Third Eye

THE LIVING LEGENDARY NONCHIPODY ANNAVIYAR!!!

2012-01-31T14:29:00.002+05:30

THE MASTER OF TRADITIONAL THEATRE OF THE THAMILS OF SRI LANKA. HE IS A TRADITIONAL DOCTOR AND LOCAL PRIEST. BARD AND A TRADITIONAL FARMER. A GREAT PERSONALITY OF OUR TIME.

Bronseware of Batticaloa: Wealth of Cultural Heritage

2012-01-28T23:20:00.000+05:30

Bronseware of Batticaloa: Wealth of Cultural Heritage!

2012-01-28T22:51:00.005+05:30

CELEBRATING CULTURAL HERITAGE CUM LOCAL INDUSTRY OF TAMILS OF SRI LANKA

2012-01-28T09:38:00.007+05:30

LONELY BUT UNTIRING MASTER CRAFTSMAN OF THE ART!!!

MAKING BRONSEWARE IS A SIGNIFICANT TRADITION OF THE TAMILIANS OF BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA. ITS A LOCAL INDUSTRY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE TAMILS BUT FAILS AGAINST LIBERAL ECONOMY.

CELEBRATING THE ART OF MAKING BRONSEWARE IS CELEBRATING LOCAL INDUSTRY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE!

PHOTOSTRAITS OF "KANCHANAI R.R.SRINIVASAN

2012-01-28T08:26:00.004+05:30

A.JESURASA-EDITOR: "ALAI", A LITTLE MAGAZINE WITH HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE!

SITHY AMARASINGHAM-EDITOR: "YARL", A LITTLE MAGAZINE AND A PERSONALITY WHO STRUGGLED FOR THE RISE OF ART AND LITERATURE OF THIRUKONAMALAI.

Mr. DOMINIC JEEVA-EDITOR:MALLIKAI, A MONTHLY MAGAZINE MARCH FORWARD TOWARDS IT 50th YEAR SPECIAL ISSUE.

S.VILVARATNAM- ONE OF THE GREAT POET OF THE MODERN TAMIL POETRY.

EMOSTRATIONS OF KAMALA VASUKI

2012-01-26T14:32:00.001+05:30

Performing as Drummer in Kooththu!

2012-01-16T22:35:00.002+05:30

PUVIKUMAR PLAYING THE ROLE OF DRUMMER IN KOOTHTHU AND ANNAVIYAR IS Mr. MYILVAHANAM OF KARAVEDDY, BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA.

Thirdeye affiliates engaged in performance and discussion at 'Paadipparai' : a program organized by Study Circle of Social Science, Colombo.

2012-01-16T22:26:00.005+05:30

Mylankkoodalur P. Nadarajan a rare kind of Intellectual Tribe!

2012-01-16T22:22:00.001+05:30

Thirdeye Performs in Colombo, Sri Lanka-8th January 2012

2012-01-16T22:11:00.003+05:30

A presentation on "Poetics of Kooththu" by S.Jeyasankar with the participation of friends of Thirdeye Local Knowledge and Skill Activists Group.It was organized by 'Paadipparai' a full moon day program of Study Circle of Social Science.

Characterizing Lines of Rashmy-03

2012-01-16T21:44:00.003+05:30

Characterizing Lines of Rashmy-2

2012-01-16T21:36:00.003+05:30

Characterizing Lines of Rashmy-1

2012-01-16T21:33:00.002+05:30

KULANTHAI M.SHANMUHALINGAM IN THE e.FINGERS OF RASHMY.

He was a giant of a man - eloquent, generous and the perfect story teller.

2011-08-11T21:21:00.002+05:30

Dear Jeyasankar

This is very very sad news. Please feel free to use the following words if useful:

Prof Sivathamby was one of the most impressive academics I ever had the pleasure to meet in Sri Lanka. He was a giant of a man - eloquent, generous and the perfect story teller. He introduced me to the history of Tamil theatre and demonstrated how important it was to the island of Sri Lanka and also what it had to offer to the arts community internationally.

I remember with great affection visiting his apartment in Colombo and him describing the different movements of Sri Lankan political and cultural life. He had seen the positives and also the many tragedies of the situation in Sri Lanka. But he continued to be committed to seeing the best in people.

I was privileged to have travelled to Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa during the years between 2000 and 2005 and he was always asking questions about the theatre work that I saw in those areas. Always acutely interested in what was happening now - and always open to hear about the different types of theatre.

Professor Sivathamby was a teacher to many - and I was very lucky to be his student. Professor - you will be missed. Thanks for the dosai, thank you for the tea, thank you for welcoming me to your house - and thank you for your inspiration.

Jeya - please could you let me know when the funeral will be and if there will be any memorial event?

And please send my regard to his family.

Best

James

James Thompson

In Place of War

School of Arts Histories and Cultures

University of Manchester

THURAIYAPPA PRATHEEPAN: STORYTELLER OF THE THIRDEYE

2011-05-10T16:43:00.002+05:30

PERFORMANCE IN PLACE OF WAR

2011-04-20T17:20:00.003+05:30

Performance in place of War, an extract
Kooththu, Third Eye Local Knowledge and Skill Activists Group, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
Theatre has to connect the earth with the sky. That is why in Kooththu we stand in a position in which we go down to the earth and then come up. When you connect the earth to the sky that means finding yourself harmonizing with the universe, you need to know your rhythm—it is the Kooththus that give us our rhythm. Kooththu comes from jump— koodhi—it is the jump that we do in the performance but the jump has to be rhythmic . . . with a rhythm (Tarcissius 2000).If we do dramas children will not go astray and their knowledge will grow. It is important to do such drama to increase the knowledge capacity, which will in turn help children achieve good rewards. The village will get revitalized. The Seelaamunai village was in a very bad state [after the war]

Kooththu is a dance-drama form that is associated with the Tamil-speaking community across Sri Lanka, but is particularly strong in the eastern region that, because of its remote location, has historically been less influenced by colonialism and other external factors. It is performed as an allnight event and comprises sections of Hindu epics that are sung and danced in an open-air kaleri (circular raised sand stage) to large village audiences. However, what was a vibrant form has been seriously weakened by restrictions imposed by the violence that has had a devastating impact on this area. Since the 2002 ceasefire, the practice has been used to revitalize a sense of community in this chronically conflict-affected region.

The primary objective of the ‘reformulation’ of Kooththu described here is to provide education and entertainment for villagers and spaces for them to come together and re-learn traditional performance practices from elders in the community. Kooththu is positioned as a form that, although weakened by the war, is used as a symbol of the strength of a local cultural practice in opposition to external or ‘global’ forms. It is also seen as a form of educational provision for young people from rural areas, especially for those who are understood to be failing within the narrow confines of a formal education system that still bears the mark of colonial educational practices. Reformulation is, therefore, an educational programme for young people in the village as well as a dynamic, sophisticated and flexible system of development that shares knowledge inside the community.

Sivagnanam Jeyasankar from Eastern University in Batticaloa, and the Third Eye Local Knowledge and Skill Activists Group from the same town, have worked with up to four different village Kooththu groups inrural areas since the ceasefire. The main group, in the village ofSeelamunai, has had a Kooththu group for over 100 years, but the practice struggled to maintain itself with the war-imposed curfews and restrictions on movement. The Third Eye Group refers to its practice as ‘reformulation’, in which it supports a reinvigoration of the skills base of a local group at the same time as promoting an engagement with the issues inherent in the performed texts. In Seelamunai, this has included rewriting Kooththu scripts and traditional songs so that they better represent low-caste communities and permit the participation of women. The literacy skills developed in the process of rewriting scripts and songs and producing research articles based on reformulation, are complemented by a pedagogical approach that emphasizes dance, enjoyment, socializing, storytelling and working together. Discursive forms of practice are seen as important here but only in relation to the embodied and remembered knowledge already existing inside village society.

This process and its impact is described by Jeyasankar:
Because of the war they did not perform for twenty years [and] in the last twenty years they performed only once, so this was the situation in Seelamunai . . . In Kooththu the atmosphere is connected to the whole community and people from other villages also come to that space so it’s a space for the whole community, all the people in an open space . . . The importance of traditional theatre is . . . the connection with the grassrootspeople in a very big way and the things we share in that open space will disseminate to the other spaces also, to the homes and workplaces, so it’s very important and positive and very powerful thing . . . [We were] moving through the village and doing house to house visits, so from the beginning to the end it’s a process connecting so many things, connecting different individuals, communities, age groups, even though . . . there are hierarchies it is a very positive space, it connects different layers of people at different levels (2006).

Although the Third Eye group themselves describe their practice predominantly in terms of education and enjoyment, a complementary analysis might suggest that in a region that has suffered violence and disappearances and, since 2004, has been the site of a violent split in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the space for debate and creative expression that the reformulation process permits is crucial. The performance does not foreground the issue to be discussed but debates about caste and gender are instigated through the process of Third Eye’s engagement with the community and the performance of adapted scripts of traditional stories.

In an area where space for open dialogue is contested and outspoken comments on public issues are dangerous, the performance provides an aesthetic space through which concerns, questions and issues can be explored safely. Batticaloa has a civil society considerably weakened by the war, by the wide-scale migration of the middle or intellectual class and the recent LTTE divisions. The space opened up during performances of Kooththu is perhaps a rare place of free debate and one done through the content and structure of the Hindu epics. Through an engagement with issues of gender and caste hierarchies, Third Eye uses Kooththu to debate the multiple divisions that affect this community and to discuss issues of identity outside the more familiar articulations of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim that have become fixed by the war. The utilization and development of a form of performance that has links to Tamil identity and pride offers an opportunity rather than a restriction. The participants ensure that they are associated with a Tamil form in an area of strongly and violently asserted nationalist politics, and thus they manage to open up spaces of debate and creativity from within a ‘place’ that is, culturally, relatively safe.

The movement and association made possible as a result of the ceasefire meant that pressures from globalization became newly significant for the region. This included changes in agricultural practices, availability of branded products, public discussions about opportunities to develop tourism and increased access to Western and Asian media. Third Eye’s ‘reformulation’ process is situated explicitly as a response to these ‘encroachments’ that it views with suspicion. Its work is based on a determination, in opposition to these advances, to validate and develop local knowledge and it therefore promotes cultural events that celebrate traditional rituals, customs and practices. In addition, it creates opportunities for debate about how to protect the variety of cultural forms that exist within this community.
————–
From the Greeks and Shakespeare to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, war has often been a major theme of dramatic performances. However, many of the most extraordinary theater projects in recent years not only have been about war but also have originated in actual conflict zones themselves.
Performance in Place of War is concerned with these initiatives, including theater in refugee camps, in war-ravaged villages, in towns under curfew, and in cities under occupation. It looks at theater and performances that often occur quite literally as bombs are falling, as well as during times of ceasefire and in the aftermath of hostilities.

