free education but by teachers who were both guru (teacher) and deguru (parents). Such individuals do not wait for ‘instructions’. They are respectful of circular but do not let these define the limits of engagement. They don’t become non-teacher or non-professional after they ‘sign-out’. They don’t wait for the state, they don’t complain about that which is missing. They don’t lament or whine. They just do what can be done given the resources at hand.

Nanda Haamuduruwo and those like him make me ask myself every day ‘what have you done today?’ I ask myself if I have done enough. I ask myself if I am doing my duty by the people whose sweat generated the money that paid for my education.

The ‘meeting’ in Kiribathkumbura ended with a chit-chat with the children. There were children of all ages, three to 18. A lot of things were said. It all boiled down to one thing: ‘Do whatever you like with the education you get, but don’t forget who pays for it and remember that remembering means you have to be responsible.’ Nanda Haamuduruwo didn’t come for this meeting. He was present though. In fact the venerable bikkhu chaired the meeting, I felt.

Years ago, as a young undergraduate, I was given a book by Arjuna Parakrama. It was called ‘Fire from the mountain: the making of a Sandinista’. It was the story of a rebel, the author, Omar Cabezas. It relates how Omar, at the time a student leader in the university is recruited by the Sandinistas and taken into the mountains to be trained to fight the guerrilla war against Somoza.

He relates the difficulties of transition from student activist to guerrilla fighter, the hardships, the depravations and the diseases that become part and parcel of the struggle against a dictatorship.

By the time I read the book, the Sandinistas had been in power for almost ten years and Cabezas had been stripped of all his positions following disagreements with the leadership.

This did not matter. It was a time of political turmoil. The nation was on the verge of slipping into what came to be known as the bheeshanaya by the Sinhala speaking sections of the population and ‘JVP time’ by those who led sheltered lives in Colombo and other major cities. It was a time when being a rebel had appeal to the youth, even if one was not in agreement with those who appeared to have a monopoly on things rebellious.

The details escape me now. The Sandinistas were later boxed in by the US-sponsored ‘Contras’ and thrown out, ‘democratically’, by the US-backed Violeta Chomorro. It took almost two decades for them to return to power. What I do remember is a poignant observation by the author about memorabilia.

Omar describes how new recruits, when they find the going tough, toss things out of their knapsacks. They would keep the little mementoes they’ve brought along and throw out food items. The veterans would pick these up, he said. This was followed by a fairly lengthy comment on the matter of keeping and throwing.

He relates how there are so many little items that remind a rebel of his home, his family, friends, places that had meaning and of course girlfriends; handkerchiefs, love letters, little ornaments and so on. He said that as time goes on, these things get lost, one by one, as the rebels move from place to place, as they camp and de-camp, as they fight and as they retreat.

At the beginning, the author says, the rebel would curse and be sad. Then ‘loss’ becomes a part of the day-to-day, and some losses make other losses seem trivial and grief over such losses scandalously self-indulgent. War is not a happy thing. It is made of blood, wounds, screams, dying and death. What is a token, a little ornament, signifying love or reminder of a moment of shared bliss when there’s a body riddled with bullets from which life is fleeing to a land called ‘Irretrievable’?

One by one, Omar relates, he lost all such tokens, all the physical signs of a life before life, a being before rebelling. He relates how after this begins the more lamentable ‘loss’, i.e. things that are not tangible, recollection of event, of personality, moment and their relevant casings of hue, temperature, fragrance and theme music.

This book was about the 1970s. The reading was in the late eighties. The recollection is happening, now, more than twenty years later. I’ve already forgotten the details of the book. I know the larger history, the narrative of who won and lost and when and why; but the nitty-gritty escapes me. That’s tragic, for history is made by the little things and by the little people although these are footnoted (at best) or deliberately ‘lost’ or ‘lost-ed’ by historian and ideologue.

On the other hand, remembering and forgetting, though structured by political project, is at some level a personal choice. Moreover, it is not necessarily the case that narrative embellishment and truncation are not things that are limited to political history. Trinkets and such are lost and grieved over, but not only by the political activist or the rebel.

Life is a trek, from one universe to another, one university to another, city to city, one library to the next, wearing one cap today and another tomorrow, in a bus, a train and an overcoat, waving a flag now and a handkerchief later, a shuttle between smile and tear, mesmerized by dawns and thrilled by sunsets, a meandering over trouble-hills and happy-rocks, and in this journey, our bags are turned inside out; we toss things out and we throw things in.

The knapsack suffers with the traveler and is replaced by a new one or a container more suitable for the kind of baggage that is preferred at the particular time. We lament the loss of things that dropped out unnoticed and grieve over the precious little something that was thought to be dispensable at the time.

And in the end we come to a conclusion about things lost and things retained, things remembered and forgotten. Each of us, to a greater or lesser extent, revisit in our minds the places and people that have left their mark on our lives, go over terrain gone over before, and conclude that this and not that was what mattered and how, dammit, we were such fools to let go.

Some years ago I asked the following question: Isn’t it true that the most endearing of memorabilia are pieces from torn love letters and heart-soaked handkerchiefs?

Is this true? For me, it seems right now, this is what it comes down to. I didn’t see any fire from the mountain. I wasn’t a Sandinista. I walked though. Picked some flowers. Threw away some cans. Some songs I remember, some tunes I’ve forgotten. Certain fragrances take me to certain times and certain people. All charming in their own way, of course. Nothing, though, preserves history’s theme song and event-specific perfume as love-letter-shard and a heart-soaked handkerchief. At least to me.

msenevira@gmail.com

We are a few hours away from the year 2013. The world has not ended and the signs are it will not. Strangely, the end of the world sometime in late December was the most looked forward to event of the entire year, beating by a fair margin the Olympics, the US Presidential Election and the T-20 World Cup. Well, it looks like Doom’s Day prophets have called it a day. For now.

A calendar year is ending and a new year beckons. It’s naturally a moment to look back and look ahead, to think about the what-have-we-done and also the what-should-we-do. If the whole world’s-end hoopla taught us anything, it must be that we are collectively ignorant. We just don’t have the ability to predict. And if anyone is to be blamed it is ourselves.

Now it is not the case that the world has been spared natural disasters. Earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, droughts, floods, famine, epidemics and such are not unknown to the world. Our ancestors saw and suffered. They also knew war. . And the wars they fought, won and lost, were nothing like the conflagrations the world has known in the past century. What they didn’t have then was ‘development’.

There was a time when we had seasons: when we knew when it would rain, for how long, in what quantity and where. We knew about inter-monsoonal rains. Again, our ancestors knew enough about rainfall and where the rain would fall and where it would not. So they planned for drought. They built sophisticated irrigation systems. They knew enough about ecology to be circumspect in how they engaged with the natural world, especially since they were equipped with technological know-how capable of causing much destruction to ecosystems.

‘Development’ changed all that. ‘Modernity’ changed all that. ‘Modernism’ and ‘Develomentalism’ changed all that. Capitalism and Communism in their various articulations changed all that. These things spawned hordes of profit collectors and do-gooders (some naïve, some now) who wanted to modernize and develop societies that were deemed to be archaic and underdeveloped.

Things that worked were called ‘traditional’ or ‘crude’. Values and customs that built civilizations and sustained societies were tagged ‘heathen’. Those who did not require salvation were sought to be ‘saved’. And when it became clear that ‘the good life’ comes at a cost (environmental degradation to the point of ecosystem collapse and frenzied competition for resources resulting in wars), the do-gooders, so-called, said ‘people need to have choices’. They should, in other words, be able to choose between 10 brands of footwear, each brand offering a range of choices for the ‘sophisticated’ consumer. The consumer, at the end of the day, is much like his or her less needy ancestors, endowed with just two feet.

But everything we see, hear, taste, touch and smell come with three tags: loba (greed), dosha (envy/hatred) and moha (delusion/ignorance). They come with an invite: ‘Come, embrace and embrace tight!’ Delusion is a pernicious operative for it persuades us to destroy all that we have in the belief that this is a necessary condition for obtaining what we don’t have and didn’t need but have come to believe we must have in order to secure meaning in our lives. We throw away what we have (traditional knowledge, climate-specific seeds, ethics of giving and sharing etc) to obtain membership in a throw-away society; so that we can be called ‘developed’ and ‘modern’, where the tag-giver deliberately leaves out the obvious suffix, ‘fools’.

The world did not end as predicted, but there are many worlds that are ending or rather are being ‘ended’. That process should be stopped. We have ‘developed’ for quite some time now and have very little to brag about. Perhaps it is time to undo certain things. Perhaps it is time to un-develop.

BOOK REVIEW

‘Karuge Lamaa Gee Potha’ (Karu’s Children’s Songs) by Karunaratne Abeysekera, published by Sarasavi Prakashakayo, illustrated by Sybil Wettasinghe, designed by Sandra Mack, reviewed by Malinda Seneviratne

I spoke with the renowned Sinhala lyricist Ratna Sri Wijesinghe about six years ago on the subject of children’s literature or rather literature for children. I believe it was for a feature on ‘Children’s Day’. The question put to him was about the status (as in quality) of literature. I remember his answer:

‘Today there are lots of people writing children’s books or at least books which have that “Children” label, but in my opinion most of them write as adults and are but imposing adult themes into children-contexts. This is why Sybil Wettasinghe’s books remain popular. She’s an exception. She understood the child’s world and universe of concern, was fluent in the language of the child and therefore produced timeless stories.’

I have since had many occasions to revisit this observation, especially when it comes to what are called ‘Children’s Films’, usually marketed as ‘Family Films’. They have child characters, yes, but that’s all the ‘child’ in the script. The ‘family’ tag is a convenience to slip away from criticism, but it fools no one. Families include children. Such films are for the most part violent and more suited for adult audiences. The fault is not with producer or director but rather the authorities who issue tags such as ‘Adults Only’, ‘More suitable for adults’ or (as in the USA) ‘PG 13’ (children allowed if they are above 13, but only if accompanied by a parent). ‘Siri Raja Siri’, ‘Ran Kevita’ and to a lesser extent ‘Vidu’ would be the exceptions.

It appears that the malady has bypassed the lyricists. The songs we heard, loved, learnt and sang as children are the songs we sing to our children. They love them too. Last week the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation organized a concert to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the children’s program ‘Handa Mama’. The children who took part in that program in years gone by have now become well known vocalists and successful professionals. Indeed, SLBC has played and continues to play a magnificent role in passing the best of what can be called Sinhala culture and related values from generation to generation. And among the key contributors was Karunaratne Abeysekera.

‘Karuge Lama Gee Potha’ (Karu’s book of children’s songs) is an invaluable collection of lyrics penned by one of the greatest modern poets. The songs in the book take us back to childhood and naturally a time when the universe appeared to be differently ordered. The words and melodies, one finds, have survived the cacophony that is growing up and the natural transformation of our individual worlds in terms of sizes and concerns. When we hear those songs again and in particularly when we notice how our children embrace them with much the same joy as we did, we wonder if anything has really changed.

