I was caught in a web reading Aditha Dissanayake’s latest creation, When a Cloud Left the Sky, until I reached its end. I then became trapped in between somewhat of a symbolic and semi surrealistic ambience, chiefly because of the final few chapters in which she ambushes the archetypal characters to their own idealistic worlds.
Thematically and characteristically, the novel is a sonata caging varied dimensions of falling in love, and generally, between six duos of middle class individuals; and further with a few other similar humanistic layers as well. Of the latter, primarily the illumination that all humans have the same colour of blood though they are of, different ethnicity, creed and breed, or whatever they are, morally they must be considered alike and dignify societally equal. This aspect is mainly portrayed in the novel through two characters of social eminence. One, a highly profiled professor Kanishke Yatawara researching and writing on the ethnic problem, and the other, Lieutenant Abhaya Devapriya, a naval officer sacrificing his time and soul for the promotion of its existence via his own deeds performed secretly, and on convictions he is embraced with like a sage.
It’s a novel of dynamic imaginations, sentient but reflective characters impregnated with full of flesh and blood, sensuous psychic feelings of love, and their reversals of sensitivity.
Having a great success as a bestseller, Aditha Dissanayake’, Somewhere in the Green Hills, a powerfully penetrating and unique first novel taking place in a pre-colonial setting, she now divests in her second novel the present day ring of life, enmeshing universal human beings of deep sentimentalities.
What fascinates is the author’s manner of approach to the livening and rounding up of the diverse characters she invents. Here I will touch upon only the two principal characters. They are a matured and serious professor Yatawara, and a talented, deeply committed journalist, Saumya Pandithage. They are neighbours and seem to be admiring each other from afar with a tinge of allure, which later blossoms into love, but hangs in doubt. In this regard, the author invents a situation for the two characters to develop a behavioural pattern paradoxically opposed to each other. After an interview with the professor on an article she writes on ethnic harmony, the journalist wishes to know whether he read it or not, and in this respect she emails him repetitively but without any reply. The professor does not read any of them but posts them to the trash bin, not because he considers them a nuisance, but because of a jealousy he develops having accidentally seeing a romantic email message she had sent to one of her colleagues at her work. Ultimately, this is how the bond of passionate sensations between the professor and her blossom.
“Seeing the gleam of laughter in his eyes, she started to laugh. It didn’t seem to matter that he knew the darkest secrets that lurked in the deepest corners of her heart. Still laughing, she placed her hands on the sides of his arms and shook him. “Say something,” she said. He released his arms from her grasp and wrapped them around her. She raised her head to look at him, a look of wonder in his eyes.
“Stay still,” he commanded.
“What are you going to do?” she asked looking alarmed.
He looked into her eyes, deep and hard. Then he said, softly, “I am going to kiss you.”
All the other characters the author constructs are lively, vivid, serious humans moving into their targets of affections. These characters too are major, the reader will sense, and perhaps much more important than the professor’s and the journalist’s web of solemn romance. All of them are equal. Allowing this theme to dominate, character creation is also a skillful exercise of the author that had been left to the readers to determine according to their interpretation of the inner dimensions of such characters her novel creates.
This is not just another ordinary romantic novel, but a serious and very moving and touchy one of depth. For instance, the concealed relationship that had existed between Abhaya, the naval officer and Samantha’s mother, Nimmi is poignant here. This is also true of Sanith’s upbringing and the secrecy of his parenthood, education and ethnicity, and how he secretly wished to be elevated to be a lecturer in the Department of English in the University of Colombo, having earlier been recognized as a waiter only at Sapumal Bungalow, in Unawatuna, Galle. There are quite a number of circumstances in the novel that the readers would be enthralled by the sensitivity of the author’s writing.
The novel is also full of sociological revelations and manifestations of indignity of some of our Sri Lankans with a typical gossiping habitat get-togethers. This is amplified by means of some Sri Lankans living abroad, viz;
“Did you know Nuwan’s father had to pay a fine of $150 for bringing some mangoes in his luggage, when he came to visit Nuwan a few weeks back” said Aunty Sheila.
“Oh really? But that’s nothing. Kumara was blacklisted for bringing rice with him when he came back from his holiday last month.”
“By the way, Chinta is coming tomorrow from Sri Lanka and Waruna invited us all to their place for dinner. Chin is bringing some loaves of bread, baked in traditional ovens. I can’t wait to taste those soft slices of bread.”
And it goes on, even talking about Sri Lankan doctors…their fees and so on.
Furthermore, Nimmi’s husband and Samanta’s father is a Deerasinghe, a Sri Lankan but behaves as if he is different from them. He even embraces an American name, Fulton, signifying that he is totally foreign and behaving as such despising his origins. But, contrary to his behaviour, his Sri Lankan wife and their daughter born an American, are totally different in their attitudes towards Sri Lanka. This aspect of Deerasinghe, Aditha portrays not only of one person but generally as an observation of an inherent quality and the behavioural patterns of so many Sri Lankans living all over the world who have forgotten their roots. This is one sub theme she hints at indirectly.
In her use of language she is a master at coining phrases and descriptions with originality, and also creates symbolic deliberations.
For instance, “sun had decided to go home early and the evening looked gloomy and dismal.”
“How many waves had embraced the beach, over and over? The beach waited like a woman waiting for her lover, each wave as it reached the beach was a man placing his whole weight on her. For the slightest of seconds they blended into each other, became one, but then, the wave left, heartlessly leaving the beach on her own….”
“Nimmi realized love can be like the sea one minute, forever changing, and a mountain next minute, forever steady, never changing”; and many more are in stock.
And finally, the book cover itself is symbolic and impregnated with varied deep-rooted meanings; as love is true and eternal like the existence of the sky when it is totally clear without clouds is one meaning; and second meaning could be, love is eternal like the sky, but with nitty-gritty wounds of problems that arise, they pass away with the effluxion of time as the clouds don’t remain static as symbolized on the book cover with the historic Galle clock tower displayed as tiny.
Further, another meaning could be, love is eternal but it could be also shrouded by external forces that don’t go out of memory but float like clouds in the sky; and yet, many more meanings could be derived from this example of the author’s book cover.
The story begins in New York with a Sri Lankan student gone there to obtain a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing whose thesis has been rejected by his Professor.
Dejected, on his way back to his abode, he determines to say goodbye to his Degree expectations throwing the manuscript to the Eastern River reaching the Brooklyn Bridge like a spy taking care of his act not to be seen by anybody around for fear of the law. But, he is intercepted by a girl… Samantha?
When a Cloud Left the Sky is really no doubt a novel that will melt the hard hearts of all.