Performance in Place of War draws on extensive original material and includes interviews with artists, short play extracts, and photographs from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, and others. The authors combine critical commentary, overviews of the conflicts and first-hand accounts in order to consider such questions as: Why in times of disruption have people turned to performance? And what aesthetic, ethical, and political choices are made in these different contexts Performance in Place of War is a fascinating perspective on the role of theatre in unpredictable, war-torn times.

REFORMULATION OF KOOTHTHU: NEW DIAMENSION IN EEZHAM KOOTHTHU

2011-04-12T14:35:00.003+05:30

Reformulating Kooththu theatre for Eezham Tamils [TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 April 2011,] Contemporary humans alienated from their own environment by an education system are isolated even within their families by the electronic media. Reformulating the Kooththu theatre of Eezham Tamils is not to show it to somebody else or to carry it to somewhere else, but to effectively make the owners of the form of art to gather and enjoy it for themselves in the open air. The reformulation aims at reinstating the Kooththu theatre as a social institution, by giving importance to its inherent features such as participation, social function and memory; by bringing in traditional values to contemporary discourse and by providing space for the grassroot performers to perform in their own environment, says S. Jeyasankar of the Eastern University, Batticaloa, in his new book in Tamil on “Reformulating Kooththu: New Dimensions of the Kooththu of Eezham.”

The variety of names in Tamil heritage for dance and theatre, coming from Dravidian etymology alone, is quite amazing. Note the following terms cited in Dravidian Etymological Dictionary:
Akavu (DED 10), Aaddam (DED 347), Aalu (DED 386), Iyangku (DED 469), Ka’li, Ka’lippu (DED 1374), Kazhai (DED 1370), Kummi (DED 1756); Koppi (DED 2108), Kuravai (DED 2108), Kunippu (DED 1863), Kooththu (DED 1890), Kontha’lam (DED 2099), Koalam (DED 2240), Chaakkai (DED 2432), Chinthu (DED 2530), Thazhu (DED 3116), Thaa’ndavam (DED 3158), Thu’l’lal (DED 3364), Thoongku (DED 3539), Nadam, Naddam, Nadam-aaddam (DED 3582), Navil (DED 3616), No’ndi (DED 3786), Ve’ri (DED 5511) etc.

They come from simple roots such as Adi (feet), Aal (move), Akavu (dance like a peacock), Iyangku (function), Ka’li (ecstasy), Kazhai (stilts), Kummu/ Koppu (clap), Kural (voice), Kuni (bend), Kuthi (jump), Konthu (mask), Koal (stick), Thaazh (cymbals), Thaa’ndu (leap, hop), Thu’l’lu (jump, spring, frisk), Thoongku (sway), Nada (walk, happen, perform), Navil (say), No’ndu (limp, use of stilts), Ve’ri (frenzy) etc.

Kooththu today means a folk theatre in which a particular style of dance is coupled with drama and storytelling. Kooththu, in its styles and themes associated with the heritage of Eezham Tamils, still survives in the villages of the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. Some villages are specialised in its performance.

Jeyasankar is not merely an academic, but a performer of Kooththu himself. His academic researches belong to a new genre of participatory nature, aimed at not bringing the form of art as a museum piece performed by elite artists to urban viewers, but reviving, reformulating and re-invigorating the theatre among its owners, for their benefit. In the last more than one decade he successfully did it in some of the villages in Batticaloa.

The present book in Tamil is a collection of eight articles on his views and experiments on the Kooththu of Eezham Tamils, dealing with topics on native modernism, reformulation and new dimensions of Kooththu, children’s Kooththu theatre, Kooththu as a national theatre of Eezham Tamils, the challenges faced, postmodernism and Eezham Tamil theatre, Information Age and the theatre of Eezham Tamils, and Kooththu in the diaspora.

Professor I.Muththaiya of the Department of Folklore, Madurai Kamarajar University, has written a forward to the book, which was published last week in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

The book is enlightening in grasping the fact that rather than from approaches of colonial mindset – whether internal or external - revival or reformulation of any art has to come from the people concerned if it is going to be of any meaning to them and of any meaning to the form of art itself.

GRASS, FLOWERS AND TENDER FINGERS: ART OF CREATION!!!

2011-04-01T15:15:00.004+05:30

NOT MERE PAPER BOATS!!!

2011-04-01T14:44:00.004+05:30

ART OF DRAWMING!!! VASAN'S WORK WITH CHILDREN!!!

2011-04-01T14:31:00.005+05:30

GREETINGS!!! WORLD THEATRE DAY 2011 !!!

2011-03-25T13:50:00.000+05:30

You are invited to an ART EXHIBITION

2011-03-06T11:24:00.000+05:30

You are invited to an
ART EXHIBITION

We are organising an art exhibition with the works of our colleague
Vasuki Jeyasankar to celebrate the International Women’s Day- 2011.

Time: 9.00 am to 5.00pm
of 8th March 2011

Venue: Block B, LL.M 2nd year CLJ room.

From:
Students of MHRD, Kathmandu School of Law

Vasan's work with School Students!

2011-02-01T16:00:00.005+05:30

FACILITATED BY T.GOWREESWARAN

SCULPTURE OF VASAN

2010-11-18T12:22:00.001+05:30

COVER DESIGN BY VASAN

2010-11-18T12:20:00.000+05:30

PAINTING OF KAMALA VASUKI

2010-10-04T15:21:00.000+05:30

MORE STILLS FROM "PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN: A REFORMULATED KOOTHTHU"

2010-09-30T14:04:00.003+05:30

AFFILIATES OF THIRDEYE IN "THE PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN"

2010-09-29T10:46:00.001+05:30

KALAIVANI AND YARLINI OF THIRDEYE ARE PERFORMING IN "THE PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN": A REFORMULATED VADAMODY KOOTHTHU

THE PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN

2010-09-29T10:38:00.002+05:30

T.GOWREESWARAN AS VEDAN (HUNTER) IN THE PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN : A VADAMODY KOOTHTHU OF MATTAKKALAPPU, SRI LANKA!

STILLS SPEAKES OF KOOTHTHU!

2010-09-29T10:26:00.002+05:30

THEATRE OF KOOTHTHU SPEAKS ITSELF!
ANNAVIYAR THE MASTER OF KOOTHTHU AT THE CENTRE OF KALARI AND MANUPULATES THE KOOTHTHAR AROUND HIM TO THE BEAT OF HIS MATHTHALAM
KOOTHTHAR AT THE CENTRE OF THE KALARI AND PERFORMS TO THE BEATS OF ANNAVIYAR

PENANCE OF ARUCHUNAN: A REFORMULATED KOOTHTHU 2010!

2010-09-27T12:11:00.004+05:30

PERFORMANCE OF SEPTEMBER 2010

KOOTHTHAR IN MAKE-UP PROCESS

STILLS FROM VASAN'S PAINTING EXHIBITION

2010-09-27T11:42:00.002+05:30

STILLS FROM VASAN'S PAINTING EXHIBITION

2010-09-27T11:37:00.003+05:30

EXHIBITION OF PAINTING AND INSTALLATION

2010-08-30T10:57:00.002+05:30

Nirmalavasan aka Vasan is young and powerful painter from Batticaloa, Sri Lanka is taking art to the people after A.Mark, the doyen of Sri Lankan Thamil painters.

The works of vasan are multidimensional and innovative. His work on applied painting with School children and the children in the villages has parallel in Educational Theatre of the Sri Lankan Thamils.

The use of medium and the message in his creative works are strange but explores the severity of the life in crisis.

His expressions are genuine to life and the creations are truthful to the medium of the art.

The paintings will speak for him in detail!

Kooththu Exponant of Moolai, Jaffna: Sankaran Annamalai with wife Naagammai

2010-08-27T15:30:00.003+05:30

HE IS NOT AN ANNAVIYAR OR A KOOTHTHU PERFORMER BUT MASTER EXPERT IN THE ART OF KOOTHTHU, THE TRADITIONAL THEATRE OF THE THAMILS OF SRILANKA. HE IS WELL VERSED IN KOOTHTHU TEXTS AND TECHNIQUES.

HE WAS A DROPPED OUT FROM HIS VERY EARLY SCHOOL YEARS BECAUSE OF HIS SPEECH PROBLEM. THE INSTITUTION GAVE UP BUT NOT THE CHILD. HE TOOK TO KOOTHTHU AND KAVADI SONGS AND BECAME A POERFUL SINGER.

WE MET HIM IN HIS SEVENTIES AND SHOCKED WITH HIS ABILITY OF SINGING NOT ONLY THE KOOTHTHU SONGS BUT THE OTHER FOLK AND DEVOTIONAL SONGS TOO. HIS KNOWLEDGE IN TRADITON IS TREMENDOUS.

HE IS ONE OF THE LIVIVNG POWER HOUSE OF TRADITONAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL OF THE THAMILS OF SRI LANKA.

BUT THE MODERN KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTIONS ARE BLIND TO IT.

WE ARE YET TO DECOLONIZE OURSELVES!

Kooththar at practice: Villavedduwan, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.

2010-08-27T15:11:00.002+05:30

Kulanthai M. Shanmuhalingam: The Doyen of Sri Lankan Thamil Modern Theatre with Young Kooththar of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.

2010-08-27T14:57:00.004+05:30

(L-R)K.Kalaimahal and K. Vivekanandarajah

Vibrant Kooththu Tradition from Araly-2010!

2010-08-27T14:40:00.003+05:30

There are villages in Jaffna practicing Kooththu and contains vibrant dances of the tradition supported by marvellous playing of Maththalam.

Araly is one of the village consists of a long tradition of Kooththu in Jaffna still strong on its art even after waves and waves of displacements and refuge life.

