Calm as a swimming pool before dawn

World spins at such a speed that I have forgotten a good three-quarter of things I used to do when I was a teenager. Keep looking at past gives you good training to look at the things ahead of you. I draw inspiration from running back to the school days nuzzling those memories- with one hope that, one day sitting on a cozy window seat I would be able to scribble every bit of it into a book.
People may be clinging into their past for so many reasons. Some may be suffering from the impossible yearning of going back to their past or even worse, wishing if they could stop there forever. Clinging into the past or perhaps comparing your present self with your past-self often make you more depressed than cheerful.
People are scared of change. And there are some of us who are scared about the fact that things won’t change. It is just a matter of how we accept things that come our way without cursing or glorifying our history. So, when Di asked how I can be “so calm like a swimming pool when there is no one in it” I was wondering whether she has seen too little or too much of me.
Being ‘calm’ does not necessarily means that I’m always cool. There are enough and more instances when I lose my temper with people who love to toy with it. But if being calm means being content- that I certainly am.
My beloved teacher Mrs. Rajasingham, fondly known as Raj among us girls, always used to tell us that happiness is internal. Specially when we were studying Narayan’s ‘The English Teacher,’ she used to touch on the heavier subjects such as spiritual bliss and self-satisfaction. As a seventeen-year-old, I might not have grasped the fullest truth of her words, but in the years that followed, I certainly did.
I believe life would be easier to live if you can realize that the world does not evolve around you, rather, you are evolving in the universe along with the world. The world will not stop spinning just because you have broken up with your loved one or shifted houses.
Selfishly I thought that worrying about things that are beyond my control is pointless. However, that does not mean that I shut my eyes and ears to injustice, poverty or even environment pollution.
If something constantly tugs at my conscience I would write about it and see that it goes on print with the hope it will fall on the way of some one who has ways and means of acting against it. I believe that doing ‘my bit’ can tempt others to do their ‘bit’ and thereby change of directions of things that are moving in the wrong way.
No matter whether I’m passing a hard time or a happy time, I know for a fact that it is not going to last forever. But, I would continue to move about with things I love doing and be with people who inspired me to move forward. Life can never be as half so nice, if it is crowded with plans and becomes too predictable. I have seen so much and yet there is so much left to see. Finding inspiration in living makes the life a book that has many happy endings.

Letter to my fifteen-year-old self

Dear me,

Listen to your friends more; their juicy tales about how to slay dragons in school buses and trains are more useful than learning about T.S. Elliot’s cats. After all, cats won’t come and paw you as they wish, but majority of the male community who travels in buses certainly does it! Believe me; safety-pin rule really works.
Don’t hate the teachers who mark you down in every assignment, or the teachers who hate you for your good name. For those who mark your down know your capabilities more than yourself and believe that you can be made perfect. As for the latter, sympathize with them, may be they never had the childhood you are enjoying and when they see you, it is naturally that you look like someone who stole that perfect childhood they never could take pleasure in.
Stop when your coach tells you to stop. Even if your body says you are fit enough to win ten grand slams and you must be thinking what crap the old man says at the peak of your career, when he raises his hand, it is time to take a break. Take it now and start again or say goodbye to your game forever.
Share your lunch even if you have other work to fulfill during the interval. There will always be someone in the gang who will fall in love with Amma’s food more than you do.
Cover up the class when the class teacher is too scared to stand up for you and others. Your appointment as the class monitor has a purpose. Even if the other teachers will hate you for your guts, they will still talk about it long after you have left school.
Don’t worry about O/Ls, you will see yourself through without much ado. Take plenty of sleep and read whatever that comes your way, what you read during the exam time keeps dancing in the memory and provides you so much thought that can garnish your essay.
Keep writing the diary no matter what happens and where you are going to end up during the next four years. They will have plenty of material for you to write about when you are stuck without a seed.
Be proud of yourself when your heart and mind in unison, support your idea of changing schools. Be firm on your feet when Madam Principal tries to woo you with prefectships and lures you to stay for the A/Ls. After finding yourself half dead with a two-year class monitorship, Prefectship is not worth dying for.
School is the best place to start writing your history. So never forget your roots. Smile with every teacher who bumps into you whether they have taught you or not, for your days in that shade are numbered. Never skip homework. Sometimes, they are being taken as continuous assignments- believe it when Umi or Saha says that most of the zeros in your progress charts could have been easily avoided.

