Bearing Witness

Interview with   SAKUNTALA SACHITHANANDAN

Published in Ceylon Today

1.      Several of your poems offer insight into the daily distresses experienced by the most dispossessed members of our society. Could you tell us of your contact with these groups and individuals? How,  and in what contexts,  did you get to know them, and see them 'close up'?

I have always been “notorious” in my milieu, for sympathizing with the underdog. I used to see suffering where it seemed to be overlooked by others. In Hatton where I went upon getting married, I used to meet many destitute people thrust upon the streets by the Land Reform law coming into operation, as illustrated by my poems. I also found that, in the main, any and every Tamil labourer on the estates was considered beyond the pale and beyond redemption: it was thought they deserved to live  as they did, bullied, underpaid and deprived of the basic amenities. I remember a lady I knew, who, when told about the Tamil labourers travelling to Colombo who had been dragged out of buses and killed during the race riots of 1983, commented dismissively – “Oh, but they were only coolies!”

My eyes were well and truly opened when I joined the  Janatha Estates Development Board. Coming from the more cosmopolitan, egalitarian milieu in which I’d lived thus far in Colombo, I was amazed to observe the highly stratified nature of estate society. The “Management”, consisting of the Superintendent and his Assistants, were almost always Sinhalese coming from the “good” Colombo schools. More often than not, they were unqualified beyond GCE O/Levels, but they had the right background and the right English accent. The “Staff”, such as the Chief Clerk and the Factory Officer,  were (more often than not), of Jaffna Tamil origin. They looked down their noses at the labourers who were of poor Indian Tamil stock. The Superintendent and his Assistants looked down upon them all.

I met all of these gentlemen both in my husband’s office, where they consulted him on Labour Tribunal cases, and in the JEDB  office, where they came for  routine advice, letter-drafting and conferences with the  Management and the Labour Unions. I developed a rapport both with the Management officials, the estate superintendents and the Union officials. However, I found it difficult  to reconcile the harsh attitudes of some of  the officials of the JEDB and my own.  From time to time I told  my husband I wanted  to resign, for at times I could not bear  to see the injustice meted out  to the Labour.

I was presiding on one occasion at a conference on an important issue between the JEDB  official in charge of a particular estate, the Superintendent of the estate and the officials of the Labour Union representing the labourers of the estate. A crowd of labourers were seated outside on the pavement  – squatting – minding their own business,  quietly awaiting the outcome. The JEDB  official, seeing them through the window, crossed his knees and declared huffily, “In MY day,  when I was Superintendent, I’d have SHOT  them all!” Needless to say I felt 'shot down' myself – thank goodness “HIS” days were long past!

2. While legislation and public initiatives operate to remedy social distress in the public sphere and at a national level, do you think poetry, with its capacity to convey intense human feeling, has a special role in raising socio-political awareness on a personal level?

Poetry is a powerful instrument which could change people’s attitudes to social situations they have always overlooked, as being unworthy of even thinking about. At times people cannot be expected to know that various types of social problems even exist, as they are busy living their own lives, doing what they consider important, blissfully ignorant of anything that did not connect with their own existence. I remember that “On The Streets”, a poem in my last book of poetry, a certain lady of my acquaintance was moved to remark that she’d never considered prostitutes in a sympathetic light nor understood the tribulations they had to undergo until she read my poem.

On the other hand there are some thick headed people who ask me – “Aiyo why are you writing so much about estate labourers,  men?” I think this is due to some folk not even knowing there’s a vast body of  people on the estates and have been, for many many years, eking out an existence. They are a very important  section of our people,  earning a good part of our foreign exchange. (To most, that part of society is only a source of domestic aid.)

      

3. Your poems dealing with social issues deal with big issues such as poverty and political inequity, and do so by showing people's interactions at flash points in their everyday cultural existence: signing forms, for example, in government offices, where their language cannot  be used, and their right to understand is not recognised. In these instances, the poem is more than an incident report. You are bearing witness to human indignity and humiliation, aren't you? How important is that role in our society, today?

Every such poem is a  result of  the shock I have felt in being witness to a situation and is not, of course, merely reportage. This sort of thing is very important to me. I find it disheartening that these indignities meted out to innocent people do not matter at all to a lot of people with whom I associate on a daily basis.  Being married to a Tamil has of course opened up a vista of perceptions and experiences which may not have stirred my emotions, had I stuck to my original Sinhala background throughout.

I think it is very important to be sensitive to what happens to others and to act upon such situations and not be complacent within your own class and milieu,  sticking to  mere traditional roles and religious observances where the stanzas chanted daily  do not seem to awaken one's conscience in real life situations.

4. Many people (particularly younger poets) believe poetry's subject matter is most properly romantic love! Would it be true to say that your subject matter in these poems is motivated by humanitarian love? How do your spiritual and social beliefs influence your subjects and the way you portray them?

It is as  wrong to say that the subject matter of poetry should be romantic love alone as it would be wrong to surmise that all prose should be thus confined, too. Poetry is but a form of writing and one is free to express one’s ideas and emotions either in prose or in poetry. I guess my  inclination is to write a poem no sooner something important catches my attention. Some very famous poets have written both on love themes and also on others – my favourite poet D.H.Lawence was one such poet. He wrote deeply moving love poems as well as social commentaries such as “How Beastly The Bourgeois Is” and also poems on animals such as “Tortoise Family Connections”  and “Mosquito” and on memories of  his childhood such as “Piano”.

Having been born into a Buddhist family, and having attended a Buddhist school such as Visakha Vidyalaya,  I imbibed Buddhist values, taking everything preached seriously, and questioning the hypocritical distortions of Buddhist practices all around me. This being an undeniable basis for my attitudes, as a young adult, I was also influenced by a wide range of subjects on which I read, including socialist thought. I am glad I attended Sri Lanka Law College where I made many Tamil and Muslim friends  (and  two dear Gujarati  ladies who are still my close friends). These associations widened my outlook immensely. Well,  I suppose you could call my brand of love expressed in this volume “humanitarian love”!

5. You have been described as having 'a de-colonised mind and heart', because of the sense of social justice and awareness of human rights that is evident in your poetry. Is that not, in your view,  one of the greatest accolades a writer in a former colonised country can receive? (That’s a leading question, I know! What I mean is, how do you interpret this tribute?)

When I saw this comment I too sought clarification! What Haig said, was, that writers in Sri Lanka,  especially those of a certain class in Colombo did not write anything other than matter  deliberately and  unmistakably tinged with their own “English – educated” backgrounds  and could not disentangle themselves from a “Colonial” outlook or influence. I suppose,  in my case,  I have moved from such a background to another after marriage, and even in Hatton was not confined only to the “Planter society”, but sniffed around  all over questioning all that seemed strange and interesting  to me. Also, both my husband and I being lawyers, we were more aware of injustices and their ramifications over there. I  have actually seen people dying by the road side – not through violence, but of starvation, which maybe most men and women of my acquaintance have not. I met many displaced people who came begging, carrying their children.

Actually, I saw too many tragedies being enacted right under my very nose to be interested in writing imaginary tales based in foreign countries. Yes, I appreciate Haig’s comment, although, prior to his making it, I certainly did not see myself in that light!

Anne Ranasinghe: The Final Interview

“Working on A Poem is One of the Great Privileges of Life”
ANNE RANASINGHE
Interviewed by New Ceylon Writing (November 2016)
Published in The Sunday Island

This interview with Anne Ranasinghe turned out to be the last she ever gave. It was conducted in difficult conditions, because Anne did not use email or computer, and was physically not well for most of the year. She therefore required that her answers to the questions be written by hand, and then be transcribed onto computer. The last edits were being made when she passed away in November, on a Saturday night. We knew she was elderly, and that she
had been ill, but we had thought that, in some way, she would live forever. The
friend who told us of Anne’s passing told us that Anne loved the interview, and
that she was happy that we had ‘done it her way’. Vale Anne Ranasinghe.

