Blue-blueness ~ Malinda Words

Some words just cannot be translated. Not in a word-to-word sense anyway. Like ‘vakkada.’ It’s that place somewhere along the ridge separating one liyadda (again hard to translate) from the next in tract of paddy or a vel-yaaya where the earth is pushed aside or ‘broken’ to release water from a higher liyadda to a lower one. That’s a lot of words, some of which would require more words to properly define.

The word ‘vakkada’ reminds me of three stories. Actually, I wasn’t thinking of writing something about ‘vakkada.’ The word is in the title of a song that contained something I wanted to comment on.

The stories. The first is a song and not the one that inspired this piece. Muthu varusavata themila (roughly, ‘having been drenched by a soft drizzle,’ i.e. where the rain drops were like so many pearls) was written by the incomparable Premakeerthi De Alwis. Victor Ratnayake sings it. Here’s the line: සිතක සතු වක්කඩ කැඩුවා වැනිය (the joy felt is like a vakkada being ‘broken’).

I remember another ‘vakkada’ moment. Happened about twenty years ago. A young girl who was married but strangely, yes, didn’t know the fact (she didn’t know that ‘registration’ is a legal bind!), but was in love with another man, explained the difference thus: ‘he (the husband) doesn’t hear the sound of water trickling through the vakkada.’

The third story is from a song that kept playing in the mind for some reason. Lyrics by the inimitable Mahagama Sekara. Amaradeva’s voice. ‘Vakkada langa diya vaetena thaalayata…(to the beat of water dripping from a vakkada).’ It is not that opening line which I wanted to write about but I had to bring in these vakkada stories simply because the song is referred to by this particular line.

කිව්වට වස් නැත
නිල් නිල් පාටින්
කටරොළු මල් වැට වට කෙරුවා

‘It is not inauspicious to point this out: the fence was surrounded by the blue blue(ness) of katarolu flowers.’

It’s the නිල් නිල් or the blue-blue or blue blueness that fascinated me. I have not come across blue-blue or anything similar in the English language. Sekara could be referring to the flowers separately, as in ‘a blue katarolu flower here and another blue katarolu flower there and so on…’ He might have also wanted to stress the blueness and repeated the word to obtain that effect.

In this blue planet, there’s an abundance of that color, naturally. So much water, after all. We are blue-blessed as a nation and a people. We are an island and therefore surrounded by sea. Our heritage, if it must have a color, is blue, considering the amazing irrigation works all around us — the lagoons, massive reservoirs, innumerable canals and even the small ‘village tanks.’ There’s blueness in the hills. Blue-blueness in the sky at certain times of the day. Less-blue and yet spectacular dawns.

‘Blue’ just doesn’t describe it. Blue-blue is better, but to my mind නිල් නිල් (nil-nil) is perfect. And that’s what great poets do. The insertion of the right word at the right place. Caresses the mind in ways that the simple නිල් or blue just cannot.

I know two people at least who have the eyes to see a blue-blueness that others let pass. Tharindu Amunugama and Kasun De Silva. They are so blessed. And we are blessed because they capture blue-blueness in amazing photographs and share it with us. The sky belongs to all but is no less private, my father once said. Tharindu and Kasun know this and they remind us of the fact. Quite blue-blue of them, I think.

There’s poetry like that. Poetry coated in the singular music one could hear at a vakkada. Poetry that is blue-blue.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

09 June 2023

Blue-blueness

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