Oh, Bihar

A rising India is the flavour of the century but unfortunately all parts of India are not equally shining. Bihar is one such place—a province that has over 10% of India’s population. More than half of that population lives below the poverty line. The International Herald Tribune recently described it as “a state of 90 million people almost completely disconnected from the global economy”.

I was born in one of the most backward districts of such a state.

Decades ago, British writer Shiva Naipaul, the brother of Nobel laureate V S Naipaul, after his visit to Patna--Bihar’s capital—described the place as “the subcontinent’s heart of darkness”.

Perhaps that description still fits the state of Bihar. It was one of India's most mineral rich states, until a few years ago, when Jharkhand was cleaved out of. After Independence of India, as other states grew, Bihar became nearly stagnant, leading the group of India's laggard states, known as the BIMARU ('Bimaru' meaning 'sickly' in Hindi) states among the economists. The acronym Bimaru stood for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (UP).

But Bihar touched its nadir in the last 20 years or so, becoming synonymous with one of its most colourful politicians, Laloo Prasad Yadav, whose fame, for reasons both good and bad, spreads from Islamabad to Harvard. Laloo Yadav, who is now India's much feted railways minister, and his wife, Rabri Devi, were Bihar's chief ministers. Between the two of them, they ruled Bihar for close to two decades. Rabri had dropped out of school after the fifth standard and had forgotten the Devanagari script in which Hindi, India's office language, is written. She learnt to write her name in office as a chief minister. While Laloo championed the cause of the low caste dalits and the minorities, he strengthened the roots of caste-based politics in the state. Bihar's economic descent and lawlessness became unparalleled in the country.

While Laloo always claimed that the centre, meaning New Delhi, India's capital, always curtailed the budget for Bihar, thus shifting the blame of under-development to the federal powers, he himself got embroiled in what came to be known as the chara ghotala (fodder scam). In the said scam, Laloo allegedly siphoned off millions of rupees meant for cattle feed to his own account. Corruption, lawlessness, economic stagnation became the second name of Bihar. For 20 years, little good news would come out of Bihar.

All this led to many unsavoury developments, including the harm it has done to the identity and dignity of its people. "Bihari" –alluding to those who belong to this state—has become a term of insult in Indian cities, a sobriquet thrown at anyone who looks poor and rustic. In the eyes of Indians outside Bihar, Laloo's shadow seemed to loom large over ordinary Biharis and perhaps they began to see Biharis as carbon copies of a corrupt and venal Laloo. For no fault of their own, this created a sense of shame even in many middle class Biharis.

If you meet anyone from India, they would proudly declare where they came from. Not the ones from Bihar. They might not even acknowledge it, as if it were a big bloat on their CV. Civil servant and novelist Upamanyu Chatterjee, of English, August fame, once said rather pitifully in an interview, "I was born in Patna, I can't efface that from my history, it's in my passport."

Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, crime, and criminalized politics—all these have created a vicious circle trapping the Biharis in a parallax of image and reality that is difficult to disentangle.

Land of 'unwanted' migrant workers

Driven by poverty, hordes of Biharis have migrated to other richer parts of India, especially to the metros such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Today, out of a hundred million migrant workers in India, Biharis form the majority. Twenty-eight per cent of the adult male population of the state now works in projects and enterprises that stretch from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Goa to Arunachal Pradesh, wrote Prem Shankar Jha in Outlook (The Diaspora is Inside).

This high level of migration has sometimes engendered regional identity-based animosities in the host population against the poor migrants.

In February this year, for example, Biharis became victims of parochialism and regionalism in Maharashtra whose capital is Mumbai. They were targeted there, along with other northerners by party members of a regional political group, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray. Their crime? They were migrants working in Maharashtra, coming from states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. “Maharashtrians aren’t getting jobs or houses. Why shouldn’t we send the migrants back?” is their justification for this indentity-based politics.

This is not an isolated incident. Apart from Maharashtra, Biharis have also born the brunt of political action in places like Assam, Punjab and Haryana, from time to time. Commenting on the recent anti-Bihari developments, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray dubbed the Biharis as the unwanted lots.

