The characters come from all walks of life. They laugh and cry, dream impossible dreams and struggle to survive against the barriers of their existence. The clash of their diverse opinions, the stubborn resistance of a culture to change, and the inevitable return to traditional ways materialise through the pages of Isankya Kodithuwakku’s debut collection of short stories, The Banana Tree Crisis.
For this 24-year-old, the book is the culmination of many years of observation and of personal experiences that she has been able to step back and look at in a different light. “Sometimes, little things that don’t seem important at the time can make great stories,” she says. Her stories take us beyond the ‘little things’ to the deeper thoughts and significances behind ordinary events.
The title story, ‘The Banana Tree Crisis’ describes a quarrel between a young Sri Lankan woman and her American neighbour over the cutting of a banana tree on the border of their homes on Ward Place. The symbolism of the story is apparent – with the American embodying the superior attitude of the West towards Third World countries, while the woman, with her long history and neglected potential, is representative of Sri Lanka itself.
When you travel overseas, says Isankya, you get to see Sri Lanka from a
different perspective. As a result you tend to appreciate your motherland more and to see things more acutely. As the daughter of [a former diplomat] Isankya has travelled extensively, accompanying her father on diplomatic assignments to Japan and South Korea as well as visiting other countries. Her love of reading, combined with the emphasis on language skills in her primary schooling abroad, led to her writing stories even as a young child.
Despite having done her A/Levels in the mathematics stream and being selected to the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Isankya chose to follow her dream to be a writer. She was awarded a scholarship from Kenyon College, a small Liberal Arts College in Ohio, to major in International Studies, and also to study creative writing.
Her years at college in the U.S. gave her an insight into how differently Sri Lanka was perceived in the eyes of others, and helped her to sharpen her writing skills. Being a politician’s daughter not only let her see the personal side to politics, but also gave her remarkable exposure, she says, recalling especially the visit to Jaffna with her father soon after the Ceasefire Agreement was signed.
In her story, ‘The House in Jaffna’, strikingly vivid descriptions create pictures of the desolation and rugged beauty of the war-torn landscape of Jaffna. Having fled to London to escape the violence of the war, Mr. Nadarajah returns with his family in the hope of returning to life the way it was before the war. The eager hope and the conflicting doubts in his mind as his children protest his decision, and the growing despair as he realises the futility of his dream to return to normalcy are described with a sensitivity that leaves the reader with a sense of yearning for what cannot be.
Isankya believes that one has to sit back for about ten years before writing a story based on a personal experience, because it is only then that you will see it for what it really was. She laughingly refers to the story ‘How Mrs. Senarath Called a Marriage for Mala’, which is based on a maid who worked for her family several years before. The attitudes and needs of the servant Mala and her employer, who wishes to treat her fairly as well as keep her from quitting like the other servants before her, make up a tale that is humorous as well as poignant.
Returning home after graduating with the highest honours from Kenyon College, she immediately plunged herself into tsunami relief efforts and spent a year working with the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. The last two stories in her book, ‘Buffer Zone’ and ‘Shallow Canoes’ take us deep into the physical and emotional struggles of the tsunami survivors and discuss both the good and the evil that came out of the spate of post-tsunami aid.
“Even if you have a gift, the craft of writing is something to be learned and to be sharpened with techniques, just as a piano player has to practise playing the piano,” says Isankya. She herself has far to go, she adds. These stories were her maiden experiments and she hopes she will gain greater skills, as she continues to write and learn. Having received a fellowship to do Postgraduate Studies in Writing at the Columbia University, Isankya left for New York this month. She hopes to return and teach creative writing in Sri Lanka.