Love the morning mist that flows above the fresh playground grass. Sing the school anthem as loud as you can. And recite your ‘gathas’ in front of the ‘Budu Sadu’ who looks at you with the kindest eyes in the world.

Be ready to worship the memory that will shape you to what you are one day. After all, you are not going to stay there forever nor are you going to be eternally fifteen.

Love,
Me

Gone nuts: Back soon!

Looking back, I was quite amazed at how we girls became thick work pals within such a short time. When I was in the subs’ cubicle many moons ago, the closest I could get to Sum and Di was ‘Hi’s and ‘Bye’s we shared when I passed their way with proofs in my hand.
Things changed fast when we were rendered ‘Internally Displaced’ with the invasion of the web team. So, when Champi decided get my PC placed down the isle of the girls, I was not only glad to become an IDP but also I never had complaints about the resettlement.
Times flew at rocket speed and Shalika, Sum, Di, Ollie, Appzy and Shabs became good friends of mine, with whom I can discuss anything and everything under this sky.
Then the two boys, Shehan and Supun joined in. Hemanthi, the silent one was too scared to come too close, but generously sorted our support when she was stuck with tough translations. We were acting the anti-sugar police for her, always threatening to tell her husband if she indulged herself in brownies or chocolate.
Arrival of Ushama only added to the entertainment. The fake Penelope Cruz, Ushama was at her bravest when she was out of the sight of her uncle. She used to drive us insane with her sleepwalking ways of writing and reporting; so much for her enthusiasm we were forced to call her- Hemanthi No. 2, with the tagline-“Return of the tube light.”
The first one to go away from us was Shalika. The green soul, she left the paper to finish her studies. We miss her very much and always proud to know her.
Appzy and I had same tastes when it comes to books, poetry and sometimes even movies. We broke our hearts when the cheerful chubby announced her going away from paper. But, I’m glad she still writes for us. Seeing her byline on print along with ours brings in a strange feeling of togetherness and closeness.
Ushama didn’t stay long with us perhaps she was not made for paper. But thanks to her we missed our relaxing chair, so that was a double loss. Soon after Ushama’s departure, Hemanthi too decided to leave. So, Sum, Di, Ollie, Shabs, Shehan ,Supun and I were very much left for ourselves.
Losing the gangsters one by one didn’t make our friendships slack; rather it made us stick together to each other more than ever.
Times may change and I don’t know how long I will be able to enjoy the brainstorming sister-chats and the welcoming bear-hugs I receive at the end of every study leave session. But I know one thing, living is when Di complains about wanting of an adventure, hearing the music of Sum’s heals clicking against the icy office floor, getting irritated by Shehan’s twittering habits, punching Supun for his male-chauvinistic remarks, loving the tone of Ollie exclaiming “ané ammi” and acting the walking reminder to Shabs and getting infected by her forgetfulness.
Pablo Neruda rightly said when he voiced out- “I don’t want to change my plant,” with a band of easiness like this, I would rather say- I’ll never want to change my heaven.

