The Road from Elephant Pass is a novel by Nihal De Silva. It won the
2003 Gratiaen Prize for creative writing in English. This novel is nominated as
a selection for the Sri Lankan Advanced Level Literature examinations. It has
been given the themes of war and survival. The book is a great resource for the
learning of survival techniques and for handling situations in a complicated
relationship. The characters Wasantha and Kamala fall in love even though they
belong to completely different races and liberation organisations. The novel
was subsequently made into a film with the same name.
Title
The Sinhalese name
for this novel is Alimankada. (Kada which
means 'far-edge' or 'boundary;' and Mankada means 'checkpoint'
or 'bottleneck pass'). Alimankada was recorded by the Dutch as
the Northern border of the Kandyan Kingdom.
Plot
This novel battles with
diverse situations including ethnic conflicts and birds. Both of these issues
are given equal importance and veracity by the writer. Reflecting the writer's
activities as a keen bird watcher,the pied kingfishers, hawks, eagle-owls, blue-faced
malkohas, paradise
flycatchers, hornbills, brown-headed
barbets, hanging parrots, rose-ringed
parakeets, lapwings are
among the many birds mentioned in this novel. The plot of the novel centers
around Captain Wasantha Ratnayake and a woman named Kamala Velaithan, who is a
member of the LTTE Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), venturing through a dense and
luscious Wilpattu forest
in northern Sri Lanka. Kamala Velaithan volunteers to offer help to the Sri
Lanka Army regarding the provision of some useful information. Kemala is handed
over to Wasantha, who picks her up to take her in for questioning. Meanwhile,
on the way to their destination, an ambush by an LTTE gang results in their
driver and an Army lady dying in a hail of bullets. The two survivors, Kamala
and Wasantha are forced into a mutually co-operative situation which later
broadens and deepens to the extent that they find it hard to operate without
each other. The novel focuses on the relationship which grows between these two
people, who, at their first encounter with one another, were enemies. Together,
they survive poachers, elephants and the extreme dangers of the jungle. These
intense experiences, which force them into mutual co-operation, eventually
evolve into an unexpected love affair. The story depicts them spending about 12
days together, each chapter of the novel intertwining with the others in unique
forms of complementarity which serve to provide the novel with a richness of
style in the progress and development of its plot. After they reach Colombo
Army Headquarters, Kamala reveals to Wasantha that she had lied to him and that
they are, in fact heading into a trap. But it was too late. The ending is
tragic and the lovers end up being separated one from another. However, the
film, though based on the novel, has a different ending.
Elephant Pass’ here is an
ellipsis for the novel‘The Road from Elephant Pass’written by late Nihal
de Silva and published by Vijitha Yapa, Colombo, first in September 2003. It is
a novel with a mission. Its reading and rereading can bring immense light to
some of the ethnic issues underlying the conflict and misunderstandings in Sri
Lanka, and could help bring reconciliation in the present context, more than
ever.
When the 2003 Gratiaen Prize
for creative writing in English was awarded for the novel, the reviewers said,
among other things, that the novel convincingly demonstrates “that resolution
of conflict and reconciliation of differences are feasible through mutual
experience.”
This ‘mutual experience’ is
something that people need to seek today for reconciliation at work place,
farmland, neighbourhood, and places of worship. It should also be sought in
organized manner in social work, development efforts, in politics and in
Parliament.
Ilankai Tamil Sangam in a review in August 2004 said “Recognize, however,
that The Road is not an unbiased narrative. The author works
hard-especially in the leading chapters-to establish firm anti-LTTE
credentials. However, farther into the novel de Silva apparently does his best
to present reasonably objective perspectives from both sides of the conflict.”
“Objective perspectives from
both sides of the conflict” is another thing terribly lacking today for ethnic
reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
The Story
The story begins at Pallali
check point, North of Elephant Pass, the strategic area dividing the army
controlled Jaffna Peninsula and the then LTTE controlled Wanni, when an army
Captain was assigned to bring an LTTE woman cadre, who had apparently turned an
‘informant,’ safely to Jaffna. She is supposed to have vital information that
can change the war in the country’s favour.
Written in the form of a story
of days’ happenings, spanning for thirteen days, Wasantha Ratnayake, the
Captain, and Kamala Velaithan, the LTTE operative, are the two main characters.
One is a man and a Sinhalese, and the other is a woman and a Tamil. Both are
young with strong views on the ethnic divide.
The story is narrated by the
Captain, so the so-called Sinhalese view is prominent in addition to the army
one. As he initially says, “But there was no denying the Tiger’s
audacity and determination. Their cadres, especially the women, had perfected
the art, or science, of suicide bombing. They hated us, the Sinhala majority,
with a ferocity that I would not have comprehended had I not seen and
experienced it on the battlefield. I hated them back with equal
intensity.” That is how the story starts.
“The woman was late,” so the attempt to reach Jaffna fails as the LTTE
launches a massive attack cutting the road to Jaffna from Pallali. Two women
soldiers escorting Kamala, and the driver Piyasena, also get killed in a
landmine and the two protagonists become isolated depending on each other.
