‘Every shut-eye is not a sleep, every good-bye is not a gone’
When Margaret, Prasanna’s dearly beloved wife, passed the message of Prasanna’s demise to me in a trembling voice overwhelmed with grief, my mind has freeze my brain has benumbed for few seconds. I’ve never experienced such a phenomenon earlier.
Margaret said it is a catastrophe. Indeed, it is. After few minute when the tragic voice of her vanished into thin air, I sensed at once that I was journeying into late few decades.
For the first time, I met this young man Prasanna, meaning ‘pleasant,’ at the Vibhavi Cultural Centre in Colombo. In ‘90s the Centre was making very effective contributions towards cultural life in Sri Lanka. Basically working through both languages, Sinhala and Tamil, it was not only conducting serious talks of criticism on contemporary fiction, drama, films, etc., but also publishing books, organizing seminars on related issues, film festivals, literary festivals etc. Prasanna was a regular relentless participant and contributor for all said events. And, particularly, a regular participant and discussant in the sessions I conducted too.
Strangely, he travels hundred odd kilometers daily from Galle to Colombo for these events.
Young Prasanna has drawn my attention and care because I was identifying him as a ‘cultural creature’ with mindfulness and politeness. His enthusiasm, his quest for information and knowledge, his nascent intellect reminded my days of teen and young. Gradually, he was seeking my company in order to have dialogue on different social spheres and profiles – arts, literature, culture, politics, economy, human rights, etc. Gradually I’ve become a friend of his hospitable family. For leisure, I started visiting his homes in Galle and Deniyaya and reveled in generous gastronomic welcome of Prasanna’s mother, father and sister.
Sometime later, he told me that he takes part in their family business officially. Considerable period of his salad days been spent on this bland insipid marketing world, I observe. His father was the owner of a small tea plantation and a tea factory. Later, I meet this young entrepreneur who has shouldered the entire family business when he comes to weekly tea auction in Colombo. While facing daily browbeating of the market, competition, financial restraints the young businessman hasn’t forgotten to engage with us to travel in the hyper-real world of arts and ideas.
The pressures and burdens of the business world and conflicts embedded in family properties are wrecking my life, several times he alleged with me, I remember. Sometimes he had to stage the acts of ‘self-disappearance’ from friendly social gatherings. Some took him to task for leading ‘unpleasant’( aprasanna) life, after having the name ‘pleasant’ ( prasanna ). However, I knew that he was in the mid of identity crisis. Untimely death of his parents also aggravated his predicament.
Said drawbacks and snags might have persuaded him to migrate, distancing from all, I observed and concluded. Anyway, when he met me after a considerable period of time, Prasanna has managed to achieve his target, his ambitious project, since his teens: to become a cinematographer with a standard academic background. Not only he was working as a professional documentary film-maker and a photographer but also become the husband of his beloved wife, Margaret. Margaret and Prasanna have also found their own outfit, Postcolnial Films. I honestly believe Margaret is the person who assisted him to be metamorphosed, fuelled his human machine. ‘My London life is happy and content’, often he told me.
Now, Prasanna’s both body and mind have abandoned us. But the memory of him will never leave us. That ‘prasanna or pleasant’ memory stays with us on daily basis. That memory, very well I know, is not just a lamp-light destined to be doused within few days. It is a long-serving bonfire that illuminates the environs.
Ranjith Perera
23rd of July 2017
Margaret said it is a catastrophe. Indeed, it is. After few minute when the tragic voice of her vanished into thin air, I sensed at once that I was journeying into late few decades.
For the first time, I met this young man Prasanna, meaning ‘pleasant,’ at the Vibhavi Cultural Centre in Colombo. In ‘90s the Centre was making very effective contributions towards cultural life in Sri Lanka. Basically working through both languages, Sinhala and Tamil, it was not only conducting serious talks of criticism on contemporary fiction, drama, films, etc., but also publishing books, organizing seminars on related issues, film festivals, literary festivals etc. Prasanna was a regular relentless participant and contributor for all said events. And, particularly, a regular participant and discussant in the sessions I conducted too.
Strangely, he travels hundred odd kilometers daily from Galle to Colombo for these events.
Young Prasanna has drawn my attention and care because I was identifying him as a ‘cultural creature’ with mindfulness and politeness. His enthusiasm, his quest for information and knowledge, his nascent intellect reminded my days of teen and young. Gradually, he was seeking my company in order to have dialogue on different social spheres and profiles – arts, literature, culture, politics, economy, human rights, etc. Gradually I’ve become a friend of his hospitable family. For leisure, I started visiting his homes in Galle and Deniyaya and reveled in generous gastronomic welcome of Prasanna’s mother, father and sister.
Sometime later, he told me that he takes part in their family business officially. Considerable period of his salad days been spent on this bland insipid marketing world, I observe. His father was the owner of a small tea plantation and a tea factory. Later, I meet this young entrepreneur who has shouldered the entire family business when he comes to weekly tea auction in Colombo. While facing daily browbeating of the market, competition, financial restraints the young businessman hasn’t forgotten to engage with us to travel in the hyper-real world of arts and ideas.
The pressures and burdens of the business world and conflicts embedded in family properties are wrecking my life, several times he alleged with me, I remember. Sometimes he had to stage the acts of ‘self-disappearance’ from friendly social gatherings. Some took him to task for leading ‘unpleasant’( aprasanna) life, after having the name ‘pleasant’ ( prasanna ). However, I knew that he was in the mid of identity crisis. Untimely death of his parents also aggravated his predicament.
Said drawbacks and snags might have persuaded him to migrate, distancing from all, I observed and concluded. Anyway, when he met me after a considerable period of time, Prasanna has managed to achieve his target, his ambitious project, since his teens: to become a cinematographer with a standard academic background. Not only he was working as a professional documentary film-maker and a photographer but also become the husband of his beloved wife, Margaret. Margaret and Prasanna have also found their own outfit, Postcolnial Films. I honestly believe Margaret is the person who assisted him to be metamorphosed, fuelled his human machine. ‘My London life is happy and content’, often he told me.
Now, Prasanna’s both body and mind have abandoned us. But the memory of him will never leave us. That ‘prasanna or pleasant’ memory stays with us on daily basis. That memory, very well I know, is not just a lamp-light destined to be doused within few days. It is a long-serving bonfire that illuminates the environs.
Ranjith Perera
23rd of July 2017
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