August 6th

August 6th 2011 is only a few days away, and it marks the 56th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the same day in 1945. As if that was not enough, three days later, on August 9th, the US atom-bombed Nagasaki as well with the same devastating results. The Hiroshima bomb was crudely and thoughtlessly referred to as ‘Little Boy’ and the Nagasaki bomb as ‘Fat Man’ as if the whole thing was some kind of joke or as if the consequences of these actions would somehow diminish if the instruments of destruction christened with cartoonist names. Up to now, these two cities are the only examples of self-conscious savagery perpetrated through the use of atomic technology on civilian populations.

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome, 1945

In the first eight weeks to four months of the bombings, the direct results of the explosions as well as radiation ensured the violent deaths of 90,000 - 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki. All these are now statistics more or less accepted. The actual necessity to use this kind of technology to halt the Second World War in the pacific theatre by ensuring Japan’s surrender remains a debate that has not been settled.

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome,
Today

I was born on the same day 17 years later in another place and in another time in far less significant circumstances; but my parents and teachers ensured that I always knew what happened on that same day in 1945 in a country that I hardly knew at the time. I guess formal education and common sense was far more attuned to the affairs of the world and its pains at that time.

Japanese dramatist Hisashi Inoue’s character Takeso Fukuyoshi in the play Face of Jizo (父と暮せば - Chichi to Kuraseba) is the ghost of a victim of the Hiroshima bombing who returns to his old home to somehow placate the problems of guilt over survival that his daughter Mituse Fukuyoshi who survived the bombing has in her mind. Due to her sense of guilt, she had also exiled feelings of love and passion to remote corners of her conscience. She herself suffers from radiation sickness, despite survival. At one point, Takeso attempts to teach his daughter how to narrate a story to little children that would capture their interest and imagination while also bringing to their attention the devastation of the bombing. In one of his relatively long but memorable monologues as the ‘Little One Inch-High Warrior of Hiroshima,’ he remarks:

“Having found himself inside the red ogre’s belly, the Little One Inch-High Warrior of Hiroshima pushes the tile from the bomb zone hard against the ogre’s lower tummy and says, “Hey, ogre! Unplug your ears of all your wax and listen to me! In my hand I have a tile that was burnt by the atom bomb in Hiroshima. You know that an atom bomb was detonated at the height of 580 meters above Hiroshima in the morning, on that day. One second after that there was a fireball with a temperature of 12, 000 degrees centigrade. Hey, get that? 12, 000 degrees. The surface temperature of the Sun is 6000 degrees, so that day the sky was lit up with two suns floating there at 580 meters above the ground. That’s two Suns, for one second then another, side by side, up in the sky. Everything on the ground, the people and the birds and the bugs, the fish, the buildings and the big stone lanterns, it all melted in a flash. Every single thing under the sun bubbled, foamed and melted. Roof tiles melted too. Then the atomic blast itself arrived. At 350 meters a second, an atomic blast is faster than the speed of sound. The melted tiles were blasted too, and they grew little needles which cooled into jagged thorns like sharp little icicles, like the blades of a grater or iron spikes. With these terrifying spikes I am goanna grate your liver into slivers of pulp! Grate and grate and gate and grate….”

My Sinhala ‘translation’ of the English version (by Roger Pulvers) reads as follows:

රතු රකුසගේ බඩ ගෙඩිය ඇතුළට පැනගත්තට පස්සේ හිරොෂිමාවේ අඟලක් උස පුංචි රණවිරුවා බොම්බෙ වැටුණු පලාතෙන් අහුලා ගත්තු උළු කැටයකින් රාස්සයාගේ බණ්ඩියේ පහළ කොටසට හොදට වැරෙන් ඇනලා ඇහුවා මෙන්න මෙහෙම: ‘‘ ඕයිි, රාස්ස පප්පේ !  ඔය කන්දෙකෙන් බේරෙන කුණු අයින් කොරං අහගන්නවා මං කියන දේ හොඳින් ! මගේ අතේ තියෙනවා හිරොෂිමාවට න්‍යෂ්ටික බෝම්බේ දාපු වෙලේ පිච්චිලා උනුවෙලා කැරකිලා ගිය උළු කෑල්ලක්. තෝ දන්නවද, එදා උදේ හිරොෂිමාවට මීටර් 580 ක් ඉහළ ආකාසේ න්‍යෂ්ටික බෝම්බයක් පුපුරා ඇරපු විත්තිය? ඊට තප්පරේකට පස්සේ අවිලූණා ආකාසේ මහා ගිනි බෝලයක්. එකේ රස්නේ සෙන්ටිග්‍රෙඞ් අංශක 12,000 ක්. තේරුණාද ඒක? විහිලූවක් නෙමේ මේක. අංශක 12,000 ක්. හැමදාම පායන ඉරෙත් මතුපිට උෂ්ණය අංශක 6,000 ක් විතරයි. ඉතින්  ඕයි, එදා දවසේ පොලොවේ ඉදං මීටර් 580 ක් උඩ ආකාසේ පත්තු වුණා ඉරවල් දෙකක්ම. අමතක කරන්නෙපා, ඉරවල් දෙකක්; ඉස්සෙල්ලා එකක්, ඊට තප්පරේකට පස්සේ තවත් එකක් ළඟ ළඟම පත්තු වුණා මුළු ආකාසෙම එළිය කරගෙන. මිනිස්සුයි, කුරුල්ලොයි, කුරුමිනියොයි, මාළුයි, ගොඩනැගිලියි, අර විශාල ගල් ලන්තෑරුම් කුලූණුයි, කොටින්ම කියනවා නම් පොලොවේ තිබ්ච්ච හැම හත්ඉලව්වක්ම එක මොහොතෙන් උණු වෙලා ගියා. ඉරට පහළින් තිබුන හැම දෙයක්ම බුබුළු දාලා පෙන දාලා උණුවෙලා දියවෙලා ගියා. ඒ රස්නේට පස්සේ තමයි න්‍යෂටික පිපිරිල්ල ආවේ. තප්පරේකට මීටර් 350 ක වේගෙන් ගමන් කරපු ඒ පිපිරිල්ල සද්දේ වේගයටත් වැඩිය වේගවත්. දිය වෙච්ච උළු කැටත් පිපිරිලා ගියා. ඒවායින් පුංචි ඉදිකටු මතු වුනා. ඒවා හීතල වෙන කොට උල් වෙච්ච කටු බවට පත් වුණා ඉබේටම. ඒවැයි තිබ්බේ පුදුම මුවහතක්. හරියට ඇඹරුම් මැෂිමක තල වගේ. නැත්තං යකඩ උල් වගේ. මේ අති භයානක උල්වලින් තොගේ කැවුත්තට ඇනලා, කපලා, කොටලා මං ඒක සම්බල් කොරනවා. කෑලි කෑලි කෑලිවලට කපලා කපලා කපලා දානවා !’’