The Captain cannot abandon the
mission as the information Kamala has – an exact date and time of the LTTE
leader Prabhakaran’s presence in a particular location - is vital that could
change the cause of the war. But she would not reveal the information unless to
the Military High Command in Colombo in exchange of a passport and passage to
Canada. It is apparently a deal on her part. The story appears credible,
Kamal’s one, and the Captain has to follow her insistence in crossing Wanni
towards South.
The Wanni was crossed in two
days with many odds and then comes the Wilpattu jungles where they come across
many challenges, both of humans and beasts.
The army deserters and
poachers were the main menace. It is the interdependence of the two for
survival and protection that builds a mutual human relationship between them
seemingly transcending ethnicity. They both are bird lovers as well that brings
some additional affinity.
In crossing Wanni, the Captain
has to depend on Kamala; likewise Kamala depends largely on Wasantha for
protection and care in crossing the Wilpattu jungles. Two adversaries at the
beginning, Wasantha and Kamala become close friends if not incipient lovers at
the end.
When in Colombo, at the brink
of meeting the High Command in revealing the ‘vital information,’ Kamala admits
to Wasantha that the information was a ploy to discredit the government by
prompting an air-raid on a visiting Indian dignitary ostensibly as the place of
Prabhakaran’s visit.
At the end, it was left to
Wasantha to twist the story and protect Kamala from obvious reprisal of the Sri
Lankan army if the ploy was revealed. Wasantha’s twist works and Kamala is
saved. The captor of Kamala, the Sinhala army Captain, becomes the defender of
her for human reasons.
The story has a sad ending,
unlike the movie produced later by Chandran Rutnam based on it, when the
Captain goes back to the battlefield and reported missing.
The fate of Kamala is not
revealed, however the following was their last encounter.
“I forced myself to speak
calmly.
‘Once you get to Canada, will
you write to me care of Pali? Promise me that at least?
She hesitated and finally
nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I promise.”
The Narrative
The story has an impressive
narrative with quite stimulating dialogues. That may be the most positive
aspect of the novel. As a thoughtful blog on popular literature, Chasing
Bawa, posted by Sakura said (16 February 2010), “As soon as I landed in
Colombo, my father spoke excitedly about a book he had read recently, a book
which one of my good friends had said I must read. My father, who likes to read
books slowly, said he finished it in two days. And being jet-lagged and
un-acclimatised to the tropical heat, I began to read it that night and
finished it in 4 hours.”
The most sophisticated is the
manner in which the male-female relationship between Wasantha and Kamala is
handled in the narrative. It is almost exemplary and instructive (also funny) until
Wasantha’s friend Pali comes into the scene. The respect of dignity and privacy
of each other and constant communication, irrespective of being bitter
adversaries in the war, is the basic feature of this relationship perhaps that
brought final ‘reconciliation’ between the two.
Kamala and Wasantha had to
spend a night in the abandoned Murunkan station.
This is how it is
narrated. “We cleared out two corners to sleep in and shared the
newspapers to spread on the ground. Velaithan [Kamala] selected the corner
furthest from the one I had selected, but still stayed in the same room.” When
eating, “We sat on the newspapers on my side of the room, our backs to the
wall.
Velaithan placed the parcels
of food and the bottle of water between us.”
Then in the following morning: “The sound of rustling newspapers woke
me from an exhausted sleep. There was just enough light to see Velaithan gather
her clothes and leave the room. I knew she had gone down to the stream and
wouldn’t want me around. I dozed off and woke again when she returned.”
It might be possible for
serious literary critics to find some weaknesses in the publication such as
grammar, punctuation, typos and formatting. It shows perhaps the lack of proper
editors and/or proof readers for such publications in Sri Lanka (I think this
is something Yasmine Gooneratne said). But there is no argument that the work
is a compelling read and the message and the approach is most persuasive.
The story also has all
hallmarks of an adventure novel where the author’s knowledge of the Wilpattu
jungle terrain that the story unravels and his love for wild life and
particularly the birds were pertinently, and sometimes excessively, utilized in
the narrations. After Nirupama Subramanian of The Hindu interviewed
Nihal de Silva in April 2005, she noted the following.
“Modest to the point of
sounding embarrassed by the success of his first book, de Silva even asks if
the birds were "a bit much" and, almost shyly, says they were his way
of showing common ground between the Sinhalese and the Tamil.”
When he wrote the novel, Nihal
de Silva seemed to have a clear vision on the ethnic conflict and told
Subramanian that "When we talk of the conflict, we always seem to focus on
the differences between the Sinhalese and Tamils, which is mainly the language.
But we also have a lot of things in common.” He further said, "I feel
strongly that the road to settling our problem is for people to interact and
that their humanity has to do the rest."