Annaviyar of kaaththavarayan Kooththu-Neervely, Jaffna

2010-08-27T14:38:00.000+05:30

My Monologue: Kamala Vasuki

2010-08-27T11:48:00.003+05:30

A woman entering the stage in laughter,

----- (Miming) --------

Looking down at the cradle, taking the baby in her arms, hugging and making it sleep (humming a Thaladdu…lullaby)

Suddenly she hears the bombers, shells and bombs…

She runs with the child here and there…crawling and,

trying to keep her child attached to her stomach,…… so as to keep it back safe in her womb…

------ (Silence) ------

Then she rises slowly as there is a flood beneath her

She: It is rising,

the cruel hands of war is rising like flames

I will never allow its tips to touch my child

the cruel hands of war is rising like flames

I will never allow its tips to touch my child

------- (Miming) --------

She is rising the child up little by little, with her rising voice and rising body.

She keeps the child high as possible,

and

with a deep weep the child vanished from her hand

------ ( Freeze )-----

She then returns to a normal position and addressing the audience.

She: I would never ever allow this to happen, I would never ever allow this to happen

MY CHILD IS NOT FOR WAR.

Vasan's Painting Exhibition in Batticaloa on 17-19/9/2010

2010-08-21T11:36:00.005+05:30

WHITE CROW

NAGASTHIRAM

DICTIONARY ROAD

BUTTERFLIES FROM CATTERPILLAR

VASUKI'S PAINTING ON DISPLAY AT SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

2010-08-14T12:49:00.000+05:30

Women are making tasty puttu in Mamangam Festival-Batticaloa-2010

2010-08-10T15:23:00.004+05:30

Photography: Yarlini Yogeswaran

WOMEN MAKING POPULAR HOPPERS IN THE FAMOUS MAMANGAM FESTIVAL, BATTICALOA-2010

2010-08-10T15:13:00.006+05:30

Photography: Yarlini Yogeswaran

AN EXPONANT ANNAVIYAR OF VILLAVEDDUVAN, BATTICALOA!

2010-08-10T13:02:00.006+05:30

Annaviyar prepares!

2010-08-10T12:56:00.004+05:30

Young temple painter by profession prepares himself as Annaviyar!
Ambitious young man from Villavedduvan, Batticaloa.

A PLAY FOR CHILDREN

2010-08-10T12:55:00.006+05:30

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
S Jeyasankar’s play for children
By K.S. Sivakumaran

(Septmeber 01, Colombo, Sri Laka Guardian) Pillai Alutha Kaneer (Tears shed by the child) is a play written in Thamil by S Jeyasankar senior lecturer in drama and theatre arts, Eastern University. Jeyasankar who engages in theatre and research activities is also a traditional theatre (Koothu) performer. A poet in Thamil and English he writes essays on literary subjects, is a coordinator of Third Eye Local Knowledge and Skill Activists’ Group and Third Eye English Forum, and is the co-editor of the literary journal Third Eye. This journal also comes as Moontravathy Kunn in Thamil.

Jeyasankar who prides himself as a man born in Yaalpaanam is married to a painter of repute, Vasuki.

The book can be obtained from 30, Old Rest House Road, Madaalakalappu at Rs 75/- per copy. Susiman Nirmalavasan has illustrated the inside pages and the cover. The book is dedicated to Meikandan Saravanamuththu the “pioneer theatre artiste who engaged himself with school children and practiced the art of theatre as an educative and entertainment medium.”

The play is based on Paalukku Paalahan (A Baby for Milk) written by one of the most successful playwrights and producers of Thamil plays, Kulanthai M Shanmugalingam which relates the original story of Antonio Gramsci. Jeyasankar’s play is translated into English by S M Felix.

Jeyasankar has this to say in his introduction: “The play tries to depict the importance of self-consciousness of men about their living environment....the modern knowledge system made by men had constructed that the men as the centre of the universe and failed to recognize even the role of women in history.”

The book consists both the Thamil and English versions. Readers who cannot read Thamil can read the English version. Of importance is that this play is written as a drama script for performance.

For instance the opening scene has this direction :

The story

The story of the play is simple. A mouse has drunk the milk meant for a baby, regrets and goes in search of some milk to be given to the crying child. It first asks the goat but the goat says she is all dried out of milk because of the drought. If the mouse could bring her some green grass then she would be able to give the much needed milk for the baby. So the mouse goes to the field to get some grass.

Here again it’s the same story. The field wants water to wet the grass. What can the mouse do now as the child keeps on crying? Its next move is to run to a pond. But there is absolutely no water in the pond as the frog and the stork that flew over the pond endorse. The pond advises the mouse to bring a mason to build a reservoir or something like that.

The mason is approached fast but he again says he has no cement, stones, timber etc to build a bund. The tired mouse gets irritated because the frog and the stork are making noises. The mouse then runs to the mountains to get some stones.

After a long harangue of retelling what had happened so far in pursuit of milk for the baby, the finale comes when all of them get together planting trees and collecting the material that is needed. In the process they succeed in working together to obtain milk from the goat to feed the baby.

The Thamil version is more explanatory than the English version. The dramatic element is aptly incorporated. The dialogue is written in Yaalpaanam speech patterns. I would have liked if the drama had been written in Maddakaalappu speech particularly when it was staged in that city.
-Sri Lanka Guardian

Kooththu Maththalam of Araly, Jaffna,

2010-08-09T16:53:00.005+05:30

Photography: S.Jeyasankar

KOOTHTHU PRACTICE : THE TRADITIONAL THEATRE IN THE VILLAGES 2010

2010-08-09T16:51:00.012+05:30

Kooththar in practice! Villavedduvan, Batticaloa-2010

2010-08-09T16:49:00.006+05:30

Tradition Transmitted!!! Strong Maththlam playing tradition of kooththu in Araly, Jaffna -2010.

2010-08-09T16:47:00.007+05:30

Problematic of performing “Parai Aravon” (Drummer) in traditional Theatre.

2010-08-09T15:19:00.004+05:30

Parai Arivon with a bottle of tody in traditional kooththu.

From Tradition to Reformulation: A Journey through Participatory
Action Research.
Kooththu is the Traditional Theatre of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Parai Araivon (Herald) is one of the "interesting" characters in the Kooththu performance. The arrival of the Parai Araivon on to the Kalari (round stage) kindles the spectators and gets them into laughter.

The role of Parai Araivon in Kooththu is to convey the official message (pirasitham) of the court. Basically, Parai Araivon is also a servant of the King and also the citizen of the Kingdom like the Kaddiyankkaran, a dignified character which narrates the arrival of the King to the Court.

But the portrayal of the Parai Araivon is different in treatment from all the other characters of the Kooththu. He is portrayed as a comic element in a negative manner. It's a reflection of caste oppression among the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

It also paved way for conflicts and clashes among the castes of Tamils in Sri Lanka Vies a vie Parior versus other castes who perform Kooththu which contains the element of the traditional portrayal of the Parai Araivon.

The character was reformulated with the participation of Annaviyars and Parai Melam Players as a positive one and developed as a facilitator to run a forum theatre followed by the Kooththu performance.

Kooththar(Traditional Theatre Performers) of Araly, Jaffna

2010-08-05T14:25:00.002+05:30

One of the popular Traditional Performers in Jaffna. They still maintain a vibrant Traditional Theatre tradition with powerful dances.

Annaviyar of Kaththavarayan and a still from his Performance!

2010-08-05T14:16:00.006+05:30

Annaviyar Arumuham Rasiah

of
Pallasuddi ,Pandateruppu, Jaffna

Children in Kooththu Practice!

2010-08-03T12:54:00.007+05:30

Kooththu in Kinnaiyadi, Batticaloa!

2010-08-03T12:42:00.004+05:30

Annaviyar and affiliate of Reformulation of Kooththu, Kooththu Performer, Theatre Activist and Researcher T. Gowreeswaran with the 'Sallari'

The young kooththu perrformers in practice!

Kooththu In Mylambhaveli, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka-July2010

2010-07-30T15:38:00.002+05:30

"Thasakirivan Thawanilai" Vadamoodi Kooththu. Held on 22nd July,2010 night.

wash drawings of Vasan

2010-06-10T06:59:00.002+05:30

The Echo of Moonlight

2010-06-04T17:55:00.002+05:30

The Echo of Moonlight

Parampu mountain.

Pari had died,

and the sun had vanished in the darkness.

Ankavai and Cankavai

were refugees.

They had fallen

to the “royal drums beating victory”

and on their hill, on a narrow path

that seemed to be filled with the sorrow

of their downcast moonlike faces

Pari’s daughters walked. Coming down

from the hill, the moonlight itself seemed to walk slowly

to accompany Kapilar, who had grown so old.

As they walked,

growing weary

and weak

whiteness flowed over everything --

the moonlight,

the hair of Kapilar,

Pari’s daughters

and the good life of Parampu.

With reverence Kapilar entrusted

Pari’s daughters whose lives were broken

to Auvai and disappeared.

The journey continued.

Pari’s daughters walked with Auvai

and with all the village

so poor their only food was gruel,

and the moon stood, hesitating, and went with them.

As if her long life

granted by Atiyaman’s nelli fruit

were approaching its end,

Auvai hurried.

Sealing the marriages by pouring water,

she gave Pari’s daughters

to the men who had destroyed their lives on Parampu mountain,

Pari’s daughters who, like her,

made Tamil.

If only she had given them

to the families of men so poor

that, late in giving taxes,

they have only gruel or porridge to pay,

Pari’s soul would have rejoiced.

That day, in the white light of that moon,

there was Parampu mountain,

and the drums beating victory,

and Ankavai and Cankavai

who became slaves in the harem of kings

and cried in pain -- and now

on this day, in the white light of this moon,

their echoes still resound.

Original poetry in Tamil by S. Vilvaratnam
Translated by: George L. Hart

DRIED FISH 2010-CREATIVE WORKS OF VASAN

2010-05-17T11:50:00.001+05:30

DRIED FISH 2010- CREATIVE WORKS OF VASAN

2010-05-17T11:36:00.002+05:30

sculpturing bodies but NOT minds! works of vasan

2010-05-02T21:02:00.004+05:30

:::Annaviar Chelliah::: Little-known man behind well-known Tamil theatre

2010-05-01T22:45:00.000+05:30

:::Annaviar Chelliah::: Little-known man behind well-known Tamil theatre
By: Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby

Source: Northeastern Herald

Kathiramalai Chelliah, one of the many unforgettable annavis of the Batticaloa kooththu tradition, passed away in Vantharamoolai last week at the ripe old age of 78. Sri Lankan Tamil theatre will always remember the annaviar as a virtuoso who helped late Professor S. Vithiananthan in the latter?s mission of modernising the kooththu dance form and enabling it to be brought to the Sri Lankan stage as modern Tamil drama. Annaviar Chelliah?s virtues as a trainer?presenter of the Batticaloa kooththu should be remembered gratefully and it is the duty Sri Lankan Tamil theatre historians not to forget to give him his due place.

