Monthly Story, April 2022

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Image → @eye4dtail

Archetype → Sage

Rasa → Adbūta (wonder), with Bhayanaka (terror) as secondary

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R.M.’s index finger traced his full name—Remus Molligoda—undersigning the no-confidence motion to impeach the President. He finally had enough signatures. His secretary should walk in any second now to say that the driver is here. R. M. resisted the urge to re-read his carefully worded speech for what would’ve been the twenty-second time. Instead, he picked up the worn translation of ‘The Republic’ by Plato from his desk, and opened the earmarked page with a particularly revisited text;

“One of the penalties of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors”, it read.

R. M. grew impatient wondering where his secretary was. The office door opened. But, it wasn’t his secretary that entered. It was a man with eyes like walls—fixed, impenetrable, unyielding. R. M. knew danger when he saw it. “Who let you in…?” he asked, reaching for the phone. But, the man’s hand shot up too fast, pointing a gun. R. M. felt his entire being compose into airless rock—like an animal first realizing it was caught in a trap. The world around him drowned in irrelevance. Then, something incredibly hot and hard shattered in from between his eyes.

R. M. saw his head hit the desk and a red stain grow like a mushroom on the no-confidence motion document while a loud storm of running footsteps and shouts took over the office. He spiralled out of the storm and into its serene eye amidst the calamity. In the stillness, R.M. watched half his mind wrestling with the stinging disbelief of this cosmic betrayal while the other half wept, beating itself for an answer.

‘Why?’ he asked. But, the face of the universe stood all around in absolute indifference.

R.M. realised that he was surrounded by a black ocean. This ocean had nothing but somehow, it raged against the last vestiges of his existence. He felt an utter fatigue of bodily limits as the weight of remembering pulled him further down into the depths. Something instinctive in him knew to start letting go. R. M. watched his life take flight around him in pictures; memories dissipating through the feeble gravitational pull of his naked mind. He watched a memory of a particularly warm March afternoon in childhood, hiding in his father’s study, reading books from the high-up shelf placed purposely beyond his reach; The memory left him effortlessly. He watched the distinct shape of his only son Ananda’s face begin to lose significance as it started to resemble the nothingness. A vaguely familiar, argumentative voice quoting political ideology to an opponent in the parliament was heard from behind the fold of time; Was that him?

He was positively earless and eyeless. But, what is the thing that is listening and watching?

The parameters of sensibility were already starting to fall away into the long, black expanse... He contorted to accept; to let go of clambering; to loosen the neverending grasp for meaning. Just then, a mirror of light appeared.

A mirror of light? He couldn’t comprehend it. Yet, there it was.

He felt the mirror of light dawn on like a sunrise on a strange island. Soon, it started to appear terrifyingly all-encompassing, blinding him. A wordless urge came to close in, to stop seeing; to welcome the unknowing as where the road to understanding begins.

Perhaps, understanding only comes in hindsight when we look back at the full view which includes the answerless.

>> Reading list for this MS episode.

Reading List, March 2022

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Our monthly stories are productions looking to connect people to the magic of stories.

We create supplementary reading lists as a way to give you an insight into the inspirations and thinking behind our monthly stories. These reading lists take you behind the story, revealing the process of its making.

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Rasa → Adbhutam (अद्भुतं): Wonder, amazement. Colour: yellow, Śāntam: Peace or tranquillity. Colour: perpetual white.

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Archetype → Humorist

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We carefully chose the word ‘the humorist’ to describe the personality archetype used to construct Johnny’s character. This is to avoid the biases and connotations associated with the other names of this archetype—like ‘the trickster’, ‘fool’ or ‘clown’. For centuries, even millennia, and in the widest variety of cultural and religious belief systems, humans have told and retold tales of humorists—archetypal figures who are comical, yet serve to break down social constructs. In its shadow, the humorist is irreverent and deceptive; In its wisdom, this archetype crosses boundaries and exposes the folly of human superiority, bringing us to understand the fragility of the status quo. We found this archetype helping a man find redemption in the 1991 film The Fisher King starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges; we reencounter the same archetype in its destructive shadow through the iconic pop-villain Joker and in the childish mischief of Don Quixote, Krishna and Bugs Bunny.

One of the most interesting thought-seeds connecting to the wisdom of the humorist archetype comes through the works of Albert Camus and his philosophy of absurdity. In ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, where he compares our human existence to the story of the Greek king condemned to roll a boulder uphill for eternity as punishment for his attempts to defy death, Camus suggests that life is, in fact, meaningless. He also suggests that finding joy in life’s meaningless struggle is the only way to overcome the absurdity of the situation. As Camus puts it: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Maybe, we are Sisyphus. And maybe, we are shouldering a pointless boulder up a mountain. But what if, meaning is the thing found when going up the mountain laughing?

This reading list contains some of the literature and ideas that helped us answer these questions on life and meaning, as well as links to social and environmental issues hinted at in Johnny’s story.

