The Virgin Wife: An Introduction

Writers like Kanchana Priyakantha are path breakers for a new breed of writers: writers whose first language is not English yet who choose to use English for whatever the reason in their compositions. Being a path breaker is a tough job. Literary forests, unlike those in the fairy tales Priyakantha seems to love so much, do not accommodate adventurous outsiders by bending sideways to show them their destined paths. In fact the field of English language writing is inbred to the extent that relationships among practitioners of this genre are almost incestuous. Most of these men and women guard their acre of the literary earth with such territorialism that trespassing is not recommended for the fainthearted. Therefore, the possibility of being laughed off of the foothills of the fragrant mounts frequented by the English speaking Muses and their male counterparts and the subsequent financial loss that is sure to follow could never be far from the mind of an outsider to the field of English literature in Sri Lanka. Looked at from this point of view, Priyakantha is doubly bold; for, not only does she write in English but also publishes her own books and books written by writers like her with scant regard to the sensitivities of the established. 

Priyakantha’s The Virgin Wife is a collection of poems that falls within the traditional range of sensibilities of the writer’s age and socio-economic sphere. Her poetry deals with themes such as female agency, love, soul, self-discovery, identity, and relationships.  

Female agency is a main theme in Priyakantha’s work. In “Another Eve”, the poetic persona is Eve, the first woman (?). Interestingly there are no references to either Adam or God. The Serpent is a-sexual. Therefore one could say that this poem is gynocentric in its outlook.  Eve is an outsider who goes to the Garden of Eden. It does not seem as she belongs there. She has pre-knowledge of a particular tree being forbidden but chooses to fall asleep under that very tree anyway. Is this an indication of an inherent streak of rebelliousness? In her sleep Eve dreams and in her dream the serpent comes to her. Is this a subliminal desire in her for knowledge and agency? With words like ‘silly’ and ‘sweet’ thrown both ways, the dialogue between the serpent in Eve’s dream and Eve borders on playful bantering or even outright flirtation. It is significant that the poet choses to spell serpent with a lower case ‘s’ which deprives it the traditional agency conferred on the Biblical Serpent. Then what does this particular ‘serpent’ represent? Is it a representation of evil, patriarchy, or something entirely different and positive? 

As in the Biblical version the serpent tries to compromise Eve. However, the poet adds a new twist to the old story – Eve in the poem is a carnivore. It would have been interesting had Eve eaten the serpent! Here, it is Eve, not God, that condemns the serpent to hell: “So, go to hell and suffer.” Eve, the narrator of poem as well as woman in the dream, is a woman with agency. But the narrator can be assertive only up to a certain point; thereafter she has to resort to dreaming. “Flightless Birds”, too, is a delightful poem on the powerless claiming agency. Being called an ostrich awakens a sense of inherent power in the poetic persona. So she says [sic.]: “But do you know/ what it’s capable of?/Don’t know?/Discovery would do some good.”    

Soul, losing one’s soul and the rediscovery of it, is a prominent focus in the collection. In “For You”, the first stanza the poetic persona presents a desire for a safe haven for her love to dwell. The use of “déjà vu”  implies that this meeting of souls in an out of the world place is something that had happened before. It is implied that some essence of the two souls is always left behind in the haven so that there would not be a complete severance of the bond between the two.

The narrator of “Farewell to Charms” is lost in a misty “deep dark wood” – Is this an echo of Frost’s poem “Stopping by the Woods”? She is searching for a well-lit path. The narrator has lost her soul due to “freakishly fake” flattery and “sweet sour promises” which were predestined to be broken. Who/what is this soul? She is issuing entreaties for the soul to resurrect itself. Donne-like, the poetic persona declares that she has not lost faith and the pain will heal itself as soon as the soul and she get together. The connection between the title and the content of the poem is not really clear. Does it imply a renunciation? 

Another often revisited theme in this collection is relationships and the pressure they impose on one’s  identity. “Anticipation” is a play on what women said to expect from their lovers. There are references to well-known 19^th century lovers: Rochester, Heathcliff, Darcy, and Eugene. The Great Gatsby – a 20^th century American lover - is also thrown into the equation, probably to give it a more modern twist. The poetic persona says she is waiting for a lover like one of the above. She is not quite sure of who exactly would please her. In the meantime she has to present a tranquil surface to the world. She feels that this effort puts too much pressure on her and she compares herself to a volcano ready to erupt. Ultimately, she rejects all the fictional lovers and settles on some unnamed lover. Yet even at the end of the poem she is still waiting unfulfilled, it seems.