NCW: In speaking of literature and life, I would like to begin, if I may, with your
personal view of the nature of literature: in particular, your approach to poetry and
story-telling, in both of which genres your achievement is a considerable one.
Although it does not presume to teach ‘creative writing’, New Ceylon Writing
welcomes the opportunity to hear about the experience of a practitioner such as
yourself.

Anne Ranasinghe: Literature deals essentially with the life of man, his reaction to his
environment, and the forces and motives that shape human conduct. From the
beginning of the First World War in 1914 to the end of the Second World War in 1945
more than seventy million people have died violently or have been exterminated.
There is no way that we can ignore this fact, the enormity of it, nor that it signifies a
horrifying new dimension to the possibility of human evil. An awareness of the
unpredictability of human conduct should perhaps infuse our writing with a sense of
urgency to counter the possibility of ever-increasing darkness. Even here, on the
other side of the world from Hitler’s Europe we have had our own experiences to lend
substance to these fears.
For me it is not possible to concentrate entirely on poetry. Poetry is – how shall I put
it? – the rare champagne. To write poetry there must be an experience so intensely
felt as to exclude all other forms of writing: love or anger, fear or remembrance, and
above all the perception of great beauty create a moment that wakens, or demands,
a poem. There is then a period of gestation, a distillation of the experience, and out
of this grow the first words of the poem. It is a momentary vision, a crystallisation
which compels you to follow, sometimes through innumerable twists and turns, rarely
straight on; for an hour, or two, or three – and sometimes over a period of months,
even years. Right to the end of the poem.
Working on a poem is one of the great privileges of life, and I find it incredible that
there are poets who believe a first draft is also a final draft, and must not be touched.
That the first inspiration is holy. Either they are much better poets than I am or they
are plain lazy and don’t like the tremendous effort that chiselling a poem into shape
entails.
As for short stories, no one will deny that the first and foremost function of the short
story is to tell a story for the sake of the story. Somerset Maugham caustically
remarked that there are some among the intelligentsia who regard pure story telling
as a debased form of art, and he stipulates that extraneous knowledge and
information should be used cautiously lest the story be swamped by the facts.
Structurally a short story should have a beginning, a middle and an end; and, like a
poem, it should have such concentration of mood and singlemindedness of purpose
that no digression or deviation is permitted. There is a framework, and all action, all
detail should serve to consolidate this framework, with no loose ends or spillage.
Everything must add to the oneness and completeness of the story. It is this limitation
that creates the very essence of it, distinguishing it from the novel.
The short story as we know it today is supposed to conform to certain principles,
some of which I have just mentioned. Additionally, it should be of a certain length,
and concern itself with but a single anecdote, episode or situation. The number of
characters introduced should be limited. In actual fact I doubt very much whether a
writer planning a short story gives too much thought to these mechanics. There is a
story to be told – and of course, ultimate success depends on the reader/audience,
who have their own expectations: they want to be entertained or thrilled, shocked or
made curious, or perhaps emotionally involved.


I write a short story out of a compulsion more or less similar to what makes me write
a poem, but for me a short story is much harder to write, and takes a great deal of
time. I spend a great deal of time on polishing and re-polishing. In order to get started
I have to live my story for some time, I carry it around with me, and its full structure –
beginning, middle and end – is more or less worked out in my head before I start
writing. All my stories have as their core something that really happened, something
that stirred me or upset me, or goaded me into comment. The problem is too large to
be worked out in a poem: so I use the short story.

NCW: You have described yourself as “extraordinarily lucky”; and stated that,
although you “fell a number of times, you always landed on your feet”. These are
optimistic statements, and express an extremely resilient attitude to life. How
important is resilience in the living of life, especially of creative life? And how
significant is optimism, as a quality that a creative writer should develop?

AR: I didn’t actually say that, although I did ‘fall’ a number of times, and invariably
‘landed on my feet’. It was my ‘Mother-Aunt’ who made that statement! ‘Mother-Aunt’
in this context means ‘being in loco parentis’: as a thirteen-year- old, alone in
England, I became her responsibility and her husband’s. After one week of getting ‘to
know’ one another, I was speedily dispatched from their nice home in London to my
school in Dorset. Naturally, there were many differences of opinion over a period of
four years. I won my greatest victory when, after leaving school, my Mother-Aunt’
apprenticed me as a ‘Junior Probationer’ at a beautiful home for blind babies for two
years, to earn my living. My job consisted of potting the children after each meal.
While I loved the kids and the place, at just seventeen I considered this a ‘waste of
my time’. I began secretly to apply elsewhere; and landed a two-year training at the
Moorfields Eye Hospital1
. I had hoped to study medicine, and although I did very well
in the Oxford Matric I could not win a scholarship as I was still a German citizen. I
had no money. My uncle, who was a Doctor of Chemistry, maintained that ‘in any
case, women always get married’, and was not prepared to help.
This was 1942, and World War II was in full swing. Moorfields (at age seventeen or
eighteen) was a great adventure. I was in London, and at the beginning of ‘growing
up’ – in sometimes very dangerous situations. We were hit at the Hospital by a
‘Doodle Bug’: these were aeroplanes without pilots, controlled – we were informed –
by German soldiers at the French border. When they stopped the engine, or the
machine ran out of fuel, the Doodle Bug dropped to the ground, causing a massive
explosion.
You ask whether optimism is a quality a creative writer ‘should develop’. How? To
become ‘optimistic’, you need opportunity. Sometimes you create your own
opportunity, and then ‘fall on your feet’. Sometimes there is just no opportunity. The
worst situation in which to be is when you have created an opportunity, and then
somehow missed out on it.
Finally – creative writing may come partially from many things: talent, a particular
home environment, encouragement, extensive reading, readiness to see the world
from your own point of view, from some or all of these. But it is not just a gift: you
have to work it out, and cherish it, and at all times to be faithful and convinced by
your own thinking!

NCW: In response to an honour bestowed on you in 2015, the Cross of the Order of
Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, you have said that you “will treasure it for
what it signifies”. Since you have also said “I was born in Germany, was saved by
England, and lived a very fulfilled adult life in Sri Lanka”, and have described yourself
as “belonging to all three”, what does this award ‘signify’ to you?

AR: With regard to the medal I was given by the President and people of Germany,
my statement of acceptance was phrased in this manner: “I will treasure it for what it
signifies and will continue to ponder my eligibility”. I am sure everyone who has read
me over the years would fully understand the conflict.
But I regret the feelings involved by the many German contributors, and after
‘pondering’ the issue, I made my decision. It doesn’t mean the past is erased or
forgotten: on the contrary, I live with it day by day. But I have found a means of
compromising.
With regard to my statement that “I was born in Germany, was saved by England,
and lived a very fulfilled adult life in Sri Lanka: I belong to all three”, that is very true.
I was born in Germany, brought up in the seeming security of an established tradition
of obedience, affection, reasonable independence, encouragement (especially to
study), and exposure to all the available Arts till I was thirteen years old.

I have (somewhat ineptly) translated Federico Fellini, who has encapsulated my
situation exactly:
Nobody may forget his roots,
They are the foundation for our whole life.
Where England is concerned: Coming from the incredibly terrifying experiences of
Germany, and although I was on my own, the atmosphere and daily life were
unbelievably safe, the people friendly and helpful, the school fantastic. I spoke very
little English, but was carefully taught by a group of devoted teachers. The freedom
to use all the facilities available, the beautiful country open to visits without restriction,
and the access to the Arts. Until the war curbed that way of living. But even during
the worst days of the war, I was never made to feel an enemy, but joined in all
defensive activities.
As for Sri Lanka: I have lived here now for sixty-seven years. I am sure I don’t need
to explain that – although no one ever forgets that I am a ‘foreigner’ – I have been
accepted, nurtured, and encouraged. I am deeply grateful to ‘belong’ as far as it is
possible.

NCW: You have described this book of your selected works, Four Things, as ‘a rather
unconventional book’. Could you please explain what you mean?

