Ahasa - Sky

Malraji Wanniarchchi’s newest novel Ahasa (Sky) which apparently teems with clouds symbolically signifies constant change. Clouds don’t stay stagnant, but move flowing across. Sometimes very fast according to the current of wind. Other times slowly even in the slightest manner. In the same manner human minds too change moment to moment. It’s this phenomenal nature of human minds, in Malraji’s novel she harmonises, particularly relating to females’ thought processes. For me thematically the novel is a black comedy which subsequently turns totally into a tragedy. Title of the novel itself engulfs and exposes this phenomenon throughout of the novel to the very end. Malraji Wanniarchchi, the author seems to be endowed with the measured feelings of womanhood. She is a superb observer of humanistic conditions and of the environments around the subjects that she portrays as living beings. What is important is how she delves the characters. A number of families are under her scrutiny. Their lives are centred with bundles of problems. They are not unusual, but universal. It is the degree how each confronts them. This more or less is tragic. Survival of human beings surround suffering. No way can anybody override it. This is constant in life. This is what Malraji portrays in her novel. The background of the living circumstances of her characters are affluent. They are all well-educated. Most of them are attached to Universities being researching scholars as lecturers and professors. Some are in the University of Colombo or abroad. Besides them there is also a few who are trying to discover their lives imagining to be less troubled in the next world. With this they accustom to a life in a hermitage in a far off place in a very remote location in a jungle. The main character in the novel is also such an individual. She is Sudhira who herself had been a highly respected lecturer in the University. She inhabits in this hermitage. She is quiet and talks much less trying to be pious concentrating on the contents of the lectures of the heads of the hermitage. But can she? Emotionally she is caught in between two worlds; covertly and overtly. Most of the times she is covert but unable to stay in that condition for long. A sense of guilt crops up in her mind for she has abandoned her parents by going into a hermitage. What she has done is a self-infliction on her life. This she does to forget of a failure of a love affair. This uprooted when she was in the University. This aspect is not much elaborated, but implants to be felt. She tries to forget it being a devout in the hermitage. For her it is a difficult task as her duties and obligations towards her parents crop up in her mind. Thereby she suffers inwardly but by circumstances it becomes clear to her outwardly. It is because of this feeling she is on her way back home to see her parents. But on the way she hears the passing away of her best friend, Thisara’s husband. Her life becomes more duty bounded to go straight to her friend’s home. The novel opens with the travel of Thisara to see Sudhira to the hermitage which is very much far off in the jungle beyond Polonnaruwa. Equally as much as of Sudhira’s character Thisara’s character too is paramount in the novel. Her character is more a suffering character after the sudden loss of her husband though their lives were not that amiable when living together. Thisara’s life too has been very complicated. She herself is a lecturer in the Colombo University. Her husband too is a professor and he all the time had been a non-stopping worker without having any enjoyment in life. Thisara used to be complaining on it. Their life had been a pretentious life. Suddenly he passes away from life. Then only Thisara feels the gravity of his loss and begins to lead a sadly a widowed life. Sudhira’s parents, particularly the mother though at the beginning kept telephoning her and was worried. As time lapsed she tended to forget about her developing a sense of anger and loneliness.

What is important is how she delves the characters. A number of families are under her scrutiny