The cover of Colombo and the author
Colombo. Author: Mohan Raj Madawala. Biso Publishers, Sri Lanka. 2018. Rs. 580
Celebrated writer Salman Rushdie has said when people hear magical realism they only hear magic, not realism, illustrating the fluid nature of this literary genre. Traces of this style can be seen in many works of fiction though the authors may not go to the extent of labeling their techniques.
Tony Morrison quite appropriately said ‘when a book is published it no longer belongs to the author and it is then the readers and critics’ prerogatives to interpret the text’.
Rushdie himself, many Latin American writers and luminaries of international fiction like Gunter Grass, Morrison and Haruki Murakami are well known proponents of this genre.
In the context of Sinhala writing, magical realism is not something alien to us. We are pioneers of this genre in a way. Buddhist literature, Jataka tales, stories we borrowed from Panchatantra and some of Dr. Ediriweera Sarathchandra’s dramas are classic examples of our home-grown magical realism. The problem was we did not have a proper label for this genre.
After four highly successful novels, Mohan Raj Madawala who has a penchant for using magical realism to colour his tales, partly in an attempt to deviate from the monotony of modern Sinhala fiction, has published another controversial historical fiction based on three generations of a Sri Lankan family.
The title of the novel is Colombo, the name of the island’s capital, an important shipping hub connecting East and West with geopolitical proximity to global hot spots although the country is not directly linked to sources of world conflicts. The only mass scale invasion occurred when the island was attacked during the Second World War by Japan, a country that shares the same religion.
The influence of Latin American writers, particularly that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is clearly evident in Mohan’s style though he humbly sidesteps the question saying that he has ‘only read some of his novels’. Instead, he cites ancient Sinhala texts like Amawathura and Poojavaliya as his main influences.
Like Marquez, he borrows from a disruptive colonial influence to etch his zany, sometimes over the top characters and plots. The novel begins with the first sighting of an aircraft which lands in Colombo and closes with a promise from a Colombo heiress to support S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who broke away from the UNP (United National Party) to form his own party propagating a brand of nationalistic agenda signing the death warrant of Sri Lanka’s racial harmony and limiting English education only to privileged classes.
Elizabeth, clear skinned like a white woman shares her birthday with the Queen of England and she was among hundreds of society ladies to welcome the head of the British Empire when she visited the island in the early 50s. The local Elizabeth is the granddaughter of a humble carpenter, Abraham and and his wife Aurelia, and daughter of Samson, a fisherman. She has a brother named Lenin who is named after the communist leader credited for setting up the Iron Curtain.
Much of the action of the novel revolves around these two offspring whose fortunes change with the transformation of the country from a British colony to a modern nation.
The author believes that history repeats with only the names of the characters being replaced and says that writers of history had never been kind to certain persons. He proved this point by writing Rajina (The Queen) to show that our ancient history was written mostly by Buddhist monks distorting Queen Anula’s character describing her as a nymphomaniac who famously killed dozens of her lovers ranging from servants to princes.
Young Elizabeth in Colombo is not ambitious or conniving and unaware of her mind-blowing beauty and once even tries unsuccessfully to make her white skin black by witchcraft and native treatments. Physicians tell her that it is easy to change a black skin to white but not vice versa.
She is not in pursuit opportunities but they find their way into her life, perhaps due to her rare beauty. An old apothecary develops a platonic affair with her and finds her a job at Angoda Mental Asylum and when she was put in charge to nurse a rich heiress, Dona Isabella Wijewardene, her life begins to change dramatically with tragic consequences.
The brother of the rich woman, a man who is holding the prestigious position of government coroner with a morbid fascination of dead bodies, brings Elizabeth home to look after her sister. He marries the teenage nurse and after a bizarre honeymoon he is killed by his virgin wife and an African slave. The coroner, Donald Wijewardene, ironically was the very man who campaigned to legalize the use of African slaves for the benefit of the society.
Lenin on the other hand, gets rich during the Second World War after the Japanese bombed the city becoming an early pioneer of the entrepreneurial class. He becomes a kingpin of an underground mafia dealing in drugs and prostitution by servicing the soldiers shipped from UK, Australia, India and New Zealand to defend the country. African Slums or Kapiri Mudukkuwa, which was located adjoining the Malwatte Road functioned as the centre for smuggled aphrodisiacs, narcotics, and prostitutes. The soldiers too brought with them deadly epidemics wiping out thousands of locals.
Japanese bombing raids on Colombo spearheaded by some crew and fighter planes that attacked Pearl Harbour began on the Easter Sunday of 1942 forcing people to flee the capital for fear of further attacks. Hundreds die and Elizabeth who is working at Angoda Mental Asylum has a narrow escape when the facility is destroyed by bombs. Many inmates escape the hospital creating considerable chaos in the city.
The war made life unbearably difficult. There was massive damage to the harbour, anchored ships and Chalmers Granary that stored nation’s food supplies, forcing the government to introduce a ration system that continued into the late 60s. Lenin becomes rich by undertaking renovations and building projects of the British government.
Like Mohan’s earlier novels the beauty of this work is how adroitly the writer enmesh reality with fantasy to create a fine work of art portraying the lives of the people and their struggles, in a voice tainted with sympathy, humour and sarcasm. The upper classes have been depicted as living in their own barren worlds of sexual fantasies and fetishes in the midst of unimaginable power and wealth. What contain in the author’s works is not always fiction.
Elizabeth, the granddaughter of the poor carpenter, inherits the fortune of the affluent family, descending into the same lifestyle of debauchery and excesses, sharing her life with a Mozambican slave woman Anna Misselia.
Like her grandmother she has a fascination for cultivating cinnamon to enjoy its beguiling health and aromatic properties and perhaps the affluent neighbourhood of Colombo came to be known as Cinnamon Gardens because of Lady Elizabeth Wijewardene’s obsession to grow cinnamon to perfume her new-found putrid life style. – Somasiri Munasinghe
