Unacknowledged Desire Becomes A Tragic Fate

Published in New Ceylon Writing No. 6

The production is stripped down and the set is minimalist because the emotions take up all the space on stage. This was a charged and intensely mesmerising performance by the whole ensemble. 

The director had invited me to a rehearsal two weeks before the performance, and I had come in time to see the principal players who play the lovers, Catherine and Rudolfo, working out the positioning and movement and alignments in a pivotal scene in which he is asking her why she finds it so hard to leave the home of her aunt and uncle and be with him, and live their life together. 

The story takes place in an Italian immigrant family in mid-20thC Brooklyn, and the claustrophobia and voyeurism of the setting is evoked by the simplest of sets: steel benches in a square, with see-through plastic sheeting in the foreground, and a set of steps leading up to a central doorway/archway which leads to the streets outside. 

The man of the family, Eddie Carbone, has aspirations for a better life for his niece, Catherine, who has grown up in his home. He wants her to live in a nice neighbourhood, amongst a better class of people than those she has so far moved among. He is extremely protective of her. 

What is clear to us, viewing through the sheeting and the frames, and the mediating guidance and commentary of Eddie's lawyer, is that Eddie is in love with Catherine. And this is romantic love, not fatherly or avuncular. And it is unacknowledged by Eddie, who is unconscious that, when he looks at his niece and comments that she is walking in 'too wavy' a manner, that he looks at her as a lover looks, territorially wishing to shield her from the gaze of other men. 

The extended family situations in which many of us live in Sri Lanka are spoken to very powerfully by this production, as unacknowledged wishes, longings and desires flourish in repression and denial. 

Blurred relational lines are fuelled by physical proximity and patriarchal values, in which the man of the house, the hard-working provider, 

feels unconsciously entitled to more than daughterly devotion, when a girl becomes an adult still living at home. 

Individuation is a central theme of the play, and in an ideal world Catherine would get a job, become independent financially, and settle down in the neighbourhood with a nice young man who is worthy of her intelligence, her sweetness and her beauty. And her uncle's unacknowledged feelings would gradually subside, like flood waters that have exceeded their limit, and return back into the normal lines of acceptability. 

It is usual to castigate and scapegoat child molesters and paedophiles for unnatural behaviour. This play, and this production in particular, shows us three adults equally caught in an explosive triangle which is tragically detonated by the arrival of a young man who Catherine likes enough to marry. 

I say three, because Catherine loves her uncle dearly, and Eddie's wife, Beatrice, sees her husband's situation with agape and compassion, not blaming her niece in any way, and encourages her to grow up and actively seek and insist on her emotional independence. 

We see Eddie's dislike of Catherine's suitor as comic initially: Rudolfo is a vibrant, attractive and outgoing personality, with brazen blonde hair and an exuberance which acts like a magnet on Catherine. Eddie openly suspects him of being 'not right' (translation: homosexual), because he likes to sing and is creative in ways outside Eddie's ken. And this disapproval, fed by jealousy of him as a rival, escalates into the accusation that Rudolfo is only interested in Catherine so that he can become an American citizen. 

This unjust suspicion, which he communicates as fact to Catherine, catalyses her through outrage and confusion into clarity, where she is forced to choose, and her choice causes Eddie to confront Marco and Rudolfo, because he has not been able to confront his own unfulfillable longing to be with Catherine. 

This is romantic, because it is a dream that can never come true, in real life. And it is tragic, because Eddie allows his feelings to interfere with his niece's pursuit of her happiness independently of him. The lawyer, his devoted wife, and all of us viewing the unfolding of the story, can see that Eddie is becoming more and more isolated and obsessed, and we are powerless to stop the tragic outcome.

The Limits Of Tolerance

 (c) Devika Brendon 2016 

It is the season when the skies and the seas conspire to encourage us to tell sagas: as it is too stormy for us to venture out, like those old Icelandic sailors, we mend our nets and build the fires, and take the time to piece together the events that the hardships of life have scattered. 

Two years ago, Marina had gone to stay with an old school friend, in the Northernmost island of New Zealand. The Perseids were streaming in the skies above, and as the house was really a summer home there were sun lounger chairs on the deck, and, at 3am a year before, she and Marigold had sat outside  and seen the lights going out in the houses around the small bay. It was a cold, poetic, Tolkienesque winter. 

The small plane from Auckland had been tossed about in some sharp bouts of wind, on the flight up. The pilot said cheerfully, 'That was a close call! A bit touch and go!', as the passengers filed past him, slightly askew, into the cold air. It felt like the edge of the known world. Innocent, pure, and still being formed. 

This year, something was misaligned. Thinking back, on the bus trip afterwards, Marina thought it was set up by the unavoidably repetitive cycle of events. School and work routines imposed a mechanistic structure on her friend's life. Her smile was slightly forced. And it was clear there was unspoken dissonance fraying the weave of their long acquaintance. 

