Preserving Chitrasena

Chitrasena did not pass on 10 years ago. He was not taken out or marginalised after death for the simple reason that he can't be. This is not (only) because people love and continue to love him. Not only because what he left behind sticks to collective memory so brilliantly. This is also because there are those who will continue his journey. Like Vajira, an icon on her own right. Or Upeka, leading the second and third generations.

I spoke with both Upeka and her niece Heshma Wignaraja on Tuesday, June 30. The Chitrasena Vajira Dance Foundation unveiled what can only be described as a step forward. That step involves a show. The show has a name. Devánjali. It’s set to be unveiled on July 18 and 19. A press conference organised as a preview of sorts was arranged for us. Things seemed promising. And impressive.

The show's name is interesting. Devánjali is about the worship of gods. Since Chitrasena's legacy borrowed from and added to an art-form which (in its purest form) consisted of deity-worship and ritual, the name is spot on. It speaks a lot, not just about the man whose life is being celebrated but about the art he chose to enmesh himself in. As Heshma implied early on, dance is not sterile. It borrows and adds. More than the cinema or music, it is elusive and difficult to define. What makes Chitrasena stand out is in how he managed to bring together tradition and modernity.

The preview lasted two hours. Heshma, meticulous as always to the last detail, explained her grandfather's legacy. She showed us a video.

Chitrasena's life essentially consisted of three chapters. The first of these was his background. Born into a refined and essentially bilingual theatre family, he came from a generation that had seen and would see Devar Surya Sena and Wilmot Perera. Secondly, he pursued his passion by studying his country's traditional base (through his teacher, Bevilgamuwe Lapaya Gurunnanse). Thirdly, he proceeded beyond Sri Lanka, hobnobbing with the likes of Uday Shankar, going to Shantiniketan, and travelling across the globe with his troupe (the peak of which, Heshma tells us, was the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow).

After the event was over, I talked with Upeka regarding the first of these. I told her that while Chitrasena's art was essentially “native”, critical response initially came from the urban, middle-class, and English-speaking audience, i.e. the kind of people who went to Lionel Wendt, where Karadiya was and Devánjali will be shown. She affirmed this rather cautiously. "My father's contribution was appreciated by the English-speaking intelligentsia. But it was the same thing with the vernacular press. That was at a different time, you must remember. We were hailed and encouraged and not just by audiences. Now we can't even get our show sponsored easily."

Upeka continued to talk about Devánjali. She told me that while the entire Chitrasena family from the first to the third generation (and beyond) are involved, there is a force that drives all their willpower. "That is Heshma," she explained. I agree. For all her simplicity and ease, you can see determination etched on Heshma’s face. In what she says, how she explicates matters, and how she answers query, she is as well-informed and thoughtful as an organiser of an event of this sort should be. There's hardly doubt in what she says. She is confident, both in herself and in what she has learnt.

She is also humble. She identified and praised every member of the Chitrasena Family. There was her grandmother Vajira. There were her mother Anjalika and aunt Upeka. There was also Heshma's generation, ready to take the mantle and doing so already. A vast family, you'll admit, so much the better for those who wish to see the Guru's art preserved.

There were two items from the show shown to us. The first of these was the pantheruwa, revolving around the Goddess Pattini and the dance of victory attendant on the end of a war. Pattini is worshipped by Buddhists and Hindus alike. As Heshma informed us, what gets affirmed here is a sense of inclusiveness, undisturbed by self-imposed “Us v Them” demarcations.

The second item ("Moksha") offers a bit of a paradox. "Moksha" means perfection, a state of enlightenment unfettered by secular art. How can dancing invigorate such perfection? That is at the heart of the item's conflict, which as its organisers subtly implied must be resolved by us. The audience.

One thing is clear. Devánjali isn't merely a tribute to a Master. It's a message. A step forward. It seeks to question, resolve, and liberate the Guru's legacy. As the name itself implies, it will try to showcase his contribution at its roots. In other words, it will reinforce the image of Chitrasena at his traditional base: one which involves the worship of gods and obeisance to ritual. A fitting tribute, no doubt.

Naturally enough, the last word should belong to the lives being celebrated. Here's Vajira on dancing: "It is not merely an exercise." Here's Chitrasena's take: "It is a surrendering of ego." If we are to take all tradition-bound restraints as both mere exercise and remnant of ego, no truer words have been spoken about an art-form which remains as easy to love as it is to neglect.

