Malinda Words

I remember, way back in 1978, watching a programme on ITN. This was just after we got ‘TV’ in Sri Lanka. We didn’t have enough programmes back then to fill the day or even half a day. There was a lot of Sesame Street and other such shows. I remember watching what would not be called a ‘teledrama’. It was a Vesak-related story. This is how it went.

A little boy makes a vesak kooduwa with great effort. He makes the frame, pastes the saukola (tissue paper), makes the frills and pastes these too, fixes a candle, lights it and hangs it on the branch of a tree. It is a pretty picture. It rains. There is wind. The vesak kooduwa catches fire. The little boy is distraught. Time passes. He moves from child to adult to middle-aged and old. He acquires things, loses things and in the evening of his life remembers the vesak kooduwa. The images of its making and its burning, the joy and the sorrow flash across his mind. The lesson is impermanence.

I remembered this ‘teledrama’ a couple of days ago when I saw vesak koodu (frames as well as fully decorated ones) for sale on roadside stands.

This is the month of Vesak. It is therefore a month of festivities and religious activities associated with the birth, enlightenment and parinibbana of Siddhartha Gauthama, Lord Buddha. It is also a month of rain. This is perhaps why the vesak koodu that line either side of Bauddhaloka Mawatha are cased in polythene. When cased that way the vesak koodu lose their charm. I know there are costs involved but I have never understood the fascination or let’s say intent to preserve a vesak kooduwa in this manner since one of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism is the condition of impermanence. Among the vesak koodu that I saw for sale were ones that were decorated with polythene. That’s what took me back 32 years and to the living room of Lucky Nanda and Neelan Mama.

We are living in the 21^st Century. The world knows about polythene, about plastic, about the impact on environment. There is no lack of communications about the importance of reusing, reducing and recycling. These are known. And yet we defer to convenience over the health of the planet. We want it easy right now and forget that what we do will reduce the quality of life of our children and indeed possibly turn this beautiful planet into an uninhabitable place for their children.

I do understand that people don’t have as much time as their parents did and suspect this has less to do with the times than one’s lack of understanding of the times. And time. You can buy the frames and also the tissue paper, make some paappa with flour and warm water and do your thing. You can hang it wherever you want. You can and must understand and reconcile yourself to the inevitability of decay and death, the result of subjecting vesak kooduwa to elemental play, the possibility of wind pushing flame to lick paper, the dissolve that monsoonal shower produces and the de-colouring power of sun.

You don’t have to teach children all this. They will have their joy, they will break with break and they will move on. Stronger.

We make a choice when we use polythene and plastic. We don’t have to. I remember interviewing an amazing artist, a graduate from the University of Kelaniya, and an award-winning maker of vesak koodu. This was 7 years ago. The relevant article can be found at the following link: http://www.island.lk/2003/06/22/leisur01.html.

There was something in Vidyartha K. Indradeepa Yagachandra’s koodu that was different and this is not the colour, shape, elaborate structure, attention to detail, decoration and creative lighting. It’s the fact that his award-winning creations are made of 100% traditional raw materials.

The following paragraph from that interview says it all:‘Since the year 2000, Indradeepa has dealt solely with traditional material. It had been a conscious decision on his part to celebrate what is intrinsically "ours". He often lists by his pahan kooduwa the raw materials used, along with specimen. And so, by the side of the Bauddhaloka 2003 kooduwa, a list read, "nava patti, puskola, matalu, pol kola, habarala kola, kaduru, lanu, naga darana eta, ging pol, dorana thel, and kithul rehen". The use of natural materials has philosophical meaning to the artist. "Buddhism, to me, is an environment-friendly doctrine. This fact I try to exemplify in my creations."’

For Indradeepa, the Aloka Pooja or the "light offering" is not merely a religious ritual, it is a meditation. And the meditation does not begin with the ceremonious opening of the kooduwa, but at the first stage, that of collecting the ingredients. "Today one finds many rotating koodu, but most of mine are stationary. I have seen people stand before my creations for half an hour, transfixed in meditation. This is the kind of response I want to provoke. While being a celebration of our traditional raw materials, art forms and aesthetic sensibility, a Buddhist story must also be told, a message must exude from the whole and its parts."

Not everyone is an Indradeepa. However, that kind of thinking is not beyond anyone. He speaks a simple philosophy, easy to embrace and one which rewards immensely.

The Buddha Vachanaya or doctrine can be articulated in many ways. It can be celebrated in many ways. In whatever form of expression one chooses it makes sense to embed the tenets of the dhammaand not it’s disavowal or contradiction. I will light a pol thel pahana(coconut oil lamp) and will watch the flame waver with wind and die on account of gust or exhaustion of fuel. I will not be ‘polythening’ this Vesak.

msenevira@gmail.com

He was a player, a coach, an administrator, a selector, a consultant and promoter. That’s when it came to rugby in Sri Lanka. His skills in all these spheres are widely recognized to be legendary. What if Kavan Rambukwella was alive right now? What if he could and did send a missive from the Great Beyond? What would he have to say? He would have a lot to say given the many issues that plague the game here in Sri Lanka. But what if he was asked to speak about foreign players donning the Sri Lankan jersey? Let’s try to figure out…

Well, back in the day, it was a matter of pride to wear the Sri Lankan jersey. It was a matter of pride to give it our all out there on the rugger grounds. Of course we wanted to win, who does not? But size, strength and skill of opponent never intimidated us. Defeat disappoints, always. Still, if we played hard, we could take defeat with grace.

Back in the day, the thought of importing players to do duty for the country never entered our minds. Countries were countries. Citizens were citizens. There were things that could be traded but these didn’t fall into that category.

Countries are countries, citizens are citizens; the fundament difference between the two is that the former can’t move this side of annexure or redefining of boundaries, while the latter can. People cross borders. They take up residence in other countries and in time even become citizens of countries they are resident in. Some have done this because they believe they have a better chance of making the national team in Country X as opposed to their land of birth. That’s the exception.

Time passed and with the passing of time there was a discernible move to put price tag to everything under the sun. In the world market that was thus created, things like nation and nationalism too came under the hammer, in more ways than one. The strange thing is that nation and nationalism, even when they were bartered, was done in their very name. If this is done in the name of development why not in the name of sport, one could ask.

There’s something fundamentally wrong here. It has to do with integrity. It has to do with deception. If we want to call a pile of dung a heap of gold, no one will stop us but the chances are that we won’t smell of some exquisite perfume. Still, if we are convinced that national pride has nothing to do with citizenship we should come out and say it straight. It’s dishonest to field a team called ‘Sri Lanka’ made of foreign players and then saying ‘we are doing this for the glory of the country’.

Some countries have got around this by instituting qualification criteria. For example, to represent national teams of certain countries one has to be a resident for a certain number of years. Over the counter citizenship is not granted just because some sports body wants to salvage national pride by winning at all costs, including the import of sportsmen and sportswomen.

The way things are going we could very well have a Sri Lanka rugby team sans a single player born in this island. They may or may not bring us glory but outside the official record, it is unlikely that victory would make our chests swell with national pride.

Things change of course, but certain things do not get buried easily. Here’s a story that might help put some sense into our rugby officials. The could watch Ron Ichikawa’s ‘Tokyo Orimpikku’ a documentary on the defining moments of the 1964 Olympic Games. They would be stunned that a man who came last in the 10,000m race was also featured in the documentary, i.e. among all the winners. ‘The Last Man’ was a Sri Lankan. R Karunananda was placed 47^th out of 52 in the 5,000m race and started the 10,000m race with a bad cold and a considerably weakened body. He ran. He completed the race because he wanted his little daughter to be happy that her father didn’t give up. He was among the leaders when the winner, Billy Mills of the USA breasted the tape. That’s because Mills had lapped him 4 times by then. When he continued the spectators were surprised. When he came around again they jeered. The next time there was silence. When he finished he got a standing ovation. Mills said the gold should have gone to Karu.

Back in the day we played because we loved the sport. We fought the good fight. We lost. We did not come off second best as human beings. In time to come Sri Lanka might do better than we did back then. People might feel proud too. But somewhere, someone, a true Sri Lankan, would not cheer the way that back in the day the spectators cheered and celebrated us, long after the long whistle.

*In a parallel universe of course

Inmates of the Magazine Prison, Welikada get ready for Vesak.
Pic by Rukshan Abeywansha

‘Dan ithin Vesak balanna yanna baya nehe; bomba pipirenne nehene (Now, after all, we can go to see the Vesak decorations without fear; there are no bombs exploding).’ This is what a neighbor who sells betel, sweets and sometimes king coconut told me a short while ago. True.

There was a time when parents did not travel in the same bus. Indeed, a time when families deliberately split themselves wherever they went. This is one of the key differences between LTTE-time and post-LTTE time. That, however, is not what I want to write about.

Today (May 17, 2011) is Vesak. It’s a special Vesak. It is the 2600^thanniversary of the Enlightenment, the moment when a prince destined to rule the world who became an ascetic discovered the dimensions of sorrow, the reasons for sorrow and the pathways to eliminate sorrow. It is a momentous occasion for all Buddhists but especially for those who place (too much?) value on dates, anniversaries and celebration.

Today, most of the island is decorated with Buddhist flags. There are banners across the roads, pennants too, with quotes from the Dhammapada as well as other sections of the vast archive that holds the Word of the Buddha and the incredible output of commentaries over the past 2600 years. The temples are clad in the white of sil and devotion, good intention and peace. Tonight there will be light. There will be pandals, lanterns and vesak koodu, ‘bulbed’ and ‘candled’. There will be tiny clay lamps placed neatly on walls and doorsteps, with tiny flames swaying. Temples and houses will be fragrant with flowers, incense sticks, kapuruand burning oil, in humble veneration of a doctrine whose perfume outlasts all in akalika of the eternal verities.

This is also a country that gets lit at Christmas, is made of non-Muslims who look forward to Ramazan, non-Hindus believe that ‘Vel’ is part of who they are. This is a country that on Vesak day and the day after turns into a nation or dansal(giving-stalls?), where each and every passerby, whether in a vehicle or not, is offered a soft drink, koththamalli(coriander), manioc with kochchisambol, kadala (chick-peas), herbal brews, plain tea, coffee (hot and black or cold and with milk), bread or rice. Wherever you go. This is a country that becomes a dansala twice a year in fact, with Poson (the full moon day in June), marking the arrival of Arahat Mahinda, being as colourfully celebrated as Vesak, and as devotedly too, i.e. in the temple-white of sil and offering flowers.

I can’t help thinking that this is also a country that on an auspicious day in April, almost every hearth (or cooker) gets lit at the exact moment and one where in most homes at another auspicious moment millions of people partake of kiribath. That’s unity and unification that no constitutional enactment or emergency rule can decree and obtain. Or forbid, for that matter.

There is something about this flawed land of ours that made Sinhalese people who had ‘bomb’ and ‘explosion’ hanging over every wakeful moment, spontaneously collect food and other essentials when the tsunami struck and send lorry loads of relief items to areas held by the LTTE. These very same people, vilified outrageously for the crimes of politically motivated thugs, gave whatever they could, volunteered to provide medical attention etc., to civilians who were rescued from the clutches of the LTTE, even though it was known that there were LTTE cadres among them. This is a country where the tax rupees of Sinhalese were regularly sent to LTTE-held areas, either as cash or as goods, even though it was well known that the terrorists either got a cut or helped themselves to everything sent.

