The Vasantha Obeyesekere we never knew

Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, in a Facebook tribute posted the other day, made the following observation: “වසන්ත ඔබේසේකර තරමට ශබ්දයේ ප්‍රබල බවත් සාරයත් හදුනාගත් වෙනත් ලාංකික සිනමාවේදියෙකු නොමැත” (loose translation: "There is no Sri Lankan filmmaker who could play around with the intricacies of sound as well as Vasantha Obeyesekere").

Whether or not this is the most discernible achievement of Obeyesekere, who passed away on Saturday, I will get to shortly, but for the purpose of my tribute I will concede this much: the man’s craft, which took the entire country through 13 films over four decades, reflected a shift in gender and power relations that made up much of the Sinhala cinema.

How did he bring this about? The answer to that can be found in an observation Regi Siriwardena made decades ago: the commercial cinema, far from being an escapist medium, could be creatively used to question the very same patriarchy and conservatism it pandered to. Siriwardena was thinking about the parallel cinema rampant in India back in his day. That parallel cinema never really spilt over to Sri Lanka, for reasons even I can’t comprehend. It came to us later through two filmmakers. The first was H. D. Premaratne. The second was the man who left us last Saturday.

Vasantha Obeyesekere came to us at a time when our cinema was being flanked by two ideological streams. The first, represented by Lester James Peries, absorbed from post-war Italian neo-realism. The second, represented by Dharmasena Pathiraja, absorbed from East European nihilism and pacifism. In critical terms, Lester was the bourgeois idealist, Pathiraja the bourgeois realist. Obeyesekere, whose first film predates Ahas Gawwa by three years, was a loner in all this, an individualist who rebelled against both those other directors and the ideologies they espoused. In other words, as director and artiste, he was neither an idealist nor a realist.

Who was he, then? What was there, in Palagetiyo, Dadayama, Kadapathaka Chaya, and Maruthaya that constituted his signature? Was it his willingness to flesh out otherwise mundane stories with fresh layers of meaning? Was it his willingness to depict the political and social through the personal? Was it his unyielding cynicism, which survives even in as optimistic and atypical a film like Diyamanthi? Or was it ability to entrance us with elements from the popular cinema, only to unsettle us by moving to a higher, artier conception of his medium? Perhaps.

We know that he was a cynic. In his first phase, which culminated with Palagetiyo, he was a naturalist who portrayed life as it was, like a documentarian. He evaded that naturalism (given its self-imposed ideological limits) and became more unforgiving in the eighties, a decade that was tumultuous and unstable for reasons we already know. From Dadayama onwards, his films were hence endowed by his signature: an eye for the dichotomy between the ideal and the real, which makes up the conflicts that drive his narratives. Because he was his own scriptwriter, he was even more able to rein in on his savage, critical view of the world.

This was the Obeyesekere we knew, the same Obeyesekere that Pushpakumara gleaned in one pithy sentence. Sample all his films after Palagetiyo: the opening sequence of Dadayama (where Rathmali walks down one city after another to discover the man who impregnated and then abandoned her), the first 20 minutes of Kadapathaka Chaya (where Danaratne’s funeral is interspersed with the marriage of his sister-in-law years earlier), and the court scenes in Salelu Warama, and you will infer that by disassociating the dialogues and images from the context they are relevant to, the director unearths a sharp contrast between the hopes of his protagonists and the reality they are placed in. To drive home this point, he resorted to two elements: sound and editing.

To my mind, the two films where he triumphed with both these were Dadayama and Kadapathaka Chaya. He tried with the latter to go beyond the former, by diffusing the conflict in the story with a bigger cast. While in Dadayama that conflict was concentrated between two characters (which brought out the best that both Ravindra Randeniya and Swarna Mallawarachchi could bring out, at that stage in their careers), in Kadapathaka Chaya you have a philanderer, his victim, and their families. All in all, a wider milieu.

