Short excerpt from the Travel Book

One day I was walking on a road in Colombo when a multitude of useless thoughts came to my mind. I felt that a large number of people in this world, probably amounting to several billion people, had a big problem – The lack of energy to follow their dreams. It might be one of the biggest undiscussed problems in the world, people just don’t have enough energy to do what they want to do. It wasn’t laziness really, but people just weren’t designed to follow the great expectations the world has designed for them to achieve. So on one hand they have great dreams they want to achieve, and on the other hand, they don’t have energy and this causes a lot of unhappiness. But no politician ever talks about it, actually nobody anywhere ever does. Would it benefit a large number of people if somehow their level of energy could be increased?

In a way, the main ingredient in success apart from intelligence and luck is energy (effort). In fact, happiness, confidence, and many other things could be defined in terms of energy. But how could people practically increase their energy levels, maybe by exercise, maybe tea, maybe coffee, maybe by a self-improvement philosophy……. I was fed up with my useless thinking…... and then I looked up and there was a row of second-hand bookshops near a kind of three-road junction.

I went to one of them without any real intention of buying a book and saw a book titled “Indian Ocean Treasure '' by Arthur C. Clarke. Arthur C. Clarke was a slight oddity in every sense of the word. A rocket enthusiast as a teenager, he seemed to have dreamed of space travel, even before anyone had invented a rocket. During World War II, he worked as a scientist and helped in the development of Radar, which helped turn the tables on the Germans at a time when Hitler was very confident about invading Britain. During this time he wrote a paper or rather dreamed for nobody had even gone to space at that time, of placing three satellites in the geostationary orbit above the earth so that they could transmit radio and television signals around the world. For this, he earned the title “Father of Satellite Communications'' much later when it was actually done. Perhaps unsurprisingly he became one of the most famous science fiction writers of his generation. He collaborated with Stanley Kubrick in making the world-famous science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years before the moon landing. His book of the same name became one of the most influential science fiction books of all time. When they eventually landed on the moon, he was one of the people who came on the live telecast of the landing on CBS. According to the book, in the late 1950s, he came to Sri Lanka. One of the non-fiction books he wrote about the Island was – “Indian Ocean Treasure '', a true story of a Treasure hunt in the Great Basses Reef about ten miles into sea off the southern coast of Sri Lanka.

The book was so old that as I was reading it, it crumbled in my hands. Written in the early 1960s the Ceylon he describes seems almost like another country. So much seemed to have happened in the intervening years. Ceylon as it was known then became a republic and changed its name to Sri Lanka in 1972. In 1978 an open market economy was adopted. A civil war erupted in 1979 that lasted 30 years and ended only in 2009. There was a lot of hope for development after that, but the economy never picked up, but like the book crumbled page by page. It seems that a lot of the clever and colorful people left, leaving us dummies behind. But I don’t mind, by God, I don’t as long as I can travel and draw and paint what I see. All you need to be happy here is a sense of humor.

Perspective

 

Pen Drawing - Tree

 

The Man who Thought - Short Story

 During World War II my grandfather had been stationed as an officer in the then British colony of Ceylon. It would have made a great impression on him for he spoke about it for fifteen years when I was growing up. Great stories of holy mountains, rock fortresses, and ancient kingdoms with the most advanced irrigation systems in the world. For many years I thought he was making most of it up, but it intrigued me. So one day I finally decided to visit the Island to find out if he was telling the truth.

The Airport is about 30 Kilometers from the capital Colombo. Colombo borders the sea and its port is one of the busiest in Asia. In the lower central part of the country there is a mountainous area where tea is grown so abundantly that it looks more like a picturesque painting than an actual mountain. There really is a holy mountain here called Sri Pada which is said to be the holiest mountain in the world. And the Sigiriya Rock fortress built in the 5th century is one of the marvels of the ancient world. And the great Tank Civilization of ancient Sri Lanka is still being used today to irrigate. I was amazed to find out everything my Grandfather said was true, this really is a great Island. 

But the most interesting aspect of this island is the people. Although I do not have a degree in psychology I have a strange habit of analyzing the people in every country I go to, so I would do the same here. Sri Lankans in general are very friendly and very intelligent,

But for an intelligent people they do not think deeply about some things that trouble at least a small minority in some other counties, like for example: how was the universe created? Are there things smaller than atoms? Are we related to monkeys? This kind of thinking is absent even among highly educated scientists who are qualified to answer these questions. But even here there is an extremely small minority of people who think of such things, but unfortunately they are so rare that you could spend an entire lifetime without meeting one.

