The Ceylon Frogmouths

The Ceylon Frogmouth (now also referred to as Srilankan Frogmouth) is a nocturnal bird endemic to Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. Found in dense forests these are large headed birds that has huge frog like gape and large flattened hooked bills that is used to swoop on insects during night. Female are rufous while males are grey. These species sit upright on low branches during day, brilliantly camouflaged and look as if part of branch. It needs discerning eyes to locate even when few feet away. Absolutely amazing. They sat staring as if they think they are not been located, my guide a sensitive fellow asked me not to use flash (after my first click, the above pic) and disturb them. He reminded we are intruding into their sleep, i regretted my transgression. We took care not to make any noise and push the branches around as delicately as possible to get better view.

Of the 13 Frogmouth species found in the world, only two belong to India. The other is found in the Himalayas.

Reggie Siriwardena: Renaissance man from Sri Lanka

Reggie Siriwardena (1922-2004, later Regi, earlier Reginald) was one of the foremost Srilankan intellectual, critic, journalist, teacher, novelist, playwright and a humanist, and yes he also happen to write some excellent poems!!. When he turned eighty he wrote this line, the angst of violent nation that was loosing its promising young

scandalous at eighty years to walk
the earth where younger better people now are dust and ashes

Regi Siriwardena also collaborated in the introduction of a controversial new English literature syllabus to the consternation of the conservatives he included the lyrics of Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind and replaced Shakespeare. He was convinced of the unsuitability of Shakespeare at school level. Even for university students, he abolished Shakespeare for first year students. Once, while discussing English in the schools, he commented, This school Shakespeare competition has become the literary equivalent of the Royal-Thomian match. He also analyzed English and Sinhala text books for racist bias towards the minority communities. He noted and documented these prejudiced texts and highlighted that these promoted hatred towards the minorities in general and Tamils in particular. These texts published by the state were harming ethnic relations it was pointed out. As a journalist he covered the culture as also the international section (he wrote about astronomy for children too). He learned Russian and translated many works into Sinhala (noted for Anna Akhmatova and Pushkin).

His creations were hinged in torment of colonial humiliation of native culture and yearning for self respect for its people and universal aspiration. In his poem “Colonial Cameo”, he speaks of a father who made him read Macaulay and admire Napoleon and a mother who spoke only Sinhala. He remembers the day she took him to school and leaving she said “Gihing Enang” (sinhala) to a peal of giggles from his class mates (it was anglicized school). Reggie writes
My mother pretended not to hear that insult.
The snobbish little bastards!
But how can blame them?
That day I was deeply ashamed of my mother.
Now, whenever I remember,
l am ashamed of my shame.

Another poem from “Waiting for the soldier"

After the Roman army took
a soldier, in the midst of looting and raping,
stopped when he saw a Greek bent over
figures inscribed in the sand. Gaping,
the Roman watched his strange absorption
in that magic of lines and circles. He
(not looking up at the soldier) said," Move
With your shadow there it's hard to see"
The soldier hit him on the head, and so
Archimedes died. If, then, today
I turn more and more to this ordered world
of sixty four squares, to the mimic play
of forces in a field where nobody bleeds;
where in the intervals of the game my silent friend
won't annoy me by spouting racist drivel
or Marxist simplicities; if the chief end
of life at present seems to find
an infallible answer to the French Defence
(my opponent's favourite opening ), don't say
I am escaping. In a world without sense
one must look for meaning wherever one
can find it-if only, perhaps, for a day
or two. I know the Roman soldier-
in one shape or another-is on the way.

Continuing with his last poem that he wrote when he turned eighty these evocative lines
To have existed while the planet made
eighty revolutions round the sun is no
achievement, but I must confess I am
rather surprised to find myself still here.
It’s scandalous at eighty years to walk
the earth where younger, better people now
are dust and ashes,
who died of violence and had much more
to give -Rajini, Richard, Neelan
makes it embarrassing to be alive

In the same poem he writes

But I shouldn’t complain: to compensate.
I have acquired immunity to other
infections - post - modernism, for one.
And free verse, for another. I’m glad, too,
I never caught, as my late brother did.
The Sinhala nationalist flu. An early shot
Of Marxism, perhaps, took care of that.

Also some fun and premonition of his impending death

By time's mere flux, I am called to play the part
Of patriarch I am unfitted for.
But not for long, I hope. When the time comes,
Ajith, Prince of Obituarists, will write,
I know, a graceful piece - measured, as always,
And free of flattery or fulsomeness.

I don't believe there is judgment after death,
Or penal court of Yama: If there were,
And I were called to account, what could I say
In mitigation of sentence, but stammer,
"P-please sir, I tried not to be p-pompous ever,
P-pretentious, Sir, incomprehensible,
or b-boring". Would the judge pronounce severely;
"A frivolous trifler! He deserves no mercy,
I sentence him to fifty years of torture
Translating into Serbo-Croat the texts
Of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha!"