Written for: The Nation INSIGHT, July 11 2015

Henry Pedris: 100 Years On

Had he survived what got him killed and made him a martyr, how would he have lived? What then would have been his legacy? How would he have made us remember him? Would what we celebrate him for have changed or become distorted? What-ifs and how-comes are questions which assessments of legacies rarely delve into. But I persist. 100 years after the execution of Henry Pedris, where are we? More importantly, where is his legacy?

The popular image of Pedris as a passive victim of imperialism has been sustained to date. Notwithstanding the angry reaction, issuing in fits of violence against the Establishment, towards his imprisonment, the truth was that in the year of his arrest (1915), several other anti-imperialist programs were underway. Pedris inadvertently fell into and became a catalyst for all of them. Perhaps that was what made him a hero in the end.

What’s the bigger picture? He came from the urban bourgeoisie. His father owned (among his other estates) one of the oldest plumbago mines in the country (in Kalutara). His residence was in Cinnamon Gardens. His interests included riding horses. Throughout his life, however, he was caught between two worlds. Pedris hobnobbed with the British aristocracy, yes. But he was also a bit of a paradox.

Like most children from the capitalist aristocracy, he was tutored in the two most privileged schools, the Colombo Academy (later Royal College) and S. Thomas’ College. Unlike most of his compatriots there, however, he was a teetotaler and a devout Buddhist, resented by colonial authorities (in one incident, he refused to make way for a European in a section of a cinema hall reserved for foreigners). That was why or rather how he was caught between two worlds.

The rift between historical actuality and popular consciousness has always distorted myth into truth and the lumpen into a mythical hero. This is true when considering the national heroes who are (ritualistically) celebrated today. Most of those who are said to have continued Pedris’ “legacy” fall into this category: from the urban bourgeoisie who promised to fight for independence but who later paid obeisance to the colonialist.

What of Pedris? It’s true that along with him the likes of the Senanayake brothers (F. R. and D. S.) and D. B. Jayatilaka were imprisoned. It’s also true that they all came from the nouveau riche: a class borne from capitalist enterprise. But Pedris was different. Records testify to his family’s commitment to nationalism and Buddhism. Lady Pedris and her husband, for instance, built a temple (the Isipathanaramaya) dedicated to her son after his death.

Historians can attempt at this point to differentiate between him and those who purported to continue his legacy. What happened in 1915 wasn’t merely a backlash against imperialism: it was also a backlash against the class of brown dependants in power at the time. Perhaps this was summed up in what Sir Christopher Obeysekere, part of the two most powerful families in the country back then (the other being the Bandaranaikes), had to say about those raising anti-colonial sentiments: “Nobodies who hope to make somebodies of themselves.”

The “Nobodies” would of course eventually turn out to be just as much a “Somebody” as he was, the irony being that it was a scion of the Obeysekere-Bandaranaike family who directed a populist movement against the these "Nobodies" (I am referring to S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike). As much as the liberation movements of other colonised countries took strength from the bourgeoisie, here that class virtually kowtowed to the same people they had in their youth avowed to combat. An irony, certainly.

Henry Pedris’ legacy stands out here. Nowhere else did the arrest of an individual bring together the bourgeoisie, representatives of the proletariat, and the clergy (of almost all faiths) together as it did in the days leading to his execution. A. E. Goonesinghe clearly wasn’t a sympathiser of the class from which the incarcerated came. But in what he did during this time, there was a rare and altogether unheard of coming together of the proletariat and bourgeoisie – and that on a platform shared by the Buddhist clergy!

What happened next was avoidable in one way but inevitable in another. Those who had been detained alongside Pedris vowed to get rid of the British. F. R. Senanayake, upon seeing the limp body of the dying martyr, reportedly said, “I take the solemn pledge here and now that even if I am forced to beg on the roads with a coconut shell, I will spend all my wealth to teach these fellows a lesson.” These words seem to echo Pedris’ act of refusing to make way for a European at the theatre.

There is a difference, however.