AR: When Dr Jürgen Morhard, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, first
offered to sponsor a book of my selected poems, I was really delighted. My friends
had been encouraging me, but I was reluctant – at my age – not having thought it
through. But then, the temptation was too great, and I accepted.
However, when in January this year I had to start on it in order to complete the book
before Dr Morhard had to leave Sri Lanka, I began to panic: I just hadn’t a clue what
to use, how to choose, how big, and most important, to make it reader-attractive.
Priyanthi, my printer, and I have no other help. Also, Dr. Morhard wanted a German
section included.
I suddenly had an idea: a priest living not far from my father’s village, Hr. Pfr. Paul
Gerhard Lehman, had earlier used my poetry for a small German journal, to write my
family story. With his permission, I used his 60-page essay as my ‘Einleitung’ or

Introduction. He talked to some journalists in the area – as a result one of them sent
me a set of photographs for a calendar, and I was allowed to choose a view from a
balloon of my father’s village. A picture arrived of myself many years ago, and then I
remembered all the translated poems – mine into German – and I realised I had
enough material. I received some more beautiful and relevant pictures, divided the
whole collection into relevant sections, and divided them by content.
Then I decided to use attractive book covers (of my 20) to separate them.
It became more and more complicated.
Having gathered by then 350-odd pages, I suddenly noticed there was no thought of
a cover. Major problem. How to find a meaningful, attractive (and unique) design?
As I mentioned in Four Things, I was visited by a friend with his young daughter. She
brought me a small gift – a ceramic dish with what I thought an unusual design.
With some manipulation it became a suitable back-cover. The girl is delighted – she
is twelve years old! – and of course features in the Acknowledgment Page of the
book.
When we had put together the whole ‘unconventional’ material, a letter arrived from
a children’s school in Germany. We thought it so delightful that we added it to the
very last page of the book, to leave a reader relaxed and charmed, as we were.

NCW: Your book positions the works in German as well as in English, and the format
shows your ability to think and write poetically in both languages. Do you prefer one
language to another when dealing with specific subjects?

AR: This question really deals with the ability to translate, the art of translation. In
2002 I gave a talk at the British Council in Colombo, some parts of which may be
appropriate to this subject. The title of the talk was ‘Moonlight stuffed with Straw’, a
reference to an observation made by Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German poet,
that his own German poems when translated into French were like ‘moonlight stuffed
with straw’. Vladimir Nabokov, nearer our own time, expressed his opinion in the
poem ‘On translating Eugene Onegin’3
What is translation? On a platter
A poet’s pale and glaring head,
A parrot’s shriek, a monkey’s chatter
And profanation of the dead.
There is, however, another approach, less traditional, which allows the focus to shift,
at least partially, from the author to the translator and gives him/her a chance to be
both daring and original. It shifts from strict literalism in translation to one that does
experiment and tamper with usage to challenge and stretch language with the same
vitality that the original possessed, and maybe create a greater vitality born of new
linguistic and metaphorical contrasts. Especially in a multi-lingual context, translation
can not only negotiate between languages, but could come to occupy literary space
in its own right4
.
Translation can be seen as a living spark between past and present, and between
cultures. When you translate a poem you immerse yourself in another language, or
at least you try to, and then you begin to realize the limitations of your native tongue
– or maybe the tongue of your usage if you happen to have lost your mother tongue
by living in exile or as a refugee, which of course has happened all too frequently in
the course of the political upheavals of the last century.
But if you are really into translation, it is a very exciting adventure, and an enormously
stimulating challenge. It strains your resources to the limit, making you aware of what
you lack in facility and power of expression. Ultimately, it brings you face to face with
the genius and structure of the original, and instils in you an urgent desire to do justice
to it.
I have attempted translations from the German both of prose and poetry. One poem
I have translated into English is ‘Herbbsttag’ by Rainer Maria Rilke5:
HERBSTTAG
Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer was sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren Laß die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gibe ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Süße in den schweren Wein.
Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandem, wenn die Blätter treiben
 Rainer Maria Rilke

DAY IN AUTUMN
Lord, it is time. The summer bore high yield.
Now cast your shadow on the sun dial,
Release the winds across forest and field.
Command the last unripened grapes upon the vine
to swell, grant them of southern warmth a few more days,
urge them towards fulfillment, and then grace
with a sweet richness the heavy purple wine.
Whoever has no house now will not ever build.
Whoever is alone now will remain alone,
wake through the night, and write long letters filled
with sadness; and wander through the town
restlessly when autumn’s leaves are blown.
Translation: Anne Ranasinghe
“Say what you will of its inadequacy,” wrote Goethe in 1827 to Carlyle. “Translation
remains one of the most important and valuable concerns in world affairs.” And
George Steiner6 added, “Without it we would live in a condition of silence.”
NCW: Dr Jürgen Morhard comments on your ability to ‘find a new home in words’.

AR: I am not at all sure what he means by that; but it is true that once you become
involved in writing a poem or a short story, you become part of it, in the sense that
your surroundings disappear and you ‘live what you write’. I have also been told that
the reader becomes absorbed as if he or she were participating – but I am sure that
probably happens to other ‘creative’ writers.
In this context, however, I would like to refer to the poem “The Song has died from
the Lips of the King” (in German, translated by Pfr. Paul Gerhard Lehman – page xliii
– liii – Four Things – Introduction. In English page 60 – 63, Four Things.)
In November 1983 I returned to Essen and saw the remains of the beautiful
Synagogue6
. Built in 1913, and considered the most magnificent in Germany, the
whole interior was destroyed by fire in the “Reichskristallnacht”. The outer structure
remained.
During the Hitler period Jews were totally isolated, and especially for us children the
Synagogue became, before its destruction, the only place where we could meet and
lead some kind of social life, exercise, study jointly, listen to music and so on.
So I decided to write a poem, reproducing in detail the beauty and significance of the
Synagogue as far as I could, with the help of a book that my mother had sent earlier
to England. It is a treasure, and I still have it.
Pfr. Paul Lehman has done a fantastic work in translating that poem, written in
English, in his Introduction to Four Things (see pp. 60 – 63). But more than that: I
have used 80-odd Biblical references which explain the original contents; and Pfr.
Lehman has identified, numbered, and recorded each one in his German version.
Unfortunately, I had no time to add this to the English version, but items can easily
be identified.
NCW: Dr Morhard commends you for ‘using your personal stories and the lessons
learned from the past’, noting that you have ‘helped to reconcile the past with the
present’, and that you have taught the younger generations that we should not allow
a repeat of history’s great tragedies’. How and when did you realise the nature of the
profound legacy your creative gifts could offer us? Could you also comment on the