The foreword by another important lyrical figure who for some reason is constantly ‘absented’ in discussions on the Sinhala lyric, Sunil Sarath Perera, gives context to what can be considered a monumental effort, even if effortlessly executed, of composition, considering the breadth of subject, voluminous output and sensitivity to the child’s world. Perera is just one beneficiary of Abeysekera’s creative largesse. He explains, for example, how lyricists of his generation saw firsthand how the master went about his work and how they honed their skills by just watching him.

Most of the songs were on-the-spot compositions for various children’s programs aired over radio. They were accompanied by on-the-spot music arrangements by the likes of D.D. Danny, Shanthi dissanayake and Thilakasiri Fernando. What value these exercises added to the field of broadcasting is deserving of deeper and doctoral study, one feels.

Perera details Abeysekeras’s contribution to Sinhala literature through these lyrics and how meticulous he was in employing techniques that enhanced the musicality of the words themselves, without once forgetting that it was all about children, with them and for them. He also shows how the lyricist was guided by the need to educate children about the world and about their country, heritage, culture and the values therein.

If an earlier generation learnt these things through exquisite collections such as the sirith mal dama and prathya shathakaya, complemented of course by doses of the lo veda sangaraava and the jathaka katha, in the past 50 years much value was added to such exercised by what people like Abeysekera did on radio. Indeed, if sirith or ‘custom’ (a more powerful and compelling mover than law, one might say) have stood by us in our most difficult hours, then Abeysekera can be called one of the unheralded molders of that bedrock with held firm against all odds. Perera posits that Abeysekera succeeded in shaping an entire social doctrine or philosophy through the simple literary and musical device called ‘Children’s Song’.

These hundred songs are all works of art which speak to who we are, where we came from and the splendid places we can still visit if we put our hearts and minds to it. The book itself has been elegantly designed with ‘child’ painted all over it. That was, one could argue, inevitable since Sybil Wettasinghe herself illustrated some of the songs and her inimitable script has been used for the titles. All that however remains frill to the man who made the pages, or rather wrote the lines that made them possible.

‘Karuge Lamaa Gee Potha’ is but a slice of the man, and for this reason allows us to imagine his true stature. Karunaratne Abeysekera left a legacy, a foundational text. Good enough for any generation, any collective, to return to and draw strength, meaning and answer in the fact of seemingly insurmountable odds.

This book is clearly a ‘must’ for any library frequented by children and should also come with a CD (perhaps another project for the publisher, ‘Sarasavi’, or anyone else who might have been influenced by Karunaratne Abeysekera’s work, knowingly or otherwise. Few, I would argue, can claim to be unfamiliar with the songs. Few would say they did nothing. Few can listen to them and not become child again. SLBC is excellently positioned to undertake such a task. They have the music and, going by a discernible predilection to recovering that which was best in our radio traditions, the heart as well.

msenevira@gmail.co,

This was written about 2.5 years ago. These are coat-days and not just because Sri Lankan politics has got lawyers and judges swarming all over it. A re-read was nice. Hope it is to those who have seen this.

About a week ago I wrote about A E Goonesinha, the ‘Father of the Labour Movement’ in our country to a weekly newspaper. The piece prompted a lot of comment, including the following about his statue in Goonesinhapura: ‘What a ghastly sanitization is the statue of the old man breaking rocks, as punishment for refusing to pay the Road Tax, but dressed to the Ts in full suit, minus only his fedora!’

The issue of the suit hadn’t struck me until I received that email from Tissa Devendra. It got me thinking about coats, though. The other day I was passing the old Parliament building and saw D S Senanayake being baked inside a full suit under the noontime sun. S W R D Bandaranaike, green-tinged, seemed more breezy in contrast.

It’s not just statue ‘clothes’ of course. I remembered the title of a Master’s thesis written by a colleague who is now a professor in a North American university: ‘Time is a coat’. It was a study on labour relations in the garment industry. The title referred probably to the Marx’s theory of value generation and its relation to ‘labour time’. No need to get into all that here of course.

I remembered also an anecdote related by cartoonist Vinnie Hettigoda. This is a nutshell version.

A man borrows a friend’s coat. The two go on a journey, with the man wearing his friend’s coat. Let’s call them ‘Lender’ and ‘Borrower’ for narrative ease. They meet a mutual friend, and the Lender immediately informs, ‘this coat...it belongs to me’. The Borrower is embarrassed and requests that the Lender not make mention whose coat it is.

They meet another friend. Lender says, ‘This coat....it does not belong to him’. Borrower is annoyed. He says ‘This coat, while we are on this journey, does not belong to you, ok?’ Lender agrees. They meet another man.

Lender: ‘This coat that my friend is wearing....it is not mine’. In this way he communicates whose coat it is. Borrower says ‘can you stop talking about the coat?’ Lender agrees. They meet a fourth person.
Lender: ‘This coat...well, let’s not talk about it!’

I can’t get down on print the facial expressions, the inflection and emphasis, but it is not hard to imagine. Vinnies was talking about censorship and how to get around it.

Clothes are political. They are political statements. They mark status, class, religious faith, preferred identity and even political affiliation. Coats are particular kinds of markers. They are class identifiers. They give status. They help you believe that you’ve made it across some kind of social barrier and are now a member of some elite club. They are part of our culture now. Nothing wrong with wearing coat and tie; it’s just another ‘garment’ after all. On the other hand, it is good not to get carried away by dress, not what one wears and not what one sees another wear.

I have found that dress covers a lot more than naked flesh. Clothes are like words, I think. They are used to express something.

They are used to conceal, to disguise, to mislead, to impress, to be seen, to be marked, to be accepted. They are used also to exclude; those who dress differently, talk differently are basically given the message, ‘you don’t belong’ or ‘we are different’.

The words we use, the language(s) we speak, the accent that we grow into and those that we acquire, constitute a wardrobe, it seems to me. We pick and choose what we wear for which occasion and the company we might find ourselves hanging out with. Like make-up, I suppose. Certain perfumes for certain occasions, certain kinds of company. Different coloured lipstick to go with different clothes.

Disguises, like words, can slip. There are ‘standards’ to follow. Membership rules. If you get them wrong, you may lose membership. People form clubs because they are comfortable with people who look like them, think like them and act like them. They don’t like outsiders. This is why there are rules. Similarly, if you want to be ‘one of them’ you have to wear their clothes, do their thing, speak their speak etc. And you have to keep it up. All the time.

I have no issue with people’s wardrobe preference. There is a popular Hindi song which I believe addresses the issue of clothes and what they mean, what they can mean, what you want them to mean and how important they are to you. What matters in the end is not the cloth, the cut or the appearance. It’s the definite article within. We hide even as we reveal and we render ourselves naked even as we try to clothe ourselves.

This is not the first time I’ve thought of coats, clothes and clothing (what they hide and reveal). I wondered, for instance, almost four years ago: When we wear the clothes that are demanded of us, do we stuff our unhappy skins in a trash can or turn them into drums beaten to unfamiliar rhythms?

I think it is something to think about, these hot and humid days of May. It won’t harm to ask ourselves whose coat(s) we are wearing or desire to wear.

I think it is useful to ask ourselves what happened or happens to our skin when we engage in ‘wardrobing’ and what kind of tunes we are able to or allowed to dance to as a result.

msenevira@gmail.com

Chess players die of heart-attacks. Not all of them, of course. Still, heart attack is often mentioned as the occupational disease of chess players, or ‘wood pushers’ as my mother used to call us (my brother, father and myself), given her preference to outdoor sports and those that required much more limb-movement that the delicate two-fingered dis/misplacements over 64 squares over five hours.

I know that cricketers and others who engage in ‘field’ sports have been struck by lightning but that’s still a rarity. I know one or two have died on account of being struck by a ball in the wrong place at the wrong angle at the wrong pace and remember reading about a cricketer being killed by a wayward javelin. I don’t know however if there’s a ‘cricketer’s disease’.

People die all the time and there are no laws (of state or science) to designate appropriate death-place, but some occupations increase the chances of certain kinds of deaths over others. Soldiers die in battlefield and of gunshot injuries, to state an obvious example. In the year 1986 I attended a funeral in Dodangaslanda, that of the father of a batchmate, Jayalath, now an archaeologist. I don’t know what the disease was called. Neither did he, nor anyone else in that hamlet.

They knew the disease though. They knew the symptoms and the landmarks of affliction as the afflicted moved from healthy to sick to dying to dead. It was the occupational disease of those who worked in the plumbago mines of Dodangaslanda.

Death is not a sunny topic. These days there aren’t many sunny mornings, but that doesn’t mean that I must necessarily focus on the morbid in my morning musings, not even if I had to bury a little puppy before sitting down to type out this copy. It’s just that I’ve been thinking of occupational diseases (and not all of them are fatal of course). Factory workers, for example, agitate for insurance again and/or compensation for workplace accidents that result in injury. What of politicians, I wondered. What is their ‘occupational affliction’?

Since they occupy high seats, I thought ‘vertigo’. For some reason I had thought vertigo had something to do with heights and fear of the same. I did some research and found that ‘vertigo’ is not ‘fear of heights’. That would be ‘acrophobia’ and this can trigger vertigo, according to the relevant science. Vertigo refers to a condition of turning, feeling that things are turning about you or that you are turning around, dizzily. It is usually sourced to a problem of the inner ear.

I think it is the ‘turning around’ part of the definition that made me think this would be a condition that politicians fall victim too often. They may fall from heights but few if any are ever scared of those lofty heights they occupy or wish to occupy one day. Acrophobia is therefore not a politician’s disease. It is perhaps a condition that befalls those who are not suited to be politicians but who for one reason or another end up dabbling in the affairs of the State.

We know, for example, that there are many who really don’t know how to handle power. Something happens to them the closer to the top they get politically. They just lose it. They lose it so bad that believing their own lies and acquiring a false sense of self-importance they think they are supermen/women. The higher they go, the longer they have to fall and the bigger the bum-bruise.

I was thinking of claustrophobia too. Now I do know that politicians are public figures and are ‘people-people’, that they have to attend rallies, speak at functions, canvass support etc. These are all open-space events. Still, having been a silent and helpless victim (like almost all my fellow citizens) of ‘movements’, the whizzing by of a motorcade replete squad cars, motorcycles, jeeps, men in uniform and armed, decoy cars, tinted glasses and whatnot, I have wondered how ‘public’ these politicians are able to or allowed to be.

I’ve seen traffic make way for ambulances. I’ve seen traffic making way for ‘movements’. I’ve wondered about the people inside ambulances; the patient, his/her condition, chances of survival, whether he/she is conscious or not, what kind of thoughts and pains run through mind and body. I can’t help thinking that the VIP in a motorcade is not very different to such a patient.

I’ve wondered if the security-concerned politician suffers from claustrophobia, an abnormal fear of being in narrow or enclosed spaces. I figure that a claustrophobic cannot be a politician for too long since the security requirements would necessitate a kind of imprisonment that would be insufferable and even fatal.

They are hemmed in, whether they like it or not. Today we live in a terrorist-free Sri Lanka, but for decades politicians just couldn’t be ‘public’.

