The search for roots is the central theme in Martin Wickramasinghe’s writings on the culture and life of the people of Sri Lanka. He imaginatively explored and applied modern knowledge in natural and social sciences, literature, linguistics, the arts, philosophy, education, and Buddhism and comparative religion to reach beyond the superficial emotionalism of vulgar nationalism, and guide us to the enduring roots of our common national identity that exists in the folklife and folk culture of Sri Lanka...
Martin Wickramasinghe’s vision was primarily nurtured in the tolerant, humane, realistic attitude to life traditional to Buddhist folk culture. He valued the intellectual freedom and independence inspired by the Buddha’s ‘Kalama Sutta’ which he saw as a tradition to question tradition, not unlike the Western scientific attitude. Through his writings, he consistently opposed dogmatism, casuistry, elitism, and oppression in any form, be it cultural, religious, political or social.
His works have been translated and published in English, Hindi, Tamil, Russian, Chinese, Romanian, Dutch, German, French and Japanese languages.
Soon after reading the Gamperilya Trilogy I wanted so much to read the biography of the great author himself, and getting my hands on Upan da sita was not a mistake. It is penned by Martin Wickramsighe himself, and reading this was like peeking a glance at his insecurities, his obsession with reading, his childhood, various thoughts that ran though his mind , his views on this world, politics, how he found inspiration to write all his world renowned books, this book did not disappoint me in the least bit!
Book is separated into Childhood-Young life-Mid life, but he does not follow a strict chronological order. His thoughts and observations are scattered all over the book and he rarely says much of his own personal life, specially about his feelings he had towards his wife, he rarely mentions anything about his married life either.
From being born in Koggala, to a middle class family, he was lucky to have had a very good education in Sinhala and English language in spite of his father's sudden death and his family's intense poverty. Martin Wickramsinghe was someone who read books immensely, with a brief period in reading young adult books to reading about Charles's Darwin's theory of evolution, to a serious interest on reading about animal life, his reading interest varies a lot. He used many real life characters he has seen in his life, in his own stories.
What I felt from the book was that his life revolved around what he gathered from reading and observations of real life people, he went against politics at work, during his tenures at dinamina , silumina and Lakmina. He never wrote hate speech or wrote any serious political articles as was instructed , instead he was an independent writer free of attachments to a religion or a nationality.
He put down talks about religious segregation or political views, and would never write an article that would benefit any political party. This integrity on his part need to be admired.
He was a person who spent nearly half of his life, exhausted, doing business that never earned him a penny and working in newspaper media writing stories he didn't have much interest in. I felt that his own form of enjoyment was writing books , using real life as an inspiration, and, for him to find his passion took him some time, but he arrived at it finally. So I guess we are never too old to find our passion in life, and make it our occupation. Towards the end of the book, he speaks a bit of his depression as well, which might have stemmed from his exhaustive past , when he was engaged in doing business.
In conclusion, this book was a 80% detailed review of all the of books he has read throughout his lifetime, and 20% of himself and I enjoyed this book immensely.