This is a country where Tamil people in the Jaffna Peninsula warmly welcomed visiting Sinhalese, even though they knew that the vast majority of soldiers who had in the battle caused the death and dismemberment of fellow-Tamils. This is a country where Tamils and Sinhalese were and are ready to put aside identity-markers and unite against draconian laws and unfair regulations that impact particular communities or everyone. This is not a country that is un-flawed, where chauvinism is absent. It is a country where suspicion often has deep roots. It is also a country that can rise above these things on occasion, especially in times of trouble.

This is a country that knows how to suffer and how to rejoice, how to err and learn, how fight and how to make peace, how to live and let live, how to forgive and forget.

I believe there is a particular ‘something’ about this nation that allows us to be like this, to fall but pick ourselves and each other up, to rise above hatred, to embrace enemy, to forgive conqueror for all excesses and embrace his/her progeny and accommodate his/her faith and related artifacts. This ‘something’ is not there for anthropological picking or for journalistic description. Those who know it, see it. Those who don’t see it are convinced that it doesn’t exist. This is good.

This is a land made of hope and that’s because of this ‘something’ which is made to make us do certain things in certain ways. This is a land, which, for all its many flaws, is still a paradise on earth. I, for one, would not wish any other home. Not in this lifetime or in the next. This is good enough. No, this is more than ‘good enough’.

And not just because I can go to ‘See Vesak’ without having to worry about bomb explosions.

Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta. May all beings be happy.

msenevira@gmail.com

*This was originally written for the Daily News three years ago. It's still valid, I believe.

Let’s have an uncommon candidate

Ven Medagama Dhammananda got it right. He is opposed to the idea of the opposition putting forward a ‘common candidate’ to contest the presidential election. We have had enough ‘common candidates’. They are a dime a dozen. No sweat finding one. And even in the unlikely event of this ‘common candidate’ winning the election, we can’t expect anything uncommon or extraordinary from him/her. What is needed is an uncommon candidate. An extraordinary one. Someone who is unlike anyone

Those elephants and these elephants

In Kalamediriya, Bandaragama an elephant is reported to have gone berserk. This was no wild beast. It was a tame creature that had got upset with its mahout. The elephant is reported to have made its way to the mahout’s house. Not finding the man at home, the jumbo had caused damage to the house. There are, then, tame elephants and tame elephants. Shouldn’t Ranil Wickremesinghe be pleased?

Ethnic groups

Sunil Handunetti of the JVP claims that the Chinese are the latest ethnic group in Sri Lanka. True, many Chinese have come to Sri Lanka of late. Handunetti obviously has a problem with the support this government gets from China. He would not, however, be less disappointed if it was the USA that was backing the regime now would he? After all he is a rathu sahodaraya. Anyway, it is strange, is it not, that Handunnetti has not objected to that other ‘ethnic group’, the White, Anglo-Saxons, who have set up operations here in Sri Lanka as Obama’s veritable fifth column as advisors, experts, media personnel and NGO operators?

Handunetti’s memory

The man says that the JVP has never ever, not once, done anything wrong. Two questions. First, did some nutcases calling themselves ‘The JVP’ that went around slitting throats, filling chests and heads with bullets etc etc way back in 1988-89? Secondly, were they using toy guns and therefore no one really died? Perhaps no one died. Perhaps that’s also a story. There’s a third story: when is this man Handunetti getting the Nobel Prize for literature?

The President’s call

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has told the youth of this country, ‘don’t subvert country for others’. He adds, ‘put country before self’. There are many ways to subvert a country. Opening the doors of the country to poisons is one. Giving a wide berth to those who profit from selling alcohol and tobacco to the young is another. Maybe the youth of the country can come to an agreement with the President. Something like, ‘We will do as you say, but please Mr President, for your part, do the same; you have the numbers, the power and the vision, after all.’

It is said that when the ascetic Siddhartha Gauthama was at the point of attaining enlightenment he was confronted by Mara, the ‘tempter figure’ wont to appear as deity (devaputta), defilements (kleshas), the aggregates (khandha), the karma-formations and as death. Mara, it is said, after having devised various methods to break the will of the ascetic, appeared in the final instance for what might be called a face-to-face battle. What is pertinent here is that Mara, facing the ascetic, took the form of the ascetic.

In other words the final frontier, we are made to understand is not external. It is within. It is self. Within lies the seed of destruction. Within lies that which breaks our will, that which pushes the wheels that generate sorrow from one lifetime to the next to the next. And within resides the seed of emancipation. It is ours to nurture into fruition, it is ours to let it be overwhelmed by those other seeds that limit, that cripple and extend the boundaries of the territories of sorrow.

The entire Buddhist canon, then, constitutes a call to self-reflection, to seek and find within the answers to all the questions pertaining to the human condition. What do humans do in the general, though? We have eyes, ears, tongues, noses and we possess the ability to touch and obtain texture. The ‘outside’ dances before us all the time. We don’t pause to reflect on that ‘outside’. We don’t ask ourselves how much of that outside is created by us. We don’t wonder if we see things in certain ways, calls things by certain names, embrace and abhor because we are who we are, made of all our learning, reading, associations, prejudices and beliefs.

Why is a ‘super model’ considered beautiful? Why does skin whitener enjoy such a massive market? Do we question, ever, that which we so readily call ‘self-evident’? What is self-evident about anything?

Let’s take a well-known example, the notion of the half empty glass. What makes someone say ‘half-empty’ and someone else ‘half-full’? The ‘external’ here is a single object. It is variously described, nevertheless.

Let’s get back to the ‘within’. What is it that forbids or inhibits self-reflection? Again, the fixation with that which we label ‘self-evident’. How often do we say ‘I know who I am’? Do we know, though? There’s something called ‘ego’. We all have it. There’s something call humility. We all have it, in small or great quantities. There’s something called wisdom. We all have it. In small or larger quantities. And yet, we seldom employ wisdom and humility to gauge the dimensions of self and thereby assess the quantum of defilements that prohibit examination of the deeper realms of ‘self’.

‘Who am I?’ is a question we ask ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. ‘The Dhamma’ is the pathway to fruitful inquiry of course, but klesha-cluttering forbid wholesome reading. If the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama were present today, he would no doubt show us how to read the texts. Indeed, he might re-write texts in languages less foreign to us all and here I am not taking issue with Pali but speaking rather of metaphor. Handicapped by that singular absence, too crippled by intellectual poverty to draw from the rich granary that is the dhamma we flounder in the quagmires produced by our ignorance and arrogance. We fall and even as we do we celebrate what we believe is flight. Then we wonder what we did to deserve the punishment that is the sorrow we suffer.

We have eyes but we cannot see. Maybe that’s because we have no sense of self, no sense of our true dimensions. Here’s an exercise that might help. Go out. Seek an open space. Lie down flat on your back. Let’s say it is night. Let’s say it is a clear sky. We all have some idea of how big Sri Lanka is on a world map. How small. We know how big the open space is. We can imagine how large the world is. Look at the sky and we get a sense of how tiny we are compared to the visible universe. It is that ‘smallness’ that makes up our world, the universe we call ‘I’. From that point humility is possible. Humility is a scalpel that can help dissect ‘self’.

We will not recognize Mara the way the Ascetic Siddhartha Gauthama did. We might, however, notice some obstacles to exploration. That would be a start. Then we might begin to get a trace of the stranger that resides within us. We would see friend and foe both. We can have a decent conversation and emerge more conscious and better prepared to deal with those externalities wherein we believe Mara is resident.

msenevira@gmail.com

Last week I wrote a comment on Liyanage Amarakeerthi’s take on the Sinhala novel and especially his gripe about the relationship between this and what he calls Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist Ideology. I objected to his assertion that a critical distance from dominant ideologies was a prerequisite for becoming a great writer and argued that he was as guilty of what he implies are exclusionary tactics such as those used by those professing adherence to some form of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or are labeled as such. I also took issue with Amarakeerthi’s carelessness with regard to the temporal axis of politico-ideological process.

I was hopeful that he would respond. In a personal communication, he has said that he is otherwise engaged and will not. That’s his choice of course. The issues I raised may or may not be considered important enough to warrant comment. No issue.

No, this is not a ‘Part 2’ piece on Amarakeerthi, don’t worry. I mentioned it because I did get a response from a fan. Amarakeerthi’s fan, not mine. Eric Illayaparchchi, well-known poet, whose work I admire, appears to have been upset by what I’ve written. This is essentially what he wrote:

‘I am writing for and to defend Dr Wasantha Amarakeerthi who is unfortunately out of the country, thus might not be able to write soon against what you have written against him.

I don't think that you are fair to Dr Amarakeerthi who is at HarvardUniversity teaching courses on Buddism and Modern Fiction. No one of our generation can boast of such Himalayan achievements!’ See the link below:

Then, perhaps to drive his point home, Eric gives me a link to Amarakeerthi’s bio: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr/people/Liyanage.htmland wants me to do justice to ‘Professor Wasantha Amarakeerthi who has reached the highest in academic world and post-modern writing’.

Talking about missing the bus! What’s sad is not the fact that Eric feels that throwing biography and/or curriculum vitae constitutes rebuttal to argument but that he’s doing the done thing in that this is what ‘debate’ and ‘discussion’ tends to be. Moreover this method of responding has not helped the poor culture of critical appraisal when it comes to literature, film, theatre etc. Eric has given me an opening to talk about ‘review-culture’ or lack thereof and I am thankful.

There was a time when there were many individuals who had what it takes to write decent reviews. Now it’s down to a mere handful. Instead what we have are ‘write-ups’ about novels, poetry collections, plays or films, usually written by the authors/directors or their promoters. When did we last see a good review of an art exhibition?

It’s a human resource problem at one level. Newspapers are seriously short-handed when it comes to people interested in art and capable of commenting on it. Editors have to depend on some outsider being interested enough to write something serious. Turn to the ‘Feature’ sections of any Sunday Newspaper, especially the English ones, and you might find an events-listing, one or two write-ups about a play or exhibition with some pictures but reviews will be rare. The Sunday Observer’s ‘Montage’ is in this sense very ‘oasismic’ but even here it is clear that a couple of people are pulling most of the weight.

There is also a lot of mutual-back-scratching that goes on. Maybe it is because we are a small country and these circles pertaining to the arts are always a tiny fraction of the population. What has happened is that the community is so small and there’s so little learning with respect to the art of appreciation that practitioners by default are also the best critics. Therefore, a would-be critic is also a competitor at some level and therefore if he/she reviews something and happened to be unforgiving (as any decent critic should be) he/she would be called ‘envious’.

An anecdote might help put things in perspective. A novice film-maker was worried that her film would ‘fail’. A media conference was called and the invited journalists warned that there were plans to launch a smear campaign against film-maker and film. They were told that they alone could turn back such malicious moves. All this without anyone being shown the film! A few weeks later there was a ‘media show’. There was an ‘introduction’. We were impressed upon to be kind to the film and fim-maker because there were vile and mischievous elements trying to clip its wings. We were also given a souvenir which contained comments made by ‘experts’. Glowing praise!

The film was nothing like the ‘glowing remarks’ promised. I asked one of the people who was quoted what the hell he was talking about. This is what he said, ‘machang, narakak kiyanne kohomada….ithin hondai kiwwa….mama hithuwe nehe eka record karala ohoma daai kiyala!’ (How could I say anything negative….so I said it was good…I didn’t know it would be recorded and published!). This is how it goes. People are arm-twisted into saying nice things. So either you say nice things or you just shut up.

