Orson Scott Card in his forward to the Speaker for the Dead said that he, not being a man of science, found that anything from language to religion can make good material for science fiction. In Vachanakramanaya (Verbal Invasion) Nipunajith uses both. His reference material of choice is the Bible and the resulting story makes for an interesting science fiction. It revolves around the theory that language is a virus! And God who confounded the speech of ancient united humanity in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel is an extraterrestrial force. Coming from a Sri Lankan science fiction writer this is heady stuff, but included in two-time State Literary Award winner, Damitha Nipunajith's second collection of science fiction short stories, the ingenuity of Vachanakramanaya comes as no surprise.
Where as his first collection predominantly dealt with the subject of time travel, his second, Kalawakashaye Sirakaruwa (Trapped in Space and Time) deals mostly with evolution, with healthy interludes of alternate realities, manipulations of space-time, alien encounters and bizarre conspiracy theories. And although most of the short stories deal with evolution, each is unique in its own right.
Kalawakashaye Sirakaruwa is replete with lofty scientific hypothesis, from human evolution driven by unchecked sexuality to human complacency brought on by an ever compliant race of robots. Take for example the theory of language as a virus in Vachanakramanaya. 'Language' displays every characteristic of a virus; it multiplies, spreads and changes according to environmental conditions to ensure it's long term survival. It's a sound theory for a science fiction, when you can wrap your head around it.
The stranger in Vachanakramanaya points out to Akalanka that, theoretically, the end result of language evolution should be telepathy. But this has not happened. Our thinking is framed by words and therefore our thinking capacity is inhibited by the limitations imposed by word-based communication. To develop telepathic skills would be to kill language. And it's safe to assume that a virus which would do whatever necessary to ensure it's survival, could even prevent its hosts from developing telepathic abilities.
More original is how Nipunajith analyses the concept of God in Vachanakramanaya. Could 'God' be a concept we created to explain something we couldn't fathom, such as an alien influence on an ancient culture? In the movie 'The Man from Earth', psychiatrist Dr. Will Gruber explains that history hates a vacuum. Referring to religious history, Gruber adds, “Improvisation, some of it very sincere fills most of the gaps...” Vachanakramanaya insinuates that story of the Tower of Babel is just such an allegory. Nipunajith offers an alternate reading of the Tower of Babel, in which 'God' is actually an extraterrestrial force that confounds humanity, that was unified under a common tongue, fearing our next stage of evolutionary development in which we would have mastered telepathy. From aliens to robots, Nipunajith offers different interpretations of the concept of God in this collection.
What's unique about Nipunajith is the Buddhist undertone in some of his short stories. With a Masters in Buddhist Studies under his belt Nipunajith is more than qualified to imbue his science fiction with Buddhist teachings. Through the conversation between Akalanka and the stranger, Nipunajith poses a question pregnant with meaning: Are words the root cause of all conflicts? After all words start wars. The stranger points out the destructive nature of words uttered while one is blinded by emotion. They cannot be taken back. The Buddha's warnings about the dangers of using words unscrupulously is echoed in this passage. Vachanakramanaya is a religious interpretation at a whole new level.
Gaurawaya introduces Nipunajith's own theory of human evolution coupled with alien sightings. It's so simple that one wonders why no other erudite scholars on the subjects thought of it before. Time travel and UFOs are probably two of the most debated phenomena. What's to say that aliens are not time travellers from our own future? Pravadaya (Theorem), as the name suggests, presents another theory of evolution. The uniqueness of the story lies in the writer's perspective; of looking at humans from the perspective of an alien race. It is similar to Asimov's approach to nightfall in the vantage of a race which had never witnessed such a phenomenon thanks to their planet, perpetually illuminated by at least one of six suns.
Nipunajith looks at human evolution, driven by unrestricted sexual desire, in the perspective of an intellectually superior race, represented by Huxley. Huxley's kind live for thousands of years and their sexuality is restricted by their mating cycle. How indulgent would our sexuality seemed to a race where the act of sexual intercourse was necessary only once or twice a year? Probably similarly unimaginable would have been nightfall to Kalgashians of Asimov's 'Nightfall'. Pravadaya ends in a dismal note, despite Huxley having proven his theorem.
Nirmapakayo (Creators) is the most philosophical story in the collection. It is even visionary in that it explores the pitfalls of having an ever compliant race of robots that wait on humans, hand and foot. Everything from food production to their own thinking is done for them by robots. The enthusiasm for exploring new sciences wane and the human race is stuck in stagnant complacency. And when a robot accidentally kills a human and all hell breaks lose, what's to stop robots from retaliating? After all they are technically superior to humans now.
