I am RRR - Short Story

 

I am RRR, living in the land of Serendib, where my father lived and before that his father, and though some men deny that we belong here, my link with this land both in time and space is infinite, for this is what the ocean told me and the ocean is older than any man or anything else living or dead.

But once I foolishly contemplated this problem, day after day and night after night I fell to thinking........ until one night the phosphorescent ocean beckoned me to the shore and spoke to me in a language I seemed to know well......... I saw glimpses of a different time and a different place.......I saw the land of unattained hopes where the dreams of men appeared once and disappeared never to be seen again........... The ocean seemed to have sensed my sadness for it took me to the land of ZAAAA…... where men were so clever that I foresaw great progress.....they I felt would build a city whose peaks would touch the moon.......but when I returned in time....... half a century later all I saw was an impoverished, miserable land.......... for the men though very clever were selfish and jealous of their fellow beings...... they had suppressed each other......

Although my ancestors had lived here, I no longer felt like living here for I longed for the lands beyond where the sun shone differently, and men thought differently. I heard from men who sailed the seven seas of a land to the west of calm beaches and great cities so high that men never set sight upon their peaks.

Day after day and night after night I dreamed and the ocean which was silent until then spoke again in the kind language that I seemed to know well, of a land to the west called the land of NOR where the sun shone so gently that there were four wonderful seasons, all of them colder than the coldest days in Serendib, where men were so orderly that they needed no laws. As I gazed under a yellow moon the ocean parted and gave me glimpses of this land of order, that needed no laws for the men were sane, perhaps too sane for I thought I saw a land of despair, a land where boredom prevailed, a frightful emptiness, a secret death wish, but before I could say anything the ocean took me to another land.

This was the great land of CAN where men fled and sought refuge in an earlier, darker time, but could never return home again. This then I decided was the land of hope, where a better life could be sought a land of wealth where men achieved what they desired. But it was a dreary, cold land, where the sun barely shone, and men worked continuously like machines. Happiness here could only be found in money for there was nothing else. The trees here looked monotonously dull, much like the sun.

The sea seemed to have sensed the blow this dealt to my illusions for it took me to a land where the sun shone hot. This was a land of unimagined wealth, of great sunny cities, where the land was blessed with gold that was black, and great men walked about proudly in robes. But then I saw a glimpse of a man's hand being severed for stealing a loaf of bread, while the great men pretended to lead pious lives. Then I saw a woman being stoned to death and I knew it was a land I would never visit.

Then the ocean showed me the land of the poor, for it had been ruined by its own rulers. But it was also a land where the sun shone brighter when it shone and it rained harder when it rained, and anything planted on the ground would flourish. The people though sad now were once happy, perhaps they will be happy again, and I recognized it as my own land. This was a land where Time was on my side or at least so I hoped, and I decided never to leave it again.

G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English author. He was amazingly versatile, demonstrating his talent as a novelist, critic, poet, journalist, essayist, biographer, dramatist, and illustrator. Chesterton often used his sparkling wit and brilliant satire to expound the doctrines of Roman Catholicism, to which he became a convert in 1922. He earned the name of “master of paradox” for such lines as these in his poetical description of the Irish: “For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.” An example of Chesterton’s skill as a dramatic poet is “Lepanto” (1915). The “Father Brown” series of novels (1911-35) features a priest as a detective. 

Chesterton was born in London. His early ambition was to be an artist, and even after he became a writer he sometimes illustrated magazines and books. He graduated from St. Paul’s in 1892 and later studied at the University of London. He worked in publishing houses and was long a contributor to the Illustrated London News. In his G.K.’s Weekly and What’s Wrong with the World (1910) he advocated “distributism,” a system of social justice which, unlike socialism, would retain private ownership of property. In all, he wrote more than 50 books and hundreds of reviews and articles.

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885), was a French author. The best of his novels are animated by a humanitarian spirit and a strong concern for social, economic, and political justice. “Les Miserables” (1862) is about Jean Valjean, a peasant who tries to rehabilitate himself after being imprisoned 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. The main character in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1831) is Quasimodo, a deformed bellringer in the Paris cathedral. He repays the kindness of Esmeralda by saving her from the mob. He hurls from the cathedral’s tower the archdeacon who had sent her to the gallows.

In the preface to his unproduced play “Cromwell” (1827), Hugo provided a manifesto to the French Romanticists whose undisputed leader he became. He advocated a departure from rigid classical rules, calling for down-to-earth dialogue and a mingling of the serious and comic, the beautiful and ugly. He admired Shakespeare’s work. 

Hugo’s poetry sometimes tends to be flowery and bombastic, but he was a master of verse forms. Rhetorical brilliance and rich imagery characterize much of his work. Satirical jibes against Napoleon III in “The Chastisements (1853) reveal the militant republican spirit that caused Hugo to be hailed as “Old Man Republic.”

King Louis XVIII, impressed by Hugo’s first book of poems, granted him a small pension upon his marriage in 1822. This was increased after the publication of “Han d’Islande” (1823) a novel. Hugo was elected to the French Academy in 1841. He was a national idol during his later years, and when he died his body was placed in the Pantheon.

A book I read and its writer - Graham Green

A few years ago I read a book that sounded like an Autobiography. It turned out to be a book by Graham Greene. When I started reading it I didn’t know who Graham Greene was and I only read it because it was the only book available. It was more a recollection of his career than an autobiography, in any case, it was so well written that I thought I would read a novel by him so I bought Brighton Rock. There is something odd about Briton Rock but you can’t explain it exactly. But behind a veneer of normality, there is something bizarre.