• 1997. Mythical trickster figures: contours, contexts, and criticisms. W. J. Hynes, W. G. Doty. University of Alabama Press.

• The Fisher King (Gilliam, T. 1991. TriStar Pictures, Hill/Obst Productions)

• 2010. The Trickster. H. Bloom, B. Hobby. Bloom’s Literary Themes, Infobase Publishing.

• 2017. Identifying and Mapping the Female Trickster. S. Laettner. Duke University.

• Bugs Bunny

• Krishna the complex trickster deity: Public Works, March 2020

• Joker (Phillips, T. 2019. Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Village Roadshow Pictures, Bron Creative, Joint Effort)

• 1942. A. Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. translated by Justin O'Brien. New York: Vintage Books. Translation originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. Originally published in France as Le Mythe de Sisyphe by Librairie Gallimard.

• 1880. Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Translated by John Ormsby, 1997). The Project Gutenberg.

• Adbūtha rasa, or wonder, in Bharatha’s Rasa theory (pg 112-113)

• Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (Helm, Z. 2007. Mandate Pictures, Walden Media, FilmColony, Davis Films, France 2 Cinéma, France 3 Cinéma, UK Film Council)

• 2019. Clash of Livelihoods and Traditions Reveal Flaws in Sri Lanka’s Resettlement Efforts. P. Alistan. Global Press Journal.

• Sri Lanka Sea Levels Rise. Climate Change Knowledge Portal. Word Bank (Retrieved 2022, March 2).

• 2019. Bangladesh’s fishing boat communities struggle for recognition. Z. Rahman. The Third Pole.

• 2021. Coastal Erosion. Pulse.lk Sri Lanka.

Monthly Story, March 2022

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Image → Alain Parizeau

Archetype → Humorist

Rasa → Adbhutam (अद्भुतं): Wonder, amazement. Presiding deity: Brahma. Colour: yellow. Śāntam: Peace or tranquillity. Deity: Vishnu. Colour: perpetual white

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Johnny spotted his body hanging in the open cosmos—a fleck of matter suspended in a sea of consciousness. He had left its boundaries, blissfully afloat. He shone gloriously with all the blades of broken glass scattered on the beach,

which merged with the glittering silicone of the crystal sandy white,

which merged with the shimmer of quartz dotting the granite,

which merged with the mad dance of the Colombo sun on the water,

which merged him with everything, almighty. Stretching his hand out to the sea, he blessed it.

The gush of heroin ran through Johnny like April lightning across the equatorial sky—soundless but loud enough to mute everything in an acute numbness. He stood there staring at the newly constructed Marine Drive: the coastal road rolled out into the distance, charging into the next town. About fifteen feet from where Johnny stood was where his tiny house used to stand getting stolen by the ocean advancing steadily. When Johnny’s father was alive, he fished in the sea. His mother sold that fish, and Johnny grew up just watching them.

Two years ago, when the police gave official notice of relocating Johnny’s family to a new housing scheme and demolishing their makeshift house as part of the new urban developments, Johnny's mother wept. Johnny had never seen her like that—not even when the Navy divers brought back his father’s body from the sea. It was as if she had really lost everything.

“They’re moving us six kilometres away from the sea, you fool,” she had shouted at him.

But back then, Johnny had thought moving was great; They were getting a real house in a flat; Not a makeshift hut on no man’s land between the rail and the sea. He saw that old Johnny blowing in the salty wind—like a ravaged kite, cut loose to free-float along Marine Drive and get lost in the dust. Johnny gulped an oddly cubic feeling down his throat; It poked all the way down to his gut.

Maybe you can only truly have one home.

The sun was starting to set on the city. As if the strangeness of the proportions between time and the rate of change wasn’t enough, everything also started throbbing in a sharp, orange absurdity. Suddenly, the six pm train rushed by to the nearby station. Johnny watched the metal monster. Its tailwind enveloped him in a makeshift capsule immortal from time and space. For a second, he lost sight of how or why anything was the way it was. Everything floated free from reason, in an absurd choreography. Johnny held back the urge to laugh.

As the sunset matured into a deep red, commuters emerged from the station in ones and twos. The silhouettes of their large bags and bent bodies warped to ridiculous proportions by the setting sun dangling dangerously low to the sea. They walked, half dazed, half frantic, like waterhen birds striding along the beach looking to catch something to eat—all in an oblique dance to survive.

Another train trumpeted stupidly, about to leave the station. Johnny could no longer hold back the laughter.

He knelt down and

started laughing his heart out.

He pointed his hands out at the bewildered commuters on the slow-rolling train

and laughed, tears rolling down his face.

Some commuters laughed, pointing Johnny out to their friends. Some tried to hold back the twitching of their lips and failed. A few started filming with their phones. “You’re all so ridiculous!” he shouted through the fits of laughter to the people on the train. One young man seemed to hear what Johnny said and flashed a smile that momentarily reconnected Johnny to that place where he was one with everything. He stretched out a palm to the young man in blessing.