I am not claiming that critics are all saints of course and this is why the artists view them with suspicion at times. Critics have favourites. And they have those they love to hate. These love-hate issues have very little to do with the work that is being (or not being) appraised. It’s personal for the most part. It has to do with one’s preferred circle of artistic friends (yes, there are clubs, gangs, cliques and cartels). It has to do with ideological orientation.

This is why some people just can’t suffer anything produced by people from a different politico-ideological camp. Fearing that saying good things would ‘mark’ critic and locate him/her in that other ‘camp’ or would further a politics that one is opposed to, critics prefer to focus on the negatives or to dwell on peripheral issues such as the particular person’s political preferences, track record, friends etc etc.

Ezra Pound supported the fascists and this at a time when fascism was clearly the dominant ideology in wide swathes of the earth. Would anyone say that Pound wrote crap? Lenin loved Pushkin, how was by no stretch of the imagination a writer for the working class. Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher supported Adolf Hitler and yet is one of the most influential contributors to contemporary social theory and theorizing. If we were to dismiss artists and critics on account of academic qualification (or lack thereof), political history, preferences of association, friends and enemies, we would get a blank sheet.

What Eric has done is not new. Defenders of a particular writer, say, can very well talk about his/her academic qualifications or question the moral right or reviewing credentials of a critic. A critic can ignore the work at hand and focus on the artist’s political associates and actions. They can throw qualification and lack of qualification as the situation demands. They can engage in name dropping and book-dropping. They can dismissively say ‘this is beneath me’ or ‘I am too busy’ or ‘this is not important’. These are all options used by those who really don’t have an argument.

There are also, to be fair, those who can take both brickbat and bouquet; those who actually solicit serious and critical reading of their work. One produces and one must expect evaluation and be humble enough to accept that there will be harsh things said that cannot easily be sourced to malice.

Asoka Handagama and I have had our ideological disagreements in public for example. I’ve taken issue with the politics associated with the marketing of his ‘thani thatuwen piyambanna’ and he has defended people I criticized. He and I are not in agreement ideologically and it is possible that although we can both like something, it could be for different reasons. My reading of the film was not quite what he ‘wrote’, but he said he liked it (my reading). People who share my ideological positions see Handagama differently. Some have agitated for his films to be banned. I have opposed them. I think ‘thani thatuwen piyambanna’ is a good film; better than ‘aksharaya’ but weaker than ‘me mage sandai’. I don’t like the politics that Handagama promotes; but I will make it a point to see all his films because his is an important eye and voice in our overall cultural milieu.

The same goes for Vimukthi Jayasundera. He’s an extremely talented young man. ‘Sulanga enu pinisa’ was a good film overall, but betrayed a certain carelessness typical of a newcomer. The politics was crappy and his understanding of social, cultural and political realities wanting. The ‘depiction’ then was flawed; the rendering superb. I will go to see his next film.

There is another element in this whole ‘review business’ that we tend to gloss over: only those works that seem to be important get reviewed. Why? How can we tell before seeing a film whether or not it is good? Will Jayasena Jayakody’s next book be ‘great’? We can’t tell beforehand, can we? But we choose not to watch certain films and certain books never get reviewed. All films should be reviewed, all books too. Doesn’t happen. No time? No personnel? No ability? All of the above, perhaps.

I told a young chess player recently that he should forget the name of his opponent in that his (the opponent’s) reputation should not factor into the overall thinking process. At some point we should read novels and not authors. That’s what biographies are there for. Those who throw qualifications, reputations and the titles of books they’ve read betray an inability and/or unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue. Time passes over them pretty quickly and so too their use-by date.

*First published in 2010 in the Sunday Observer. The issues, however, are no less relevant. Jayasena Jayakody passed away not too long afterwards.

When there’s fighting, when there are bombs exploding and there’s expectation of explosion, when there’s death and displacement, there’s an oft articulated wish: the end of fighting. When a nation has been gripped by the clash of arms for close to three decades there are costs that people bear, individually and collectively, costs too numerous to enumerate here. There are things that war taken which war-end does not return.

The end of war means different things to different people. Those who count themselves among the ‘winners’ will naturally celebrate, the joy overriding the inevitable losses. Those who believe they lost, lament, quietly for the most part. Whichever camp one belongs to, there’s common relief on one matter: the end of gunfire and bomb explosion.

Time passes and those with a political bent re-assess strength and subsequent to a consideration of evolved circumstances re-invent themselves and redesign strategy. As the years go by end-moment, when revisited, is viewed with new eyes with gaze that is invariably colored as much by event-memory as by the political ‘imperatives’ of the day. And so we have political commentators impressing their political preferences or rather the ‘prerogatives’ defined by their ideological bent on reading this moment, that is the fifth anniversary of what is officially called ‘Victory Day’.

By the time things came to an end on May 18, 2009 in the environs of the Nandikadal Lagoon, a nation that had lost so much over three decades recovered an essential ingredient for re-imagining a different future. Hope. Naturally, what was hoped for depended on perceptions of ‘moment’, extrapolations thereto and preferred outcomes, short term and long-term. This is apparent when reading ‘readings’ of Victory Day 2014.

Naturally, those whose preferred outcomes with respect to the conflict did not materialize back in 2009 are disappointed that ‘post-war’ developments did not deliver their fantasies. It is almost as though these ‘analysts’ believed that the political ‘coming together’ which resulted in a particular reading of the LTTE and thereafter chose a particular course of action would disband itself, abandon political project and let the ‘losers’ design the post-war political tomorrow. Understandably, these commentators were either ‘neutral’ about the LTTE, behind-the-scenes supporters of the LTTE or else objectors to the LTTE but not to the LTTE’s project, albeit in a this-side-of-Eelam formulation. They were and remain a tiny minority.

Without doubt, post-2005 politics in Sri Lanka was about defeating the LTTE militarily. If those forces that backed the stand taken by President Mahinda Rajapaksa were asked to state ideological position, the vast majority would have stated, ‘for the preservation of the unitary state’. They would not fiddle around with vague and patently non-political terms such as ‘united’ because vagueness and ambiguity (e.g. one can theoretically have unity in either a federal or unitary set up) can only mislead. To ask, therefore, for any ‘solution’ that subverts ‘unitary’ at this point would amount to robbing victor of victory confer political defeat on the military victor and be insulting to all the soldiers who fought and died to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation. One can attempt this, but there will be costs and that’s certainly not something this regime would dare risk at this point.

The above, however, does not mean that all is well and good in the country. Still, the Tamil people have not lost the right to air grievances and demand redress. Indeed, ‘Victory Day’ created space for the articulation of grievance in a more democratic environment. It also created the conditions for representatives of that community to remove myth and fantasy from grievance and aspiration respectively. This has not happened and that’s unfortunate. The space still exists, though. That’s what it most important here.

The government, for its part, has opted to think ‘development’ (as per its definition) as an all-cure. This is wrong. Instead of playing cat-n-mouse with the TNA with respect to parliamentary select committees, the government could take the initiative, throw gauntlet as it were. The following could be said out loud:

“Name your grievances and tell us how devolution ‘works’ for your community considering that the majority live outside the North and East. The geographical lines on your grievance-maps have no scientific basis and have been drawn by colonial rulers and you swear by them: what’s the logic? Would you go for a re-demarcation?”

But then again ‘Victory Day’ was not about the LTTE and the Eelam project alone. It was about winning space to bring back issues that the war had ‘shelved’. Yes, the economy, but not only the economy. We had a draconian constitution and we are still saddled with it. If there was hope that the rule of law would be restored, then there’s little to celebrate today. The same goes for insulating citizen from politician. The institutional arrangement remains flawed and anti-citizen. Five years is long enough to fix these things. They remain un-fixed; indeed the flaws are openly celebrated by way of abusing the same.

The guns are silent and we are grateful to all who made it possible, from the President down to the most humble soldier and everyone else who in word and deed contributed in whatever way. Many other victories are within sight or rather could come into full view, but only if the correct policy paths are chosen. The Government has kept us waiting. For a long, long time.

Canadian High Commissioner Shelley Whiting is a conscientious woman, she would have us believe. She has decided to boycott this year’s ‘Victory Day’ celebrations. She has offered her reasons. She is upset that Canada’s suggestion that Sri Lanka retires its Victory Day Parade has fallen on deaf ears. She believes that this Parade ‘perpetuates roles of victors and vanquished within the country’.

The Government of Sri Lanka is clear on who the ‘vanquished’ were. The LTTE. Terrorism. The Victory Day Parade does not in any way ‘perpetuate the role of the LTTE’. How Whiting came to that conclusion only she would know.

What is hilarious about this lady’s objection is the fact that Canada has spared no pains to ‘perpetuate the role of the vanquished,’ i.e. the LTTE. Whiting’s condemnation of the LTTE is nothing more than tokenism given Canada’s long standing refusal to cooperate with Sri Lankan authorities to bring to book known terrorists, sanction of any and all pro-LTTE events on Canadian soil, and objection to help find allegedly ‘disappeared’ persons who are currently in Canada. She talks of Canada banning the LTTE and proscribing the World Tamil Movement. She says nothing of outfits run by known LTTE fund-raisers, propagandists and other criminals that now function under different and new names but still proudly wave the Tiger flag. Half-blind, is she or selectively so, one wonders. So, when she says begs people not to rush to judge and erroneously conclude that her decision is informed by some misplaced nostalgia for the LTTE, one can say ‘hmmm….’

‘I will thinking and remembering all those who lost loved ones over the thirty year conflict,’ Whiting tells us. That’s very humane of her. And pragmatic. Why go all the way to Matara and suffer through what to her would be boring official duties, listening to speeches made in a language she doesn’t know when she can stay at home and mourn, eh? She could be playing bridge or poker, watching a movie or having a small tea party with the like-minded and we wouldn’t know.

Anyway, since she is invested in thought, reflection and recollection, we can ask her to speak on others who lost loved ones, not in Sri Lanka or Afghanistan (where she was stationed before coming to Sri Lanka), but in her native Canada.

Has Whiting thought of a woman called Loretta Saunders, we wonder. Loretta Saunders was an Inuk woman who researched missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. She was, until her body was found in a province neighboring her native Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of 825 lost Aboriginal women. She is now in a different category, ‘lost or murdered’.

Did Whiting commiserate with Loretta’s loved ones? All we know is that Whiting’s Canada has refused to conduct a domestic inquiry into these missing Aboriginal women. ‘No need,’ says the self-righteous Prime Minister Harper, the man who is upset about alleged atrocities committed by Sri Lankan security forces, allegations easily sourced to the most unreliable ‘witnesses’, i.e. LTTE cadres, sympathizers and apologists. Something is being ‘perpetuated’ in her country, but Whiting doesn’t seem to be upset. Is she going to scrap Canada Day celebrations in Colombo this year because her government has pooh-poohed calls for investigation from both Canadian as well as international bodies, one wonders.

The point is that Canada has a long history of violence against its native peoples. That appears to be sanctioned by successive governments simply by the non-provision of institutional mechanisms to stop it or lethargy on the part of law enforcement officers that can only be described as racist. The racism doesn’t begin with inaction though. It is part and parcel of the policy regime of Canada. Canada talks ‘humanitarian’ but lives ‘racism’. It was a nation founded on injuries to native peoples and it is a nation that continues to injure. Whiting’s bleeding-heart justification of boycott, for this reason (and of course for her utter and undisguised humbuggery with respect to ‘victims’ and ‘loved ones’) would be hilarious if it were not tragic.

She is condescending and erroneous, double-tongued and myopic. ‘A bad egg’ would be a compliment because she is representative of ‘True Canada’, not because she is the top diplomat of that country in Sri Lanka, but articulates in her silences and cockeyed missives the racism that thrives in her country.