A year before, there had been a children's birthday party, hosted by a local personage, who lived in a spacious home with extensive views of a rain-swept valley. The children romped and roared, and the adult guests congregated around the custom built bar. 

The host asked Marina what she would like to drink. She asked what was available to choose from. The list was long, and various. He wanted to show off his knowledge of wines. She requested an apple juice. He asked if she wanted ice. Of course she did. And did she want it in small pieces or large chunks? Straight from the ice cube tray, she said, thanks. She moved away. 

Later in the afternoon, she heard him recounting anecdotes to a group of women, mothers of the children who went to school with his kids at the local primary school. Several of them had husbands who were employed by him. These ladies were anxious to please: yummy mummies all in a row, with glistening eyes and gleaming hair. One of them had complimented him on his beautiful home, so perfect as the venue for a party. 

'Yeah,' he said, 'It's great. I love having the house full of people. Love having parties. I did draw the line once though, a few years ago, when I walked into my own room and found two people having sex in my bed'.

The mummies squawked nervously. Marina glittered her unspoken contempt. 

'I wouldn't even have minded that', he said, 'But the bloke still had his boots on!' 

Marina suggested that it might have been because teenagers are notoriously quick to finish, and anxious to make a fast getaway. This response to her host was described as 'unnecessarily provocative' by Marigold, in the car on the way home. 

Marina had had a sense she was being spoken to in forms of code, by both the host and his wife. At one point, avoiding her host's attempt to speak to her by moving rooms, she had gone to sit on an isolated Queen Anne style brocaded chair overlooking the view out to the valley. The host's wife came and said to her, 'That was the chair on which I nursed my children'. 

It was subsequent discussion of this party, with Marigold's husband, who had been drinking too much, that led to an opening up of greater rifts which Marina had been sensing. The man said she was reading too much into the host's behaviour. He had been merely trying to make her welcome, and she had misunderstood him. 

Marigold's husband was a man who looked rather like Tony Blair did, when he first came into office, in the early 90s. His sons boasted that their daddy imported their breakfast cereal from England, and he was indeed very possessive of his English condiments. Branston Pickle was apparently very hard to find in Auckland, and clover honey was so expensive. Clearly Marina was expected to ration her servings of it, at every meal. 

The ungenerosity, the stinginess, the minginess, the blinkeredness of the man became evident to her over many minor skirmishes. Her friend seemed impervious to these. And the children were (as much as possible) shielded from them: the unpleasantness created by their father, for example, over the sticky fingermarks on the glass doors after they had had fish and chips from the elder boy's favourite local fish shop. Marina had taken some kitchen serviettes and wiped the marks away, to save pointless argument and passive aggressive hints peppering and salting the subsequent conversation. 

Tony Blair was famous for making speeches with sound bites made for TV transmission. 'The people's princess' was a phrase he coined, cashing in on the death of Princess Diana. And Marina remembered him publicly criticising some massed protestors during the May Day demonstrations, seeking to hypocritically diminish the social inequities their challenges showcased. 'The limits of tolerance are passed', he had said, 'when misguided protestors in the name of some spurious cause seek to inflict fear, terror, violence and criminal damage on the lives and property of the peaceful citizens of this realm'. 

The guest room overlooked a tiny lower deck and part of a hill which was so steep the grass could never be mown on it. And below it was the coarse volcanic sand, striated in layers from dark to light, and the water, in streamlined banners of shades of blue, gleaming and glinting, sparks from the sunlight scattering and shimmering in intermittent sweeps and cascades. The cries of the gulls, the clouds which drifted above and through the misty hills: sometimes when she woke, she felt as Lucy Pevensie did, waking up on The Dawn Treader. 

One afternoon, Marigold asked her to come upstairs and meet someone.There was a young man in the living room, sitting familiarly on the sofa. He was the local handyman, who had become great friends with the family since they had come to stay in the area. He was a genial individual, and Marina could see he knew where everything was kept, in the kitchen. 

After he left, Marigold asked her how she thought she had been, around him. 'Kittenish', she said. 'Be careful. I don't know what the state of the world is these days, when it comes to morality, but it is probably not appropriate, even in the most liberated societies, for a man to frequently visit a woman when her husband is not at home'. 

Her husband worked during the week in Auckland, and drove up for the weekends. He rang her every night at a certain set time. 

Glimpses of a rigid pattern of preferences set by him were shown when his wife  forgot to put the bread machine on for his morning hot bread, or one dreadful night when he came up and ordered her off the computer, because she had duties to do close to home that were clearly more important. 

She tried to explain that she was on email to her old teacher, whose son had just been found killed in Arizona, after weeks of being missing, but her husband didn't care. She was supposed to get her focus right. 

