Arts
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writer who fell into writing I’ll make you a deal. When I escape you’ll be the first to know. That’s a line that belongs to Suresh – from Delon Weerasinghe’s Gratiaen Prize-winning play Thicker Than Blood. But it may as well be Delon speaking, for he’s never escaped either. But where Suresh, the disabled ex-soldier who is the protagonist in the work, can never escape the memory of war, Delon’s never escaped that need to speak out against most things that most people prefer to forget, ignore or casually turn a blind eye on. Delon writes – he has been writing for as long as anyone’s known him – because he always has something to say. Suresh has another line somewhere. There isn’t another word for killing just because it’s war. If you catch fish you’re a fisherman, you drive a taxi, you’re a taxi driver… and if you have something to say, are you then a writer? I needed to write, he says simply. Write what other people weren’t writing about, from angles they weren’t writing it from. Delon, who’s 27 years now, remembers a much younger him as he says this. The person he was a few years ago at YA TV, where as an ‘independent producer’, he made films on a series of human rights – and whether it’s sitting somewhere reading up on the concepts behind rights issues or slam-bang in the middle of action, filming a programme on child prostitutes in Negombo, it’s issues-based work that drives him. That’s the journalist in this writer. Journalism brings to mind Delon’s first writing assignments – the Kenny’s World column in The Sunday Times. At eighteen, just out of school, Delon was a voraciously-read writer, whose identity was a hotly-debated issue at the time. From the evolution of the world to the possibilities of a ‘Hello Out There’ column, Delon’s Kenny debated, interrogated and poked fun at just about every aspect of life, relentlessly defamiliarising the familiarity of everyone’s favourite comfort zones. Following a diploma course in Journalism and Mass Communication at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, he, however, ended up in television journalism. That, he says, is where he really wanted to be. “I never wanted to do print – it was something I fell into.” And a column that started for a couple of weeks ended up running for two years in the hands of a writer who enjoyed every minute of writing it. “I once wrote an Agony Aunt spoof, and even got real letters in response!” He is first delighted, then serious – immediately sensitive to the fact that there were real people with problems writing those letters. “Comedy is often irreverent, and you find that you inadvertently cross the line.” Delon’s certainly not your ivory-tower writer. He connects. He is also not afraid to experiment – trying out every space, genre, style and medium offered to the writer. While Thicker Than Blood, developed at the Royal Court International Residency (2001) in London, is thus far his only ‘public’ play, he has tried his hand at documentaries, film scripts, dramaturgy, editing for WriteClique, a space created by Delon in collaboration with the British Council for writers to publish work online and even online writing for a BBC World Service Radio project called ‘webs we weave’, which brought together a selection of writers from around the world, who workshopped online, a series of playlets that eventually made up a single script. It’s pretty much the way he says it – “All the work I do involves writing, and that forms the basis of everything else I do.” So when did you start taking yourself seriously as a writer? I plan to in a few years time, he jokes. You must have, to have sent your play in for the Gratiaen. And then he thinks out aloud. “Not really.” For him, it’s simply – “I wrote the play between 2000 and 2001, and it’s always been at the back of my mind that I must send it in – for what it’s worth. It’s something I’ve written… and completed.” But he’d never really thought Thicker Than Blood was a Gratiaen “prospect”. You’re up against a lot in terms of genre – for the life of a play is on stage, and that is where it is best judged. Yes, a play has won before, but… he trails off. Performed
twice in Sri Lanka and in Bangalore, Thicker Than Blood is a play
written by two people. A sixteen-year-old and someone who knows
better. The work was first a short play called Who Will Bury The
Dead? that mooted something a very young Delon felt, living in a
country where there has been a war for a major part of his life
– ‘Why can’t we just get along?’ A soldier,
who came from a place of “complete naïveté”,
was an easy protagonist to pick. “I had grown up.” In its reworking, the original scenes were carefully worked into a much larger context. The war was no longer out there in the battlefield, it was brought into a home, tearing apart a family. “The old ideas of war and peace in the ‘real’ context can sound idealistic, unrealistic even. But I left them, because I wanted those ideas to be discredited when placed within the context I introduced later on. The point was that war wasn’t romantic – and peace was even less romantic than war.” The beginnings of this winning work were in the hands of a boy who hadn’t written more than an essay. “I could write I know that – ish.” But, what was once a talent more about enjoying words and creating art with letters has been replaced by a slightly more serious writer’s need to simply communicate a strongly-felt idea. In this case, it’s the strength of integrity – often so easily compromised. Suresh, who refuses to be the ‘war hero’ that political propaganda needs to justify war, discovers the value of his personal integrity, and dies for it. It is this which makes it a story of courage. As he received his award, there was a woman in the audience who was another story of courage – a more personal one. Delon’s mother, who after his father Ranil Weerasinghe died had given everything, sometimes even working three jobs, to support him. That night she was the star, and the work of personal courage was hers. Drifting off to talk about his father, the journalist who must have inspired in his son the thirst to communicate, Delon suddenly remembers how as a News Editor his father was supposed to have made a writer redo his work 14 times. That’s Delon – always appreciative of meticulous attention to detail. Thicker
Than Blood alone has been read over many times and rewritten as
many times, where everything implicit somewhere else was taken out
by the writer, engrossed in the process of fine tuning his writing.