Not just politicians but even Bollywood actors have got embroiled in the issue. Some actors like Nana Patekar, Salman Khan and Saijd Khan support the regional party, on the grounds that such mass migration caused problems in Mumbai, even though the general Maharashtrians have long prided themselves on their peaceful coexistence with migrants. A Bollywood actor, Nana Patekar, a Maharashtrian, supporting a signature campaign to protest a police ban on Thackeray’s public speaking, reportedly said: “There may be two opinions about his method, but the issue he raises is important and linked with the rights of Maharashtrians. If that idea is wrong, then isn’t the creation of states on linguistic basis wrong? Why seek domicile certificates? Why can’t non-Kashmiris buy land in Kashmir?” However, actors like Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Bose protested this kind of violence against the people of one's own country. You are free to live and work anywhere in the country is their argument.

Aliens in their own country?

Novelist and Oxford University professor Dr Kunal Basu (Award-winning filmmaker Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife is the title of the film based on Dr Basu’s story that is soon to release globally) was in Mumbai when he saw the dignity of a Bihari violated. Dr Basu, who is researching for his next novel set in Bihar, sent me a poignant note on the incident: “On February 3rd, I was on my way back to my hotel from a book signing event at Crosswords bookshop in Mumbai. As we passed through Dadar, the car slowed and I saw a man being beaten up by a crowd. My immediate reaction was to dash out and come to the aid of the victim. But the driver of my car speeded up, and against my remonstrations refused to stop. The man being beaten up was a Bihari and his assailants were none other than Raj's Marathas.”

What happenend in Mumabi disturbed most Biharis in and outside of India. Jawaid Iqbal, a Chicago-based software engineer and President of Bihar Cultural Association of North America wrote to me: “The recent incident in Mumbai really shocked me. How could politics go to such a cheap level where someone would go against humanity and act with such barbarity? Just take the example of the roadside vendor whose hands were chopped off by the political goons. He had nothing to do with the Thackerys or their political ups and downs. That poor fellow was simply struggling to earn bread for his family.”

As it happens, the poor and the helpless become the first target of violence. Notes Jawaid: “Most of the sufferers are poor and weak people. Did you ever hear that IT professional from Bihar were getting tortured in Mumbai? No. Because they were needed there”.

"It is the harrassment of poor and vulnerable people," said Professor Amitava Kumar, a prominent son of Bihar, a writer and critic teaching English at Vassar College in New York

Crush the stereotype, stop the joke

"No matter what their background, educational qualifications and achievemnets, the term "Bihari" is permanently tagged to all us which unfortunately carries a negative connotation in India today," says my friend Sumit Shaw, a Delhi-based young Bihari filmmaker who has worked with BBC World Service Trust. He makes ad films and now he wants to make a documentary film on Biharis, exploring why they are the butt of jokes, and at the receiving end of violent discrimination in their own country. Like many middle-class well-to-do Biharis, he is irked with the sense of shame tagged with the identity of a Bihari.

The stereotype of a poor, illiterate Bihar, migrating to an Indian cosmopolis like Mumbai, makes Biharis easy targets of political goondaism. Biharis have become vicims of stereotyping--as in the words of Dr Kunal Basu--stereotypes are monsters that are kept alive by ignorance and by the greed of politicians, and the media savours its carcass.

"The reasons for stereotyping are obvious," says Jawaid Iqbal. "Due to media bias and our own inferioty complex. If anything goes wrong in Bihar, it comes out on front pages of newspapers and if someone from Bihar achieves something or contributes to progress it never gets covered or even if it does, it gets buried in the inside pages of the newspapers. But, honestly, we can't blame the media all the time. We are responsible as well. Why do we try to hide our identity as Biharis?"

When the dignity of a Bihari is attacked, it shocks him because he is aware of a proud legacy. At one time Bihar was at the centre stage of India. India’s first kingdom emerged in Bihar. Lord Buddha, who propounded Buddhism, got enlightenment in Bihar, and under Asoka, India’s first great emperor, the new faith of peace spread its light to South-East Asia. Bihar has the honour of developing India’s first place of global learning, Nalanda University, which is now in the process of getting revived with Singapore’s leadership. When India became independent, it was the same state that gave India its first President in Dr Rajendra Prasad. This is the place that has produced worthwhile talent, both in the past and present: Writers such as Kautilya, George Orwell (born under British Raj), Renu, M J Akbar, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Amitava Kumar, Arvind N Das, Tabish Khair, Siddharth Chowdhury and artists such as Subodh Gupta (India's one of the top earning artists), Shatrughan Sinha, Manoj Bajpayi, Shekhar Suman, Prakash Jha and Manish Tiwary—all had their origins in Bihar. Today, Biharis can be found all over the world, and many of them are doing well. And yet, they find themselves humiliated or beaten up.