The story begins in 1956; the year Prof. Ediriweera Sarachandra produced his epoch-making Maname, and openly stated that Maname nadagama is traceable to the Kooththu dance form of the Tamils. He had of course polished it, brought in Greek and Japanese conventions and enriched it with fulsome music, using the violin and sitar. But theatrically it belongs to Kooththu in Tamil that refers to the traditional dramatic presentation, which depicts a narrative through dance. Originally the word must have referred to a group dance (dancing a theme) with and through physical movement.

Traditional temple dances of Tamil Nadu had, over the years, marginalized the kooththu to the streets, so much so that it came to be known in that part of India as theru kooththu (theatre of the street). Nonetheless kooththu in classical Tamil continued to be known as dance / performance, and Lord Siva Himself, in the form of the great cosmic dancer, was called ?Kooththan? and the famous Saivite temple at Chithambaram where He is supposed to have performed the dance was called ?kooththambalam.?

Reduced to the streets, post 18th century theatre developments did not touch the kooththu of the lower strata of society and theru kooththu in Tamil Nadu was retained more or less as ritualistic theatre.

In the Jaffna District, puritanical social reforms brought in by Arumuga Navalar took away entertainment like the kooththu from the lives of the upper and even the middle strata of society, confining it to the depressed castes. In other Tamil areas where Navalar?s ideology did not rule supreme, traditional entertainment forms fared better. The Vanni seems to have had a flourishing kooththu tradition. Of course in Mannar, the enculturation of the Catholic Church was done through kooththu and the genesis of the Sinhala nadagama is, in turn, attributable to Catholic Tamil kooththus.

In Batticaloa, the situation was very different to Jaffna. ?Navalarism? did not gain ground there, nor was the caste heirachy strong. The kooththu tradition was preserved among all castes, from the agrarian caste to the service castes, from the fisher caste to the artisan castes. And as luck would have it the ritualistic character of the theatre was not lost either. Therefore, when Sarathchandra spoke of the kooththu one may only turn towards the Batticaloa District, where the tradition has remained intact.

Vithiananthan began his mission of retrieving and revitalising the kooththu tradition from 1956 onwards, when he was made the chairman of the Tamil Drama Panel of the Arts Council of Ceylon. He was the chairman from 1956 to 1967 and it was the proud privilege of the present writer (who was his student for both undergraduate and postgraduate studies) to work with him as secretary to the panel during that period. In the years 1956 to ?60, Vithinanthan with great perseverance and patience, developed and enabled the emergence of a young group of kooththu performers by nursing their skills and encouraging their enthusiasm from school days.

S. Mounaguru, the staff performer in Vithinanthan?s kooththu productions, was discovered in an inter-school competition in 1959 and that was the first time ever an inter-school kooththu competition was held. When a substantial group of young men arrived at the University of Peradeniya in 1961-62, Vithiananthan could plan in terms of an undergraduate production of the kooththu. Mounaguru, Perinpanayagam, Kanagaratnam and a few others, all competent dancers, were then undergraduates. The search was now on for a really competent annaviar who would understand the needs of a university production, and more than that, its significance.

The word annavi though it refers in common parlance to a traditional drama teacher-instructor is a derivation from the term ?annanthu nokkal? meaning looking upwards. The annaviar (the final ?ar? is an honorific suffix) was originally the man who led the team of dancers and was looked up to as the master. There is a social significance too in that these annaviars were also community leaders held in high esteem by society. Therefore, being an annaviar meant one who was committed to the preservation of the traditional dance form being polluted by extrapolations and novelties arising from individual fancies. Thus, it was essential to identify an annaviar who was not only a master of the art but also a man who could be flexible and be able to legitimise the flexibility. Above all, the would-be trainer had to fit into the halls of Peradeniya. Vithyananthan made the final choice from a list of good number of annaviars. The final choice was just the right one.

Annaviar Chelliah?s task was threefold: train the girls and boys to dance the kooththu, increase the performance capacity of those who already had some experience in the dance form and play the maththalam to bring out the dramatic potential of the ?arttams? (dances).

After much discussion ?Karnan por? (the Battle of Karna), an episode from the Maha Bharatha was decided upon as suitable for performance because of its high dramatic potential. As a play, full of scenes of combat, it was rich from the arttam perspective. The storyline was an intensely tragic one. Karna in the Maha Bharatha was the only warrior who could have won the war for Duriyothana, with his naga (snake) arrows ? ?nagasthram? ? but Lord Krishna creates diffidence in Karna by reminding him about his birth and manoeuvres it in such a way that he cannot use the arrows effectively. The play has great dramatic potential both as spectacle and as human drama.

Vithiananthan had to be careful. He had to make modern theatre out of kooththu, while at the same time not be accused of having hybridised the dance form. His student collaborators were for intensifying the dramatic part. But Vithiananthan did not want to cross the boarder. In retrospection, one sees the production itself was an intensely difficult one. At the time Karnan por was produced, the kooththu tradition was to perform the dances almost as a self-contained entity, while treating the dialogue as only marginally important for the arttam. This led to some serious difficulties: (a) the dance was taken as an end in itself; in fact it received a dominant attention, (b) the song which held the story and/or the conflict was virtually submerged by the dance and (c) the joint orchestration of the singers and the drums did not allow the communication of meaning to the spectators.

To one trained in the culture of kooththu, there was no problem in becoming a ?sahrdaya? (appreciating with oneness of heart) but to one unfamiliar with the idiom the performance merely meant spurts of songs and dances.

We wanted to mediate the songs to the dance steps thus bringing out the emotions clearly. This necessarily meant a slight slowing down in the pace, but it was essential for the ?drama.? It is here the annaviar?s virtuosity comes in.

To realise the importance of the annaviar, one should know his task. He is the trainer, the director, the dance master who controls the pace of the performance, but he is not a man behind the scenes, he is right in the middle of the performance placed usually on a circular stage (Vattakalari). He presents the play, plays the percussion instrument that determines the pace of the play, and by playing the maththalam he is also a performer. In the Vadamodi style, he stands at the centre and enables the unrestrained flow of the drama through his efficient drumming. In the Thenmodi tradition he is also an interlocutor, talking to the characters especially the less important ones. Thus he drums and acts.

Annaviar Chelliah rose up to the occasion marvellously. When he realised the dramatic variations in the story his rich drumming experience began to show itself. It could bring out all the nuances, soft and hard, through his fingers.

Another major concern of ours was to get the performers to ?act? ? to portray their characters. There was a fusion of Brecht and Stanislavsky and along with this was the more crucial part of making the dance steps an integral part of the dramatic exposition. Thus, the dance forms such as veesanam, became steps to help characterization. Thus there would be a difference in the gait of Karnan and Krishna and between Duriyothana and Veeman. An added problem was that girls did the female roles unlike in the traditional kooththu where men played the role of women. Fortunately, most of the female cast had been trained in Bharatha Natiyam. But they were not kooththu material. All this made Annaviar?s task only more difficult. It was not to be the kind of kooththu that we normally see. We were trying to distil the ?genunie? kooththu, which lay buried in the outer spectacle and dance. Chelliah Annaviar had the artistic sensitivity and the creative intelligence to immediately respond to his new challenges. His voice was his also an asset. All these combined to make Karnan or not only epoch making in its presentation but intensely human in the depiction.

A new leaf was turned in the annals of kooththu with the production of Karnan por. It was no doubt, a singular achievement of Vithiananthan?s, but it also that of Chelliah?s. His role as the presenter, made it look natural and easy flowing. The performance did not come across as a first effort, but as that of a polished professional.

Vithyananthan did three more plays with Annaviyar Chelliah ? Nondi Nadagam (1963), Ravanesan (1965) and Valivathai (1967). I was out of the Island in 1967, but had the privilege to be associated with the other two productions.

Ravanesan is a landmark in kooththu revival. The tradition was to do plays that had a written script. Ravanesan was different. We took the fall of Ravana as depicted by Kamban and got it written to suit the arttams the dances in the kooththu. Mounaguru did these transcreations. He made it a kooththu script. Then songs had to be written to the varying rhythms of the different dances. Much efforts went to this. A combination of dance rhythm, literary resonance and dramatic depth were equally essential. Mounaguru put into song what we decided. The Annaviar was not out of it. He too made his contributions.

In Ravanesan there was a blend of the new and old, the traditional and the modern. Such experimentation was possible because we had in Mounaguru a really versatile dancer. He could marry the steps to suit the mood. There were other performers too such as Perinpanathan who as Sallian in Karnan por brought out the intricacies of kooththu dancing in the most vivid manner. It was a sturdy performance that had a certainty and definitiveness of a talented dancer. One should not forget Kanagaratnam either, who was a great dancer. They were once-in-a-life time combination.

The richness was fortified by the assistance give by N. Santhalingam as makeup man and Kamala acca (Vithiananthan?s wife) as the costumer. N. Santhalingam?s makeup differed greatly from the traditional one, which usually looks gaudy and unnatural under electric lights. In one of the later productions Sithamparapillai of Alaveddy, a great folk singer and Udukku drummer was brought in.

It was the undoubted capability of Annaviar to combine such a diversity of inputs that led to performances of great authority and intense drama. However, he never tried to pose as one who knew every thing about kooththu during rehearsals. In fact one could accuse him of having hidden his talents. Off stage he was a very humble man and was not quite happy in his new Peradeniya environment. He enjoyed his drink and liked to have the bottle under his bed. But Vithiananthan in that sense was a hard taskmaster. He wanted Annaviar to enjoy his drink, but not become a drunkard. Understandably, some of us turned out to be quite intimate with him and the degree of intimacy depended on the periodic drink he wanted.

Annaviar Chelliah later became a much talked of artist. Mounaguru and his collaborators used him in their new productions. But Annaviyar was never able to overcome the pangs of poverty. At this point I should extend a word of appreciation to certain younger members of the staff of the Eastern University for helping Annaviar periodically. Had it not been for the generosity of those from the university?s Fine Arts Department, his position would have been much worse. It is a pity that the local Arts Council had not helped him to the extent it could have, and should have. In spite of all this the artist in him was never blunted. His conversation revealed his artistic depth and his integrity. May his soul achieve eternal bliss it fully deserves.

art of imagination- vasan's works with children

2010-04-19T17:09:00.003+05:30

art of imagination

2010-04-19T16:52:00.002+05:30

Kooththu(Traditional Theatre) in Thattumunai, Vaharai, Sri Lanka

2010-04-07T13:25:00.004+05:30

After a long period, the Thattumunai village has started to practice the "Kusalavan" vadamody kooththu(March 2010). I captured some pictures during their practicing time.