It is extremely unfortunate
that De Silva is now dead and gone and it was ironic that he succumbed to the
injuries of a landmine in May 2006, with some Sinhala and Tamil friends when
they were touring Wilpattu, the areas that he narrated in the novel. He was
born and bred in pre-conflict Sri Lanka with friends from both communities and
could have further contributed immensely to ethnic reconciliation in the
country through his creative skills and writing if he were living today.
Apart from a rare occasion that
Kamala and Wasantha encountered in their career, one as a LTTE operative and
the other as an army soldier, the ordinary life of different communities in
different parts of the country are full of common ventures although the
conflictual political culture of the country does not properly allow those
experiences to come into the public focus.
The common tragedies that the
Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims had to undergo during the Asian
Tsunami were such a mine field with rich encounters and experiences.
There are many actual stories about Tsunami where the different communities
mutually cooperated and worked together. These are yet to be told and depicted
in artistic form to bring positive light to ethnic reconciliation.
‘Sinhala’ Point of View
It is possible for one to
argue that the book gives, by and large, a ‘Sinhala’ point of view on the
ethnic question. But it would be difficult to deny that it is not a
chauvinistic one. Among many of the sorts, the following could be quoted for
clarification from pages 121-22.
“We will pass a number of
water holes today. If we make good time in the morning, we can rest up at
Manikepola and get to another villu, further on, for the night.’
‘They are all Tamil names,’
Velaithan observed quietly. ‘Kalivillu, Manikepola.’
‘What about it?’ I asked.
I knew where this was going.
The Tamils claimed about one third of the land area of the country as their
‘traditional homeland.’ Some of the evidence they used to justify their claims,
and to demarcate boundaries of the so-called homeland were, to my mind, dubious
to the point of absurdity.
That was why we were at war.
She said: ‘So maybe all this
land was occupied by Tamil-speaking people in ancient times.’
I’d heard this kind of
argument before and it always made me angry. How could anyone say, ‘my people
were here a thousand years ago, so this land belongs to us.’ Someone else would
have been there earlier anyway. Even if one race or tribe lived there in
ancient times, what of it? They moved and someone else lived there later. Those
who made these claims often had ‘evidence,’ based on selective research, to
support their position. But I always came out poorly in these arguments,
especially in my undergraduate days, because I didn’t know my facts well enough
and because I got angry as a result of that.
When I began to get the worst
of it I would rely on some facetious remark to divert the discussion or else
offer to punch my opponent’s face in. But that didn’t mean my position was
wrong, just that I was not familiar with the facts.
I stopped walking and turned to face her.
‘There may be a Tamil word to
describe the moon,’ I said with unnecessary heat. ‘It will take more than a
name to claim title to it.’
‘That’s a frivolous argument.”
There were many arguments
between the two. They argued about Mahavansa, an ancient Sri Lankan chronicle,
the coming of Vijaya and more recent matters like the Black July 1983 or
massacres by the LTTE. Sober conversations at times turned into bitter ones.
The following was another.
“Are your parents still
alive?’
‘My mother is. My father died
seven years ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said
automatically.
‘You should be. Your people
killed my father,’ she lashed out suddenly angry.”
The above is from page 115.
Then they argued about ‘Homeland’ again and 1983. The following was again a
‘point of view’ on the question of homeland.
“But the Sinhala do not claim
exclusive rights to the entirety of this land,’ I pointed out. What we say is
that every citizen should have the right to live and work in any part of it. It
is the Tamils who want to carve out a part of the land and say, ‘This is
exclusively ours’…How can you possibly justify that position,’
‘There are many, many justifications.’ She sounded detached as if reading a
lesson. “The history of violence and cruelty towards our people is the primary
reason’….
She paused and then continued:
It is only by having a ‘homeland,’ a place where our rights are both primary
and unassailable, that our nation can live with dignity.”
There are many more sections
or quotations of the book that would shed light to the disputes between the two
communities from both points of view. Even in an extensive review like the
present, all are not warranted.
Future Use
There are several editions of
the book and it has been accepted as a reader for English Language at the GCE
(Ordinary Level) examination. To the credit of the author, the book has won
several national and international prizes and accolades.
But over time, and perhaps as
a result of the untimely death of the author, enthusiasm for the book has
slightly waned. This is unfortunate.
There is a popular Sinhala
movie called ‘Alimankada’meaning Elephant Pass with English and
Tamil titles remaining the same in full. The word ‘Road’ in the title is
extremely significant. It could symbolise the ‘road for ethnic reconciliation.’
But there are no English or Tamil versions of the film except subtitles.
As it was mentioned before,
the movie has a happy ending with Kamala and Wasantha having a baby in Toronto,
Canada. It has become a ‘love story’ between a Tamil and a Sinhalese. That
might be called a distortion of the novel, although it is a good movie on its
own.
There are unfortunately no
Tamil or English translations of the book yet. As the book might portray
largely the ‘Sinhala’ point of view, although moderately, it might be a good
reader for the Tamils to understand the ‘others’ point of view. It is equally
good for the Sinhala readers to sober their extreme points of view, towards
more moderate ones.
