By Anurangi Singh and Malinda Seneviratne
Vijaya Kumaratunga would have been 61 tomorrow had he been alive. What would he have been like, one wonders. It is easy to watch people age, impossible to imagine what they would have been like had they lived. Vijaya, after all, was just 42 when he died. Sorry, when he was murdered.
He was the quintessential ‘good guy’, righter of wrongs, defender of the weak and the inimitable lover in Sinhala Cinema. He was loved because people wanted in real life the heroes he portrayed in film. He was loved regardless of his role, because he was handsome. He won the award for the most popular actor five years running. That says all that has to be said about his popularity.
He acted in 114 films and when you play out the dreams of so many people so many times the lines between script and life blur. Vijaya was warmly welcomed to the political world not so much because he married a Bandaranaike but because it was natural for people to hope that he would play out in politics the scripts he played on screen. And of course because he was widely recognised as a very nice human being.
It was not a ‘common people’ phenomenon alone. When he stepped to the forefront of the political stage, he also carried the hopes of almost all the veteran politicians of the political left. It was not just a cheap trick, this matter of getting a cinematic icon and use him as a brand name for a product that had lost all vestiges of currency. If, when he started out, his ‘leftism’ was nothing more than a warm embrace of senior left leaders, a genuine clasp of hand on hand, by the time Nandana Marasinghe was murdered by the JVP, he was able to articulate the politics of the left more cogently than any of them. ‘We are for socialism, but if the socialist project requires such people to be murdered then count us out’. That was the essence. That was all that was needed to be said.
The LSSP, CP, NSSP, PLOTE, SLMP and EPRLF may have seen Vijaya as articulator or figurehead, but the truth is that the party they formed, the United Socialist Alliance (USA), was Vijaya Kumaratunga. Without him they were nothing. Without him the party was denied the benefit of the doubt that a considerable number of people were willing to give it. The culpability of the USA in the slaughter that took place between 1988 and 1990 had nothing to do with Vijaya. Indeed it can be argued that had he survived, their hands would not have got stained the way they eventually were.
Vijaya was murdered when he was 42. There was little time for him to become cynical (as we are told people do after a certain age) or for some tragic human flaw to bring him down (as often happens). At the time he was no longer film star. He was ‘film star cum politician’ and he may have ‘graduated’ to just politician. Or statesman.He was mourned because he was a hero but not in a political sense. Today he is mostly remembered for what he represented in the make-believe that is such a huge part of Sinhala Cinema and less so for his politics. When his songs are played over radio, the first thought that strikes is not ‘deshadrohiya’ or ‘vipalavavadiya’, but many people, regardless of ideological bent would express something similar to the sentiments contained in the following line: ‘aney viyaya….ada hitiyaanam…’ (if only you were here today, Vijaya).
It is impossible to picture Vijaya Kumaratunga at 61. Perhaps it is best this way. Perhaps not.
(The 61st birth anniversary of Vijaya Kumaratunga will be commemorated by the Vijaya Guna Samaru Padanama at the Elphinstone Theatre, Maradana, on October 9 at 6.00 p.m.)

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A country is a toy but that’s alright

By Malinda Seneviratne
My five year old daughter, like any five-year old I suppose, frequently amazes me with random observations and I am never sure if she understands fully how philosophical she is. A few days ago she made a confession: ‘langak venakal mama hithuwe ratak kiyanne toy ekak kiyala’ (until recently I thought ‘a country’ was a toy).
Floored me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had been right all along, at least as far as most countries are concerned. She will probably learn that in time and will, I hope, explain to me the relevant political economy.
Countries are toys. The word itself is a toy, come to think of it. Whenever it is used without proper reference and substantiation. A name, after all, is nothing but a particular configuration of syllables when that which it refers to is ignored. The term ‘my country’ for example easily legitimises all kinds of things that could be detrimental to ‘our country’. ‘My country’ when it is spoken of with pride merely romanticizes because no country is as saintly as is often claimed. Histories are bloody and messy, never unblemished. Toys, one observes, are never perfect; they have life-spans, they break down, they often fail to fulfill their promise.
Forget the name, even the substance associated with ‘country’ often consists of toys in the way they are engaged with. Puerto Rico is a plaything of the USA, and this is true of many unhappy ‘countries’ in this world. The Soviet Bloc was the plaything of the Russian Communist Party, except perhaps for Albania and Yugoslavia. Afghanistan for a long time was a toy over which both the USA and the USSR fought. There are other examples.
I remember reading about a version of King Lear where the old man took a map of his kingdom and arbitrarily tore it up to divide the land among his daughters. What are maps but pieces of land upon which reside people, families, communities, animals and animals? Resident in them are rivers and hills, valleys and waterfalls, minerals, precious stones, soils with certain fertilities, crops and memories.
‘King Lear’ is a play. It says a lot about ‘countries’ and the unhappiness that results in the play of power. Let’s take a more ‘real’ example. Take the continent of Africa. Check it out on a world map. Observe how straight some national boundaries are. Nature is never so clinical as to design river or mountain in the kind of geometry that allows for such perfect demarcation. For someone Africa was a toy. For some it still is.
What was ‘Vietnam’ and ‘Cambodia’, what is ‘Iraq’ today and what will ‘Iran’ be tomorrow? Countries? Forget it. Playthings, toys.
Take globalization, that process which is supposed to turn us all into inhabitants in a global village. It is about erasing boundaries, obliterating difference and diversity. What meaning, then, can we attach to the label ‘country’? None. If the World Bank, IMF, the WTO and ADB (not forgetting of course USAID) design national policy, what then of ‘nation’, what then of ‘national’ reconciliation, ‘national’ question, ‘national’ consensus?
I want my daughter to learn all this and maybe she will. I hope also that she will someday learn that countries are toys for a different reason as well. She will perhaps understand what her grandfather meant when he said ‘the sky doesn’t become less private although it belongs to everyone’.
The air that passes through her fingers, catches her hair and brushes against her face, she will someday learn, has a certain percentage of oxygen but this does not prevent it being described in terms of fragrance and temperature. Countries are like that. They are other people’s toys, true, but they are our toys as well. Toys break, but they can be made again. Toys can be carelessly handled, but they can be taken care of, loved, treated like one treats an old friend, made to interact with one another, caressed.
Toys are not inanimate. They are not devoid of character. So too countries. Pieces of sky are no different from kites. Ships no different from paper boats. Dolls and dolls houses are people and housing schemes. My daughter knows this for she has endless conversations with her little pink teddy bear about who she says ‘eya pinky bear nemei, eya pinky baba!’ (she’s not ‘pinky bear’ she’s ‘pinky baby’).
Toys can be abused, countries too. Toys can be taken apart and the broken pieces thrown away. The same with coutries. Toys can be the greatest source of joy, the greatest friends. Countries too. Perhaps the little girl will re-learn that a rata is actually a toy and that this fact shouldn’t bother us too much as long as we are careful about how we touch, pick up and otherwise interact with and understand our little paper boats, sand castles, kites, kos kola crowns and the hundreds of other joy-givers we loosely call ‘toys’.