They had every reason to fear open spaces and especially public spaces. A crowded city intersection, for example, could trigger both anxiety in someone who is averse to feeling hemmed in (claustrophobia) and someone who is wondering if some sniper is training a gun on the center of his forehead (agoraphobia).

I am not saying that politicians are unhappy or that they are sick. I mean, we all operate within spaces that are ‘okayed’ by some law or institutional or moral ‘requirement’. Some of us are happy to inhabit these limited spaces. Indeed some might be overwhelmed out of their minds if there were no lines, no rules of engagement and the field of being was unrestricted and stretched to innumerable infinities. At the same time, there would be those who feel hemmed in by lined drawn by others like themselves, for reasons best known to line-drawers.

Such conditions are not easily treated, especially if the parameters are of a strictly material kind. There will always be reason to speak from behind a bullet-proof screen, reason to travel in bullet-proof car and in a motorcade. Some of it is self-inflicted.

Politicians die of heart-attacks. They are not often struck down by lightning. There have been politicians who have been assassinated.

There are non-politicians who suffer from agoraphobia, claustrophobia and acrophobia.

And some, regardless of occupation, suffer heartbreak. Is it an occupational hazard? In a way, yes, for there are those who don’t do anything else than love, don’t know anything else but to love and therefore must necessarily suffer knife after knife after knife and the tragedy of not dying. I don’t think a medical term has been coined for this condition. There are things that Wikipedia just can’t pin down and this is such a relief.

msenevira@gmail.com

[P.S. This was written in May 2010. Motorcade-Mania has subsided somewhat but we still hear of pedestrians being knocked down.]

[This was written a couple of years ago, in response and appreciation of an article written by my friend Revatha Silva on Sanath Jayasuriya. In these days of oneupmanship and sabre-rattling, stubbornness and indulgence in notions of immortality, Revatha's words came back to me and with them this piece]

Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ was masterpiece in terms on political theatre for it gives us many, many insights into the complex web of political relations and the play of political forces. I first read the play when I was about 13 years and at the time, in the simple and simplistic black-and-white of a young boy’s perception of right and wrong and crime and punishment, Brutus was villain and Antony hero. Years later, my father, an English graduate, read me a different ‘Julius Caesar’ when I was preparing for an examination on Shakespeare. In his version, Brutus’ intent was not wrong, his method was and as for Antony, he was a demagogue; a classic model for all demagogues to mimic and seek to emulate.

That’s another story. The abiding fascination of Shakespeare is that he can be read in so many different ways and each reading can reveal something one might have missed earlier. And sometimes one doesn’t have to actually read to remember and thereby read differently. I have read the following line of Mark Antony’s oration many times, I’ve heard it in stage productions and films but did not realize its political significance until early this morning.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might have stood against the world; now lies he there and none so poor to do him reverence.

Yes, Antony was a classic demagogue, but that’s not important. He was saying something very profound here and in a way he was pointing to his fate as well. That day, as he wept over Caesar’s body, he was The Hero. When he perished, though, he was little more than a sentimental wimp and diminished many times from the man who in one speech turned Brutus, hailed as hero a few minutes before, into a villain whose blood was sought by a citizenry transformed by rhetoric into mob.

We all die. This we all know. This is perhaps why the only sustainable village-level social organization is, paradoxically, the maranaadaara samithiya (funeral-assistance society). Alexander the Great, we are told, wanted his funeral to be a tribute to this inevitability, to the fact that we take nothing when we go and no power on earth can grant immortality to anyone.

This is the one thing that we all forget or else postpone thinking about. The Bhagavad Gita makes the wry observation, for example, that the strangest thing is that even though thousands upon thousands of creatures perish every single moment we all act as though convinced that death will not visit us today.

I am thinking of Caesars. Kings. Corporate heads. It is not that the less powerful or the powerless do not operate as though immortal, but that the powerful can do so much and destroy so much by consciously or unconsciously forgetting their mortality.

Last week, my friend Revatha Silva wrote what I consider to be the most thoughtful essay on the phenomenon called Sanath Jayasuriya and a good wake-up call to all of us, especially those who are so ready to vilify Sanath without acknowledge the part they played in making him who he is including the frailties he’s acquired over the years. Revatha recommended the lyrics penned by Sunil Ariyaratne for Nanda Malini: poojasanaye oba hinduwa obata pudana me lokayamai heta obata erehi vee negitinne. (This world that elevates you, sets you on pedestal and genuflects is the same world that tomorrow will rise up against you).

There’s a yesterday for all men and women who are powerful today. There is a tomorrow too. There will come a day when they will have to think of a ‘yesterday’ when their word counted and indeed could have stood against the world, a day when they lie somewhere, nondescript and irrelevant, so unrecognizable that no one would step forward to revere or even acknowledge.

If all men reflected on the immutable truths called birth, decay and death, common to all beings, all things (anicca vatha sankara), they would learn the virtue of humility and be more effective in whatever they do. Refusal, on the other hand is a product of arrogance and ignorance, both key ingredients of downfall.

When a poor man is afflicted with one or more of the sathara agathi (the four pathways to destruction), greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), delusion (moha) and fear (bhaya), he causes harm, but only to a small circle of people. When a leader suffers from these conditions, larger entities are affected. When Caesars are arrogant, are delusional and given to immortality posturing, nations perish.

msenevira@gmail.com

Sahan Ranwala, livewire of the Ranwala Foundation which was the life-product and life of that inimitable artiste, conservationist of things national and teacher, told me one Sunday that the end of the war provided an opportunity to extend the concept api wenuwen api (we, for us) to all aspects of Sri Lankan life. He made two points.

First, he stressed the importance of figuring out ‘api’ (us/ourselves) and ‘apekama’ (that which defines us, our ‘ourness’ so to speak). This is true. Years ago, when Ranil Wickremesinghe was briefly Prime Minister, the UNP launched a policy document called ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’.

It was an unadulterated blueprint to destroy anything and everything ‘Sri Lankan’ in the name of Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans.

The problem was that the regime and the architects of that document clearly didn’t have any clue about who we are as a nation, how we came to be us, who our ancestors were, what they gave us that we should keep, what they gave that we should throw and cultural foundations upon which we should stand when doing the relevant choosing.

I argued in a Sunday newspaper that the api wenuwen api concept that’s associated with the Security Forces and which could be taken to have been the bottom-line guiding principle of the military offensive against the LTTE could be and should be applied to the development drive. I should have prefaced my face with Sahan’s important interjection.

The second comment was as follows. Sahan said that it cannot be too difficult for people to dedicate one day of the month to do something for the country.

It could take the form of any kind of voluntary work and if such sentiment is of a collective kind all the better. It could also take the form of doing an honest job of work at one’s workplace, sans clock-watching, shirking and extended tea/lunch breaks etc. It is a personal choice of course but one which can be actively promoted by leaders.

A friend of mine commenting on my api wenuwen api article said we need not wait for budgetary allocation or some supposedly benevolent donor to toss some coins out way to get certain things done.

It is as though we have been cowed down to a level of dependency that has divested us of initiative, entrepreneurship, innovation and self-belief. My friend asks, ‘Do you need a budgetary allocation to plant few coconut seedlings in a village on a Poya holiday, Eid holiday, Christmas or Thai Pongal?’ He illustrates with an example:

‘In my capacity as Secretary to the SLFP Branch of my village (1970s), Thunduwa, Bentota, I invited Albert Kariyavsam , M.P. for Bentara - Elpitiya for the Opening of Electricity supply and I whispered into his ears to mention in his speech about the lands (just the home garden size) are left uncultivated , be it even a few sq. meters, and to warn everyone that he might be compelled to take some unpleasant and drastic actions to assign the land to someone else who could cultivate them.

The whole of next week I was able to see everyone fencing the land, planting with banana plants, murunga, gahala etc. At the end of a year we could see most lands were looking green. No Budget, no aid; just calculated persuasion.’

It takes a different kind of leadership. A leadership that lets the doing do the talking, so that when the talking happens, it encourages, empowers and perhaps even shames people into doing the things they can do. Architecht/Planner L.T. Kiringoda points out that the fascination with Singapore that some of our leaders reveals more about a loser-mindset than anything: ‘Singapore does not have rivers, water falls and tanks, mountains, forests, paddy fields, villages and kada mandiyas, world heritage sites, wild life etc. etc.

Also in Sri Lanka we have farmers, fishermen, tea pluckers, rubber tappers, toddy tappers, craftsmen, dancers, etc. and Singapore has exploiters of wealth with bloodless faces. If Sri Lanka is to be Asia’s wonder then it should be as Sri Lanka not as another Singapore.’

There was a different in approach that worked (in a sense) for Singapore and an absence of that approach in Sri Lanka which could be the reason why we are where we are. It is not about being another Singapore but being a different kind of Sri Lanka. Renton de Alwis told me that it is not that we don’t have people or that we haven’t understood the full potential. Maybe it is that we haven’t learnt the lessons.

Renton wrote the following about the kind of people we should learn from, be inspired by and try to emulate: ‘Teachers who worked for what they were paid and went that extra mile to give us lessons in life, doctors who chose not to go into PP but to serve the needy for what they are paid, the policemen (perhaps the one in the pix) who keep their heads high, farmers who put in such hard work, take such risks, unlike others who collect cool commissions on funds borrowed from banks to import cars and other luxury goods to sell regardless of if we needed them, workers who work for they love what they do, no matter how little they make, law makers and keepers who are honest, mothers and fathers who give their all to make us what we are ...all those who suffer in the service of the public selflessly... May all of them be blessed and may they qualify to be Maithri Bosathwaru.’

We can. If only we know who we are. If only we understand that we are who we are because our ancestors looked to the future, worked together, worked hard, had self-belief and resolve.

Sahan is not saying that anyone should give what they cannot. They should do what they can. That extra bit. Call it ‘My Nationalist Hour of the Day’, ‘Nationalist Day of the Month’, ‘My api wenuwen mama moment’. What’s in a name, after all, as long as it’s not a ‘Dinavamu wena aya’ (for the triumph of someone else) at the cost of hurting or bringing down ape aya (our people).

One hour a day. Too much? How about one minute, just to ask if it means anything to you that you were born in this country and was made of its historic waters and its cultural breezes and other things ‘Sri Lankan’? I think that would be better than nothing. It would inspire, I am sure.

At some level, it’s a personal choice, as I said. A necessary choice if we want to inhabit a Saadambara Sri Lankaava, a nation we can be proud of.

msenevira@gmail.com

Certain sections of the Sinhala Buddhist population are up in arms against what they call ‘Islaamikaranaya’(Islamization) or ‘Halalkaranaya’(Halal-ism). The more virulent elements of this group have indulged in the most distasteful of anti-Islam hatemongering especially in social media sites such as Facebook.

The initial objection has been to non-Muslims being forced to play participant to a Muslim religious dictate pertaining to meat, i.e. the slaughtering of animals as per Islamic doctrine. One can argue that if it’s meat that is desired then the ‘how’ of slaughter should not really matter. It is not that non-Buddhists consuming Halal meat are automatically converted to Islam, after all. On the other hand, perceived intrusions (there have been instances, we note, of Muslims legitimately and systematically purchasing properties to turn formerly ‘Sinhala’ villages into Muslim-dominated entities) can act as cultural trigger where those who talk the religion but may not practice it preying on natural social fears.

