Archive for the ‘Poetry’

Killer Representative

I am assembling the scene, a local hood and his gang come to a Christmas Eve gathering at a beach hotel, want to dance with foreign women, see a bloke from town trotting high with a blonde, but when they ask for a spin, are spurned, although they are hot shots in the area, their chief an elected representative; they have guns and knives in their pockets, or placed discreetly on their reserved table, and they tear a woman from her boyfriend, cutting her up and him, then shooting. Government in a tither, keeping press at bay, we cannot have these stories displayed in the West where similar incidents take place in the most respected capitals, says another representative, and the perpetrators have been booked, are under investigation, although the head of the local governing council has been known to kill in the past but nobody is sure who can, or will, introduce historical evidence.

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Measuring (After Nandikadal)

An embarrassment, to forget over short eats, ignore the bundle on his back, that sloshed set of poetry he cannot avoid carrying, an appendix, reptilian brain, fascination with naming elements of the crime, breadth of carpet strafing of civilians in tents on banks of the lagoon, while tails for the ball are rented and we sit down to quail and goose, although elements of the meal have no political meaning. They are foods for festive or special occasions: here fundraising, so ordinary citizens can travel to see the miscreant dictatorship, dressed in civvies, mixed in with the crowd, not in a killing field, drawn up in advance, but the larger and harder-to-manage masses of the post-war streets, and report what they find before the police visit.

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A Fisherman Testifies

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I learned from Sri Lanka to go overboard, to flounder in the deep ocean while Navy sailors beat me with sticks, and cut my nets, and round me up as the country’s diplomats meet my Indian representatives with elaborate denials of mistreatment on the high and most domestic seas. I want to feed my wife and children, return to Tamil Nadu with my catch. I have not been re-schooled as a farmer or an errand boy. Will the United Nations take up my case? The International Criminal Court? My Chief Minister protests and protests but the Center is deaf and keeps speaking with the devil. How can we calm his temperature, cool the beast, teach the tyrant that he cannot stifle Tamils beyond the nautical limits of the Sri Lankan island?

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Prescient

When Lasantha wrote the editorial that predicted his imminent assassination he suggested the civil war would turn steadily uglier, then move inwards, as a lizard searching for its tail, insidious in the way each institution begins to lose its independence, the machinery of the ruling family greasing every Tom, Dick and Banda—forgive my allusion to white rulers of a more genteel if not innocent nursery school— this forsaken Ceylonese child has turned monstrous now in the eyes of Whitehall and Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, betters going wild about pressures in Canberra to present a bold brief on behalf of human rights and investigation of war crimes as Commonwealth heads prepare to meet, while on the island rival thugs, from within the all-powerful ruling group, battle over drug routes and a parliamentary seat.

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Cheran

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He is writing history, where he lives, when he travels, to Denmark, Singapore, Tamil Nadu, Toronto. Edward Said wrote about Palestinians, Rudramoorthy Cheran, Tamils. News that my friend has suffered a mild heart attack does not surprise me. His muscle has been strained for more than thirty years. From the Saturday Review where he reported the first days of rebellion in Jaffna to more recent sociological study and dramatic writing, the man, as scientist and poet, has let emotions hang on strings strummed to a tabla’s beat. Wordsmiths for Tamilians are as good as our instruments and words are always enhanced by music. I recall when we met in 1987 at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies on Kynsey Terrace in Colombo, where I moved as a kid when the house was home and not yet a center dedicated to resolving differences, the wounds of the1983 “Riots” were still very fresh, and enthusiasm for resolution of long-standing grievances strong, and…

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Climate-Induced

Plantain leaves, steaming yellow rice, katta sambol, seer fish, passion fruit, the island’s culinary pleasures I think of first, batting then for a day, stopping for lunch and tea, but this strain of poetry has been sidelined, a war won and lost, rewriting of history, yet the latter may not be necessary, building of monuments to the bullet near the sea, or the various stupas popping up by kovils, or replacing them quietly. The waters of the Bay of Bengal are rising steadily.

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  • 1 Jul, 2011
  • 0 Comment
  • Jaffna,
    Peace and Conflict,
    Poetry

For those who have missed out and want to know humanity

Belated, but worth it. I read through this collection of Sinhala poems by a Sinhala “creative activist” friend, who moves the reader across the large canvass of responsible humanity, very solemnly holding the reader, in a spell of “silent guilt”. She does not talk politics. But she does, in a different tone and spirit. She does not blame the reader straight and hard. Yes she does, in a piercing whisper, right into the conscience. She does not talk of an ethnic conflict. But she does talk of a human tragedy, that tells the reader, there is somewhere a ‘divide’ that stalks the fate of these people. This collection of poems, titled by her as “For Ears That Had Not Heard” (No-asu Kan Walata), by itself is a subtle, nuanced allegation against the Sinhala reader, for not being, if not sensitive enough, then observant of the tragedy that unfolded around us during the war. She thus picks up hardly noticed incidents…

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  • 26 Jun, 2011
  • 5 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Language,
    Poetry

The ‘coolest’ publisher of English books in Sri Lanka: In conversation with Sam Perera