 

But I did meet such a person on the island and he was the clerk in the hotel. “Aren’t you Carl Saban the famous American astronomer, and the world authority on supernovas?” said he. “Yes,” said I a little surprised that someone here knew me. “I’ve been reading the articles you write, they are interesting and I have used your observations to verify my theories, theories that I think solve all the problems of the universe, including how it was created, and I have written it down in this book, it would only take a few minutes to read, can you tell me whether it is correct,” said he. He took out of his pocket a much-crumbled book that looked like it had been slept on. For a moment I could not decide whether he was just joking or completely mad, but he thrust the book at me so fervently that I reluctantly took it. 

I present below just the first two pages of his book, exactly as he wrote it without any modification by me:

Everything is made up of atoms, but atoms themselves are made up of even smaller particles. Even though our senses fool us we and everything around us are energy fields. The movement of these tiny energy particles moves electrons, atoms, aero-planes, stars, galaxies and everything else in the universe. These tiny particles and their ability to move are the only reality in the universe and other things such as Time or Space are not real and are how the mind perceives the movement of these particles. 

According to this theory, there is nothing called space, three-dimensional or otherwise, for when these particles move, as they always do it creates this illusion in our senses. There is nothing to fill, for there is nothing else. Similarly, there is no dimension called Time, this is what the mind perceives when these particles move, but it isn't real, for there isn't anything separate called Time. If there is nothing called Time then the universe could not have been created at a particular point in time in the past, this solves the mystery of creation. These particles would have always been and will always be.

So how does this explain Singularity, or what is popularly known as the Big Bang? If matter were to lose its ability to move, it would converge to a point infinitely small, but soon the deep tendency to move would lead it to expand outward, which would eventually form Stars, planets, Galaxies and everything else that is in the Universe. How does this explain Gravitation? It has been found that when a sub-atomic particle was moved another particle that was seven miles away moved in exactly the same way, and it has been estimated that however far these particles are separated they would move exactly in the same way. This is strange for nothing moves faster than the speed of Light. This twin movement could be used to explain Gravitation, for if a particle were to move, its twin particle would move towards it.

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The rest of the book contains calculations to prove this theory, which I can’t fully understand, but which seem profound all the same. Can somebody tell me by reading this book whether this young man in Sri Lanka is, in fact a great scientist or a little wrong in the head? 

Written by: RJX

A Dream that Flew - Short Story

 Many years ago I visited a bookshop and found in it a small model Aero-plane with a wingspan of seven inches. I was amazed by it. It seemed that 1500 Rupees was a very high price for such a small model plane. So I decided to make a plane like it with wood and sell it for 1000 Rupees. 

The trouble was I knew nothing at all about woodworking. But in the library I found a book about woodworking, it was a wonderfully written book with clear pictures. The tools you need are simple. There is the hand saw. Then there is the fret saw to cut curves. The chisel which is used to sculpt wood. A rasp to scrape off wood very efficiently. And the vice to hold the wood, the hand drill, and of course the hammer which was already there.

I wondered where I could buy these tools, and found a stretch of road about a kilometer long, in Armour Street (before Panchikawatte) where and on both sides of the road there are shops that sell only wood working tools. Its incredible that I could engage in this useful pastime by reading a book and buying a few tools so cheaply. But the trouble with woodworking when making small items is that it is very labor intensive. Each small piece takes hours to get right, no wonder it was replaced years ago with metal and then plastic. But plastic doesn't have a “soul”, which wood has in abundance.  

The next step was to find a plane to make. I have an old encyclopedia that has pictures of aircraft and under “Historic Aircraft of World War I” I found a red Tri-plane (three wings) that particularly appealed to me. It was the Fokker Dr. 1 Tri-plane flown by Baron Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918), the World War I German flying Ace, who as leader of an air group called the “Flying Circus” personally shot down 80 Allied planes. Richthofen served in the cavalry and infantry before entering air service in 1915, and was known as the “Red Baron” for the color of the plane he flew, but was shot down in aerial combat possibly by Captain A. R. Brown of the British Air Force. 

I used mahogany for it is easy to work on. I bought a plank from the wood mill but it was too thick. There is a machine in any wood mill called a Planer-thicknesser that is used to plain wood to the required thickness. I plained it to a fraction of an inch and drew the three wings on it, held it in the vice and used the fret saw to cut it. Then I used the rasp for the slight tapering effect on the top of the wings. In a similar way I cut the tail sections, the propeller and all the other sections except the fuselage from the same plank of wood. The tail sections were a little thinner so I used the rasp to make it thin. 

In my own unhumble opinion, the design simplicity of this plane (for mass production) was amazing, a big plank could be used to cut any amount of wings and other parts except the fuselage, and the fuselage itself is just a square pole shaped with the rasp. It seemed to me at that foolish moment that I had overcome the labor intensity problem of wood with a really simple design that still looked great. 