It is no surprise then that this boycott provokes observations such as the one below (by Fred Fernandez):

I read with interest the statement made by the Canadian High Commissioner that she will not participate in the Victory Day Celebrations because she is very keen that Sri Lanka should enjoy Peace and Reconciliation as soon as possible. While welcoming her interest in ushering Peace into Sri Lanka, may I request the Canadian Government through its peace loving Ambassador here, to kindly support the peace process further with the following initiatives as well.

(a) Stop fund raising by ex-LTTErs who are today masquerading as human rights activists in various parts of Canada. It is well known that these funds are used by them to “enlist” certain Canadian politicians to bash Sri Lanka.

(b) Help the Sri Lankan authorities to identify the many LTTE cadres who are in lists of missing and dead in Sri Lanka, but who are actually living and working in Canada, so that the data bases of who are alleged to be missing could be accurately updated.

(c) Grant a separate State to the Tamils of the world including those in Sri Lanka as already mooted by several Tamil Organizations in the recent past, and as explained in the article appearing at http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2014/03/23/time-to-establish-a-self-governed-tamil-state-in-canada/

The Canadian High Commissioner’s boycott of the Victory Day Celebrations and the Canadian Prime Minister Harper’s boycott of CHOGM in 2013 would be truly meaningful when the above initiatives are also implemented by the Canadians.

The third suggestion is of course tongue-in-cheek, but the points are valid. Neither Whiting nor her government is serious about either peace or reconciliation in Sri Lanka. It’s easy to show heart-bleed. Easy to stay home twiddling thumbs while claiming ‘I am mourning’. One is judged less on word than on deed. In ‘deed’, Ms Whiting and Canada have done little. Not for Sri Lanka and not for Canadian Aborigines. Indeed, the record shows that Canada has covered itself in the glory of subverting reconciliation. Ms Whiting can reflect on that since she’s party to that achievement.

When do wars end? Do they end with surrender, with military annihilation of protagonist, the recovery of livelihoods, reconstruction of houses, hospitals, schools, return of the displaced, erasing off things with military signature, free and fair elections and a shaking of hands all around? Do wars end that way, ever, though? Isn’t it true that the wars that have truly ‘ended’ for all practical purposes those which are beyond recall and whose identity-ties have been smudged by the movement of people and dwarfed by event after earth-shattering event?

What do people do in after-war nations that are yet to conclude their memory-wars? Do they wait and wait and wait? No. Life lives through all wars. Even in the most terrible conflagrations, amid the worst deprivations, caught in the swirl of loss and sorrow, people can’t roll over and die. They breathe, they hope and they do their best to survive. In post-war nations, peoples who have eked out an existence in the harshest of circumstances are naturally ‘better off’ than they were and perhaps better equipped to face new challenges. But that’s not what is important. What is important is that they are alive and do not have to deal with the kinds of uncertainties that attend armed conflicts.

And it is the same for those who lived outside the better defined war-zones: places whose young residents were in the battlefield and places that were bombed or were legitimate targets. The entire island was such a place. These people too have memory-wars to deal with. And yet, just as they breathed during the war, so too do they breathe now.

There was more than breathing and anxiety during those endless bloody days that bled into bloody nights that ended as bloody mornings, again and again and again. There was conversation. There was quarrel. There was wanting-to-know. There was a child’s curiosity. There was an old man’s indulgence in a pastime that cannot be discarded – reading newspapers, even if they are old, even if he’s already heard it from the radio or a neighbor.

Abducted though they could very well be the next moment and duly robbed of childhood, children did child-things. They still do. It couldn’t have been laugh-less back then and it is not laugh-less now. There was color but far more discoloration that the eye could take; but eye adjusted to the dismal and the eye re-adjusted to the return of color.

Even as people struggle with accumulated anguish and things that can only die in any meaningful way with death, even as they have to contend with the fact that days gone by haunt their wakeful hours, even though they know that memory doesn’t sleep at night, people live on. They draw water from the well, they draw yield from the earth that has not lost its goodness, they seek, find, give and obtain love, and indulge in everyday joys regardless of their dimensions.

During terrible times even as despair prompts the questioning and doubting of faith and deity respectively, even as places of worship get turned into refuge for the homeless and fearful or cover for men with guns, even as temples are desecrated or destroyed, the sacred resists, the sacred denies all intruders, whatever their uniform, whatever their rhetoric of fervor. Holy days did not become unholy. But such days call for greater faith and firm footfall as the faithful re-embrace traditions and customs that nothing, not even war, can burn easily.

There are faces in this land, the territories once called ‘cleared’ and ‘uncleared’, weary places where bombs exploded and where bombs were expected to explode. There are hands and feet. There are eyes and therefore there is gaze. They look and are looked upon. Every single expression in the so-called un-reconciled earth can be found in other parts of the island supposedly ‘reconciled’, for memory-angst does not forbid living. Memory-wars do not bury the fear of death or the will to live. In every nook and corner of this island there are eight things that are common to all: joy and sorrow, profit and loss, praise and blame, and prestige and obscurity. And all peoples, to a lesser or greater extent, find ways of dealing with these vicissitudes, some with equanimity, some with resignation and others with arrogance.

There are streets and street corners. They’ve been wiped of war’s inevitable dullness and desolation. The colors of hope have returned. The music of a normalcy it would have been too optimistic to envision not too long ago fills township and vendors, marketplaces and shoppers. Even those who loiter, do so because it is good at times to just let the world pass by.

There will be an old man reading a newspaper while waiting for someone to come with a flat tyre that needs to be patched up. There will be a toddy-tapper dancing on a rope, moving from tree to tree. There will be fisherman setting out to sea. The casting of nets and gathering of catch.There will be the gathering of communities. Construction. Men and women you might see collecting firewood. There will be harvesting. Cattle will be fed and watered.

These are not representative stories of the formerly conflict-ridden regions. These are the ‘everydays’ of people all over the island. And yet these are also images of determination and resolve. They are the ‘moving-on’ narratives of work, industry, commerce and tough engagement with the social and physical universe, expressions of the indomitable character of the human being to resist subduing. They are stories of these times; stories that no doubt carry trace of ‘those times’ that came before but are nevertheless inscribed by a kind of ‘resolution’ the users of that word may not understand or even care about. They are inscribed, also, by a reconciliation of a far more significant kind embedded with gravity of meaning that the users of that word, reconciliation, probably do not have the intellectual, ideological or political endowments to fathom.

Previously too, there was reconciliation. People were reconciled to what was considered the fact of inevitability. Tragedy was expected. The only thing that counted was the ‘when’ of it all. This is reconciliation to something else. Reconciliation to the fact that all that is over, that there will come a tomorrow that’s worth investing hope in, that there is a huge difference being recipient of context and partner in context-creation.

It is all written in line and curve, on face and frame, backdrop and foreground, the random configurations of people and things that narrate a time that is not the best of times but is most certainly times that are infinitely better than times past.

Yes, wars truly end for all practical purposes when they move beyond recall and whose identity-ties have been smudged by the movement of people and dwarfed by event after earth-shattering event. From war to memory-war, from the end of war to the irrelevance of memory is a journey of many generations. But from that first conflagration of sound and fury and through the less loud and less in-your-face struggles of the memory-war to some war-less time, one thing does happen. People move. People move on.

This is a moving-on story that we are all a part of. A moving-on story replete with obstinacy and intransigence, where one-upmanship is part of script, where victor, so-called, will not concede ground and loser, so-called, will demand by way of compensation everything that was fought for to no avail. A moving-on story where ‘reconciliation’ is code word for extraction and legitimating claims based on myth and land-greed. A moving-story where such the exaggeration of grievance is responded to with objection to both exaggeration and grievance.

It is a moving-on story that will be long but will be read nevertheless with reader interjecting preference into narrative.

And among those who write there will be those endowed with patience and humility, generosity and reason; they may make the lesser numbers, but just as the tyrannies of the world are perpetuated by the few, so too the reversal of the vile.

Wars never end neatly. Recovery is never smooth. Other struggles, wars if you will, can and do weave in and out of these processes, adding or subtracting color as the case may be. There’s one thing that’s not in dispute, though. No one wants to return to that other time. For that very reason, this moving-on will water the earth. Some flowers must bloom.

‘A brilliant coup if ever there was one!’ explained Mr Sticks as he poured himself a glass of carrot juice.

‘I hear you!’ Mr C Garette cheered in agreement, accepting a glass from the host.

‘Do you have any kola kenda by any chance?’ Mr Dhoom Vetiya inquired.

‘Of course we do, we are very conscious of the flavor preferences of our ethnic counterparts,’ Sticks grinned, the condescending slur going unnoticed by Mr Vetiya.

‘Carrot juice for me, please,’ said Mr Tu Bak-ko.

‘Nothing like water!’ Mr Tar Zan said emphatically.

The gentlemen were seated in the plush London home of Mr Sticks, one of the biggest names in the tobacco industry. They were celebrating a court decision in Sri Lanka pertaining to pictorial warnings on cigarette packets.

‘Anyone got any cigarettes?’ Tu Bak-ko winked at his friends. It provoked guffaws all around.

‘Gave up the day I said “hello” to the industry,’ Garette confessed.

‘Never touched the stuff,’ Vetiya said and that brought same-here nods from Zan and Sticks.

‘So, fellas, what do you think?’ Garette brought up the subject of the court decision.

‘Brilliant old chap, simply brilliant!’ Bak-ko exclaimed.

Tar Zan emptied the glass of water and spoke at length.

‘This 50-60 percent thing is right up our street. It’s bloody vague. First of all, we can pick 50 instead of 60. When I heard that I had to strain to suppress chuckles. Then there’s the issue of how we apportion the space. We could technically have warnings in smaller print in a big box, say black letters on red so it goes unnoticed, and say that the entire red area has to be counted under the “Warning” column of the calculation.’

They all roared with laughter. Mr Sticks refilled the glasses and asked ‘How about a cigarette, gentlemen?’

More laughter.

The door opened just then and in walked Mr Can Serus, ‘Sorry I’m late; had to change my pants!’

‘Yes, I noticed you were uncomfortable. Peed in your pants or something?’ Tu Bak-ko ventured.

‘No way man. Multiple orgasms. It happened when they talked of space necessary for branding!’

‘Yes, yes, that was rich, wasn’t it?’ Mr C Garrette was excited.

‘Bonus. A rich bonus, that!’ Sticks concurred.

‘Yes, we don’t use even ten percent of the space to display brand name and logo even now!’ Tar Zan was smiling.

‘It might be a defensible position if there were dozens of competing brands and in a market where there is low brand recognition, but that’s not the case in Sri Lanka,’ Dhoom Vetiya painted the local picture for his friends.

‘Ok friends, let’s raise a cheer for a determination that is vague enough and comes with enough loopholes for the money to keep rolling in!’ Mr Sticks raised his glass of carrot juice.

‘Amen to that!’ said Dhoom Vetiya downing his kola kenda.

*In a parallel universe of course!

About 18 years ago, facing an interview for a junior academic position in a university in Sri Lanka, I was asked to describe what I thought were the key differences between the US and Sri Lankan systems of higher education. Among the differences I pointed out was a relative lack of classroom democracy in our universities. There was, I argued, a perceivable distance between teacher and student. The interview board, comprising the Vice Chancellor of the University, the Head of the Department that had advertised the post and some other academics, asked what I thought might help bridge this gap.