Thattumunai is a village located in Koralaipattu North DS division (Vaharai) and affected very vastly by both Tsunami and the War. They have started to practice this kooththu after a long time. This is a significant event in Vaharai that they have committed to perform this kooththu to mobilize their community towards living together.

J.Karunenthira

JOYFUL TIMES WITH COLOURES IS IN PROGRESS WITH VASAN

2010-03-11T12:49:00.004+05:30

ITS AN ART ACTIVITY WITH COLOURES IN ORDER TO EXPRESS FREELY WITH THE FACILITATION OF AN ARTIST NOT BY TEACHING

A COLOURFUL EXPERIANCE IN BATTICALOA

JOYFUL TIMES WITH COLORES: ANOTHER WORK WITH WOMEN IN BATTICALOA BY VASAN

2010-03-11T12:26:00.003+05:30

MAKING OF 'VIRUMBI' LOVEABLE

2010-03-08T12:20:00.000+05:30

OH! FREEZED IN FEAR OR ANGER?!

2010-03-08T12:17:00.001+05:30

CELEBRATIONS WITH MOTHER OF COURAGE

2010-03-08T12:09:00.002+05:30

CELEBRATIONS OF CREATIVITY

2010-03-08T11:55:00.001+05:30

BUILDING VISUAL STORIES

2010-03-08T11:50:00.002+05:30

TOWARDS THE TOP OF PALMYRAHA

2010-03-08T11:41:00.001+05:30

WILL TO PLAY

2010-03-08T11:37:00.002+05:30

WORKS IN JAFFNA WITH VASAN-2

2010-03-08T11:25:00.002+05:30

WORKS IN JAFFNA WITH VASAN

2010-03-08T11:19:00.003+05:30

PAINTING EXHIBITION OF CHILDREN OF OZANAM: CREATIVE ANIMATION BY S.N.VASAN

2009-12-28T22:56:00.001+05:30

GREETINGS WITH LOVEABLE (விரும்பி)

2009-12-28T22:52:00.001+05:30

PAINTINGS OF ARUNTHATHI

2009-12-27T20:06:00.002+05:30

A.Sivanandan: Author of "when memory dies"

2009-11-22T14:38:00.002+05:30

PAINTING OF KAMALA VASUKI

2009-11-21T22:05:00.000+05:30

Saanthan's World of Writing

2009-11-07T00:40:00.001+05:30

CREATIVE WRITING: Please do not tell me that you have not heard of a Lankan writer in English named Ayathurai Santhan. It is gratifying to note that at least a few non-partisan academics and writers have read him and appreciated his uniqueness in creative writing. He writes in Thamil too.

His short stories are remarkable for its conciseness and subtle observances. But don't dismiss him as a Thamilian writer from the north of Lanka. This I say because I feel in the histories and anthologies of Lanakan Literature in English, Thamil writers of this country are not well or fully represented.

The reason the compilers say is that they do not know Thamil and therefore they have no way of knowing what was happening in the Thamil literary scene in this country.

This cannot be true, because some columnists particularly yours truly had been writing about this scene for several decades in English. But the irony is that they do not read these columns and assume that there is no Lankan Thamil Literature.

Most people are ignorant as to assume that the readers in Thamil here depend on what is churned out in Thamilnadu for their reading pleasure. This is far from the truth.

There is a vibrant Lankan Thamil Literature. This maybe due to the assertion by some of the fringe ultra-nationalists whose rationale is: the Thamilians in this country should go back to Thamilnadu as they are the descendants of invaders and therefore they are aliens and pariahs of this country. It is this arrogant attitude that hurts me.

Righteous indignation

Having released my pent up righteous indignation, let me talk about Santhan's (His name should be pronounced as Saanthan) collection of his works in Thamil. It is called Saanthanin Eluththuulagam (meaning Saanthan's World of Writing). Published professionally in Thamilnadu by Annai Rajeswari Pathipaham, 41 Kalyana Sundaram Street, Peramboor, Chennai 600 011.

This comprehensive collection Saanthan's creative writing in Thamil has 312 pages. The cover of the book has a sketch of Saanthan portraying of the writer as he looks today. He was born in 1947 in Suthumalai, Maanippaai. He has lived in Colombo and other places during 1966 -1980.

Saanthan has written 15 books in Thamil and four in English. His works had been translated into Sinhala, Hindi, Russian and English. Twice he has won State Literary Awards - in 1975 for the book in Thamil and 2000 for his work in English. He worked for the Government as an Engineering Draftsman and now retired.

A writer in Sinhala Cyril Perera who was his boss was also one of his mentors. He has visited Moscow as guest of the Lanka - Soviet Friendship Association in 1982, and Kenya in 2003. His two pieces of travelogue on his visit to these two countries and his experiences of travel are fascinating.

They read like short stories.

The book is divided into four sections: Short Fiction, Travelogues, Stories and Mini Stories, In the Eyes of the Critics. Asokamitran one of the leading Thamil writers in Thamilnadu, the late K.Kailasapathy and Dr.

Genuine feelings

N. Subramaniam have evaluated his works. They identify genuine feelings and freshness and commitment in his writings.

His short fictions are: Krishnan Thoothu (22 pages), Theadal (18 pages) and Vealihalin Kathai (21 pages). The titles of these short fictions could be translated into English as The message of Krishnan, In Search of and the Story of the fences respectively. There are stories that include short skits.

Here is a translation by me of one of skits titled Peyar (Name):

"Kanapathipillai decided to open money lending with interest shop. He was thinking of having a name for it. Days passed, but he couldn't get one.

He approached his friend Subramaniam who was clever in such matters. The latter thought for a while." Name it "People's Interest Lending Shop!" he said."

Here's another story: Podian

"When Amarasingham returned home, his Mrs. told him the news: The Podian (servant boy) who went the CWE at 1.30 p.m has not returned home. It's 5.00 P.M. now.

"What is to be done now? he asked

"Why don't you put an entry in the Police Station and come?"

He thought for two minutes.

Amarasingham rose up from his chair and asked "What is his name?" "Oh! Podian...Podian's name..."muttered Mrs Amarasingham. Even after thinking hard, she could only remember that even the Podian must be having a name; "Wait, let Baby come, I'll ask her and let you know.

Awaiting the arrival of Baby, Amarasingham sat on the chair again.

Sardonic comments

So witty are all his stories, long and short, they are subtle sardonic comments on people, society and life at large. But he also writes in short, pithy sentences that are unusual in customary Thamil writing.

I wish that I analyze all his stories for the benefit of non-Thamil speaking readers; but I cannot do that in a column like this. Hence I ventured to translate the very short pieces. Here is another one- Koalangal (Designs)

There was a great man in one place. He had three shawls with him.

One was Shawl with gold thread work.

One was a Kadar (Gray Cloth) shawl

One was a Red coloured shawl.

If you want to read his stories in English, please read his works already published. This columnist has translated one of his stories under the title "Thanks". It is included in the collection bridging connections - An anthology of Sri Lankan short Stories edited by Rajiva Wijesinha.

Saanthan is a Lankan writer in Thamil that has now started writing in English and had received laurels from people who matter, including Professor emeritus D C R A Goonathilaka. That's a positive sign.

CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS IN ENGLISH BY THE THAMILS OF SRI LANKA.

2009-11-07T00:38:00.002+05:30

CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS IN ENGLISH
BY THE THAMILS OF SRI LANKA.

ANNUAL FESTIVAL – 2001.

ORGANISED BY

THIRD EYE – ENGLISH FORUM

CO-ORGANISERS

ALBION

Y.M.C.A BATTICALOA

DATE : SUNDAY 30TH DECEMBER 2001.

VENUE: FERDINAND’S HALL
THANDAVANVELLI, BATTICALOA

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

PROGRAMME

SESSION 1 : DEDICATED TO C.V. VELUPILLAI

9.30 A.M. LIGHTING OF THE TRADITIONAL OIL LAMP.
9.40 WELCOME SPEECH
9.45 C.V. VELUPILLAI – A PROFILE
BY: S.M. FELIX
9.55 “AN INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS IN
ENGLISH BY THE THAMILS OF SRI LANKA”
BY: S. JEYASANKAR.
10.05 “THIRD EYE” – RELEASE OF THE 7TH ISSUE
CHAIR : T. KIRUPAKARAN
10.15 REVIEW
BY : PROF. SITRALEGA MOUNAGURU
10.30 SONG

SESSION 2: DEDICATED TO S.J.K. CROWTHAR

10.45 S.J.K. CROWTHAR - A PROFILE
BY: J. KENNEDY
10.55 SONG
11.00 POETRY READING 1
11.05 CHALLENGES OF SCHOOL THEATRE IN BATTICALOA
BY: M. NAAREN
11.20 POETRY READING 2
11.25 ENGLISH THEATRE IN THE SCHOOLS OF BATTICALOA
BY: T.LALINI
11.35 POETRY READING 3
11.40 THEATRE AS A VEHICLE FOR CREATIVITY AND
LANGUAE LEARNING.
BY: ELOMA MUTHULINGAMM
11.55 POETRY READING 4
12.00 ENGLISH THEATRE IN BATTICALOA
BY: L.A. LEON

SESSION 3: DEDICATED TO ALAGU SUBRAMANIAM

2.30 P.M. ALAGU SUBRAMAIAM: A PROFILE
BY V.M.J. KENNEDY
2.45 “THE FILIGHTLESS BUTTERFLY”
THE EXPERIENCE OF A PARTICIPANT
BY: RAJEEEVANI FRANCIS
2.55 SONG
3.00 “THE FLIGHTLESS BUTTERFLY”
THE SCRIPT-WRITER’S EXPERIENCE
BY: S.M. FELIX
3.15 THE FLIGHTLESS BUTTERFLY” - PERFORMANCE
4.00 POETRY READING
4.05 “ROBIN HOOD” - PERFORMANCE
BY: ENGLISH CLUB – Y.M.C.A. BATTICALOA
4.45 POETRY READING
4.50 “SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO” – PERFORMANCE
BY ALBION
5.30 DISCUSSION
5.55 VOTE OF THANKS
6.00 END OF PROGRAMME

Spotlighting the Eastern stage

2009-11-07T00:22:00.000+05:30

Spotlighting the Eastern stage
By L.A. Leon

Is there an English theat rical tradition in Batticaloa? The answer I think, is yes and no. If we look for an English theatrical tradition outside educational institutions, the answer probably is no.

