by Malinda Seneviratne
There are two things that children do that for some reason I never felt inclined to try: making kites and Vesak koodu. My brother was a kite fanatic and when the season came around, our house would be cluttered with tissue paper of all colours, thread, iratu and bata. I loved watching him fly his kites. He was not too keen on Vesak koodu either and the only Vesak kooduwa that ever adorned our house was one which Ajith Aiya next door very kindly made for us.

Vesak lanterns, pahan koodu to anyone living in this island, always fascinated me. The colours, the shapes, the elaborate structures, attention to detail in decoration and creative lighting always imparted a magic that was unique. The "Vesak lights" never made me think of Vesak pandals. It was always Vesak koodu.

Today, like many things, even vesak has suffered a certain commercial brushing. The crowds, the noise, the traffic jams and other things besides I find to be suffocating. And yet, there are occasions when a chance glance in a random direction reveals a single kooduwa, gently easing out its light and its charm through a clump of trees, and all the serenity, the magic and in many ways, the innocence of that time which is timeless comes back to me.

I never made vesak koodu, so the joys associated with creation are foreign to me. And I would venture to add that the labour that is caressed into the more elaborate forms is something that was alien to me. I just didn’t know. Until today. Until I spoke with a quiet young man named Vidyartha K. Indradeepa Yagachandra.

Indradeepa makes Vesak koodu. That doesn’t make him special. He makes vesak koodu that win awards for excellence. That’s "special" in my book. But what makes the boy exceptional is the fact that most of the prizes he has won have been for creations made of traditional raw materials.

His kooduwa was placed first in this year’s "Bauddhaloka 2003" competition. That award is actually the latest in a long list of awards he has secured over the past six years or so. He has won the Lake House competition, the Town Hall competition, and others as well. Far more interesting than the awards is of course his story.

Indradeepa hails from a family which valued art and creative expression in general. His father had been the Director of Education (Art), Western Province. "I first started making pahan koodu as a child. Of course back then I used the very basic materials. Even in the earliest competitions I participated in, I did not use traditional material. There was a pair of brothers in my village, Devamottawa in Andiambalama. Sarana Aiya and Sarala Aiya gave me much encouragement."

His interest in indigenous material had developed over time as he came across exponents of that particular form. Since the year 2000, Indradeepa has dealt solely with traditional material. It had been a conscious decision on his part to celebrate what is intrinsically "ours". He often lists by his pahan kooduwa the raw materials used, along with specimen. And so, by the side of the Bauddhaloka 2003 kooduwa, a list read, "nava patti, puskola, matalu, pol kola, habarala kola, kaduru, lanu, naga darana eta, ging pol, dorana thel, and kithul rehen". The use of natural materials has philosophical meaning to the artist. "Buddhism, to me, is an environment-friendly doctrine. This fact I try to exemplify in my creations."

"Many of these have been used by others before me. Some limit them to a few of these raw materials. I try to do something new with it. I usually develop a collection over the year. What is important is not the number, but the ability to find the best ways in which they can be blended."

What we see is the finished product. What most miss is the fact that while the actual construction takes several months, the entire process takes much longer. "I find myself constantly looking out for new material, be it the bark of a tree, a leaf, a pigment or a finishing oil. I would, for example, find an interesting looking leaf. I would then experiment with it, boiling it, drying it, ironing it etc., to find the best way of processing it for the final production."

All the ketayam one finds in Indradeepa’s koodu are elaborate carvings on either puskola or matalu. "Puskola is of cultural significance. We have access to seventy five per cent of Buddhism due to puskola." Preparing the puskola, according to Indradeepa is easier than actually carving on it. Even a practiced hand takes a long time because of the delicate character of the material. It is the same with the other raw materials. Painstakingly experimented with, prepared to perfection and employed with finesse, the process is a labour of love. "Nava patta" has to be allowed to decay in water for one and a half months. The process produces a foul odour. Pol matalu have to be washed and polished. The habarala leaf is placed between several layers of newspapers and ironed. Not all raw materials are collected. Some are purchased from local beheth kada and traditional artists.

For Indradeepa, the Aloka Pooja or the "light offering" is not merely a religious ritual, it is a meditation. And the meditation does not begin with the ceremonious opening of the kooduwa, but at the first stage, that of collecting the ingredients. "Today one finds many rotating koodu, but most of mine are stationary. I have seen people stand before my creations for half an hour, transfixed in meditation. This is the kind of response I want to provoke. While being a celebration of our traditional raw materials, art forms and aesthetic sensibility, a Buddhist story must also be told, a message must exude from the whole and its parts."

"I find immense beauty, cultural value and religious and philosophical sense in these materials. I do not copy mindlessly, but am wont to pick up a traditional motif and work with it, creating something new. And example would be the ‘binara mala’ which is a Sinhala decorative motif. I have not used a Buddha statue or a Dharma Chakra, but I work in these symbols in subtle ways."

Indradeepa explains that once the idea takes root, its implementation is planned carefully. Indeed, he has the patience, self-confidence and a certain striving for perfection so characteristic of an artist of the superior kind, and this is evident in his work. Every line, every motif, even the pathways that the ray of light is to travel, is thought out before hand.

This man of exceptional talent is a final year student at the University of Kelaniya, where he studies Fine Arts. Unlike many undergraduates I have had the opportunity to meet, he does not seem to have lost his sense of identity. He knows and appreciates his roots, not least of all because they are what nourishes his art and his thinking. He knows the value of history and of personality. "I am deeply appreciative of my friends and relatives in Dewamottawa. And also my friends in Kelaniya, especially those in the Fine Arts Department, the Buddhist Students Association and the Vidulakara Sisu Parapura who want to restore the university to its former glory, to recover ‘Vidyalankara’ from ‘Kelaniya’. I could not have done any of these things had it not been for my teachers and mentors, Ms. Adhikaram, Ms. Chandani, Ruwan Padmaperuma, Siri Kumarasinghe and Sampath Delgoda. And of course my parents, brother and sister. I don’t do this alone. Many friends help me. The togetherness is as much a contributory factor as the labour, the ideas and the material. I am appreciative."

And he is not finished. "This is a year long process actually. Finding and experimenting with new material I now do by force of habit. I am constantly on the look out for new ideas, new forms of expression, new elaboration, extrapolation based on known and familiar things. I want to move from the celebration of the indigene and the indigenous to a conscious engagement with the dhamma."

From the picking of a random leaf to applying a "finish" of dorana thel, Indradeepa’s commitment to his art form and his endless search for novelty and perfection is powered by a deep faith in the Buddha vachanaya. The pahan kooduwa is perhaps his way of appreciating what the doctrine has given him and how it has sustained him. We are, I feel, the chance recipients of the merit that has come his way in overflowing proportion. It has been a gentle mix of colour and light. In concert with the Buddha’s teaching. And so soft on the senses that it is infinitely nourishing.