On “Devi”

"He said that he wanted to convey few political messages about why he thought Sri Lanka had to face three armed uprisings after independence. He had his own interpretation of peace. He said that humanity is a flux undergoing continuous change. "
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( June 07, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) On 19th May 2009, Dr. Thrishantha Nanayakkara launched a book titled “Devi” at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, USA. During the book launch ceremony, Thrishantha was asked many interesting questions.

One asked what motivated him to write this novel and why it was titled “Devi”. First he said the story is about the life of a team of researchers from different ethnic groups in Sri Lanka who first volunteer in the humanitarian relief work during the 2004 Tsunami. The tragic experience during the Tsunami make them venture into a scientific project to develop a robotic fish that can live in the sea, learn from its own experiences, and communicate important information about marine conditions to humans. The team comes up with new scientific methods to develop a robotic mind. They name the intelligent robot DEVI to respect an ancient Queen Viharamaha Devi who dared to sail into the sea during a Tsunami in the 2nd century B.C.

He also said that he wanted to convey few political messages about why he thought Sri Lanka had to face three armed uprisings after independence. He had his own interpretation of peace. He said that humanity is a flux undergoing continuous change. Due to independent parallel strings of change that tend to bump onto each other, frictions among ideologies can not be avoided even if they are brought to agree among each other momentarily. Therefore, peace breaks within people and among people all the time. What can exist though, is an atmosphere where harmonious change can take place. Then he went on to say that change is the only process that can not be changed. Harmonious change is a gradual change or an evolutionary change that can take place through democratic processes such as dialog and negotiation. However, if we try to freeze these processes, change occurs through revolutionary means. He viewed the Tsunami as one such example, where two earth plates snapped suddenly releasing a massive chunk of energy that took many lives.

He suspected that the three armed uprisings that Sri Lanka had to face could have been due to negligence by the political leadership in the previous generations to sponsor a productive dialog among the stakeholders of various social currents that was set free after independence from Britain. He noted that though Sri Lanka is a small country of the size of West Virginia, it has been home to 20 million people, which is equal to the Canadian population, and that there are diverse communities with diverse economic and social aspirations. Even the climate is diverse he said. One could drive from summer to spring within three hours. This diversity extended even to marine life around Sri Lanka. He went on to say that this diversity is something one can not kill. Three European colonialists-Portuguese, Dutch, and British ruled Sri Lanka from 1505. Unlike some other colonies that lost their mother tongue to embrace the language of the colonialists, Sri Lankans continued to speak Sinhalese and Tamil. Their regional cultures and religions survived the Western colonial Tsunami. However, Sri Lankans extracted what they thought was good from the West. They embraced democracy, for example. Therefore, it is worth studying Sri Lanka. However, he said that some elected leaders who didn’t have a good sense of what Sri Lanka was, went on to undervalue her strong social dynamics. They sometimes blindly followed the colonial masters and practiced patchwork democracy in Sri Lanka. They over-estimated the simplistic assumptions of the elite class in Colombo and under-estimated the powerful currents of those who lived outside Colombo. The result, he said was three social tsunamis in the form of terrorism. The last tsunami killed many educated and vocal Tamils. It was about to complete a vicious cycle of victimization that could have led Sri Lanka to become a colony again.

Then he was asked as to why he gives a special place to Buddhist philosophy and why he makes the characters in the book make radical statements like “happiness and peace originates in one’s mind not from physical things outside us. If the mind is aware of the dynamics of natural laws of impermanence, it will withstand shocks and maintain permanent happiness.” Thrishantha said, the book discusses these principles in detail especially when the scientists plan to develop an artificial mind for the robotic fish, and when they discuss with mediators in caves. If people and rulers practice Buddhism as a philosophy, and follows the path of “Seela”, “Samadhi”, “Pragnya”, the country will begin to develop the atmosphere needed for continuous harmonious change, and it would again enjoy the scientific and philosophical glory that ancient kings like “Kashyapa” or “Parakramabahu the great” used to enjoy. Now people are too restless. People jump at short term benefits, or get too excited by temporary outburst of joy, without realizing that permanent happiness is something different.