In the end, what did we get? With Dadayama, we got an unbearable-to-sit-through finale (one of the most celebrated in the history of our cinema). With Kadapathaka Chaya, we got an even more shocking, but nevertheless transient sequence at a hospital ward (shocking, because owing to its patriarchal base the Sinhala cinema could not conjure up a maligned woman throwing acid on a man’s face). For that reason, it is my contention that Obeyesekere was at his best (with sound and editing) when he placed his narrative in a narrowed down milieu: the milieu he evaded in his weakest film, Maruthaya, and then returned to in Dorakada Marawa and his subsequent work.

Buttressing all this is another as important point: in doing what he did by displacing sound and image, Obeyesekere was questioning both tradition and modernity. In his review of Dadayama, Regi Siriwardena contended that while Rathmali’s descent destroys her family and drives her father insane, her first trysts with her tormentor are nervously accepted by them as a means of climbing the social ladder. This comes out devastatingly when, as he is beating her up after discovering her failed attempt to abort her second child, Rathmali exclaims to her father, “Didn’t you want all this?”

About a year ago I made the following comment on the man’s work: “In the films of Vasantha Obeyesekere, if tradition is stifling, then the forced thwarting of it by modernity leads to total collapse and decay (‘leaving only an empty shell behind’). One can argue that this reinforces traditionalist values, but it does not. To hold tradition inferior to modernity because of the retrogressive nature of the former is to ignore the acquisitive, ruthless character of the latter.” In other words, he indicted neither the optimism of tradition (which Peries was preoccupied with) nor the cynicism of modernity (which Pathiraja was preoccupied with), but rather the inevitability of the tragedies that befell his characters in an uncertain era.

Last January Swarna Mallawarachchi held a film festival. Five days, 10 films. Dadayama was shown on the second day, Kadapathaka Chaya on the fourth. On both days, one person was missing. We don’t know where he was at the time, but we do know that after he retired, he left his work so much that no one talked about him. People will talk about him now. They will offer their two cents, offer some caveats on his career, and pay tributes. I have my two cents. I will end my piece with them.

Vasantha Obeyesekere was 80 when he left us last Saturday. He entertained and enthralled us for much of his life. He taught us all there was to know about the centre that never held. Once he let go, everything came apart. Unsettling, yes, but that’s the way it is. I believe Sanjeewa Pushpakumara summed him up well in one sentence. Since I can’t hope to compete, I will stop here.

Written for: Daily Mirror, April 11 2017

'Chatrak': Foraying into the unknown familiar

A veteran Assistant Director, when asked for his opinion on Vimukthi Jayasundera’s latest film Chatrak, gave the following comment: “It may be his best.” Whether I agree with this, I will get to later. For the time being, however, my verdict is predicated on disappointment: Sri Lankan audiences may never get to see the film, and even if they do, they’ll have to wait. This is sad, not because it unearths up the old debate about prudery in the Sinhala cinema but because that old debate has been unearthed despite a manifestly more liberal censorship regime.

Chatrak was first released at Cannes six years ago. It made the rounds with critics elsewhere, in Vladivostok and in Toronto. It ran into controversy even in the region it was originally shot in (Kolkata, India), where it was cut down considerably prior to its screening. To date, it has not been given a theatrical release, whether here or there. As a film enthusiast, I am disappointed not because I share Vimukthi’s worldview, but because (at the end of the day) he is quite obviously a talented director who has something to say and is not afraid to demand from his audiences.

Because the original plan to telecast the film was also scuttled, audiences here will not come across the kind of debate which visits Vimukthi’s other films. This is hence not an attempt at a review, rather a brief sketch of what the film is and what it represents. At the outset therefore, I will say this: whether or not it is Vimukthi’s best so far, for me it represents the kind of art-house cinema we should be getting more often: one that is free (in a relative sense) from the obscurantism which makes up much of that genre here today.

So what was Chatrak about, come to think of it? The entire plot revolves around four characters and a search for a lost brother, which towards the end is inadvertently elevated to the status of a fairy-tale, minus the obligatory happy finale. This last point is important for reasons I will get to in a less sketchy review, but for now let’s concentrate on the wider narrative.

