Writer Mohan Raj Madawala. The cover of the book.
I.D. by Mohan Raj Madawala. Published by Bisho Prakashana, Colombo. Price Rs. 750
Reviewed by Somasiri Munasinghe
Sri Lankan writer Mohan Raj Madawala’s latest fiction, I.D., is a slice from Haruki Murakami’s fictional world.
The novel is a surreal mystery with its fair share of wacky, over the top characters like in the Japanese master’s works. The theme is topical, based on a world hurtling toward a universe dominated by smartphones and dysfunctional social media.
The people began to isolate themselves trapped in their own worlds when videos replaced the cinema halls where Vijaya Kumaratunga and Malini Fonseka cavorted. The fans were back to normal once out of the dream factory but since the bulky Akai tape recorders and Philips radiograms became miniaturized into pocket-size Walkmans and flash drives, the world has never remained the same.
Today, the cellphones have replaced every audio and video entertainment tool and become a virtual home and workplace. Madawala’s I.D. is the first Sinhala novel to explore the inherent dangers, unlimited hazards the social media offers at finger tips and its dreaded finale: the dehumanization of human beings.
Today the people are not victims of their own destinies like our writers like W.A. Silva and Piyadasa Sirisena portrayed in the 50s and 60s. They are also not the preys of an economic system gone wrong as our left-wing literati of the 60s and 70s were fond of trashing.
People are now the masters of their own destiny. Where they go wrong is unwise choices of their preferences.
Madawala’s I.D. revolves around the man’s dependency on modern technology, particularly the smartphone. At the time when our generation was born, we had only one ID: our birth certificate. Two generations later, we are a mess of countless IDs and passwords.
The novel begins in the innocent world of Sinhala heartthrobs Vijaya and Malini invading hearts by their screen chemistry in the 70s and 80s. A young boy’s loss of innocence in the hands of an older girl while his mother and boyfriend are lost in a dark cinema hall watching Vijaya-Malini antics. The first crush of Sampath with Pathmini when he was underage leaves him scarred for life.
Frequent reference to a hidden bra of Pathmini appears throughout the novel. As the boy comes of age, the world too wakes up to microtechnology. Murakami’s story of a boy who breaks into her girlfriend’s house to look at his lover’s underwear comes to my mind concerning the character of philandering Sampath. His life with Dilini, later extending into a passionate online affair with her fashionable daughter Nadee, goes against all social and moral values. Nadee and Sampath resort to phone sex to get to know each other better courting disaster.
The protagonist changes his social media identity and hides his age behind artificial health aides to stay young. His partner in crime is an office colleague, Mangala, who becomes the willing victim in his sham marriage.
Does Madawala suggest that the social media mess has to end in tragedy like Sampath’s life? Who killed him, we wonder. Did he fall victim to natural justice? Interestingly, Sampath renounced his old life seeking help from one of those modern Buddhist monks floating in wealth to wash away his past sins.
Madawala has moved away from his familiar territory of the historical novel after five bestsellers which questioned how history has glorified certain characters at the expense of keeping dubious rulers in power.
When you read I.D. try to remember the names well because the action moves through a dense jungle of aliases and AKAs.
Madawala’s latest offering is a breath of fresh air into rudderless Sinhala fiction stagnated in a sea of hackneyed themes.
There is an explosion of Sinhala translations of English works becoming best sellers even though the original sources are second-rate. The reason is Sinhala writers are stuck in an island mentality incapable of offering the reader what they thirst for and little exposed to the changes of the international stage. Madawala is a rare writer who understands the reader’s dilemma. ©newstrails.com