Tops and pants from the wardrobe of life

When I was tidying the piles of clothes in my cupboard only I realized that more than half of my tops and T-shirts there were being bought for me by Amma; except for a couple of times, I haven’t even been there with her to try them on, when she went ahead with her freewill and bought them.
It was surprising that every one of those dresses fitted me perfectly, and they certainly lasted longer than the pants I had bought for myself. For Nangi, it was a different story; for her, Amma’s choices are either too grand or too short.
Clothes perhaps is one of those departments where I can close my eyes and let Amma pick anything, she thinks, suits me, but I would not do it all the time.
Thaththa, being a teacher, never tried to cut and mend our lives according to his criteria of ‘ideal daughter,’ and nor did Amma. But she was firm when it comes to studies and exams.
Amma who had been a grade five scholar a long times ago, was eager to see me getting through the hurdle with flying colours. Fortunately, she didn’t go to the extent of dragging me to every ‘shishyathva panthiya’ in the town like most of the mothers do today but gave me hard times, with math tables and essay writing. Essay writing was something I enjoyed doing by memorizing math tables was a nightmare.
With Nangi and Malli she was more lenient. I can hardly remember her urging Nangi to memorize her math tables or boxing Malli’s ears for writing wrong spelling.
I was spared the torments of being in the limelight until the day the O/L results were out. Like any other mother, she wanted me to pick science or maths stream. Amma was so adamant to dump me into a bio or maths class that anyone who phoned her to check on my results was given a full account of my so-called stupidity and pleaded them to urge me to change my mind. Finally with Thaththa’s support, when I said I would go to the Language class, she said it was a crime to be there with nine As.
This did not create a rift between us and after the first couple of weeks things were very much back to normal. To my relief, this status quo prevailed for another two years till the day university cut-off marks were released. Falling short of one point was a bitter pill to swallow for the both of us. I completely lost my faith in the local system of examinations and being a repeater was the last thing I wanted to do.
Amma who did not give up easily, wanted me to start studying for the following year’s exam. But, all I wanted to do was to go out from the egg shell and see the world. Just to please her I took to my books again and applied to sit the exam, when at the back of my mind, I knew I would never again step into an examination hall, wearing the school uniform.
Going back to the world of books whose pages were vividly recorded in my photographic memory was too much for a person like me who never fell in love with Chekhov’s Trofimov in the Cherry Orchard. So, Amma was never the one to pat my head and say “Good work, Loku,” when I joined an advertising firm as an English Copywriter. Later, when I joined the press, she was devastated.
But when I look back, I realize the fact that it has always been the way with her to object first, but give her much needed okay later. Perhaps it is a matter of time to see me surviving in the field I choose despite her complaints and pleas. She would continue to be so, but I will continue to love her.
After all, she must have used it as a source of encouragement, knowing that I do things I’m being told not to do!

Forgotten Gama Räla and Mahadana Muththa’s clan

If I ever wish to go back to my childhood, one of the things which tempts me to press the rewind button must be the two huge piles of storybooks, Amma and Thaththa heaped up for me when I was barely learning my alphabets.
They became an inseparable part of my life that I knew all the stories by heart even though I couldn’t read more than two words in each of them. Amma still recalls how I used to narrate the stories by just looking at the pictures. I loved my books more than any other toy I was gifted with. So, whether I liked it or not, my books became a part of the legacy which was handed down to Nangi with the handful of my toys. So much for my hopes on sharing those stories with her, I only can remember her tearing them into bits and pieces and cooking them in her famous ‘mallum.’
Like most of the younger siblings do, Nangi started imitating me when she was growing up. She would sneak into my study-room, pick up the book I had finished reading and run her eyes through over the pages. Even though she was not an avid reader, Nangi never skips reading a book I recommend. So, we always had something worthwhile to chat about besides school-work and teachers.
When Malli came along things were different. There was no one to relate him stories out of our favourite storybooks. Instead, he learnt to seek refuge in the TV or cartoon DVDs Thaththa heaped up for him. What we found in books he found inside the square-frame. The difference is, we drew the characters and the settings in our minds when Amma or Achchi narrated us the stories, but for him everything came readymade.
So, I know how it is like to be the ‘Loku Akka’ to a Nangi who loves to read but does not have the time and to a Malli whose world is utterly devoid of books.
Champi’s editorial last Tuesday made me think and think again as to why the kids today are drifting away from the world of books. Is the ailment with the books or with the kids?
Writing for kids is not a work of a day even though, a children’s story may carry only a few sentences with a number of pictures. A lot of filtering has to be done in the writer’s mind as to what message the book will carry and how. But, sadly it is a risk most of the writers do not like taking. Lack of encouragement and competition in the field has made them so lethargic that writers prefer satisfying themselves by writing for adults. Even those few writers, who would dare stepping forward and writer for children, hesitate going for printing with the current dormant market for children’s literature.
After all, how can you expect the kids to read the same old stories, read and re-read by so many generations before them? It is true that ancient stories have their charms and mysteries. But how can you expect a kid to create a mind-pictures of a village he hasn’t even seen his real life. And how can you tell a kid that animals talk, when he knows that human beings are the only species who use a language for communication.
This is why children’s literature in Sri Lanka needs a good wakeup call. As for us, Literature, be it Sinhala, Tamil or English, has become just another reason to hold a festival and call a politician to a podium.
For me, helping Lish with her Little Enquirer work gives immense satisfaction. Seven or eight letters that arrive on my desk every week is like a silent demand for every children’s author to write for the kids; and that they are willing to read. I only hope Malli will be at least at the end of this queue.