Senanayake’s statement contains a contradiction which ailed those who would lead the independence movement. “Lead” is a strong word, I suppose: “be put into with a silver spoon” would be a better way of putting it. Senanayake’s “pledge” to “spend all my wealth” was squandered when the anti-imperialist movement was reduced to a simplistic conflict between leftwing and rightwing politics.

His brother’s exit from the Ceylon National Congress, the formation of the predominantly conservative United National Party (UNP), the establishment of Dominion status at a time when demands for complete independence were stifled, and the degeneration of the independence movement into the Kotelawala premiership all affirmed the contradiction his statement echoed: that holders of wealth accumulated through capitalist enterprise would eventually partner up with the same colonial class which they had once vowed to get rid of.

But that’s another story.

Pedris’ legacy, then, is reducible to how he diverged from the comprador class. He came from the same background, yes, but his legacy as a passive sufferer of imperialism has been preserved even today. It’s difficult to speculate, more so to chart the would-have-been of the past to the what-might-be of the future. I can say this much though. Pedris’ legacy was not appropriated in any sense by the bourgeoisie. It was the leftists and nationalists who could and indeed did do that successfully.

100 years after his execution, we face a question. Who continued what he left behind? Certainly not those who were “given” the mandate to lead the independence struggle. Certainly not those who are extrapolated as "heroes" today. No. Those who continue his legacy do so from the sidelines. For that, we are grateful. Otherwise (let's be honest) his name would fall among those it shouldn’t fall among.

Written for: The Nation INSIGHT, July 11 2015

On films that age and books that don't

Some films are fun to watch. Some are boring. All of them differ every time you see them. That's natural. In a world where nothing is as it seems it's also natural that films age when we do. It's not unusual, after all, that the way we see a Disney cartoon now is or will be different from how we see it years later. Time can do wonders. Even with films. Same thing with books, of course, but the catch is that most of what we read stay with us no matter how old we are.

Films are different. There's a reason. Books leave much to imagination. We don't see what we read, to put it in another way. We read what we think and script in what we read. We "see" with our minds. That's why what we go through in books stays with us: because books “read” us the same way we read them.

Think about a book you read recently. Read back. Go through some chapters. Take in what they're trying to get across to you. Put it all away.

Now look at it a week later. The same chapters. Take them in. Not too different to how you looked at them before, is it?

What you watch literally is what stays in your mind, yes. Unlike books, however, these are defined and redefined every time we lay our eyes on them. Conduct that experiment I mentioned above on a film, for instance, and see how it ages subsequently.

Not that this should disappoint. In fact films are made more interesting because of this. They aren't meant to be read the way books are, besides. There's a message in whatever we enjoy as a work of art. That message sticks in different ways. The message of religious leaders, of revolutionaries, or of small-time heroes sticks to us no matter how old we are. Once this is transcribed into film, however, we remember what we see. And what we see gains fresh significance every time we see it, naturally.

Books are priceless. So are films. We read with our minds open and watch with unblinking eyes. It all amounts to the same thing, really. So there's no need to worry. At all.

Written for: The Nation JEANS, July 4 2015

More than just charity

People are frail. They err. They repent. Err again. The world isn't composed of angels, after all. People are good in some ways and bad in others. There are dimensions of both. Once in a while, yes, you hear of people who do good all day and get nothing but rebuke from the rest. But that's rare.

Not that it's unusual, but my guess is that this world is scattered with so much frailty that such exceptional cases demand nothing short of absolute kindness as response. Never happens.

The point is that I've come across such a person. She lives in Piliyandala. Her name is Nandani. The moment you see her, you'll think she has been marked out for misfortune. In a way, she has. That misfortune has unfortunately figured in the greater part of her life, but that's not what I'm writing about here. I'm writing about what she does. About what we should do.

Nandani takes care of some dogs. For free. She feeds them, tends to them, even ensures they are properly medicated. This isn't a problem, you might think. But it is. Last time I checked, there were more than 10 dogs. She has to manage them all. Day in, day out. Tough.

There hasn't been much help from people, either. Whenever there's kindness, there's some way it's made use of. Some people continue to do that. They come by her house, dump their unwanted dogs, and drive away. Sometimes she doesn't even know until it's too late. By then, she has no choice. She has to tend to them whether she can manage it or not. By the looks of it, she can't.

