"Sunset by the Beira Lake - Sri Lanka" - Watercolour

 

Frans Hals

 Frans Hals (1580-1666) was a Dutch Painter. One of the masters of the 17^th century, he is known for his brilliant single and group portraits. Hals excelled in portraying people in a happy mood. His paintings reflect the robust vitality of the prosperous Dutch middle class.

“The Laughing Cavalier” and “Balthasar Coymans” show his use of broad quick brush strokes to catch a momentary gesture and a fleeting expression. The naturalness and gaiety of “Banquets of the officers of Cloveniers-Doelen in Haarlem” are characteristic of much of his work. Hals used bright and vigorous colors in his early works. As he grew older he used more subdued and silvery tones. Many critics consider “Regents of the Old Men’s Home”, painted a few years before he died, to be his greatest work. Hals was born in Antwerp but moved with his parents to Haarlem when still a child. Although Hals was a popular painter, he often had difficulty making a living. In his later years, he was given a small pension by the City of Haarlem. (Given below: "Balthasar Coymans" by Frans Hals).

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish author. He was one of the most versatile of writers. His romantic novels of adventure captured the public fancy as had no British works since Sir Walter Scott’s. Treasure Island (1883), a story of a search for pirate treasure, is the most popular of these romances and one of the best children’s books in English. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), an allegorical novel about man’s dual nature, is a suspenseful horror story that shows psychological insight. A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) is a classic.

Stevenson proved himself a master of the short story in such tales as the eerie “Marheim” and “Thrawn Janet,” the tragic “The Beach at Falesa,” and the fanciful “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door.” His essays travel books, and letters are polished, witty, informative. Stevenson’s writings brought him great popularity during his lifetime, but after his death, his literary reputation declined for several years and he was thought of only as a competent writer of children’s tales. Toward the middle of the 20th century, however, a new critical evaluation of his work ranked him with the great writers of the 19th century.

Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous engineer who wanted him to follow the same profession. Instead, Stevenson studied law at the University of Edinburgh. He passed the bar examinations in 1875 but never practiced law. Since 1873 he had been publishing essays in various periodicals and he now turned all his attention to a literary career. Stevenson had never been robust and he began traveling early in life, partly for health and partly for pleasure. In 1888 he sailed to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, settling finally in the Samoan island of Upolu in 1890. There Stevenson bought a large estate he called “Vailima.” He took an active part in Samoan political affairs and wrote extensively.

Stevenson died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. He left an unfinished novel, Weir of Hermiston, that was published as a fragment in 1896. This novel, set in 18th century Scotland, contains some of Stevenson’s most powerful and realistic characterizations. Some critics believe it would have been his masterpiece. Samoan friends affectionately called Stevenson Tusitala (teller of tales). They carried his body to the top of Mount Vaea, where it was buried under this epitaph written by himself :

Under a wide and starry sky

Dig a grave and let me lie

Glad did I live and gladly die

And I laid me down with a will

This is the verse you grave for me

Here he lies where he longed to be

Home is the sailor, home from the sea

And the hunter home from the hill

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was an English physicist and chemist. Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction led to his invention of the electric motor and electric generator. His inventions laid the basis for much of the technology of the 20th century. In 1821 he had used a magnet and a wire containing an electric current to produce mechanical motion, thereby creating an electric motor. Ten years later, Faraday reversed the process: using magnetism to produce an electric current, he invented the dynamo, or generator.

Faraday formulated the basic laws of electrolysis during his early work in chemistry. Ion, anode cathode and electrode are some of the chemical terms he introduced. In 1825 he became the first to liquefy gases under pressure. In 1845 he discovered the Faraday Effect of magnetism on polarized light. His later days were spent in formulating a general electromagnetic field theory, later completed by James Clerk Maxwell. The farad is named after him. The son of a blacksmith in Newington, Surrey, Faraday received little formal schooling. He became interested in science while apprenticed to a London bookbinder. In 1813 he got a job as laboratory assistant to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution in London. Faraday became director of the laboratory in 1825 and professor of chemistry in 1833. He scorned wealth and worldly honors, refusing knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. While other men made money from his discoveries, Faraday devoted himself exclusively to scientific research.

P.G. Wodehouse

 

The feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet Jeeves were the creations of the infinitely well-meaning and later on much-misunderstood humorist named P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse’s life at this time was not going well when he joined the London branch of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. He was unsuited for it and found the work baffling and difficult, but he would come every day eager to write for magazines. But between 1908 and 1915, he created unforgettable characters that made him famous. Psmith was a strikingly original character based on hotelier and impresario Rupert D’Oyly Carte, whose monocle, studied suavity and stateliness of speech Wodehouse cleverly adopted for his character. “Something New” became his first farcical novel and also best-seller and although some of his later stories were gentler and lightly sentimental, it was as a farceur that he became known. Later in the same year, "Extricating Young Gussie” about Bertie and Jeeves was published. He wrote about them for the rest of his life.

