Aparita

The Toronto Star,

Sri Lankan Tamil writing finds a young audience

Here, in the front courtyard
the jasmine is in full bloom.
Honey birds by day
and the scent-laden breeze by night
reach as far as our room.
All sorts of people whom I do not know
walk past our house, often.
Yet, till now, no one has come
to interrogate me.

- “Do You Understand What I Write?” by Oorvashi

When Matangi Thillai read and re-read these lines the first time, she connected with a country she barely knew. Thillai was 3 when she left Sri Lanka with her parents.

The 20-year-old business student didn’t know about the country once called Ceylon. Or about the wars fought more than 200 years ago by the Dutch and Portuguese over the cinnamon cultivated in Sri Lanka.

She did know of a more recent war - the ethnic strife that’s torn the country apart, the reason why she had to leave.

“Growing up in North America, you hear about war going on here, war going on there,” she says. “But you leave it at that.”

But recently she got a deeper glimpse of Sri Lanka.

Thillai was one of seven young people chosen to read selected works at the launch of Lutesong And Lament. The first major anthology of Sri Lankan Tamil writing translated into English and published in North America is available at Chapters, Indigo, Amazon.com and small bookstores.

Thillai didn’t know about the book much before the launch at the Scarborough Civic Centre. Neither did she know about the Tamil Literary Garden, the group behind its promotion.

Made up of six people, the two-year-old group’s aim is to promote Tamil literary activities in Toronto. One of its members, Chelva Kanaganayakam, an associate professor of English at the University of Toronto, edited the collection.

The book was to be called Lutesong because of the lyrical style that marks Sri Lankan writing, he says.

“But (author M.G.) Vassanji suggested it also has to be a ‘lament’ because the writing is laced with grief and has to do with conditions of exile, the anguish of transplantation.”

It took two years to put together Lutesong And Lament, which was published by Vassanji and his wife Nurjehan Aziz’s TSAR Publications.

“Sri Lankan writing has always been defined by the local - Sri Lanka,” says Kanaganayakam. “We needed to evaluate Sri Lankan Tamil writing on an international level, against world standards.”

The richness and vibrancy of contemporary Sri Lankan Tamil writing became the focus of Lutesong And Lament. Tamil writers and poets from northern, eastern and the “hill country” of Sri Lanka as well as from Britain, Norway and Canada are included.

Despite its modernism, the pieces in the book are unfamiliar to many readers such as Thillai because of the strong language barrier. Most Sri Lankan writing is in the vernacular, with the exceptions of writers such as Shyam Selvadurai and Michael Ondaatje.

Lutesong And Lament, then, became an important first step for many such as Kanaganayakam. He speaks of the need to demonstrate the different phases of Sri Lankan Tamil writing.

“Until the ’70s, the emphasis (of the writing) is on the cultural - themes like caste, class, region dominated,” he says.

“After the ’70s, there was a rise of a political slant that gathered momentum after the ’80s, when ethnicity became a part of Sri Lankan consciousness - effects of political upheavals in terms of social displacement, stress on nuclear families, mass migration or identity politics.”

As for the matter of translation, Kanaganayakam sees it as an attempt to reach a wider readership.

The presence of a large group of Tamils around the globe who can’t read Tamil with fluency and have no access to the culture through language was another important factor.

“We thought it would prove to be that conduit,” says Kanaganayakam. “We’re going with the assumption that translation is not a substitute, but a transformation.”

Besides the attempt to educate young Sri Lankan Tamils about a country and a culture that’s inaccessible to them, he hopes the book will allow them a sense of pride.

“It’s easy to be dismissive of everything that belongs to home,” he says. “Especially in a technological country where premium is on reason or rationale.”

Dimitri Edirmanasinghe, 18, appreciates the opportunity he got to explore the richness of Sri Lankan Tamil writing.

“You don’t get to read these things in school over here,” he says. “It gave me a greater sense of who I am.”

Thillai, too, was moved by the emotive writings. She especially likes the poem she was asked to read at the launch, “Do You Understand What I Write?” by Oorvashi.

“I rehearsed the poem over and over again, more to get the feeling,” says Thillai in her lilting voice. “I understood every word, what it would be like if I were in that position.”

Inspired by the book, Thillai says she wants to learn Tamil and gain a more in-depth knowledge of Sri Lanka. Already versed in Tamil, Edirmanasinghe hopes to keep in touch with further literary endeavours in Sri Lankan Tamil writing.

“There’s great beauty in the writing,” he says. “Even if something is lost in translation, the emotions come through. And the words will last forever.”