There never seems to have existed a Drama Society or club independent of any institution. On the other hand to the question “Did schools in Batticaloa stage English plays?” the response is positive.

Drawing on past experiences of English plays in schools, it could be said that an English theatrical tradition in Batticaloa existed in some leading schools in the town (St. Michael’s College, St. Cecilia’s College, Vincent Girls’ High School, Methodist Central College, and Shivanada MV).

There has existed a tradition of staging scenes from Shakespeare plays at special school functions.

Some over-used escape literary plays other than scenes from Shakepeare, like Cindrella, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs have been continuously staged at most school functions. They are still in the forefront as popular forms of entertainment at school functions.

The prevalent stage in the English theatrical tradition can be related to the common factor referred to by Tissa Jayatilaka in his address Sri Lankan Drama in English.

“The state of affairs that we find in the English theatre of Sri Lanka is the natural outcome of a historical fact. Western dramatic literature is a tradition brought by the British to Sri Lanka and just as much as most other “things British” absorbed by the locals, are confined to those that form the urban sector of our society. This tradition too struck roots in the very congenial surroundings provided for it by the urbanized Western-oriented lintelligentsia of the land which were quick to accept uncritically, and quicker to ape those nuances of western taste that they deemed fashionable.”

The use of role plays and then dramas to motivate the teaching and learning of English became popular in schools in and after1986 with the Ministry of Education taking the initiative to organise school, district, provincial and national level English drama competitions. Due to time constraints, easy accessibility, simplicity, and popularity, the above mentioned popular plays have constantly been staged.

In the past few years, English drama stages in Batticaloa have seen a slight deviation from the common, over-used traditional stage presentations.

The experiences of the DELIC graduates in adapting stories into stage plays actually done as an enrichment activity in language development during the training period has enabled some enthusiastic teachers to stage such adaptations for the English drama competitions. One such adaptation was the short story The Diamond Necklace by Nirmali Hetiarachi.

Similarly sections from Treasure Island and Oliver Twist were adapted and staged by students of Methodist Central College and St. Michael’s College respectively.

From the series of one act plays The Bishop’s Candlesticks was presented by Vincent Girls’ High School, The Proposal by Anton Chekhov and another play The Richmond Hotel was staged by the Batticaloa Delic trainees in 1995. There may be still others that I am not aware of.

Several reasons could be considered for this break away from the usual Shakespearean plays. For instance:

1. Those involved in the production of Shakespearean plays were the older generation of “English medium educated” teachers familiar with such plays and the language. The casts were mostly from students who had done English elocution and often the same set of students participated year after year in different plays making it easy for the directors/teachers to train.

2. Most of the new generation of English teachers of today are not familiar with or do not have the confidence to handle Shakespearean plays and the students who are not fluent in English do not have the ability to memorise and present the dialogue. This actually discourages teachers from going in for Shakespearean plays.

3. Although, the general audience is attracted by the movements and actions, they fail to understand Shakespearean langugage and the over-accented elocution in English.

To date, stage direction has been made by English teachers who have had a little or no stage experience, nor were they aware of proper theatrical techniques involved.

The teachers did what they thought was best to make the presentations entertaining, even cinematic style and movements were used in stage plays. These producers/teachers often failed to make the casts internalise the characters, or to make them understand their role in relation to the whole play. These lapses on the part of the directors made the characters ineffective.

My intention here is not to denigrate the excellent contribution made by English teachers to English theatre in Batticaloa, but to emphasise the need for creating awareness in theatrical techniques and stage performances.

In this frame of reference, it would be gratifying if the Fine Arts Department of the Eastern University, Sri Lanka take the initiative to educate and encourage school teachers to present better stage performances in the future.

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A new set of riders
While tracing the Engli- sh theatrical tradition in Batticaloa, I considerit relevant to review Riders to the Sea performed at the Fine Arts theatre, Eastern University on November 19, 1997.

I deem that a new dimension and a transitional phase for English drama in Batticaloa has been prompted by S. Jeyashanker of the Department of Fine Arts, in collaboration with the English Language Teaching Unit [ELTU], of the Eastern University through the play Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge. I am sure it was a challenging venture, and calls for the commendation of the principal, teachers and students of St. Cecilia’s College who came forward to work out on this experimentation.

Although Riders to the Sea carries the traits of a symbolic play it also holds the universal theme of conflict between man and nature, a theme that knits well into the life and experiences of the fisher folk of the coastal belt of Sri Lanka. Riders to the Sea, presents an insight into the nature and condition of existence of fisher folk pitted against the forces of the universe, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile. The success of a play depends on the ingenuity of the producer. In any play the choice of realistic or unrealistic stage sets, costuming, and make up lies with the producer. As such the localising of the stage sets, costuming, make-up and music, made Riders to the Sea realistic in a local context, a plus point to the producer S. Jeyashanker.

The producer very effectively used a bare stage with a few essential movable properties. The choice of cast for the female characters was apt but the cast that formed the male characters had their limitations - I think, generally maximum interpretation of male character is not possible for a female and vice versa-but this is a limitation that could be overlooked. The costuming matched the day to day dress of our local fisher folk.

Although the movements of the characters were meaningfully performed in keeping with the situation demanded, the meaningfulness of the dialogue fell within certain limitations. Voice training and finer voice modulation would have ensured that the general audience, which is usually enticed by glamorous costumes and actions, follow and understand the dialogue better. This would have enhanced greater involvement of the general audience.

Another strategy brought into play was the localised drum beat and the Tamilized chorus on and off stage, which effectively conveyed communal or group emotion from the start to the finish. In this nexus, the introduction of the characters with the chorus and drum beat, and speaking out pieces of the dialogue contributed to set the mood for the play from the start. Background sounds; (sawing, nailing) off stage evoked suspense in the minds of the audience who actually hoped to see a coffin brought in.

On the whole Riders to the Sea was a success story and this was reflected in the behaviour of the audience who physically and emotionally accepted this temporarily as the real world.

The stage production of Riders to the Sea has gone through various phases of a proper theatrical regime thus making it the first play to experience organised development, so I would consider this to be a milestone in the English theatrical tradition in Batticaloa. I hope this would pave the way for better and more stage presentations in English in the future.

PORTRAIT OF 'AMMAPPA' BY S.N. VASAN

2009-11-07T00:10:00.002+05:30

*AMMAPPA- MOTHER'S FATHER

MAN OF 83 YEARS AGE WITHOUT A SINGLE GREYED HAIR (Not only on painting!)

WORKS OF VASAN WITH CHILDREN IN CLASS ROOM

2009-11-07T00:06:00.001+05:30

CHILDREN OF 'OSANAM' BATTICALOA PLAYING WITH COLOURS: A WORK OF VASAN

2009-11-07T00:00:00.002+05:30

AJ on About another matter

2009-10-14T00:02:00.006+05:30

Introduction

Literary historians tell us that Sri Lankan Tamil poetry has a distinctive tradition which begins from the Sangam Age, and the name Eezhaththup Poothanthevanar has been cited in this regard.

This tradition continued uninterrupted during the period of the Jaffna Kingdom circa 12th century A.C.

While this tradition continued uninterrupted, one should also bear in mind that the hegemonic poetic conventions of South Indian Tamil poetry did have a great impact on the Sri Lankan Tamil poetic tradition and conventions.

Modern Sri Lankan Tamil poetry had its beginnings in the nineteen forties, with the self-styled renaissance. In the nineteen sixties, the Progressive Writers’ Association launched a movement to stress the ‘Ceylonness’ of Ceylon Tamil Literature. In Ceylon Tamil poetry this took the form of the speaking voice, rooted in the rhythms of speech, verse drama etc. In the nineteen eighties, responding to the political travails of the Tamil community, Ceylon Tamil poetry began to speak of the loss of life, the destruction of property and the anguish of displacement. Thematically, ethnicity began to supersede class and caste, and there are poems which searingly indict state terrorism and barbaric military operations. This phase also throws up armed militants, especially women who also wrote poetry. Translations from English to Tamil and Tamil to Sinhala add a further dimension. This, in brief, is the context in which Sivasegaram’s transcreations should be viewed. (I am indebted to S. Pathmanathan for helping with this contextualisation).

This collection of Sivasegaram’s transcreations is political in the best sense of the word. He is a fluent bilingual who is equally at home in English as in his mother tongue, Tamil. His characteristic tone is a withering sarcasm and his poems go straight for the jugular.

As a committed Marxist, he can see the integral connections between tyranny and oppression in different countries; they are all manifestations of the same phenomenon. He writes (About another matter):

It is true that

when I speak about one thing,

it seems to be about another.

It is hard to avoid one

while speaking of another.

Writing about Pinochet is

also writing about Suharto, Marcos and Hitler.

The man who went missing in Chile

remains buried in Chemmani.

The mass graves in Mirusuvil and Sooriyakanda

were dug as one pit.

And the crowbars that demolished Babri Masjid

were forged in the fire that engulfed the Jaffna Library,

the heat of whose flames

blasted the statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan.

The poem The killing hands refers to the same phenomenon:

The very hands that buried young boys at Sooriyakanda

buried young men at Chemmani.

In God bless America, the poet dons the person of an American citizen caught in the inferno of 11th September who addresses the President of the United States of America:

Your Excellency the President

of the United States of America,

I, an American citizen,

speak from a room in a burning tower

where lights suddenly went off

following the impact of an air plane

that struck like a thunderbolt.

The poem is a scorching indictment of America’s crimes against humanity, beginning with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima:

But my vision pierces through the darkness and

the walls of the building:

half a century of history unfolds before me.

I see bloodstains on the military hands

that uphold American domination.

The poem does not confine itself to a mere expression of righteous indignation. It ends in a note of hope:

I do not lose heart,

for the liberation of America is interwoven

with that of the world.

Let the collapse of this tower be a symbol

of the fall of a terror

that made America the enemy of the world.

Let it be the beginning of the end

of a goddess of evil bearing the trident

of exploitation, oppression and war.