Echoes of gathās in the tub of floating dried leaves

Even though, at times it was difficult, being the first-born has its own perks and privileges. One of them perhaps was the chance I got to spend my early childhood having my two grandmothers side by side.
Amma and Thaththa, still fresh to the frustrations and agonies of finding baby-sitters for their first child, were more than happy to have their mothers down here to look after me when their professional commitments did not allow them to follow my tumbling footsteps or enjoy my baby-cries.
Amma would leave home while I was still dreaming in my cot with the feeding bottle hanging lose from my mouth. So, it was Achchi’s kind and cheerful face I saw when I opened my eyes to the disturbing sunlight. Those days, we didn’t have pipe-borne water. Gamé Achchi (Amma’s mother) and Weligama Achchi( Thaththa’s mother) would either bring in pails of water to fill my tub or if the weather was good, they would take me to the well with them. The time that followed was my fun time. I would count the turn of water on my head from Achchi’s pail; without stopping from there, I would pick the dried leaves and things from around me and make them float in my tub, pretending that I was bathing in a river amidst flocks of fish swimming around me.
When I look back, I realize the fact that, they gave me such a lot of liberty and free moment with the things that surrounded me. That was a kind of freedom I couldn’t get even from my father.
Feeding time for them was not a battle as Amma took it to be. Achchi would serve me a little bit of rice and vegis on a small plate, just to pacify me while she handfed me from a big plate full of things I liked and hated to gulp down. Both of them had so much time to spare for me, and moved about with their day-to-day lives without a single cry of complaint. For Amma spending thirty minutes with me after coming home looked like torture, but my grandmothers never got bored by my mischief, rather they were my first partners’ of crime!
When I was fairly manageable, Gamé Achchi returned home, but Weligama Achchi stayed behind. She read out so many stories for me from the books as well as from her memory. In the evening, she would recite the gathās and read out the Dhamma Pada for me to listen. The words in them made a very little sense to me as a three-year-old. But the musicality in her recitation and the soothing effect in her words tempted me to kneel by her side with my two hands bound in a gesture of worship in front of the little Buddha statue.
Gamé Achchi was the walking encyclopaedia of plants and animals. She worked wonders with the ‘pol athu’ we had in our home garden. She would make the most common fruits and vegetables taste heavenly with her culinary magic. Even at the age of eighty, she has all the charms in tact which drew me to her some twenty-years ago.
It was just the other day, when Amma took out a lace tablecloth, hand-woven by Weligama Achchi, the feeling of guilt overwhelmed me. The fact that I couldn’t see her before her life was unfairly snatched away by the massive Indian ocean tsunami is still something I’m trying to come to terms with.
If I’m ever to dip my pen into writing a novel, Gamé Achchi and Weligama Achchi have already reserved their places in the undecided plot among the characters that are still unknown to me. After all, that is where they deserve to be for gifting me a wonderful childhood and the best memories that I can recall like the Daffodils that kept dancing in Wordsworth’s poetic mind.

Fairies still dance in rounds

Waylaid in the abyss of reality
Hidden away from all gods' good glance
Dead childhoods getting ready
To dance their “Fairy Dance!