I pasted all the parts together and painted it red, and when I painted the black Iron Cross on the wings, fuselage and tail it looked incredible. I felt overjoyed at having made a model plane that actually had the same energy of the real Fokker Dr.1 Tri-Plane flown by the “Red Baron.” The next day I wanted to take it to shops and show it as a sample of what I could build if they were willing to sell, but I never did. For some reason I felt afraid and embarrassed, as if in selling this plane I would be conducting some disgraceful act.  Eventually I gave the plane to someone for free. I also lent most of my tools to people who never returned them.  I never built a wooden model plane ever again. For something more important came up and soon responsibilities overwhelmed me. And I realised that this was the story of my life. It seemed that another one of my dreams had flown away with the Red Tri-Plane. 

Written by: RJX

Oil Pastel

 

RJX

The Light of Other Days - Short Story

By the middle of the 21st century, the world was facing a terrible energy crisis. But my grandfather once a famous scientist in the latter days much decayed seemed to think he had the solution. He was a bit of an embarrassment with his theories and I was sent to calm him. “Oh there you are, why have you been trying to avoid me?” said he. I muttered something and he continued. “I was wondering what happened to the United States, it’s not united anymore and it’s worse than the middle ages there, you know they have all become savages, and things in Europe aren’t much better either, and according to my calculations soon things are going to be much worse here, so I have a plan to solve the energy problem of this world, and I have already started it.

“Be sensible grandfather, it's way beyond you” said I “You know what the other scientists say about you, they call you an old goat.” “They are not scientists, they are politicians, but enough of that Alvin let’s go to the beach,” said he.

We did not have to walk far for grandfather had always lived near the sea. The waves were breaking on the shore and the noonday sun was as bright as ever as we walked towards a boat. We got into the boat and I was shocked by what I saw for the boat had a large fishlike tail extending from behind it, and as this long black tail flapped the boat propelled at an incredible speed through the water. “What in hell is that?” said I almost jumping overboard. “That’s just the wave-powered propulsion system” he replied “I transferred the vertical up and down motion of the waves to the horizontal flapping motion of the tail, there are pods floating just below the surface all around the boat, and every time a pod is moved up and down there is a clever mechanism which transfers this to the flapping movement of the tail, even the smallest ripple is transferred to the tail, that’s why it moves so fast.” Are you sure that there isn’t a motor attached to the tail?” said I, still skeptical…… to which he replied, “Oh I’ve got bigger things in my mind, like for example solving the energy problem” ……. “But how?” said I …… There was no answer for he was sitting on the boat with his hand touching the water and he started reciting an old poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow……

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
  As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
  All my dreams, come back to me. 

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
  Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
  And the answer from the shore! 

Most of all, the Spanish ballad
  Haunts me oft, and tarries long,
Of the noble Count Arnaldos
  And the sailor's mystic song. 

Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
  Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,
  Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;-- 

Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
  With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
  Steering onward to the land;-- 

How he heard the ancient helmsman
  Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
  Poised upon the mast to hear, 

Till his soul was full of longing,
  And he cried, with impulse strong,--
"Helmsman! for the love of heaven,
  Teach me, too, that wondrous song!" 

"Wouldst thou,"--so the helmsman answered,
  "Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
  Comprehend its mystery!" 

In each sail that skims the horizon,
  In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,
  Hear those mournful melodies; 

Till my soul is full of longing
  For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
  Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

The fact that he had recited this strange poem worried me, perhaps his brain was deteriorating. Then I saw a large Ferris wheel on the beach, ten times larger than the largest that had ever been built. I was shocked, and he went on “That is the solution to the energy problem, you see there are large metal structures floating in different parts of the sea, but these are attached to the sea bed and every time they are moved up and down by a wave, it generates an enormous amount of energy, which is transferred by a hydraulic system to turn the Ferris wheel for this is the central point to which all the energy is channeled. This wheel is enough to power all the energy needs of this country.

I never understood how it worked, but it solved the problem, and soon other countries were adapting it. And because wave power does not pollute the environment, the 21st century saw the beginning of finding solutions to the great environmental problems like global warming, water pollution, the pollution of the atmosphere, and ozone layer depletion. I dare say that the 21st century was better than the previous century due to a clever idea an old goat once had.

Written by: RJX

Travelling Days - Short Story

Many years ago I found a job in the manufacturing department of a company. My job was in turn both very boring and very stressful, but the worst part was the commuting. I spent a total of six hours traveling by bus every day. At first, I looked out of the window to see whether there were any interesting landmarks but soon got tired of the scenery.

Soon I was so tired of commuting that it made me sick. I started reading the newspapers but found that they mostly contained the feats of one great politician or another. It seemed some people were doing really well in this world, unfortunately, I was not one of them. In despair I wondered what I could do, then it struck me - I would read novels.

