What are the qualities of a true artiste? And who is a ‘true’ artiste? Some contemplation of the subject makes one to come to the conclusion that such an authentic identification refers to someone who is solely consumed with the internal process of art creation and not the external.
This means a separation from external frills that may or may not be the rewards of this mission. These external paraphernalia could take the form of honours and awards as well as entry into certain artistic cliques that are seen as fashionable. All this is considered normal in the artistic and literary world as we see that the creation of the reputation of artistes occurs often through the routes of prestigious awards.
Therefore, in this reality, to find an artiste abhorring awards of any kind as well as publicity of any sort is like looking for an utopian being. Yet such an artiste exists. He is Mayilvanagam Shanmugalingam, better known as Kulandai Shanmugalingam, the legendary dramatist of Jaffna who is probably Sri Lanka’s oldest living playwright and dramatist. He is today 90 years old and living in complete seclusion in his Jaffna home.
He has refused a presidential award, an award given by the Jaffna University and one by the drama circuit (to name a few) and one award given by the Jaffna University that somehow found its way to his house was because those who were giving it brought the award in a bag which had been duly placed on the table in the hall! Such is the artiste that is Kulandai.
The school of drama and theatre was inaugurated by him in Jaffna in 1978, two years after he followed the diploma in drama in Colombo. His name is venerated by the lecturers and students alike in Jaffna, especially those who are linked with drama and arts and probably their respect is heightened because of the fact that he has pursued his art for its own sake and not for the subjective nature of awards or public recognition.
Little entertainment
Among the general public of the North, he is a household name. In the thirty year saga that Sri Lanka went through he was the main provider of whatever little entertainment the general public could get. His dramas during this time acted as catharsis to the Northern people and revolved around issues faced by the common man. He is well known as a pioneer in writing plays for children.
His overall themes are those linked with the concept of home, displacement and migration which the people of the North of Sri Lanka came to be familiar with since the 1980s.
For example his play Man Sumantha Meniyar, loosely translated as the sweat and dust on their shoulders is associated with peasants caught in the 30 year old conflict. It is a sequel to his wartime plays but one where the main focus is on those who till the soil and the peasants whose story is hidden beneath the gunfire.
Several of Kulandai Shanmugalingam’s dramas have been performed in Colombo. One of his later works, the script of Heaven with Hell translated to English by S. Pathmanathan and published by Kumaran publishers, is to be launched in February in Jaffna alongside the English version of the latest poetry collection by Pathmanathan (Sopa). The publication of the play Heaven with Hell is dedicated to Parakrama Niriella, founder of the Janakaraliya Mobile Theatre. The work is connected with domestic social upheavals and is connected with the general dilemma of survival, the concept of roots and resettlement.
Below is how Sopa describes Kulandai in the introduction mentioned in the book:”He has made Tamil theatre a powerful medium through which a discussion of the most topical controversial issues becomes possible. Shan holds the scale even, maintaining a balance, giving expression to the stifled voice of the oppressed and, at the same time, not over reaching his limits, and not becoming fanatical in the process.”
Recognised poets
This description comes from someone who is entirely qualified to write an analysis on Kulandai; S. Pathmanathan, one of the most recognised poets of Jaffna and a well known critic of the northern artistic scene.
Wanting to somehow meet this resolutely reclusive Jaffna artiste at least this year I make the request to Sopa, to approach Kulandai on my behalf. The instantaneous response by Sopa is that it will be futile. He had tried many times before to get appointments with Kulandai for several persons but had failed.
However, this time, Kulandai Shanmugalingam met me over three consecutive days, the second and third day being with two of his students. One of them is Navaraj, a counsellor and psychiatrist who has learnt to use drama as an expressive art for healing. The other is Dr. D. Ratheetharan, who teaches drama at the Jaffna University. Both of them are senior drama practitioners who believe they owe much of their expertise to the theatre based journey with Kulandai, undertaken from their youth.
I meet Kulandai Shanmugalingam in his over 100 year-old-home in Jaffna and am confronted with the image of him watering his plants in the spacious garden full of trees grown by his daughter. He today does not write but looks after his ailing wife.
“The years that I wrote are over. I don’t write anymore. I live among trees and I look after my wife,” he said.
His narration about himself and his theatre-based mission of nearly five decades is done in a down to earth manner. He has no labels fixed on himself and does not indulge in his art for public praise.
My first impression is that he has not at all aged mentally. His recollections are precise.
He begins by speaking about how he overcame the challenge of pursuing his art between the 1980s and 2009.
“During the terrorist battle paper was a luxury here. No one had paper.Paper was more precious than gold to me then. Fortunately I used to get papers from the teachers who used to go to exam duty as they would get some extra blank sheets.”