His unwise broadcasts from German radio to the US, during the Second World War caused great controversy even though they were comic and apolitical. A front-page article in The Daily Mirror stated that Wodehouse "lived luxuriously because Britain laughed with him, but when the laughter was out of his country's heart, ... [he] was not ready to share her suffering. He hadn't the guts ... even to stick it out in the internment camp." Several libraries removed Wodehouse novels from their shelves. Wodehouse never returned to England.

Wodehouse received great praise from many of his contemporaries, including Max Beerbohm, Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman and Evelyn Waugh—the last of whom opines, "One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes on each page. However not everyone agreed. The writer Alan Bennet thinks that "inspired though his language is, I can never take more than ten pages of the novels at a time, their relentless flippancy wearing and tedious”. Another literary critic Q.D. Leavis writes that Wodehouse had a "stereotyped humour ... of ingenious variations on a laugh in one place". Sean O’Casey, a successful playwright of the 1920’s called Wodehouse “English literature’s performing flea”. Another critic wrote “It is now abundantly clear that Wodehouse is one of the funniest and most productive men who ever wrote in English. He is far from being a mere jokesmith: he is an authentic craftsman, a wit and humorist of the first water, the inventor of a prose style which is a kind of comic poetry."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), was an American short-story writer and novelist. "This Side of Paradise" made Fitzgerald famous at the age of 24 and he married Zelda Sayre. "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922), describes a young man and his beautiful wife, who gradually degenerate into middle age while they wait to inherit a large fortune. Ironically, they finally get it, when there is nothing of them left worth preserving. Perhaps to avoid this the Fitzgerald's together with their daughter led an extravagant disorderly life. Fitzgerald began to drink too much and Zelda suddenly, inexplicably began practicing ballet dancing night and day. In 1930 she had a mental breakdown and in 1932 another, from which she never really recovered.

Through the 1930's they fought to save their life together, but the battle was lost and Zelda was admitted to a sanatorium. His next novel "Tender is the Night" is the story of a psychiatrist who marries one of his patients, who as she slowly recovers exhausts his vitality until he is "a man used up." Unfortunately for Fitzgerald, the book was commercially unsuccessful. With this failure and the despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an incurable alcoholic. However, by 1937 he recovered enough to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood. In 1939 he began the novel "The Last Tycoon." It was Fitzgerald's last attempt to capture a dream he had for a long time. In its intensity of imagination and brilliance of its expression, it is equal to anything Fitzgerald ever wrote. And it is typical of his luck that he died of a heart attack with the novel only half-finished at the age of 44.

H.G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres but is best known now for his early science fiction novels including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The War in the Air (1907) among many others and also his comic novels. Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. His science fiction novels revealed him as a writer of marked originality and an immense fecundity of ideas. He also wrote many short stories. During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and something resembling the World Wide Web.

John Higgs writes: Wells’s genius was his ability to create a stream of brand new, wholly original stories out of thin air. Originality was Wells’s calling card. In a six-year stretch from 1895 to 1901, he produced a stream of what he called “scientific romance” novels, This was a dazzling display of new thought, endlessly copied since. A book like The War of the Worlds inspired every one of the thousands of alien invasion stories that followed. It burned its way into the psyche of mankind and changed us all forever.

Wells's earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathizing with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of a journalist. Novels such as Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English Society as a whole.

From the Travelogue

 

Because I had gone to Nuwara Eliya in November, I found it was off-season and intensely cold. After tea I went to a hotel. The owner was inquisitive to know why I was traveling and I explained my philosophy of travel. I said I was traveling all around the country using only public transport and I wanted to draw or paint everything I came across. He looked at me like I was from another planet.

But the great train journey uphill had aroused my interest in Surrealism so I started to draw my first surrealist drawing. Surrealism is an odd thing. Everyone accepts that something illogical has no value, but the objective of this Surrealist movement is exactly this – to create unnerving, illogical scenes with the objective of freeing the unconscious. Nothing less. Amazed by what I saw in the hill country, I drew a landscape following the strange theories of the Surrealists. It was an enthralling experience. In an attempt to draw realistic and impressive drawings and avoid mistakes, the artist sometimes loses the thrill of drawing and painting...His output drops...But in this new Surrealist method I invented, mistakes are modified or left as they are to make the drawing more energetic. The artist finds the true purpose of art - to express oneself and be happy...I felt incredibly proud of my first Surrealist drawing, it really had freed, if not my unconscious, at least the full potential of my creativity. So I took my drawing to show the owner, and all he could say was, “What the hell is this?” Damned if I knew.