How can this stereotype change then? "To regain the pride and respect, we have to use our own resources," says Jawaid. "The main resource is the people. Lets encourage them to be educated. Education and economic empowerement go hand in hand."

But Prof Amitava Kumar has different view on trying to protest at the business of steretyping Biharis: "I disagree with people who fulminate about stereotyping because they are often the successful ones and don't want to be mistaken for an illiterate, uncultured person," he says. "I don't feel any need to participate in that protest. I think it is more honest to take note of, and if you are able, to help alter the really bad situation in Bihar. Asserting Bihari pride is a middle-class act. People with good means wanting a greater share of the cake. It doesn't interest me. Because the Biharis who are getting the stick shoved up their asses by the Shiv Sena goons aren't really crying for pride. They're crying for justice. Under the rule of law what is mine give it to me!"

Agrees Bihar's most well known director and producer in Bollywood, Prakash Jha, but in a different sense, who is quite optimistic about developments in Bihar. He says: "It's (Bihar's image) already changing. Economic activities are happening in Bihar, infrastructure building in on, the new governmnet in Bihar which has come in has done great things. Eventually it will be the economic and instututional activities that will make the difference. Biharis are already studying in colleges and universities outside Bihar. Once the infrastructure is there it will change. It is aready changing, we don't have to do anything."

Dr Kunal Basu also thinks that Biharis deserve respect and dignity like all other Indians, without showing any signs of success. He says, "Bihar and Biharis need no 'showcasing' of success, as with the rest of us, they deserve respect."

Bihar is everybody's problem

Whatever the feelings, the reality on the ground does not look that rosy. While the southern Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have forged ahead with their silicon valleys, industries and foreign investments, Bihar has stagnated, partly along with UP, MP and Rajasthan. The International Herald Tribune (IHT) recently reported that the World Bank lent Bihar government $225 million, but private investors have not been so enthusiastic. And in a joke of surreal proportions, economists are questioning the current Bihar government's tall claims of economic achievements (Economic Survey for 2006-07) of hitting a 16 % Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, almost double the national average growth rate. How could a state, which had its GDP growth in the negative, suddenly comeback with such fantastically high development figures, they are rightly asking.

But the glass can be seen as half full as well. In a sense, aren't the migrant Biharis contributors to the success of other states, at least partially?

Perhaps Bihar’s time will come too with the right leadership and progress. India took decades to shrug off its image of the land of snake charmers until she unleashed her own army of IIT and IIM professionals and her Tatas and Mittals. And Bihar must come up, as an economically backward Bihar, with about 10 per cent of India’s population, is simply not in the interest of a booming India. India must heed to what some said in a report in The International Herald Tribune: “If you think Bihar is not your problem, it will become your problem.”

The most optimistic is the Oxford don, Dr Basu. "Make no mistakes, Bihar isn't a backward state, it's a frontline state where the battle for India's future and the battle for democracy is being waged," he says. "From Gandhi to Jayprakash Narayan, the wave has always started in Bihar then lapped up on the shores of Delhi. For the last decade it's here that the caste armies have met their match, where large landowners have seen the fear of daylight struck into them, where violence has been met with resistance."

Meanwhile, I am asking my friend Sumit to make that film on Biharis—it might prove to be a little step in clearing the cobwebs of parochialism in the country.

An edited version of this article appears in today's Singapore newspaper, The Weekend Today.

Scenes from a Lit Fest

Crossings, Singapore's Writers Festival 2007, celebrated literature in its myriad forms with over 50 writers from 16 countries in over 100 programmes between 1-9 December.

For me, the entire festival was an exciting mash-up of scenes from writers' lives, off and onstage. It was an opportunity to see many players in action: moderators, writers, bloggers, festival organisers. There were many international writers setting the scene abuzz. The queues were the longest for the famous Chinese writers such as Jung Chang and Bei Dao. There were enough NRI and Indian names in the marquee to make the whole festival a la Rang De Basanti. David Davidar, Kunal Basu, Madhur Jaffery, and Anita Nair, among others.

December 8, 5 pm
The Singapore Tea Party

As Sharon Bakar and I enter Earshot, the famous cafe in the Arts House by the Singapore River, Sharon spots A. Samad Said, a writer from Malaysia.

