Atawaka puththu by Liyanage Amarakeerthi is a unique book which discusses a wide span of contemporary topics. Reading this few days ago imbued me with a strange feeling which is a blend of nostalgia, wisdom, compassion and equanimity together with an irresistible desire to write down something about what I just read. Among many topics discussed in the book, taking the road less travelled by becomes a concealed theme which can be related to the whole book as well as life in general. The Robert Frost’s monumental poem “the road not taken” which is about making choices is used in the book to discuss some profound problems, dilemmas and choices people come across in their lives. The poem ideally suits for this since it doesn’t moralize the choices, but emphasizes the uncertainty about the appropriateness of the choice. Damayantha has to face this kind of situations in many occasions throughout novel like handing over the letter to anoma, decision to sabotage the examination using violence and joining the DJV, handling the delicate situation when Dilki falls in love with Ravi. Nanda’s decision to choose either academia or Prof. Ekanayake’s path etc…
The next part of the book starts with a description of Ravi who becomes a main character of the book in consequent pages. Ravi and Damayantha together forms a kind of binary opposition which depicts the ideological differences between rural and urban youth. These differences slightly resemble the description of petite bourgeois and urban proletarian, in Marxism. But we see that the reality of social relationships is more complicated which cannot be reduced to a particular analysis according to a particular philosophy. At the same time (in the conference hall scene in which damayantha and ravi meets for the first time) this also shows the extent to which our so called artists and related subculture is rotten and how they go after ministers and other authorities just for the sake of privileges and favors. After two friends get arrested, the writer takes Nanda back to the play with the issue of finding a person to bail out Damayantha. The story then revolves around Nanda’s life and the writer ridicules the whole university subculture and lecturers who does tuition. The names of these tuition institutes themselves carry subtle irony. Names like oxford, Cambridge and Harvard becomes satirical in this context. The writer also mention about great expectations Nanda had and role models he had like Dr Adikaram, Prof. Sarachchandra and how sloth can destroy those dreams and cause him to end up as a mundane person. This quite resembles ‘walmath wee hasarak nodutim’, a novel by Sarachchandra.
The writer sees both pros and cons of both DJV and government in objective manner. How Nanda’s image and personality dominate Damayantha and affect Damayantha’s attitudes and the ideological hegemony Nanda has towards Damayantha resembles Amarasekara’s short story “piya sulupiya saha putha”. Nanda’s dream about pala putha’s train is a symbolic representation of the plight of Srilanka as well as individuals like Nanda and at the end he sees Anoma which make the dream more natural and personal. How old ideals have been lost in this struggle to survive in Colombo in this capitalistic society which produces goods as well as demand for goods, the change of values, value conflict and the ultimate result of it is nicely depicted in the nostalgic retrospect of the student life of Nanda. Hypocrisy he had as a result of the society in which he was brought up and other aspects of his character and personality is nicely shown here in this part of the story. The Aquinas and Cambridge dilemma Nanda face as an assistant lecturer symbolizes this conflict of values.
The next part discusses the class distinction based on language using Dilki, Damayantha and Ravi. The writer also brings Samudra who is a girl from village, to the story at this time who can be compared and contrasted with Dilki. In subsequent pages, Ravi reveals his plans about Anisha, to Damayantha. Police SI and his sexual jealousy and its complicated nature which make him torture Ravi, is quite new to Damayantha. Later Ravi seriously falls in love with Anisha which cause her to face a dilemma. This again shows us the complicated nature of relationships in present social context. In those days in so called unspoiled villages, naive simple love existed and so were the relationships. But contrary to that, the nature of relationships has changed dramatically as society evolved. We can compare Anoma & Nanda VS Ravi & Anisha to make this point more clear. Ravi’s mere intention was to revenge from the SI until he falls in love with Anisha and Anisha herself is in dilemma because of fear towards SI and love about Ravi. This whole thing is very sophisticated compared to the simple love of Anoma and Nanda.