But that was nothing compared to my experiences in selling drawings. Many years ago, I came up with a novel way of drawing. For me Art has always been synonymous with magic, so one day I wondered whether there was some theory that, when applied, would lead to interesting paintings or drawings. Unfortunately there seemed to be no such theory, for some reason some paintings are pleasing while others fail to satisfy the mind. But I didn’t want to give up so easily. So I analyzed the paintings of famous artists and found that the most interesting paintings had an element of crudeness in them. Take Vincent van Gogh’s “The Church at Auvers” for example, the whole building is crooked and the colors unnatural. But what would have happened if he painted it straight using natural colors, then it would be like a million other architectural drawings, competent but boring. This was good news for me because I was one of those people in this world who is too lazy or too incompetent to draw buildings perfectly. I felt that the real secret behind a really good painting was a certain crudeness mingled cleverly with a really impressive element. The impressive element makes the painting realistic, while the crudeness energizes the painting or drawing making the whole painting interesting.

I used this theory to paint and came up with some eerie paintings. Part of my technique involved random squiggles, particularly for the sky, which I called energy lines. Apart from the energy they added they helped balance the composition which I think is crucial in any drawing. The next step was to find someone to sell it to. At that time, I was attending a tuition class to pass an exam, but the people there were not the kind who would buy a drawing. But there was a certain intelligent person who took the trouble to have creative conversations with me. She was much older than the others, and said she also had a law degree, and had an intellectual air to her, which made her an ideal candidate to sell my drawing to. So I talked about the subject and showed her the drawing, hoping to charge only a small amount because it was my first sale. She was immediately repulsed. She took the drawing and turned it sideways and then upside down and looked at me in a weird way that some people reserve for particularly stupid people. I was shocked, why I wondered was she turning it upside down, after all it was one of my best landscape drawings with energy lines for the sky. Then she said "I don't know whether it is upside down or not, but after framing it make sure you display it the wrong way to the wall. Life is a joke.

Short story - The Terrible Idea

 In 1954 I worked as the chief engineer for Ceylon’s Laxaphana hydropower project. Laxaphana is in the Hill Country, the picturesque central mountainous area, where tea is grown so abundantly that almost all the mountains are entirely covered by perfectly trimmed tea bushes, making it look more like a fairytale painting than an actual mountain. I was one of the “foreign experts” who would make Ceylon’s ambition of becoming self-sufficient in energy a reality. Life here was good with its slow pace and laid-back attitude and a cup of Ceylon tea is just what you need in the cool Hill Country. But laid back is one word you could not call Somadasa a young man who worked on the project and did various odd jobs one of which was as a porter.

A man with big ideas, Somadasa wasn’t educated but considered himself a practical man and “a man of the world.” It was obvious that the Hydropower project had caught Somadasa’s imagination.   So I was surprised when one day he came up to me and said that he had an idea that would make him rich, but he wanted to try it in his hometown of Galle first. He said he wanted to build an enormous tank, (he would collect money from the villagers to build it), which would be filled with rainwater. From this tank would flow water through a pipeline downwards which would be used to turn a Generator, from which he would get electricity, but most of the electricity would be put back into an electric motor, which would pump the water back to the tank, that way he said in a confident tone the generator would not run out of water. At first, I could not decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little too simple-minded, but I soon realized that it would never work, for according to Lord Kelvin’s First Law of Thermodynamics, even if all the energy is used to pump the water back, it would lose energy through heat, and so would soon run out of water. But to my utter disbelief he wouldn’t listen, he was convinced that it would work and nothing I said could convince him to give up his idea.

A year or so later I heard he had tried to implement his idea and had lost a lot of money on it, had been beaten up by the villagers, and put in prison; I blamed myself for not having convinced him to give up his idea. Many years later I visited Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a tourist, and was walking in the dusty streets of Colombo with my son; memories of my earlier days on this adventurous island came flooding back when all of a sudden a Limousine stopped in front of us. The man who got down from it had the appearance of an important politician, but then I realized that it was none other than Somadasa. “Don’t tell me you made it on the Electric Tank” said I. “No” said Somadasa in his thick accent “But while working on it I came up with an idea to use the ocean to make Electricity, you see I invented a special mechanism where the motion of the waves pushes water through an enormous pipeline but because of the mechanism I invented it can move in only one direction, up, so I pumped it into a nearby cliff and from it I generated electricity.” “That’s unbelievable,” said I not knowing what else to say. But in a way it wasn’t unbelievable because Somadasa had always had ideas, most of them bad, but he had so many bad ideas that one of them turned into a good idea with experience. And that’s more than you could say about most people in this world, they do not have any ideas either good or at least Bad.