Later, in an awkward attempt to smooth things over in front of the guest, he said that he would really not know what he would do without his wife. He was so lucky that she had chosen him, and had the patience to put up with the challenges of living with him. 

Marina's bus left early in the morning. No way the boys would get up to say goodbye, their father had said, but both of them were up and dressed, and in the car coming to see her off, one with a small handshake, the other casting himself like a garland over her, telling her how much he loved her, over and over again, like a delighted self-discovery, like being in love with love.

Afterwards, when she was back home, Marigold wrote to her. 'Everything I sacrifice for my family I do willingly,' she said. 'I love them more than life itself. I have never been happier than I am here. This is my place.'

   
    Marina read that letter several times. She saw how the writer sought to portray her far from untroubled life as a dream within a dream, residing within a series of circles, the deep happiness at its core invisible to the outsider. She had learned to overlook the displays of stubbornness, the stiff-necked strutting and predictable petulance of her husband, and move on from each incident without bitterness or recrimination. 

    It was like dodging bullets: awkward at first, but, through practice, becoming as fluid in motion as a dance routine, many times rehearsed. After a while, living in a war zone, it must become instinctive, and the ambient awareness you developed would shield you from every attempt of the enemy to pierce or penetrate. By negotiating, by acquiescing, by doing what was required, and absenting her attention at points of unwanted impact, Marigold had created spaces and interstices in which she was  - intermittently - left in peace. 

    Marina remembered her friend: honey gold fierce, fiery, glorious tresses shielding her face against the sun on the deck, feeding the little fat brown birds the leftover crumbs from the morning breakfast bread. 

She remembered how they fluffed themselves up, against the cold winter air, and she trusted to the sea and the high, bright stars and the atmosphere at the end of the earth to clear away the human residue of unexpressed despair, rage, outrage and disillusion that did not belong in the picture

'Water Of Life' - The Work of Rotary Clubs in Sri Lanka - by Dr. Devika Brendon

What Is Rotary? 

Rotary is a philanthropic service organisation that was started in The United States, and has become an international network of individuals from hundreds of countries focused on humanitarian projects which benefit the communities of each Club's country. Its basis is the principle of connecting and relating in a positive and beneficial way to others, both those in need of help, and those who are willing to help. 

Each country in the world is a designated part of a Rotary District. Sri Lanka and The Maldives is part of District 3220. Within each District, Rotary Clubs are formed, in which members from different walks of life meet and form collaborative relationships to formulate and create projects designed to assist sectors of the community; and raise funds to deliver needed goods and services to where they are most needed. There are Rotary Clubs in every major city and town throughout Sri Lanka, and many members of these Clubs form co-operative alliances not only with each other to do joint projects, but with members of Rotary Clubs from Europe, Australia, the U.S.A, the U.K., and Canada. 

The recent global eradication of the crippling illness Polio has been a major achievement, in which Rotary International has played a great part. Many Rotary Projects are centred on providing improved health care, housing, education, vocational training and basic amenities such as clean drinking water to people in both regional and urban areas, who are impeded in their progress in life as a result of financial hardship, ongoing cycles of debilitating lack of professional opportunity, chronic health issues and disabilities. 

What Are Its Goals? 

Rotary aims to make the world a better place, in practical and lasting ways. Through projects, donations and local investment of funds and efforts, Rotarians strive to achieve the better functioning and improved morale of the societies in which they live. 

 Projects are based on community needs and Rotary Clubs and Rotarians maintain close links with their local communities to identify specific community needs. Rotary's Key Areas of Focus are: 

* PEACE AND CONFLICT PREVENTION

* DISEASE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

* WATER AND SANITATION

* MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH

* BASIC EDUCATION AND LITERACY

* ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Projects to assist the vulnerable: the ageing and elderly; children and women in need of protection from domestic violence; vocational skills and entrepreneurship training to enable women to achieve financial independence, can all be concurrently engaged in by any Club and its members. 

What Kind Of Work Do Rotarians Do?

Rotarians are, by and large, philanthropic people, which means that they are individuals who, whatever their profession is, and over and above their commitment to their own professional development, all see the bigger picture of humanity, and commit themselves to helping others outside their own immediate family and community circle. 

Many Rotarians see the personal benefit they gain from social service as one of the most enjoyable parts of their participation: they enlarge their vision and experience of life, connect with areas of their own country and the wider world which they had not seen before, and relate to individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds, with a range of ages, religious beliefs and social classes, whose life experiences show the spectrum of the human condition. 

Rotarian service encourages its members to co-operate with each other, and, by the very nature of its focus on collaboration and participation, helps members overcome their initial barriers and limitations in dealing with each other. Junior members are invited to join, and encouraged to speak, and mutual benefit can be seen, and mentoring between generations witnessed, at weekly or fortnightly meetings. 