The play, as a result, is tight – in terms of pace, “relentless”
is what the judges called it. As he explains his theory he’s excited by the idea, focused, explaining minute details, while waving his arms about to illustrate his point, or the arch. Suddenly I remember a Delon in school, who gaily donned a mop on his head and playacted an old aunty gossiping over a wall, keeping his audience in fits of laughter. He’s grown up, as he pointed out during the interview, but that spirit is still there. And though he’s a self- professed “slow writer”, he does have a film script in the works, many more ideas and so much to say. Stepping
in time to perfect harmony The show opened as is traditional, with a pooja dance performed by the hearing impaired. Without hearing the music or drums, the dancers kept excellent rhythm with the drum and the dance master giving them signs of any change of the dance sequence. The same excellence of the dance form was shown in a subsequent item – the Gajaga Vannama. As the performers could not hear sounds, the enraptured audience was moving their hands above their heads as instructed by the compere Geethanjali Algama, who too did an excellent job as a presenter. I hope the vigour of our hand movements would have given sufficient encouragement to this hearing impaired dance troupe. A beautiful baritone voice by a sight impaired person gave a solo rendition of “Eidelweiss” from the Sound Of Music sound track. Then a sight impaired orchestra gave an instrumental medley of both local and western songs – excellently harmonised, including the lead xylophone (by a person who could not see!). The sight impaired choir sang popular patriotic songs, as also in another vocal item entitled Rangiri Giri. They also did the tea pluckers’ dance, their movements and rhythm well synchronised. After the interval was a 45 minute ballet – Bathe Upatha performed by the hearing impaired, and the songs sung by the sight impaired. The story depicted was the birth of rice from the time of ploughing, through the harvest and threshing, up to the eating of rice. This was an expert performance, and no one would be able to say that they are differently abled. The performers, their backstage supporters, their patient trainers – the Master Mr. Amaradasa Thalgahagoda and Mrs. Ranee Fernando deserve all the plaudits and applause for doing almost the impossible, and showing that differently abled are as abled as any other. ‘There’s
rubbish and then there are the Delons, Carls and Shyams’ My
adventures this year however, began well before the Gratiaen, at
the British Council Book Fair, where I accosted Ameena Hussein (who
is still under the mistaken belief that I didn’t know she
was a judge). She was peacefully minding her stall in the company
of, inter alia, Ashok Ferry (short-listed a few years ago for ‘Colpetty
People’). Being in a cantankerous mood and having a relevant
target, I launched into my usual tirade about the Gratiaen. “It’s
so easy to go wrong with Sri Lankan writing isn’t it?”