Samudra’s incident shows how sudden impulse can change people and how Damayantha’s sudden outburst with violence later cause him to get stuck in it. It all happens so quickly and he ends up as DJV activist in couple of days. Maybe this process can be generalized to understand how most of the youth joined that organization in those days. It does not happen after rigorous philosophical in-depth thinking about what’s right or wrong. But it was not a mere impulse which causes Damayantha to take this decision. Samudra’s plight motivated him to make the decision, change his ideology and undergo a transformation process. So it’s an impulse together with an experience associated with social injustice which caused people to take that step. The place where Damayantha talks with Rajiv and Nanditha shows his inner conflict and hidden guilt associated with Anoma’s letter. He recalls all things about that incident and unconsciously believes that things might have been completely different if he gave the letter to Nanda, which might be true. Whenever Rajiv reveals his stance and nanditha shows her disgust towards Nanda, Damayantha recalls phrases and sentences from old conversations associated with Anoma and Nanda. (pg278-280) This part of the book is very cleverly written and reveals Damayantha’s character. The dogmatic nature of most of the rural youth who joined DJV movement, how their naïve political ideology is constrained by slogans and limited exposure to various aspects of the society is also shown in this conversation.
But again the affectionate friendship of Ravi, Dilki and Anisha who visits Damayantha questions the raw simple class concept of DJV. Rajiv’s makes a sarcastic statement about being with Ravi and friends and skipping DJV meeting which reveals Rajiv’s hostility towards Ravi and friends. According to this classification, Engels also might have been branded as bourgeois and being ostracized if he lived there in srilanka in those days. We know how other leftist leaders were assassinated in those days in cold blood. As Amarasekara also has pointed out in his earlier work, inferiority complex is a main reason which motivates petite bourgeois youth to be militant. Damayantha also says to Ravi, “palayan ban yanna, eyala kawda api kawda? ” when Ravi mentions about Dilki (page289) Damayantha’s struggle with his Victorian ideals about sex which make sex mysterious thing, and natural desire to go to Dilki and his inner psyche is nicely shown in that night they spend in the village. Rajiv’s hostility towards Ravi and Dilki, and later surrendering to Army, Damayantha’s attitude about pol sunil and doubts about potential of pol sunil to be a good activist, all together reveals interesting aspects of the common mindset of people in that kind of village subculture. Because of being socially conditioned by the folk society and the above mentioned mindset, Damayantha believes that pol sunil cannot be good political activist. But at the same times empirical observations make him reconsider his opinion. This inner conflict is nicely presented when Damayantha goes to a meeting with pol sunil after Rajiv surrender to army.
Damayantha forgets the name ‘Gotabaya’ when he just escaped from the police jeep with the help of sunil. He calls him sunil aiya instead of gotabaya. This shows how emotions and feelings predominate over names imposed on them by the organization. We can see that DJV ideology has not integrated with the deepest roots of souls of rural youth and its artificial nature which has neglected the material reality of grassroots level. This dogmatic nature of the organization becomes apparent to the reader when they try to assassin the village midwife who is a radical individual, because of voting. Damayantha leaves back to Colombo and gets to know that his studentship has been cancelled because of getting involved the riot and sabotaging the examination. Nanda’s pragmatic attitude about this and how he tries to gain advantage of this in a selfish way is very interesting. Cambridge owner offers Damayantha to teach A/L which is very symbolic in the sense it symbolizes what can happen to an individual like damayantha in such scenario. Cambridge owner becomes a friend of Damayantha because Damayantha attacked a professor with whom he had disputes. Damayantha realizes that something is wrong in his politics when he sees that this kind of people also indirectly gains the advantage of things DJV does. Throughout the story, Prof. Ekanayake’s plays quite significant role which quite resembles characters we have met in books like “Mage naduwa iwarai” and “Aththa bindei paya burulen” and we can see what happens to him in last few pages of the book which again reminds us the impermanence and make us sympathize about his plight.
The last part of the book turnout to be very different and interesting story. Sometimes we feel that this is a product of a collective effort of Gunadasa amarasekara, John Grisham, Boris Pasternak, and G.B.Senanayake because of the style and the content of the book. It discusses the mentality of rural youth and its limitations, becomes an intriguing detective story (when Damayantha has been abducted) , Shows the inner conflict of characters and psychological aspects of characters, and also discusses the hardships individuals undergo when this kind of militant struggle is carried out.