In “Encounter” the poetic persona confesses to a dream in which she has met someone. Interestingly, the eyes of the two ‘lovers’ never meet thereby indicating that there is something false about their relationship. The relationship is never specified: “neither foe nor friend”; “Not acquaintances but more”. However, the narrator feels a deep attachment towards the other person: “I call your name”. But she is not sure whether that person feels the same about her: “wonder you do the same”. She senses that their relationship would end soon. She seems to feel that theirs is a holiday romance – a stopgap measure for the male to while away time. So she asks whether the other party would leave at the end of the winter.

“Embrace” is an entreaty to someone to take the poetic persona as she is. She finds the hesitation of the other party a form of “intoxicated indecision”. A book that is worth reading, this is how she sees herself. The prospective reader is either blind to or sceptical of the value of the endeavour. So, she offers herself again to be read: “Here I am/ Once again”. But she herself does not know how long she would remain thus: “but till when?” she asks.

“The Key” refers to the ‘high society’ practice of exchanging partners at parties for variety in sexual experiences. The reference to the lipstick, “the blood red one”, implies bold sexuality and desire for sexual gratification. The woman advices her partner not to forget the all-important key “dealing pleasure”. However, the woman seems to have mixed feelings about the experience: “Distasteful holy pacts,” she calls the practice. But then in the next line she advices her partner (or is it herself she is advising?) to forget what she said and tells her “darling” “never/forget the key”.

“Colours” is an entreaty to celebrate life in the memory of a departed loved one. There seems to be some imbedded references to popular films like “Walk to Remember” and “Last September” in this.  

 “The Scream” is about how people present a happy facade to the world even in the face of great adversities – something as profound as one’s soul being in intolerable pain. But the poem ends positively with the poetic persona waiting to be healed.

“Fairy Tale” is an interesting comparison of life and fairy tales. Our desire to believe in fairy tales and the possibility of fairy-tale like relationships despite the mounting evidence against the advisability of harbouring such ideas is explored. At another level this is about our unwillingness to give up hope or our deep desire to believe in the comforting truism that good begets good and bad begets bad. 

There are several poems that focus on the theme of self-discovery. The poetic persona in “Definition” (at the beginning, at least) appears untroubled by self-doubts. Then someone steps in “like a cop” and questions who she was. This plants doubts in the woman’s mind about who she was; she then contemplates on a series of options: is she a bitch or a goddess? She wonders whether she is someone sinister like Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll; Alex Rover’s drover Alexandra Rover; or even a hibernating volcano that might erupt at any moment.  She is doubtful of ever finding who she was and wonders whether it would really be important to the “cop”. In the end she remembers something said by Bernard Shaw: “You see things as they are;/ and you say why? I dream things/ that never were;/ and I say why not?” The entire endeavour leaves her exhausted.  

“The Fake” on the other hand is about someone who plays many parts. He is entrapped by his own play acting so there is no ‘real’ him. He is incapable of real feelings. In the end he is warned of being checkmated by the ‘queen’ and thrown into the oblivion away from the limelight he craves from which “recovery is a bluff’. And finally in “The Request” the poetic persona feels that the other party is losing himself by playacting and warns him against this possibility. It is an appeal for someone to be true to himself. She sees being oneself as being in a state of grace.

Priyakantha looks at familiar tales from a fresh point of view.  “The Magic Mirror” is sequel of the popular fairy tale Snow White. The poem explores our fear of aging. The tale has come full circle. In the poem instead of the wicked stepmother it is an aging Snow White that stands in front of the magic mirror trying to reassure herself that she still was the prettiest of them all. In “The Black Swan” (which is undoubtedly based on the tale The Swan Lake), the poet adds a new twist to the well-known story: the prince chooses the black swan on his own with no magical interferences to speak of.

Natural world too gives inspiration to Priyakantha’s work. In “Heaven”, heaven is defined as a place of togetherness. This view certainly is a blow to the individualistic values upheld by the present-day society. “Clouds” on the other hand is a delightfully whimsical description of clouds and their supposed functions. 

Priyakantha’s use of language swings from Renaissance to modern colloquial. I feel that her work would have benefitted more had she been more careful in her selection of words. In “Hear Me” she says:

This conundrum is a plague

The desire to get a glimpse of you,

The craving heart is so fond of you.

The passion wrapped in compassion.