I visited second-hand book shops and found that some of the better books were unreadable because they crumbled in my hand page by page as I read them. There were many books but to find a good book in that untidy mess you had to be very lucky. Among the gems I found were – 1984 by George Orwell, Collection of short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, and Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. While reading these strange stories I also became interested in reading about the authors themselves and found that their life stories were even stranger than the fiction they wrote. So many of them had mood disorders that I wondered whether this in fact helped them write better. Sadly most of them died young and some of their lives like Virginia Woolf’s for example ended in tragedy. For a while, I toiled with the idea of writing a book called “The Strange and tragic lives of Great Writers” but found it too depressing to write. It is a thankless job to write ill about the dead, especially those who have given many months of reading enjoyment.

 
It was during this time that I borrowed an Art Book almost by mistake, but it turned out to be one of the most useful books I have ever read. In it was the following advice:

“…………..Composition (the way the different elements are arranged) plays such an important part in the painting of a successful picture in oils that it has been placed by many artists above both drawing and color. And I think this is true, because although the drawing may be impeccable and the color of the highest quality, if the composition is at fault, it will fail to satisfy the eye…….the painter must lead the eye of the beholder into the painting and not across it……..into the picture, may I repeat, does not mean into the center of the picture, but towards the center, to some focal point where the eye can rest and be content to remain…….......”

This was followed by some excellent drawings, that made you understand the importance of composition. This gave me an idea. I wondered whether I could sketch on the bus looking at the scenery outside. Unfortunately, the bus moved too fast for me to do this and there weren’t many interesting landmarks I could sketch. Then it struck me - why not inconspicuously sketch interesting elements from different parts of the journey in my small blank notebook and put it all together in one composition back home. So I sketched a tree from one part of my journey, a vegetable seller in another, and a building from another area and put them all in one picture. This presented problems of scale, perspective, and logic but when it comes off right it looks spectacular. Many people asked me where in Sri Lanka there was such unusual scenery and my answer was always “everywhere”.

Written by: RJX

Every day of every month

On the dark days of September

And other days in November

I still thought of better days soon

That will come to me in June

But when old December came

I thought I’ll go insane

For dark dreary days

Had come for me to stay

But then January was here

I lost all fear

For I just decided to be happy

Every day of every month

RJX

The Wonderful World of Art Books

Many years ago bad days descended upon me. It seemed that my troubles would never end. I lived in a world of semi-detached unhappiness, interrupted time to time with bad news. It seemed like some people were doing really well, unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them. But one day I decided to borrow an art book and unexpectedly stepped into a different world.

The introduction on this book began as follows: “Shall I be accused of wishful thinking if I promise the reader that oil painting is not all that difficult?” It was for me an invitation to amble. Then the book says about the importance of developing a personal style because “in the last analysis, it is this which will mark out your paintings as different from the rest.” And it went on “And if I am in danger of over-emphasizing the importance of self-determination, it is because many beginner’s and adult amateurs miss the joy of painting through the very fear of forgetting the written word…

All of us like to draw the sky bright blue with puffs of white for clouds, but apparently, this is wrong. Even a clear blue sky devoid of any clouds cant be drawn in this way. The color is more positive blue at the top of the picture - the portion which we have to raise our eyes in nature - than it is directly above the horizon which is lighter. Though I’ve never kind of noticed it, it really is true, for when I followed this principle I found that my skies looked real for it “conveyed the dome-like nature of the sky.”

The book goes on about clouds “Isolated white clouds will soon be noticed to have a clearer (not sharper) definition at the top than underneath. The lightest portion is also at the top, while at the bottom they are softer and more indistinct in outline”. This seemed more difficult to understand but when I followed it my clouds had depth and seemed real rather than the white puffballs floating aimlessly in a blue sky.

How so many good ideas could be packed into such a small book was amazing. The drawings don’t tell you everything you need to know but are so “clever” that they make you want to draw. This book falls under the “How to Draw” and “How to Paint” kind of books but there are some equally interesting art books that seem to deal more with “Art History and Analysis.” When you read them you get the feeling that most of the modern artists mentioned were at the very least drunk or possibly completely insane and there were many of them forming “Art Movements.” And there are many intelligent people willing to buy their work for millions sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. In “Twenty Marilyns” a 1962 work by Andy Warhol, the artist seems to have more or less printed the same image twenty times on a canvas, in what he called the “assembly line effect.” It is said to reflect critically upon the supposed uniqueness of the work of art in a world of mass reproduction and mass media. He has “sought to abolish both the craftsmanship and genius of the individual artist through embracing mechanical reproduction.

Then take minimalism. In this, the artist exerts minimal manual effort, like for example keeping a yellow fluorescent light in a large empty room. I kind of never understood this. If doing as little as possible seems to be the point why do anything at all? Then I finally got it...it is not the artwork itself but the clever idea behind it that gives it its value. It's incredible. 

RJX