state of the world today, from your perspective? Do you think the role of creative
writers and thinkers has become even more crucial than it was before?
A: When I asked some children in a school in Essen what they knew about Hitler they
were enthusiastic about the motorways he had built, and said that he had eliminated
unemployment. Their fathers had told them that Germany was a better place under
Hitler. When (during the making of a film about my writing) a Gallup poll questioned
people in Essen at random as to what had happened to their erstwhile Jewish fellow
citizens and taped their answers, some said they did not know. Others said the Jews
had “gone away”, but they didn’t know where. And some laughed and said most of
them had been gassed and went up in smoke. I have the tape. It is not an invented
story. Even the laugh.
Since the reunification of East and West Germany there has been an upsurge of a
vicious neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism that is more than reminiscent of the Hitler
period, but covers a wider clientèle: apart from Jews, first the Turks and now all
foreign and especially dark-skinned and dark-haired immigrants. I have mainly written
‘At What Dark Point’ for Sri Lanka, because readers here are still largely ignorant of
the wider ramifications of the Nazi horror, and the bestialities that are possible. I think
they should know. Knowledge is to some extent protection. In 2004 ‘At What Dark
Point’ was translated into Sinhala.
George Steiner7 raised the question: How is it possible that the tortures and murders
could be committed at Treblinka or Dachau at the same time as people in New York
were making love or going to see a film. That problem is as relevant today for those
of us who were not there (or are not there), but lived – or live – as on another planet.
How can we teach the generations to come to feel deeply about those deaths that
the world was powerless to prevent, or be alert to the deaths that can be prevented
today, to which we can put an end?
NCW: In recent times, ‘elitism’ and ‘classism’ have been identified in the writing of
those who are thought of as being ‘privileged’ in this society. Does a person’s socioeconomic
background have any impact, in your opinion, on his/her world-view, or
affect their authority to speak to contemporary issues? Why is a person’s ‘status’ such
an issue in contemporary Sri Lanka?
AR: I hesitate to answer, as I myself have been identified, and indeed attacked, as
being ‘privileged’ in this society. Actually, my past is such that I have not, nor will
ever, ‘shake it off’. There is something contradictory in the fact that on the one hand
you are not accepted as a ‘full’ member of this society (and correctly so) and on the
other you are attacked publicly (by reviewers in the press, for instance) for being
‘privileged’. As a matter of fact, I resent this: I have been a hard-working woman all
my life, and am surprised that I have managed to stretch my very limited means to
support me for ninety-one years.
And yes, I do think a socio-economic background has an impact on one’s world-view;
and certainly I feel no inhibition or lack of authority hampering my discussions of
literary writing or contemporary issues. But I think I should explain that people who
wish to express their ‘displeasure’ have seldom taken the trouble to study the item
they are criticising or reviewing: on the contrary, in their reading they have totally
misunderstood what has been written. I have never had any objection to serious and
constructive reviewing – quite the contrary. But I do feel resentment and injustice
when I receive misrepresentation intended to destroy.
NCW: Dr Lakshmi de Silva, translator and literary critic, has identified three
categories in your poetry. Those who identify you as solely a ‘Holocaust Poet’ fail to
recognise the diversity of your subject matter and your interests. Could you
comment?
AR: Lakshmi is, I believe, correct in her assessment. It is likely that some of the
‘Holocaust Poems’, which appeared not so long after World War II was over,
overshadowed what followed. Professor Yasmine Gooneratne published my poem
‘Auschwitz from Colombo’ in New Ceylon Writing in 1970 without knowing who I was,
or how I came to be in Sri Lanka.
The fact is, that I had a busy and varied life, which changed dramatically after my
husband’s death. My poems served as a kind of catharsis, arising out of powerful
impressions, with no special objective. During a period of perhaps sixty-five years
they covered the events of a lifetime, and so I am not surprised that readers could
not identify or ‘recognise the diversity of the subject matter’.
I hope that my last book, Four Things, may help them to do so.

NCW: The poem ‘Amaryllis’ is one which fuses specific detail with intense symbolism
and connotation, in a manner that opens it up to universal readers. How important
has the rich, detailed experience of the sensory world been to you as a writer?
AR: ‘Amaryllis’ is a favourite poem of mine. I was sitting at my desk in my office, and
watching this unbelievable happening: I wrote as it happened. The whole process
was so smooth, so elegant and beautiful, I became totally involved and charmed.
There was no question of choosing words or making corrections: this plant was as
alive as I was, with its own distinctive personality.
And then, the tragedy
that the Amaryllis will bloom only once
because the soil and climate are alien.
NCW: How important has it been to you to find understanding in your readership?
Has that need changed across your lifetime?
AR: I am always delighted if my writing is found interesting or useful. But, basically, it
is not important. I have to be satisfied, and that has not changed over the years.
NCW: What advice would you give to young writers in today’s Sri Lanka? Can you
comment on how you think the literary culture in English can be improved, to foster
Sri Lankan creativity in literature?
AR: a) Parents should introduce children to books at an early age, reading to them
and with them till they can do so on their own.
b) Visits to bookshops.
c) Membership of libraries.
d) Family discussions of ‘special books’.
e) I found the most valuable ‘reading years’ between being approximately seven or
eight and the time I had to start working for a living, i.e., seventeen or so. I have
continued reading all my life, but of necessity the working and domestic obligations
limited me.
f) Schools should play a much greater part in stressing the life-long value of the
reading habit. But as I am no longer in touch with them (my own children are now of
‘retiring age’) I may not do them justice.
g) Foreign languages are of great importance. My own parents insisted that I should
join the Latin class among the boys. My friend and I were the only two girls to do so.
I have never regretted learning Latin, and still remember sections after 80-odd years.

'Reality Check': Interview With Padma Viswanathan

Published in Ceylon Today

Padma Viswanathan is the author of two acclaimed novels and a teacher of creative writing in Arkansas. She presented a Workshop on 'People, Places & Things - Creating Characters From Real-World Observations' at the Fairway Galle Literary Festival, in the Heritage Villa in Galle.

Q1. This was your first GLF, wasn't it? And I believe that you were one of the authors who went to the affiliated events in Kandy and Jaffna as well? How did it compare with other Literary Festivals you have attended?

Padma V:
I didn’t attend Kandy, only Galle and Jaffna. I found the festival experience rewardingly intimate, considering its size and range. I was surprised to learn how many authors attended, because it felt small, in a good way: all the events were very well-attended, and the organizers provided lots of opportunities for the writers to meet and mix. The lit cafe at the Galle site was also a great place for informal encounters with the attendees. The Jaffna events were very touching, as you can imagine, because Jaffna was out of bounds for so long. We were presenting in the rebuilt Jaffna Public Library, and it all felt very momentous. We all felt very privileged to take part in a small way in the revitalization of this area’s cultural life.


Q2. Can you tell us some of the circumstances in your familial and social context which made it possible for you to become a full-time writer?

Padma V:
I don’t know that I’ve ever been full-time, exactly, though I have, from the time I understood that wanted to be a writer, maintained a fairly strict routine of writing in the mornings. But my kids were born around the time I was finishing my first book, so they needed more time than my writing for some years. And now that they are bigger, I have taken on a teaching job. I have been lucky to stay reasonably productive through all this, mainly because of my generous and supremely competent husband and parents. My parents retired when our kids were born, specifically to give us help with the children. The sale of my first book allowed us to build them an apartment on our property—an extended family compound, with all the mutual patience it demands and the comedy it generates.

Q3. What is your opinion of the celebrity cults of personality that develop around writers? Many writers are quite private people, and need a lot of time to themselves in order to ponder and process experiences and observations. It seems to be difficult to find this time and space in the glare of the spotlight, so to speak?

Padma V:
Well, every writer understands that if a book meets with a measure of success—as we all hope—it takes a great deal of will or cantankerousness to reject the publisher’s requests to go out and meet readers. And most of us enjoy encountering the reading public, even while it can be anxiety-making or fatiguing: it may take time away from our writing, but it is also very rewarding to learn, first-hand, how people are being touched by our books.

Q4. Many writers are praised for being 'professional thinkers', as pretentious as that sounds when applied to oneself! You are consulted about your favourite books, your opinions are turned into soundbites and quotable quotes, and in many ways you are seen as role models. What qualities in yourself as a writer and as a human being do you find most noteworthy? And how has the process of writing helped you discover and develop these qualities?
       
Padma V:
I enjoy thinking, so it’s nice to be paid for it! I feel this more directly when I’m teaching, in that I try to model for my students the process of working toward one’s own, particular truths. I never insist that they share my opinions, only that they have excavated the full meaning of their own. Which is much of what writing is as well: I write on what interests me, and the process of creating fiction is often the process of articulating the textures of these interests, my positions, the very specific directions of my thoughts. The personal qualities I suspect I draw on most for my writing are my curiosity and my attendant desire to see the world as others see it, based on their experiences.

Q5. Is there any writer whose work you read almost cyclically or even seasonally, once a year, without even realising that you do so? If so, could you comment on who, and why?

Padma V:
There are books I used to reread on my own that now I often assign in classes for the purpose of getting to reread them with others. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees, W. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale, various stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I reread them because each is guaranteed to give me an experience of quite pure fictional joy and to remind me of the many things I love best in fiction: linguistic agility; light, complex treatment of heavy subjects; suspense that is not coy; unexpected plot turns that are absolutely plausible within the world of the story. A recent pleasure has been reading with my children some of the novels I reread obsessively as a child, and finding out they’re every bit as good as I thought: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Henry Reed, Inc., Harriet The Spy. I’m not sure I even read them much differently than I did as a child, and I know I love them for the same reasons I mention above.