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Subashini wins top award at Masters in Line

By Anurangi Singh
She stood on the enormous ballroom that seemed like the sea. The dancers were all ready to give their best on the 74’x52’ floor of the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, known as the Mecca of entertainment when it comes to dancing. The event was the 4th Masters in Line (dancing).
If you had the chance to witness this glamorous event, ordinarily you would not see a familiar face among the artists. This year, however, it was different, for there was a face that is familiar face to any Sri Lankan, none other than our own Subashini Dias Abeyegunawardene.
She was standing on the colossal dance floor, determined not to leave without the trophy. Now she says with a lot of joy and pride written on her face, that she was not only the first Sri Lankan to participate, but the first to bring the 1st prize in the novices category back home.
“This was a golden opportunity that I got to represent my country in a world famous dance competition. Not many get the opportunity to take part or at least witness this glamorous event. I was able to secure my place on the top six in a world championship,” she said, the smile of success stamped on her face.
Thanks to the hard work of Subashini and the rest of the troupe, Sri Lanka was able to get a partnership of the Ballroom Dancers Federation International (BDFI) two years back. The main aim of the BDFI- Sri Lanka is to promote disciplines in dancing.
“The wonder about line dancing is you don’t need a partner. In my dance career I have seen enough people who join dance classes but just drop out later on as they are not able to get a partner, but when it comes to line dancing there in no cry for partners. When the music starts we just jump to the floor and start dancing without having to look for a partner. Also this promotes social interaction and fitness.”
Subashini says that the beauty about dancing is that this is for anyone and everyone and a person can do this until they die. There is no age barrier when it comes to dancing.
For Subashini this is only the beginning. She is now looking forward to continue and to improve in line dancing and perhaps win another world title in the future. For Subashini, this will not be a difficult task as she is not a newcomer to dancing. As a teenager she learnt Baratha Natyam and was later trained at the Deanna School of Dancing and has received many commendations throughout her dancing career.

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A sandesaya to Gamini Fonseka

Tell us of the roles you play
the scripts that come alive
as you walk and walk,
speak and say nothing,
in your gaze and gesture,
out there in those other locations
among the other heroes
supporting casts
props and equipment.
Tell us about that life,
the parameters
within which they capture
moment and a love note
a kiss and an arrow;
the contortions of the human condition
the comedy, tragedy and other undefined things.
Tell us about the play of power,
of dignity and arrogance
the slippages
between ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’,
loose words, and
silence that draws from the eternal verities.
Tell us about the heroines,
the casuals,
the portraits shattered with gunfire
the images that were not bullet-proof
but which survived.
Tell us,
in this land beyond recall,
how tall you are,
how commanding;
give us the dimensions
of profile and bearing.
Do you, for example,
hold the screen in a clenched fist
or in your determined eyes,
or have you disappeared
in the burning black-white frame
of your own exhalations
or crushed like the cigarette-ends
you ground out
to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’
as per script
or out of it,
as was your way?

Sembuge Don Shelton Gamini Fonseka, veteran film actor and director left all the silver screens of his life just over a year ago. Throughout his career, beginning with his maiden performance in Daiva Yogaya and through his many stints as director, Gamini Fonseka stamped an indelible signature as a character that stood head and shoulders above and probably several generations ahead of his contemporaries. He appeared, both on the screen and outside of it, larger than life, because he was a giant. Or perhaps the rest of us were dwarfs. He added value to things he touched. He spiced things up when things were bland and unpalatable. He made people sit up. He was political on the screen because he played with scripts. He was a speaker outside of parliament because he had opinions and because he cared. He was a hero and it is, as Brecht observed in ‘Galileo’, the tragedy of our times and our land, that we say ‘we need a hero’ instead of ‘we have no hero’. The nation remembers. How can it not?