Essayist beyond compare

With the passing away of M.B.Mathmaluwe, the last candle has flickered out in that once-bright chandelier of Sri Lanka’s bilingual intellectuals. We became friends about a decade ago but, strangely, we never met. We wrote and spoke of books and men over the years. I will miss his epistles in his meticulous handwriting or neatly typed on an ancient typewriter. Writing about him I will draw on my reviews of MBM’s books – Selected Writings (2004), The Buddha and Emperor Aurelius(2007),Musings of Old Age on Books and Events.

I first came across the by-line ‘M.B.Mathmaluwe’ in a newspaper article he wrote some years ago about field trips by British Government Agents – which reminded me of my own experience trudging the hills of Walapane with R.H.D Manders, the last British G.A. I presumed it to have been written by an extraordinarily literate, Kachcheri official of yore.To my great surprise, a few weeks later, I read a most perceptive article on the American poet Robert Frost by the very same MBM. It did not take me long to discover that he was a distinguished retired school principal, happily anchored and active in his home town of Matale. Thus began a friendship carried on by mail and phone – that sadly ended with his New Year greetings. I learnt that he had been an alumnus of the Teacher Training College at Maharagama in the ‘glory days’ when Regi Siriwardena and Douglas Walatara were on its staff and happily interacted with their students.

MBM’s writings are an overflowing ‘punkalasa’ of essays he contributed to newspapers over the last six decades. [He confessed to me that his essay writing began in school competitions to have the best essay read at Assembly !] His essays show a deep interest in the Buddha Dhamma. Its missionary spirit and its pre-Mahindian influences in Sri Lanka. His essays range from the sacred to the profane. His writings on Robert Frost, D.H.Lawrence, Emily Bronte, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Martin Wickremasinghe and other giants of literature show a refreshingly original approach. He has also written in praise of the little magazines, both scholarly and literary, such as ‘Community’, that flourished in that brief ‘Indian summer’ of the 1940s and 1950s when they could rely on a cohort of English literati such as Regi Siriwardena, Godfrey Gunatilaka, Mervyn de Silva and Jayantha Padmanabha and others of the ilk. He writes interestingly on makers of modern history such as Buddhist activist Walisinha Harischandra, D.S.Senanayke, archaeologist H.C.P. Bell and Nehru [round whose love-life he tiptoes delicately].

Writing on music and drama in modern Sri Lanka he not only handles such giants as Sarachchandra, Amaradeva and Lester James Peries but speaks with understanding of of the work of the youthful icons Bhatiya and Santush. He also wrote on agriculture and water management, folklore and village politics displaying the catholicity of his interests, the originality of his perceptions and clarity of expression. He has been a personal friend of the late poet Upananda Karunatilaka whose poems (in English) of love and loss are, sadly little known. The Sinhala poet Ariyawansa Ranaweera has also been a friend and MBM introduces, to the ‘English reader’ his poetry of abundant humanity and simple domestic happiness.

What more can I say? I have lost a friend but Sri Lanka has lost its finest English essayist.

To conclude, I quote from his nostalgic account , vintage Mathmaluwa, of a footpath in the jungle –

“….dwell for a while on the sounds, sights and many lingering perfumes that would accompany many a lonely traveller all along his journey. Once the traveller enters it, the jungle would hold him in thrall. The thick foliage of the overhanging branches of the massive trees standing on both sides would almost entirely hide the sun and whatever little sunlight sweeps down would cast and light a dappled patchwork of shadows on the soft sands of the winding path, thickly strewn with dead leaves.

Except for the occasional sound of a bird or beast, silence would overwhelm the traveller which would not only be heard but even felt. The ceaseless screech of the cicadas forever heard, but never seen, one would know is a part of this silence, as one takes over where the other left. Suddenly a wind would arise and sway the overhead branches of trees and a shower of dead leaves would come down on the traveller. The subdued roar of a river not very far, but seldom seen, could be heard and he would be wading a stream of crystal clear water winding its way to meet the river, and on its sand strewn bank,an endless procession of little yellow butterflies in their tens of thousands would rest a while to suck the ooze on the white sands …. while the traveller continues on his lonely trudge”.

Mathmaluwe’s long trudge in Samsara is now over, and Nibbana awaits.