Grief

I cannot hide the smile in my eyes, because I know you are with her again. We mourned her together – you and I. I will forever remember the tears I saw in your swollen eyes even on bright and sunny days – especially on those days, but now those tears are mine. I weep silently in my room, but I weep for myself and my own loss, even as I smile for you. I remember the fireflies we caught in glass jars, so many years ago. Once you knew that the wonder and magic of the world was imprinted in my heart, you let them fly back into the night with their soft green lights. I miss your soft light in my life and the love with which you taught me many hymns and choruses. I miss you more than I can grieve and my grief is deeper than my well of tears. Today, I am shattered and disgusted with myself for the first time in my life. Even as you have always taught and inspired me, I feel I have betrayed the very essence of all those lessons. Have I become a symbol of the decadence of all those values you stood for? I curse my own helplessness that has isolated me and taken me away from my loved ones. I wish you were here because you always knew how to simplify life – the very act of living. I cannot resurrect you, but help me honour you by resurrecting the thoughts and the spirit you embodied – that I have buried. Come back to me even in the words of a hymn we sang together or in the smell of a tea leaf, to remind me of the depth of love and the love for life… dear wise man with grey hair.

Pursuit of happiness

It’s almost too simple to call this a discovery, but I think what every one of us seek in life ultimately, is a simple and sustainable source of happiness. Some may call it “contentment”, others “fulfilment” or even “enlightenment”. Whatever it is called, it has to be simple because happiness by definition is simple - complexity leads to confusion which in turn makes us unhappy. The happiness we feel when we indulge our desires or in power or possessions is difficult to sustain because it is often not the object of our desires that makes us happy but the process of accumulating it. Power and processions have a definite shelf life and their value depreciates over time. They also involve complex economic and political factors that are impossible to manage - let alone be sustained. I say "sustainable" because happiness is not everlasting. Life obviously has its ups and downs and sadness is a necessary contrast that accentuates happiness. A sustainable source of happiness is one that you can rely on - count on - fall back on and depend on.
According to my outlook on life, I feel that the simplest and most sustainable source of happiness is found in people – in the faithfulness and love of family and friends… money and a good career are important as long as they are necessary to support them. But in pursuit of one, it is so easy to loose track of the other, and often I have found that self-sacrifice and service are integral components in the foundation of happiness. It is ironic, but often we find happiness in sacrificing our own happiness for another. I believe that the heart alone can lead us to happiness and for that, we have to be sensitive enough to hear its subtle and silent voice. To betray the heart is to betray all meaning and significance of our very lives. Yet it often takes more courage to heed the silent guiding voice of the heart – without drowning it in desire and clouding it with the opinions and aspirations of others.
I think I will face the test eventually, of balancing my heart’s desires with a sense of duty and responsibility to others whose lives are intimately intertwined with mine. At least I now have the confidence in knowing that I have a rough idea. The highest wish I have for myself and everyone else is that our lives may be filled with moments that make us feel “truly alive” – whether by a sincere smile, a whole-hearted laugh, a tear, a hug, by the sweetness of a kiss or the deep and overwhelming yearning that makes us reach ever further out into this beautiful world and its wonderful inhabitants.

sans

I cannot dream anymore
Because your dark glossy curls strangle me
And your words echo in my ears all day
I cannot think
Because all my thoughts belong to you now
And they drown in your misty brown eyes
I can no longer pretend
Because your long and slender arms catch me when I do
And it's hard to pretend
When my heart doesn't obey me anymore
I can no longer wait
Because I need you to sustain me
And life is too short, that I should spend another day
Without you

Respice finem (1)

I looked down through the clouds at a beautiful world stretching towards a horizon that was wider than it had ever been. The world beneath me grew silent. For the first time I could see the world and everything in it including myself – in proportion. Then it began to dawn on me how small and insignificant I was in this vast stretch of land and sea. The sun seemed brighter and the daytime sky was not bright and blue – it was dark. The stars at night didn't twinkle and there were more of them than I had ever imagined. I flew by towering castles of clouds into a world where I felt closer to God.
I was walking into an old dream and could feel the smell of boundless opportunities with the soft breeze on my face. This is where my story begins, because it is the moment that separated me from the childhood that I left behind. I was hungry for the knowledge of life and the wisdom that I could not gain merely by reading books or by taking a quiet contemplative walk around the Kandy Lake. Inspired by the stories of my friends who had left the shores of home, I reached out beyond the horizons into a new chapter in my life. I rode the winds to experience the romance of university life in a land many ocean waves away.