Before I get carried away with my weekly musings, I want to wish Aunty Manel a speedy recovery. The girls and I are waiting to hear her dragging her feet back at the editorial. We miss the music way too badly.
All this while, I have been wondering how one entirely woven story can haunt your better sense, keep you up days and nights, make you bite your nails, yet even after doing all these, leave you still depressed.
Fairy Dance by Brandon Ingram is not the most memorable book I read, but it’s undoubtedly the book that tortured me most after The Kite Runner and The Road from the Elephant Pass. A tale, inked in the silent tears of innocent children who become preys of poverty and brutalities of avaricious adults, makes too strong a mark in the reader’s mind that anyone who has a heart in his ribcage finds it difficult to let it go as just another book.
The story revolves around a girl who had been sold by her very own father to pleasure-seekers but later stands against the same evil forces who robbed her of her childhood. If there is one thing I don’t agree with Brandon that would be the ending. I asked myself a thousand times why, towards the latter stages of the story, Priya’s fate sound so promising that she had to be an eternal victim of the injustice- doesn’t she, the symbol of robbed innocence, deserve a better life. I did not expect an ultra-optimistic close as how can Brandon possibly give a sun-shiny conclusion to such a story when the real stories behind the fiction are still running down the southern sea-belt of Sri Lanka.
But it did not stop me from thinking that the story would be an ideal seed for a film because this is high time to let the flimsy curtain between ‘Sun, Sea and Sand’ and ‘child sex workers’ fall down to the ground.
I, in my egg-shell comfort, snuggled into my bed, read and re-read the book, ending up writing a poem to get out of the depression. When I sent my scribbling to Brandon, he wrote me back saying, “Thanks for being more aware of the tragedy that takes place under our very noses.” I think Brendon’s pen got it all right in his Fairy Dance about raising awareness when my friends who read the book were as shocked as I am, yet decided to do ‘something’ to stop the continuity of the calamity.
Buggy and Sarah both had a violent urge to act without knowing from where to start and how to go on. My copy of the book, doing rounds at the office is now with Sum. I hope a plan would dawn to her so then all of us can get together and start from somewhere to rip off the label mounted on those kids who do not even know what it really means.
Brandon certainly deserves something for his work of art which stirred the minds of so many. But like everything else, here in Sri Lanka, recognition sells for very high prices or even falls on the laps of mock-brilliant super stars by means of favouritisms ; which got me thinking, perhaps his book is too good for the Gratiaen.

Waiting for an aromatic mail

When Nangi questioned my obsession with aromas I could ague my way till the dawn. But, with her A/Ls ogling at her from the door-step and with the many piles of books waiting to be hugged touched and be slept on them, I was forced to left her alone.
It all began when Nangi exclaimed “There are people who can’t stand all these fancy smells and I am one of them,” soon after sniffing my new eau de cologne. The one thing I was trying to convince her was the fact that, smells are so special to me because there is no way of transferring or transmitting aromas like what we do with sounds, pictures and even videos. So much for the modern-age techo-freaks, no one has squeezed their brains to look for way to send an aromatic mail or a stinking petition.
Perhaps, this is what makes smells extra special- their transient nature and the mark they leave with the memories we so much treasure.
Strange enough, my nose recognizes places and people with the smells associated to them. I like to dip my nose into my parents’ wardrobes whenever I get a chance to arrange their clothes. There is nothing like letting the faint breeze of their perfumes loiter in your nose for a moment.
I also adore the aroma of moth balls and ‘savandara roots’ leaking out from Achchi’s almairah. That was one of those never-fading smells and at one point you will actually believe that nothing has changed around you and you are still that four-year-old child who would happily snug in the sanctuary of Achchi’s sarees when she arranged her things.
What I miss perhaps is the milky, sticky sort of baby smell mixed with baby soap and powder that greeted me whenever I cuddled my baby brother into my arms some ten years ago. For me, that was the fragrance of innocence and to my choosy nose anything that is godly and faultless had to have that smell. But when Malli grew up, he lost the scent, nature gave him, and now at the age of eleven he has lost much of his innocence too.
The juicy scent of freshly-cut grass drags me from my mind’s hands and takes me back to school. The ever-green memories of running, falling and rolling on the soft playground-grass and panting in teams until our breathing becomes normal fill with me with a childish desire to go there and try to run my usual ten circles.
And what is more, when it comes to seasons, I sniff them in the air too! April’s air contains a plethora of scents filtered from seasonal flowers and fruits. August has a scent of dust, dryness and the smell of sun rays. (Yes, that is the smell you get on your pillows and clothes that are crunch-dried in the sun) But my favourite is the smell of Christmas- the fragrance of pine trees, confetti and baking that bring in a hope of return, calmness and homeliness.
If I am to die tomorrow and I have one last chance to indulge my nose in something, I would go for the scent of dust that settles on a long forsaken soil after a much looked forward shower- one of those first showers that inspires and transpires brighter side of life and living.
Fragrances have become such a vital part of my life that I have almost started believing in the fact that I was a sniffer-dog in my last birth. After all, what is so bad about being a sniffer-dog, when it’s a privilege everyone cannot attain.
As for me, I am daydreaming to receive my first aromatic missive- filled with the scent of morning rain-I don’t want words, let the perfume speak!

