Sri Lanka Snapshot, 2010
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The giant leafy mango
tree in the back garden
has been cut down
screamed the poet,
Scar and the hyenas
are in charge, the stomach
queasy, revolted,
Il Duce megaphoned
War is Peace;
in the exhaust fumes
of a white van a soul
flits about then vanishes,
betrayal on 4 million
tongues, the State is Me
yet some of me is afraid
to return, to stay, paralysed
while State police black shirts
twirling clubs pulp Lasantha
to welcome in the year
that ends with Sarath abducted,
the State afraid will cover
all tracks, Defense is Offense,
Minister draws sap
at Duttu’s right hand,
while his boys play cricket
for the nation and liberals
cower before the impressive
exertion of force and law
to suppress dissent, under
the ever-present pings
of execution on camera phone,
cerebral matter splattered
to disco beats, while
new-born howls alleviate
the gloom, breathing air
in the bloody morning room.
I am extremely intrigued by the responses to my piece election 2010. I find them fascinating really. How much does an author explain without intrusion? When one writes an analytic piece (Well, this is also analytic), the ‘author’ has greater claims over interpretation it seems. When it comes to ‘creative’ writing, only an audacious writer will dare intervene and explain. How does one explain this away.? I will try to juggle my way through this distinction.
On the day after the elections, an overwheming sadness engulfed me, not because Sarath Fonseka lost, and not even because Mahinda Rajapaksa won, but because of something else, unnamable to this very day. For me that day, the election and its outcome was not about Tamils, Muslims or Sinhalese, or maybe precisely because of a certain accentuation of that, it was also about something else, something that is politically more global. It was about feeling isolated. My sadness was also tinged with my feeling that left leaning intellectuals who supported Mahinda vocally have all turned liberal in their political thinking, including those, who made a case for their support as one against imperialism.
I am posting here some of the responses I received personally to election 2010, to add to those other responses.
A friend of mine asked: Is it about displacement?
Another wrote to say: I love this. the politics. the long term consequences of destruction and displacement and the symbolism of the bicycle shed as something crude, ugly and invasive. and that the parrots found another home. i hope i got it. anyway i like my interpretation
would like to know what you were thinking. not sure why its election2010. may be i got it all wrong.
Vallu said this: I liked your election poem. the asbestos touch was very stark ( altough maybe you have a affectionate relationship to it, but it came across as dealing with concrete decay and provisional solutions?). I really dont know anything about how to read a poem to be honest.
My own interpretation:
On the day after the election as we stood by the window and looked down, from a high angle view, incomprehensibly at the shed with the asbestos hammered into place, I felt the pit of my stomach turn. This is it. This is what it means, the people, the president and the politics. Where does poetry come in here. and of course the parrots.
And then, I have a long standing and yet distant relationship with the parrots of our neighbourhood.