This is not the time to discuss the assumptions, the logic and the method of my translation. Though clearly an exaggerated performance with some comic elements, Inoue’s words above narrated through the voice of Takeso are anything but an exaggeration or a joke.  These words came to me as 6th August 2011 approached partly because I was keenly interested in translating Inoue’s play into Sinhala which I had read at least three times and had deeply touched me. 

Additional Panels, Maruki Museum - July 2011

They also came to me after visiting the Maruki Museum in Saitama in early July with my students. The Maruki Museum is well known for what is known as the Hiroshima Panels. The panels consist of 15 painted foldable panels (1.8 meters x 7.2 meters each) painted by Maruki Iro and Maruki Toshi over a period of 32 years, from 1950 to 1982. The two artists also lost family members in the Hiroshima bombing. The panels are now housed in what used to be the couple’s home and studio. In addition to the Hiroshima panels, the collection also houses some artifacts of the devastation of Hiroshima collected by the two artists and some other panels of 20th century human cruelty such as the Rape of Nanking by the Imperial Japanese Army (1937–1938), Nazi Germany’s Jewish concentration camps among others. These are not works of art meant to generate pleasure; they are supposed to nudge people to remember, ponder, reflect and be disturbed so that events such as these are not lost in social amnesia. At least, that seems to have been the idea of the artists (Click Here for Hiroshima Panels - Maruki Museum).



'Atomic Desert' by Maruki Iro and Maruki Toshi - Hiroshima Panels

I must confess I was very sad the moment I saw the collection; that was not because of the graphic, dark and extremely painful subject matter with images of aimlessly wandering people, death and destruction unmistakably linked to vagaries of war. I was sad because of the emptiness of the place due to the very low numbers of people who came to see the collection, which was simply one hour or so from Tokyo by train. But access was not too convenient as one also had to take a ten minute taxi drive from the nearest station which was not exactly the centre of the universe. In addition to my group which included five people, there were only two other elderly visitors on that day.

Hiroshima Panels, Maruki Museum - July 2011

The woman at the reception said that at the best of times, the Collection attracted 15, 000 visitors a year, which was still a mere 41 people a day. But she also noted that since recent times, the numbers had dwindled significantly, and on some days absolutely no one came. They were finding it very difficult to maintain the place attested by the dust seen in some places and the lack of air-conditioning that was also affecting the artworks. Even if schoolchildren came sometimes with their teachers, these tended to be mostly from private schools; public schools apparently showed no serious interest. I was wandering if the memory of Hiroshima itself was disintegrating even though it is one of the most painful events of recent Japanese and global history. Of course in Hiroshima itself and in Nagasaki too, as memorials have now become institutionalized calendar events, public memory seems to be intact. But I wonder what would be the situation even in these places, if the institutional aspects of memory were not in place. Will individuals still remember or care once the direct victims of the bombing and their immediate kith and kin are gone? Would anyone care beyond the narratives of a handful of ritualized memory? Will erasure completely take over as it often does in almost all situations? I am not suggesting that people should be endlessly bound to and imprisoned in the past and should with live with its pains, burdens and anxieties.

Hiroshima Panels, Maruki Museum - July 2011

But if the current state of the Maruki Musem is any indication, it seems that much of the present generations living in Tokyo and Saitama prefectures and beyond, have already succumbed to a certain sense of amnesia. And if the lack of interest of public schools in the collection is any indication, then formal education that obviously lacks creative reassessment of the past is one of the culprits. Naturally, young people should enjoy life to the fullest, even in these post-Fukushima times. After all, one cannot simply be too worried about the possibility of radiation in the air if one were to live a relatively complete life in these times. Young people should spend hordes of yen on fashion, sake, rock concerts and endless consumption in general; surely, they should go to Shibuya and get drunk and spend the night in the streets if that is what makes them happy; and it certainly does no harm to others. But if that is all they do and if they sever their links to the past so completely, dismantle their conscience so fully, and have no real sense of history, then they would simply become a generation that is lost with only a generic sense of self-identity. They would have no capacity to learn from the past; they might have knowledge from formal systems of unimaginative schooling devoid of wisdom and compassion. They would be the forbearers of brave new world that is already here which would be unimaginably sterile and equally as dangerous.

That is what I am sad about; and I wish that people would learn from history.