Pampered by a trouble-box

Life has fallen into a slower tune after the tiring exams which haunted me for an extra couple of days after all my papers were over. Floating in the low tide of things, or rather being jobless for sometime, made me categorize all my belongings into –Things I like and Things I really need.
My piles of handkerchiefs, books, my pair of black slippers, my water bottle all went to the second category, but to my utter amazement most of my things went to an in-between category called- Things I already have but I don’t badly need. My mobile phone, with its number keys worn out with excessive texting, and a thousand scratch marks on its screen, fell into the that lot.
So, when a couple of weeks ago, with a sarcastic snigger Buddika suggested that I buy a new phone I thought I that I didn’t even need the one I am using right now, let alone buying a new one.
I got it many moons ago as a gift from Thaththa for my A/L results and birthday. Initially I was carrying Amma’s phone around when I first started working at an ad agency as an English copywriter. It was teeny weeny thing with a blue flash light devoid of all the funky features a phone is required to have now-a-days. Thaththa, the trend-lover in the family, thought it was highly unfashionable of me to carry around a phone with a black and white display. That is how this phone found me.
But even before that, during the last few of my A/L days I was so used to hijacking my parents’ phones from time to time to text my school friends. There were funny SMSs that were doing the rounds, without stopping from there we used to share homework tips and translations.
Even after I left school, SMSs kept our friendships going. My inbox overflows with messages wishing me long life and happiness for the birthday and Avurudu. But I miss those birthday cards that used to crowd my letter-box. Short messages may be a reassuring sign that even though your friends are not there at a reachable distance, they never forget you. But I, the old-fashioned one, miss the tangibility of their wishes and curves and scratches of their handwriting on a cardboard.
At the same time, I am not the one to complain about the amounting pampering my phone does to me. I surf the net from it, change my ring tones and themes from time to time and go on shooting sprees with the VGA camera it has. Neither have I wished for these things nor do I want anything more.
But, having a mobile at hand means, it can disrupt my writing moods and sometimes drives me insane with rage or laughter in places I should be acting more professional and discreet. At least when I’m at home, I make sure that my peace is not shattered by some nonsense call, by shutting up the sound of the trouble-box.
As I was telling Di, Sum and Shabs the other day, if I ever get to go on a holiday, I want to drag my feet far and away from the maddening world of technology. I want to let myself lose in some eco-village where there are no televisions, radios, and somewhere I know my body is not being penetrated by analogue and digital signals. And most of all, its brochure should read as “Mobile phones are prohibited. If you possess any please dump it into the nearby lake before entering!”