Rough pen drawing

 

Pen Drawing

 

Oil Pastel

 

Oil Pastel

 

"Factories at Sunset" - Watercolour

 

The Last Stars

 

When I heard the news that my grandfather was agitated, I rushed to see him. Night had fallen, and I had to walk along the beach for about 2 Km to reach his home. Why one of the greatest scientists on the Island had to live in this remote corner of the world had always been a mystery to me. He once said that bright city lights interfered with his observation of the stars. Here near the equator in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, in a remote fishing village north of town, he carried out his work undisturbed.

As a young man, he had made great discoveries in physics. But it was as an inventor that he excelled. Although his inventions laid the basis for great technological advances in the 21st century, he was never interested in making money, something I could never understand. He scorned wealth and worldly honors. While other men made money from his inventions, he dedicated himself exclusively to scientific research.

But lately, he had become strange. I think it all went wrong for him when he ventured into fields of science that he should best have left alone at his age. As a young man, he could have easily solved the great mysteries of the Universe, but now he was very old. Senility (The decline of memory and other mental functions associated with old age) really is a sad thing.

The first thing he said as I entered was, "I am on the verge of a discovery that will transform the universe."You mean transform the way we view the Universe," said I. "No, literally transform the Universe," said he. "Gravity affects Time; that part is certain, but what is the true nature of Time? That's the question I want answered. If you go endlessly in a straight line, you will end up in the same place you began, but how much Time would it take.......for example, if you go at an almost infinite speed. Answer this question, and you would have answered how big the Universe is, and more importantly, how it was created. "You mean how the Universe was formed," said I. " No created," said he. A great fear verging on panic had come over me; clearly, he was talking rubbish, and it had a religious element too, which was all the more worrying. But before I could say anything, he went on........

"I have built a machine Kelvin that will take an object to the end of the universe in an instant, at which point it will be in the same place it began; by using it, I want to find out how the universe was created" I panicked, I feared for his sanity. It was obvious he had suffered from what some people call a breakdown, perhaps related to overwork and old age. The best thing I could do was run back to Trincomalee town and try to find a doctor fast. I mumbled something and turned to go, but he interrupted me. "One other thing, Kelvin, there is a slight chance that my experiment could go wrong, which would, of course, mean the end of the Universe. To start the experiment, I must press the switch, do you think I should press the switch or maybe destroy the machine." He brought the most strange-looking black box, perhaps a little bigger than one cubic foot, on which was written, Anti-matter. I didn't know what to say, and I didn't say anything. I walked out, resolving to find a doctor fast.

When I reached the beach, it was midnight. It was a strange night, and the ceaseless waves of the Indian Ocean broke with a thud on the sand to my left. To my right was a thick jungle with noisy insects. I remembered what my grandfather had said many years ago "I want to see the stars shine over the sea." Then I got a strange feeling that it was getting darker, so I looked up and there over the Indian Ocean one by one the last of the Stars were sputtering out....................

Excerpt from the Travel Book

 

In Sigiriya, I met one of my relatives. He was quite old and from the things, he said I could never decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little mad. Over a drink, he started his “advice to the young” though god knows I could hardly call myself young. “ You know what the problem with the world is” began he “ No,” said I. “Well, the problem with the world is that many people walk with only a vague idea of what they want to do.” I wondered secretly whether this accurately described his condition – senility (A decline in memory and other mental functions associated with old age). “Great wars have been fought, and millions upon millions have died because people don’t know what they really want.” “Take Hitler for example, he was a man who walked with a great anger about the injustices to his country after the First World War. But he never had a clear idea of what he really wanted, the result - 75 million people died in the Second World War, “True” said I, (though this was new to me), “and how do you solve this problem” said I, trying to sound intelligent. “A piece of paper,” said he “Just write all your problems on the left side, and the solutions to each of them on the right side, and suddenly everything is clear. No more walking vaguely with anger or greed in your mind” said he. I only wish somebody had given me a piece of paper and said this when I was younger. Come to think of it maybe someone should have given this paper to Kashyapa, there would have been much less trouble and many more lakes.

Then I tried hard to change the conversation to something more interesting like the weather, or something more relevant to him like the latest obituary notice in the newspaper, but he continued…“You know who your biggest enemy is,” said he. “No, I don’t” said I. “Well your biggest enemy is also your best friend, and that is YOU.” Nobody in this world can harm you more than yourself, nor help you more.” “Don’t compare yourself to others, but compare yourself to yourself over time by improving your skills and habits. Are you better at doing something today than yesterday? then you are on the right path.

