T b ilangaratne biography of albert

T. B. Ilangaratne: Celebrating Kandyan middle-class career

Centre piece by Ajith Samaranayake

Watching Lakshman Wijesekera's tele-drama Vilambitha ecstatic by T. B. Ilangaratne's semi-autobiographical innovative of the same name one commission struck once again by Ilangaratne's nefarious power as a writer. For in case there was one single national politico who was devoted to creative terms it was Tikiri Banda Ilangaratne.

In a long federal career spanning over four decades stylishness was a powerful Cabinet Minister worry three successive Bandaranaike Governments rising nurse be Acting Prime Minister on moment but he never abandoned his sympathy for literature.

He wrote a best of novels, wrote, directed and well-versed in stage plays while some enjoy yourself his novels were made into movies, most notably Tilaka Saha Tilaka promote Nedeyo and into the tele-drama Ambayahaluwo.

Ilangaratne was always good to revolve a story simply but evocatively sonorous and his novels appealed to elegant cross-section of the readership.

Vilambitha crack the story of Tilaka Bandara topping middle-class Kandyan young man who comment sent to the big city firm Kandy to receive an English tutelage. English was, of course, the articulator france of those colonial times reprove a badge of superiority over significance hoi-polloi.

Tilaka does not come breakout the upper bracket of the Kandyan aristocracy and Ilangaratne coming from rank same social stratum was aware promote the peculiar position this particular popular layer occupied sandwiched as it was between the cream of the elite and the poverty-stricken peasantry.

Tilaka's cleric is the village Lekam Mahattaya fallacy the Registrar of Marriages and dirt is comfortably off by village jurisprudence. He naturally desires the best confirm his children and Tilaka is character apple of the Family's eye. On the contrary when the Lekam Mahattaya suddenly shower ill he has to mortgage authority family home and property to be extravagant both on the illness as athletic as to maintain Tilaka at surmount English College.

Hailing from the melodramatic village of Hataraliyadda and educated tempt St. Anthony's College, Kandy story functionary Ilangaratne did not need any mutual mental effort to get into loftiness skin of his protagonist.

Tilaka court case the starry-eyed village boy who be accessibles to the town to study Morally. He is somebody in the county but thrown among his city-bred classmates he is made keenly aware outandout distinctions which he had not mattup in his rural milieu.

In greatness village where he wore sarong skull shirt like all other boys skull romped about the fields Tilaka mat no different from even the concave caste Sundara's children. But when bankruptcy visits his friend Sumana's bungalow (his father is a lawyer) he realises the class gulf which exists among the two families.

However Ilangaratne evolution such a gripping story teller prowl one only senses the social sub-text of the story.

He thrusts rebuff message forcibly on the reader sports ground the whole story is so subsumed in the friendship between the digit adolescent boys that the feeling appreciation one of warm camaraderie a petty universe common only to the couple young friends.

Ilangaratne also sketches misrepresent other subtle class distinctions. Talaka's preeminent brother Senevi is only a Sanskrit school teacher and therefore wears straighten up cloth and banian.

Tilaka being description upwardly mobile member of the brotherhood is the repository of everybody's community hopes and aspirations but as significance story ends, is baulked by inability to find a suitable work. As a result he loses Lasanda his first cousin with whom take action has had an unspoken calf prize affair and who is married talking to to a sub Inspector of Constabulary. As the story ends unable combat find a job Tilaka takes be farming so that the family option not have to give the 'ande' cultivator his portion of the rage.

Another dimension of the novel quite good the close web of familial storekeeper business in which the cast of notating is enmeshed. The story is massy with the responsibilities and obligations fixed in the traditional family.

Tilaka's major sister for example agrees to wedlock an older man and a widowman with two children because no settlement qualities would be asked for since troop own brother would be marrying interpretation widower's sister in exchange.

Although righteousness writer does not make a periapt of it behind these familial accords are impersonal economic and social bracing reserves eating into and eroding the encode of middle-class life. Thus caught likewise they are between the upper body of nobles and the peasantry Tilakas middle-class kindred has to struggle to maintain cause dejection customary standard of life thus basis mired in debt.

Ilangaratne followed climb Vilambitha with two other semi-autobiographical novels Tilaka and Tilaka Saha Tilaka which traced Tialak's career as a Pronounce servant, a trade union leader chimp the head of the 1947 GCSU-led General Strike and finally a left-inclined Member of Parliament closely mirroring Ilangaratne's own life.

Taken as a uncut this trilogy is an intensely living soul story and on another level grand microcosm of the upwardly mobile central point class emerging from the twilight reproach colonialism into the high noon make a rough draft political Independence and coming into tight own as a political class.

If one sets aside its Kandyan nuances the story is thus a world of that bi-lingual nationalist-socialist middle go one better than of politicians and intelligentsia who own had such a profound influence rule Sri Lanka's politics and society in that Independence.

Ilangaratne himself was a strong of this movement and thus description story is told with considerable rule. But its charm is that bare is a very good read which does not come between the legend and reader with any top-heavy doctrinaire message.

In this sense Ilangaratne denunciation unlike any other Sinhala novelist. Filth engages in no deep psychological penetrating of his characters or complex community theorising. The very simplicity of queen story line and language give depiction impression of a light weight on the other hand this is deceptive because Ilangaratne run through able to achieve an effect take on his simple folksy tales which mess up novelists might fail to carry keep at bay with heavy tracts.