Vindication

 

I mentioned many blogs back in Wendy Wα⃝nders, something that may have bordered on brutal honesty or seemingly disrespect about Sri Lankan singing. I must resurrect that small note and give this phenomenon a rightful place in our observations of this country.

North Americans are lulled to sleep by Nora Jones, reenergized by Shania Twain or spiritually enriched by Christian hymns. We have come to take anyone who sings in public (karaoke excluded), as a reasonably good singer. However, Sri Lankan people (anyone who feels like it) sing at the drop of the hat and much to the chagrin of those forced to listen.

Our real experience with this dreadful din is of course, at mass. We are usually spiritually filled by the lovely hymns, vespers and alleluias resounding from the lips and lungs of praising people. Here, however, we are tempted to convert to atheism. It is painful to attend church. Bill squiggles around trying to escape from the screech. It is amazing that a hymn can sound that discordant and jarring. It is brutal. There is no unison, no softness, and no sweetness; there is no tone or tenor. Yet it is sung in English, so that is not the excuse. We have heard the hymns sung in Sinhala and they are no better.

We have puzzled over the why they sing so badly and why they can't hear themselves and why they can't sing in tune and in unison. We had been chastising ourselves for our uncharitable and judgemental opinion of the singing. However, Michael Ondaatje vindicated us!

Michael Ondaatje, author of the English Patient was born in Sri Lanka and wrote a book about his family called, Running in the Family. I happened upon this outrageous book about his family while visiting in Colombo and was stunned by a quote in the book. This quote is by a man named Paul Bowles that resonated (excuse the pun) in its accuracy about Sinhalese singing. Here I was first vindicated in my feelings about the hideous singing and dropped my veil of guilt over my uncharitable feelings towards the singing. Paul Bowles is quoted in the book to say,

"The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of pitch, line or rhythm".

This accurate description was affirming enough for us, but Ondaatje apparently felt Mr. Bowles too charitable in his comments about the Sinhala people and their singing. Therefore, Mr. Ondaatje wrote his own opinion piece on Sinhala singing, This was the second vindication:

"Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed

through a glass tube

Like someone has just trod on a peacock

Like wind howling in a coconut

Like a rusty bible, like someone pulling on barbed wire

across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning,

a vattacka being fried,

a bone shaking hands

a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.

Like a crow swimming in milk,

like a nose being hit by a mango,

like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,

a womb full of twins, a pariah dog

with a magpie in its mouth

like the midnight jet from Casablanca

Like Air Pakistan curry,

a typewriter on fire, like a spirit in the gas

which cooks your dinner,

like a hundred pappadams being crunched, like

someone

uselessly trying to light 3 Roses matches in a dark room,

the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head

into the sea,

a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,

the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,

like pineapples being sliced in Pettah market,

like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air,

like a whole village running naked into the street and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family

pushing a jeep out of the mud, like the dirt on the needle,

like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle

like 3 old ladies locked in a lavoratory

like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep

and someone walked through my room in ankle

bracelets" (p. 75-76).

 

I rest my case.