While being a man of science, Nipunajith has a knack for pulling the rug from under your feet in a twist the level of 'Sixth-Sense'. He does this again and again in both collections. Nirmapakayo winds up, suggesting an alternate reading of the Moon-Watcher passage from Clarke's 2001. In fact, Nipunajith is quite adept at giving new definition to sci-fi cult classics. Sebe Kathawa (True Story) is a case in point. It reads like 'Inception' in concise written form; an illusion within an illusion, within another. Sebe Kathawa offers an alternate interpretation of The Matrix and you'll never feel the same way about the blockbuster movie again.
Another piece of advice, never sneak a peek at the end of a story. But to ask not to sneak-peek is sure to make you do it. Nipunajith is adept at finding new avenues for the use of reverse psychology in fiction writing. It is one thing for a character to tell another character not to do something, as Nipunajith did in the title story in his previous collection 'Vismitha Sihina Dakinna', but it's something else to tell the readers not to do something, and to catch yourself off guard, doing it, is exhilarating as well as downright embarrassing.
Sancharaka Niyojithayo (Tourist Representatives) is a story in which beings of a parallel world can experience our world through human tourist representatives with something akin to a mental bluetooth connection. The first representative, the writer cum protagonist, had to be intoxicated to the right degree to qualify for the maiden connection. Nothing will prepare you for the reverse psychology of Sancharaka Niyojithayo or its ending. It is a shame that, what would have been a potent end to the collection, had been wedged in the middle.
The title story, Kalawakashaye Sirakaruwa, is based on a fictitious Sri Lankan folklore, where a demon is trapped in a prison of space time, into which our protagonist Rupasinghe has the misfortune to fall. The prison is meant to trap only living organisms. Anything else that falls in disappears through the floor, reappear from the roof only to disappear through the floor again, at increasing speeds. Once the objects reach a specific speed, they disappear altogether. The prison sort of sieves out inanimate objects through this bizarre roof-floor cycle.
The cycle of inanimate objects dropping from the roof, disappearing through the floor, is uncannily reminiscent of the stairwell scene from Thor: The Dark World. But the title story is anything but cheesy. The genius of the story lies not so much in the storyline, but in the science behind the story that the writer so painstakingly describes. The manner in which Rupasinghe breaks out is a case in point. Nipunajith is somewhat akin to professional science fiction writers like Clarke in his attention to detail.
In fact, the narrative is so descriptive that it is visual. The home-made poster stuck on a lamp post, flapping in the wind, which proclaimed the end of the world in Vyaparaya (The Busines), could have been a scene out of an apocalyptic Hollywood movie. Most of the stories have movie potential that you forget it's in written form, let alone that they are written in Sinhala. Although written in Sinhala, Nipunajith's syntax is somewhat reminiscent of Clarke or Asimov. In fact, it could be easily translated.
Nipunajith's diction although slightly laboured, is peppered with scientific and technical terms, that may have been easier to grasp in English, even for a Sri Lankan. Take for example, 'sisira tharaka ninda' for hibernation. It makes one wonder whether Sri Lankan science fiction writers actually invent such terms. Is there an unspoken glossary of terms for every English sci-fi term invented? Apart from a few punctuations errors and typos, the book as a whole is an easy read.
The writer's endeavour to stick to local settings and characters in this collection, as opposed to his previous collection, has not impeded his story-telling prowess. The writer's accounts of the foreign settings in the few that are set in foreign environments are convincing, the only thing out of place being the Sinhala it is narrated in. While admitting the difficulty of localizing science fiction, stories like Pravadaya and Vyaparaya, with their foreign settings and the synthetic dialogues, run the risk of being mistaken for poor translations of good science fiction. But, the key word here is 'good'. As the plot start to grow on you, the artificial nature of dialogues ceases to bother.
The collection offers no earth shattering theories, advanced physics or chemistry. It's not rocket science, but can be enjoyed by any lay sci-fi enthusiast. In fact, his story-telling genius is explicit in the manner in which he redeems himself from having to explain phenomena that human technology, culture nor the mind can grasp. Nipunajith doesn't go to great lengths to explain how an alien race produces warm underwear using the skins of other species in Vyaparaya or the physics behind the space-time prison in Kalawakashaye Sirakaruwa. He leaves much to imagination. But the lack of scientific explanation does not make the stories any less appealing.