I want to write about her because I've seen her. I've seen where she lives, how she lives, and how she takes care of all these homeless dogs. She never fails by them, although (as she admits) there are days when she is forced (yes, forced!) by circumstance to neglect. Like when she can't get enough food on the table. There's a shop that (begrudgingly, I am forced to conclude) gives her rice (not for free). She doesn't admit it, but almost always that rice is rotting.

I also want to write about her because we live in a country where dogs are pampered. Some are abused of course, but think about how they are celebrated and you'll realise how they're treated. They are pets for the most part, but I doubt Nandani keeps her dogs like that. She treats them. She genuinely cares. Naturally enough, people have exploited her. Makes me ashamed of what we are.

Not everything's bleak, thankfully. She has a daughter. She has neighbours who help (though not all the time). She has her sympathisers. But in a world where kindness is trashed and people would rather say nasty things about each other, she has her detractors. Some say she should just let the dogs go. Others are franker. They think the dogs should be abandoned. 

Whatever the opinion, I know one thing's clear. Nandani loves them all. She loves them so much that she can't let go. There are those who'll scoff at this, no doubt. But think for a moment. If you were to consider a love for a child, created through time and attachment, would her bond with all those homeless waifs be any different?

I don't think so. She didn't wish it to happen this way, after all. It was imposed. On her. And since she was forced into it by others who made use of her love for dogs, I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt. We should give credit and lend support. Not critique.

Let me be clear. She doesn't need charity. She needs help. Our help.

You can call Nandani on 0725235416. She'll be grateful, I should think. As will we.

Written for: The Nation INSIGHT, July 4 2015

The enchantment of NIMH

Animated films take to children quickly. That is because they defy time and space so freely that they enchant. Or maybe the laws of gravity don't apply to them, making their characters easier to watch (and love). Whatever the reason, they caught us at an earlier time. When we grew, naturally enough, some of their charm rubbed off. Those for whom that charm remained no matter how they age, needless to say therefore, have retained a child in themselves. They are rare.

I had my favourites. I loved Disney. Nearly all his films and short features stuck on me in a way I can't explain even now. Yes, part of the reason for this may have been how freely these contorted the laws of gravity and time-space constraints, but for me there was another reason. I believe that this had to do with the emotional power of his characters. It's not just because fairy-tales are about fairies and pixies that we love them, after all. Emotion counts. The power of visuals notwithstanding, that is very likely what enchants kids the most.

For better or for worse, hence, Disney stayed. There were other films which were better, of course. Dot and the Kangaroo, for instance. I should be forgiven, I think, for taking time to realise this. I should also be forgiven for thinking that Disney ruled supreme, at a time when less saccharine-coated alternatives were available.

The Secret of NIMH was one of these. I didn't watch it when I should have. Sadly.

When Don Bluth and 10 other animators walked out on Disney and set up their own studio in 1979, not many had faith in them. By that year, Bluth had credits. He had animated most of Disney's films during this time, The Rescuers included. But Disney was unparalleled. Unchallenged. How could 10 defectors break it apart, even a little?

Bluth's answer came in the form of mice, owls, crows, magic, and the power of love. Disney was shaken. The road would never be the same.

Let me confess. I never heard of Don Bluth till I grew up. My acquaintance with him was through Anastasia and (I think) An American Tail. I should perhaps be forgiven for thinking that these were made by Disney, because after all it was Bluth's films which pushed his former employer to make animation more robust, more nuanced. His ploy worked. We are grateful.

But that's another story.

What was it really though? What was it in NIMH that enchanted and continues to enchant? Was it the magic? Was it the possibility that love can, at the end of the day, salvage everything and anything? Was it the fearsome Great Owl and the enigmatic Nicodemus? Or was it Dom DeLuise's wisecracking Jeremy the Crow? I wasn't young when I watched it, but for some reason I guess all of these would have taken to children in a way Disney couldn't. Rarely after all could mice, shrews, crows, humans, and the power of love get together so seamlessly.

Most critics I know love to talk about subtexts. Well, NIMH has a subtext too (I think). It's not just about the acquisition of intelligence and the needless shows of power and domination which go with it. Not just about power-hunger. Not just about self-imposed preferences for siphoning off others' lands over living independently with responsibility. There's much more to it, things that escape the eye at first glance but which come back (richer, I should say) with subsequent viewings.

