Exploring the simple, sustainable life

Throughout history, with the fall of ancient Sri Lankan kingdoms, the decline of the island nation’s giant irrigation systems was inevitable. However, the small scale irrigation systems and the associated agrarian lifestyle of the village survived the tests of time. One researcher believes that the reason for its survival was the austerity of the irrigation system, complemented by the simplicity of the sustainable village lifestyle, rooted deep in nature “Katha Karana Maha Wewa” by Sumana Wijeratne is an exploration of this simple and sustainable existence of the village while studying the island’s ancient irrigation technology. In a recent interview, Wijeratne shared her thoughts on the book, her research and the irrigation culture of Sri Lanka. 

  Q      Is this book a nostalgic representation of your past? 

I won’t say that this is not a nostalgic representation. There is such an expression throughout this book. But I am trying to communicate an extraordinarily strong message that is packaged into this nostalgic writing. That message is how the village life during the late sixties and seventies of the 20th century transformed into quite a different and complicated entity; basically, in the social, political and economic arena.   

This period in Sri Lanka had been inspired by the free education system introduced during the late fifties, where the baby boomer population was in its climax of youth. Farming society experienced vast transformations that resulted from the global motivations of the green revolution which was a common phenomenon throughout the world.   

The nostalgic expression of this book hints at that ground reality. The entire book compiles such events spread over half a century, into the stories of the good old days. In fact, this book wasn’t intended to fantasize about the taste of the past alone; I would say it has much more to offer.   

"The small scale irrigation systems and the associated agrarian lifestyle of the village survived the tests of time because of the austerity of the irrigation system and the simplicity of the village lifestyle "

  Q      What if someone was to say that you are trying to romanticize the ancient irrigation system? 

Honestly, I am not. This book is about not romanticising irrigation history, or the concept of the ‘gama, pansala or dagaba’ (village, temple and pagoda). Instead, what the book did was present the ground reality of a village that was fundamentally based on the small irrigation cascading system called ‘Ellangawa’ during a particular time. It was an attempt to raise the voice emanating from the village itself. This is not a research study and at the same time this is not fiction either, rather this is literature that is swaying between a true story and a research study.   

However, this book presents some information about ancient irrigation works and associated technology. In particular, it presents descriptions such as the Malwathu Oya river valley system and its irrigation components. It also studies the ‘Sigiriya giant tank’. These systems I believe have not been given due attention. It also presents the socio-cultural and economic connectivity of the peasants with the small irrigation systems and how they have established peace on earth, in a sustainable manner through which it does not harm the life of nature. The book constructed a story based on true events without fantasizing about those events for literature.   

I must note however that I have strategically used several stories in a dramatic manner to retain the readers’ attention with the book. Stories such as how people used the footpaths across the village daily, or a recollection of a man who tends to get a bit tipsy and joyful in the evenings, the role of the local physician in the event when one man was bitten by a snake, how volunteer labour sharing turned towards paid labour, how people preserved their seeds, farm modernization, and how traditional seeds and wisdom swayed away, all these are stories. Our village itself had no temple, nor a pagoda, but I remember that people led a moralistic way of life. This book does not use symbolic representations to support facts.   

  Q      The language and the style of writing that you have used in this book is unique and different. Was there specific reasoning for that?

I used simple, colloquial local language. The language mainly used by people of the ‘sathkorala’ area, during the 60th and 70th decades of the 20th century. The notable aspect of my style of writing I believe is that the way I attempted to minimize the gap between the author and the characters of each story. If I differentiate the authors rhetoric descriptions and language used by characters, readers would not feel a sense of belonging. This style makes them feel that the book was written by one of them and not by an outsider. I attempted to maintain that feeling throughout the book and share the same feelings with readers, which I think would make the writer closer to them.   

  Q      Where do you want to take the reader through this reading? Is there a final takeaway?

I feel this is the most important question about this book. I offer this book to the farmers of the country who have been repeatedly exploited and cheated by the agrochemical industry and local and international corporate sector. Towards the end of this book, I explained how the peaceful connectivity these farmers have established with the earth has been destroyed. Agro-chemicals, chemical fertilizer and farm mechanization have encroached on the rural farming sector, during the latter part of the 60th and 70th decades of the 20th century. Seeds sovereignty was with farmers and has been taken over by the market completely. Indigenous seeds have perished. 

 
From that point, I discussed the naturally available food system and the drinking water which have been present in rural areas for centuries. This provided immunity for the people; how rural food recipes and food varieties protected us from pandemics in the past, all of these aspects are discussed in this book.   
In the end, this book takes the readers towards a simple lifestyle associated with the ‘ellangawa’ system to establish peace on earth, in responding to the global climate crisis through local interventions. This book does not suggest reinventing the past, but simply advocates learning from the lives of the past.   

Wijeratne, Sumana, Katha Karana Maha Wewa, Thrimana Publications, 
Rs. 580

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