The sanction is impassioned.  

However, the poet is capable of using language with stunning effect when she chooses to be careful. In “Embrace” the first line, “hesitation is an intoxicated indecision,” attests to this.

Priyakantha is often crippled by her preoccupation with maintaining the end rhyme. Lines that could have ended more profitably for the poem are often saddled with ill-sitting words only to maintain the rhyme. In “Entreaty”:

Oh, Father, be gentle and let me plead;

The sour hear, it wounded and rudely does bleed.

Be the light, show me the path and please be the lead.

Let me rise after the fall to have the souls freed.

In “Unforgettable” the poet goes a step further and engages in a rather disastrous experiment with assonance in her attempt to create an internal rhythm:

In a bleak blank black day

So desperate dragging a dream dark,

A tricky trap trampled trust,

Miracles manipulated meanings mauled. 

Yet, poems like “Clouds” in which the poet has not been too preoccupied with maintaining the end rhyme or internal rhythm tend to be effortless reads.

In general Priyakantha’s work deals with the sensibilities of a young urban middle class woman. There is a sense of genuineness in her attempts at self-expression that is often lacking in many other writers today. The quality of her work would have improved vastly had the poet sought the services of an editor and a proof-reader. Sadly these are facilities that are hard to come by for an aspiring writer who is outside the golden circle of the established English literati.     

Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe

Coterie theatre flourished briefly in the 17th century Britain as an underground resistance movement against the sociopolitical repression imposed on one of the most sublime creations of the human mind – Western theatre. Borella Punchi Theatre (PT) is the closest Sri Lankan equivalent to the British Coterie theatre, for it too was created at a time when the traditional theatre was held hostage by the sociopolitical and economic climate of the then war-torn country. While the other more traditional establishments were teetering on extinction, PT daringly facilitated a meeting point for those irrepressible theatre groups and their diehard audiences. In addition, it has offered a slightly different vista for Sri Lankan dramatists, both professional and armature, to work with which in most cases resulted in their audiences being given novel experiences.  To my mind experimental theatre work found a veritable greenhouse at PT. And this is a situation that bodes very well for the future of the Sri Lankan theatre in the long run, the only prohibitive factor being the relatively high ticket prices – this being an occupational hazard of being a coterie theater, I believe.

Last week I watched Udayasiri Wikramaratne’s Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe (A Pair of Lovers Wanted) at PT courtesy of a friend's kindness.  The drama dealt with diverse subjects such as the difference between ‘the real’ and the cinematic representation of the real; about romantic and filial love; and cinema as an industry. I must admit that I was intrigued why Wikramaratne should be staging a discussion on cinema as a craft/industry and not on the theatre.  The cast did their parts admirably well, given their limitations. Music, costumes, lighting, etc., too, had pitched in and done their work creditably. A special salute should be offered to the person in charge of casting, especially for his/her selections for the lead roles. Overall, the drama was a success.  However, as good as it was, I felt that there was something ‘off’ about the whole thing, not glaringly obvious, but nevertheless there, niggling at the very edge of one’s consciousness preventing the experience from being one of greater satisfaction.  It took a while for me to figure out what was ‘off’ about it: Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe was a drama clearly meant for the big stage. And had I been lucky enough to watch it being performed on a more regular stage my views on it would have been nothing but positive.

Performing on a larger theatre with the capacity to seat a couple of thousands and performing on a stage of much smaller scale such as the one on which Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe was performed at PT are not the same. Space, both literal and figurative, either offers or withholds possibilities. In that sense space is the very meat of a dramatic work with which the innovative dramatist experiments in the course of the making of a play. The entire production has to be fine-tuned to meet the specific traditions and explore the possibilities offered or withheld by the space of the venue in which a play is to be performed. Of course, there are exceptions who routinely ‘bend’ theatrical space to serve his/her purpose, and do it resoundingly well, too. I remember watching a performance of Vikurthi being played on a cramped school stage – the very crampedness of the stage (albeit unintentionally?) adding much to the overall theme of the play. However, in general, when it comes to a setting such as a coterie theater such as PT, the proximity between the actors and the audience gives the dramatist a rare opportunity to be on more intimate terms with his/her audience by using a more natural speaking voice, less makeup, more nuanced facial expressions and body language as well as a greater degree of back and forth between the stage and the audience. Had the director and most of the cast (the two leads seemed to have a greater awareness of the ‘limitations’ of their venue than the rest of the cast) of Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe recognized and responded to the requirements of the opportunity offered by their scaled down setting, it would have enhanced the audience’s satisfaction significantly. The so-called minor roles must understand that it is not necessary to overdo one’s role to make an impact on the audience. We do have cinema actors receiving awards for a single appearance in which he utters only one word for which he earns an award, after all.   