I said, ‘students should be given their answer scripts back’. This was the logic of my answer: ‘If the teacher has the prerogative of giving a mark, then he or she should be able to defend it as well.’ There were howls of protest. Someone said that there are too many students for a single teacher to handle; that he or she can’t be responding to each and every grade contestation. I observed, with what I thought was due respect, that there have been enough and more cases of teachers allowing personal grudges, envy, friendship and even love to influence the grading process to warrant such a mechanism. I didn’t get the job, but probably not on account of this little exchange.

If any academic in any of our universities claims that academic dishonesty and sloth are non-existent or are insignificant, it would be a bare faced lie. It is not just in how teachers treat students. For example, the criteria for a person to be eligible to apply for a professorship has been watered down to such a level that even newspaper articles on subjects totally unrelated to the particular candidate’s area of specialization including obituaries and appreciations are considered legitimate examples of ‘scholarship’.

I remember one Dr. Kumara Kaluarachchi challenging the redoubtable Prof. Carlo Fonseka to mention even a single refereed article he had authored and was published by respectable academic journals since 1967 (the year Kaluarachchi was born). I believe that stumped the good professor. I am not claiming that all professors are undeserving of title and lacking in research-weight (shall we say?), analytical rigour and so on. The system is made for slacking and rewarding ineptitude and sloth, but there are those who rise despite the sophomoric culture. Still, it was not ‘in passing’ that Prof Sasanka Perera, Sociologist, speaking on this subject at a felicitation for Siri Gunasinghe said that there was a new phenomenon in Sri Lanka Universities: ‘New Marksism’. Yes, it had nothing to do with Karl Marx, but was about a flawed point system that had been instituted to ascertain professor-worthiness.

Sometimes, the system and its guardian angels (un-winged for the most part), operate with the acumen that is sadly lacking in their academic pursuits (non-existent) to reward themselves and/or sideline the real article. Recently, a ‘College’ of clinicians based in Colomborefused to award a fellowship to one of the island’s most distinguished scientists (the only FRS and internationally recognized expert on flu) because he was considered ‘too young’. The London Royal College of Physicians however awarded the man a fellowship. Not that things Londonare necessarily better of course, but age is only one and not the only criteria for volume of knowledge/skill that a person may have acquired. Citing age as factor is telling. Telling of misplaced arrogance.

Sloth and lack of integrity manifests itself in other ways too. Suppose, for example, that Mr. X is tasked to revamp the teaching of a particular subject. Common sense suggests that the person should consult those who could be expected to know something about the subject, if Mr X is himself from another field. He could avoid those who might call to question his qualifications to direct such a project or who he might fear might cause embarrassment by pointing out ineptitude. He can surround himself with people he could lord over using language skill, political weight and age. He can also take refuge behind the convenient shield, ‘this initiative was the brainchild of Mr. THIS BIG MAN or Ms. THAT BIG LADY’ as the case may be. It would all be trivial and worth a few laughs. On the other hand, what if the project is a serious exercise that envisages giving important life skills which, arguably, could help erase lots of privilege conferring distinctions in society?

What if the person, contrary to all norms and ethics associated with academic pursuits deliberately squashes dissenting opinion by doing the equivalent of ‘running to the head master’ (who may very well be ignorant about the particular subject) and spiking written objections?

There is a certain shamelessness in the way some ‘academics’ operate, abusing inter alia on the cultured ways of those who would not stoop down to their level and would spurn their ways of being and ‘becoming’. On the other hand, the silence of ‘the thus cultured’ can help encourage the mediocre and mediocrity, we should not forget.

I remember speaking with Dr. S.B. De Silva, Economist whose perfectionism and not sloth has stopped him from producing anything that complements his doctoral work, ‘The political economy of underdevelopment’ about 15 years ago. This was in the Senior Common Room of the Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya. The time was around 3.30 pm. The place was empty. I asked him why. ‘They are all in tuition classes’. They may have been in classes or at home reading/writing of course. But I think he was correct. One hardly ever sees lecturers in the Peradeniya library. Some write. The vast majority do not. They get along from BA to Masters to Doctorate, Professorship, retirement and death without too much of a fuss. I am sure others will know if things are different in other faculties, other universities and other institutions devoted to research and other academic work. My sense is that there is no reason for anyone to be thrilled at this point.

This is the era of currying favour with the powers that be, wherever they may be. That’s the preferred path to career advancement. Nothing wrong in furthering career of course, but it is astounding that many of these people who do ‘advance’ are unaware of or ignore the fact that good and solid work is not necessary an impediment.

I am no academic. I am hopeful however that this prompts those who are academics and who have some integrity and are no slothful to respond so that the full dimensions of the problem can be ascertained and remedial measures instituted by those mandated to do so. Or else, if that be the case, assure me that things are all lovely and worthy of mindless celebration.

*First published in the Sunday Observer about 4 years ago....still valid, I believe.

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

My friend Suranga Fonseka said something about dimensions and the limitations of the mind about twenty years ago that I can never forget. We were talking about multiple dimensions, those that would define spaces in ways we cannot imagine. I was at a loss to imagine a universe that had more than 3 dimensions since these appear to take up all space. Suranga asked me to think of someone on a piece of paper; such a creature would not be able to imagine a third dimension. I believe all art has something to do with transcending these lines or having the ability to tweak elements, blur if necessary and dismantle frame and trespass. It is about understanding that one can fly through water and swim among clouds, see moonbeam as rope and valley as the final resting place of mountain. It is about un-dimensioning.

Take humour. I think humour is easy; at least in its less subtle forms. It is all about saying what’s least expected at the least expected moment in a least expected manner. Of course a lot of crafting can be factored in, but in essence, it is when the expected is tweaked that we start noticing things and seeing them from a different perspective.

I don’t know if artists are born or acquire some kind of special facility which allows them to play around with dimension and element, real and imagined, time-line and being, space and line, word and silence, tone and semi-tone and such. I like to think that we are all creators in our own way, reading things in ways that no one has ever done before and expressing themselves in unique ways, rendering the world in its articulation, interaction, intersections, presences and absences in colours not imagined before.

I am convinced that all the poetry that is worth that tag already exists in various forms. It may be hidden in metaphor, appear disguised because we are limited in vision and hearing, our fingers deficient in obtaining texture-nuance and hearts too impure to obtain the delicate from the coarse, but it is out there nevertheless, waiting to be recognized and to be transcribed in one form or another. And when I say ‘poetry’, I am using the word as short-hand for all forms of literature and indeed all art forms. What we call ‘art’ and ‘performance’ then is nothing more than the intersection of three things: a) the ‘poem’ in its existence in some ‘out there’ that is discernable, b) the eyes (read ‘sensitivities’) necessary to read or obtain from an otherwise nondescript canvass (read ‘the anything and everything that is social life, human dream and individual and collective terror’) and c) the language (read ‘art form’) to translate it into the vernacular (read ‘whatever form that renders it comprehensible to others’).

If someone has the eyes to trip dimensions, flip colour palette, twist demarcating line and confuse tense, he/or she has the potential to obtain insights that elude the vast majority of his/her contemporaries since very few are gifted with such ability or can train themselves to do all this. That’s only one part of the deal though. How does one trace the magic that one has chanced upon or drawn out from what would be a day-in-day-out ‘unseeable’ canvass made of either the blank sheet produced by familiarity or the cacophony of confusion that untreated/untreatable sign, metaphor and sound-byte produce? And how does one ‘render’ all this in ways that are readable, compelling and new?

If there was a ready formula, then we’d all be called poets and composers, artists and sculptors, playwrights and contortionists, jugglers and comedians. Actors. Magicians. Narrators. Silencers. The purpose is not to attempt the impossible. Rather, I wish to throw out some ideas that might help the would-be artist to figure out if he/she is doing qualifies for ‘art’. No, I am not trying to set up standards here. I am convinced, as I said, that all ‘art’ is already out there and what we call ‘art’ is merely their poor and imperfect but still pleasing and illuminating reproduction. What the artist does is essentially to craft what could be called the reverse of an embroidery.

That might sound crude and hardly worth the effort but this is because we have not yet un-learnt our gross under-appreciation of the ‘out-there’ poetry. Nature is beautiful, but we don’t have the eyes to see it. So we wait for a brilliant photographer and, these days, someone who can play with colour, shade, tone and such. We might think that we are adding something to the original, taking things beyond the territoriality of nature, but we are only fooling ourselves for the most part. If we knew nature intimately, we would see its beauty in both grandeur and nuance, in colour mix and singularities of tone, orchestras and symphonies, and of course the sobering and revealing sculpting that takes place over centuries upon centuries. We would be humbled at our poor reproductions. First off, then: humility. If we are not humbled, we inflict blindness of a kind, nurture arrogance and inflate ego. We could earn bucks yes, but not longevity for our ‘artwork’.

Second. Learning the language of recipient. First and foremost, in this particular aspect of readying oneself for mining and reproducing art, I humbly posit the language that one must first touch and acquire is that of the heart. One’s own heart. Very important, in my understanding, is the need to allow heart to speak and teach its language with minimal cluttering from the mind. More ‘feel’ than ‘think’, absorption rather than instruction/acquisition. There are valves that need to be opened I believe and sure, there’s an element of agency here, of deliberation and consciousness, but that’s something that should be abandoned after initial precipitation.

What then? At some point in the post-mining of art, the would-be artist has to reproduce. He/she could do it for his own joy and pleasure, test how close he/she can come to the original poet. Indeed, if that is the objective I believe he/she would end up writing in a language that is understood by the many. If on the other hand, one crafts with constant referencing of the eyes that might later alight on the product of crafting, I am convinced that the sculptor thus produced would be that much more removed from the poem being transcribed and consequently that much impoverished.

There’s self-deception ready to intervene. I am referring to the use of worn out metaphor, colour patters so familiar that they can blind and render unreadable the transliterated ‘work’. No one says that you cannot use the word ‘rose’ when rendering visible to a given audience a natural rose, but we should not forget that roses have millions of names and some are so common that they are colourless and bland. Unfragranced.

There are no rules about frames and containers, what to put in what, but there’s choice involved here and you have to pick wisely. It is not as simply as putting a square peg in a round hole of course. A bending can add charm, so too a snap. Context. It is all about context. You have to be wise. And wisdom is as heart-wrought as mind-mined.

How can one acquire wisdom? I would say, by living. I don’t know. I am not a transliterator or translator, poet or narrator, lyricist or composer. My sense is that if one lives one’s life with a commitment to treating with equanimity the vicissitudes of life, by consistently referencing the sathara brahma viharana, then even insanities would make sense, blur would dissolve into disparate hues, complexities unravel and rearrange themselves in ways that reveals to self and all elements of the human condition that were previously elusive.

There’s wonderful art out there. I am too poor to appreciate it fully, for I lack the eyes. Even if I did have the glasses to correct for vision-flaw, I lack language-skill; heart language and people language. Out there, I am sure there are thousands wanting to be artists. I am wondering how they would read all this. I am hopeful they’ll teach me how to obtain in more tender ways, this wonderful earth I happen to find myself in right now.

msenevira@gmail.com

I parachuted into journalism. I didn’t do the hard yards. I was picked from nowhere by Manik De Silva, Editor, SundayIsland about ten years ago. He said I could be his understudy. He did his best to turn me into an all-round journalist. He tried to impart some reporting skills. I still remember Manik telling me to write a news story about interest rates. He gave me the facts. I wrote a quick comment on ‘fictional commodities’ after Karl Polanyi. Manik said ‘I say, I asked you to write a news story not a bloody commentary’, but carried it anyway.

