The story of the amazing scent: Interview with Mahinda Prasad Masimbula

Mahinda Prasad

We enjoy the beauty of a body moving to music, appreciate and admire the talent of the dancers. Not everyone sees the story behind the beauty, the agony of these pretty little dancing girls. Not everyone can walk in those weary shoes.   

ලී කෙළි ඔළිඳ කෙළි
මෙහෙත් නැතුවා නොවෙයි
අම්මේ
ඒත් ඒවා වෙනස් කර කර
අලුත් අයිටම්ස් හදනවා

උත්සවත් දැන් වැඩි නිසා
ෂෝස් දිගටම තියනවා
නින්ද නෑ රෑ පුරා නටනවා
උදේ ප්‍රැක්ටිස් කරනවා

ඇඟේ හැඩ නැතිවෙයි කියා
කන්න දෙන්නෑ රෑට බත්
කෙල්ලො දහයක් ඉන්නවා
හොරෙන් අපි තේ හදනවා

සිංදු විෂුවල්වලට ගියොතින්
දාහ ගානේ ලැබෙනවා
ඒක අමතර ඒ වුණත්
විළුඹ තුනටිය රිදෙනවා

අලුත් නැටුමක දුහුල් ඇඳුමට
වශි වුණු පොහොසත් කෙනෙක්
තෑගි දෙන්නට අහනවා
මම එපාමයි කියනවා

උත්සවේ දවසේ මගේ මට
අම්ම කී දේ මතක් වෙනවා
ඇත්තමයි සමහර දෙනෙත්වල
හරි අමුත්තක් තියෙනවා

දවස් නවයක් ෂෝස් දිගටම
ඊයෙ මට අර ලෙඩේ හැදුණා
ඒත් අම්මේ ගණන් නොගෙනම
ගෙදර ගැන හිත හිතා නැටුවා

අම්මගේ විටමින් ටිකයි
තත්තගෙ දානෙට බඩුයි
ගන්න සල්ලිත් ඔන්න අම්මේ
මේත් එක්කම එවනවා

නිසරු අත්පුඩි විසිල් ඝෝෂා
අතර පසුපස තැනක කෙළවර
නොලා ඇසිපිය බලා මා දෙස
අම්ම ඉන්නව පේනවා

“I think it comes from working with the people, getting acquainted with their strife and pains in depth,” Mahinda Prasad Masimbula, who won the award for the best Sinhala novel at this year’s State Literary Award ceremony for his debut novel Senkottan, said speaking about his remarkable ability to empathize. “Maybe I can empathize because I have first hand experience working with such people. The scene behind the camera is different from the beauty we see in a tele drama,” he said.

State Literary Award 2013 for the best Sinhala novel was not the first State Literary award he won. At the State Literary Award festival in 2011, his debut poetry collection Hiruth Hima Piyallaka also won the award for best poetry collection.

In 1999, nineteen-year-old Mahinda Prasad comes from Godakawela to Colombo with the dream of getting into the tele drama field. “I liked tele dramas and films since I was a kid. Perhaps it was because of my background. My father and others all loved films,” he said. He did not want the easy way out. “We didn’t have much contact with Colombo, so it was hard to join the tele drama field. I’m from Masimbula, a village in Godakawela in the Ratnapura District. His family gave him the cold shoulder, but he ignored them. “I left home for Colombo to work in tele dramas. I started off as a minor staffer in tele drama crews and continued to work until I became an assistant director,” he explained.

Young Mahinda Prasad, away from home got used to the habit of writing poetry when he settled down in Colombo. “At that time, writing poetry was my hobby. I wrote poems all the time. And I launched my first poetry collection in 2010,” he said.

“I never hoped to write a novel at that time. But I started writing scripts for tele dramas. I had to study and research about the political and sociological background of the 1930s for a tele drama script and I started to see a story in the information I collected.” This story finally became Senkottan, his award winning novel. So far, Senkottan has won many prestigious awards including Godage Literary Award and Vidyodaya Literary Award. Senkottan was also short-listed for the final round of the Swarna Pusthaka Awards.