Q6. 'People, Places, Things' are very concrete components of fiction and real life. Developing one's unique voice as a writer means developing one's individual way of seeing the world around you. How has growing up in different countries and living and working in different cities impacted your perspectives?

           
Padma V:
I think I gave up very early on the idea of ever properly fitting in anywhere, even while I continued to experiment with what fitting in would mean, what it would demand of a person. Many writers have an experience of ‘outsiderness;’ many writers write best away from familiar places, so in a way it’s a boon constantly to be a little unstable with regards to the society that surrounds me. Also, I had the great good fortune to have traveled quite a bit as a child: not only going to India whenever my parents could afford it, only every 4 or 5 years, but taking road trips around North America with them when we couldn’t afford anything grander. It gave me a strong early love of looking, seeing what I could see and gossiping about it with people close to me, people I could entertain. Not too different from novel-writing.

Q7. You said in the Workshop that you gave that you enjoy great professional relationships with your Editors. Can you comment on the positive lifelong encouragement relationships such as this can give to writers?

Padma V:
It was only one editor I was referring to, I think—Anne Collins, of Random House Canada—who has published both my novels and given me excellent editorial advice on both. I also had two earlier mentors who invested a great deal in me: my grad school thesis director, Elizabeth Evans, who read my then-900 page novel twice, a karmic debt I will likely never repay, and D. D. Kugler, who commissioned and directed my first play, basically turning me into a writer. These are lifelong relationships that obviously have benefited my work, and my self-image, enormously (not sure what they have gotten out of it…). But there are many writers throughout history who didn’t have the benefit of such ‘professional champions’ and still thrived. I think it’s important to have some close people who believe in your work and whose opinions you trust, but it’s not as important that those people be professionals in the writing biz. Ultimately, it is these same qualities—the intimacy and trust, and their strong intelligences—that made these editors and mentors of mine such good readers for me. There are such people to be found in many quarters.

Q.8  Do you think that the process of writing is a reconciliatory one? I mean, in saying this, to deliberately evoke the idea that writing, the act of putting one's thoughts into words, and refining them and re-evaluating them, can be a process of personal integration as well as enabling people in a society riven by trauma to achieve greater societal cohesion?

Padma V:
I can only think it must be, although it as soon as I wrote that, I imagined cases that might contradict it. You put it well when you say writing ‘can be a process of personal integration,’ though there can be painful stages en route. I think too many people believe that writing a traumatic issue can bring ‘closure.’ I’m skeptical of that, while ‘reconciliation’ seems a much better term: the externalization of traumatic facts, on to paper, can be a way to offer them less confrontationally, and also make them more available, in this way, to compassionate responses.

Q9. How important is the practice of reading in the development of a writer? History? Philosophy? Geology? Geography? Astronomy? Astrology? To reflect human life in your writing, we need to read! What disciplines or fields of human knowledge do you research and draw inspiration from?


Padma V:
As you’ve said, to read widely is necessary for a writer, though to read deeply is better. I have read in various fields—psychology, physics, certainly history—to inform my novels. And often there are unexpected literary discoveries to be made in the works of writers who didn’t particularly intend to create literature. Sigmund Freud was equally considered for the Nobel for literature, after all, as for medicine, and one might debate where his contributions were greater.

Q10. Is there any advice you would offer the emerging writers of Sri Lanka? Keeping in mind that 'emerging' refers not only to chronologically young people but also to those who start writing later in life?

Padma V:
Persevere!

Star Light

 

Vithma Kumarage is a young Sri Lankan student who is currently an A-level candidate, and also a talented singer, who has been appearing in singing contests on television over the last few weeks. Because she is about to light up our skies by winning a major talent show, I asked her some questions about her views on Life, the Universe & so on:

  Q1: What do you think the biggest pressures are, on young people today?

VK: Fitting into society. No matter how much someone says that s/he is comfortable with who they are or how they behave, there will always be a certain amount of insecurity in young people today.
However, most of us learn how to overcome this feeling by associating with people who we know accept us for who we are and not for what the world wants us to be.

Q2: Do you think that competition & rivalry are too intense in your age group? For academic success? Popularity? Fame? Peer approval?

VK: Rivalry and competition play a HUGE role today:
A problem that may seem of no importance or urgency to an adult may be ‘a matter of life and death’ for someone of my age.
Everyone tries to achieve the best in life. Some because they are forced to, or because of parental pressure. However, most because they want to gain a better life than certain other people of the same age.
It’s advantageous but also disadvantageous at times.
Rivalry among groups of friends is mainly because of acceptance or simply loyalty.
In order to stay in one particular group, kids of my age may lie, cheat or even go to the extent of harming someone they barely know.

Q3: What have you learned, from some of your life experiences so far?
VK: I have learned the hard way: that keeping a small circle of friends creates a safe haven for the mind, body and soul, and also keeps a lot of the teenage drama away. I’ve learnt that I should never stray from my goals because of something that happened yesterday, or even today –  but that I should keep in mind that I will always have to look forward to tomorrow.

I have also learned that you should never regret anything.

Q4: What motivates you? Please use as many words as you like!

VK: For me, motivation comes from many people and things:
You simply can never have one particular person or thing to motivate yourself with.
The minute you increase the amount of things that can give you motivation, then you will see a huge difference.
My parents, friends, role models, such as Christina Aguilera, and even simple quotes online can give me motivation. Self-motivation sounds simple: I can go ahead and tell anyone that I motivate myself but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Everybody needs help in life and sometimes a little motivation from someone or something generous enough to give it will go a long way.

Q5: There is a lot of fakeness around, these days, isn’t there? Not just false eyelashes, acrylic nails and hair extensions! But people pretending to be what they are not?

VK: “Fake people”: I honestly do know a lot of people like this. I would however say they are ‘simple frenemies’: backstabbing friends! … as time goes by you learn, or at least I have learnt, to accept them for who they are. It is simply a part of their personality and no-one should play the role of God and try and change something about someone  – good or bad – unless they want to change for themselves. Helping someone and changing someone are two  very different things.
However ‘fake’ people may seem, you have to know that there may be a reason for their actions.

Q6: Your favourite songs?
VK: My favourite songs to sing?…
I love songs sung from the heart.
A song that has a meaning or a story is always one I would love to sing.
The meaning or story of the song  doesn’t however have to always intentionally be depressing or sad. Even songs that are advising or inspiring us are quite interesting.
The song ‘The Voice Within’ by Christina Aguilera is one of my favourites just now.
Like many others, I love soulful songs that can help relate to another’s past or present situation.
Acknowledging people who are suffering or hurt – so that they know they aren’t the only ones.
I believe certain songs can be a message to people.
So far, songs sung by Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, and Rihanna are the songs I’ve done.
However I’m very interested in trying out new genres of music. You can never satisfy yourself with any one particular song type, because every day creative people will introduce new and enticing songs.
Yes, I love the song ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera. It’s interesting how she tells a story in her song that can keep the audience guessing about different scenarios. She has captured the hearts of as many women, I strongly believe, as men of this world, by not only her physical appearance but also her emotional yet strong personality that radiates throughout her songs and herself, similar to many other performers that our generation has grown up with.