The Buddhist response would be to treat things with compassion, which would require Buddhists to draw on the principles of tolerance and empathy. If wisdom is also employed, as is required according to Buddhism, then the wise thing would be stop eating meat altogether. Consumption of meat is not necessarily forbidden, but since animal turns to mean only consequent to slaughter, and since slaughter does not sit with the Buddha Vacana (May All Beings Be Happy), then abstinence is a choice that takes a culturally unpalatable situation and turns it into a reason for walking closer to prescribed path.

The attacks on Muslims and Islam, and especially the vilification on sites such as Facebook are quite antithetical to Buddhist teachings of tolerance and equanimity. They have been quite rightly condemned. Some of the condemnation of course comes from those who have an axe to grind with Buddhism and Buddhists, ever ready to vilify but extremely reluctant to point error in other religions, their churches or followers. Such people use the erroneous and misleading blanket descriptive ‘Sinhala Buddhists’ which is as bad as conflating Tamils and the LTTE. The criticism, however, remains valid.

If these so-called ‘Buddhist’ groups are in error in their vilifying thrusts, so too, sadly, are some of their detractors, many of whom believe that only the majority community needs to be rebuked fearing perhaps that if other communities are found fault with (as collectives or partial entities or individuals) it amounts to being racist, chauvinistic, religiously intolerant etc.

A classic case is that of the furor over allegation of Tamil versions of the Law College Examination being leaked. Now this is a competitive examination and the facts certainly raise questions that compromise the integrity of the examination in ways that are far more serious than a leaking of an Ordinary Level examination. And yet, this has been a touch-me-not issue for almost all commentators who have intervened in the ‘Halal Controversy’.

If Sri Lanka is to be a nation of less paranoid communities it is imperative that each individual and each community looks within. Sinhalese and Buddhists have shown exemplary tolerance in years gone by. In Europe the only ‘religious’ holidays are Christian and in countries dominated by Muslims there is even less recognition of other faiths. The intolerance of the Swiss is a well concealed fact that came out when a referendum was held about mosques. There’s nothing in Sri Lanka akin to the issuance of Fatwas as are common in Muslim countries. These are good things to think about.

In the end though, deeper reflection on faith and an abiding by the relevant doctrine would make for better engagement with religious others. In the end all human beings, regardless of faith, share the same will to live and the same apprehension about death. If a symbol of co-existence is required, take any mosque in any part of the island and the chances are there is a Bo sapling coming out of some crevice. It doesn’t say anything about either faith, but the togetherness is a lesson that can be learnt.

['The Nation' Editorial, January 6, 2013]

Twenty one years ago in a small temple in Pallimulla, Matara, a man by the name of Jayantha Silva lectured a bunch of undergraduates and young graduates. There were also two Maoists in attendance, Sunny Dayananda and M.D. Daniel. The subject was the chathuskotika, the four-fold system of logical reasoning in Buddhism. Jayantha Aiya brought in several examples to illustrate the point. One was the story of the Ascetic Siddhartha placing his paaththaraya (begging bowl) on the waters of the river Neranjana wiling it to travel upstream and thereby offering a sign. The other was the biblical slapping, the turning of the other cheek.

The logical frame in four parts, in brief, can be described as ‘Exists, does not exist, exists and does not exist, and neither exists nor does not exist’. This is not the place for elaboration. I remembered Jayantha Aiya, then working as Shroff in the Agriculture Department, Peradeniya when a friend related a story about a week or so ago.

Here are the relevant excerpts:

‘I've just returned home after a 'thanksgiving service' at the little church -the corner of Jawatte Rd. It was for the Very Rev Fr James Amerasekara, who was Vicar at St Paul's church, Kandy in the late 60s and 70s. A lovely man. Not a great speaker, but good-very liberal and kind. He put up with my never-ending questions about church dogma. He died some years ago. But what really interested me was what Bishop Duleep de Chickera said in his short sermon. Apparently Fr James was chaplain at St Thomas when Duleep joined as a new curate. He said Fr James' ministry was governed by 2 points. The first was intriguing. The reference was to Jesus' exhortation- 'If a man slaps you on your cheek, turn to him the other also'. He said that he, together with many others, found that very difficult, until he realized that what Jesus meant was 'stay within slapping distance; don’t move away because that distance is also the distance for an embrace’.’

Later, after thinking more about the story, I wrote to my friend: ‘Reflected on this just now. Sits well with the Buddhist notions of attachment and non-attachment. You neither seize nor do you dismiss.’

We are human being and frail consequent to the fact. A doctrine can be encapsulated in a few words strung together but it is only those who have studied the word and practiced as per prescription that can assume to read even approximately. Rev. Chickera would know and I would not. My friend, a deep reflector and ‘liver’ would know more than I do. Much more, probably.

Buddhist philosophy is voluminous and the idea finds extensive elaboration, for example in the Satipattana Sutta and in the various erudite commentaries from a long time ago. For the prthagjana or the uninitiated who are yet to step on the path interpretation is not forbidden. Nothing is, in fact. Only, the assumptions and actions thereto have consequences in the manner of the paticcasamupaadaor, as a Christian might put it, in view of Judgment Day. Whether we indulge or step away from interpretation, we act, as the existentialists would argue.

What is slapping, then? In a sense, an attack, possibly out of anger. In another sense, a Christian might say, it could refer to a divine testing of faith. ‘God’ would put one through trials and tribulations and how one responds will count at the end. Such ‘slaps’ can make you rebel against the ‘giver’, in this case ‘faith’, which would amount to return-slap, or make you run away, which mean disavowal, a rejection of faith, again a return-slap (of the negative kind). The omniscient and omnipresent would arguably remain within embrace-distance, but the slap-taker, if he or she did not offer the other cheek (or remain within slapping-distance) would by choice have rejected embrace.

A Buddhist reading would draw from the principle of non-attachment, the employment of upekkhaor the ways of treating life’s vicissitudes with equanimity, with metta (compassion) and pragna (wisdom), with full cognizance of the errors spawned by the defilements and showing fidelity to the recommended practices.

The extrapolations are many of course. We could, for example, use the principle to think of tensions between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the state. We could think of ‘competition’. Or, simply, our relations with one another.

In this world there are very few Christians who turn the other cheek and very few Buddhists who can claim to treat things with equanimity. There is much to be learnt in the respective doctrines, the respective faiths. And from each other of course. We don’t do that enough. And perhaps this is because we don’t stay within slapping distance (literally and metaphorically); we don’t will our respective begging bowls to travel upstream against the tide of human misery and ignorance.

msenevira@gmail.com

The 1978 Constitution is not made for dictators, contrary to an oft-articulated view. It is rather made to make dictators in that it confers on the executive near dictatorial power. The objections however have focused more on incumbent than position or constitutional provision.

The constitutional document is of course referred to but mostly to acquire the ‘objective’ tag or as make-up to disguise political preference. In the main it has been about likes and dislikes. Virtues of democracy and the need to have it affirmed in word and spirit are trotted out. It’s part of the political game to appear neutral but political preferences are hard to hide in this day and age.

A good rule of thumb when assessing the democratic worth of constitutions and articles therein is to image a beneficiary whose ability and integrity one questions, someone whose ideological bent and politics one abhors. This is the device I suggested that MPs voting on the 18^th Amendment should use.

If we assume for argument’s sake that democracy is the best system of governance, the 1978 Constitution is a body blow to the idea. If one wants Sri Lanka to be a better democracy, then a complete overhauling of the constitution is called for. Easier said than done of course for it requires a two-thirds majority which is what is enjoyed by the current set of beneficiaries. It would be myopic to expect them to vote against their interest. On the other hand those who aspire to obtain the same sweeping executive powers would hardly be interested in voting to prune these very same powers they hope to someday enjoy. This is perhaps why the focus is on person and not post and why the rhetoric seems hollow.

In this context it is natural to think that knocking off the slightest shard off the executive armor is a necessary step in a ‘democratizing’ process. The error is that what incumbent loses does not materialize as a corresponding loss in constitutional provision. J.R. Jayewardene was declared a tyrant. Few were sorry to see him go at the end of his two terms. When he was replaced, Premadasa inherited the powers as did Wijetunga, Kumaratunga and Rajapaksa after him. The losses that accrued to the individual on account of error, ignorance and arrogance, they took to grave and retirement. Successors started afresh.

Attacking the President is easy. Taking issue with position is also easy. Arguing that the incumbent being ousted is ‘first step’ is hogwash. Belief that a presidential back-off would amount to dent in constitutional provision is patently naïve.

Today there’s a stand-off of sorts, some would like us to think: Supreme Court vs. Parliament, Judiciary vs. Legislative. Two process: Impeachment against the Chief Justice and Court Ruling against Parliamentary Select Committee. Some have called for a change of laws pertaining to impeaching judges of the higher courts. Some have called for prorogation of Parliament ‘to cool things a bit’. The ‘callers’ claim it is all about the independence of the judiciary. Some add that it is a democratizing move. The objection raised by some ministers to moves against the Chief Justice (at least in terms of the impeachment process) have been cheered by the above ‘callers’, notwithstanding the fact that some of these ministers are not exactly ‘people’s representatives’ in that they are in Parliament courtesy the President’s largesse. Bold of them, yes, but the fact that they don’t have a constituency to speak of should not be forgotten.

More telling is the identity of the callers. They are not political neutrals. They are regime-haters and as such their democratizing credentials are suspect. Whipping up notions of ‘confusion’ and ‘tension’ even as they call for an executive/legislative ‘back-off’ alone shows much humbuggery.

It is not a matter of picking between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mr/Ms Perfect President. The choice is not between Rajapaksa and A Better Order in the Foreseeable Future. The choice is not between Executive Presidency and Westminster System (with or without some adjustment). For such choices, there have to be objective conditions such as severe economic, social, political discontent across the board. There are people who are not exactly cheering this regime, but neither are they inclined to cheer anarchy. The courts are not people-friendly, in fact that are places where the masses feel utterly displaced and disoriented. Lawyers are seen as evil necessities by those who for whatever reason are forced to be in court. Shirani Bandaranayake is not a Sarath Fonseka in this sense. Those who try to market her as the figurehead of moves at changing regime and democratizing probably assume she’s naïve, which is of course a possibility that cannot be ruled out. Worse, they assume that their political records are unknown. It’s a straw-clutching exercise of the politically dispossessed and displaced privileged class that we have seen before, with Sarath Fonseka and before him Sarath N Silva. No surprises therefore.

Only those whose lives and lifestyles are insured can wave hand at anarchy. Such situations are made for blood-letting, but the blood that could flow will not be theirs, but that of ordinary people. If it is a matter of a Constitutional Dictatorship versus Anarchy where a result in the favor of the latter (unlikely as things stand) spawns yet another Constitutional Dictator, the intelligent and responsible choice would be the former.