In addition, Menandrian comic scoops offered mainly by the supporting cast that would have been acceptable and even expected on a larger stage which usually catered to a more mixed audience looked slightly overdone there at PT with the going rate of a ticket at Rs. 750 per capita. One’s willingness to part with a greenback or two  and a couple of hours from the time that should have been spend with one’s loved ones in order to watch a drama at difficult times like these must be given due recognition. And such aficionados being a rare species must be cultivated with due respect. Of course one might argue that dramas could survive as text without an audience and quote examples in support. But that is beside the point. So, going back to the issue of rib-ticklers, I came up with three possibilities for why the director should insist on these Menandrian routines in this drama which could have done very well, in fact, better, without them, especially at a venue like PT:

1.      The director/script writer thinks that his audience does not have the capacity to absorb a straight dose of what he has to say; therefore, it needs to be diluted for it to go down the collective throats of his fans easily – ergo, a few porter’s scenes thrown in with the heavy stuff

2.      The director/script writer is unsure of his own ability to retain the audience’s attention focused on the chosen subject matter without the help of some breathing spaces in between the heavy scenes   

3.      The director/script writer is restricted by an accepted formula which he is unwilling to outgrow  

All three reasons, if they happen to have something truth in them, tie this promising drama down and prevent it from reaching its full wingspan. Finally it must be stated that, none of the technical hitches listed above impairs beyond repair one’s ability to enjoy this rare theatrical treat which passes under the very deceptively unassuming title Pem Yuvalak Onekara Thibe.

Gammris Kurulla

Writing is about daring to pick a pen up and setting down what is in one’s mind on a piece of paper for the rest of the world to see. In this sense every writer is engaged in a kind of strip-tease with her work. In doing so, the difference between a writer who attempts at being good and those who are happy being mediocre is that the first type reveals just enough to keep the interest of her readership while getting the ‘message’ across while the second type engages in orgies of confessions in which she embarrasses herself while boring her readership with the nitty-gritty details of her daily existence.  

Kanchana Amilani’s collection of short stories Gammiris Kurulla clearly belongs to the first type of writing. The writer willfully creates a screen between herself and her characters by making most of her protagonists animals (albeit human-like in their behavior, I must admit). Those stories in which humans play main roles such as Angaharuwādā Re (Tuesday Night), Ādam Gè sandluthalaya (Adam's Balcony), and Pokunata Ā Pāththa Menaviya (The Goose That Came to the Pond) often there are animals that play important roles. In addition, in all these stories the line between the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’ is never very clearly defined. And the characters walk between the two realms or remain somewhere in between with delightful ease. In fact, the writer uses the phrase ‘stories in marvelous realism’ (could this be a play on the term ‘magical realism’?) as the sub-title of her work. 

At first glance, Gammiris Kurulla is a collection of some witty (and somewhat raunchy) stories which are not so different from those often exchanged among colleagues during breaks. While the main ingredient of these stories is clearly aiming at tickling some quick belly-laughs out of the reader, one comes across little bits and pieces that are of different texture that requires some careful chewing in order to digest them. And it is these very bits and pieces, not the animals - as interesting as they are, that urge me to take a second and a third look at Gammiris Kurulla.  

The first short-short story of the collection Angaharuwādā Re which operates mainly at a domestic level lay bare the hypocrisy behind the prevalent Victorian attitude both sexes have adopted towards nudity (in its many aspects?). Aish, the female lead of the story suddenly decides not to wear clothes anymore. Her husband, Abhi, finds her nudity titillating yet he is horrified at the thought of her body being exposed to the rest of the world. He resents the way other men ogle at his wife’s nakedness. Consequently, he threatens to throttle his wife and says that it would have been better had the wife killed him instead of subjecting him to the indignity of being known as the husband of the woman who parades her naked self around the town. It was all a dream but the husband does not know that. In the end, he wakes up resigned to accept (and even embrace) what he could not change. Of courses, it is Aish who is horrified by the thought of her husband parading himself in nude for the entire creation to see this time around. 