Negombo
What makes Kulandai a true Sri Lankan dramatist is that he has, as Sopa has explained, remained a balanced analyst of the issues that has engulfed his country. Probably this is because he has spent his earliest childhood with the Sinhalese, growing up in Bolawatta in the Negombo area.
Therefore, he had the unique experience of having equal exposure to both the Sinhala and Tamil language and also English as a child studying at a Catholic school in Bolawatta. He says that he considers both languages as his mother tongues and expresses this in fluent Sinhala devoid of the usual Tamil-tinged accent. He laughs about how his Sinhala friends comment on it.
He takes his memory to his teenaged years when he was first propelled to acting inspired by a toothless octogenarian neighbor who used to call out for a relative by the name of Maradamba.
Age has not felled his teeth and he has to take some effort to act like a toothless man and does so perfectly and explains that this is the ‘first act’ that he did for his cousins.
He said that probably it is his shyness that got him his name Kulandai which means ‘child’ in Tamil which is not his birth name. It is this pet name of Kulandai that had stuck to him for life.
He displays his 90 years young sight by reading without glasses from a book with small print and states that he could not do so when he was in his forties. I ask him how this is possible and he shrugs and says it is how nature operates in varied ways.
With a childlike simplicity he continues to narrate to me about the phenomena of his life.
He was born in Jaffna but brought up in Bolawatta from the age of three months to 10 years. His father, an estate official had served in that area at that time. Kulandai had become familiar with Jaffna only after the age of 10. The house where I met him in, down Adiyapadam Road in Jaffna and is about 150 years old. The ‘newer’ section of the house, the front portion of the extension was built when his mother was pregnant with his eldest brother who if alive should be 100 years this year.
“The name given to this house is Thayaham which means mother’s place and can be also interpreted as motherland,” he says. “Just like we say for Sri Lanka – Mawbhoomi,” he said. Throughout our series of discussions he often breaks into high flown Sinhala and repeats his love for the language.
He explains the following in Sinhala: “There are two mother languages for me – Sinhala and Tamil but I did not get many chances to speak Sinhala after my childhood days.”
One cannot but think about the lesson he teaches the whole of Sri Lanka. The lesson concerning language and how a child who gets to grow up in different parts of Sri Lanka with diverse ethnicity and language exposure, provided it is a positive experience, grows upto be an empathetic connector of people.
He is a master of the art of linguistics as played out in the arena or theatre as he goes onto act out the different ways of voicing words with the same meaning. One example is the word Daruwa as opposed to Lamaya. He states these two words can be said in different tones with accompanying gestures so as to elicit different emotions on the listener. He said that the most suitable word to mean child to convey an emotional meaning is the word ‘daruwa.’
He explained about his early life and how he learnt drama from southern experts when he was around forty five years old.
I specialised in economics, politics and history in the BA from the Madras University and later got admission to Bangalore Mysore University which was an affiliated college. I returned in my mid- twenties for what was to be a lifetime teaching career in Jaffna. I taught for 22 years at St. Joseph’s College. It is only at the age of 45 that I formally learnt drama from the legends of drama such as Dhamma Jagoda and Henry Jayasena.”
He explains how he came to Colombo in the 70s as the only Tamil student of drama in a diploma course taught mostly by Sinhala dramatists.
“Some of my Jaffna friends told me about a diploma program being held in Colombo in 1976 and I enrolled. I was the only Tamil student. The course was taught by Sri Lanka’s most famous dramatists at the time-Dhamma Jagoda, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Henry Jayasena, Ernest MacIntyre, Solomon Fonseka and Prof. K. Sivathamby from the north.”
He said that what was taught was in-depth psychology oriented nature of the combination of voice pacing and tone, gestures and the link to the mind has to all these. Dhamma Jagoda had included deep meditation based exercises to mould his students in the art of spirituality.
Kulandai who does not claim to be spiritual recalls an incident in a meditation oriented session conducted by Dhamma Jagoda which had students bringing a lighted candle up to their nostril repeatedly.
In this exercise, of all the students, only Kulandai had been able to achieve a trance like state which had his consciousness reaching an acute peak of awareness while being detached from the body.
This was one of the very first lessons conducted by Dhamma Jagoda.
Trauma healing
Professors of psychiatry such as Daya Somasundaram and Dr. S. Sivayohan and those working on using expressive arts for healing have often got advice from Kulandai on working with those who have been negatively affected by the battle against terrorism, to use expressive theatre for trauma healing.
As I leave him, the lesson I take from him is pursuing some higher goal for its own sake and keep within my mind his description of theatre as a counsellor and a healer.