This powerful poem concludes on an ironic note:

Your Excellency the President

I love America

more than I love my life that will soon depart:

not the America that you seek to save,

but the America that strives to save itself from you –

an America that the whole world would love.

God bless that America!

If I have given the impression so far that Sivasegaram is obsessed with America, today’s sole hyper-power (In Castro’s vivid description), I must correct it. If America looms large, it is because that is \today’s political reality; it is the sponsor and fount of global state terrorism today.

A poignant poem like The prison focuses on gender oppression and suffering:

I attained age.

Eggs, head bath, sari, imprisonment,

broker, donation, dowry, thaali.

I ended imprisonment at home

to be imprisoned elsewhere.

Did not my mother know?

Did not my sisters know ?

Did someone forget

to tell me something?

These lines bring home to me the nugget of truth in the cliché: the personal is the political.

His poems on the Trincomalee Harbour and the Kelani River do not dwell, as conventional poems would have done, on scenic beauty, but link them up, respectively, to people waiting for days on end to travel by ship to the North (at a time when the A-9 highway had been closed), and to the bodies of youths killed during the 1987-1989 insurgency and thrown into the river.

Sivasegaram’s is decidedly a Third World Voice, the voice of the oppressed and the downtrodden everywhere clamouring for justice and freedom. His poems do not play hide-and-seek with the reader, who knows immediately where the poet stands.

A.J. Canagaratna

Presenting a long tradition of Tamil poetry: problems of translation

2009-10-13T23:54:00.000+05:30

Presenting a long tradition of Tamil poetry: problems of translation

S Sivasegaram*

The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry. (Ed. Lakshmi Holmstorm, Subashree Krishnaswamy and K Srilatha), Penguin-Viking, 2009, pp. 222 + xxvii, Indian Rupees 499.00.

Precision of translation and faithfulness to the source have always been important to the translation of poetry. A translator, as AK Ramanujan once argued, could be re-creating a poem. There are, however, limits to the liberty that a translator may take with the source for the end product to be called a fair translation. Ambiguity of meaning in the source, difficulty in translating idiom, usage and phrases unique to the source language and culture are real issues; but they are bad excuses for purposeful omission, introduction of extraneous matter, distortion of meaning, and plain bad translation. The translator, when dealing with apparent ambiguities, could, rather than take liberties with the poem indicate uncertainty by the use of quotation marks or explanatory notes as necessary.

A number of translators, once convinced of their interpretation of the meaning and the message of a poem, tend to drive home their point by introducing matter that is alien to the source. Some even deliberately misinterpret phrases, downplay their significance or even omit them. Such subjective approach can be as harmful as, and at times more harmful than, poor language skills.

The reader is kindly asked to note that capitalisation is used to distinguish between long vowels from their shorter counterparts and to indicate retroflection in consonants in the transliteration of the titles and text of poetry given in italics in the paragraphs that follow.

Before commenting on the translations themselves, I should say that it is rather strange that the anthology starts with a song of praise of Visnu from paripAdal, which according to the late Vaiyapurippillai, highly regarded as an objective scholar of Tamil studies, as well as other serious scholars, belongs to the late Sangam period when the Brahminic religion had made inroads into Tamil society. Whatever the intention, this stands in contradiction of the fact that the earliest extant Tamil poetry is secular, despite the various pre-Brahminic forms of worship and rituals that existed in Tamil society. Also, selections from cilappatikAram and rAmAvatAram tend to over-represent the praise of ‘Hindu’ gods, which constitute a tiny fraction of the two essentially secular works.

The translations of Sangam poetry in the anthology are by AK Ramanujan, a much reputed poet in his own right, to whom the world of Tamil literature owes much for his translations of Sangam literature into English. But he too has displayed a weakness for over-emphasis. For example, he uses the term ‘king’ to refer not only to the king kiLLi vaLavan but also to the ancestors of his intended victims in (puranAnURu 46, p.14 ). The source does not have the word ‘king’. Although kiLLi vaLavan’s lineage is stated in the source, the pedigree of his adversary is in terms of the generosity and sharing practiced by the ancestors. The use of the term king to the latter is probably due to Ramanujan’s reliance on existing commentary. Again, in puranAnURu 187 (p. 17), nAdu (country, countryside) is translated as “field”. Also we have “(Earth,) you are only as good as the good young men in each place”, whereas the source does not qualify the men as good or young. These are minor flaws, but avoidable since they do not in any way add to the poetic value.

There is also the frequent substitution of names of plants with ones familiar to the reader in English, which would not harm the translation, except where the pant itself has some significance by way of association with various moods, and that does not seem to be a major problem in this volume. A more serious flaw, and seemingly the only one of its nature in Sangam translations, concerns a literal translation of the Tamil phrase cen nAp pulavOr as red-tongued poets (puranAnURu 107, p.15 ), whereas the term cen nA refers to erudite speech, as the word cem also means good, pure etc., as in cen tamizh, implying proper Tamil.

A serious mistake, rather uncharacteristic of Ramanujan, occurs in puranAnURu 192 (p. 20): “So, we are not amazed by the great, and we do not scorn the little”, whereas it should have been “So, we are not amazed by the great, and even less do we scorn the little”.

Cilappatikaaram has been translated with considerable care by Lakshmi Holmstrom. Yet in Canto 1 (p. 21), the translation uses the term king, which is absent in the source, to indicate that the reference is to the Cola king. Using it in the first stanza is acceptable although not essential; but its repeated use in the remaining stanzas seems unnecessary. A more serious flaw concerns the translation of “kongu alar thArc cenni” (referring to the head wearing a garland spreading fragrance) as “(the Cola king whose) garland is covered with pollen”. The latter may be imaginative translation, but the former seems more characteristic of the style of the author. There are several such avoidable defects which, however, do not seriously harm the essence of the poems. But, translating “thaLai avizh naru malarE” (meaning “good/fragrant flower breaking its bonds” i.e., the opening out of the petals released from the binding sepals) as “flowers just beginning to shed their petals” (Canto 7 verse 16, p. 22) and “muLai vaLar iLa nakaiyE” (bud-sprouting tender smile) as “teeth like tender buds” harm both meaning and poetic sense. Translating “mata annam” (Canto 7 verse 23, p. 22) as “artless swan” is inappropriate since the word “mata” means beautiful, tender or young in this context and not “artless”, although the term “matavan” means “ignorant man”.

The language of the thevAram period is closer to what we know as Tamil today than is the language of the Sangam and post-Sangam periods. Indira Peterson’s translations of the thevAram are remarkably faithful to the source, with the occasional slip like translating thOdu in “thOdudaiya ceviyan” (Sampanthar, book 1, hymn 1, p. 39) as “woman’s earring” is incorrect since the ornament became associated with women alone rather recently. In fact, wealthy men wore ornamental earrings until a century ago. Also in the same stanza, the word cudalai (cremation ground) is translated as “burning ground” which alters the meaning considerably. Norman Cutler’s translations of Kaaraikkaal Ammaiyaar are among the most impressive Saivate poetry in the volume.

Translations from the tirukkuraL by PS Sundaram are weak and often distort the meaning of the source without adding any poetic value. Translations of Maanikkavacakar’s verses in pp. 42-45 are flawed in terms of choice of words as well as omissions and fail to do justice to the source. Also, the translations of the Siddhar poems (pp.68-73) seem imprecise in several places.

I do not quite consider Sekizhar’s verse (pp. 48-51) poetry. The translation could have done without any pretence to verse and been written as a passage.

Translations of Nammaazhvaar by Ramanujan are perhaps the most beautiful of religious literature in the volume. In translating Aandal, names like Madhusudanan and Narayanan Nambi are transliterated in their Tamil form while Madhavan, Govindan and Madurai take a Sanskritised form. Preference for Sanskrit persists in the translation of Kamban too, who, interestingly, Tamilised several words with Sanskrit origin so that the link of the words to their foreign source was not readily evident.

In the translation Goplakrishna Bharati’s songs of Nandan the phrase ‘inta nandan upacAram collavO?’ (meaning “May this Nandan greet you?”) is rendered as “Untouchable as I am, may I not serve you?” I seriously doubt if Goplakrishna Bharati ever used the term “untouchable” in his work, especially in the speech of Nandan.

The tendency to take liberties persists in the translations of modern Tamil poetry. For example, in Subramaniya Bharati, the phrase “nINda pozudAka” (for long) is rendered as “eternally”. The line, “vEndum poruLaiyellAm manathu veRutthu vittathadi” (My heart rejected all things that I desire) is rendered as “denying my hearts desires”, which distorts the meaning.

What needs to be pointed out at this stage is that Tamil poetry since its early Sangam period relied strongly on its metric rhythm. Powerful rhythm added strength to many poems well into the last century. Subramaniya Bharati’s poems dealing with the national struggle and even some of the ‘religious’ poems drew much of their strength from their rhythm. The absence of any sense of rhythm in nearly all the translations loses something for the reader without compensating the loss in any way.

The flaws in the translation of traditional Tamil verse with which I am familiar made me doubt the precision of a considerable number of modern poems with which I am less familiar. I am unable to comment on the quality of the translations where I do not have ready access to the source. But some of the selections themselves raise questions about the understanding that the editors have about what poetry is or what Tamil poetry should be about. I give below a few of the selections that very much disappointed me.

Sea

No point in blaming the waves,

so long as the sea exists.

Nakulan, (p. 95)

Which came first?

Nobody loves fear

and nobody fears love.

–But which of these came first?

(Si. Mani, p. 106)

(I have come across a number of Indian and Chinese proverbs that sound more poetic than these ‘poems’.)

Perfect pitch

A stack of betel leaves

betel nut

lime

tobacco

water to gargle.

A flask of ice.

A bottle of brandy.

Matchbox, cigarette

ashtray, and

you my friend,

to chat with.

In such a death too

a kind of bliss.

Nakulan (p. 97)

(This verse seems at best a mediocre parody of Omar Khayyam’s lines translated by FitzGerald:

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!").

Unless the intention was to include poems that represented the worst of Tamil poetry, I cannot understand how these lines could find their way into a serious ‘book of Tamil poetry’. There are cleverer and even seemingly poetic imagery which have passed for poetry in Tamilnadu at a time when free verse was poorly understood by the ‘new poetry’ movement.

Despite the ease with which many of them could be translated to English without gain or loss of meaning or poetic sense, the temptation to add meaning seems to have been strong. There are other problems relating to insensitive or reckless translation. I will give a few examples from some poems with which I have been very familiar.

