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Colourful tapestry of movement and character

"The Lonely Rapture" by Thiagaraja Arasanayagam
Arasanayagam is known in literary circles as a playwright of repute, having won the National State Award for his political play, "The Intruder". He has also a collection of three plays "Waiting for Kiruba" all dealing with the ethnic and socio-political situation in modern Sri Lanka.

"The Lonely Rapture" is Arasanayagam's first novel. It is the story of a man running away from his fears and the torments of society, taking him away from his roots. Thus it becomes a "journey", metaphorically his journey through life in which he will learn the secrets of survival in a world of the victim and the tormentor. This finally is one of the themes that emerges out of this novel. The protagonist encounters several situations generated by the conflict situation he finds himself in. Apart from the fact that the plot moves fast and smoothly, it is Arasanayagam's technique that holds the reader.

One of the techniques he uses is the movement of time and place. Time in the novel moves from the colonial to post colonial, and to the modern post-independence era of political and ethnic strife. Each of these periods is symbolized by the various characters that appear, such as the English planter and his suburbia wife who is unable to understand the people or even the culture of this country; the local versions of colonial culture in the form of the English educated Sinhalese who mimic their colonial masters; and the modern period by the scenes the writer presents of the violence let loose in Black July' 83. The writer also develops the idea of the movement of place (location) and this is made possible through the protagonist leaving his village and moving away from his roots. This begins his "Journey" which is a sequential movement of location which in turn runs parallel to two other features, namely, the movement of time (sometimes encapsulated) and secondly, the theme of growing up to maturity of the protagonist beginning with his childhood in a Kandyan village, his moving away to Colombo and then to Balapitiya and back to Colombo before he finally returns to his village for the final denounement.

Arasanayagam also presents the theme of alienation and ostracism through the experiences of the protagonist. He symbolizes all those suffering human beings be they Sinhalese, or any other minority ethnic group. Through the protagonist Arasanayagam brings out the theme and shows how vulnerable a person could be if he happened to be "the Other". It is society that determines he is "different" and has a series of nomenclature that will satisfy its ends, that is to treat "the other" with derision. So the protagonist is a "pissa", “a madman”, "naive" or a "simpleton”.

Thus in the novel it is the protagonist who has the problem and so it is he who has to overcome this conflict situation foisted on him by society. While reading this novel one cannot but think of the ethnic issues that we have faced over the past few decades.

The protagonist is also interesting for his ability to effortlessly shift from the world of reality to the world of fantasy. In this world he "sees" figures from Buddhist mythology, the Jataka Tales, and all those gods and devas surfacing. He also goes into the world of dreams and the supernatural. At certain moments in the novel the reader would experience a world confounded by the close running parallels of his worlds of reality and fantasy. And it is the experience that makes the novel interesting. The protagonist sometimes "escapes" from the ugly realities of violence, hatred, torment and exploitation he finds around him into this world of Gods and Devas.

Arasanayagam's minor characters too add colour to the story. There is his Punchiamma with her vituperative tongue; Mrs. Dias the widow who runs a photographic studio; her betel-chewing assistant who spent his days in a crowded room in Bombay where he lived with other Indians washing at an open tap in an alley and eating in the cheap Madras Hotel. But he transforms the mundane into the exotic, through the colourful sherbet and the exotic women, "the women who had left their heavenly niches in the rock temples of Khajuraho, to make their tryst with him in a perfumed 8 by 4 tenement room."

Then there is the English planter, the local westernized land owner, the underworld character he gets involved with in Colombo; the beggar colonies of Colombo controlled by the underworld character "Ari" and the blind beggar woman whom he is forced to look after. All these make the novel a colourful tapestry of life in Sri Lanka.

A school’s proud saga of humble beginnings

"With A Fistful Of Rice", unravels the fascinating saga of the founding of Mahamaya Girls’ School in Kandy at a time when Buddhist education had suffered a severe setback due to the relentless onslaughts of Christian missionary enterprise.

The "halmita iskole" was the derogatory term applied to it by the Westernized elite since the school began with funds collected by humble housewives collecting a fistful of rice every day in a clay pot and selling these pots periodically. Such was the need for a Buddhist girls school in Kandy providing English education.

The author Indrani Meegama in this well researched study reveals how the Kandyan and Low Country women got together to meet this challenge.

Her work therefore is not only an investigation into the beginnings of Buddhist women's education but also a history of women power.

The names of many women who would have remained "unhonoured and unsung" emerge from the pages of this book showing how commitment and concerted action by tradition-bound wives and mothers, by no means feminists, were successful in founding an educational institution which today is a beacon of light to the Kandyan districts. Considering their devotion to their cause, the names of Sarah Soysa, Hilda Westbrooke Kularatne, Bertha Rodgers Ratwatte and Soma Pujitha Goonewardene should be written in gold and Indrani Meegama should be congratulated for highlighting their inestimable services.

The work is well documented, both primary and secondary sources have been consulted with intensive care, and it is written in a fluent, readable style gripping the reader with personal anecdotes intermingled with a great deal of factual information, regarding the revolutionary socio-economic and cultural changes that were affecting the country in the early 20th century.

This book should be read not only by all Mahamayans past and present, but also by all those who are interested in the history of education and in the activities of women, who rendered a silent service and shaped the destinies of thousands of girls who entered the portals of Mahamaya, the school constructed by the fistfuls of rice collected by the humble housewives of the Kandyan areas.

-Dr. Lorna Dewaraja

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