I always wanted to expose myself to a bigger world than the one in which I grew up. I knew it would be a world that was as harsh as it was rich with wonder, and I knew that I would eventually have to carve out my own space – my own little corner – in it. Drawn by a sense of adventure and freedom as well as accounts of the adversities that I would have to go through as a student in a foreign land, I sought challenges that would push me off the edge of my known universe. I could never have imagined what I was heading into and how that journey would change me. It would eventually turn out to be a journey of self discovery that tested the truth of what I had learnt and my flexibility in adapting to a new environment while maintaining the rigidity of what I stood for and believed in. I will have to learn to accept that I had to leave behind the innocence and incorruptibility of my childhood, to enter through the gates of adult life.

In a world where a formal education in itself is a luxury to many, I had the good fortune and courage to explore the marvels and romance of university life. I am doubly blessed now, to be able to look back at the things I learned as a student and how those lessons have shaped me and my aspirations of life. Now in the twilight of my student life, I want to take the time to remember the books and men that have taught me the lessons of my life so far, both at home and beyond the ocean waves. Soon my anxieties about building a career, family and mortgages may wipe away the lightness, laughter and legends of a time in my life when I was naïve, foolish and innocent enough to stubbornly hold on to ideals and dreams. I will have to wait patiently, for time to teach me how to make the compromises and trade-offs that I will eventually have to negotiate as an adult in the years ahead and how they would shape the course of my life.

School still holds some of the fondest of all my memories. The stories, laughter, waywardness and mayhem of course are too many to mention. Even though I have a slightly broader world view now, I have much less curiosity than I had on my first day at school. It scared me when my father left me all by myself in a strange place, among people I did not know. Sixteen years later, I was thrilled at the prospect of leaving the shores of home to explore the world on my own. Even then, I was not fully capable of appreciating the fact that 'education' was as much an exploration of myself as it was of my environment and of the universe.

Apart from a few embarrassing incidents that will remain never to be shared publicly, I don't have too many vivid memories of my first few years in school. The only reason that made me wake up early to go to school was the prospect of playing one of a dozen variations of cricket, inside or outside the classroom. We have lost more than just a game of tap-rugby, but also teeth and half a dozen spectacle lenses in the over-crowded and dusty quadrangle. I am not surprised that the most nerve-wracking moment in my life so far was not on stage at the BMICH with the deafening shouts of over a thousand people at the "Shakespeare Finals" or trying to survive a shiny red ball that was whistling towards me off the turf at Asgiriya, knowing that I had left behind a crucial piece of protective gear in the dressing room. It was actually when I had to carry my teary face into the headmaster's office during one of those early years in the junior school, to explain that I was partly to blame (along with a bat, a ball and my poor shot selection) for the fragments of glass that used to be a window pane at the start of the interval. The lessons learnt in those early days begin to make sense only with the maturing years of life. School made me who I am, but I had to leave home and the warmth of my loved ones and head out into the world alone, in order to discover that.

නිසඳැස්

ඇසි පිය අතරින් සැඟවුනු නෙත් යුග
සයුරේ රළ මත බැසගිය හිරු ලෙස
ගිල්වයි අඳුරේ, නොනිදන මා හද
සඳ තරු නැති රැයක තනි කර...
සිත දැල්වෙන ආදර හැඟුමන් එක්කර
තනමි ඔබ පතන සිහින මාලිග
නොනිදන මාහට සඳ, තරු, සිහින කුමටද
ඔබ මා තුරුලේ සිහින දකින කල?
නොමැත ඉතිරිව වෙන කිසිවක් පැතුම් පතන්නට...
නොනිදන දෑසින් මා වෙන කුමක් කරන්නද;
නීල රොදකින් වෙලුනු හැඟුමන් දහසක් කැටිකර
ගොතනු හැර වදන් පෙළක් තව කවියක?