Excerpt from the Travel Book

The road south from Colombo can be a bit confusing, somehow even if you scan the map for a long time it doesn’t register. From Colombo to Moratuwa is only 19 Km. From there you expect Kalutara to come quickly but it takes longer than you think for it is about 26 Km further south. In Kalutara is the famous Buddhist temple. You expect Beruwela with its beautiful seascape to be very far from here but it comes surprisingly quickly being just 14 Km south. By this time the landscape has a very rural seaside feel. Happily, Bentota with its beautiful beaches and river is just 8 Km South. Then here the distances seem to widen. From Bentota to Ambalangoda is 24 Km, somehow it seems longer than that. Hikkaduwa, a tourist destination known for coral reefs and sea turtles is 15 Km further south. By this time even without noticing we have come 114 Km from Colombo. Till Hikkaduwa, the coast that runs more or less south seems to curve a little more prominently till it reaches the Historic fort city of Galle. The coast continues to curve until it reaches the southernmost city in Sri Lanka – Matara. Then it moves upward reaching Tangalle and Hambantota, Kirinda, Kumana, Okanda and then almost vertically up to Potuvil, Tirrukkovil and Batticaloa. Very rarely if ever have I heard some of these place names in the news so I tried to find out. Kumana is a bird sanctuary, Okanda is a small hamlet in the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, within the Ampara district.

 

In western and southern Sri Lanka most of the main cities and towns in the coastal region are quite well known, but some Kilometers inland from the coast there are some obscure areas that hardly ever come to mind, except for the people who live there. I wondered what these places were and then I looked at the map, what a fool I had been, for this is exactly where they have built the new southern expressway. Travelling in the southern expressway you find that the landscape is mostly fields and jungles with very few buildings.

 

Somewhere between Beruwela and Hikkaduwa I had an incredible experience, a kind of perfect moment that comes very rarely in life. I got down from the bus shocked by the color of the sea. It was around midday, and the sun shone brightly overhead. The color of the sea was a shockingly bright turquoise blue and it was glistening and I was alone on an enormous beach. A song started playing on my mind: We’ll sing in the sunshine….We’ll laugh every day…..We’ll sing in the sunshine ……then I’ll be on my way. Some HAPPY sounding songs are actually depressing….and some sad sounding songs are Happy…..But this was a Happy sounding Happy song at least for me despite its silly lyrics. 

 

There are some places with beautiful scenery that ought to make you happy…but make you sad….similarly there are some really ugly landscapes that fill you with joy…..Well, this was a Happy looking place that actually made you happy. I walked on the beach, I climbed the rocks, it was for me the most perfect spot on earth. After about an hour it was time to be on my way. I wondered whether if I came another day at the exact same time I would find the sea the same glistening turquoise blue and the beach deserted. I came again a few times but could not locate the beach again. As the actor, Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock in Star Trek) said in his last message “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.” 

Pen Drawing

 

Oil Pastel Drawing

 

Rough pen drawing

 

Rough pen drawing

 

Adventures in the Art World

 

The best Art book I have ever read, was a relatively small book as art books go by British artist, Adrian Hill. How so many good ideas could be packed into such a small book is amazing. This book doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but the drawings, in particular, are so “clever” that it inspires you to take up drawing.

Adrian Keith Graham Hill (1895-1977), enlisted in the Army at the start of World War One, where due to his artistic abilities he was assigned to the Scouting and Sniping section. He had to sketch the enemy in front of allied trenches, in no man's land. Later Hill recalled such a typical patrol as follows:

“I advanced in short rushes, mostly on my hands and knees, with a sketching kit dangling around my neck. As I slowly approached, the wood gradually took a more definite shape, and as I crept nearer I saw that what was hidden from my own line, now revealed itself as a cunningly contrived observation post in one of the battered trees.”

In 1938 while recovering from tuberculosis at a sanatorium, he found that drawing nearby objects from his hospital bed greatly aided in his recovery. This led to Occupational Therapy being introduced in Hospitals, and Hill was invited to teach drawing and painting to injured soldiers and later civilian patients. Hill believed that Art helped divert patients and relieved their mental distress. He also believed that Art appreciation aided recovery and this led to a picture lending scheme (of famous artists' work). Hill himself along with other artists talked to patients about artworks. Hill coined the term (Art Therapy), and published his work in his 1942 book, Art Versus Illness. Hill published many books about drawing and painting and was the first artist commissioned by the Imperial War Museum in 1917.

In his art book: "THE BEGINNER'S BOOK OF OIL PAINTING" he had drawn a black and white drawing, of a 1950's landscape I think. These drawings inspired me to such an extent that I turned it into a watercolor painting: Both the original drawing and my painting are given below. I only wish I had used more green for the trees and foliage.