The story of Dilki’s family which is presented next bears a resemblance to Indira’s ostalgic memories about her mom and childhood in “Premaye sathya kathawa” (by Amarasekara). As individual characters also, Indira and Dilki have many similarities. The story smoothly flows since then until Damayantha becomes Suneth and goes to Sarartha and talks to a girl called Randima confidently after going through a sophistication process using library and other resources there and then, the story is propelled towards a dramatic ending. This final part of the book shows how life experiences can groom a person to be a matured, worldly and complete person. Suneth is almost free from naïve immature reactionary Damayantha because of experiences he had and the productive time he spent in Sarartha. Nanda’s mental disorder also gets healed by being in his native village up to which roots of his illness, guilt and controversies extend. Dr Zoysa and Pradeep from Jaffna visits Nanda and they have very interesting discussion about the country as well as university education. Nanda with his wife and daughter finds the life and missing parts of it while being in the village once again. Retired from pursuit of false values which were presented to them by the capitalistic society, they start a new life. Nanda is going to resume his intellectual life which was paused when he started tuition and Nayani who was a conservative wife becomes a social activist who eventually becomes the leader of a movement which challenges the existing government. She is particularly motivated by the guilt of not answering to Damayantha’s call which again shows us how a particular incident or experience can affect one’s life and can result in a dramatic change.
The remaining part of the book sums up to a very good conclusion. The writer artistically points out the impermanence as a fundamental reality by showing the new era after the armed uprising of DJV and the oppression carried out by government in response. Ravi is emerged in his own work and Dilki too is busy and new Suneth realizes impermanence, emptiness and loneliness while being at Sarartha. Ravi is not single anymore, but a family and Suneth is experiencing a profound loneliness as if he lost his twin again. In these days, Suneth finds a book from Sarartha library which discuses this concept of twin or soul mate in a profound philosophical problem. But Anisha’s gets assassinated in cold blood by her ex boyfriend who was the police SI which again makes the whole outset topsy-turvy. This part of the book is simply awesome. Dilki falls in love with Ravi while they try to empathize with Ravi who is miserable after Anisha’s departure. In fact we can see that Dilki had vestiges of her feelings she had on the first day she met Ravi in conference hall (the day on which Ravi and Damayantha was arrested) and at the same time we cannot see any lapse of her love or whatever feelings she had towards Damayantha. The whole story therefore points out the intricate, profound, subtle, complicated nature of the phenomena called love. Love is indefinable for sure and is hard to distinguish with certainty by comparing the consistence with a certain predefined criteria. And the way it operates cannot be quantified and measured, cannot be theorized and is always mind boggling like quantum physics. Meanwhile the pursuits of charactors for better society also continue. Ravi reveals the astute plans minister had regarding the teledrama he acts which again reminds us that most of the things in this society which looks nice and awesome overtly, is not really independent from capital and horrendous plans and agendas of some invisible personals which make us recall the metaphor, Kafka’s world which is extensively used in this book. Meanwhile Nanda and Nayani together with Vajira reveal the rotten character of Prof. Ekanayake while taking part in many other social activities in a positive way.
As a whole the book is a very unique piece of work which cleverly discusses a variety of themes simultaneously and consistently which is quite similar to life itself. It make anybody who has a personal history, to go back to his nostalgic memories and recall about friends, soul mates, congenial companions, teachers and other people who are there in his/her life, and at its culmination, it makes the reader to perceive what life is, as a whole at once. This novel (especially the end) contains life, its profound philosophical depth as well as beauty and delight, which poets like Frost and Sekara saw.
Dileepa Karunarathna
karu_dr@ieee.org
30 August 2009
Note:
I almost could not observe weaknesses of the book which might be either because I was too much attached to the book and story which can affect the ability to think objectively and because I write this just couple of days after finished reading, or because the book is simply perfect.
