My parents were born and brought up in Paddukka. A calm pastoral locale, with hidden streams and sudden hillocks on unsuspecting pathways. I have always loved visiting the old ‘maha gedara’ of my maternal Gran that stood grand and Dutch across a white picket fence adorned with a colorful spray of periwinkles. Its compound would just stretch deeper and deeper, backing the old colonial house until it subdued and edged itself to a gleaming green paddy field, which once belonged to Gran herself. The extensive carpet of grass shielded by Coconut trees, ambarella trees, Mango trees, and the giant kottang tree (Almond) felt giddy to the touch of my heel with its cushioned texture, fat and healthy with dew and the lack of carbon monoxide. It was here I learned to caress Nidi kumba to sleep, and wonder how on earth a tiny leafy plant could respond to touch so well. I had blown on Dandelions and watched them wafting away in to the mid-morning sun. I had felt heart-broken when my parents chose Colombo over this and sold that property to fund money for the transfer.
Now, it works backwards. I am saving for a rustic retirement. Everything I aim for today is a convincing of a later life in the simple world of one-storied, cement floored, tiled-roofed, high- walled house with a vegetable garden in the countryside. And the last time I checked, my kids kind of like the idea too. The last time, was last week, when we travelled to Galle to my late father-in-law’s fifth year death commemoration. We packed and left Colombo in my hubby’s Toyota Fielder. My children, obediently strapped to their immaculate car seats at the back. Hold. The ‘Car Seat’ must carry special mention.
The invention of the car seat for infants and toddlers has its pros and cons. Leaving the safety element aside, it is a load off the pelvises of the adult passengers especially on long trips. The cons outweigh with the whining and complaining following the discomfort it brings to the otherwise helter-skelter kid who is strapped in to immobility. And of course if you forget to take precautions if you are carrying a child with a proven track record of motion-sickness on outstation trips.. imagine the sloshing out of gunk that had escaped in to un-viewable crooks and curves of the hi-tech equipment. Oh well, we strap them on still, because it’s safe and convenient to the adults.
After much wriggling and weaving through, we managed to getaway from the dense traffic in Colombo that added hours to our trip down south in vain. On our way, we managed to catch a glimpse or two of super hilarity, reading Singlish sign boards on boutiques or buses that slit by. Nothing could top the Direct English translation we saw for “Raththarang Amma saha Thaththa” on a trishaw just in front of us bumper to bumper in the Kalutara area.
It was 10.30 at night when we reached Ahangama. The fumes of Galley Nanda’s (aunt) unu – unu rathu haale bath (red raw rice straight from the stove) and karawala hodi (dried fish curry) with pol samboley (hot coconut salad), came gushing out the veranda to welcome us. Five to six pairs of hands helped us unload the luggage, and my 2 children. The living room floor was mosaiced with unidentified branches of lineage sprawled across for the night cap. Tomorrow for them was a big day.
6 am the next day I shot up from bed reminding my duties as a helpful daughter-in-law. I pried open my eyes promising of a late morning holiday next time: gave up. slept for 2 minutes, arranged my thoughts about the duties of an ideal daughter-in-law, slept again for another 2 minutes, jolted up shuddering of the disturbance, slept again for the ‘final’ 2 minutes sitting; woke up in a shock being reminded about the helping hand, and finally dragged myself to the kitchen.
It was a beehive of activity. There was absolutely nothing left for me to do. Fish ambul thiyal was piping on the stove, dhal curry, bringal salad, cashew curry, pots of red and white rice, creamy potato curry, 2 varieties of mallung, green beans curry, poppadam and even cutlets were laid out all wrapped in bread powder, ready to be fried. I had missed the bus and was angling myself slowly to the bathroom when my more feminine in- laws were cleaning the kitchen after them. A distant cousin I forgot the name of, came beaming at me holding out a hot cup of tea asking “Dandei avadi une”? (Did you just wake up?)
Everything here was the opposite of Colombo. Starting from the dialect which had a compulsory suffix ‘ei’ through the smiling, non-committal faces to the stress-less approach to what ever work that had to be undertaken, these were a different species of men and women. What a relief it was from the grouchy, complaining, all-day expression of most I encountered in that foreign land I lived some years ago.
When my little ones got up, a class of little family members took them on, leaving me with an unusually free spell I had not experienced since my elder was born three years ago. It was a rare opportunity for me to make mental imprints of an interesting line-up that ensued thereafter.
First my elder son took a natural bearing on the fact that all his playmates were girls. My younger son was being cuddled and cooed by alike as well. The men, including my husband was busy doing men-work before the monks arrived for the alms giving.
One cousin however took to the kitchen to prepare the fruit salad. He had lost his left leg in a claymore mine explosion on the war front as a soldier some years ago in the North. His dexterous hands were cutting up the fruit with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.
The older women were in the kitchen still double checking the dishes. Another cousin was inside the outer bedroom that chipped out from the living room to the front foyer, arranging the ‘pirikara’ for the 15 monks who would invoke blessings to my late father in law.
Kids were playing with a basin of water; mine Scot-free from under the disapproving looks from their mother over phlegm and water-induced ailments. The freedom was tangibly in the air. I couldn’t help but ease my guard and look at them with renewed eyes. My mom-in-law, their Gran was too looking out from the kitchen window, smiling encouragement. Grunt!
Galley Mama’s (uncle) Sillara Kadey, which was closed for the occasion of the alms giving was a hit joint among the set of little cousins, so much so that Galley ‘Seeya’ had to give them and my elder son in particular,(who has never stepped in to one – save the gigantic supermarkets) a sneak peak of its colourful selection of essential content.
11 am. The simple abode intense with activity was shushed with the arrival of the monks, whose feet were wiped dust free at the entrance, sat neatly across each other in the hall. I carried the offerings of poppadam and brinjal moju with me which were turned down by many monks. The High-blood pressure and angina scare had invaded the rural and the spiritual plane definitely as I witnessed the small amounts of rice and the refusal of oily dishes by most of the Swamin Wahanses.
Alms Giving over, the men disappeared in to the magical land of Mendis Gal and Pol (inexpensive local Spirits)
For my children, who have identical high chairs back in Colombo, meal taking has always been a dull affair. Keep them on the chairs and serve the food on to the tray before them, they would take a good hour or two to call it quits. Running around in the garden spraying water on galley mama’s proud vegetable beds, each morsel of food they ran to eat from the plate I was holding, was granted its due gratitude today.
The open veranda provided the late afternoon breeze that lulled the kids and some of the men who lounged on easy arm chairs and snoozed off after a heavy-set lunch.
Replacing the all-day Air conditioning, a quick splash of cool well-water out in the declining sun added a refreshing epilogue to a simple wholesome day in the village.
With our Fielder boot bundling under the heavily added weight from the cassocks of rice and staples; gifts from galley nanda and maama, we wheedled ourselves back to Colombo, leaving a full pedigree flanking the car, ogling at the novel concept of the children being strapped ( “geta gahala”) to two car seats. I promise myself -as we stopped at the beach -that we will too one day rejoice in our peaceful rural retirement, if we ever live to it in this mad man-made jungle of Colombo.