The line “inRennum kalth thuLikaL vizhuvathanal” by Pramil have been translated on p. 114 as “Because of the hurl and fall of Today’s stone flakes”. A lot of meaning has been lost in this much acclaimed poem of Pramil. The lines mean “because of the fall of stone droplets called Today”. (Besides, Pramil intentionally violated Tamil grammatical rules about ‘junction’ in kalth thuLikaL which should strictly have been kaRRuLikaL). The imaginative phrase ‘droplets of stone’ (‘droplets’ of a solid rather than a liquid) has been substituted with “stone flakes”, defeating Pramil’s intention.

Nuhman’s poem titled “Last evening, this morning” in translation (pp. 122-123) has a number of poor substitutions.

akalvathu (leaving) is translated as “going about their business”

kAkki udaiyil thuvakkukaL thirinthana (Guns clad in khaki walked about) is rendered as “Khaki clad men patrol, guns held aloft”.

manitha vAdai (human scent) is translated as “smell of human beings”.

ivvARAka/ inRaya vAzhvai/ nAngaL izhanthOm/ inRaya malaiyai/ nAngaL izhanthOm (Thus, we lost today’s life, we lost today’s evening) has become “and this was how / we lost our evenings / we lost this life”. There is a clear shift in emphasis which robs Nuhman’s lines of their subtlety and in the process alters the meaning.

In “Buddha murdered” (pp. 123-124), the phrase “yAzh nUlakatthin padikkattarukE/ avarathu cadalam kuruthiyiR kidanthathu” (his body lay in blood, besides the steps to the Jaffna Library) has been translated as “He lay upon the steps of the Jaffna Library drenched in his own blood”. This seems, once again, to be a result of the translator’s insensitivity to the restrained style of Nuhman. Also “ninety thousand books” in the source become “ninety thousand rare books”. This is uncalled for interference in a process of adding ‘colour’.

There are also instances where common phrases are translated literally with loss of meaning. Devadacchan’s phrase (p. 141) rendered “when the current failed” uses the term “kaRant / karantu” (current) referring to electric power in much of Tamilnadu and in Sri Lanka, where the term “laiR” (light) is also used. The use of “current” in place of “power” is perhaps due to overestimating the significance of the term “current”.

For some unclear reason, the place and date (Jaffna/10-11-83) of the letter forming Urvasi’s poem (p. 146) have been omitted. They are important since they identify a place and period in whose context the poem acquires much of its meaning.

There are a number of errors of carelessness which could have been avoided in a short anthology of this nature with help from a competent editor or someone familiar with the sources and having a sense of poetry.

A recent reviewer who hailed the anthology had commented that the translations of some of the modern poems were dull. The poems referred to were from Tamilnadu, and I suspect that much of the dullness comes from the source.

The main weakness of the translations seems to be that, like the compilation, several of the translations have been rather hasty, especially since there are some commendable translations of poems old and new and there is no major evidence of linguistic incompetence.

__________________________________________________________

*

Writer of poetry and literary criticism in Tamil, and retired Senior Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

2009-09-17T01:25:00.005+05:30

A life of letters

NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN

Apparent in Siriwardena's works, but never intimidating the reader, was the depth of his learning and experience, whether it was about literature, politics, art, or film.

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India seems to have little time for the literature, films and art of any of its neighbours... The loss, unfortunately, is India's.
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Selected Writings of Regi Siriwardena: Literature and the Arts - Volume 1, edited by A.J. Canagaratna, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, 2005, p.131, price not stated.

IT is a pity that little is known in India about Sri Lanka other than its conflict. In any case, India seems to have little time for the literature, films and art of any of its neighbours, except for the few works that have attracted international notice. The loss, unfortunately, is India's, underlined by this book of selected writings by Regi Siriwardena, the first of a projected two-volume set that brings together the work — spanning more than half a century — of a writer, poet, activist, journalist, playwright and critic. This volume collects his writings on literature, films and the arts.

From a different era

Siriwardena belonged to a generation of Sri Lankans that was born and grew up in the pre-independence years and that was fired by the hopes and possibilities that the country offered at its freedom in 1948. Though Sri Lanka never quite managed to live up to that promise, Siriwardena's inspiration never deserted him. Aside from publishing several collections of plays and poetry, he helped found the civil rights movement in Sri Lanka, counting the 15 years that he worked as editor at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo as his most fruitful.

With his death in December 2004, Sri Lanka lost one of a rare breed of intellectuals who stood firm against Sinhala majoritarianism, was not afraid to criticise Tamil chauvinism and militancy, and could not suffer hypocrites, fools or social pretensions. Apparent in his works, but never intimidating the reader, was the depth of his learning and experience, whether it was about literature, politics, art, or film. He was fiercely critical of inaccessible writings.

Reviewing a compilation of essays on Sri Lankan poetry for the Lanka Guardian in 1996, Siriwardena called for the democratisation of literary criticism. "We should write literary criticism in the way George Orwell wrote it, so that it's open to any intelligent and generally educated person. Of course, that would be the end of academic criticism as we know it and have always known it, but then, all the better."

Accessible writing

His own work was completely accessible. Whether it was a discussion of Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman or of Yeats's right-wing politics in his poetry, or telling readers why he hated free verse, there was nothing abstruse about Regi's writing; rather, it was written to draw in even the uninitiated but at the same time, never dumbed down. Until the end, his work sparkled with a never-ending supply of energy, wit and irreverence.

Take for instance the poem he wrote on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2002 — 80 pentameters in all. Titled "Birthday Apology and Apologia", the poem begins by expressing embarrassment at such longevity, and mourns the passing of those younger, snatched by Sri Lanka's violence. The poet holds his mother's "sturdy peasant genes" responsible for being able to witness the planet's "eighty revolutions around the sun" but gripes also of the diabetic legacy of his father.

But I shouldn't complain: to compensate,

I have acquired immunity to some

Infections — post-modernism, for one,

And free verse, for another. I'm glad, too

I never caught, as my late brother did,

The Sinhala nationalist flu. An early shot

Of Marxism, perhaps, took care of that.

In her introduction to the book, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the director of the ICES that has published this collection as a posthumous tribute, notes that Siriwardena "signified the creative imagination of Sri Lanka for much of the latter half of the twentieth century, an imagination, rooted in the national but universal in aspiration; an imagination that was openly political but also deeply spiritual".

Feet in two worlds

It was this that gave him his leftist politics, made him learn Russian at 15, seek out the "untranslatable" Pushkin in the original, and Yeats, Blake, Eliot, Edward Said and Shakespeare, while at the same time enabled his authoritative grasp on Sinhala literature, drama and cinema. Siriwardena captures his East-meets-West legacy poignantly in the poem "Colonial Cameo":

In the evenings my father used to make me read

aloud from Macaulay, or Abbot's Napoleon (he was short

and Napoleon, his hero; I his hope for the future).

My mother, born in a village, had never been taught

That superior tongue. When I was six, we were moving

house, she called at school to take me away.

She spoke to the teacher in Sinhala. I sensed the shock

of the class, hearing the servants' language...

A notable essay in the collection is "A Borrowed Tongue", written in July 1979, about sub-continental writing in English. He concludes that the Sri Lankan mastery of English was "disabling" when it came to describing the social environment from which the writer drew his inspiration. "The barriers are most evident when Sri Lankan novelists in English try to write about the village... I find in the prose a betraying quaintness and false poeticality when it seeks to express the thoughts and feelings of peasant characters".

The vast material included in the book has been thoughtfully arranged and grouped by the editor, A.J. Canagaratna, a long-time associate and friend of Regi's. A little more attention to the proofreading, and corrections to the irregularities in the setting would have removed unnecessary distractions in a valuable collection.

THE HINDU
07.08.2005

LOCAL DEITIES OF MALAIYAHAM(UP-COUNTRY) SRI LANKA

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IN CEYLON'S TEA GARDEN: PICTORIAL STORY

2009-09-17T00:51:00.002+05:30

PAINTING OF RAMANI ON KOOTHTHU

2009-09-15T00:04:00.000+05:30

about another matter

2009-09-14T23:55:00.003+05:30

about another matter
(Poetry Anthology-July 2004)

Poems of S.Sivasekaram in translation

Butterflies of my dreams

Countless butterflies flapped their wings
In my childhood’s sleep
Butterflies that my mother saved for me
Butterflies that my mother’s mother saved for my mother
And I saved for my children

In these nights that reek of gunpowder
My children scream in their dreams

Who stole my children’s butterflies?
And who but I could restore them
To the hours of sleep of the children of my children?

S. Sivasekaram (1997)

A tribute to trees tall and erect
You love to tread on grass,
Short shrubs, you kick and trample.
Trees tall and erect refuse to bow.
Sword in hand you cut them down

Fools you know not the wonder of trees
That rise from root and fallen seed.

The day your weapons weigh you down
And metal yields to make a rope
That binds your hand and wrings your neck
The fallen will rise-
Like a forest around you

S.Sivasekaram (1989)

S. SIVASEKARAM'S AHALYA

2009-09-14T23:34:00.001+05:30

Ahalya

Stones.
Above the earth, beneath the earth,
hillocks and mountains,
rocks and fragments,
standing upright, fallen down,
stones.

Her husband, the sage, was a stone.
The god was a liar, but
no stone he,
only a male deity he lived
to survive the curse.
And she who had lived like stone
coming alive for that instant alone
truly became a stone.

On a day much later,
a god who crossed the seas to rescue a lover
only to thrust her
into burning flames-
who feared the town’s gossip
and exiled her-
a god, yet unworthy of touching a stone-
stumbled upon her.

Had she not changed again
Stone becoming woman
To live like a stone with a stone,

Had she remained truly a stone
she might have stood forever,
a mountain peak, undestroyed by time.

S.Sivasekaram (1980)

Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom

History of Muneeswaram Temple

2009-09-14T23:26:00.000+05:30

SELF PORTRAIT OF PRAMIL

2009-09-05T00:38:00.001+05:30

Prof. M.H.Goonetilleka

2009-09-05T00:37:00.004+05:30

The photo of renouned Sri Lankan Scholar Prof. M.H. Goonetilleka is examining masks of traditional Sinhala Theatres of Sri Lanka in The museum of Lisban University

THIRDEYE LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL ACTIVISTS GROUP

2009-09-05T00:31:00.002+05:30