While reading the book I wondered what it was. Was it illogical? Thought I but then I realized it was one of the most logical and well-crafted books I have ever read. Then I realized what it was - it was emotionally strange, almost all the characters seemed to have something emotionally wrong with them. The whole mood of the novel was bizarre, but it could not be defined. I wondered who on earth would have written such a novel and this is what I found out.

Graham Green (1904-1991) was an English novelist considered to be one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. Both critically acclaimed and widely popular he earned a reputation as a great writer early on in his life, but strangely was never awarded the Nobel Prize. Greene considered himself a novelist who happened to be a Roman Catholic rather than a Roman Catholic novelist as some people liked to call him. Some of his novels are “The Power and the Glory”, “Brighton Rock”, “The Heart of the Matter” and “The End of the Affair”, “The Third Man”, “Our Man in Havana”, and “The Quiet American.” In all, he wrote more than 25 novels and other writings over a period spanning 67 years.

Graham Greene had bipolar disorder. In a letter to his wife Vivien, he wrote that he had “a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life” and “unfortunately the disease is also one’s material.” William Golding called Graham Greene “the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety.”

Rocks and Sea - Oil Pastel drawing

 

Tree - Oil Pastel drawing

 

Factory at Sunset - Oil Pastel drawing

 

Nuwara Eliya - Travel Memoir

Nuwara Eliya is actually two different cities, when the sun shines it’s one of the most pleasant and picturesque cities in the country. But on this cold, dark, damp evening near the Gregory Lake it was one of the most dismal places I have ever been to. Lake Gregory was once a Swampy Bog, but in 1873 British Governor Sir William Gregory decided to dam the Thalagala Lake that originated in the Piduruthalagala Mountains and this strange lake was born. People seemed to have come to this central gathering place near the lake in bad light to have fun. I decided to take a boat ride, in the distance I could see the once beautiful mountains that I had admired on an earlier visit, now seemed alarming and bleak at the same time. The boat ride was boring and monotonous, nothing much happens and the biggest thrill is at the end when the boat thuds into the rubber tires almost throwing you overboard. The next thing to do seemed to be a five kilometer bike ride in a track adjoining the lake and I decided to try it.  I found that I was the only person on this track. A cold dark lonely wind blew from the river to the track, what in God’s name was I doing here, and then mercifully I came to the end of the track. I had ridden 5 Kilometers but it seemed much more.  Just as I turned and started to ride back it started to rain heavily. I was soaked, there was a man walking in the distance, probably a park employee, when I asked him where I could find some shelter he showed me a distant tree. At the tree there were five Indians four men and a woman. They jabbered in their language and sometimes used English in between. From what I could gather one of them had a serious illness that meant he could possibly die if he got wet on a downpour like this. He also had depression. You could see the others trying desperately to cheer him up including telling Hindi jokes, talking to him like a chicken etc. The tree offered very little shelter so I decided to ride on. Then I returned the bike and decided to walk to town. Considering how many people visit it, you always get the feeling that Nuwara Eliya is an under-lit city. It really is very dark. Eventually I had walked near the outskirts of the city. The rain had stopped and the sky seemed clear and I looked up. God the stars from here were gorgeous. They were the brightest I had ever seen. It was unbelievable really. And I realized I liked Nuwara Eliya even when it was dark. 

Good old bad books

 

One day in a second-hand bookshop I had a strange idea. Why not read books that are old and obscure, books that never even came close to making it to the best-seller list and write about my strange experience. I knew that in the art world paintings that sell for millions of dollars aren't always the best paintings. Several factors are at play, including the artist's personality, connections, etc. I guess if the artist is really popular even crap could be sold at a high price. I believe there were many books out there that never became popular, but are still very good or even more interestingly very bad. My objective was to find them and read them. This mostly involved reading very old novels. This method led me sometimes to read some of the strangest books that had ever been written but they were interesting for this very reason. All best sellers read the same way, but bad books all sound different from each other. Some bad books are very funny and make you wonder what kind of person wrote them. But I did find some books that could be called gems though they never became popular. When a book becomes a best-seller and everyone reads it, it somehow loses its magic. For me, the whole second-hand book shop reading adventure was one of the most fulfilling things I had ever done. Maybe one day I could use this experience to write a book about the strange books I read, and the stranger lives of people who wrote them. However like most of my projects it never got off the ground, mainly because I did not have time to read. But a funny world awaits anyone who visits second-hand bookshops and reads randomly old novels or short stories or even non-fiction books that never really made it.

Unforgettable Artists

 Many years ago I read a book about a Sri Lankan artist named Tom Jones (Not his real name). The only way to describe Tom Jones paintings would be “Very Boring, bordering on uninspired". Almost all his paintings showed one or more coconut trees on a beach with the sea on the background, painted with different shades of a dull brown, hardly the kind of thing that would excite anyone. Sometimes an old fashioned figure would stand near the pensive coconut tree, sometimes a boat would float aimlessly in the distant sea, sometimes the moon or sun would look down moodily upon it all, as if wondering why this painting was done. The question that comes to any reasonable persons mind is why on Earth didn’t someone stop him from doing, thousands upon thousands of paintings with such colors, with such depressing draftsmanship. It was the kind of painting that could be used to put someone with a dull mind to sleep. But here was the thing, these paintings were incredibly haunting. Many years after viewing them they kind of remained in your mind, attached in a strange way to your nervous system. And I suddenly realized after about two decades that these were the most memorable paintings I’ve ever seen. 

It turns out that there is another painter in UK who paints the same dreary mundane things as Tom Jones named L.S. Lowry. Given below is a painting by Lowry. All his paintings seem to follow this style.