Q7: When you are on stage, you said you feel as though you are `not on earth, but in heaven’. May we know what you mean by this statement?
I believe everyone has a certain amount of drama that they want to escape from. No matter how small or big the problem may seem, a problem will be a problem! For me, singing on stage brings out the best of me, because I know that people listen to everything I say.
I wouldn’t say that it’s a way of seeking attention – it’s more of a way of seeking peace. I sing – and people just listen.
I know people may assume and believe that I’m too young to know what the world can be like and how cruel it can get. It’s rare to enter a crowd and expect them to simply listen to you for a long time, but when someone sings everyone stops and listens.
Ishan de Lanerolle is my singing teacher, who helps me improve my singing capabilities.
And I believe it’s easier to learn from someone you look up to.
Singing on stage is my heaven. The only `place I’d rather be’ on earth – other than home with my family – is on a stage singing and pouring my heart out to the people who are willing to listen and understand. Listening to someone singing can mean a lot to them, and maybe they will pick up the hidden story beneath all the colorful words sung.
Yes some may say that what I’m saying is ‘mainstream’ and that it’s a ‘typical thing’ to say.
But I guess it depends on each and every individual, because you may know my name but you have to hear my story in order for you to understand why I am the way I am.
At the beginning of Christina Aguilera’s song ‘Beautiful’, she says: ‘Don’t look at me’. My friends & I discussed why she would say that. Maybe it’s because there are so many things that catch our eye in this world. So much to look at. So I think of that, when I am about to sing. I want to say:
‘So why don’t you just listen, instead’ ?

'A Man Who Let Himself Be Fully Known': Review Of The Workshop Players' Production Of 'A View From The Bridge'.

Published in Ceylon Today

KANISHKA ANTHONY HERAT is 25 years old. 

He attended St. Peter's College, Colombo 4 and is an Attorney-at-Law by profession. He works in a leading blue chip company.

His first production with the Workshop Players was "THE SOUND OF MUSIC" in 2008, in which he played "Rolf".

Thereafter, he portrayed the roles of "Inspector Javert" in "LES MISERABLES" - 2015, "Iago" in "Othello" - 'Shakespeare in the Park' - 2016 and now "Eddie Carbone" - 'A View from the Bridge' - 2016.

In addition to the above performances for the Workshop Players, Kanishka performed in "A Christmas Carol" as 'Ebenezer Scrooge presented by St. Peter's College - 2010, "Leading Ladies" - 2011, "Nobody's Perfect" - 2013 and "Sherlock Holmes' Secret Life" - 2013 presented by Silent Hands, "He Comes from Jaffna" - 2011 & 2013, "No Sex Please, We're British" - 2014, "Return of the Ralahamy" - 2016 and "Chaos at the Vicarage" - 2011 presented by the Creative Arts Foundation & "Time and Motion" - 2012 presented by Theatre Junction.

The play deals with powerful material: it is really a Greek tragedy set in a working-class modern setting rather than a royal or noble social echelon. The love triangle here has a vulnerable centre: a man whose feelings are unacknowledged by himself, although they are evident to those around him: his understanding lawyer, and his compassionate wife. 

As Eddie Carbone sets himself to undermine, overthrow and remove the young Italian man chosen by his niece Catherine to be her husband, he destroys his own character and his reputation and name in the Italian community in Brooklyn, New York. 

The lighting singles him out in a crucial moment in iridescent red, the colour of rage and blood, and we see very clearly that his pride enrages him: he cannot stand being disrespected by anyone, wholly unaware of how unnatural his wish is, to keep his beloved niece at home with him for the rest of her life, thinking he is just protecting her from the dangers in the world, but actually impeding her necessary development into adulthood. 

Catherine loves him and is grateful to him, and cannot understand her own confusion and conflict. The body language between them is fascinatingly choreographed. There is childlike innocence, joy  and trust in their initial interactions, and there is also humour in Eddie's jealous comments about his young rival, at first. But this lightness becomes laced and laden with tragic emotional depths, as Catherine's relationship with her lover grows into something real, and her own, beyond her uncle's aegis. 

The scene where Catherine, who had earlier very sincerely movingly expressed her love and devotion to Eddie, cries out in anguish against him: 'He is like a rat! A rat who comes in and bites people and poisons them in the night! A rat!' is a terrible shattering of the familial bonds, which may have been stretched but not broken, if Eddie had been able to see and draw back from the impossible outcome of his own over-reaching, possessive unspoken emotion. 

Eddie's conviction that Catherine's love affair is false, because the young man is merely romancing her to obtain American citizenship, is insulting and destructive. He actually calls the immigration authorities to inform on the young man and his brother, who are his own relatives by marriage, and guests in his home: an act of family disloyalty that can never be redeemed, or recovered from. 

This production showed the falseness of Eddie's beliefs by clearly showing the genuine tenderness between the couple when Eddie breaks in upon them and throws Rudolpho out, promising to send him out 'feet first' (in a coffin) if he dares to stay and disrupt his home anymore. 

The lawyer, Alfieri, is a Greek chorus embodied in one immaculately-dressed man, sympathetic and compassionate to Eddie. He comments on the action throughout, and acts as an intermediary, breaking the fourth wall, advising Eddie in vain to stop trying to prevent what is natural, and telling us the anxious viewers what a good man Eddie Carbone is. We are asked to view the sad and terrible end of his client's life, and suspend our judgment. 

This was a lucid and intense production, with strong, tender, developed and wholly credible performances from the whole ensemble. 

Kanishka Herat spoke exclusively to Devika Brendon about his performance in the play. 

1. Your Director, Jerome de Silva, has said this is a production of this play of a kind that has never been seen in this country. What are the most innovative and confronting aspects of it? 

THIS PLAY IS PREDOMINANTLY A SERIOUS AND HEAVY PLAY, AND THE ACTING IS HIGHLY ESSENTIAL TO BRING THE PLAY TO LIFE.

THE STAGE SETTING IS OF AN AVANTE GARDE NATURE WITHOUT MAJOR BACKDROPS AND FURNITURE AND THEREBY GIVES THE ACTORS BOTH THE OPPORTUNITY AND ADDED PRESSURE TO ACT THEIR ROLES OUT WITH CONVICTION, TO BRING THE PLAY TO LIFE.

THE ACTION TAKES PLACE IN A GLASS HORIZONTAL FRAME WITH MIRRORS SO THAT WHEN THE ACTOR BACKS THE AUDIENCE, HIS OR HER REACTIONS CAN BE SEEN. THIS ENABLES THE ACTORS TO MOVE AROUND THE STAGE WITH MORE FREEDOM.

2. Could you outline the process by which you workshop a performance like this? Is it in a way like removing layers of convention or assumption about the characters to get to a more intense, stark,  genuine and spontaneous emotional state? 

WE START OFF WITH CHARACTER AWARENESS AND SUBSEQUENTLY CHARACTER BULIDING EXERCISES SUCH AS ASKING OURSELVES THE "6 W's":

WHO AM I?

WHEN AM I?

WHERE AM I?

WHAT DO I DO?

WHAT DO I WANT?

WHAT WILL I DO TO ACHIEVE WHAT I WANT?

IN THE ABOVE PROCESS WE PICTURED OURSELVES IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, AND CREATED AWARENESS ABOUT OUR SURROUNDINGS.

WE REHEARSED IN A NORMAL HOUSE SETTING PRIOR TO SWITCHING TO A BOX SETTING TO GET THE 'FEEL' OF A HOUSE ENVIRONMENT.

WE ALSO DID EXERCISES TO GET LOST IN THE MOMENT AND TO REALLY GET INTO CHARACTER, WHICH IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE PLAY.

3. How instinctive is acting? How much is learned? 

IT DEPENDS ON EACH PERSON. FOR SOME, IT COMES NATURALLY (i.e. REACTIONS, ETC.) FOR SOME, IN-DEPTH COACHING AND DIRECTING IS NECESSARY.

HOWEVER, FOR EVERYONE, GUIDANCE IN THE BASICS OF ACTING AND AWARENESS OF THE STAGE, AND HOW TO BRING ABOUT AN EVENT AND EXPERIENCE FOR THE AUDIENCE, IS NECESSARY. 

ACTING IS A CONSTANT LEARNING PROCESS. 

4. Is there any cultural limitation or restraint that you feel in performing roles specifically set in other countries and historical eras? 

NOT REALLY.

I HAVE PORTRAYED BRITISH ROLES AND NOW AN AMERICAN ROLE.

IT'S THE TRAINING AND WORK YOU PUT BEHIND IT.

YOU HAVE TO WORK A LOT HARDER TO PULL OFF A ROLE LIKE THIS, TO PERFECT ACCENTS AND MANNERISMS. 

