Features
Recollections of two past Aprils
“Take care of your memories, for you cannot relive them.”Bob Dylan
A little girl living very close to her school in Katukelle, Kandy, has her sheltered life with mother and two sisters and brother, disrupted. Air raid sirens sounded more frequently making us creep under beds or, if in school, under desks with pencils held between clenched teeth. Food was rationed, but who cared. We kids got chewing gum by hailing with our first two fingers in a V, passing trucks of soldiers, who often threw even a chocolate or two, to us. The Japanese were advancing to India and Ceylon, hence the decision to close house and move to my newly married sister’s home in a hamlet off Katugastota. My brother-in-law and she lived with his sister who had a family of three daughters and son, matching in ages our family members. Hospitality was extra generous during WWII when families left big cities to move to remoter areas.
Aluth Avuruddha of long ago”
Festivals are life’s way of giving us a reason to smile” and “Joy multiplies when shared with friends and family.”
This Avurudhu national festival celebrated by Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils is a raucous, joyous event lasting a week of fire crackers bursting, raban playing, games, pervasive smell of rich cooking, good eating and of course imbibing too. Rites, rituals and customs handed down the ages were strictly observed. Religion too came in with the punya kaalaya, when we trooped to temple. We kids reveled in the nonagathes which then lasted many hours with the kitchen fires out until the auspicious time for cooking the first meal.
We loved it since we had buns and such like and of course the prepared kavun, kokis, athiraha, aluwa and unduvel. No rice and curry – that eternal meal served twice a day, often thrice. Children were given prime place, catered to with a swing raised on a sturdy branch in home gardens, complete freedom to play all day, gorge on jambu with salt, and gifted money and new clothes on the day itself.
We had all these and more – living congenially with another family in a village – that April of 1944. Colombo had been lightly bombed on April 5, 1942, which was Easter Sunday, but saved by the vigilance of a pilot who noticed a fleet of planes approaching and alerted ground forces: hugely mixed British, Canadian, turbaned Indians and feared African Blacks. During that New Year of 1944, we kids cared not a hoot. Our time, limbs, energy and joyful minds were busy in a little wattle and plaited coconut leaf roofed playhouse that Ran Banda had built for us. He had strung the rope onchillawa for us on a sturdy mango tree branch and took us to the kamatha to gape at the huge kathuru onchillawa or frail looking carousel, made of slit poles from an arecanut palm, tied with coir rope, that moved round perpendicularly when an axle was hand turned,.
Ran Banda is also a never forgotten memory. We thought he was a constant daytime visitor to the home of my relative because of us kids. Not so. It dawned on me when I got older and spied on my sisters and detected their secret romances that attraction is ignited between boy and girl in their late teens. Ram Banda was nattily dressed there in his sarong and daily new shirt to preen before the four grown girls of the household (my two sisters and my B-i-L’s two nieces). He strutted before them, chatted when possible, and then one day when one of them asked for jambu, he rolled his sleeves exhibiting his biceps, folded his sarong and tucked the bottom edge into his waist. Then he slowing swung up the tree, his eyes mostly on my third sister.
He plucked a few bunches and dropped them to be caught by the giggling girls. Then – crash, bang, alagazam! Shower of jambu fruits, twigs, leaves and RB himself! There descended his sarong on my third sister, entirely enveloping her. A rapid thumping of feet and a runner, naked from the waist down, disappeared out of sight. We young ones turned on the elder sisters and scolded and beat them with our fists for laughing at our lion hearted champion – Ran Banda.
Victory in Europe VE was on May 8, 1945, followed by Japan’s defeat – VJ – August 14.
We were back in Kandy long before these dates and back at school after a long vacation occasioned by me when plans were afoot to board me. I vomited, turned pale and so I stayed in our temporary home while my brother trudged and bused it to Trinity College when schools reopened.
An Illness and an Uprising
“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.” Peter A. Levine
Husband and I were standing in queues on that 4th day of April, 1971. My elder son had a temperature, diagnosed as flu by our family doctor. We were gathering food stuff and groceries to tide over New Year and more, over the threat posed by disquieting news reportage, clouding the bright sunlit sky with nebulous, menacing dark clouds.
Then came running my domestic to say my son had red marks on him. Rushed home and to a medical student three doors away. Not mere flu, he said. Serious, he said, enter him to Lady Ridgeway. We called Dr Perera who arranged for us to enter the boy to Sulaiman’s Nursing Home with the reputation of curing all patients so no was taken out feet first.
On April 5, 1971, the insurrection by the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) struck full force through simultaneous attacks on police stations. By then son and I were safe in the private hospital, but very concerned. His red patches – capillary bleeding – disappeared but he was suffering severe headaches and running a high temperature. I had left my three year old second son to my domestic, but a nephew came to tide over the foodless days of chaos from his hostel and that was comfort. Curfew was at 3.00 pm to 6.00 am the following day for long. I felt so like a pebble washed on a bank, temporarily safe as the river of events rushed past, thunderous and tumultuous. I was completely cut away from life outside – of mayhem, murder and government killings of so very many young men and women.
Dr Stella de Silva (bless her though long gone from this life) got my son back to sitting up, playing and reading, enjoying having his mother to himself 24/7. Dr. would arrive after 2.00 pm and sit seemingly oblivious of time, playing soldiers with her patient or getting him to relate stories. Once I just could not contain my worry: Doctor, its close upon three. But I must get this child well, she replied.
Three women doctors very generously befriended me. One I had already known as a school girl, one other was Manorani Saravanamuttu. After more than a fortnight, husband asked Dr Stella whether we could take my son home. Is it economics that’s bothering you, Doctor queried. When we assured her we could pay bills she commented with a pithy Sinhala saying which translated means: why give ladders to jumping monkeys? Spent three whole weeks at Sulaiman’s and my son was completely cured.
Rumoured stories kept us entertained. A young doctor who wore very short skirts covered over with her doctor’s coat was out when stopped by a vigilant army patrol; reputed to be trigger happy at the slightest hint of danger. They ordered her: Hands up! One hand up, the other tugging her brief skirt down. Realizing this, the soldier roared: Both hands up or we shoot.
Dr Darrel Weinman was a visiting neurosurgeon at Sulaiman’s. Leaving almost at 3.00 he was stopped and the routine of hands up ensued. Then: identify yourself. He replied “neurosurgeon” which transferred itself to ‘insurgent’ to the nervy, Sinhala speaking army man. The doctor narrowly escaped being shot. Or so we were told.
Returning home, life still not ordinary, the most unforgettable sight – disgusting and disappointing – was seen while grocery shopping in the basement store in Liberty Plaza. A cricket captain and wife were each toting two huge trolleys of goods – a dozen bots of fruit drink etc. Are they partying while Ceylon is in the throes of massacre, carnage and chaos? I almost shouted at them.
All this is of the past. The present is hope-giving. Nan wishes all her readers a joyful season of togetherness and celebration.