Most critics, particularly in the West, have taken Vimukthi to task over his inclusion of many unnecessary sequences which take away from the narrative, which essentially is about a successful architect (Sudeep Mukherji) returning from Dubai to his hometown and his girlfriend (Paoli Dam). When Rahul (the architect) announces his decision to search for his long-lost brother in some unnamed forest, Vimukthi crafts that search in such a way that we are made to forget two important questions: 1) Why did he run away? and 2) How did he stay in that forest for so long?

For me, however, those sequences, unnecessary and tedious as they are, reinforce the director’s vision. I heard several people, at the premiere at the Film Corporation two months ago, call it “unsettling”. Yes, unsettling, and more importantly claustrophobic. That sense of claustrophobia is essential for us to juxtapose the two different locales Vimukthi brings together (or rather tries to): the urban metropolis which Rahul is both heir to and prisoner of, and the open (yet enclosed) forest which Rahul’s brother (Sumeet Thakur) is removed to.

The first 15 minutes of Chatrak is basically an interlude between the brother and the fourth character: an unidentified French soldier (Tómas Lemarquis). This interlude oscillates between playful banter and inexplicable hatred so much that even after the soldier disappears (he appears, I must note, literally out of thin air in the first few sequences), the tone of the film continues to teeter between two extremes, always unstable, disconcerting, and yes, unsettling. Which brings me to what I think is Vimukthi’s preoccupation: the clash between two irreconcilable cultures. To get to this, however, one must get to his characters.

Consider Rahul. Rahul has, with what we gather about him, no reason for complaint. In the first sequence of him, we see a worker at a construction site bring his child to him and get him to help the boy out at his talent for computing. The man is at first indifferent, then loosens up, then offers the obligatory sympathy and encouragement to the child. His emotional strains, in other words, have clearly been repressed by a successful career, but these sequences are vital (though superficially desultory) for us to get to the man buried beneath the architect. So repressed is that man, that the architect can only be bewildered when he manages to “get out” in the end.

Rahul’s girlfriend is less solid, less complex. She eagerly awaits her lover, but even in her neighbourhood she has to face the drudgery and repression of emotion which is as life-denying as the buildings Rahul is working on. There are sequences where she has to shoo away a nondescript boy (who’s either eyeing her or begging for leftovers from the kitchen) and where she comes across a procession of a Hindu goddess (which at one level juxtaposes her sexually frustrated nature with her calm public visage). When her brother-in-law is taken to their lodging in the city, she is at first repulsed and then intrigued by him.

Of the actors, I think Sumeet Thakur caught my attention the most. Sumeet is given less screen time than the brother or his girlfriend, but with what little time he has, he laughs, cries, pouts, gapes, grins, and (after being taken to the city) rebels. Sumeet to me symbolises not just repression, but also revelation: it’s no coincidence that Rahul does what he does at the end (I will not reveal any spoilers) and then re-emerges in the final shot (with an almost Beckettian monologue) after the brother is returned to the wild.

Is the cast (and the able acting therein) enough to qualify the entire production, though? Asian art-house cinema has almost always received a drubbing outside the Riviera. The Americans usually take the proponents of that cinema with a pinch of salt. Nothing new there.

That probably explains the drubbing Chatrak received from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, the latter of which indicts the film’s “sense of torpor” and the former of which, in a more expansive review, faults the narrative for being depressing, nihilistic, and meaningless. I have not asked Vimukthi for his take on these critiques and I am sure he isn't required to reply, but for the purpose of this sketchy review it would pay well to revisit them anyway.

The HR review is less an examination of the film than a scathing indictment on the Riviera. In one paragraph, the Festival de Cannes is rapped for pandering to “overindulgent festival programmers and film critics” who favour poetic visual essays over coherent narratives. I understand the American critic’s less-than-favourable take on art-house cinema, which is probably why even the most independent director in that country (the Coen Brothers included) is alienated once their work becomes too obscurantist to bear, but to indict an entire Festival for promoting Vimukthi and other “incoherent” filmmakers is serious, so serious that it merits a second glance at the film.