We learn from those who came before us. They clear paths and do it so well that we forget that previously there was thicket. I am grateful to Manik, my first and best teacher in newspapers. I am grateful also to Gamini Weerakoon (‘Gamma’) who was the Editor of The Island (i.e. the daily paper), who would often call me into his office and give me what he called ‘unsolicited advise’. Shamindra Ferdinando was another unobtrusive teacher. I was taught by the layout people, the ‘readers’, the sub-editors, the peons, drivers, the advertising people and Simon, the tea-maker. And I learnt from those who wrote. And those who write.

A little over a year ago, Nihal Ratnayake, veteran journalist and one my father’s oldest friends (so old that he can claim to have known me longer than I have known myself), sent me a book to be reviewed. It was called ‘Cameos of Ceylon and other glimpses,’ authored by another veteran scribe, S.Pathiravitana. It was a fascinating collection. Easy reading. Entertaining. Utterly, utterly enriching.

It was clearly a carefully selected set of essays penned over a half a century for the Sunday Observer, Daily News and The Island. I flipped through some articles and was flipped by the cameos. Then I lost the book. Shifted house, lost book. A chance conversation with an internet reader of my articles ended with me visiting her father, the author of this lovely book, a couple of months ago. He gave me a signed copy and brushed aside my apologies with a wonderfully understanding smile.

‘Cameos’ gives us glimpses of a mind dedicated to exploration, a heart unburdened of hard convictions and a human composite that is endowed with wit, patience, humility, thirst for knowledge and that rare ability to touch without touching, inhabiting without appearing to do so.

The interesting thing about such collections is that you don’t have to read from beginning to end. You can turn to a random page and read. This is what I did. As a result I was educated about Buddhism in Western Literature and immediately afterwards I was made to reflect on consumers and consumerism in ways I had not imagined were possible. The collage of subject, personality, event, history, philosophy, literature and innumerable other ‘things’ that is this book throws a colour-mix never before blended.

He writes about the most ordinary of things in ways that make your mouth water. Like the lowly papaw (‘The fruit that tempted Eve’). ‘One spoonful and you really begin to taste the fruit of national freedom,’ he writes about woodapple jam (the Marketing Department version). He puts ‘English in its place’. He writes about penguins, pelicans and ptarmigans. He writes about ancestor worship (in Britain!) and tells us about Munkotuve Rala who gave us the ‘Sangarajawatha’ which, according to him, ‘records the story of the heroic recovery of the Buddha Sasana through the magnificent almost single-handed effort of the great Welivita Sri Saranankara Thero’.

What struck me most, reading ‘Cameos’ was the erudition of the author, not as veteran journalist but from the time he was a junior scribe. The reading, reflection, ability to synthesize, and the unlimited curiosity that persuaded him to graze on a wide range of subject-grasses and literatures, are hardly housed in one personality even in fraction today, I realized. I do understand that a human being gathers a lot of information, sorts it all out in ways that make for relatively easy access and acquires analytical frames that help make sense of things and processes. I do understand that some are endowed with word-skill that makes it possible to lay out conclusions in ways that are palatable to a wide spectrum of readers. And yet, Pathiravitana remains a stand-out. I am strained to name anyone among my contemporaries who would not be out of depth in such a range of subjects and also have the ability to treat material with such finesse. Rajpal Abeynayake comes to mind and that’s about it.

People ask me often how one learns to write. I never had any formal instruction, except taking the odd mandatory writing course as an undergraduate. If I am pushed, I would say ‘read’. Read as much as possible. Pathiravitana is very well read. That is necessary but not sufficient. One needs a reflective mind and needs to resolve oneself to a life-long exploration of the word and its unlimited potentials. One has to be cognizant of audience, the social, cultural and political nuances and indeed ‘moment’, the need of reader and the need of self to explore, explicate and share. Pathiravitana’s ‘Cameos’ is to me something that can be recommended as ‘essential reading for the would-be writer’.

‘Cameos’ shows how language can be used, how economy is exercised, how language and tone are employed to convince without being overbearing. Pathiravitana is not an in-your-face writer. He is almost like a bystander glancing at his own hand, own pen and the scribbles these produce on paper. Perhaps it is this distancing-without-leaving quality that makes him such entertaining reading. We end up concluding with him without feeling we’ve been led. Or had.

The richness is striking. I felt that any student of the social sciences or humanities can turn to a random page and find many gems which are crying out for cut-and-polish. There are so many pregnancies within these 400 pages. So many thoughts that can be birthed and so many off spring from those that this writer has so generously and with so much love delivered for his readers.

He claims that all he has done (without really planning to do so) was to ‘hold a mirror to our foibles, i.e. those which prevented us from becoming the true heirs to the heritage of this country’. That’s something (this matter of mirror-holding) that journalists would do well to emulate. It is not easy to hold up a mirror because we find it tough to stop ourselves from telling what the mirror says and advocating correctives. Pathiravitana does it gently.

It is a book I will return to again and again with the conviction that I will learn something new each time I read. It is a book that every library in every school should have, even in these times of watered down, anything-goes apology for English instruction that is called ‘English Our (sorry ‘Indian’) Way’. Not just for the English, but for the secrets of essay writing it contains and of course for the edifying potential. It is a ‘must’ for every media institution and probably an excellent text-book for journalism/mass communication curricula.

It is a companion for lonely days and a photographic capture of a nation and its many wonders.

*This was published in the Sunday Observer almost four years ago and about two years before S Pathiravirana passed on.

msenevira@gmail.com

Narendra Modi is not just India’s new Prime Minister. He’s also the latest gonibilla conjured by Indophiles, Eelamists, federalists and other fellow-travelers. The ‘Specter of Modi’ is a good topic to write on, notwithstanding the fact that gonibilla-conjurers, given their secularist posturing would, if they could, have voted for the Congress or any other party apart from the BJP any day. They have to make the best out of a bad deal, one must understand.

Let’s leave the reduced-circumstanced Sri Lankan commentariat aside and check what Col. R Hariharan, a frequent writer on Sri Lankan politics and Indo-Lanka relations has to say. He believes that Modi’s success has put Colombo ‘in a tizzy’. Hariharan contends that Modi being a ‘strong, assertive leader’ Sri Lanka cannot take him for granted. He thinks that Sri Lanka fears that the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology would make Modi favor Tamil Hindus over Sinhala Buddhists. Since Vaiko of the MDMK and Ramadoss of the PMK are the BJP’s major allies in Tamil Nadu and since both are strong Eelamists, Hariharan says that Modi would ‘take a more strident posture’ on Sri Lanka, especially since the state was won by someone else, Jayalalithaa, also an Eelamist.

Hariharan tempers these positions by factoring in Modi’s version of Hindutva which ‘contains’ the Buddha and therefore dismissing as simplistic the previous contention about Tamil Hindus and Sinhala Buddhists. He adds Modi’s aversion to extremism (Jihadist, Maoist etc) as indicative of a ‘no’ to separatism. He contends nevertheless that Modi would be more insistent than his predecessor about implementing the 13^th amendment to the full as a first step, referring to a promise made by Mahinda Rajapaksa to Manmohan Singh. Then he says ‘Modi is a man of his own mind’.

When you take all this together, Hariharan is basically saying nothing at all except, ‘Modi is tough, he has a mind of his own’. Hariharan can’t claim he is privy to Modi’s mind, one observes. But Hariharan knows his own mind. And this is what that mind spewed out in July 2012, commenting on the failed Indo-Lanka Accord: ‘‘The devolution of powers to the Tamil minority promised in the Accord remains unfulfilled despite the 13th Amendment. But the Accord retains the potential as an instrument of Indian influence in the region.’ (read my take on this here)

So, for all the shop-talk about ‘redressing Tamil grievances’ the Accord (and also the 13th Amendment) was about ‘Indian influence in the region’. And that’s what Modi is mandated to do: retain and enhance influence in the region, among other things’. So all the stuff about the Tamil Nadu factor, the religious factors and such are just eyewash, useful to justify this or that but hardly relevant in policy making.

What’s even more pernicious about Hariharan’s ‘analysis’ is that he ignores totally the Indian part of the ‘failure’ he talks about. India just did not deliver on promises made and inked. India, then, cannot allude to the 13^th Amendment or promises made by President Rajapaksa who, in the final analysis, is just another politician, tiding over tough times with a nice word here and a pledge that’s impossible to keep there. Hariharan’s all-of-a-sudden ‘principled’ allusion is therefore little better than toilet wash, with the only mitigating factor being acknowledgment that strategic goals override all else.

There’s more to the man. He is a retired Indian military intelligence man who served with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) a Head of Intelligence no less. It is now clearly apparent that the IPKF didn’t have a clue about the LTTE and that is a clear result of Hariharan’s incompetence. So we have an incompetent military man masquerading as a political commentator, providing quotable quotes by gonibilla-conjurers here in Sri Lanka. How much more funnier can it get, one wonders.

Since we began with allusion to Tamil Nadu, let’s get back there for a moment. If a Tamil Nadu so strong that there was even talk of a Jayalalithaa premiership could not sway a weak leader like Manmohan Singh, how can a Tamil Nadu that the BJP doesn’t have to worry about at this point make Narendra Modi’s knees go wobbly? Doesn’t make sense. But regardless of all that, what’s more important is that Modi, like his predecessors, will think ‘India’ first and Tamil Nadu, if at all, later. In the end, with respect to policy on Sri Lanka, Modi’s position vis-à-vis the West and China is probably what will frame involvement, intervention or (mis)adventure in Sri Lanka as the case may be. Hariharan’s fantasies, at any rate, are largely that. Fantasies.

For now, in his victory-moment, let’s wish the man all the very best. India needs all the luck it can get at this point. Let’s not begrudge even an iota to the newly elected Prime Minister. Good luck Mr Modi!

President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not invite seemingly estranged leaders of coalition partners such as Champika Ranawaka and Wimal Weerawansa to accompany him to the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He did not invite his Prime Minister or any other seniors in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. He didn’t even invite the Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Instead, President Rajapaksa invited the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council to accompany him to Delhi. Wigneswaran declined.

The context is important. Wigneswaran’s party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spares no opportunity to run to Delhi to whine and dine. In fact the TNA fired off a congratulatory message to Mr Modi no sooner the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) won the election, expressing hope (yet once again) that Delhi would interfere on behalf of the TNA (to exact from Rajapaksa ‘peacefully’ what Velupillai Prabhakaran failed to obtain through terrorism).

Wigneswaran has trotted out the lamest of excuses and in doing so has conceded all brownie points at stake to the President. Wigneswaran claims that had he accepted the invitation it would ‘give a false impression to the international community that the Northern PC and the Central Government had a strong relationship’. The international community, so-called, was not born yesterday and Wigneswaran ought to have known this. Worse, this ‘back-off’ only ‘shows-off’ Wigneswaran and the TNA.

Wigneswaran is but a leader of a province and can claim to speak for less than a third of the Tamils living in Sri Lanka. As such, there is little grace in tossing aside a presidential invite. If only it was just that and nothing else! The truth is that Wigneswaran, the invitation-decliner, veritably salivates when receiving invitations from close associates of Prabhakaran now domiciled in various parts of Europe and North America.

As for relationships with the center, strong or otherwise, their status has a lot to do with who Wigneswaran’s friends are and what he chooses to be blind to. There are definite moves to resurrect the LTTE and the TNA’s conspicuous silence on this clearly indicates tacit approval. In that context it is certainly generous of the President to put all that aside and invite Wigneswaran to accompany him.