Mālu Hatana, on the other hand, is a delightful little sociopolitical satire on the operations of the proponents of modern democracy. It is about leaders who hoard power at the expense of their followers and how their ineptitude and hypocrisy are often exposed by those who are near and dear to them. 

Pokunata Ā Pāththa Menaviya reminds me of several well-known children’s(?) stories I have read as an adult. In addition, it contains echoes of Maname, too. In that sense, it deals with the concepts of machismo, male-female relations, and male sexual jealousy. Male partners of heterosexual relationships with queasy stomachs are strongly advised against reading this story. Wāsanāwe Ran Doratuwa is a tragi-comic depiction of a common human dream of winning a lottery with a new twist. 

Finally, the eponymous protagonist of Gammiris Kurulla (Pepper Bird) is a petty dictator incarnate who wants the proverbial cake all to himself. In the end he gets what he deserves. In fact all the characters in this story as well as those in the rest of the collection get what they deserve. In this sense reading Gammiris Kurulla restores one’s faith in justice to a certain degree.  

Another point in favour of Kanchana’s Gammiris Kurulla is that given the limitations imposed by the scope of their individual plots, these short-short stories, as they have been called, are long enough to cover the essentials while at the same time being short enough to not to test the patience of the reader.

And coming to the end of the book, if one is to look for a common thread that binds all the stories of the collection together, then she does not have to look too hard. It is satire, or more specifically not-so-gentle satire directed at very human foibles, that links all the stories of Gammiris Kurulla. Hopefully some of us while laughing at the characters in Kanchana’a stories might see them for what they were and experience a moment of catharsis that would make us more bearable to have around for those around us.

Democracy, the Capitalist Placebo

“We are a smiling nation. That’s part of our resilience,” wrote Malinda Seneviratne. While reading it I nodded to myself and smiled. But later I developed second thoughts. Then the other day while I was on my way to visit a friend of mine who lived in Kotugoda I decided to actually test this thesis. It was simple. I smiled with every person I came face to face from Habarakada to Kotugoda irrespective of their age, gender or socio-economic status as projected by their outward appearance. The responses I received should be analyzed by someone who is far more competent than me in order to gauge their full (even true) import. Yet, let me indulge myself in some amateur psychology here. 

Out of those whom I smiled with the majority did smile back. Yet most of their smiles were hurried affairs that lacked that essential ingredient called naturalness in them. It was just lip service to a custom or even a fast receding genetic memory. A sizeable number ignored me outright. They just looked through me as if my solid mass did not occupy a three dimensional space at all. A few men had taken my smile as a come on sign and in return gave me their lewd best. Three glared at me!   

At my friend’s I was greeted with smiles that were so warm. Throughout my visit with my friend my brain was forced to filter information on autopilot while I had a whale of a time rehashing four years of university and future plans. Nothing was left out as holy.  

On my way home I sat on a bus next to a very much connected young person who was oblivious to the entirety of the world around her so that my mind had time to regress to my earlier observances. Despite the ear-splitting songs played for my edification on contemporary music through the overhead speaker set I began to realize that Malinda’s thesis with which I readily agreed was really losing its validity. We are losing our gift of spontaneous smile. 

Robert Knox was one among many outsiders who recorded our ability to bestow a smile that lifted the spirit of the receiver. And that was during the much dreaded feudal times. To use a favoured phrase of another friend, that was when we as a nation were hegemonized by feudal patriarchal powers that kept us oblivious to our subaltern status.

Then, what prevents us today in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka from smiling? Democracy (demo-kratiā – demos, people, kratos, strength) came into fashion with the rise of the middleclass in Europe as opposed to monarchy in its various forms. The idea was imported from the Classical Greece and presented as the only civilized option of governance. The middle class generously offered to take on the burden of speaking for the subaltern exploited by their feudal lords. The true nature of democracy (direct or representative) was willfully hidden from the masses by those who championed its introduction. Democracy was presented as a panacea for all social ills – of the people, by the people for the people. The masses like headless sheep fell in with the sophistic arguments of the power-hungry middleclass and hailed in the new form of governance with fanfare. Feudal lords were hastily disposed of. 

In Sri Lanka the English did the needful by killing the majority of the island’s feudal overlords and banishing rest to rot on foreign shores. Good riddance to bad garbage! And the vacuum left by the disposed of ruling class was quietly yet quite efficiently fill by the middleclass upon the departure of their colonial overlords. Did anyone mention Animal Farm? No, this is subtler than that.

Today people do not smile as they used to as attested by Knox. Care to tell me why?