Continuity & Long-Term Vision

Donations and handouts are short-term in their effects, at best. When natural disasters such as floods or landslides occur, the organisational infrastructure exists to provide assistance; but the lasting value of Rotary activity lies in the abilities of the members, guided by Rotary Club nominated and elected leaders, to create, foster and develop lasting relationships with the communities they assist. 

Rotarians also see the benefit of raising social awareness and fostering philanthropic commitment to social service in the younger generation, and have established groups for school students and young people (Interact and Rotaract) who wish to help others from a young age. Partners of Rotarians can also join a group (The Inner Wheel) to support Rotarian projects. 

Until relatively recently, in Sri Lanka, most Rotarians were male professionals. Now many female members are not only joining and participating in Rotary service, but also attaining leadership positions, becoming Presidents of their Clubs. Sri Lanka in District 3220 recently appointed its first female District Governor, Gowri Rajan, from the Rotary Club of Kandy. 

The Rotary Water Project, 2016 

The Rotary Club of Colombo, the first Rotary Club founded in Sri Lanka, recently in collaboration with members of the Rotary Clubs of Katsuura, Japan, and Nuremburg, Germany, completed the installation of several water filtration units in regional areas of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, which are currently severely affected by drought.

The entire Water Project, from conception, and logistical planning, fundraising to the successful installation and opening of the Water Units in local schools and temples, took almost one year, and involved many members of the Club. 

The available water in these areas has been contaminated by agro-chemicals, and was hard, metallic-tasting and unpleasant to drink. Yet water is essential for the cleansing of our digestive systems and the healthy functioning of our bodies. The local population (about 10,000 people) of the region showed a high rate of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), which would severely impact their health and their lives and the ability of their communities to function, in the future. 

The installation of the 5 water units in the Anuradhapura area resulted in pure, sweet, fresh, clean, safe-to-drink water being made readily available to all, and it is a perfect example of the practical outcomes and benefits of Rotary Projects such as this. 

Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Colombo left Colombo at 4.30am to reach our destinations in Anuradhapura, in a small but sturdy bus, and visited the communities of all 5 village schools and temples over a day and a half, to attend the official openings and dedications of these Water Units. Travelling through the dry lands around the schools, we fully appreciated the benefit of what our efforts had brought to the people in this area. 

Goodwill, gratitude and affection from the communities benefiting from Rotarian involvement, which result from projects like this, enable long-term engagement between Club members and rural areas for years to come. Several members specialising in education and vocational training have started donating books and newspapers and reading materials to the schools for the benefit of the children, and we are going to plan literacy projects through follow up visits on a regular basis which can widen the local students' contact with English literature and the world outside their regions. 

Water in a dry land is an apt metaphor for the service Rotary aims to achieve. As a character in one of my favourite stories by Ursula Le Guin said: 'You brought me water, when I was dying of thirst. But it was not the water alone that saved me: it was the strength of the hands that gave it'. 

Service helps those who serve become better people. And thus it benefits the giver as well as the receiver.

Harry Potter And The End Of An Era

Published in Ceylon Today

'Finite Incantatem' is what people in the world created by J.K. Rowling say when a spell has run its course, or has ended its usefulness and is now causing damage. 

I want to say these words, as a requiem for Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, because it has been 19 years since he was created, and the latest work about him, the play 'Harry Potter and The Cursed Child' that was co-written by Rowling, and published last week, marks the end of an era. Not because the readership is not interested in what happens next, but because what we are told in this play happens next is a bewildering let-down of our legitimate expectations. 

As a great fan of the series, I find myself in the equivalent of a Body Bind Curse when it comes to putting into words what I want to say about the latest instalment. Please bear with me, because I wanted so much to find that the magic never ends, that the cupboard door in the spare room which led to the magical world was still partly open, that there was still a possibility that that wonderful childhood pleasure of discovering interesting characters in a world parallel to my own, was not outgrown. 

I have heard many people with children praise the series for their story-telling, the exciting adventures, for getting kids interested in reading again, for their wit and their humour. Social commentators have praised the inclusion of characters whose situations raise even young readers' awareness of socio-political issues in our contemporary world: of injustice and inequity, of bigotry and of race, class and gender prejudice, in accessible ways. 

The 7 books portrayed a battle between Good and Evil that was only thinly rendered in metaphor, and in which the hero and his friends grow and evolve in moral awareness, and in insight into the complexities of human nature, including their own. This in itself in my view was a great literary achievement, although the story-telling itself is uneven at times in its quality, and the best sequences show up in stark contrast the labouredness of the weaker sections. 

It was a stroke of brilliance on the part of Rowling to fix the personal development of her protagonist onto the natural and familiar organisational structure of every child's Senior School curriculum and syllabus, so that his emergence into adulthood at the age of 17 was also the point at which he would meet his (un) Maker, his arch-enemy, and battle him for the last time, avenging his parents' murder and saving his generation and the wizarding world from impending doom. 