It appears that Wigneswaran would rather toe the LTTE line than help promote goodwill with the entities that disgruntled sections of the Tamil community would ultimately have to deal with, in this instance represented by the President. He might think ‘I snubbed him,’ but in reality he has indicated that reconciliation of any kind is anathema to the TNA, a red flag to a bull so to speak.

All things considered this is pretty puerile on the part of the former Supreme Court Judge. It would appear to some that this is a clear indication of who really controls the Wigneswaran and the TNA: pro-LTTE extremists in expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil community and their local representative, the true leader of the TNA by default, Suresh Premachandran.

The quick slide to political redundancy has to be seen as mirroring a pandering to extremists by an earlier generation led by Appapillai Amirthalingam and the TULF. Wigneswaran knows how that story played itself out. Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps he has no choice.

Whatever the truth may be, one thing is clear. The President got to look magnanimous and Wigneswaran turned up looking a spoiler. Modi didn’t invite Wigneswaran. He invited Rajapaksa, scoffing at those who protested the move. Someone has missed a trick here and it is not Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The first was when I was about five years home. We were returning to Colombo from Kurunegala, my maternal grandparents’ place. It was night. My father stopped the car at a nondescript point located somewhere close to the Alawwa bridge. That’s when I first heard the word dansala, roughly translated as ‘giving-kiosk’. It was a kottamalli dansala. Coriander was always thought of as medicine, until that day.

Since then I’ve been to countless danal. You just can’t escape them if you live in Sri Lanka. Twice a year most of the country is transformed into a spectacle of giving, once at Vesak and once at Poson. There’s ice cream, rice, manioc, sago, soft drinks, bread, beli-maland other foods and beverages at every turn. It is of course ‘Buddhist’ in that the ‘moment’ is defined by histories special to Buddhists. It is not ‘for Buddhists’ though. It is for anyone and everyone who passes by. It is not always ‘by Buddhists’ either; Christians and Muslims also organize dansal in areas dominated by people of these faiths. It’s a community-thing that cuts across distinctions of all kinds.

That kottamalli dansala, as far as I can remember, was not cluttered by people, noise, music, elaborate decorations, blinking lights and flags. It was a roadside exercise of wholesome giving sans frills. Today, I am intimidated by crowds and traffic, put off by noise (there’s only so much of ‘loud’ Baeg that one can take, after all) and the glitter. If I have to be on the road, though, I would stop and partake. I prefer however to go to temple, stay home, light some lamps and watch the sky if the moon is unhindered by cloud.

It was different this Vesak.

I was driving home around 5.00 pm when I had to stop at the traffic lights on Reid Avenue. While waiting for the light to change I noticed some boys offering something in cups to a couple of cars they had managed to stop. I noticed a ‘hut’ with a banner. I was close enough to read the legend on the top, ‘Hela Suwayen Pidena Aushadeeya Kenda’. That wasn’t something I would have associated with my old school, certainly not during the time I was a student. But Royal College, under Upali Gunasekera, was a different school and I knew enough to guess that I might be missing something good if I drove on without stopping. I was correct.

I’ve seen and benefited from hundreds of dansal over the years. To me, this was the best. It was an out-of-the-world kenda drink. It was ‘out of this world’ simply because that which was common has over the years become rare or rather made to become rare. ‘Kenda beelada?’ was and still is a common and dismissing allusion to weakness of body when in fact kenda is anything but weak, weakening or indicative of weakness. As Prof Nalin De Silva recently observed a more appropriate (scientifically speaking) dismissal would be kiri-beelada (after milk?).

This was this-worldly for other and more important reasons. This divine drink had a rice base, rice varieties with names that are uncommon or rather made uncommon for reasons we cannot go into here: madathavaalu, paccaperumal, kahavanu and kalu heeneti. Flavored by an ingredient mix that includes rare herbs of immense curative value and boiled with gotukola, pumpkin and radish, there was a spicy sting to the drink. ‘Good stuff to the last drop,’ tongue and palette held witness.

Further inquiries revealed that this is a regular drink for the students of the school with over 800 consuming it on a daily basis. All the ingredients are organic. The curative values time tested. All the rice varieties are known to enhance immunity and flush out impurities in the body. The other ingredients help cure high blood pressure, diabetes and dozens of other medical conditions.

It was a Right Royal treat and not because it was a Royal College project. ‘Royal’ not only because the event, true to the tradition of that school was a collective effort that brought together the Buddhist Brotherhood, Tamil Dramatic Society, Interact Club and the Entrepreneurs’ Club. The ‘royalty’ was embedded in the choice for the dansala and the quality of that which was gifted. As cleansing of mind as that hot cup of kottamall I downed so long ago, but more wholesome in nutritional content and for the choice made by those schoolboy given its elite tag and the preferential milieu of the times.

It is easily the best dansalaI’ve been to in all my life; I felt I was being treated like Royalty. May the Principal, staff and students of Royal College receive the blessings of the Noble Triple Gem, always.

'The Nation' was launched eight years ago. At the time I was Deputy Editor (Features) and one of my tasks was to write the weekly editorial. I was with 'The Nation' until January 2007 and wrote almost all editorial until I believe October or so, except on a few occasions when I was out of the country. I returned to 'The Nation', as Editor, in October 2011 and have written all editorials since then. 'The Nation' turned 8 last week. It would be nice, I thought, to return to that first editorial, which naturally was a statement of intent of sorts.

The Nation is launched at a time when the very word ‘nation’ evokes an array of mixed emotions including unfortunately guilt, suspicion, rancor and acrimony. This is obviously not the first time in this island’s long history that such sentiments have come to dominate the collective consciousness of the people. The histories of nations and communities are typically in states of flux for there will always be highs and lows, tranquility and discontent. Thus, while there is no denying the fact that the term ‘crisis’ is an apt descriptive of the current state of affairs, this is not to say that resignation en masse is in order.

‘Nation’ can mean different things to different people and this is indeed something to be celebrated, for a uniform sense of the collective is not only boring but also indicates stagnation and a manifest absence of dynamism, conditions which necessarily inhibit enterprise and creativity. Such a nation would indeed be uninspiring and one which few would like to identify with.

On the other hand, the recent history of this country does seem to cry out for a robust identity-bind that capable of enmeshing the many diversities that inhabit our society into a tapestry, a banner that not only delights but inspires citizens to be more enterprising, responsible and conscious of the collective ethic embedded in the idea ‘we swim or sink together’.

It is not the task of The Nation to offer an all-encompassing definition of ‘nation’ for the citizens of this country. However, we wish to state at the outset that to the extent that a nation is in fact a relentless search for and honing of identity-based and purpose-related commonality, The Nationwill remain a democratic forum for this very necessary discussion. The ideas thus expressed, we are confident, will serve as the bricks and mortar that builds, re-builds and in other ways transform our nation into an edifice that all of us can truly be proud of.

The Nation shall operate on the premise that only a well informed public can act with responsibility in all matters that concern both the individual and the aggregate. To this end we will strive to offer comprehensive information on events and issues, for it is our belief that as the knowledge pool grows the people as a whole will be less vulnerable to deception and manipulation by people with vested interests purporting to act in the name of the public interest. We will remain a fiercely independent newspaper. We will not take sides but rather will ensure that the views of all key players get space for articulation.

We are of course not against those who attempt to invade the popular imagination with political creed, after all discourse is essentially an interactive engagement whereby we attempt to convince our fellow citizens of the validity of our particular ideas. On the other hand, only an informed and alert public is equipped with discretionary power necessary for fruitful debate. The Nation therefore will not only provide a platform for debating issues critical to society but will look to provide material that enhances the quality of social discourse.

We have faith in the ability of our people to suffer great tragedies and still emerge with their spirit intact from such physical and emotional bludgeoning. It is indeed a tribute to the people as a whole that despite alarming weaknesses in political leadership they have by and large managed to maintain their spirits and more importantly refused to let hope be interred along with the remains of some of the fundamental building blocks of good governance and political responsibility.

We are blessed in that our people have exceptional courage and resilience. Our people have an innate sense of decency and a will to revive and carry on with their lives. They believe in peaceful co-existence and deserve to have a better quality of life than they have had over the last few decades. These are the positives that persuade us to launch this new Sunday newspaper and we have dedicated The Nation to nurture them to reach full fruition.

We will be fiercely professional, will adhere to the rich tenets of journalism and will act with fidelity to the basic premises of democracy. We have no agenda apart from that articulated here. We believe we’ve chosen a path worth taking and one which should not be walked alone. In the final analysis people and newspapers mould each other and it is only the courage, commitment and integrity of all concerned that lead to a habitable destination. As we take our first steps, we are confident, enthusiastic and hopeful.

My name is Common. Yes, there’s a reason for the upper case ‘C’. That’s a proper noun and not an adjective. I write because my name has been prostituted so much that it is hard for me to figure out who I am when people refer to me or pin me to their favorite nouns such as law, place, people, sense wealth, thief, ground, factor and so on. It’s clear to me that I am being abused by a bunch of illiterate people. I mean, if they don’t know what ‘common’ means, they should never use it. Some say that ‘love’ is the most abused word in the English language. I say ‘fiddlesticks!’ because nothing is more abused that my name, which of course is a word in the English language, ‘common’ (upper or lower case).

There’s talk on the street about a ‘common (sic) candidate’. Other names are bracketed with mine. A few years back there was a different name, Sarath Fonseka. There’s nothing ‘common’ in that name. Well, since ‘Sarath’ is a popular name and since there are many Fonsekas, it is probably more common that the name Janahithakaamee Pinidiyapathirage for example, but the word ‘common’ was not used in that sense. First and foremost there is and was only one ‘Sarath Fonseka’ that counted.

But was he commonly desired? Turns out that he was not. That ‘proof’ had to wait an election, but an election was not necessary to figure out that he was only a common and temporary solution to widely different political problems of a handful of people. In this sense, common he was not. That was an insult.

Now we hear about common candidates once again. What’s up with these people? Are they lacking in self-confidence? Isn’t there anyone out there who has the confidence to stand up and say ‘hey, I can beat the other guy; support me by all means, but I will prevail even without your assistance!?’

What’s ‘common’ about Ven Maduluwave Sobitha? What’s ‘common’ about Chandrika Kumaratunga? What’s ‘common’ about C.V. Wigneswaran? Indeed what’s ‘common’ about any of these names that are tossed around when a small bunch of people discuss over tea, coffee or alcohol who would best offer Mahinda Rajapaksa a run for his money? If we went for the true meaning of my name then of course Anura Kumara Dissanayake would be the ‘best of the bad lot’, but then again he too represents a fringe doctrine with few takers at this point in time. Going strictly by his popularity among the people, even if the man is celebrated in less raucous tones than he was a few years back and even if it’s more for the lack of alternative, that man Mahinda has so many ‘common-backers’ compared to the above lot, Anura included, individually or as a collective, that it is high time they dropped this common-approach altogether.

All these common-candidate voice-cut politicians and (I)NGO upstarts should have understood by now that using my name is a first-step-lie and therefore anything that begins there must necessarily end in disaster. If they cannot understand the sheer deception that constitutes abusing my name, they don’t deserve to be candidates, let alone win elections.

My concern is this: if they continue with this common-candidate thing each time an election comes around, people will start to think that my name is absurd. I am worried. Really, really worried. So, please do me a favor. Stop abusing me. Use another adjective or a different tag. Here’s some: Default Candidate, Default-Choice Candidate, We-Are-Clueless Candidate, Feel-Good Candidate, Rahu-Kaale Candidate. The best of course would be to drop the pretension and go with the name. Sarath Fonseka, Shirani Bandaranayake, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Tom, Dick or Harry.