When asked if this is the first time he wrote anything other than scientific literature, he said that he had the habit of writing from childhood. “I grew up in Galle, a port city in the South. We used to go down to the beach or the old Dutch fort in Galle to get our feet wet and watch the glorious sun set. The breeze of the Indian Ocean made most of my vision for life. Naturally I wrote short stories even as a child. But I never thought of publishing. But after the tsunami, after I witnessed the war in Sri Lanka, after I saw how colonial remnants keep on eating my country from inside her, I thought I should sit down to write to publish.”

When asked how Harvard environment contributed, he said “it was an invaluable contribution words can not explain. Harvard community and the Radcliffe Institute that has been home to me for these two years exposed me to amazing people who dare to question virtually everything in this universe. You might bump on to people who is in the process of challenging Einstein’s theories, or those who question the post world war II conventions, mechanisms to protect human rights, those who keep tuning American ideals and dreams, etc. You meet people who aspire to change the path of human civilization and those who try to understand why humans started to walk on two legs, or why the human brain works as it does, etc. Sometimes you will sit next to somebody who plans to launch the next business revolution. Needless to say, eight American presidents and numerous multi-billionaires studied here. This environment wakes up all your inner strengths. So, this environment of free exploration made a huge impact on my life. It was compounded by the opportunity I got to collaborate with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.” Thishantha said, in essence, “This book would have been a different one if I didn’t feel this freedom. I want all Sri Lankan academics to feel that zero gravity experience on Sri Lankan soil. It is one of my dreams. Unfortunately many colonial remnants in the system keep on haunting them. For instance, even if you have brought research funds to the university, you have to get three quotations to buy even simple things like computers, motors, or a circuit component. Somebody else decides what you should use in your circuit. You can not do research like that. It is not an exercise of cost minimization alone. Time and freedom matters more. These are not very important in a colonial setting. And, if you want to go for a meeting abroad, you have to fill several forms and wait till it goes all the way through the head of department, Dean of the faculty, Vice Chancellor, upto the Prime Minister!! And you can not leave till the approval falls down through this long line of command. But here, we just send an email to somebody in the administration, and just take the next flight to attend the meeting.”

He concluded by saying that various readers will see different things in this book. Some might see this as a science fiction, some others as a book on Buddhist philosophy, a book on the future of artificial intelligence, a book on academic life in Sri Lanka, a book on the tsunami and my experience, a book on politics in Sri Lanka disguised in a science fiction, a book of natural beauty and society of Sri Lanka, or even as my autobiography. He said, what he wrapped in all these stories will remain secret to himself. But he said few readers may read his mind.

The book can be bought from the publisher, Linus Publications at: (Click here)

Or from amazon.com at : (Click here)

About the author: Thrishantha was born and raised in Galle, a Southern port city near the famous Unawatuna beach in Sri Lanka. Richmond College, Galle, was home for his primary and secondary education. He secured a bachelor degree in electrical engineering from the University of Moratuwa in 1996 and moved to Japan for graduate studies on a Japanese Government Monbusho Fulbright scholarship. He spent nearly six years dipping himself in this unique far eastern culture and the academic environment. After obtaining a masters degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Systems Control from Saga University, he became a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 2001. This was his first exposure to America. After an exciting spell of scientific work with Professor Reza Shadmehr, he accepted a faculty position (senior lecturer) in the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2003. This move back to Sri Lanka was mainly motivated by the ceasefire entered into by the Government and the Tamil Tigers in 2002. He set up a laboratory to study how light weight field robots can work in concert with rodents like mongooses to detect anti-personal landmines in the North and the East of Sri Lanka. He won the merit award for outstanding researcher from the University of Moratuwa in 2005 for his pioneering scientific work in the above area. However, he had to leave Sri Lanka in 2007. At present, he is a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, research affiliate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a lecturer at Kings College, University of London. He is co-sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Harvard Committee on Human Rights.

-Sri Lanka Guardian