The Evolution of Man

 

Somewhere beyond a tree

A wild man came to be

To conquer a world

But he was just a monkey

Somewhere along the way

He used his hands to sway

When other monkeys stayed in trees

He made his way with greed

Somewhere beyond the sea

Did he lose his way like the beasts

No no not him

He became the king

As a king he was cruel

He made animals duel

Flightless birds he made

Hundreds in a cage

Trees that just had fruit

But it was still not good

Animals born for meat

Didn't stop his endless need

From the wheel to the plane

Causing endless pain

But I will not complain

I am one of them

Somewhere beyond the moon

A wild man came too soon

To conquer the stars

But he was still a monkey.

To conquer the stars

And be like a god

But if deeds define a being

We will always be monkeys

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author. Most of his work shows concern for moral issues. A deeply ingrained conscience seems to generate in him an obsession with the problem of sin, its nature, and its consequences. His strong sense of human guilt tinges most of his novels and short stories with a somber hue. Unlike some other puritans, Hawthorne apparently felt a keen sympathy for the erring and demon-driven people he pictures.

Hawthorne liked to call his novels “romances” because they deal with interior rather than outward phases of life. They explore the secret chambers of the heart, soul, and mind. He maintained that a writer of romances, unlike the realist who relies upon personal observation and fidelity of facts, need be faithful only to “the truth of the human heart.” Hawthorne frequently pictures people who are morbid and melancholy, but their gloom is mostly of an inner kind, unlike the physical horrors that are characteristic of Poe’s tales. His people ordinarily are more symbolical or allegorical than lifelike, manipulated by the author to make a moral point.

Edgar Allan Poe

 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor. There has always been disagreement as to the quality of his work, and some of the events of his life. However, even those critics who do not consider him a great writer acknowledge his importance in the development of modern literature.

Poe's most popular stories are those of horror, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Black Cat," and of detection, such as "The Gold Bug" and "The Murders in Rue Morgue." Among his well-known lyrical poems are the haunting "Ulalume," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee," and the classically restrained "To Helen." Poe was one of the most brilliant and independent 19th-century literary critics. His emphasis on artistic rather than moral values in literature greatly influenced modern literary theory and practice. His stressing of poetry's musical elements, and his use of evocative and symbolic language and imagery, contributed to the rise of the French Symbolist movement in poetry and, through it, to various 20th-century trends in poetry.

Poe was the first to formulate rules for the short story, and the principles of brevity and unity that he advocated have influenced short-story writing in the present time. He is credited with inventing the modern detective story and bringing the Gothic horror tale to a high level of development. He enriched both types of stories with psychological insight. Poe's preoccupation with madness, death, and the supernatural, and his denial of the importance of moral values in literature, were bitterly criticized during his lifetime and for some years afterward. More valid from a literary standpoint was the objection - still made by many critics - that some of his works are too contrived.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, the second of the three children of Davis and Elizabeth Poe, traveling actors. When Edgar was two years old his mother died in Richmond, Virginia; their father had previously deserted the family. Egar was taken into the home of John Allan, a merchant, from whom the boy took his middle name. The Allan's lived in England from 1815 to 1820, where Edgar attended private schools. He later attended a Richmond academy. Poe entered the University of Virginia in1826, but at the end of the year, Allan withdrew him because Poe had run up large gambling debts. After a quarrel with his foster father, Poe went to Boston in 1827. There he published anonymously his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. He enlisted in the army and served for two years. In 1829 he published his second book of poems. The same year his foster mother died and Poe became briefly reconciled with his foster father, who got him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in 1830. Poe cut classes and drills and was expelled from the Academy early in 1831. His break with Allan was final.

In 1831 Poe lived in New York City for a short while and published Poems. It contained many of his best poems, including "To Helen," "The City and the Sea," and "Israfel." Poe then went to live with his aunt Mrs. Maria Clemm in Baltimore. He turned to the writing of fiction and did not publish another book of poetry for 14 years. In 1833 he won a prize for the story "Manuscript Found in a Bottle." Poe went back to Richmond in 1835 and joined the staff of the Sothern Literary Messenger, soon becoming its editor. Poe won wide attention for his critical reviews in the Messenger.

In 1837 Poe moved to New York, but unable to find work there, moved again to Philadelphia, where he became editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (1839-40). Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque were published in 1840 and favorably reviewed. Poe was the literary editor of Graham's Magazine for a few months in 1841 and in it began to publish detective stories. Poe won another prize with "The Gold Bug" (1843), which became his most popular story during his lifetime. He returned to New York and became assistant editor of the Mirror. The publication of The Raven and Other Poems in 1845 brought him increased fame. For a few months, he was the owner of the Broadway Journal, but the periodical failed.