I said, knowing full well that I was talking to a Sri Lankan writer
and a publisher of exclusively Sri Lankan writing (this is the approach
that gets me in the sort of jams I find myself in). I told them that I can say that because a lot of Sri Lankan creative writing in English is rubbish. This was again met with much consternation. I hastened to add that I wasn’t painting all Sri Lankan writers with the same brush but merely pointing out what I believe was, and still is, a statement of fact. A lot of the writing out there, in the newspapers, in magazines, on the internet is just plain – and I don’t know the academic term for this – rubbish. Self-indulgent and pretentious are just two of the adjectives that come to mind. And then you have the very good – like, for instance this year’s winner Delon Weerasinghe, and before him the Carl Mullers and Shyam Selvadurais of this world. Delon’s play ‘Thicker Than Blood’, is not strained. It doesn’t have characters telling each other that they ‘endorse’ the other’s decision – they just say ‘yeah machan’. They don’t call each other mater-copulater for fun, although they do swear when the situation calls for it. It was a play that due to its natural Sri Lankanness, drew, in turn, the most natural response from the audience when the extract was read. The laughter was familiar, and the characters related to. Delon’s dialogue doesn’t call for the cumbersome descriptions and plot revealing techniques that less adept writers need to resort to. It is this informal, yet technically proficient handling of the issues and narrative that would have made it an absolute crime if the play didn’t win on the night. Speaking to the Chairperson of the Panel of Judges, Dr. Dushy Mendis was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Having been used to academics over the years I was expecting a ‘and what pray, do you know?’ But I didn’t get that. Like many professors of linguistics before her, Dr. Mendis exuded authority, competence and focus in her presentation in the lead-up to the announcing of the winner. She didn’t delve into jargon and kept her comments brief, but enlightening. For the first time in a few years (I missed last year I must confess), I began to feel confident that everyone was finally on the same page with regards to what Michael Ondaatje wished his benevolence would discover. Creative writing, is, well… creative writing. But the prefix of ‘Sri Lankan’ must not escape us, and I got the distinct impression that it hadn’t escaped this panel of judges. The Sri Lankan experience, captured in the Sri Lankan idiom, is perhaps what writers aspire to, but judging by the little I have read and heard, many writers fall way short of any competence in this regard. After all, the Gratiaen Prize is for creative writing in ‘English’. Fears I voiced some years ago in these same pages, when this, the foremost prize for ‘creative’ writing was awarded to a translation seem to have been allayed, with the introduction of the separate H.A.I. Gunatilleke prize for best translation. My mind boggled as to how a prize for ‘creative’ writing could, by its very definition, be awarded to a translation. Which is why, I firmly believe that if there is no work worthy of the award, it should not be awarded in that year. My final thought will get me into a great deal of trouble, but never mind. While heaping praise on this year’s panel of judges who had what seemed like a fairly easy choice to make, I was of the opinion – which Dr. Mendis didn’t hit me for – that both genders should be represented on the panel of judges. Purely for the dichotomy of the thought processes exclusive to men and women. I feel the objectivity provided by such a balance will be invaluable especially in the assessment of subject matter. As Dr. Mendis pointed out though, there was plenty of arguing and opinion exchanging among the judges, and this can only be a good reflection of the work they critique. Even so, the essentialism of the male and female experience in society should perhaps be mirrored in the panel. As one of the Trustees remarked gleefully – “There is Hope.” Another
colourful Sunday pola The Chief Guest at the ceremony was Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Minister of Cultural and National Heritage. It was a pleasant Sunday morning as many local and foreign art lovers walked along the pavements enjoying and purchasing paintings, sculptures and other artifacts. This year a large number of students of the Institute of Aesthetic Studies of the Kelaniya University participated in the Kala Pola, making maximum use of the opportunity to exhibit their talents. Prageeth Ratnayake and Jayabuddhi Ratnayake are two students from the Institute of Aesthetic Studies and have participated in the Kala Pola over the last few years. Dinusha
from Ja-ela, though not a professional artist had the pleasure of
seeing his drawings among them, the ‘Bharatha Natyam Dancer’,
the ‘Young Buddhist Thero’ and ‘A gathering of
parrots’ being admired by many. “When I was a kid I enjoyed drawing on walls with charcoal and pieces of brick but my parents never objected. I believe every parent should give priority to children who show an interest in arts. It never begins with an expensive canvas or with quality water colours,” says Mihindu. Mihindu believes that an artist takes pleasure in what he draws and not in what he sells. Artists take pride in seeing their work being enjoyed by many. |
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