Island of Spice

 

‘ANSWERS

You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks. The answer is Yes, and the answer is Just Like Here But Worse. That’s all the insight you’ll ever get. So you might as well go back to sleep.

You were born without a heartbeat and kept alive in an incubator. And, even as a foetus out of water, you knew what the Buddha sat under trees to discover. It is better to not be reborn. Better to never bother. Should have followed your gut and croaked in the box you were born into. But you didn’t.’

The first two paragraphs of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lanka’s author, Shehan Karunatilaka are captivating. This is the voice of Maali Almeida, thirty-four years of age, who is now dead and his dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake. He has no idea who killed him. He was working as war photojournalist and until recently he did work for the Associated Press, and various news agencies. He accepted gigs from government officials, human rights organisations, foreign journalists and possibly spies. He also worked as a fixer and he has taken photographs that nobody wants to see. His full name is Malinda Almeida Kabalana.

The story is set in 1990, Colombo. Maali Almeida is a closet gay and he is also a gambler. He shares a house with Jaki and her cousin Dilan Dharmendran (DD), a lawyer whose father is Minister Stanley Dharmendran. He has a sexual liaison with DD and the affair is hidden from Jaki and DD’s father. Together with DD and Jaki, Almeida’s mother reports to the police that Almeida is missing.

Maali is caught in the liminal space between life and the unknown that lies beyond. He has seven moons ( seven days and seven nights) to try to contact his housemates, DD and Yaki and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka. He has shot thousands of photos , including ‘photos of the government Minister who looked on while the savages of ’83 torched Tamil homes and slaughtered the occupants‘. He has taken portraits of disappeared journalist vanished activists and images of ‘killers of actor and heartthrob Vijaya and the wreckage of Upali’s plane on film‘.These photos are kept in a white shoe box hidden under his bed. Almeida wants his friends to develop the photos and show to the world the brutalities of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

In his afterlife, there are also counters and confusions just like the living world with all that bureaucratic process to go through. He meets Dr Ranee Sridharan who holds a ledger book telling him that he has seven moons to reach The Light and cautions him that the In Between is filled with ghouls and demons who draw power from your despair and he must not gift it to them. To reach The Light, Maali first has to have his ears checked and bathe in the River of Births to have his mind erased. He meets the Dead Atheist who has been stuck in the In Between for over a thousand moons and the latter advises him not to follow the thing with the hood that turns out to be Sena Pathirana who wants him to reject the promise of The Light and join him in seeking vengence on their murderers. Sena was JVP organiser for Gampaha district, now dead and still talking revolution. Maali wants to learn from Sena a In Between who can whisper to the living. He needs to tell Jaki to find the photos. Sena says to Maali,

‘Every soul is allowed seven moons to wander the In Between. To recall past lives. And then ,to forget. They want you to forget. Because , when you forget, nothing changes.’

The world will not correct itself. Revenge is your right. Do not listen to Bad Samaritans. Demand your justice. The system failed you. Karma failed you. God failed you. On earth as it is up here.’

The good doctor, Dr Ranee shouts that these are false words and says :

‘ Revenge is no justice. Revenge lessens you. Only karma grants what is yours. But you must be patient. It is the only thing you need to be.‘

He wants to know what The Light is.

Dr Ranee says ‘Whatever You Need It To Be‘. The good doctor is championing The Light because the In Between is congested. She says this to Maali,

‘I was obsessed with justice, with protecting the powerless,with my students, with the plight of Tamils. I didn’t see my daughters grow up. I squandered by my marriage. All for what?’

The narratives juxtapose between scenes from the imaginary realm of ghosts with Buddhist insights, Hindu mythology and scenes from the living world. The story is set against the volatile political climate in Sri Lanka in the 80s.

Shehan Karunatilaka‘s narration is witty and peppered with dark humour. Here are some excerpts :

‘ Lankans can’t queue. Unless you define a queue as an amorphous curve with multiple entry points. This appears to be a gathering point for those with questions about their death. There are multiple counters and irate customers clamour over grills to shout abuse at the few behind the bars. The afterlife is a tax office and everyone wants their rebate.’

‘All stories are recycled and all stories are unfair. Many get luck, and many get misery. Many are born to homes with books, many grow up in the swamps of war. In the end, all becomes dust. All stories conclude with a fade to black.‘

‘Dr Ranee Sridharan of Jaffna University famously mapped out the ecosystem of a Tigers terror cell and of a government of a Tigers terror cell and of a government death squad. Those with dirty hands are unconnected to those in power so those in power could blame whoever they chose. The good doctor used your photos in her book without permission. She was shot while cycling to a lecture. Probably more for speaking out against the Tigers than for stealing your snaps‘

‘When you fantasised about heaven, you thought you’d be greeted by Elvis or Oscar Wilde. Not by a dead professor with a ledger book. Or a murdered Marxist in a cloak.’

‘ They say the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. That may be true of Irish playwrights in jails but not of dead fixers in the East. The darkness falls and all you can hear is the din of your name being rolled on tongues and spat upon.’

‘You never wished to be famous. Despite the absent father and the indifferent mother,that adolescent fantasy never entertained you. You never sought popularity, though out in the war zone whenever you donned that red bandanna that is precisely what you got. You tried to be no one’s friend and ended up being everyone’s . You wonder if the news has travelled to the north and east and if you will be transported there, should anyone mention your name. Everything in the afterlife seems to come with a radius and a barricade.’

‘Don’t try and look for the good guys ’cause there ain’t none. Everyone is proud and greedy and no one can resolve things without money changing hands or fists being raised.

Things have escalated beyond what anyone imagined and they keep getting worse and worse. Stay safe, Andy. These wars aren’t worth dying over. None of them are.’

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is full of insightful observations about human condition, philosophy about living and the cruelty of wars. The conversation between Dr Ranee and Maali is candid when the latter confronts her about stealing his photos for her articles without his permission. Dr Ranee was killed in 1987.

Maali learns to harness wind and ‘if you catch the right wind, it can take you places. Though rarely to the doorstep of where you need to go‘. He never got along with his mother and he heard his mother telling Jaki and DD that he had blamed his mother for everything when his father left. He is surprised to see his estranged mother weep. At first he wishes that’ he could appear before her, if only to embarrass her and tell her the odds of surviving a plane crash and the odds of surviving an STF abduction are exactly the same thirty-eight percent.’ Finally he decides to do the opposite. In his voice, ‘ You decide right then, better late than never , a few days after your sudden death, to let her be.’

Now will Maali find his killer? He has a week that is to say, seven nights, seven sunsets to find that out, to show his photos to the world and more importantly to reach The Light.

Shehan Karunatilaka has cleverly written a thriller that reminds us about the horrors of civil war and civic unrest. The Seven Moons of Maali Almelda was the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize.

Helga’s Folly in Kandy, Sri Lanka 25 December 2018