The world which was created in that parallel universe portrayed diverse ethnicities, girls known for their intellectual ability, and ways people could literally learn to successfully deal with their demons. This fantasy world was an original one, product of an interesting perspective, which, despite its stifling Anglo-centrism, its tokenism and its formulaic tendencies, brought many blessings to child readers in the form of ideas which formed the basis for their beliefs about friends, enemies, and what side to choose when life presented them with dilemmas which tested their evolving character and aspirations. 

So this play which is presented as portraying the world in which Harry and his friends are in their early middle age, and have married each other and had children, should have been interesting, even fascinating - as it is interesting and fascinating to meet a person you last saw in their teens now 'all grown up' and in the midst of their destined life. 

It is acutely disappointing to see potential in real people, in real life, unrealised. And when writers create characters who impact our imagination, we have hopes and fears for them as we do for real people. So I must say that Rowling's creation of Hermione Granger, easily the most interesting character of the original central trio, is a travesty in this play: the idealistic, sceptical, insightful girl, whose combination of despised 'Mudblood' status and brilliant intuitive talent challenges all the prejudices of her world, has become the mother of a daughter whose snobbery and sense of entitlement are qualities the young Hermione would have seen through and mocked into proportion 'at once'. 

Even alternative outcomes clumsily and confusingly accessed by Time-Turners do not outline any better alternatives. Of all the infinite possibilities available, generated by the better parts of her own imagination, Rowling in the end ultimately endorsed THIS? This shop-worn and self-limiting, parochial vision? 

It does not make sense. And the tortured central story of the second generation resolving their parents' differences ought to be interesting and morally instructive, but is not. And middle-aged, navel-gazing Harry with doubts about his ability to parent, the contrived passion and faux chemistry of the two ill-assorted married couples, the weirdly self-defining children, the lifeless dialogue, make the experience of reading the script increasingly worse. What ought to have been a longed-for pleasure has become an ordeal.

We are presented with easy answers to difficult questions. Rowling over the years created an audience who became accustomed to a far higher standard of creative characterisation and thematic presentation. Whereas great writers generally create the audience by which they are appreciated, in this case the inverse seems to have occurred. The story's worth is only in its value as a commodity by booksellers at point of sale, and tickets for performances of the play sold out two years in advance. The franchise and its dictates have engulfed the central narrative, and a light has been put out which had made the world in the late 1990s and the 2000s a much better place. 

The wishing well is dry, and the coins at the bottom of it have lost their value and their currency. 

A terrible end to the telling of a wonderful story. 

Vale, Harry Potter

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.

'The Best Of All Possible Worlds': A Modern Christmas Carol

Published in 'Noel' Magazine, 2016

  

(C) Devika Brendon 2016 

There was a family we used to know, who unfortunately carried an annual Christmas ritual too far. They were originally from the rural areas of their country: a business executive and his talented, home-making wife, partners of greatness on an upward social trajectory. When I was young I took them at their word, at face value, not knowing much about sociology or class distinction or any of those realities of which we are all now acutely aware. 

They were attractive, charismatic and ambitious. He was on his way to becoming a CEO, and she was hostessing wonderful dinner parties and keeping the perfect home beautifully, and involving herself in art appreciation classes and creative decoration. All was well, between us, for many years. Until the Christmas Letters started coming. I recently discovered them all in a bundle, while clearing out boxes of papers from the garage a couple of months ago, and marvelled at the social documentary, the slice of life, they provided. 

At some point in the 1980s and 90s, this family started to seriously climb the social ladder in the society of the City in which they had finally settled. There was a photograph inserted into one of the letters which showed them with their teenage children, smiling in their garden, having drawn large circles in chalk inside which they stood, embracing each other. 'We are moving in only the best  circles!' was the caption, handwritten on the back of the photograph. 

Perhaps the concept of Christmas Letters was culturally specific to that country, so kindly bear with me while I explain. When people start extending themselves socially, and their contact list grows, it becomes very difficult for them to write to everyone individually, to 'keep in touch' at Christmas time, with Season's Greetings and festive wishes and so forth. Time is money, so their real relationships fade, and business relationships of the 'win-win' variety take their place. There is no time to meet up during the week or the year, so their relating takes the form of an exchange of curriculum vitae: a sort of festival of interfacing resumes. 

The business world emphasises the effective use of time and effort, so to avoid the tedium of writing the same information over and over again, this family started to summarise their activities over the year into a Christmas Letter: itemising the best experiences they had had throughout the year that had just passed. This transformed into a 'Best Of' list of overseas trips, events and cultural activities which showcased their own blossoming forays and awakenings. Best Films Seen. Best Books Read. Best Restaurant Meals Eaten. 