[Published in 'The Nation,' January 6, 2013]

BOOK REVIEW

‘With the Dawn’, by Nihal Fernando and Herbert Keuneman, published by Studio Times Ltd., reviewed by Malinda Seneviratne.

There are countless melodies that can be composed with the 12 pitches of the Chromatic scale. There are more than 12 words in the English dictionary and this alone gives sense of dimension pertaining to possible word configuration. One might say that we have enough and more tools to describe the world to ourselves and one another. There are times however when we all feel poor, not for lack of word but perhaps for its suffusion. We cannot pick the correct words to describe to perfection, dimension and detail all. Then we go silent.

It is the same with painters. Color and line make for innumerable configuration but rendering is always incomplete. Artists give us new eyes and perhaps inevitably new lies as ways, new ways of self-deception. One would think, then, that the photographer is a more humble archivist, except that this is also an exercise that involves choices such as time of day, light-shade mix, the ‘settings’ pertaining to camera and of course post-shot play on a computer where a wide range of tools are available to re-render that which was captured.

When a photographer has travelled a territory more extensively than an archaeologist or surveyor it is clear that he or she can make countless albums for there are innumerable ways to organize material. It is hard to think of anyone who has traveled the length and breadth of this island as much as Nihal Fernando has done. Neville Weeraratne in an essay titled ‘Nihal Fernando and Herbert Keuneman: a tale of two kindred souls’ says that the former ‘has seen, heard, experienced and above all understood the land, its people and their life’. It holds for the latter too, going by that same essay and by the authoritative travel guide ‘The Handbook for the Ceylon Traveller’ which carries the signature of his life, vision, knowledge and the love he shared with Fernando for this country. Weeraratne describes him this way: ‘His lifelong residence led to a passionate love for the island. There is (nor was) anyone with his encyclopedic knowledge of the country in whatever the detail and in whichever the discipline.’

Weeraratne’s piece is found towards the end of an album of photographs which is also an essay and a journey, ‘With the dawn’ published by Studio Times. From dawn to dusk is a long time. For people like Fernando and Keuneman it’s a set of hours that can theoretically make for countless albums on countless subjects. This collection is based on the Studio Times exhibition called ‘Wild Life ’73’’ held almost forty years ago at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, Colombo. The photographs displayed were picked by Keuneman just two weeks prior to exhibition date. That process has been described beautifully thus:

‘Fernando and Keuneman flung open the doors of the studio (Studio Times, that is, located then in the Times Building, Colombo Fort), letting the unsullied air of a quiet morning find its way into the dark corners, as they laid out the photographs on the floor. Beggars who lived in the foyer of the building, occasionally peered in to look at the whirling images of deer and elephants, monkeys and crocodiles, jungle trees and jungle pools, birds and more birds in flight. Herbert Keuneman walked among these black-and-white prints, picking up one, peering at the next, tossing photographs here, there, everywhere. He cast a few aside, sorte4d others, grouped some and started writing the story of a day in the jungle…with the dawn…the birds…awake…and take off…and so it went on until the last bird flew home.’

This was long before digital cameras and ‘photoshop’ those advances that turned point-click amateurs into art photographers if they knew how to photo-edit or could obtain the services of a photo-editor. We can flip through the pages and be mesmerized by the images. It would take a traveler however to look at each photograph and imagine the work involved. Nihal Fernando is well known for his patience. He did not (and admittedly could not) depend on the insurance of post-click technology to work out the glitches that human frailty (of mind, eye and finger) spawns.

It is a black and white collection. For this reason the photographer obviously had to work within narrower margins of error. Color blinds at times and even makes for a lot of fudging. Perhaps this is why even in today’s digitized world of fascination with color palettes the black and white photographer is still held in awe.

We cannot tell if the collection was gathered, photographically, over a single day. But this was a different age of photography and a different society working towards different objectives at a different pace and in less glittered economy. Nihal Fernando was inspired by love. So too, Herbert Keuneman. Such people don’t rush. They take their time. It is evident in the collection, both in image and in descriptive line.

They take us from moment to moment, hour to hour, dawn to dusk as though leading us by hand, drawing attention to all that the untrained and less-used-to-loving eye would miss. Keuneman’s economy of words is ideal complement to Fernando’s photographic poetry. He says only what is necessary and thereby teaching that silence is an excellent travel companion and even travel guide. There is silence, silently captured and described in whisper. There is music here too, for Fernando makes us hear the ripple of water, the movement of wind, the call of bird, flapping of wings and thereby teaches us the language of the civilized, our ancestors who had eyes and did not babble incessantly just because they had mouths and tongues.

‘With the Dawn’ ends ‘when the last bird flies home’. It is a limited edition of just 1000 copies. A different generation of photographers might think that armed with technology they could as much or better with a fraction of the effort. They would be wrong. Technology does not have a ‘love-function’. It is not obtained by point-and-click on a computer screen or inserted as device in a sophisticated camera. It comes with walking. It comes with deep reflection. It comes in conversations with hundreds and hundreds of ordinary people. It comes with the dawn and takes flight in the wings of the last bird flying home.

[Published in the FINE Section of The Nation of January 6, 2013]

I have been reading and reflecting on the Mangala Sutta of late, i.e. the Discourse on Blessings, and found that even the simplest line from the Buddhist scriptures inspires immensely. My wife, a keener student of the doctrine and who frequently listens to bana on the radio, made an interesting observation: ‘Yes, and it’s all linked and should be reflected on keeping in mind other pertinent and salient elements of the dhamma (doctrine); the Mangala Sutta should be read in conjunction with the Patabhava Sutta(the Discourse on Downfall)’.

I glanced through the latter, which complements the Mangala Sutta by pointing out the causes of downfall and that those who allow themselves to be tarnished by these, blocks their own road to worldly, moral and spiritual progress while lowering all that is truly noble and humane. Being mindful of the dangers enumerated in the Parabhava Sutta and avoiding them, therefore keeps open the pathways to receive the thirty eight blessings detailed in the Mangala Sutta.

I read again the particular lines from the Mangala Sutta and as always happens when a mind enriched by further elaboration re-reads, the inspiration was greater and the reading richer or so I like to believe.

Asevanā ca bālānam
Panditānañca sevanā
Pūjā ca pūjaneyyānam
Etam mangalamuttamam

The above is the first set of blessings that our Budun Wahanse is said to have mentioned when asked to speak on the subjects by some deities visiting him at Jetavanarama as recorded in the Sutta Pitakaya and the Kuddakapathafollowing re-telling by the incomparable Treasurer of the Dhamma, the Ven Ananda Thero. The stanza advocates association with the wise, disassociation with fools and the honouring of those worthy of honour and observes that those who do this are blessed.

Who are the ‘foolish’ referred to here? Taking into account other relevant discourses, ‘fool’ refers to those who do not observe basic morality. The commentaries indicate that even if one is conversant with the dhamma but does not observe moral conduct, one is foolish since the behavior results in suffering, the augmentation of suffering and a lengthening of sansaric sojourn. The commentaries also argue that in the ultimate sense this stanza extols the individuals to remain aloof from foolishness.

It occurred to me that there are no absolute fools and that no one is absolutely wise except those who have walked the path advocated and have reached the destinations of knowing. In each of us there is a fool and there is a wise person. To the extent one fortifies oneself with the thrividaratne, or the Nobel Triple Gem, the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, one is able to better ascertain the dimensions of foolishness and wisdom in a given individual, and able to empower oneself by learning from the wise dimensions and check oneself against being contaminated by the foolish.

It is not a piece of advice where the individual is required to label someone ‘fool’ or ‘learned’, run from fool and walk with the wise. If that were the case, we would have collectives made exclusively of fools and exclusively of the wise with no interaction whatsoever between the two, even the fools who wish to be wise being snubbed by the latter.

Like in all things, the call is for the twin deployment of pragna(wisdom) and maithree (compassion), keeping in mind the virtues of practicing upekkha(equanimity), with full knowledge of the transient nature of things (even fools can become wise and the wise slip to foolishness, for example).

Most importantly, the stanza calls for deep self-reflection, advocating that the individual seek within him/herself the foolish and the wise using one or more of the many tools provided in the vast canon of Buddhism. An easy pathway would be to reflect on the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha (the collective of those who have renounced worldly pleasures, or the bikkhus incorrectly translated as ‘clergy’). The distance between self in all its facets and the ideal-types (if you will) articulated in these qualities of the Noble Triple Gem, would help, I feel, in discovering within oneself the elements of foolishness and (relative) wisdom and help also to obtain sense of the dimensions of ignorance. Once these things are ascertained in some approximate manner, it becomes or should become easier to move from avidya(ignorance) to vidya (comprehension), darkness to light, foolishness to wisdom and so on.

The ‘honour’ element is no less fascinating, I found. Who are those who can be seen to be worthy of honour? The commentaries offer a list: those who provide material and spiritual benefits such as parents, teachers, employers, monks, public servants, etc. and also those with more refined morality, greater learning, or greater age.

The latter set of characters worthy of honour cuts across all categories for everyone is honourable one way or another, and by the same token everyone has qualities that sits well with the opposite. The advocacy, perhaps, is to expend wisdom and compassion in order to be able to ascertain in each individual one encounters, that which is praiseworthy and to applaud the same, even as one recognized flaw and protect oneself and if possible the flawed as well, without being condescending or succumbing to moral posturing.

Critically important, likewise, is to reflect on the idea of ‘honour’ in the context of self-exploration. It is inevitably a humbling exercise and an ego-washing that makes for more wholesome engagement with the larger collective even as it makes for keener and more beneficial exploration of self.

This afternoon, a friend, benefactor, reader and critic, told me that she was disappointed with the tone I had used in a piece. I told her that there are times when foul language has a role. ‘No Malinda, never; it might seem to be effective but in the long run it is not’.

We slip and I am sure I will slip again. My friend was absolutely right. I was checking out the Mangala Sutta for a different purpose when a particular line popped up before me. It was about the well-spoken word and how speaking it is a blessing. I wrote back to her, copy-pasting the stanza, acknowledging that she was right.

There’s a fool in me. The association of the wise (my friend) helped me recognize myself or at least that particular aspect of who I am. She is truly worthy of homage.

I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dhamma. I take refuge in the Sangha. May all beings be happy: Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta.

msenevira@gmail.com

‘It is better to impeach too often than too seldom; if those in positions of power cannot be virtuous, they should at least be nervous’ [after Joseph Sobran]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa promised that the ruling party will show its strength when necessary. The ruling party did so on Friday, passing the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, courtesy the massive number advantage, 155 for 49 against. It was a foregone conclusion. The argument in favor of the motion referred heavily to the notion of parliamentary supremacy and the weight of Standing Orders (in particular 78A) vis-à-vis the word of the courts.

The debate itself was held in spite of and in contradiction of the Court of Appeal (CA) upholding writs of certiorariand Prohibition petitioned for by the Chief Justice, where the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) appointed under and in terms of Standing Order 78A was determined not to have legal power or authority to find anything that affects the legal rights of the CJ. The court thereby quashed the report of the PSC. The CA in fact refereed the larger question of constitutional interpretation to the Supreme Court (SC), which had ruled that 78A violates the constitution. The other elements of the petition (bias, deviousness etc.) the CA did not have to determine on, therefore.