5. Arthur Miller specialises in everyday, believable tragedy which has an impact as powerful as a Classical Greek drama like 'Oedipus'. Is this a fair statement about this play? 

TO BE HONEST, I'M NOT TOO FAMILIAR WITH HIS OTHER PLAYS BUT IT IS THE CASE WITH 'A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.'

AND THE IMPACT IS DEFFINITELY THERE AS THE AUDIENCE IS GIVEN AN INSIGHT INTO WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

6. Do you feel the outcome of this situation in the lives of these characters, and their tense and conflicted relationships, is inevitable, in this play? 

I FEEL THE CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY ARE TORN APART BETWEEN THE AMERICAN LAW AND THE SICILIAN/ITALIAN LAW.

BEING ITALIAN OR SICILIAN/ OF ITALIAN DESCENT AND BEING A PART OF LOWER INCOME EARNING FAMILIES, THE 'EYE FOR AN EYE, TOOTH FOR A TOOTH' LAW IS PREVALENT... AS IN ITALY AT THE TIME. RESPECT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO THEM.

SO IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO TARNISH OR BETRAY A FAMILY IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, THE PRIMITIVE LAW MAY BE RESORTED TO BY MOST.

7. What have you learned about yourself, from taking on this particular role? Could we know the insights you have gained? 

THIS PLAY IS AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER. I HAD GO THROUGH A MULTITUDE OF EMOTIONS FROM HAPPINESS, CONSERVATISM, JEALOUSY, RAGE TO NAME A FEW.

I'M PLEASED THAT I COULD EMOTE WHAT WAS NECESSARY AT THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PLAY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAS NOT BEEN DEMANDED FROM ME AS MUCH IN MY OTHER PLAYS - EXCEPT PERHAPS FOR SCROOGE.

8. What challenges do you personally face in preparing such an intense and mesmerising performance? 

IT'S MENTALLY EXHAUSTING. A LOT OF THOUGHT AND ANALYSIS GOES IN TO A PLAY LIKE THIS TO BRING LIFE TO THE TEXT AND DO JUSTICE TO IT AS WELL. 

SOMETIMES YOU REALLY DO GET LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FORGET YOURSELF, AND YOU NEED TO BRING YOUR SELF BACK.

9. Do you ever discover unexpected depths or variations in your interpretation of the character you are playing when performing which you had not expected to come up in rehearsal? 

I DO. THE MORE TIMES YOU PERFORM IN A REHEARSAL, YOU FIND DIFFERENT WAYS OF DOING THINGS AND MAKE THE PERFORMANCE YOUR OWN. SOME TIMES VARIATIONS JUST COME TO YOU AND YOU DECIDE WHAT FITS BEST.

10. What in your view are the qualities of character and attitude which make a person an effective and capable actor? 

COMMITMENT TO UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT TO A GREAT EXTENT.

COMMITMENT AS A WHOLE FOR REHEARSALS.

WORKING TOGETHER WITH THE OTHER ACTORS TO COME TO A GOOD AND COLLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLAY.

PERSONALLY TO MAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF TO WORK ON YOUR OWN - RESEARCH ETC.

TO BE THOROUGHLY FOCUSSED AT REHEARSALS BUT ENJOY YOURSELF. 

View From The Bridge - Workshop Players Production 

1. Your Director has said this will be a production of this play of a kind that has never been seen in this country. What are the most innovative and confronting aspects of it? 

2. Could you outline the process by which you workshop a performance like this? Is it in a way like removing layers of convention or assumption about the characters to get to a more intense and stark and genuine and spontaneous emotional state? 

3. How instinctive is acting? How much is learned? 

4. Is there any cultural limitation or restraint that you feel in performing roles specifically set in other countries and historical eras? 

5. Arthur Miller specialises in everyday, believable tragedy which has an impact as powerful as a Classical Greek drama like 'Oedipus'. Is this a fair statement about this play? 

6. Do you feel the outcome of this situation in the lives of these characters, and their tense and conflicted relationships, is inevitable, in this play? 

7. What have you learned about yourself, from taking on this particular role? Could we know the insights you have gained? 

8. What challenges do you personally face in preparing such an intense and mesmerising performance? 

9. Do you ever discover unexpected depths or variations in your interpretation of the character you are playing when performing which you had not expected to come up in rehearsal? 

10. What in your view are the qualities of character and attitude which make a person an effective and capable actor? 

Theena Kumaragurunathan - First Utterance - Devika Brendon Interview Sep 27 2016

Published in Ceylon Today

1. Could you explain your choice of the title for this book? It has more than one meaning, doesn't it? Both thematic and personal?

I settled on the title of First Utterance when I realized I had at least one book in me. The idea was to make my debut with a collection of short stories and poetry - thus my first utterance. Also, at the time (circa 2008) I discovered a fairly obscure album by a band Comus titled 'First Utterance.' The album is remarkable for a number of things, among them the theme of madness. 

Around this time I was going through a bad case of writer's block. I had stopped reading fiction and began reading a lot more non-fiction, particularly comparative religion and mythology. And one of the things I stumbled upon was the mythological trope of a first utterance. It occurs in a number of cultures and myths - in Hinduism, for instance, there are entire scriptures devoted to the sound 'Om'.

So while these ideas were playing around in my head, I hadn't really written anything. Around 2010, as my father's health was in terminal decline, I discovered Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. By the time I read the last sentence in the book - an incredible last sentence by the way - I knew I had to write my book and I had an idea of how to go about it.

I had the plot for three short stories where the protagonists from each of the stories were labelled mad and the more I learnt about these men and their families by writing it down on paper, the more I realized how much common ground they shared. The question was how to bring them into one universe, where their fates would be intertwined. And that is when I remembered the myth of a first utterance. That was an eureka moment - the entire book's structure just sort of revealed itself thereafter. After that it was a 6 months of writing, rewriting.

2.  The book is the first in a series. Why did the cyclic structure appeal to you in relation to a story about Sri Lanka?

See, when I was writing 'First Utterance' I didn't know it was going to be the first in a series of books. It was only when I finished writing and rewriting it, did I realize how much Mirage's mythological framework hints at a cyclical fate for the nation and its people. It was only then the sketch and structures for book II and III were conceived, and it was only then I formally called 'First Utterance' Book I of the Miragian cycles.

The cycles that I refer to is a dramatic interpretation of karma. We tend to think of karma at an individual level. I wanted to explore the cosmic workings of a phenomenon like Karma on a national scale.

3. At first reading, the reader is aware that you are initiating this story cycle by infusing it with allegorical symbolism which is stark and poetic. Could you expand on the usefulness of allegory in relation to this story?

I think that had a lot to do with my interest in comparative mythology. Joseph Campbell wrote that there were two kinds of mythologies: one seeks to free the essence of man to reach his spiritual zenith, and the other that seeks to order the society in which it operates. Upon reading his work, Campbell draws your attention to the common way both myth frameworks were communicated and trickled down to their respective societies: allegory.

In many instances, it is the same story being told by different cultures, using different protagonists and vastly different languages. They are told these stories through allegories that resonate strongly within each of those cultures. The genius of those first storytellers was taking these large ideas and making it comprehensible to the masses using allegory. They were the most effective early storytelling devices, particularly in primitive societies where oral storytelling played an important role in myth-making.

Mirage’s mythological framework is one that orders a society in place – with one brief allusion to the consequences of men choosing to shirk that societal order to reach their individual notion of spiritual enlightenment. That allegorical style that kicks off First Utterance was a deliberate choice to illustrate how the simple language of our forefathers can continue to impact life in contemporary society. And that’s a theme that will continue to be explored in Book II of the Miragian Cycles.

4. What narratives and which storytellers have impacted on you as a reader, and influenced you as a writer?

The first writer I can recall reading obsessively was Arthur C. Clarke. To this day, I don't think I've explored any other writer's work in as much obsessive detail as I did Clarke's when I was in teens. Then, as I mentioned earlier, I went through a period in my mid-twenties when I hardly read fiction at all - that changed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So these two men are my primary influences.

