Ashok Ferrey's comments on "Maleeshya"

Hi all,

Here are some of the interesting comments that Ashok Ferrey made about his writing when he met us on February 20th. They will be useful for those who are interested in answering the question on "Maleeshya"

(Thanks Erandi for the photograph!)


“Satire is very powerful….. in the story I shoot from the hip.”

“I am a total coward. I use humour as a disguise. The funniest stories are the blackest. This is my way of writing in the Sri Lankan reality – we’re all connected to each other…..”

“Writing a story is like an onion. I have an idea in a kernel, then add a layer on, and another layer on….”

“As a mathematician, I love codes, patterns, little secrets…. I don’t give clues. You either get it or you don’t. [This is articularly so] in The Good Little Ceylonese Girl. It’s more indirect than Colpetty People.”

“ “Maleeshya” is the most complicated story in the collection… I wanted to write about the press, the power of the written word. Also, by then I had also come to some sort of prominence [in society, following the first collection of stories], and there was a public persona and the private person. I see the two things as entirely separate. [For example] when I say “The Wife”, in caps, in my stories, she is a persona, not my real wife….

“So “Maleeshya” is about the persona of the public writer vs the private person, how the press creates the public persona. This is a 21st century phenomenon, especially for writers. We Photoshop, we create a ‘persona’ out of ourselves. This has an insidious effect on the person. You become obsessed by creating an image of yourself. This is the Hollywoodisation of life – a case of life imitating art. The media –- magazines and TV -- manipulate the image.”

“ “Maleeshya” is about a fight going on between the real author and the persona created by the magazine. [At the same time,] the real author is not perfect – he is vain.”

“Maleeshya is indeed too black. She is an anti-hero, but she does have redeeming qualities.”

“I was advised to take “Maleeshya” out of the collection – some people thought it was too wicked, too savage. But why not? Life is savage!”

“The character of Maleeshya is based on the editor of the Hi magazine. When I showed her the story, her only criticism was that it was “not wicked enough”!”