Liyanage Amarakeerthi
The first 50 or 60 pages of the book is little different from the rest of the book in the sense it is written in different style. Especially the beginning of the book sounds agitated and the concept of twin is presented in the same style which makes the reader bewildered at first. But again one would say that there is no other way to present it and can also argue that it’s the hectic disoriented nature of the society or of that particular generation which has been symbolized in that temperament. But the writer soon gains a rhythm which is there constantly throughout the rest of the book. And we can also see that the writer is satirical about the folk culture and doesn’t treat it as a sacred thing. This equanimity is quite rare among writers since most of the writers talk about the generations, social evolution and folk culture as a nostalgic reminiscence rather than being equanimious about changes. This uniqueness of style can be seen when the land dispute is presented using Damayantha’s perspective. The eternal conflict between love, and social norms and personal dignity is depicted in love of nanda and anoma. What she asks from Nanda is to do exam again and get a so called ‘good’ job. But the stubborn nature of young Nanda doesn’t change and he get involved in things like bicycle races until Anoma commits suicide. According to Damayantha, getting through examinations, permanent jobs are words dismayed by nanda in those days. Though these social constrains are not the only reason for this tragedy, It can be considered as the prime reason.The next part of the book starts with a description of Ravi who becomes a main character of the book in consequent pages. Ravi and Damayantha together forms a kind of binary opposition which depicts the ideological differences between rural and urban youth. These differences slightly resemble the description of petite bourgeois and urban proletarian, in Marxism. But we see that the reality of social relationships is more complicated which cannot be reduced to a particular analysis according to a particular philosophy. At the same time (in the conference hall scene in which damayantha and ravi meets for the first time) this also shows the extent to which our so called artists and related subculture is rotten and how they go after ministers and other authorities just for the sake of privileges and favors. After two friends get arrested, the writer takes Nanda back to the play with the issue of finding a person to bail out Damayantha. The story then revolves around Nanda’s life and the writer ridicules the whole university subculture and lecturers who does tuition. The names of these tuition institutes themselves carry subtle irony. Names like oxford, Cambridge and Harvard becomes satirical in this context. The writer also mention about great expectations Nanda had and role models he had like Dr Adikaram, Prof. Sarachchandra and how sloth can destroy those dreams and cause him to end up as a mundane person. This quite resembles ‘walmath wee hasarak nodutim’, a novel by Sarachchandra.
The writer sees both pros and cons of both DJV and government in objective manner. How Nanda’s image and personality dominate Damayantha and affect Damayantha’s attitudes and the ideological hegemony Nanda has towards Damayantha resembles Amarasekara’s short story “piya sulupiya saha putha”. Nanda’s dream about pala putha’s train is a symbolic representation of the plight of Srilanka as well as individuals like Nanda and at the end he sees Anoma which make the dream more natural and personal. How old ideals have been lost in this struggle to survive in Colombo in this capitalistic society which produces goods as well as demand for goods, the change of values, value conflict and the ultimate result of it is nicely depicted in the nostalgic retrospect of the student life of Nanda. Hypocrisy he had as a result of the society in which he was brought up and other aspects of his character and personality is nicely shown here in this part of the story. The Aquinas and Cambridge dilemma Nanda face as an assistant lecturer symbolizes this conflict of values.
The next part discusses the class distinction based on language using Dilki, Damayantha and Ravi. The writer also brings Samudra who is a girl from village, to the story at this time who can be compared and contrasted with Dilki. In subsequent pages, Ravi reveals his plans about Anisha, to Damayantha. Police SI and his sexual jealousy and its complicated nature which make him torture Ravi, is quite new to Damayantha. Later Ravi seriously falls in love with Anisha which cause her to face a dilemma. This again shows us the complicated nature of relationships in present social context. In those days in so called unspoiled villages, naive simple love existed and so were the relationships. But contrary to that, the nature of relationships has changed dramatically as society evolved. We can compare Anoma & Nanda VS Ravi & Anisha to make this point more clear. Ravi’s mere intention was to revenge from the SI until he falls in love with Anisha and Anisha herself is in dilemma because of fear towards SI and love about Ravi. This whole thing is very sophisticated compared to the simple love of Anoma and Nanda.