"How good to see you Sharon," says Mr Said with a chirp in his voice. His small saintly figure, complete with a flowing white beard, is preched on a chair. In front of him, there is a plate of half-eaten sandwiches. Sharon aka Bibliobibuli, herself a famous Malaysian blogger, is pleased to get the attention from the Malaysian laureate. "Oh, he is the biggest writer in Malaysia," she tells me later.

The laureate talks about his upcoming session. Sharon promises to attend his session the next day and we break for a cup of tea.

Both of us are hungry and a little tired after our session on blogging (World Wide Web of Words--Literary Blogs). Moderated by the spunky and energetic Singapore journalist and blogger Deepika Shetty, Sharon and Ivan Chew (a Singaporean librarian who maintains a books blog) had shared their insights on literary blogging in the session. While for Ivan, blogs were platforms for verbal diarrhea, it was a compulsion (to write) for Sharon. She often had to tell herself to stop posting (and occasionally feed her husband).

So, exhausted there we are with our English breakfast tea. Sharon has ordered a pizza which is yet to arrive. We had met before in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in one of the readings that Sharon had organised. So, we try to reconnect. Sharon talks about the books nominated for this year's Booker Prize. Then the discussion veers off to Tan Twan Eng, Malaysia's latest literary sensation. Tan Twan Eng, the Booker longlisted South Africa and KL-based Malaysian novelist, had shot to fame with his debut, The Gift of Rain. His sessions in the beginning of the festival were good draws, clearly pointing out how popular he had become. When asked how his life had changed after the Booker Prize nomination, he quipped: "It feels the same but things are a lot easier for my publishers and agents. Their phone calls are returned."

Even before we finish our discussion, we are joined by Elmo Jayawardena and his spouse, Dill. Elmo is a Sri Lankan writer but more of him later. We talk about his his book launch that is to follow the same day in the early evening. Elmo is a sharp wit, so he regales us with his jokes and one-liners while sipping on his latte.
Soon, we are joined by Deepika Shetty and Kunal Basu. Kunal had met Elmo in Ubud Writers Festival and I had inroduced myself to him earlier in the day, so he turns to Sharon. "Where are you from?" he asks. "Birmingham," says Sharon, "but I have been living in Malaysia for 20 years now."

Novelist Kunal Basu is an Oxford don--he teaches business and writes fiction (The Miniaturist, The Opium Clerk, The Racists). "How did you end up living this dichotomous life?" I ask him. "I always wanted to write and when we were growing up, there were no Indian role models as full-time writers," he explains. "There were Indian writers but most of them wrote on the side and had a full-time job to support themselves. So, I thought I too had to follow this model but I chose teaching as a career because it gives me control over my time."

Deepika and Sharon start talking about cyber stalkers. Kunal joins in, citing his experience of stalking. A research student, who met him first for a PhD thesis and later wrote an essay on his work, began to stalk him with hundreds of emails every day and would appear wherever Kunal went for his readings or talks. "It became so bad that we had to send her a letter through our agent to put a stop to it," he says.

I congratulate Kunal for couragiously writing in support of Tehelka's latest expose on Gujarat massacres. "I wrote a piece in Tehelka after the Gujarat riots which I think was even better than this," he says. The piece came as a reaction after a journalist asked him why he wrote a 'Muslim novel' (The Miniaturist, based in Akbar's court) despite being a Hindu. "I was angry at this question, which was like an accusation," he says, promising me to send the article.

December 8, A few hours ago
Ideas, Identities and Indian Writing

A little earlier on the same day, David Davidar, head of Penguin Books Canada, and a pioneering publisher of Indian writers in English, now also a novelist, tries to explore the misuse of religion through his novel, The Solitude of Emperors. Mr Davidar’s first novel, The House of Blue Mangoes, was published in 2002. It was translated into 16 languages and was a New York Times Notable Book and a Book Sense Pick.

His session is titled, A Tale of Two Cities. The other panelist is Kunal Basu. Predictably, there are not many audience questions on communalism, David's theme of the novel. People are more interested in knowing about his publishing experience. David rues the fact that these days editors are editing less and less, resulting in poorly produced texts.

Kunal discusses how many of his stories took birth in his journeys. The idea for The Opium Clerk came to him, he says, while trekking in Bangkok. His guide told him: In the 19th century, Calcutta was the centre of the world's drug business. That sentence triggered in him a curiosity about that period in Calcutta and he began to research for his novel, he says.