The above, then, can be described as the butt-ends of parallel processes where the legal muscles of the relevant lines tested themselves against one another.

Processes are never clinical. People and interests are naturally parts of the story. Rhetoric has a say. Words are used. In high profile cases the stakes are high, not just for the protagonists but their hangers-on and anyone and everyone who senses that there are morsels or even something more substantial to be lapped up if the cookie crumbles their way. There has been, therefore, much vilification across the board.

The charges against the CJ are serious to the point that those against Neville Samarakoon seem utterly trivial. Details of her bank accounts and activity therein warrant, in the very least, query of post-suitability. Details of the Trillium transaction and related discounts indicate infringement of Article 110(2) of the Constitution, ‘No Judge of the Supreme Court or Court of appeal shall perform any other office (whether paid or not) or accept any place of profit or emolument, except as authorized by the Constitution or by written law or with the consent of the President.’ Financial experts would maintain that the term discount indicated loss to the seller and profit to the purchaser. ‘Gift’ is indicated. As such the legality of the move notwithstanding decisions regarding the bench hearing the relevant case raises serious questions of objectivity and dignity of office. Allegation needs to be proved, though. For such, there should be provision. The CA determination leaves one to conclude that there are none.

Many who have opposed the impeachment process have studiously sidestepped such issues, choosing instead to focus on matters of moral authority and perceptions of vindictiveness, both of which can be argued cogently. Political readings where logic is mixed with selectivity make heady cocktails. Allegation can be read as vindictive finger-pointing and this can be confronted by finger pointing in return. For every single matter on which the CJ’s behavior is questioned, one could argue, similar queries can be directed at her detractors. The politics of convenience, therefore, marked the process from the beginning to end.

That kind of politicization could have been avoided, if for example the process was a product of separate investigations, subject to the caveat that nothing can stop objectors crying ‘foul’ and alleging premeditation. It could have been minimized if process was not padded by a campaign to ‘educate’ the public. It can be argued also, that such efforts may have fed into the interests of those who have an axe to grind against the regime, spurring frenzied commentary about attacks on the independence of the judiciary, dictatorial tendency. The notion ‘international conspiracy’ naturally acquired currency.

It was not a matter of determining guilt or innocence, as far as the CA was concerned, but rather one of propriety. If 78A is unconstitutional, then it should be transformed into an Act of Parliament, the constitutionality of which the SC has to determine. Parliament, in such an eventuality, could have insisted that the incumbent CJ should absent herself from the inconsistency check, since we were in impeachment mid-stream. At this point, Parliament would have been forced to assume the integrity of the bench, whose ‘independence’ is clouded by the composition of the Judicial Services Commission, the Chairperson of which is the CJ herself, ex-officio. ‘Mid-process,’ however, is the rhetorician’s ‘home turf’. That’s where ‘foul’ is heard the loudest. Given the degree of politicization, sobriety would have been obtained dearly for suspicion is at a peak and egos at risk of disintegration.

The fact of the matter is, without 78A and until such time some new measure is introduced, the 1978 Constitution would remain one where there are no provisions whatsoever to oust an errant judge of the higher courts. That’s an unacceptable state of affairs. Introducing something now would set a bad precedent, but one could argue that there’s no choice but to do so.

Those who object to the CA determination can argue that judicial review is never conferred in the abstract or in every conceivable situation. Permissibility is detailed. Powers are caveated with limitations. They can also state that constitutional provisions for ousting of judges of the Supreme and Appellate courts in countries that subscribe to the Latimer House Principles have applied them only to the subordinate judiciary. In both Britain and Australia, Parliament has close to absolute power in determining the ways and means of impeaching judges of the higher courts, noting however that both countries have second chambers which are less about political parties.

The problem is that review of impeachment measures was not done when they had to be done and were neglected when necessity was pointed out. Queen’s Counsel Nadesan’s submissions on the matter in his defense of Justice Samarakoon is almost three decades old, so few can claim that no one noticed. Bandaranaike, Muttetuwegama and Gunawardena (of the PSC relevant to that process), in their dissent, urged sending the matter to the SC for a determination. Nothing was done and so the flaw remained.

On the other hand, those objecting to the CA ruling could claim that Article 107 (3) gives Parliament the option of providing procedure for impeachment either by Law or by Standing Order. The Legislature can perforce choose to ignore determinations of the judiciary, they would argue, contending that the ruling traverses the jurisdiction and powers of the Legislature. They would, like their objectors, refer principles of power separation.

It is then the lack of clarity regarding the separation of powers that makes for multiple interpretations. This is why political convenience is enjoying a field day. This is why, regardless of the seriousness of allegation and the guilt or innocence of the accused, it is possible for all protagonists to present cogent expositions of respective positions.

For all these reasons, it is objectively impossible to salute one or the other of the interpretations as ‘true’, ‘valid’ and/or ‘overriding’. When one or other is upheld as ‘The Relevancy’, what is in fact being asserted is political preference and/or political objection, propriety being a convenience, an alibi shaped by preferred outcomes.

As things stand, the President (who is both Executive and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces) has the power to give effect to the Parliament’s determination, by word and if necessary deed (of enforcement). The President can, in the name of the people and dignity of the post of Chief Justice, go ahead to sack her and appoint a successor. This, however, will not untie the interpretive conundrum pertaining to the matter of ousting judges of higher courts. Just as erring on the side of the Court of Appeal determination would not indicate a superior-anterior positioning of judiciary and legislature respectively, this course of action would not make Supreme Court slave to Parliamentary master forever, even though precedent is a powerful referent and ally in the machinations of the pernicious.

The statesmanlike option would be to desist, not out of deference to interpretive superiority of the Court of Appeal or fear of possible censure by unfriendly movers and shakers in the international community and consequent political discomfiture, but because CJ, impeachment and constitutional conundrum are trivial to someone who has vision and has the larger and sustainable interests of the country at heart.

This is perhaps a moment for deep and sober executive reflection. The President may, if he so chooses, declare that inasmuch as he (let us say) respects the determination of the Parliament and inasmuch as he (let us say) finds error in the court determination, he recognizes that a serious constitutional flaw exists, one which blurs dangerously the boundaries that separate the three branches of government. He can add that moreover the 1978 Constitution has many other errors, including those pertaining to checks and balances, those of transparency and accountability in particular. He can therefore declare that this crisis (as some brand it) calls not for amendment but overhaul. The matter of infusing clarity and robustness and moreover dignity to appointment processes, positions themselves and ousting procedures would be thereby resolved but only as part of a larger and necessary process of elevating the constitutional document to one consistent with democracy, in spirit, in word and deed.

['The Nation' editorial, January 13, 2013]

msenevira@gmail.com

It is not always that one reads forewords and introductions. We tend to skip what we sometimes take to be necessary frill for author/publisher but eminently skippable for reader. There is a risk. A small one, of course. I have skipped such preambles often for the main text beckoned more urgent perusal. There’s one I didn’t miss and I am glad: the literary and philosophical gem that is the introduction to Mahagama Sekera’s defining poetic narrative, ‘Prabuddha’. That essay was commissioned by the poet himself and is a piece of writing that Sekera never got to see, just as he didn’t see the book in print.

Sekera died on January 14, 1976 at the age of 46. Eight years ago I asked myself, ‘Would Mahagama Sekera be still alive had he not left us at forty six?’ He did not die in 1976, for he was alive when he first came to me, again in the form of a book that my father brought home later that year, ‘Mahagama Sekarage Geetha (Mahagama Sekarara’s Lyrics)’. He has been alive since, in all the lyrics to which melody, music and voice were added to give us memorable songs. He was alive a month ago at the Nelum Pokuna when Pundit Amaradeva sang what is widely held as the people’s national anthem, ‘Ratna Deepa Janma Bhoomi’. And these days, I see him often as I try my hand at translating ‘Prabuddha’ into English.

Death was, naturally, the last visitor he entertained on that day. But before that moment when he breathed his last, we are told that the director of ‘Yasho Geethaya’ had come to his Gampaha residence to discuss a documentary film on ‘Ratna Deepa’. The shoot had been scheduled for the following day. Between that visit and death, Sekera is said to have attended to the final edits of his doctoral dissertation. It was earlier in the day that Sekara had met the man he commissioned to write the foreword to Prabuddha, the late Ven. Dhammavihari, then Prof Jothiya Dheerasekera.

He had called the professor and asked for a meeting before the arranged day. The professor had expressed surprise that Sekera, given his vast knowledge on a wide range of subjects and proven excellence across many literary genres was nevertheless not holding a teaching post in a university. He had pointed out in particular the depth of meaning in Prabuddha and the fine deployment of critical faculties in unlayering a social, political, cultural and philosophical milieu. Sekera, according to Prof Dheerasekera, displayed innumerable and happy elements of a writer endowed with a poetic disposition filled with generosity, humility and honesty. Sekera had merely stated, ‘In that case, it would be best that you write the introduction’.

Dheerasekera’s introduction refers to Sekera’s previous work, including Maknisada Yath(The reason being…), Nomiyemi (I am immortal) and specific lyrics for stage plays. The way he describes the man mirrors the nature of the main character of the epic poem, Prabuddha. The story is a veritable exposition of the cultural, literary and musical tastes of the time, the changes therein, the dangers ahead and the possible ways of recovering the humanity that was clearly under threat. Dheerasekera elevates Prabuddha to an importance of a nature that calls for a replication of the work in all art forms. Indeed, such an exercise is the responsibility of youth with discerning taste and exceptional creative ability.

Prabuddha was his last poetic exercise, although his doctoral dissertation, Sinhala Gadya Padya Nirmana Kerehi Ridmaya Balapa Athi Akaraya (Influence of Rhythm on the Sinhala Prose and Poetry)’can theoretically be read as a similar unfolding. Sekera may not have anticipated the ‘end’ that Prabuddha clearly marked, but Prabuddha, on account of his passing, marks his, philosophically, politically and literally, in a manner more pronounced than his other work. This is why it is the most frequently quoted and referred to of all his work, none of which can be called ‘lesser’.

Sekera, in Prabuddha, brings a nation and a collective back to something that was and encourages a journey to a something that can still be (better). It is a call for a softer engagement drawing from Buddhism but not exclusive from that doctrine. There is a world he envisaged and which he promised to design, before leaving (dying). He could not, but he did sketch a blueprint, or rather gathered blueprint from the civilizational ethos which made him who he was and which can be the foundation of a cultural, social and moral edifice that we could all inhabit.

From the silent sky

where the half-moon becomes pronounced
by and by
there drips the milk
for a child’s heart;
the infant son smiles
dreaming of the new world
that will come up tomorrow.

In this motherland
where a nation of giants
who built the thousand reservoirs
are now reborn
new freedoms emerge
in a myriad of color
elegantly polished
by his smile;
I wipe my tears
and see
the little boy reigning
in a debt-free fear-free tomorrow

Little sons all,
who conjure the spring
that wipe weariness
from tired limb,
know this:
when I see you
that labor is pleasure
nothing else;
I cannot leave,
before I craft
that world
I’ve made and shaped
over twenty five hundred years.