Samudra’s incident shows how sudden impulse can change people and how Damayantha’s sudden outburst with violence later cause him to get stuck in it. It all happens so quickly and he ends up as DJV activist in couple of days. Maybe this process can be generalized to understand how most of the youth joined that organization in those days. It does not happen after rigorous philosophical in-depth thinking about what’s right or wrong. But it was not a mere impulse which causes Damayantha to take this decision. Samudra’s plight motivated him to make the decision, change his ideology and undergo a transformation process. So it’s an impulse together with an experience associated with social injustice which caused people to take that step. The place where Damayantha talks with Rajiv and Nanditha shows his inner conflict and hidden guilt associated with Anoma’s letter. He recalls all things about that incident and unconsciously believes that things might have been completely different if he gave the letter to Nanda, which might be true. Whenever Rajiv reveals his stance and nanditha shows her disgust towards Nanda, Damayantha recalls phrases and sentences from old conversations associated with Anoma and Nanda. (pg278-280) This part of the book is very cleverly written and reveals Damayantha’s character. The dogmatic nature of most of the rural youth who joined DJV movement, how their naïve political ideology is constrained by slogans and limited exposure to various aspects of the society is also shown in this conversation.
But again the affectionate friendship of Ravi, Dilki and Anisha who visits Damayantha questions the raw simple class concept of DJV. Rajiv’s makes a sarcastic statement about being with Ravi and friends and skipping DJV meeting which reveals Rajiv’s hostility towards Ravi and friends. According to this classification, Engels also might have been branded as bourgeois and being ostracized if he lived there in srilanka in those days. We know how other leftist leaders were assassinated in those days in cold blood. As Amarasekara also has pointed out in his earlier work, inferiority complex is a main reason which motivates petite bourgeois youth to be militant. Damayantha also says to Ravi, “palayan ban yanna, eyala kawda api kawda? ” when Ravi mentions about Dilki (page289) Damayantha’s struggle with his Victorian ideals about sex which make sex mysterious thing, and natural desire to go to Dilki and his inner psyche is nicely shown in that night they spend in the village. Rajiv’s hostility towards Ravi and Dilki, and later surrendering to Army, Damayantha’s attitude about pol sunil and doubts about potential of pol sunil to be a good activist, all together reveals interesting aspects of the common mindset of people in that kind of village subculture. Because of being socially conditioned by the folk society and the above mentioned mindset, Damayantha believes that pol sunil cannot be good political activist. But at the same times empirical observations make him reconsider his opinion. This inner conflict is nicely presented when Damayantha goes to a meeting with pol sunil after Rajiv surrender to army.
Damayantha forgets the name ‘Gotabaya’ when he just escaped from the police jeep with the help of sunil. He calls him sunil aiya instead of gotabaya. This shows how emotions and feelings predominate over names imposed on them by the organization. We can see that DJV ideology has not integrated with the deepest roots of souls of rural youth and its artificial nature which has neglected the material reality of grassroots level. This dogmatic nature of the organization becomes apparent to the reader when they try to assassin the village midwife who is a radical individual, because of voting. Damayantha leaves back to Colombo and gets to know that his studentship has been cancelled because of getting involved the riot and sabotaging the examination. Nanda’s pragmatic attitude about this and how he tries to gain advantage of this in a selfish way is very interesting. Cambridge owner offers Damayantha to teach A/L which is very symbolic in the sense it symbolizes what can happen to an individual like damayantha in such scenario. Cambridge owner becomes a friend of Damayantha because Damayantha attacked a professor with whom he had disputes. Damayantha realizes that something is wrong in his politics when he sees that this kind of people also indirectly gains the advantage of things DJV does. Throughout the story, Prof. Ekanayake’s plays quite significant role which quite resembles characters we have met in books like “Mage naduwa iwarai” and “Aththa bindei paya burulen” and we can see what happens to him in last few pages of the book which again reminds us the impermanence and make us sympathize about his plight.