Poe's wife died of tuberculosis in 1847, and he became depressed and ill. He became emotionally involved with two women and attempted suicide. During his last years, however, he wrote some of his best poems and critical essays. He also published Eureka (1848), a philosophical work. Poe became engaged to a childhood sweetheart in Richmond in 1849. He then went to Baltimore to bring his aunt back for the wedding. A few days later he was found fatally ill in a tavern in Baltimore. The legend that Poe was an opium addict and wastrel is contradicted by the facts of his predominantly quiet and hard-working life. He was an alcoholic, but his claim that he drank to alleviate periods of intense depression was partly upheld by physicians who examined him and said he had a brain lesion. In 1910 Poe was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

Science vs God

 

Science that filled the moon with men

Built planes rockets and flaming jets

Split the atom to countless shreds

Put empty dreams on bad men's heads

Could not duplicate a simple leaf

Or solace a man filled with grief

Clouds that filled the earth with rain

Filled wells rivers and mighty lakes

Was it the work of earthly heads

Or God's hand overhead

Science may harness a million powers

Make greedy men its earnest lovers

Make a few to rule many

Desperate people without any money

But can they bend the hands of Time

That neither you, I nor them can find

No my friend they just can’t

All of us have to reach the Past.

Rough Pen Drawing

 

Rough Sketch of Pettah

 

A Tree more valuable than Gold

 

Here along the reef lies a sunken treasure

Of a ship that sailed but did not measure

I seek to find it soon

Under eloquent stars and moon

I use starlight to navigate the seas

It will be in moonlight the treasure will be freed

Of foolish men who did not see

That numbers will ruin their destiny

I reach the treasure sailing East

But the stars disappear with my endless needs

I throw the treasure overboard

I need the stars to sail back home

The stars guide me to reach my isle

I walk inland a hundred miles

I reach a jungle of a billion trees

But I came here for just one tree

Here in this jungle grows a hidden tree

That all the eyes in the world cannot see

I seek to find it soon

Before the noon seals my doom

What is gold but a hideous thing

That kills more men than a ruthless king

But each atom in this wondrous tree

Has magic in it that can cure all ills

Of a Black Ship that Sailed

 

Once the ocean told me

One of its secrets

Of a moon that shone full

And old idiots awoken

Out of the darkness

Of a black ship that sailed

Of shrieking old men

Who came from a grave

A celestial bird beckoned me

To a land of gold

But the ocean echoed

It was a land of unattained hopes

But more wonderful than

The gold of crumbling old men

Or the words of decaying law books

Are the secret laws of the ocean

The un-written laws of good and evil

The un-written laws of right and wrong

Colombo - A Travel Story

 

Unfortunately just when my travels started to gain real momentum the covid 19 pandemic struck. We went through a series of strictly imposed lockdowns, that made travel impossible. However, during one of the brief interludes of the lockdown, I decided to walk somewhere, anywhere at all away, as far away from home as was possible to be. I had never been a great fan of walking, but the lockdown had made me a kind of aimless wanderer. So I set out of my home and “discovered” for the first time that on both sides of the road were large Kohomba (margosa) trees. From what I understand the margosa tree is one of the true shade trees that thrive even on the meekest trickle of groundwater so it is invaluable for those of us who can’t afford to air-condition. People in Sri Lanka, India, and Africa love it for this reason and its many medicinal and other uses. So it is surprising that it was declared a weed tree in northern parts of Australia in 2015. Introduced as a shade tree for cattle in the 1940s, it spread so quickly, that It is now illegal to buy, sell or transport plants or seeds. I have always wondered why this was, for as everyone knows nothing much grows in most parts of Australia except gum trees. Then I realized that in reality, many great trees grow in Australia, most of them endemic. An aunt of mine once visited Australia and she told the story of how she ventured into a woody place (she was always venturing into woody places) and found that there were countless Uguressa trees full of fruits. When she inquired from an Australian, she got the answer that it was not edible, and was in fact fit only for birds. Hey, we eat this fruit around here, it’s one of my favorite fruits.   

Greatly troubled by this thought I moved on and entered a shop. It was a small model of a supermarket, with difficulty you could move about and pick what you want, but the suspicious salesgirl keeps a close eye on you with a series of convex mirrors. Shops like this have spread all around Sri Lanka in recent years, which I think is great. As I was eating the quickly melting ice cream without a mask, I came upon a picturesque lake that was lined by a long row of Kumbuk Trees (Terminalia arjuna). For me, the Kumbuk tree, with its shiny smooth bark and colorful leaves is one of the most pleasant trees that God has put upon this earth. Then I looked at the lake, it was a large man-made lake, whose primary purpose seemed to be to collect the rainwater and wastewater of a thousand houses that had been built less than twenty years ago. In this short period, it had become a proper ecosystem in its own right. Cranes, herons, and a strange crow-like bird whose primary purpose of existence seemed to be to dry its feathers all its life made it a strange place to be. Which made me wonder what the difference was between a crane and a heron. A crane's neck is shorter than herons and cranes hold their necks straight, while herons typically curve their necks into an “S” shape, particularly in flight.  It was also full of fish, though fishing wasn’t allowed. It seemed that even in a dry region if you dig a large hole deep enough and plant some trees around it, it will soon fill with rainwater,  and if you put some fish, in no time it would be teeming with life. At a distance, I could see cashew trees. The trees in this area seemed to do a weird thing. They spread so widely that they sagged down and were supported by the ground though still attached to the tree. Now isn’t that clever, no stilt roots or other complicated roots are needed. Entertained by this foolish thought I moved on. 