The items omitted from this summary I have, over the years, come to see as the real substance of a person's life: the failures, the fears, the internal journeying required by the occurrence of tragedy, of unenvisaged loss, of unexpected betrayal. The kind of event that Premium life or Platinum health insurance cannot generally cover. 

The CEO took up golf, (of course); they joined their local Country Club, and started fine dining, during which they developed their palates to enjoy and speak with familiarity about European cuisine. Walking tours of Tuscany and the great gardens of England, France and Italy followed. Tracing their development year by year, via the annual family roundup, it became clear that they had become shameless braggarts. Updating their acquaintances in detail, annually, about how progressive and productive they were being throughout that year. Celebratory self-congratulation. 

Twenty years before the onset of selfies and the celebrity-style promotion of surfaces and sheen inherent in modern urban living, this family were pioneers in self-portraiture. Creating a sort of family brand. 

The tremendous self-approval that all this revealed was remarkable to those outside the corporate world. But in the circles in which they now moved, the inhabitants went to gyms with names like 'The Winning Edge', and attended professional development courses with titles like 'The Unfair Advantage', to help them re-calibrate themselves and deal with the spiralling stress levels they were experiencing. They had, along the way, inevitably started to value everything in life according to a financial estimate of investment and expected return. 'Look out for Number One' was actual advice they gave others, with absolutely no sense of irony. 

This was my first vision of the compulsive competitiveness and posturing and positioning apparently required to 'count for something' and 'make your mark' in the 'best circles'. Year after year, the Christmas Letters  came, with the bullet points of humble bragging making their indelible impact on their recipients. 

We gave the family the benefit of the doubt for as long as we could, but eventually the generic and impersonal nature of the relationships they preferred started to grate on our sense of what real relationships were about. Christmas to me was a time for virtue signifying: helping out at the soup kitchen for the homeless, without telling anyone about my participation except the organisers, hearing the wonderful old songs sung by charity choirs, and baking shortbread and mulling wine for two, and re-reading Christmas stories like 'The Little Match Girl' and 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'. 

The vast smorgasbords and all you can eat buffets left me cold, in the air-conditioned palaces of luxury hotels. The 'proud display of life' was a phrase from the Bible that came vividly to me when I re-read those Christmas Letters, in their entirety, with the benefit of retrospection. Sometimes, people allow themselves to become saturated by this kind of pride. 

Please understand! I love Christmas hampers, filled with good things. But I find as the years pass that the commercialism of the values which are now pre-ordered and gift-wrapped and presented to us as 'traditional' are not ones which appeal to me at all. A few years ago, we gently intimated to this family that we would like to NOT be included in the vast mail-out of their annual Christmas Letters. 

We loved them as people, we greatly admired their many escalating achievements, but they were no longer the people we used to know. The way they had commodified the sacred holiday and turned it into an opportunity for self-promotion was alienating. And they were not alone, in this. The whole world turns into a noisy festival of join-the-dots emotion, plastic sentimentality, and push button euphoria, an annual orgy of conspicuous consumption, resulting in a kind of global, community-induced coma. 

Summing up, I reject the flurry of emojis currently available to us, to try to express what the ceasing of these Christmas Letters  means to me. The genuine compassion I feel today, for that family whose festive epistles we at last unsubscribed from, is my own version of the true Christmas spirit.

Out Of The Box & Off The Wall - Art Installation

Published in Ceylon Today

1. ART AS INSIGHT

Today we live in a world where everything we are told is of value is for sale, and seems to be measured in monetary terms. We are credit rich and time poor, our homes are full of commodities and conveniences. Minimalism has caught on, but most of us are aware that the size of our homes, their location, their re-sale value, and the objects with which we fill and furnish them, are an index of our wealth, our purchasing power, our preferences and our taste. We are branded by our designer brands, and owned (and often judged by our peers) by what we own.

A slow tide of materialism is inexorably rising, and we are being flooded by generic and often factory-made, low investment and cut price goods of low value. Planned obsolescence, low expectations of the quality or endurance of what we buy, superficiality and gloss reflected off every surface we move through. 'Greed is good' had an era named after it. 'Nothing exceeds like excess', was its motto.

The last century has seen the rise of mass manufacturing, huge industrial and economic cycles of productivity, and the stockpiling but inequitable distribution of great wealth; but the last three decades has brought us the exponential rise of globalisation, and the consequences are that we live in a cacophony of commercialism, disconnected from the natural world, and increasingly alienated from ourselves and each other. Faced with the impermanence of all things, we are constantly urged by advertisers and manufacturers to cling to manufactured goods instead of connecting in a meaningful way with the wisdom and beauty and sources of solace and renewal that nature and our place in it can offer us. We can only do this if if we cease to see it as a resource and a commodity to be exploited, and cultivate a dynamic relationship with the world we live in.