Shobha Bhalla, the editor of India Se, asks why are David and Kunal, despite being NRIs, are mentioned as 'from Canada' and 'from UK' respectively in the festival's publicity brochures. Kunal says in reply that "we don't write the brochures." But Kunal does not see any problem in the description as he thinks that he is a global citizen as well as Indian. "When it comes to identity, I am carpetbagger," he says. "If I can get under anyone's skin, I would be happy to do that. And that's why I am not happy with the term Indian Fiction too. It does not exist. Look at the range of our writing. Rushdie is so different from Davidar and so on. So, I don't believe there is anything called Indian fiction."

A shorter version of this report appeared in India Se, Jan 2008.

Writers in cross hair

On Sunday, Crossings, the Singapore Writers' Festival 2007, came to a close. For me, the entire festival was an exciting mash-up (ah, scenes from events are intemixing in my memory) of scenes from writers' lives, off and onstage. It was an opportunity to see many players in action: moderators, writers, bloggers, festival organisers--everyone played cool and I did not see any fretful faces. Or did I miss something?

There were many international writers. The queues were the longest for the famous Chinese writers such as Jung Chang and Bei Dao. There were enough NRI and Indian names in the marquee to make the whole festival a Rang De Basanti. David Davidar, Kunal Basu (photo, above), Madhur Jaffery, Anita Nair, Sharanya Manivannan and Deepika Shetty (as the energetic moderator with a difference). I was also there, connected with two events, but was miraculously not listed anywhere (website, booklets) but I am not blaming anyone. When such big names are around, where do I stand? And frankly, I don't care. I'm happy enough just to be an audience in such events.

First up, on Dec 3, I had the chance to moderate a session with Tan Twan Eng, the Booker longlisted South Africa-based Malaysian novelist, who shot to fame with his debuting work, The Gift of Rain. The session was well-attended. Many had turned up to listen to Twan and get their copies of the novel autographed by the man himself. Contrary to what I had been warned of, Twan wasn't shy at all and he spoke very confidently and eloquently. I would spare you the details as Deepika Shetty has summarised the session in her blog post here.

The other was a session on blogging, again moderated by Deepika. Malaysia's top literary blogger Sharon Bakar and Singapore's Ivan Chew were in the panel. While Sharon I knew as a friend, Ivan was a revelation. I enjoyed the proceedings and discovered that Sharon and I had started blogging at about the same time, Sept 2004! What a coincidence! And Deepika was humble enough to acknowledge how she was inspired by bloggers like Jai Arjun Singh (another friend of mine) and Amit Varma to start her own blogging journey. Both Ivan and Sharon have blogged about this event, so I am skipping the details once again (lazy me!).

I regret not attending the sessions of my friends Sharanya and Chris Mooney Singh who released his poetry book, The Laughing Buddha Cab Company. Sharayna, as it happens, has been making waves in Indian media talking about the Indian discontent in Malaysia.

Rainbows in Braille

Yesterday evening, the Blue Room in Singapore’s Arts House was packed with fans of Elmo Jayawrdena who had turned out in huge numbers to celebrate one of the honest and most down-to-earth voices from Sri Lanka’s literary world. The occasion was one of the highlights of the Singapore Writers Festival. Elmo was launching his collection of short stories, Rainbows in Braille .

Captain Elmo, as the author is lovingly called, is not an ordinary Sri Lankan writer. A lit fest favourite, he is now known the world over for his simple tale of Sam, whom he immortalized in his novel, Sam’s Story. The novel, set in the twilight years of the last century, is about a village bumpkin who comes to work in a Colombo mansion. The novel’s comic façade and the charming simplicity of the text hide the dual core of anti-war and anti-racial prejudice messages that form the only turbulence in this smooth flight of imagination. The book won him the Gratiaen Prize for best Sri Lankan work in English in 2001.

Captain Elmo, now a pilot trainer, has been writing novels and short stories when he has not been flying jets or working for his charitable foundation, Association for Lighting a Candle (AFLAC). After his first novel, he penned a hefty fictionalized history of the Sinhalese kings, which won the State Literary Award for best book in 2005. Rainbows in Braille is his third book and as with all his previous works, proceeds from this book too would go toward AFLAC.

Selling at $10 a copy, the book was seeing brisk sales even before the launch and Captain Elmo was graciously autographing copies for his fans until Deepika Shetty, the event's moderator, dragged him inside the room to start the launch session. I got a copy autographed for my daughter.