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Sam Perera, along with Ameena Hussein (see interview here) began the Perera Hussein Publishing House, a niche publisher based in Sri Lanka known to publish some of the most compelling contemporary writing in English. Sam, who thinks of all things, he is a farmer at the beginning of the programme opens up the conversation with reforestation. The link to the world of publishing lies in that fact that, as a private initiative, PH Publishing House plants at least one tree per book they publish in Puttalam. Noting that PH Publishing House was established to publish stories by Sri Lankans for Sri Lankans, Sam’s rather interesting take on what he does is that the local consumer / reader doesn’t necessarily want literature, but stories that are written well – of course judged by none other than Sam himself. When pressed on what he considers good or great literature, Sam points to Randy Boyagoda’s writing, and says that even though he is…

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Overseeing the Farm

Planning a visit home is not easy for a Tamil returning to Jaffna. First, he needs to fly into the international airport at Katunayake and pass through customs like any traveler. He may be asked to step into a back room, to answer why he carries the Economist in hand luggage, or stickers from the World Wildlife campaign to save the tiger, given that such animals have not been spotted on the island in thousands of years, if indeed they ever sauntered through the wild grass or paddy fields. He may be grilled about family members in Wellawatte, and what career he pursues in the Scarborough, Ontario refuge where wild and liberal creatures found a home before conservatives took over in Ottawa; he may be whisked through secondary, and into a waiting vehicle for a fast ride to the upstairs room at CID headquarters where he will meet his guide, his helper, who will say, come friend, the campaign is…

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umbrella over bird

for prageeth eknaligoda   we didn’t know we stopped: the undoing doing its disappearing the man himself —disappearing gone. what to do? muttering him through corners, hyde park; lincoln immemorial; where we said speakers should stand; silver shadow moves for coins in times squared, because we cannot hold the hands of clocks. which hand tips land’s hat into sea?—shriek your bids; speak freely in kingdoms measured carefully suns shining. no rain they say: still, insist on umbrella over bird, though feathers fall fallow, shedding wings widowed, shorn but not shamed. under wings, through windows, hold the hands of clocks—himself to draw himself to draw himself—( disappearing) , and once more, upon an anthem now: light us from the inside out, on the face of the galle clock green with time: the salt marching up from the sea, our wounds filling with it.

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The Destroyed Temple

The house at the end of the road, the giant multiple-walled house at the end of the road without a telephone, or internet, without a satellite dish, without rubbish—the residents burned what they consumed— certainly smoke can be traced, and the courier’s story leaked out of somebody else’s mouth held incommunicado in an East-European dungeon, on leased land in the island of Cuba, but that is another story, the war found its target, today, in helicopter to hand combat, four aircraft once again, this time choppers, and special forces— not from Afghan camps into Florida flight schools–but Navy Seals, and the target legitimate, not three thousand ordinary civilians living their American lives until robbed by death, rules for the rest of us alive modified, and now another death, tying of the circle, a full spin around the planet, what Peru’s president said was John Paul’s first miracle, coincidence, his beatification and death in combat of Osama Bin Laden, a bullet…

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A Plea from a Muslim woman in a Western Country

Now that the men in black Have descended the machines Silently, Like nocturnal birds of prey And stalked and slain the beast That taunted them For a long, miserable decade, Now that the people of the United States Of America Have danced in the streets and screamed with joy That their land is the greatest The mightiest And fairest Because they have finally got their man Who killed 3,000 men, women and children In cold blood On soil that is more sacred than The dirt of Afghanistan (Or Iraq for that matter), Now that blood has been appeased by blood And vengeance served cold And now that God has truly blessed America Can I, May I, Have My Hijab Back Please?

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The Right to Respond

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NGO: The numbers do not add up. Census says 430,000 people resided in the Vanni mid-2008. A year later, 290,000 are shepherded by the Army into “welfare centers” where one hundred men, boys, girls, women shared one latrine, but that is another dirty subject; we are speaking here of brute numbers and mass disappearance. Govt: I understand Tamil Net will jump to spread the pernicious bleeding heart report from those pesky fellows at Channel 4, so we must follow our Leader and enact his plan to send teams to like-minded, non-aligned countries to show how governments can eliminate terror, following our way or the highway, of no return, but we won’t use that crude phrase. We believe we are among friends here in the poem without a need to camouflage. Yet, we must practice to win the diplomatic battle now in the third and fourth worlds where we are very much at home.

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Cricket, Lima

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In the mist that blows over the field at Lima Cricket near the Pacific, moist, cool air lets the wicket breathe and the crack of bat on ball sing like a memory of toffee I recall, outside the tuck shop, the day Josephians played St. Peter’s in the wet air off Beira Lake and all the boys, let off early from class, rang the ropes with cheers: St Joseph’s victory, St. Peter’s parippu; now forty years later, accused still of immaturity, I have dressed in whites, a sun hat, am padded up and ready to go out again into the middle to knock four fours and a couple of sixers in half a dozen balls, to save the side from infamy.

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I am one of 80,000*

Though the barbed wire, I am looking down the road of memory. Selvam, my Selvam, I am waiting for you To bring back our lost life. You grabbed my hand hard and we ran like the wind Under the shelling rain. Do you remember, Selvam? Praying, praying for life, for life with our kids? They ran with us but so many others flickered and fell Running non-stop, praying for life, till the rain of shells ended. For a moment we had thought we saw Freedom But it was a mirage. Jasmine flowers wilted, Selvam, with your failing breath. The white flag you were waving Fell over your head like a shroud. I’m looking through barbed wire Down the road of memory. Please come soon, Selvam, I want to die together. *Sri Lankan Government statistics say that are 80,000 war widows in the North and East of the country, the ex-war zones. Written by Ajantha Roshani Translated by Prasanna Ratnayake

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Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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