And therefore, Siddhartha!
And therefore grant me permission of finality
bless me in the manner of the Buddhas who came before
blessed the Buddhas to be,
now, this moment.

At this very table,
upon this very chair
among these papers,
in a paddy field that knows
tilling, sowing and reaping,
among slogans, strikes and
the teeth of a factory wheel,
in a crowded train
carrying men and women
in their thousands
to work and back,
to secure the ultimate truth
Enlightenment,
not alone, no
but with those millions
to know together
to reach collectively
the truth
Enlightenment!

We have as individuals come far. And we have travelled ‘back’ too. We cannot really celebrate the former due to the latter. The ‘why’ of this, perhaps, is contained in the above lines from Prabuddha. This is why, thirty six years after he died, Mahagama Sekera is still very much with us, as friend, companion on necessary journey, teacher and delighter.

[Published in the FINE Section of 'The Nation', January 13, 2013. See also, 'Mahagama Sekera: a vision open to residency']

J.R. Jayewardena was president for more than 11 years. I remember a few things about him. First, the 1978 Constitution. I also remember the line with which he launched the ‘Open Economy’: ‘Let the robber barons come’ (and how they did!). I remember the Referendum of 1982. I remember the July 1983 riots. I remember the shameless submission to Indian hegemony in July 1987, which beefed up Tamil chauvinism and spawned the provincial council system.

Ranasinghe Premadasa inherited a democracy in shambles and a bloody insurrection. I remember that he planted trees. I remember his housing projects. I remember some 60,000 people being killed and I don’t remember there being any Weliamunas, Jehan Pereras, Saravanamuttus, Sunilas, Nimalkas, Gordon Weisses, Navi Pillays or Channel 4s objecting.

We had Chandrika Kumaratunga from 1994 to 2005. I remember a ‘package’ but that’s about it.

Mahinda Rajapaksa is recent. Current. Memory is fresh, therefore. I remember a lot of things, but I will mention a few. First of all I remember his maiden speech as President when he requested people to avoid singing his praises. No prashasthi gaayana (hosannas), he requested.

I remember that he gave political leadership to the struggle to rid the country of the terrorist menace. He didn’t do it alone, but he played a key role. No one thought it could be done and few would have imagined he was capable of doing it. I am grateful.

I remember also that he moved to amend the constitution for the 18^th time, thereby abolishing term limits. He stands to benefit, given the obvious advantages of incumbency (JRJ had two terms and so did Chandrika and Rajapaksa; Premadasa was assassinated and Wijetunga stepped down). It also did away with the flawed 17^th Amendment, without being a corrective but rather a throw-baby-with-bathwater exercise. I objected.

I am no clairvoyant and so I shall not speculate on what might happen and whether or not I would remember the ‘possibles’ of the future. I doubt, however, that if I am alive 5 or 10 or 20 years from now and happened to be writing the ‘unforgettable’ of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure as President I would neglect to mention the impeachment of Chief Justice Shiranee Bandaranayake.

There have been arguments. We’ve heard rhetoric. There has been logic. And if these appeared to be voluminous it is because the politics that birthed them came in tons. So much so that even the ‘neutrals’, i.e. those who really thought beyond person, party, preferred outcome and such, appeared thickly compromised in one camp or the other.

The judiciary spoke. So did the legislature. The executive has spoken too. Some say, ‘match over’. Some retort ‘the fat lady is yet to sing’. Some say, ‘battle won, but the war will be lost’. I said that if it was a matter of Mahinda Rajapaksa vs Anarchy, I would hesitate to pick the latter. In general ‘let’s get rid of the dude first’ type exercises leave a lot of people dead. I believe there has to be a better way.

The judiciary spoke, as I said. Parliament had no ears. ‘International conspiracy’ was tagged to all persons, groups and moves that stood against impeachment. I believe that this is only partly true, for I don’t believe that everyone who opposed subscribed to the outcome preferences of people like Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Sunanda Deshapriya, Elmo Perera etc. S.L. Gunasekera, for example, would hardly break bread with that lot with a smile on his face. The more sophisticated of the anti-impeachment commentators focused on process.

When process is privileged, allegations can be left uncommented. When process is privileged, the politics of the supporters, i.e. the true ‘why’ of position taken can be left unexplained. There are those who say that the courts are corrupt. I would hesitate before giving a blank cheque to the judiciary myself. The fact that the Chief Justice is the ex-officio Chairperson of the Judicial Services Commission, does raise questions about the independence of any judge or any panel of judges assessing anything that involves the CJ, including of course her own petitions to the courts. Still, the word of senior judges should be taken seriously and I believe their integrity should be presumed. The determinations, therefore, are serious matters which Parliament ought to have treated with respect.

Flaws in the constitution were pointed out. Parliament insisted that the constitution is unflawed in terms of impeaching judges of the higher courts. The Executive concurred. No one should be surprised. I am not.

I am not surprised that the CJ’s backers made the arguments they made. I am not surprised that they backed the CJ; well, most of them. They were, after all, the very same people who backed Sarath Fonseka three years ago. Not because they loved him, no one can deny this now. It is not out of love for the CJ, concern about judicial independence, the undermining of democracy that issues such as this are heavily commented on and used as grist in the anti-Mahinda media mill. If and when it all hits Geneva, it will still not be about any of these things. Saravanamuttu, for example, has openly dedicated himself to ‘regime-change’. ‘When did ever he care about the miseries of ordinary people?’ we can legitimately ask. It is the same for others who suddenly realized that the impeachment was an ammunition dump. I am not surprised.

There are those who claim that the charges against the CJ are frivolous. I don’t think they are. But if the process was wrong and I firmly believe that regardless of the constitutionality or otherwise of the matter, there was a deliberate politicization of the issue by the regime. The process smacked of vindictiveness and selectivity, both compromising the integrity of the impeachment process.

The CJ, with or without the consent or complicity of her backers or rather the anti-regime circus, did herself no favors. The argument can be made that she’s eminently impeachable (subsequent to appropriate constitutional amendment, provided of course that the judiciary, seeing beyond personality and position, endorse the same) on account of her behavior during this process; which is not to say that she has an unimpeachable pre-impeachment track record. The antics of the Government and its backers certainly made it possible to tag ‘witch-hunt’ to the process, thereby effectively giving the CJ and her friends, new ones (JVP, sections of the BASL) and old ones (Saravanamuttu, who is a fellow devolution, nay federalism-lover and Chandrika Kumaratunga, who took this lady who was not an Attorney-at-Law out of academe and dumped her in the courts, with her happy consent of course) the opportunity to cry ‘foul’.

The behavior of the Chief Justice, before and after the process began, tells me in no uncertain terms that she falls well short of expectations. She has, by omission and commission, helped compromise the dignity of the position. If people felt divorced from courts before, if they felt that lawyers lived on dates and that judges were in the take or just didn’t care, they might feel that not just insulted but humiliated to boot. Worse, they can’t be blamed if they can’t differentiate court from thovil maduwa or Lipton Circus, considering the coconut-smashing and chest-beating that took place respectively in what used to be a place of sobriety.

The only consolation for the executive and legislative branches is that they have (unfortunately) played true to form. No surprises. They need not have dragged the judiciary down, but then again it seems that dragging the courts down was what they needed. Shameful.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave political leadership to the struggle to rid the country of the LTTE. I am grateful. He did away with the 17^th Amendment and did not replace it with better checks and balances, but consolidated his hold on absolute power with the enactment of the 18^th. No cheers for that. No cheers for the circus that this impeachment became. President Rajapaksa is the Executive President under the 1978 Constitution (with the added advantages of the 18^th Amendment). Credit for all good things go to him and rightly so. The buck also floats up to him. Ex-officio. I am not surprised or disappointed, not because I wanted this outcome but because politicians rarely rise to be statesmen. He did not. No hosannas.

I mentioned J.R. Jayewardene at the beginning. His ghost presided over this drama. He did not die, then. He needs to. Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, belatedly, blamed the constitution and called for re-haul. He deserves a clap. A slow-hand one.

It is natural for members of the Parliamentary Opposition to oppose whatever the ruling party proposes. Voting in Parliament is therefore predictable, whether it is for an Act of Parliament, Annual Budget or anything else. There was a time of dissenting voices voting against party position but that was effectively quashed by a Supreme Court determination regarding the fate of Members who considered crossing over. What we have got used to seeing is all members of the Opposition using allocated time to object, with the main opposition being the most vocal and other making cursory dissenting noises.

Seldom do were here impassioned, well-argued presentations by members of parties with lesser representative power on major issues, the exception being Sarath Muttetuwegama who was a veritable one-man opposition (and an effective one at that) in the eighties. This is particularly true of identity-based parties. They tend to speak up only when constituency demands they do and do so vociferously. At least in post-1977 Sri Lanka.

It is in this context that TNA MP, M.A. Sumanthiran’s intervention in the debate on the impeachment of the (now ex) Chief Justice should be assessed. The TNA as well as other avatars of parties consciously focused on Tamil issues have rarely taken on national issues that were ‘ethnicity-free’ as seriously as Mr. Sumanthiran did in this instance. One can agree or disagree with him, take issue with his assumptions and interpretations, but there is no question that he was representating a point of view that cut across identity divide. His efforts are all the more praiseworthy because they have no impact whatsoever on the party’s electoral fortunes.

There are of course many issues which feed into communal segregation and mutual suspicion. Among the reasons why non Tamils view Tamil politicians with suspicion even when the latter talk of a ‘United Sri Lanka’ (‘United’ of course being a problematic term in the unitary-federal debate since neither formation forbids it and therefore warranting the query ‘sleight of hand?’) is the fact that they have never taken up ‘common issues’ with any degree of passion or sobriety. When Mr.
Sumanthiran spoke, however, he was speaking for Sinhalese, Muslims, Burghers and Malays as well as Tamils, for Buddhists as well as Christians and Hindus. Not all, because not everyone would agree with him, obviously, but still he stepped out, one can argue, from a communal and communalist (some would say) shell.

There is a huge difference between a Tamil politician from a major party speaking on a national issue and one from a Tamil party doing the same. If Sinhalese were reluctant to listen to the TNA except to know what their views are about Sinhala-Tamil relations, Tamil grievances and aspirations, and so on, these kinds of interventions would make them listen without thinking ‘enemy’.

The Sinhalese must, for their part, appreciate that the TNA, being a ‘Tamil party,’ is obliged to articulate the problems of the Tamil people and moreover to put aside past apprehensions to treat such representations seriously because ethnic identity notwithstanding Tamils are fellow-citizens. However, whether or not anyone else is listening it is still incumbent on all Parliamentarians to be cognizant of all grievances and their Parliamentary responsibility to be the voice of all citizens. The President, for example, is not the Head of State of those who voted for him, but every single Sri Lankan, including those whose first choice he was not.