I decided to walk all the way to Colombo but gave up halfway and got on a bus. I got down at pettah. I decided to wander around Colombo as much as possible during weekends and write about this city for I found myself greatly attached to it. As everyone knows Colombo isn’t exactly New York, but it is a bustling, happy city where a lot of interesting things happen all the time. Its port is one of the busiest in Asia, and it really is a flourishing city, but what makes it interesting for me is that it is a city with many art-minded people. Some people accuse its artists of copying the west, and worse being decades behind the west but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I am not an expert but as far as I am concerned the west has come to an artistic dead-end, where even the most idiotic paintings are called brilliant. Calling everything brilliant is the same as saying that nothing is.  If you paint a red circle, on a black background and call it something like “The portrait of the artist's soul” it could be sold for millions of dollars if you could first get the artist to kill himself although, for most people, it looks like a traffic light.  Or if you have a clever artist who can talk great things bordering on philosophy and psychology then that will sell for millions too. I am a great fan of surrealism and have great enthusiasm for this kind of thing but sometimes it makes me wonder what it is all about. If you put a small chair in an enormous room and call it minimalism for example it seems to be a very clever thing to do. If doing next to nothing seems to be the point why bother doing anything at all. But this problem is not found among artists in Colombo for they are busy drawing colorful complex paintings. 

 

I am not trying to be professional,  but for many years I have wondered what the answer was to the following question: WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST. (In an artistic sense, rather than a financial sense). I guess the simple answer is: If art makes the artist happy then he/she is a successful artist. But why I wondered were so many artists so unhappy. The answer is that art is such a thing that it makes most people prisoners of style and prisoners of their own success. In the music world, it is like being condemned to sing the same few songs again and again, because those songs were the ones that made someone famous. It took many years for me to realize this, but one day I realized that I was a prisoner of my own unfortunate painting and drawing style. But I want to change that and draw in different styles, mediums, and subjects each time I draw or paint. I think many artists are prisoners of their own technique and success, for almost all their paintings look alike. But “WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST” in the financial sense. Artists, as everyone knows, have highs and lows, when in a high an artist is capable of doing great work that could be sold, but when the artist hits a low which is almost all the time his paintings are uninspiring and can’t be sold. The aim of the artist if he/she wants financial success is to improve his technique to such an extent that he is able to paint great, inspiring paintings even when he hits a low and the only way the artist can achieve this is through constant practice. 

 

After wandering through Galle face and Kollupitiya, at last I came to Bambalapitiya where I visited the Majestic City, and decided to meet a godforsaken relative of mine. Godforsaken because although he is one of the cleverest people I have ever met, he said some of the biggest bullshit I have ever heard. His domed-shaped head seemed to hide a brain of exceptional ability. It seemed like there was nothing he didn’t know and understand fully. I suspect he knew a great deal about human nature. He believed that a large number of people in the modern world were very unhappy and it was his duty to advise them and treat them if possible. At that time I had a lot of problems in life and was really feeling down. Perhaps sensing this he said a strange thing. He said that a cure for unhappiness could only be found if we know the definition of “Happiness”. Happiness, he said is really a “sense of improvement” which many sad people seemed to lack. But by adopting a “philosophy of improvement” that is by making “small conscious improvements every little while” they could find true happiness. He said “When you walk into a place, by the time you walk out, make sure you have either improved yourself or improved someone in the room with your knowledge or something in the room has improved, however small it may be. When you walk into a garden make sure you plant a seed, or at least water the plants. I thought this theory sounded like a joke, but in some way, it also fascinated me. 

 

So when I returned home, decided to try out his weird theory more as a joke than anything else. I made small ridiculous improvements every little while and found a strange kind of happiness, a kind of job satisfaction that seemed to increase every time I did something. And things started improving around me, things in my room seemed neat and tidy, I had a small but flourishing vegetable garden, I had made new friends, and new opportunities came to me more than ever before, it was unbelievable really. I really wonder whether this method could be used by people who are having a bad turn in life for it certainly helped me.