An Island on the Cusp of …
Romesh Gunesekera’s novel Suncatcher is a vignette from Sri Lanka’s past. The story revolves around the friendship between two boys from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds (almost like a darker version of the popular classic Amba Yahaluwo by T.B. Ilangaratne). The novel starts with Jay asking for Kairo’s help to chase a beautiful Sunbeam bird so that he can trap and add it to his aviary at home. The Sunbeam later dies in its cage, a metaphor for the plot trajectory.
Suncatcher takes us back to 1964, Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s first term as prime minister. Communal politics are out in full force; there’s trade union action, fears of a drought in the rural areas, nationalization and land reforms, and schools are closed frequently. This was also an era where Sri Lanka had a vocal leftist movement (which was eventually diminished when neoliberal reforms were introduced after 1977). The left understood the importance of industrialization (which they hoped to achieve through nationalization) and later, food self-sufficiency (Gunewardana and Kadirgamar, 2021).
Kairo, the protagonist, has a father who is a supporter of one leftist party — the Trotskyite LSSP. Kairo hails from a modest family background, his mother Monica works in Radio Ceylon and father Clarence works in the Labor Department. Clarence is dismayed that the party he supports has joined the government and fears for the future of Sri Lanka:
“This country is at a crossroads. No one knows which path will lead us out of the quagmire.” (Gunesekera, 2019, p.13)
Naturally, Clarence sounds a warning about Kairo’s new friend Jay.
Jay has a glamorous and unstable family background. His father Marty is a businessman and mother Sonya is a socialite. Neither parent pays much attention to Jay, whose hobbies are collecting birds and fish. Kairo is enthralled by Jay. He overlooks his casual cruelty towards small animals. Jay treats people poorer than him as dispensable; this causes unease in Kairo — yet he dismisses it.
One particular incident in the novel functions as a microcosm for the wider socio-economic struggles playing out in the country. Kairo heads to Jay’s Uncle Elvin’s coconut estate for a short stay. (Despite his misgivings, Clarence thinks the trip will provide an education to Kairo on how the local bourgeois abuses the rural poor). Jay plays a game pretending to be cowboys with Kairo and “Gerry,” the son of the estate’s superintendent. “Gerry” is not even his real name — this is the name that Jay has given him. “Gerry” has left school early to help out at the estate. When they play at being cowboys, Jay has a pistol and an air gun, Kairo an air gun, and “Gerry” a bow and some arrows (weapons in accordance with the social pecking order clearly). I won’t reveal what happens at the end of the game.
After this incident, Kairo’s unease with Jay grows as the friendship (and plot) start to unravel. As an acquaintance of Clarence’s rightly fears for the eventual end result of communal politics, Elvin fears the approaching land reforms. He wants to set up a poultry business to prevent the government seizing his private land in Colombo. In one hilarious scene Elvin insists that the chickens must be raised in Colombo because it will be easier to market them to the wealthier customers if the chickens were raised/slaughtered in a more desirable address i.e. the “snob appeal!” (Gunesekera, 2019, p.199)
The novel reaches its eventual sad conclusion (not revealing this either). Through this friendship that twists and turns with private power struggles, Suncatcher dwells on entrapment and tragic consequences, for human relationships, for a country. The Sri Lanka of 2022 is on the cusp of something that will define us as economic, social, and political forces that have been developing over generations finally reach their critical point. The past informs the present, always. Curiously, the dominant discourse on factors behind our troubles do not often focus on topics such as the lack of industrialization. As the country rises up against the political elites who have failed and entrapped us through decades-long visionless, self-serving decisions, I sincerely hope we find a way out of our tragic present and achieve what has long been denied to us.
References
- Gunesekera, Romesh. (2019). Suncatcher. Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Gunawardena, Devaka, and Ahilan Kadirgamar. (2021). Crisis and Self-Sufficiency: The Left and Its Challenges During the Long 1960s in Sri Lanka. International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Vol. 52, 3–4, 253–282.