He said that it was easier to build the story in the village where he was brought up. “I researched about this for over nine years. I had to read the newspapers and books of the 1930s. I had to talk to people as newspapers and books don’t know the heartbeat of these low caste people. I had to experience it and feel it myself,” he explained. 

The language used in the story grabs the attention of the reader. According to him the dialects is similar to that used in Sabaragamuwa from 1920 to 1940. “I have not heard them speak this dialect, but I got to speak to some elders of the oldest generation. They had a creative way of telling things. Even when they spoke of sex, they only hinted at it, but it was effective,” he said.

This language is more pronounced in the dialogues of the novel.

...ඒ කිරි අම්මා කිව්වා, ඕනි එකෙක් එක්ක ඕන විගඩමක් නැටුවට කමක් නැතේ ය, හැබැයි ඔය පිරිමි ජාතිය අමුතු ජාතියක් ය, අත නිකං තියාගෙන ඉන්න පුරුද්දක් උන්ට නැත, අර අහවල් පළහිලව්ව නිකං තියාගෙන ඉන්න පුරුද්දක් උන්ට නැත, අන්න එ හින්ද උඹ ලඟ ඔය තියන හක්ගෙඩි දෙකයි, පංචා බෙල්ලයි විතරක් උන්ගෙ නොහොබිනාකම් වලට පරිහරණෙට දෙන්න එපා ය කියලා...

Even the filthy language used in conversation is amusing.

“පුංචි ම කාලෙ ඔවුවට කියන්නෙ 'යාං-තං' කියලලු... හරියට උඹ වගෙ කාලෙදි...

...තව ඩිංගිත්තක් විතර ලියලද්දී 'මේං-තං...' හහ් හහ් හා... මිනිහෙක් එක්ක දීග තල ගිහින් පැටවෙක් එහෙම හම්බු වුණා ම 'දොන්ත ප-තං. වයසට ගියා ම නොප-තං...' ලු.”

The story revolves around an adorable boy, Baba Henaya who belonged to the caste (Radaa) of people who washes clothes of the high caste. His grandfather is Weerappuli Henaya, grandmother Wansa Ridee, mother Podina, mother’s husband Nambu Henaya and aunt Heen Ridee. There is an uncle Luwis Henaya whom the reader never meet but changes Baba Henaya’s destiny. Another character who must be mentioned is Guna Ralahami, Wirappuli Henaya’s friend who belongs to a high caste following the leftists’ political ideologies. Guna Ralahami treats everyone in the same manner.

Speaking about the characters he created, Mahinda Prasad said he wanted Guna Ralahami to be a pillar of strength to the discriminated caste by keeping him in their company. “Leftist political ideologies had made a huge impact on them at that time. Guna Ralahami is a character who follows the ideologies of people like Dr. NM Perera, but he is not a representative of any political party or struggle,” he explained. “I don’t think the leftists were concerned about caste discrimination. I think that was a mistake they also made. None of the politicians addressed the caste issue at that time,” he added.

Yet, knowingly or unknowingly he leaves enormous hope to the downtrodden people through Guna Ralahami.

“මේ මෝඩ මිනිස්සු ඉන්න සමාජෙ කණපිට පෙරලන්න පුලුවන් සමසමාජ කාරයෙක් අද හෙට අපි අතරට නාවොත් කවදාවත් ම මේකෙ වෙනසක් වෙන්නෙ නෑ. අපි දන්නෙ නෑ කොහොම වෙයි ද කියල. ඒත් මල්මෝ... මෙ බලපුලුවන්කාර කුම්මැහි සමජෙ වෙනස් කොරලා දාන දවස වැඩි ඈතක නෙමේ ය කියල මට කියන්න පුලුවන්”

With the influence of the Luwis Henaya who has come to be known as Podi Tissa, Baba Henaya becomes Victor Suratissa. The writer sees both characters as failures, as they are meant to be. Yet surprisingly, he considers Weerappuli Henaya, who commits suicide as a successful character. “The death of Weerappuli Henaya is the outcome of his tolerant life. I don’t think it’s he who dies but the impoverished society that surrounded him,” he clarified. “It is possible that readers feel uncomfortable by his death. People who read this were also shocked by Podina’s murder. They asked why? I think that’s where my success lies, in that readers are prompted to question,” he stressed.