Besides them, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Conrad, Mark Z. Danielewski, Herman Hesse, Alan Moore and two men who write exclusively for the screen, David Milch and David Simon.

5.  I rejoice in your invocation and utilisation of Magical Realism in this story. This is not a genre which has been widely chosen by writers in Sri Lanka, and yet it is particularly appropriate as a form to the cultural self-concepts and issues of this country. Any comments? And do you think that the reading public's relative unfamiliarity with this form might negatively influence their reception of your story?

I believe it is a bad habit for writers to question their stylistic and narrative choices from the point-of-view of potential readers. A writer’s loyalty and sensitivity is to his characters and their world – no one else. So I didn’t think too much about how the stylistic choices I had to make would go down with a typical Sri Lankan reader. I was subservient to the narrative, and the choices made – whether it was in using magical realism, long form non-fiction, poetry or even the dialogue-focused layout of a play – were made because it was in the best interest of the story and its characters.

As for magical realism specifically, in my view it is the closest (in rhythm, in phrasing, in its ability to draw on the imperfections of colloquial language) to the oral storytelling traditions of ancient societies – and the simple fact is mythology and myth-making wouldn't exist without oral storytelling.

Also: too often we associate magic realism, or any particular stylistic device, as belonging to one place – and possibly only that place; Latin America in the case of magic realism. I don’t necessarily believe in that. My first exposure to magic realism or the post-modernist literature movement came when I had no notion of what either of these things meant. What is important is the skill of the writer and the plight of his or her characters. Marquez, for instance, revealed that the voice in One Hundred Years was his grandmother’s - he tried to recall how she used to entertain him with her stories when he was a boy.

The point I am making is the stylistic choices are made in the best interests of the characters and the overall story. And if your characters are real, believable, relatable then the invested reader won’t get too distracted by any perceived novelty in the writing of the story.

6. I question your portrayal of the few female characters in this story. Would you say that the narrative viewpoint is almost exclusively filtered through a recognisably male perspective? Women seem in this first story to be seen merely as sex partners, or vessels of various kinds. Is this a deliberate representation of the patriarchal nature of contemporary society, via the mythic narrative mode?

Yes it is. Mirage, like a number of societies, began as a matriarchal society - Mother Mirage, as far as the citizens of Mirage are concerned, is the reason behind their existence. But in Mirage, as in real societies, there is a push among religious leaders to move into a patriarchal model - and that's reflected in First Utterance. That tension between a female-centric cultural genesis to a contemporary society where the men are viewed as the sole guardians of the said culture, will come to the surface in the second book.

On a personal note, I tend to get pretty annoyed with myself reading First Utterance's female characters. They come across as far too one-dimensional and one note-y for my liking. On the other hand, the women in Book II are already among my favourite characters I've ever written. I can't wait for the world to meet them.

7. What, in your opinion, is the reason why Sri Lankan literature in English has not (with the exception of some individual writers) reached an international market in the way that the writing of Indian writers has? And that writers writing in Sinhala have not often been translated, to reach an English-speaking audience?

I can't speak for the state of the Sinhala and Tamil writers, but in my view most of our English writing is stuck in a little bubble where nothing interesting has apparently happened in this country except for the war. And the war is the background for almost every story.

And unless it is Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost or Shehan's Chinaman, most of the time it is handled badly. You can also see the writers don't want to offend so the stories are sanitized at the time of writing and it shows. So fundamentally, I think we need to be more ambitious storytellers.

As for translations of Sinhala and Tamil writing, I can't understand why it isn't being done. Maybe it is a case of finding great translators. Marquez used to say how much he is indebted to Gregory Rabassa for translating his work from Spanish to English - and when you read the English translations, you can see how much work goes into it. I just hope we can create the culture here too. It's about time.

8. What suggestions would you make that could encourage young writers in Sri Lanka to actively seek a wider readership? How could the existing literary culture be improved, and made more effective?

Stop relying on traditional publishers. Become the publisher, own your intellectual property, understand the global publishing landscape - its pressure points, the volatility, how agents think. Understand technology and how to use it to get more readers interested. Collaborate with other storytellers - the collaborators needn't be other writers, but painters, musicians, et cetera.

9. How important are literary festivals and awards in increasing interest in writing as an activity which is culturally valued?

The last time the role of writing in culture was debated as fiercely was in Socrates’ Greece. The philosopher deplored writing and the impact it would have on his students ability to remember, and fearing they would mistake data for knowledge. Two millennia later, writing has become part of the cultural fabric and we are worried if its value is no longer appreciated. 

The writers of today are faced with the knowledge that if we don’t get the attention of readers in the first few sentences, we’ll lose them to a movie or YouTube video. Does that awareness influence the writer’s work? If so, how? Does it make him/her a better writer? Better how? These are questions that we need to start thinking about.

And in that sense, a literary festival that brings all of us who care about good writing to come together to celebrate it is a good start. It shows the world that a gift humanity learnt to harness a few thousand years ago still matters today - despite all the distractions modern life offers.

It’s a good start, but the more important function that literary festivals need to play, more crucial than giving out awards, is debating how literature can continue to shape culture.

10. What are the positive influences in your life so far that have enabled you to find your own voice as a writer?

My life is thankfully not as dramatic or volatile as that of my protagonists. My dad was a Tamil lyricist and poet so we, my sister and I, were always exposed to literature from a young age. I also had an incredible literature teacher in high school who made me from an apathetic literature student to becoming a proper reader. I didn't go pursue a Creative Writing MFA or anything like that, but I had a fine writing instructor in Delon Weerasinghe over the last decade. He read and dismissed so much of my early, self-indulgent writing - I am a better writer with a thicker skin today because of him.

I also don't read methodically in the sense I haven't felt it necessary to explore every written work by every writer I admire; that way my voice doesn't become derivative. I read about 10-12 different longform writing a day, only one of it may be fiction. I am always looking for new ways to tell stories so half the time I am exploring how narrative devices used in non-fiction can be adapted to my writing.

I am also naturally curious so I tend to have a wide array of interests and thus a wide array of material to read. As a kid I wondered if it was a bad thing because I wasn’t good at any one thing except useless trivia, but I am so glad now because it means I have so much of material to mine from when it comes to my writing. I am not just learning from my favourite fictional work and writers, but sometimes something as unrelated to my writing as sport will give me an idea that I end up incorporating into my writing.

11. What challenges have you faced, in your 'story so far'? Both in the mythic narrative of your story, and in your development as a creative writer?

The challenge now is to fully realize the remaining two books. I feel I've changed as a writer since finishing First Utterance - remember I did complete writing it in Nov 2012 - and the biggest change has been a mental shift: I am no longer subservient to the plot, but my characters. And the result is an even more organic narrative where I am constantly surprised and enthralled at the direction my characters take the story. The challenge is to stay in that mind frame until Books II and III are done.

12. And finally - Could you comment on the choice of the visually striking cover? The image, the colours and the embossing effect fuse into an unforgettable picture. The serpents swallowing their own tails suggest infinity, eternity and causality, all visible when one takes a big picture view of a nation's history. Three snakes! The colours are surely symbolic of the colours of the flag & the nation itself - and there will be 3 narratives in the cycle?

The ouroboros is one of the oldest symbols in ancient societies. And I always found the image of a snake eating itself to be a powerful illustration of the cyclicality of life. I dreamt the cover image just after I had finished writing the first draft and was playing around with the idea that there maybe two more books in the series. It wasn't the traditional ouroboros but the symbol adapted in the vein of a hydrogen atom. I can't draw or sketch to save my life so I commissioned Madhri Samaranayake to realize that vision. Madhri is an incredible artist whose work possess a startlingly unique visual signature. I was floored when she showed me the first drafts of the design.

The three snakes are called 'The Triad of Ancestors' - and yes, your reading is correct. The colours chosen are adapted from our flag, yes, because they represent the three tribes of Mirage. And yes, there will be 3 novels in the cycle.