What was there in Chatrak that I liked? I liked the acting, the lifeless buildings, the narrowing alleys, and the only real form of life in the city, the children. I also liked the visuals. As for the narrative, I couldn’t figure out how much dialogue there was, but I am willing to bet that the visuals transcended the spoken word rather strongly. In a paradigmatically different film industry, a disconnect like this between the visual and the verbal will be unfavourably viewed if that industry subsists on the conventional narrative. I am not sure whether that alone can explain the American's attitude towards Vimukthi, but I am sure that insofar as the incoherence that is alleged to be in his work is concerned, I subscribe to that attitude.

Why do I say this? Despite my earlier contention that Chatrak brings up the kind of art-house cinema Sri Lankans should patronise more often, that still is not (for me) enough to salvage it from the verbose visuals it panders to: a quality, I must mention here, of Sri Lankan art-house cinema in general. It is that quality which has tripped even older and more experienced proponents of the genre, both here and elsewhere.

I am not accusing Vimukthi, rather pointing out what Pauline Kael did in her less-than-complimentary review of Antonioni’s Blowup: an incoherent narrative (which is what Vimukthi gives us to jar us) can be rescued from obscurantism through visual poetry only so far. Vimukthi seems to have regained the footing he lost with Between Two Worlds, a film that was both obscure and obscurantist (a double sin). Chatrak is not obscurantist, but it does wade through difficult territory. To my mind, the Absurdist monologue at the very end saves it from that territory, which is why it thankfully does not become obscurantist.

So here’s my verdict, short as it is: Chatrak is Vimukthi’s best work so far. It does not succumb to the trap of metaphor and symbolism that The Forsaken Land and Between Two Worlds did. In Chatrak, despite its flaws, I understood what Vimukthi was trying to get at and appreciated the effort. The man has a future. He should be more coherent about it and he should spend time contemplating on it. If he does that, his next work may be even better. Better than most, I’d be willing to add.

Written for: Ceylon Today LITE, April 9 2017

Sewmina Gunathilaka reflects on singles and doubles

In general, there is an inverse relationship between movement and concentration when it comes to racket games. The rule is simple enough: the smaller the field, the more limited your chances are to move around. At one level this eases pressure, at another level it does not. Within a smaller field, after all, you have to concentrate well to defeat your opponent. Perhaps that’s why there are as many strategies for winning (and losing) a game like tennis, badminton, and squash as there are for cricket, football, and rugby.

No one really knows the history of badminton. Like most indoor games, it probably evolved as a sport reserved for those who could afford racquets, shuttlecocks, nets, and the luxury of time and leisure. Going by this, it probably also was at the outset an insular pastime, unlike the more plebeian cricket and rugby.

Whether or not this is how it began, however, we do know that badminton has today morphed into a mass sport, which invites spectators, cheering squads, and championships that cut across schools, zones, districts, and countries. Because Sri Lanka has in general performed well in badminton, I am sure that those who take to it do so from a very early age. Sewmina Gunathilaka is no exception.

Sewmina has achieved. For his age. He did his O Levels in 2015 and will do his A Levels in 2018. He has played badminton as a private player and then through his school and various zonal, national, and international championships. I will not contend that he is up there or that he can go up without crossing some hard yards, but I do know that he aspires. Given his achievements (which I will get to, shortly), I can hence only say that he will go up if he tries hard enough.

Before I sketch out his biography, however, I ask him as to what intrigues him about badminton. He replies that unlike most outdoor sports, it forces the player to think and to both preserve and expend energy. I think he himself puts it best: “Unlike cricket, you don’t really need to prepare for a tournament. You come, you play, and you leave. It’s as simple as that. What defines badminton then isn’t how you prepare, but rather how you engage with your opponent in a way which tires him and allows you to move ahead without in turn being tired by him.”