Speaking of the novels and literature he disagreed with the claim that writers use sex to attract the readers and just to sell their book. “If a writer gives prominence to sex as a way of making money, it is a serious offense. But the writer has a right to include this information in a book since it is nothing peculiar. Nobody can stop it,” he iterated. “But it is the writer’s responsibility to self-censor what he writes. An outsider censoring it is not ethical.” he added.

Moving onto Poetry Mahinda Prasad said, “There are Haiku, long poetry, sandas (poems) and nisadas (free verse). My attempt was to combine everything and do something on my own using a very simple language that everybody would understand,” he said. “And it attracted people’s attention,” Mahinda Prasad added.

According to him, the demand for poetry is on the rise. “Nobody printed more than 200 or 300 poetry books at the time I published my first poetry collection. There was a time when people did not want to pay money and buy poetry books, now, apparently it’s changing. In fact, I had to go for a fifth print for mine,” he emphasized.

Before the 1950s poems were a very popular powerful medium of entertainment. But with time, its allure diminished. According to him, it could be the complexity of poetry which distanced contemporary society from poetry. “In many communities, kaviya (poetry) is considered to be the oldest form of art. Jana kaviya (folk poetry) is connected to our lives in every aspect from Daru Nalawili (lullabies). So it is hard to eradicate its effect. But at that time, other media like television and radio were not very popular. When Nisadas (free verse) became a trend with British influence, starting with those of Prof Siri Gunasinghe and GB Senanayaka, poetry became an intellectual trend,” he explained. “That is how it is with a form of art. It rises up at times, then declines and rises again. There seems to be a rise in the field again,” he said hopefully.

He also said that if there is a proper plan there is still hope that people, especially children could be attracted to poetry. “Poetry contests and poetry reading societies could help,” he suggested. “Western countries have poetry reading societies. It’s nothing new to us. There has been Kavi Madu earlier in our society which is somewhat similar. But such trends have died down lately. I suppose if we can re-introduce these,” he opined.

Mahinda Prasad doesn’t see translated poems as successfully conveying original meaning. “Taste of a poem is unique to its mother tongue. The liveliness in the original creation is difficult to be translated into another language,” he emphasized. “You can get some idea from a translated poem, but it would not be the original feeling the poet wanted to convey.”

As aforementioned Mahinda Prasad Masimbula has contributed to a number of tele dramas as an assistant director, including Sakwalihiniyo, Depath Nai, Ridee Ittankaraya and Swayanjatha. Apart from that he has written scripts for Pini Wessa and Ahasin Wetuna Geheniyak. “Although I was working as an assistant director, I only took the responsibilities of organizing, which gave me immense experience about the field and provided me with much needed maturity,” he said. 

Commenting about the tele drama industry in the country he said today the industry is completely money oriented. “There are a few people who do it with passion like Sudath Rohana, Ananda Abeynayaka and Jayantha Chandrasiri. There are people who fight to maintain the quality of tele dramas. I think, not only private television channels, but state channels are also responsible for the emergence of a money oriented tele drama industry,” he lamented.

He said that the audience couldn’t be blamed for that. “There is a huge audience for good tele dramas. People need good works of art; it’s the artiste’s responsibility to give the audience what they need,” he reiterated.

Award is a form of appreciating the artistes for their creations. It motivates them. Yet the creator of Senkottan believes that the responses he gets from his readers are more valuable. “A letter or a call I get from a person from a far away village motivates me much more than an award,” he said. However, he also said that if a book does not win an award, it doesn’t mean that it is not a good piece of literature.

“Whether a work of literature receives an award depends on the criteria of the jury. There were many books which did not fall in line with the jury’s criteria, but they were well written in a good language with proper research to back them,” he mentioned. And he assured that Mahinda Prasad Masimbula would never become an author who would write targeting awards. “I don’t think a true writer would ever do that.”

Pics by Chandana Wijesinghe