Government stands accused of biblioclasm
Blind Sinhala thugs burnt Jaffna Library
| by
Pearl Thevanayagam
(June
01, 2012, London, Sri Lank Guardian) My father died of a broken heart at the
age of 62 just two months after he celebrated his birthday on June 01, 1981
which coincided with the burning of Jaffna Library although his love for
cholesterol-ridden red meat and pork contributed to a certain extent. His
paintings adorned the library and his passion in life was his art.
He
never sold a single painting since he believed art was too sacred to be a
commercial venture. He specialised in Old Masters, portraits of ordinary folk
such as our dumb servant whose wrinkles he depicted in oil rather life-like, his
aunt sitting on the floor slicing cabbage with a knife held between her toes, my
mother not looking pretty with her dishevelled hair first thing in the morning
and landscapes.
I
grew up in a household smelling of linseed oil, turpentine, water colours and
stinking starched canvases surrounded by his many artist pals. W.J.G. Beiling
(Chief Inspector of Art), Messrs Ranasinghe from the South and Wijeratne were
the other inspectors of art who graced our home in Jaffna for holidays with
their families. Bongso Jayah and Podinilame from the Department of Education
were also our regular guests. I also remember being forced to wear socks and
sandals and don Sunday dresses lined with can-can (which itched like hell) since
father believed we should look presentable for our cultured Southern guests than
our usual urchin selves running barefoot and wearing cotton frocks.
My
poor suffering mother killed the emaciated red and white Leghorn fowls running
wild in the compound and spent endless hours in the kitchen to make
mouth-watering lunches including lagoon crabs and prawn for these playboys.
Dessert was no pudding but Karutha Kolumbu and plantains. We enjoyed curd with
kitul pani, rambuttans, mangoosteens and pine-apples courtesy of our guests.
Thank the Lord she was only educated up to Grade Eight and therefore was
blissfully unaware of women's lib.
Father
also dabbled in sculpture along with Ramani (nick-name for his male friend who
was also a sculptor) and Mr Sivapragasam who taught art at Central College and
whose paintings adorned Jaffna Library. The visitors to our house were an
eclectic mix. To keep company and liven up the weekends was Mr Sivagnanasundaram
aka Savarithambar of
Veerakesari cartoons famed for depictions of Mrs Damodiran representing upward
mobile women in the seventies when miniskirts and sunglasses were the height of
haute couture. Then there was Duke Mama who smoked slender cigarettes from a
slim holder and Edwin Mama the Communist who stood around discussing
politics.
Ramani
and my father took possession of our portico in Manipay, a suburb of mainland
Jaffna, at weekends and experimented with cement sculpture which was indeed hard
work considering that cement dried rather quickly.
Although
he was Inspector of Schools for Art in both the North and East in the '50's and
'60s my father's preoccupation was painting which took us seven kids to the most
scenic locations throughout the island during our school holidays.
My
plea to the government is that it should not repeat the mistakes it made and
killed my father's soul along with those of other Tamil intellectuals, artists
and academics when it burned the Jaffna Library; a veritable treasure trove of
culture. I am so glad he did not see his 300 or more works of art – some which
took over five years to complete - go up in flames in July 1983 at our Nugegoda
home in July 1983. He harmed no-one.
The
writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of
Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached
at pearltheva@hotmail.com)
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