That is why NIMH was different. It was catered to children, yes, but it did not insult their intelligence by self-censorship. There are sequences in the plot which were and are darker than what Disney could come up with. Characters are injured. Some are killed. Some even kill and freely shed blood. The one-before-the-last sequence, for instance, is genuinely thrilling not just because Mrs Brisby is trying to save her children from drowning in the mud, but because we are made to empathise with her so strongly that we feel her desperation.

The subtext didn't jar like they did in (most) other animated films, by the way. It allured us. The rats of NIMH become intelligent. They are split ideologically: should they continue to loot the humans from whom they "borrowed" that intelligence, or should they move on, making a new colony of their own? In other words, should they continue to leech off their benefactors or live independently? It is this dilemma which, throughout most of history, makes up how civilisation progresses and regresses.

But then NIMH has an emotional centre. Mrs Brisby. She is caught unawares in the middle of this dilemma. She doesn't much care for power-politics but she has her own concern: to save her dying son. To protect him, at whatever cost, she'll do anything. Courage isn't her preserve, moreover, and her feebleness is what makes the plot all the more moving.

In his review of the film, Roger Ebert points out that despite the daring plot, it contained too many characters for us to identify with. That is correct. NIMH has too many characters. None of them is irrelevant, which is what makes it more difficult for us to connect. That's also what makes it easier for us to place ourselves in Mrs Brisby. The shifts and turns of power, the behind-the-wall scheming of Jenner, and the comic sequences of Jeremy the Crow and Aunty Shrew, all are swept off and become secondary to her character. Ebert, for some reason, does not mention this.

I wrote before that when it comes to animated films, emotion counts. That is what I saw or rather learned in NIMH. Well, the power of love has been a cliché since the dawn of the cinema, but in NIMH is gains credence. That is because the character of Mrs Brisby is made so authentic and comparable to her human counterpart – she is a widowed mother – that I am yet to come across a similar mother in a Disney film. There is less melodrama with her. She acts more. Talks less. At the end of the day, kids loved that.

And overall, that's what made NIMH so lovable. It wasn't a hit at the box-office, true. But in later years and up-to now it has always retained popularity. There's some chord it strikes, I can't really say what, which immediately makes us connect with Mrs Brisby. I still stand by what I said before, hence: Disney has not come close to someone like her. This had to do with the man behind the film probably, and I will write on Don Bluth later.

For now, I'll end with a story. There was a boy, not quite 12 but intelligent enough to appreciate the finer nuances of a work of art. He was small. He knew films. Loved cartoons. Adored Disney. He hadn't known the love of a mother for the better part of his life till then. I was careful, but unsure which film he'd take to. Disney was out. I chose NIMH.

Halfway through I realised that the boy was seeing the opposite of what he was living through. Mrs Brisby was a widowed mother fighting for her son. The boy had a widowed father who (one could say) had undergone just about the same thing. Naturally enough, I was worried. Especially when the climax came. How would he react?

The boy loved it. He took to it at once, with that enigmatic smile and those moist eyes which meant it had "won" him. The sequence of Mrs Brisby using the amulet (given by Nicodemus) to raise her house out of the mud, even though it's burning her, moved him.

The credits rolled. He turned. He was crying. He embraced me. "That was so beautiful!" he whispered, perhaps the only response he could blurt out at that point in time.

The point is that the film's subtext hadn't moved him the way its emotional depth had. The point is that it had overwhelmed him. The power of love, and a mother's love at that, clichéd and overused to the point of overkill by other animated films, was so brilliantly exemplified in this one. It was that the boy had taken to. He continued to embrace me. Continued to cry. He couldn't help it.

Nor could I, for that matter. I smiled. Even after all these years and decades, even after 3D animation and CGI, there's something timeless in an animated film from more than 30 years back which moves us. They don't make films like that anymore. They can't. Don Bluth could, though. We are all happy for that. We are also grateful. Not just for The Secret of NIMH, but for what it left behind.

The Secret of NIMH was released 33 years ago. It celebrated its 33rd last Thursday. July 2. The film ends with a song. The song ends with these words: "Love is the key". Sums it up, I should think. Beautifully.

NIMH still enchants. Small wonder.

Written for: The Nation INSIGHT, July 4 2015