Since this is a good premise for a personal sketch, I prod him about how he first got into the game. Apparently Sewmina had taken after his brother, Dhakshika, who emerged as a champion a decade ago. Dhakshika, however, had started out playing rugby in Grade Five before being encouraged to divert to badminton by their mother. “Aiya eventually triumphed at his school, becoming the Most Outstanding Player and clinching practically every championship in 2008,” Sewmina remembers.

2008 in that sense was a crucial year for him too, since he decided to join his school team then. Before that, he had gone for private classes conducted by the then Coach at his school (Ananda College), K. S. Pushpakumara. “It was Mr Pushpakumara who encouraged me to leave his class and enter the College team,” Sewmina tells me, “I had been taught by him ever since I was in Grade Three, so he knew me well enough to decide when I should try out my luck at a trial.” He emerged fourth at that trial, which was held sooner than he’d thought. He was 10 at the time.

From then on, his achievements kept coming. He first flaunted his colours as an Under 10 player in a team match by clinching doubles victories against Royal College at the semi-finals and Rahula College at the finals. He then captained the Under 12 Team, winning his first championship in 2013. He graduated to the Zonal Championship in 2012 and to the National Championship in 2013. “My baptism of fire with the latter was when I had to face Thilina Gonapinuwala from Richmond College, then the Number Two Under 13 player in the country. Call it a miracle, but I ended up defeating him. My rank went up automatically.”

Needless to say, I am impressed by his subsequent achievements. Here's an attempt at a summary.

Locally he has triumphed at the Nuwara Eliya All Island Open Badminton, the Ariyadasa Silva All Island Open Badminton, the North Central Province All Island Open Badminton, and the SSC Open Badminton Championships, all of which saw him emerge as the Under 17 Boys Singles winner and the latter of which had him as a Doubles winner. In addition to these, he has also been a Singles and Doubles Runner Up at the Junior National Badminton Championship.

Internationally he has performed as highly. In 2013, he played at the Asian Junior Under 15 / 17 Championship. In 2014, he played at the same Championship in Thailand. In 2015, however, on account of his O Levels and of the fact that he lost two matches, he was not selected (“Besides, that year we did not have an Under 15 / 17 Team to send”), though he regained his footing the following year at both the Asian Junior Championship (the Under 19 in Thailand and the Under 15 / 17 in Indonesia, the latter of which he captained) and the World Junior Championship in Spain.

As far as titles and tournaments go, therefore, Sewmina has clinched quite a number of victories for his age. But are they enough to sum him up? I personally think not, which is why I delve into his attitude towards the game he’s grown to thrive on. To start things off here, I ask him as to what his strategy is. Almost at once he says that of all the factors that go into a tournament, he values concentration and stamina the most. I ask him to elaborate. He complies.

“Badminton is very much an individualist sport. It depends on the individual player’s strengths and weaknesses. While I won’t say I am exceptionally good at anything, I will say that I am better when it comes to stamina and endurance. So I first try to tire my opponent before properly engaging him. Once I know that he’s fatigued, I close the game with a series of quick shots. I suppose that explains why I prefer a singles to a doubles, because with the former you know your opponent well enough to ascertain when he’s flushed out and ready to be defeated.”

I ask him whether this is his brother’s strategy as well. “Not really. Aiya is more of an attacker. He prefers to concentrate. He deceives the player into thinking he’s slowed down, and then launches one assault after another. That is his forte. Not my forte. I prefer to go quick in the first few shots, because I don’t like to take risks later on. You must understand here that inasmuch as badminton is an indoor sport, you are still bombarded with noise. This tends to unnerve you. Only a true professional can route his opponent, using every front he can muster, despite that noise. I concede that as of yet, I have not graduated to that level.”

Like every player and performer this column got me acquainted with, Sewmina has not limited his interests to one field. He is also an Athlete (having triumphed in several circuit and zonal meets, over both 800 and 1,500 meters) and an Interactor. I am pretty sure he has other interests up his sleeve, though I don’t ask after them. Whether he will pursue his studies to the exclusion of his love for badminton, however, only time will tell. Until time delivers that verdict, we can watch, listen to, and if possible read him. That will be enough to engage both player and fan, I suspect.