In the midst of all this noise, which leaches out the joy in our lives like the nutrients from soil, art and artistic endeavour continue to operate, but non-competitively: without the same gloss and strobe lighting and sheer loudness. To appreciate art, and what it can offer, we must position ourselves to view it and appreciate it. To do this, we must be still, and the profit-driven world I have just described allows no time or place for stillness, except at meditation retreats or scenic yoga and health spa holidays, which are often themselves a profit-making concern.

Art of all kinds - visual art, sonic art, music, dancing, theatre, performance, opera, traditional drumming, literature, graphic art - requires an investment of the self, both on the part of the artist, who has undergone training and study in theory and skill in order to create their work, and of the audience, who appreciate it, view it, attend performances, go to book launches, and purchase the work.

  As all of us are increasingly aware, life is not just about survival but about fulfilment. In fact, survival without insight and progress and awakening of the mind and spirit becomes a mere mechanical process, and we feel as processed as an item on a conveyor belt with no identity of our own. The remedy for greed is discernment and selectivity, just as the remedy for rampant destruction of the natural world is the wise management of resources, and mindfulness of the impact of acting on our aspirations.

I am sure that we are all familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  Note that, at the apex of this famous pyramid structure, is the most powerful aspect of our lives: our Aesthetic appreciation, our love of beauty, and structure, and design, and our capacity to connect meaningfully with the spheres around us, social and geographic and physical and conceptual and natural. The arts are not just ornamental, although they bring dimensions of beauty into our lives and enhance them beyond measure. At their best, works of art have the power to awaken, activate and vivify us.

If we find ourselves feeling deadened by repetitively treading our mechanical pathways, we can find visionary portals in a painting or sculpture or other artistic work which can liberate us. And this need not be a temporary respite. We can return to a favourite holiday destination again and again. We can watch a favourite film many times, and see something new in it each time we view it. We can purchase art, from the artist who created it. Such an investment is an investment in ourselves as well as the work of the artist.

At the heart of every great work of art is an insight which helps us understand the whole of life, and our place in it, with clarity and accuracy. Reaching that point where this insight is revealed to us, even for a brief hour or half hour, feels like reaching 'a place where everything makes sense', as the character 'Red' says in the voiceover by the Morgan Freeman in the great film 'Shawshank Redemption". Insight. Escape. Elevation. Exaltation. Space. Enlightenment. Freedom. A sense of interconnectedness with all living things, entities and beings.

In our daily working lives we are urged to 'think outside the box', to be not just dutiful but devoted, committed and passionate in what we do, to give ourselves in a focused way to each task we undertake. An artist, ignited by their own inspiration, can illuminate and light our way.

By purchasing art we invest not only our money, but other aspects of ourselves which emerge higher up the strata of Maslow's Hierarchy: our imagination, our thought, our energy, our time, our view of the world. We interact with what is in front of us, not trying to control the dialogue with our prefabricated agenda. We buy the picture because it appeals to us, and over time, as it occupies its place in our home or office, or boardroom or gallery, we truly 'get' the picture. It is not just a piece of background noise or a splash of colour or even part of an ambience created by an interior designer. It connects us to a wider system of thought and feeling, it opens us up to our experience and accentuates our awareness. We resonate, we are inspired, we feel re-aligned, in a better state of harmony and attunement.

To be able to purchase art by a living artist is to accept an invitation to participate in a creative dynamic, a way of seeing the world, which is bigger and more life-changing than buying a mass-produced object can ever be. The art work is a product, but the creation does not end with the paint drying and the painting exchanging hands, from seller to buyer.

  Creation is a process: from idea and inspiration, through a process of testing the right models and instruments to bring the idea into completion, into something which works, which can be applied in the practical world, to make our lives more functional, and more free. When you purchase a work of art by a living artist, the process is one you can access: you can read or hear them interviewed, you can view their creative ideas as they take shape in their journals, and updates via Facebook or Instagram, you can meet them and hear them speak about their work at openings and launches, and see their works in images in articles in magazines and newspapers.

Buying great art is a significant investment. Like all good investments, it brings long term dividends. The returns in the case of a wonderful artwork increase rather than diminish, over time. It is a direct benefit, a hit of energy, every time you see it and experience it, and consider where it would best be positioned, or from which angle it would best be seen. You see something new every time you look at it, and you find something new in yourself as you respond to it, and the ideas that it expresses, and the structures and forms in which the artist has chosen to convey them.