Just leave me alone.

*In a parallel universe

In these Narendra Modi days, we once again have fear-mongering devolutionists trying to make a fast political buck at the man's expense. There's reference to promises made and talk of Modi making sure that they will be kept, as though there's something sacred about 'word' even as nothing is said about pledges made by India in 1987 which were happily 'called off' not too long afterwards. Modi is the new 'geopolitical reality' or rather its new articulation. India remains India though. The following was written in 2006. Prabhakaran was alive then. Geopolitical realities haven't changed much though. Their 'currency' is based on some people clutching at the Modi straw to get some purchase for the devolutionist position. The article might not bee 'irrelevant'.

The year 1987, as any other year for that matter, is different to the year 2006. In the year 1987 a new term acquired political currency; ‘geopolitical reality’ (GR) became another word for ‘India’.
The GR arrived, asserted itself, got bad-mouthed no end, got burnt even, and receded into the less troublesome realm of the non-military. It continued to and continues to assert, to come and go, to give some, to take some (more?) as are the prerogatives available to GRs. By and larger, however, the term lost its analytical preponderance. The word on the street is that it is making a comeback.

The GR said ‘here I am’ at a time and in a way that sounded very much like a school bully coming to collect the lunch money of lower graders. As often happens, there was submission but there was the inevitable ‘Not Welcome’ sign on all faces.

The 13th Amendment was thrust down its throat. It constituted the grist to Rohana Wijeweera’s rhetorical mill and he used it to good effect. A party that had run out of steam in 1985 was able, thanks to GR intervention, to form a ‘punchi aanduwa’ that was at times and in some places actually the maha aanduwa’.Some 60,000 people died in the process. Sinhala society, the most vocal of the objectors, however, has time and again proved that it is flexible and does not have the ego that forbids reconsideration of positions previously taken. The 13th Amendment devil, as the popular Sinhala saying goes, was found to be less black than first believed. It didn’t cure the problem called Prabhakaran that the GR itself had a hand in nursing, of course, but it was largely seen as harmless.

Thirteen years later the general view could very well be that the GR acted in good faith, did its best and that the pill it sent down the throat was little more than a placebo. ‘Devolution of power’ and ‘decentralization of administration’ are not cuss terms per se, all would agree. And so, when there is talk of the GR playing a more assertive role in resolving conflict there is naturally less antipathy today than there was in 1987. The problem lies in what it seeks to cure, though.

Today there is some haggling over terms. During the presidential election it was whether Sri Lanka should be a ‘unitary’ nation or a ‘united’ one. These terms are not opposites. The opposite of ‘unitary’ in our context is ‘federal’ and any attempt to obfuscate the issue constitutes political chicanery, nothing less. ‘Federal’ refers to a coming-together by choice and this implies that separation by choice is an option. ‘Federal’ refers to the coming-together of disparate political entities and it is attendant with notions such as ‘historical homelands’ which of course feed into aspirations/demands for self-determination.

Today, we are talking also about ‘undivided’ when we talk of ‘solution’ as though different word usage would somehow alter the content of the political. Few talk of the substance and the logic, we note.
In short, if what we have is an ethnic problem and nothing else, and if the grievances stem from injustice that can a) be substantiated and b) be only resolved by devolution of power to a well demarcated territory, then of course such solution-speak would be legitimate. But is Prabhakaran about grievances and/or aspirations of Tamil people? If Prabhakaran’s (mis)adventure is a product of ‘traditional’ homelands of Tamil people being robbed by Sinhalese, then all well and good. Unfortunately, this has not been proved. The logical thing to say is, ‘come, substantiate or keep your peace’. In a context where the overwhelming evidence goes against Prabhakaran’s version of history, devolving power to solve what is mis-named an ‘ethnic problem’ amounts to surrender (of one kind or another) to terrorism, which everyone agrees is what Prabhakaran is about.

Until such time that the territorial claims a la history are established, all talk of devolution of power to geographies will remain articles of surrender. Devolution of power on account of it being a necessity to ensure better participation of the citizen in matters of governance or on account of efficiency considerations is a different matter altogether. To mix the two is an unhealthy convenience that is bound to further complicate already complex politics. In other words, all devolution proposals which aim at conflict resolution are by definition acts of culpability in the falsification of history and legitimizing of myth.

Thamilselvan says ‘the concept of devolution of power based on the unitary constitution has been rejected decades ago by the Tamils.’ I could say two things. First, ‘hard luck buddy, you have every right to dream, to aspire, but have not historical basis to demand.’ I could also say, ‘You know, Selvan, the concept of law and order has been rejected by the underworld criminal from Day Dot, but that has not made any democratic government yield to anarchism so that a thug can realize his free-for-all dream’.
The other and more troublesome matter when it comes to so-called political solutions is that these stem from improper diagnosis. They stem from an inaccurate reading of symptom and a criminal negligence of case history. Anyone who does not see pattern in Prabhakaran’s penchant for moving the goal posts is duly disqualified from offering solutions. For example, the Oslo Declaration, which to me is a historical injustice, offered federalism. Prabhakaran said ‘no, thank you’ and withdrew from talks.

The objective of all these exercises is, we are told, peace. Surrender can also yield peace; world history is full of examples. Vanquishing the enemy, it goes without saying, would yield the same result. It is only if this is impossible that one goes for a second-option resolution. Prabhakaran is weaker than he has ever been before. His striking capabilities need to be curbed and eventually eliminated. This may take a long time and even if we didn’t want this conflict to drag indefinitely, that unfortunately is not ours to choose.
Peace must be had, one way or another, and if peace does not come with democracy then the word is meaningless. It is this salient point that the physicians seem only too ready to overlook. Terrorism and democracy don’t go together. One can’t have both. Appeasement has proved a miserable failure in the effort to wean Prabhakaran from terrorism. Lessons, lessons, lessons!

So, as the GR sends its Foreign Secretary to talk about GR models, as Mahinda Rajapaksa talks of a Sri Lankan model, and others talk of devolution, federalism and so on, let us not forget that we can’t treat apples as though they are oranges and vice versa.

We could if we were playing silly games, not if we want to rid the land of a thug, obtain democracy and a greater and more meaningful degree of participation from the people. If the GR insists, then all we can say is, we will probably be forced to submit, but remember we still have that “Not Welcome” sign. One might add ‘who knows, history may well repeat itself in the way Marx said it does in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, first time as tragedy and then as farce’.

I don’t think the GR would like to be a resounding example of that much celebrated line, or even as its debunker, as per ‘the second time also as tragedy.’

In the middle of the year 1993 I went to meet some friends at Marcus Fernando Hall, Peradeniya University with my erstwhile comrade at arms at Peradeniya, Dhammika Amarakoon. We went there to talk politics. It was around 10.00 pm when we were done. Our friends were on the first floor. We were on our way to James Peiris Hall (JP), located some ways down the same hill and chose a narrow stairway to make our not at all surreptitious exit. As we stepped out of the Hall, a group of boys of a different political persuasion, standing on the balcony above, poured water over the two of us. We were, in campus parlance, ‘bucketed’. Drenched.

There was little to be done. Dhammika and I made our way to ‘JP’, followed by raucous boos and a call from the triumphant ‘bucketers’ for their brethren in JP to treat us in like manner. We had a friend who was staying the night at JP and we made our way to that room. Jayatilleka Herath aka Moona was visiting and staying with his cousin Podi Moona. I can’t remember if we got to the room at all, but we did meet up with Moona and decided to stay somewhere else, a ‘chummery’ in Pilimatalawa where our friend Nishad Handunpathirana had taken up residence.

Moona told us a story. One of his cousin’s roommates, upon hearing the call for a repeat ‘bucket’, had said that bucketing would not be enough; we needed to have our heads split. Moona, who would always stay in that room whenever he was in Kandy, had responded by saying that it would be akin to them splitting his head. He had announced that he would never step into that room again (and he never did). Later, when other friends heard about the incident they were chagrined that we had not reacted in any way. It was a comedown, they concluded.

I was working at the Agrarian Research and Training Institute (ARTI) at the time. A few months later, Moona told me that his cousin needed some information from the ARTI for his dissertation and wanted me to help him if he came by. I had forgotten this request, but a few weeks later, I saw the head-splitter walking along one of the corridors. Two plus two gave me four and I figured he had come instead of Podi Moona for probably the same purpose. I called out his name. He stopped, unsure. It was my place. I knew where the club and the knife were hidden, so to speak.

I asked him if he got all the material he needed. He said he had. I escorted him out of the ARTI and told him to call if he needed anything else.

To me it was an experiment. I wanted to teach, to inspire remorse. My friends were aghast that I had let such an opportunity go. That boy went on to become a lecturer. He has now completed his PhD. We are friends and have interesting conversations whenever we meet.

Fast forward to January 20, 2011. A friend who attended a recent Dhamma discussion led by the Ven Brahmawanso, in the spirit of giving, shared with me an anecdote she had picked up.

A bikkhu had heard a noise from the shrine room one night and upon investigating had seen a robber trying to open the donation box. He had reached into his pocket. The robber had thought, ‘gun’, but was surprised to find the bikkhu taking out the key of the box and offering it to him. He invited the robber to take the money and then asked him to open another cupboard and take whatever food he wanted. The robber took the money and food and fled.

The bikkhu saw in the paper a week later that the man had been nabbed by the Police attempting to rob someone else. He was later sentenced to 10 years in jail. Ten years later, the bikkhu heard a noise in the shrine room and found the same man. The key was offered. The man declined.

“You are the most generous man I ever met. I spent 10 years in jail thinking about you. Today I came here to discover the secret of your kindness and generosity.”

And in this way the robber too became a bikkhu and learned the secret of compassion.

Two stories. Two approaches. In the first, an experiment. A pernicious desire to punish. A ‘looking down’. A tutoring. Not a bad outcome, certainly, but there’s such a difference when compared with the story of the robber.

In the second case, it is the practice that teaches, a commitment to being compassionate and being unperturbed by the loss and its inevitability. The recipient in the first instance was a bright young man and I have no way of knowing what he picked up from that encounter. In the second case, the recipient was enriched and I like to think it was partly because enriching was not the intention of the bikkhu.

I remember the overwhelming generosity from all quarters that poured into the districts devastated by the tsunami. Ordinary people came together, collected things, transported it all to affected communities. Corporate entities too. Some branded their ‘giving’.

It occurred to me that there is a lot of ‘giving’ in ‘being’ and indeed the being that gives is more profound and beneficial than the giving with expectation, even if what is desired is correction or remorse.

Sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta! (May all being be happy).

The 'polythening' of Vesak*

Kavan Rambukwella reflects on ‘being Sri Lankan’*

Vesak thoughts

Those elephants and these elephants

There is a stranger within, did you know?

On the poverty of art-appraisal*

Victories grasped and un-grasped

Shelly Whiting would be funny if she were not tragic

Five years after the fighting ceased

The big boys of tobacco celebrate a court decision

Dimensions of academic dishonesty*

Meditation on poetry, transliteration and recitation

Pathiravitana’s ‘Cameos’ a tender gaze on nation and citizenry*

Modi as gonibilla and maverick’s plaything

Missing a trick and showing a slip

A dansala for royalty

The nation above all

The word ‘common’ is offended*

Physician, prescribe for the real and not imagined malady

On the being that gives