Written for: The Island YOUth, April 9 2017

Sanath Nandasiri speaks

I first heard of Sanath Nandasiri through Sunil Sarath Perera. Much of the work that brought them together – including “Mage Ratata Dalada Himi Saranayi” and “Sanda Kaluwara” – were buttressed by a poignant attitude to the world outside, which appealed to me. These were discernibly different to, say, a song like “Premathura Hangum” (Ajantha Ranasinghe). The man’s voice stood out, yes, but I felt that with each lyricist, he adapted. The same went for his work with H. M. Jayawardena and with Clarence Wijewardena. Before I go further, however, I will sketch out Nandasiri the man.

Professor Carlo Fonseka, writing on Victor Ratnayake several years ago, asked a question: “After Amaradeva, who?” The answer, quite obviously, was Victor Ratnayake. He did not ask that predictable follow-up question: “After Victor, who?” There probably are a dozen correct answers to that, each as qualitatively different to the other, but for me, the successor to both these inimitable giants, based on their ability to not just perform but to write and compose as well, has to be the subject of this week’s article. And yet, perusing his life and career, I come across those subtle details which separate him from the other two and instil some individuality into him. I will get to these now.

Sanath Nandasiri was born on February 15, 1942 in the village of Gothatuwa near Kotikawatta. His father, William Perera, was a businessman who indulged in music. Young Nandasiri was sent to two schools: Gothatuwa Madya Maha Vidyalaya and St Matthew’s College in Dematagoda. When I interviewed him and asked him as to whether he harboured any serious inclination for music as a child, he answered in the negative: “Music to me, as it was to my father, was a pastime. I never intended to turn it to a career.”

Nevertheless, by the time he turned 13 he was performing for the SLBC. In 1960, he left for India after being taught to play the tabla by D. R. Peiris. India brought him into contact with Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa Khan, under whom he matured as a tabla player, and G. N. Nattu, who taught him to sing. “I didn’t just learn in India, I also performed,” he remembers, “In fact I ended up composing music at Radio Lucknow.” This would precipitate an academic career in Sri Lanka: upon his return in 1974, he was appointed to the University of Kelaniya and served as the Head of the Music Faculty there from 1988 to 1992, returning to India to pursue his postgraduate studies and eventually obtaining First Class Honours at his Sangeeth Nipun examination.

Through all these years, he did not let go of the performer in him. His output resists easy categorisation and hence can’t be listed out that easily, but suffice it to say that it hasn’t been limited to radio work alone. To be honest, I have heard the man more on film than over the SLBC, which probably is an indication of his range of interests. The directors he encountered – from Sugathapala Senarath Yapa (Hanthane Kathawa) to K. A. W. Perera (Duleeka) to Dharmasena Pathiraja (Ahas Gawwa) to even H. D. Premaratne (Mangala Thagga, where he makes a cameo appearance with “Wasana Wewa”) – have, I like to believe, made extensive use of him.

Which is where I get to his musical collaborators. I begin this part of the interview by asking Nandasiri to lay down his favourite composer (apart from himself, of course). Nandasiri replies by saying that while he can’t think of a favourite as such, he has worked extensively with Clarence and Khemadasa, followed by H. M. Jayawardena and Amaradeva and Victor, in that order. I ask him then to lay down the intricate qualities which separate one from the other, and he readily complies. “I came across populists and conservatives in those I collaborated with. Clarence structured his work in a way which took in mass audiences. Khemadasa was at the opposite pole: both ‘Seetha Rae Yame’ and ‘Sanda Pem Yahanin’ contain rich, complex musical structures.”

Performers and veterans have their perspectives. I therefore ask Nandasiri for a comment on the music industry here at present. He replies by saying that while he is not completely qualified to offer an indictment, nevertheless he feels that on two fronts, the industry is being or rather has been taken over by instant entertainment. “The first front is quite obviously the vocalist,” he elaborates, “Nowadays the trend is to imitate the past. Forget the ethics entailed there. Where will our youngsters be headed to if they continue to subscribe to this trend? More often than not, they also feel the urge to both sing and dance in a way which gives the discerning audience only superficial aesthetic enjoyment. The rasikaya, in other words, is being alienated. Badly.”