2. ART AS ARTEFACT

The world outside our windows is fast eroding. Global warming and environmental degradation have led to the upsetting of the balances which had made life on our Earth sustainable. We are in a kinship relationship with what we are destroying, and so we too are becoming degraded and eroded, spiritually, psychologically and emotionally by this terrible momentum which is fuelled by commercialism. Equilibrium is being destabilised, and the interwoven structures which held us together and part of the environment are unravelling. In my generation, the sea temperatures are rising: 93% of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has suffered bleaching. The beautiful Earth, with its structures and textures and sacred geometries, is dissolving around us. Our children may have to see old growth rainforest trees as holograms via computer technology. Everything they interact with will be a representation, or a re-creation, or a re-enactment. They will live in a virtual world. The air and the sea and the earth will be poisoned, and toxic. They will have to protect themselves from the very elements of earth, air, fire and water which have formed life on this planet we inhabit. And the only way this accelerated and destructive disturbance, disruption and impermanence can be stopped is collectively and collaboratively, through insight and awareness and individual decisions to change our own ignorant and impulsive, compulsive action. 'If there's one thing that I've learned/ It's the point of no return/ And if that's to be our fate/ Now's no time to hesitate' (as the Australian band, The Hoodoo Gurus, have rightly said.)

If we require aspirations to a nobler truth to be enacted and demonstrated and shown to us, we can find these shown in art. Living artworks are not objects but works in progress, activated by the consciousness of each responder. We can see the world through the visionary awareness of someone who sees it, and loves it, and restores our faith in it, and by doing so fortifies our sense of connection with it.

It may be all we can save. An artist's vision of the vanishing world is an artefact which acts to revision and restore our relationship with that world. Something we can own, and position in the space we occupy every day, which speaks to us: which re-ignites our belief, which renews our hope, which restores us, and improves our relationship with our surrounding environment, both social and geographical.

3. ART AS INVESTMENT

Not An Object/Commodity, But A Living & Dynamic Entity

Art Installations  - Anoma Wijewardene's Art Works

A painting may seem inanimate because it hangs on the wall of a building. But an art installation is a large free standing structure, and has access points from many angles: it is an interactive entity. It contains textured, composite aspects, and expresses in its panels and swathes and vertical positioning the beauty, fragility, impermanence and transience of the physical world. An artist's vision is not a camera lens, or a digitised representation. The artwork a creative artist produces is full of the artist's personal feeling, and ideas and private thoughts, to which we respond.

This is why many of the great galleries of the world have seats provided, on which an observer can situate themselves to contemplate the work they are viewing, and meditate on what they are seeing and experiencing, in unscheduled time, extracted from their daily routine and the demands on their effort and energy. In a world of time-sensitive actions and deadlines, such time and opportunity to contemplate the vision of another human being is a lifeline.

I first saw Anoma Wijewardene's work in the 'Earthlines' Exhibition which was held in Galle during the Fairway Galle Literary Festival in January this year. There were powerful visions of the world and humanity expressed in each canvas and construction. There was crisis and urgency, and a sense of the precarious position in which we as a race now find ourselves. I was particularly struck by two landscapes: a seascape and a waterfall cascading down a rockface under a red moon/sun. I could see the shapes of the landforms, like the implicit  formative bone structures under the skin and features of the human body. I could see textures of ground, and sand, and feel the colours and the temperatures they suggested, of the earth, of the water, and the connected and cumulative responses in myself.

The landscapes I saw in the 'Earthlines' exhibition in Galle show people suspended: caught in the flow of streaming energy, minerals and light and fractals of powerful bodies of rock and water. Without the perspective of a dissecting analytical electron microscope, we still feel we can see into the structures and essences of the earth around us, with which we are connected, from which we are formed. The titles of Anoma's works often express this elemental interconnectedness between human beings and the world we have externalised: 'Each Cerulean Sea Swells Through Our Veins', for example, shows striated water as layered as earth, its colours and weaves reflecting and refracting and diffracting around a floating figure, who is gently supported in a luminous, surrounding, suffusing cloud: an upsurge and wash of visualised energy. We cannot ascertain where this energy ends or begins: is the person activated by this radiant forceful light, or are they giving their energy back, exuding it, to the air above them? Is it a dynamic of give - or take? After seeing this painting, how can we not see that what is around us is also within us?

Anoma was invited to exhibit some of her installations in a glorious exhibition at Sotheby's Gallery in Hong Kong, as part of the 'One Belt, One Road' event, hosted by The Hong Kong Federation of Women, from 12-16 April.  This event is part of what has been called ' the biggest geopolitical, economic, and cultural project of the 21st century'. Some of the greatest living contemporary female artists from countries located along the ancient 'Silk Road' were invited to showcase their work and visions in this exhibition, to highlight the powerful physical and social interconnections, industrial, commercial and cultural, operating in Eurasia. Anoma's work was chosen to represent the whole region of South Asia, and has been praised for its evocation of ecological awareness and the profound impact that our relationships with our world have, on our identities and our cultures. Her exhibit is called 'Earth, Rise Within Us'.

An artist's instinct is creative; and the urgency to create in a world which is disintegrating and devolving is the opposite of Nihilism. The artist finds meaning in the act and process of creation itself. Lasting beauty is generated by deployment of skill, catalysed by the external imposition of a survivalistic imperative.