Three years after the end of the three decade armed conflict everyone agrees it is time to move on. The President has called for the forging of a national identity, a Sri Lanka where Sri Lankanness overrides all other identities. Mr. Sumanthiran’s effort, even his detractors must recognize, is an articulation of that same sentiment. He has shown that the TNA, if not in name then in action, can become a ‘national’ political entity. A concretization would be to re-think party position on the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee to hammer out a lasting solution to grievances of a communal kind. Indeed, they could turn that exercise into one which designs a new constitution, more inclusive, more democratic and better safeguards against abuse, not to mention one where the principle of power separation is less vague and less open to multiple (and wild) interpretation.

['The Nation' Editorial, January 20, 2013]

When any news on Sri Lanka in the ‘world press’ comes with a caveat such as ‘Sinhalese who are mostly Buddhist and Tamils who are mostly Hindu’, communalism becomes painted in lines bolder than reality on things political. There is a communal reality of course, but when it is used as a marker, nuance is lost. It is a phenomenon that communalists don’t necessarily object to for there’s a lot of political mileage to be gained by coming under spotlight.

It is not uncommon therefore for ‘ethnic’ and ‘religious’ to be painted on things that are not necessarily ethnic or religious. One of the outcomes of this state of affairs, interestingly, is a marked aversion by some to point the ethnic or religious of ethnic and religious things respectively. Indeed when the ethnic and/or religious does assert itself/themselves they are downplayed or ignored altogether. There are holy ethnic cows and holy religious cows, apparently.

Now it can be argued that such things are left alone because there’s been so much fire that adding more fuel cannot help douse. If that were the case, then it would be hands-off for all communities, all faiths, all ethnicities. There are people who are like that, i.e. those who don’t feed the rabble-rouser and who, even if reference to identity cannot be avoided will employ reason and responsibility so that the rabble-rouser will not benefit but the public will be better informed.

The politics of selectivity in these matters is interesting in and of itself. Take the fiasco regarding the Law Entrance Examination (LEE). Statistics show a steady increase in the intake of Muslim students. Does that indicate a ‘Muslim Hand’? No. We cannot conclude this. It can be argued that Muslim candidates have got more serious about exam preparation than Muslims of an earlier generation. Nothing wrong there. This year’s intake shows Muslin-intake not as ‘improvement’ following recent pattern but a veritable jump. ‘Muslim-hand’? No evidence, as of now. Better to presume ‘none’.

What is being questioned is the integrity of the entire process. There are allegations of ‘leak’ as far as the Tamil Medium papers are concerned. The Law College, Ministry of Justice (Rauff Hakeem, a Muslim who is a leader of a ‘Muslim’ party, is the subject minister, but that could be coincidence) and the Examinations Department are playing toss-the-ball. That’s not a ‘Muslim thing’ but a general response to problem common to all departments and ministries. The ‘Muslim-hand’ allegations come with reference to the ports recruiting Muslims in numbers not corresponding to ethnic percentages when a Muslim was subject minister and the foreign service likewise being ‘Muslim-loaded’ under A.C.S. Hameed. Relevant? No. Separate issues.

If the Tamil language paper has leaked and if the majority of Muslims took the Tamil version, then it is natural that they would perform better. If this was the case it could be because whoever was guilty of leaking wanted Muslim candidates to perform better (the ‘leaker’ could have been a Muslim) or because the ‘leaker’ wanted to make a fast buck (in which case his/her ethnicity, religious faith etc., is irrelevant).

The jury is out on all these matters and as long as the jury remains out, those who want to pain ethnicity to the story will only become stronger. From a purely rights point of view, it is a serious matter, especially since it is all about the law, law students and lawyers. We can envisage a situation several decades down the line where some (let’s say ‘deserving’) individual is made Chief Justice but is found to have entered Law College after sitting an examination that remains under cloud. That individual need not be a Muslim, let us remember. This is not an O/L paper leak. It is a competitive exam and far more important than competitive examinations such as the Grade 5 Scholarship exam. Foot-dragging is not just unfair for the candidates (including those who ‘passed’) but dangerous for post-conflict harmony among communities.

Be that as it may, what is strange is the total silence on the part of many who treat even the slightest error on the part of exam-holders as though it were a national calamity. Why? Is this issue a touch-me-not because there is suspicion that some group other than Sinhalese or Buddhists might be up to hanky-panky? Is it a fear that calling out minority groups would make the callers-out being identified with those who are routinely called ‘Sinhala Buddhist Extremists’? Is it a similar ‘fear’ that stops the otherwise vociferous political commentariat from saying anything negative about the Saudis even as they lambast the Foreign Employment Bureau and the regime over Rizana’s execution?

Ravaya has been silent for the most part. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera, J.C. Weliamuna and other anti-regime hawks haven’t found this juicy enough an issue to chew on. Such people focus on the protests led by Buddhist organizations. That’s fair enough, but it doesn’t warrant silence on what appears to be serious flaws in the process as evidenced by contradictory and vague statements issued by the relevant authorities of the relevant institutions.

Standing for minority rights does not mean giving minorities a blank cheque. Neither does it warrant silence when minorities benefit from error, simply because they happen to be a minority. Whenever foul mouthed people calling themselves ‘Buddhists’ or racist Sinhalese indulge in racism, there are many (mostly non-Sinhalese and non-Buddhists) crying foul, as they should. If they are asked ‘Are all non-Buddhists and non-Sinhalese saints?’ or ‘Would you ever or have you ever criticized racism on the part of non-Sinhalese or fundamentalism on the part of non-Buddhists?’ they are silent.

There’s something wrong here and it doesn’t help. There’s a monster waiting to get out of a box. There are errors of commission and errors of omission. We are seeing both. From all quarters.

msenevira@gmail.com

Times change and with changing times tastes also change. As people get older their favorite songs get played less and less or else they are forced to listen to stations dedicated to ‘oldies’ or wait for those special programs where yesterday’s favorites are played. It is natural for older people to find new music crude. Perhaps it is less a matter of crudeness than something to do with technological revolutions that make for more experimentation and easier broadcast, resulting naturally in cacophony.

The problem, though, is that some of the criticism is valid. Attention to detail, the blend of lyric and melody, determination to produce excellence, choosing the correct voice that complements word and sentiment, are all things that appear to have been compromised. What is called ‘music’ becomes music for children because that’s all the music they hear.

One can lament. One can criticize. One can do other things. Nelu and Kapila decided to do something else. Teach. It was not an exercise that sought to fight a tide, nor one which posited one particular genre above another. They decided to expose children to all kinds of music believing that they will come to their own conclusions but in a more informed and nuanced way.

There were seeds of melody and word that they sowed. They tended with love and tenderness what the musical-earth put out thereafter. Now it is time for reaping. This is the short story of ‘Miyesi Lamaa Tharaka’ (Musical Child Stars), a concert where different kinds of songs, Sinala and English, are sung and celebrated, to be performed on January 27, 2013 at the Sirasa Stein Auditorium from 5.30 pm onwards.

Bandula Nanayakkarawasam, well-known lyricist and a closer observer of the entire process over the past two years (‘like a brother, from the point of naming the academy onwards,’ he said) spoke exclusively to ‘The Nation’ about the concert and especially about the work that went before.

‘They call it “Nelu-Kapila Music Academy” but there’s actually a third individual who has been part of the process. Lionel Bandara, a music teacher at Royal College, is not just a highly skilled violinist but an excellent instructor. A close friend of the couple and indeed a neighbor, Lionel has expended as much effort as have Nelu and Kapila.

‘It was and is a perfect combination. Nelu has studied both western and oriental music and is top class artist. Kapila who was Music Director at YATV has composed for many films, teledramas and television and radio commercials. They are parents of two children and are eminently qualified to work with young girls and boys. Lionel is a neighbor and a very close friend. They are all degree holders from Heywood, Lionel and Kapila being from the same batch, in fact, Nelu being a year junior to them. They decided that instead of complaining, they could generate new music that was better or teach. Teaching is about enhancing ability as well as the powers of discernment. These ideas have been incorporated into the very environment of learning which, although in the heart of the very urban Battaramulla, appears like an ashram dedicated to the study of music. ’

The items for the show were carefully picked, Bandula, who composed the theme song ‘Ira handa tharu obamai’ (you are the sun, the moon and stars) said. It is a collection of timeless favorites (the timelessness being the ultimate test of quality) such as the children’s song mal pipee deneth piye. The show ends with Amaradeva’s ran dahadiya bindu bindu, another classic where lyric contains profound meaning but in the simplest language.

‘The entire orchestra is made of children. An unique feature is that some highly acclaimed artists will also take part, not as “guest performers” but as unobtrusive “encouragers”. For example, Edward Jayakody and Pradeepa Dharmadasa will sing a few lines of ha ha balagenai. Lakshman Wijesuriya will be featured in ho ga ralla binde, Indika Upamali in peenamuko kalu gange and Harshana Dissanayake in emba ganga. They will thus bless these children.’

Songs from the seventies, especially those of the Dharmaratne Brothers, Moonstones and Super Golden Chimes, will be heard along with classics from theatre, nurthi gee such as kumatada sobaniye, ale benda maage ramyavan, yasa isuru, sirisangabo and ada vessanthara.

It is not an ‘Oldies by Children’ show, though. Several English medleys have been penciled in, for example an arrangement featuring ‘Top of the World,’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ and ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’. Another would be a medley of ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ and the Beatles’ favorite, ‘Obladi Obalda’. An English-Sinhala mix will also be performed, with olu nelum neriya rangalabeing arranged with ‘For a few dollars more’ and ‘El Condo Pasa’. It is not just songs, for the children will have an exclusively instrumental rendering of the theme song from ‘Chariots of Fire’ and ‘The Last Waltz’.

‘The entire exercise has a simple objective. The Academy believes that the world’s sorrow can be lessened by the saptha svarayaand that life can be re-written more tenderly through song. Fittingly, they’ve invited Nanda Malini (who graced the opening of the Academy as Chief Guest), Rohana Weerasinghe and Malani Fonseka as Guests of Honor representing singing (and teaching), composition and film respectively. It is a collective effort with all the parents chipping in with ideas and other kinds of support, the children learning and practicing with dedication and the teachers nurturing them tenderly. This is why, at the end, when the children sing ira handa tharu obamai, their teachers sing the words back to them, declaring that they, the children, are in fact the sun, the moon and starts.’

Bandula would know for he has put in all his considerable event-scripting skills to the arrangement and fine-tuning of the program. It promises much, for child and adult.

Tragedy has rhythm, recovery too

Ven. Uduwela Nanda makes children fly

Somethings get lost, some ‘lost-ed’

It is time to un-‘develop’ our minds

Karunaratne Abeysekera made child and childhood softer still

Whose coat are you wearing, by the way?

Occupations and their hazards

On the fallacy of infallibility

Towards a Saadambara Sri Lankaava

That ‘Halal Controversy’

The virtues of staying within slapping distance

So you want anarchy, do you?

‘With the Dawn’: A love-note penned in the Sri Lankan wilds

Reflections on foolishness, wisdom and those deserving of honour

Towards a country called Tomorrow

Mahagama Sekera, alive after all these years

The morning after (impeachment)

In praise of Sumanthiran

Law Entrance issue and the politics of silence

Students of Nelu-Kapila Academy reap a musical harvest