What of the second front? “That is the lyricist,” he says, “Which is I think as pathetic and which leaves much to be desired, again. I am alright with people relaxing grammar and syntax for the melody, but there is a limit to everything. What do lyricists engage in today? More often than not, they completely or almost completely do away with the base of the language for the sake of entertainment.” Being a teacher himself, Sanath no doubt professes concern at this deterioration not just in the music industry, but in language standards as well, which leads him to his very next comment: “This industry will not be resuscitated until those who head our TV and radio stations realise that entertainment must be coterminous with quality.”

Where is Sanath Nandasiri the man today? Today he lives a rather comfortable life in Mirihana, with his peaceable wife Malkanthi and his amiable daughter Anuradha. My interview with him was, rather regretfully I should say, short, which I realised even more as I perused the many photos and awards adorning his sitting room.

To list all these awards, of course, is quite beyond my task. Suffice it to say then, that Sanath Nandasiri, whether he is crooning about unrequited lovers or articulating the wishes, the aspirations, and the dreams of the Buddhists of this land, has found in himself the most able successor to the two giants we have and had in our industry: Victor and Amaradeva. Had Professor Fonseka quizzed us on that, I am willing to wager that Nandasiri would be his answer. Aptly.

Written for: Daily News TOWN AND COUNTRY, April 5 2017

Minul Doluweera battles it out

I hated the idea of staying after school. For 12 years, I escaped (through some miracle, I now realise) the rule that every student had to engage in two extracurricular activities (or ECAs): one sport, one Club. Once in a while I did check into a Club or Society, only to get out after two, maybe three months. I don’t think I missed out on a lot, but I do think that I missed out on quite a number of analytical and life skills these ECAs would have taught me.

Of these, two in particular enthralled me. The first was debating. I can talk, I can write, I can probably even fight, but I can’t argue, to win or to save my soul. Sure, not everyone can do the first three, but not everyone can (or should) do the fourth. To make matters worse, the idea of winning through words wasn’t my cup of tea. After trying it out once or twice, hence, I chucked it. Just like that.

The second was chess. That too wasn’t my cup of tea, though for a different reason: try as hard as I could, my attention span was, is, and probably will remain accursedly small. I remember playing and I remember winning, but I can’t remember winning consistently. Again, therefore, after trying it out once or twice, I politely chucked it and let my friends take over. The last time I checked, those friends were still playing. That’s life. Some win, some go ahead, others don't.

There’s little, very little, that I know of chess. I know of opening moves, middlegames, endgames, FIDE and Elo rankings, and the various categories that go into these. I know of players and how much effort they expend. I also know that more often than not, those players take to it even before they enter school. This in particular intrigues me, because being a novice I have come to realise (and appreciate) the potential they struggle to build up in themselves. This is the story of one such player. Minul Doluweera.

Until around last year, Minul was the Number One Under-18 player in the country. Now he’s Number Two. I knew he had a story to tell and I wanted to ascertain what it is that drives him. So I met him, talked with him, and took down what he had to say. This is his story.

Minul’s love for chess began with his father. He was about five when he began playing, back when his family were living in England. Initially (as is often the case) he had been entranced by the pieces, but eventually he understood that chess, more than any other activity, involves prediction, conjecture, and risk. These go beyond memorising what moves where and what piece takes over what else. In other words, it’s not about taking over your opponents, but about preventing them from moving any further. I’m digressing here though.

When he returned to Sri Lanka, he was sent to Royal College. While in Grade Three, he came under the influence of Vineetha Wijesuriya. Minul remembers what happened next: “I played, I remembered how I used to play before, and I fell in love with the game. I wanted to play even more, so after a selection procedure I was taken in to our school Chess Club.” This was in 2009. From that year, he began entering various tournaments, both national and international.