The last part of the book turnout to be very different and interesting story. Sometimes we feel that this is a product of a collective effort of Gunadasa amarasekara, John Grisham, Boris Pasternak, and G.B.Senanayake because of the style and the content of the book. It discusses the mentality of rural youth and its limitations, becomes an intriguing detective story (when Damayantha has been abducted) , Shows the inner conflict of characters and psychological aspects of characters, and also discusses the hardships individuals undergo when this kind of militant struggle is carried out.
The story of Dilki’s family which is presented next bears a resemblance to Indira’s ostalgic memories about her mom and childhood in “Premaye sathya kathawa” (by Amarasekara). As individual characters also, Indira and Dilki have many similarities. The story smoothly flows since then until Damayantha becomes Suneth and goes to Sarartha and talks to a girl called Randima confidently after going through a sophistication process using library and other resources there and then, the story is propelled towards a dramatic ending. This final part of the book shows how life experiences can groom a person to be a matured, worldly and complete person. Suneth is almost free from naïve immature reactionary Damayantha because of experiences he had and the productive time he spent in Sarartha. Nanda’s mental disorder also gets healed by being in his native village up to which roots of his illness, guilt and controversies extend. Dr Zoysa and Pradeep from Jaffna visits Nanda and they have very interesting discussion about the country as well as university education. Nanda with his wife and daughter finds the life and missing parts of it while being in the village once again. Retired from pursuit of false values which were presented to them by the capitalistic society, they start a new life. Nanda is going to resume his intellectual life which was paused when he started tuition and Nayani who was a conservative wife becomes a social activist who eventually becomes the leader of a movement which challenges the existing government. She is particularly motivated by the guilt of not answering to Damayantha’s call which again shows us how a particular incident or experience can affect one’s life and can result in a dramatic change.
The remaining part of the book sums up to a very good conclusion. The writer artistically points out the impermanence as a fundamental reality by showing the new era after the armed uprising of DJV and the oppression carried out by government in response. Ravi is emerged in his own work and Dilki too is busy and new Suneth realizes impermanence, emptiness and loneliness while being at Sarartha. Ravi is not single anymore, but a family and Suneth is experiencing a profound loneliness as if he lost his twin again. In these days, Suneth finds a book from Sarartha library which discuses this concept of twin or soul mate in a profound philosophical problem. But Anisha’s gets assassinated in cold blood by her ex boyfriend who was the police SI which again makes the whole outset topsy-turvy. This part of the book is simply awesome. Dilki falls in love with Ravi while they try to empathize with Ravi who is miserable after Anisha’s departure. In fact we can see that Dilki had vestiges of her feelings she had on the first day she met Ravi in conference hall (the day on which Ravi and Damayantha was arrested) and at the same time we cannot see any lapse of her love or whatever feelings she had towards Damayantha. The whole story therefore points out the intricate, profound, subtle, complicated nature of the phenomena called love. Love is indefinable for sure and is hard to distinguish with certainty by comparing the consistence with a certain predefined criteria. And the way it operates cannot be quantified and measured, cannot be theorized and is always mind boggling like quantum physics. Meanwhile the pursuits of charactors for better society also continue. Ravi reveals the astute plans minister had regarding the teledrama he acts which again reminds us that most of the things in this society which looks nice and awesome overtly, is not really independent from capital and horrendous plans and agendas of some invisible personals which make us recall the metaphor, Kafka’s world which is extensively used in this book. Meanwhile Nanda and Nayani together with Vajira reveal the rotten character of Prof. Ekanayake while taking part in many other social activities in a positive way.
As a whole the book is a very unique piece of work which cleverly discusses a variety of themes simultaneously and consistently which is quite similar to life itself. It make anybody who has a personal history, to go back to his nostalgic memories and recall about friends, soul mates, congenial companions, teachers and other people who are there in his/her life, and at its culmination, it makes the reader to perceive what life is, as a whole at once. This novel (especially the end) contains life, its profound philosophical depth as well as beauty and delight, which poets like Frost and Sekara saw.
Dileepa Karunarathna
karu_dr@ieee.org
30 August 2009
Note:
I almost could not observe weaknesses of the book which might be either because I was too much attached to the book and story which can affect the ability to think objectively and because I write this just couple of days after finished reading, or because the book is simply perfect.
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