"Every copy that I sell feeds a poor Sri Lankan family for a week," he later told the audience.

Elmo has got the volume published in Sri Lanka. "Why did he go the self-publishing route this time," asked Deepika. "Because I want the maximum profit to go the poor with whom I work through AFLAC," he said candidly.

Ubud Writers' Festival founder and director, Janet de Neefe, and novelist Kunal Basu spoke in praise of Elmo before the actual launch.

Kunal became a fan of Elmo after meeting him in Ubud this year. "As the Ubud festival was drawing to a close, I was sort of getting sad as I thought that I might not be able to see Elmo again, as we writers hardly meet each other and most often keep in touch only through emails" he said. So, Elmo's killer charm had worked on Kunal!

"We writers love adulation, we love our readers and fans and we love festival directors...but we hardly can stand other writers...but Elmo is a huge exception," he said.

"In writing, nothing--technique, style, language--matters more than empathy...the ability of a writer to empathise with his characters, and in all of Elmo's writings, his empathy shines through," said Kunal.

Kunal also narrated an anecdote from the Ubud writers and readers festival. Whatever books he had collected in Ubud, he gave it to his mother (an '85 year old, widely read, active Bengali writer with strong opinions') in Calcutta to read before he left for London. A few months later, he asked his mother on phone if she had read all the books. She talked about only one writer. "Who's this Elmo?" she aked.

"Elmo, that is the biggest compliment I can ever give to you," Kunal said.

Elmo talked about the origin of the stories in his collection and how almost all of them were based on real life people and events. He talked about a story, Tsunami. "It is based on an old man who lost his entire family except his two grandchildren in the Sri Lankan tsunami," he said.

Deepika said she loved his short story, The Detergent Salesman. I love it too, Elmo said. But I love all my stories, I love whatever I write, he added.

Despite writing 3 books, Elmo does not have an agent.

"I thank Kunal (Basu) for introducing me to his agent," he said, "but I didn't need an agent for this book. All, my life I have had my own literary agent in my wife Dill." We all laughed. "She is my agent and my editor," he added.

"We all write because we love to write," he said, " and I am sure Kunal will back me up on this, and once we have got the book out, we just let it travel--who knows how far it will go."

During the talk, a charming Captain Elmo acknowledged his debt to all those who had helped him write the stories in this collection. He especially acknowledged his wife’s contribution to his writing life. "She has not just been the air beneath my writerly wings that helped me soar the literary heights but the wings themselves."

Seguing from this, Deepika asked Dill (I hope the spelling is correct) to comment on how life had been with this multi-dimensional man, Elmo. Dill seemed to be taken aback at this unscripted turn of events, the limelight falling on her, all eyes fixed at her but that is the fun of an evening like this, especially when there is a spunky and intelligently unpredictable moderator like Deepika.

"Well," said Dill, "Elmo has been doing many things apart from flying. He started AFLAC and now he has become an author. Sometimes when things become too much, I tell Elmo: Hello, I had only married a pilot!" Aha, so wit runs in the family.

In a gesture that can be only called Elmosque, the author presented the book to his grandson, Navik. These stories are for my grandson’s generation, declared Elmo, whose love for people, especially children, is ever effusive. “Through these stories, I want to show to the coming generations how life used to be in Sri Lanka, so that they too know how simple but beautiful life was before it got lost to the world,” he added.

Captain Elmo’s friends also shared some thoughts at the launch. Top security and anti-terror expert Rohan Gunaratna paid tribute to this writer for his empathy for others, especially the less privileged, and his strong power of observation and the ability to chronicle human life. "I was once having a debate with Elmo over good people and bad people, and at the end of it, Elmo concluded that there are no good or bad people in the world; there are only good and bad circumstances," he said.

Finally, Elmo thanked everyone for coming to the event. "This (Arts House) is an opulent place and all of you here are literary and affluent people and I am deeply honoured by your presence here," he said. The way Elmo said it, the glint of gratitude that shone through his eyes while speaking these lines, were so honest and deeply felt that I almost had goosebumps. His words, truly emerging from the bottom of his heart (as many say it but how deeply they mean it?), made such a strong emotional connection with me (and am sure with others as well) that it would be impossible not to be moved by such heartbreaking modesty in a man who, through his work, had soared to such towering heights that all of us in the room could only aspire to in a lifetime.

(All quotes in this post are from my memory as I hate to take notes during such events; I apologise in advance for any inadvertant misrepresentation)