What were those tournaments exactly? “There were several in fact, even before I started going abroad,” he recounts for me, “Like the Golden Square International Chess and Queens Chess Tournaments. These were followed by the National Youth Chess Championship in 2010, organised by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka, where I emerged second. Soon I graduated into international contests: the Asian Schools Chess Championship in Sri Lanka (where I was the third), the Asian Youth Chess Championship in China, and the World Youth Chess Championship in Greece.”

All this interests me more for how they nurtured young Minul. When he started out, he had been interested in the opening. Now, however, his attitude has changed. I put to him that while opening moves certainly depend on theory, this in itself is not enough to help the aspiring player. He agrees: “The opening is actually your biggest pitfall, because it deceives you. With it, even younger players can trump their elders. The trick, however, is to sustain your strategy in a way which takes you through the middlegame and lands you in your endgame. For better or worse, not many have mastered the latter. That is why Sri Lanka is yet to produce a Grand Master.”

Minul himself, incidentally, is a FIDE Master (with a score of 2130), two removes from a Grand Master and one remove from an International Master. While ranks certainly don’t speak volumes, chess is one sport where they do. To a considerable extent, this is based on the player’s desire to look up to, emulate, and if possible best their idols. I therefore ask him who his idols are, and almost immediately he quotes Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen. This I follow with another, as pertinent question: to get from the opening to the endgame, what is it that the aspiring player must possess?

He replies rather seriously: “It really depends on timing. You can opt for easy victories in your opening, especially with your pawn, but that can cost you victories down the line. That is why my favourite piece is the knight, not because it’s powerful but because it’s enigmatic. You can’t predict exactly when or where your opponent will use it. It doesn’t just move. It jumps. After a point, it becomes a player on its own right. You don’t just play with it, in other words: you calculate how, why, and when you move it. To a considerable extent, it even sums up the entire game.” In other words, the way I see it, it’s not just about reading, knowing, or even understanding: it’s about sacrificing what is to embrace victory with what will be.

Getting back to the subject of this article, I ask Minul whether he’s engaged with other activities. To my (pleasant) surprise, he is. He is an Interactor, is involved in his school’s MUN and English Literary Societies, plays in the Eastern Band, and debates.

I then ask him whether all these aided his studies, and he accepts that they have. I suppose such qualities are hard to come by and run in the family, since his brother (Dinul), who did his A Levels last year, has done roughly what he’s indulging in. Including chess.

Few players walk alone. They have their teachers and their mentors. Minul is no exception. At the outset, not surprisingly, he rattles off a list of names, of which one stands out considerably: the redoubtable, determined, and adamant Coach at Royal, Muditha Hettigama.

I have heard of Mr Hettigama, so I ask Minul to describe how it’s been studying under him. “First and foremost, he’s not just a Coach. He knows every one of us. You can say he even studies us, to assess what we are good at and are weak in. That is why he frequently asks after us and even hands down life advice. As a Coach, he is mindful of how important the fundamentals of the game are. In fact even now, after all these years, he brings us back to those fundamentals, because that is where even ambitious and aspiring players trip.”

All this has moreover been supplemented by a rigid but enlightened system of learning at Royal: “When we go out to play against other schools, we are expected to book accommodation and look after ourselves. When we organise chess tournaments, we are expected to organise everything to near-perfection.” It goes without saying, then, that chess inculcates other, as necessary analytical and life skills (as I pointed out earlier), which have no doubt also been enforced on Minul by his Master in Charge at school, Naditha Amarakoon, and his private coach, Prasanna Kurukulasuriya.

A 20-minute interview is hardly enough for a sketch, comprehensive or cursory, of someone like Minul. But then he’s 16. He has some hard yards to cross. As a follower of the game he’s grown to learn and play, I can hence say this much: with chess, there’s no real endgame. The human mind wasn’t built for such a thing. People like Minul, however, continue to teach us that we needn’t really bother. Whether or not we win, what matters is how we get to our victories or defeats. Like I said before then, Minul has some yards to cross. He will cross them well, I am sure and I will hope.

Written for: The Island YOUth, April 2 2017