Unforgettable ‘gutiya’ and the ghost-hunting in the hostel

It was when I finished my exam and was struggling to forget the tough time I had with my teaching methods paper, I was wondering how many of my teachers taught me according to the book. Then only I realized that despite the theories preached by behaviour psychologists and the thousand and one techniques supposed to be taught at the Colleges of Education, only a natural teacher can perform the miracle he or she is expected perform.
Unfortunately the faces of most of the teachers who were in my lower school are not clear in my schoolbook-memory except that of Lalitha Madam who taught Sinhala. She was not only my grade four class teacher but the reason I started writing; she was my first inspiration.
My Grade Five teacher was a different story. There was no question about her teaching, but sometimes she took to canes and rulers to curb the students. She used to have ‘punishing sprees,’ where she would get half of the class lined up at her table, waiting with our palms outstretched to received the ‘gutiya.’ Perhaps it was the pressure to see her students getting through the scholarship hurdle made her strict and seemed somewhat distant from the students.
Grade six and seven are two years I had my best of teachers who taught not only books but also things that are important to keep my head upright in society. Teenage-years may call be called the difficult years, but for my friends and I, they were the unforgettable years of school life, which laid the foundation to lasting friendships. The teachers we had in those classes knew exactly what they were doing and whom they are dealing with. As a result, most of us found good confidantes in them and the psychological and physical changes we were undergoing were no mysteries to us.
So, when the girls of my age were busy thinking about the boys they had seen in the roadside we had better things to do like investigating into a major hostel ghost story that haunted the minds of the entire seventh-grades. Even though the outcome didn’t make us ace investigators, the updates of the ghosts topped the gossip charts of the girls, beating the good looks of Shahid Afridi and the cute faces of Westlife dudes. Even though it sounds stupid to me now, as a twelve-year-old, with a brain wrecked by curiosity, ghost hunting wasn’t something to which I could say ‘No thanks.’ But there was one person behind us to save our backs-that was my science teacher- Anuradha Madam. She never burst our bubble by saying it was nothing, but lured us into brainstorming conversations about afterlife and scientific facts about spirits. So, by the time we found out there was no ghost of a white lady who got murdered in the colonial-time building- we took it in a good spirit.
The school also had two teachers who were very much like the personifications of horror. The couple was known as ‘T-56s’ among the teachers and the students. Their speciality was that they would hide behind a door or in an empty schoolroom, catch you unawares and punish you for something you did not do. I was lucky enough never to bump into any of their missile zones during my tenure.
When I left to Visakha, the relationship with the teachers there were not the same, but it was surely one of the first things which made me feel at home there. On a very personal note, I owe every one of my teachers because I have never stepped into a tuition class in my life.

Dinner at Thaththa’s courtroom

Falling into frequent arguments with Amma and Thaththa is the last thing I would like to do when I’m at home. Getting into a verbal fight with Amma over trivial matters, like Nangi does, is not really my ‘pol-pani’ pancake.
But, when the chance arrives, arguing with Thaththa is like being a courtroom or a public forum. Our topics range from politicos and their mock miracles to smart works of his so-called bright students. Unlike in the fights with Amma, I could leave the dinner table with the same spirit after such a hot-talk. This, perhaps, is one thing which lured me to join the press at a very early age, when my friends hardly knew what they were doing with their lives.
Thaththa is not what you call a petting-type, but he is always there for Nangi and me whenever Amma tries to release her work pressure on the two of us. He gives us a lot of freedom to walk around and see the world, trusting that we would not let him down. When I was showing signs of being a left-hander like him, it was Thaththa who taught me to hold the pencil correctly. He would buy me ten or twelve erasers with lovely bright colours and tempting aromas whenever I scored well in a monthly test. He happily gave the nagging job to Amma but was all eyes and ears about how I was proceeding.
Being a teacher, he was very particular about my math-score in term tests; the only thing I can remember him being hyper-sensitive about. During my math lessons with him, he would box my ears a couple of times in seeing me not getting the simple sums right.
Being a student of his is not as lovingly as being his eldest child, for he burdened me with tedious loads of homework with cutting deadlines.
With my 9-A’s when Amma and all the others were pushing me into A/L lab section, it was Thaththa who stood by me and said, “Let Loku decides for herself.”
Thaththa trusts in my judgement in many things, from picking up the right-tie for him to choosing electrical appliances for home. This makes me a proud daughter.
Amma is the biggest fan of the things I write, for she openly talks about them and shows my scrapbook to everyone who visits us, which can be embarrassing at times. Thaththa, on the other hand, only gives me suggestions to write but never goes to the extent of appreciating or commenting on the things which go on the paper with my byline.
So, I was taken by surprise when I went to school to pick up Malli, a handful of teachers of Thaththa’s staff, rounded me and said, “We enjoy reading your poetry and articles, Thaththa never forgets to bring the paper to the staffroom.” I could only say, “That’s him” in reply.
Daughters loving their fathers more than they love their mothers has been there ever since the phenomenon of parenthood came into existence. Whatever the reasons the high-profiled psychologists give, daughters tend to love their fathers because they are more liberal-minded and mild-hearted when it comes to daughters. This is the main reason why in most cases, a girl wishes to get married to a boy who has the same qualities of her father, and I am no exception.
I know for a fact that Amma’s favouritism is all directed at Malli, the devil and the angel, who can do no wrong in her eyes. And, Thaththa, of course, prefers Nangi to me, as she took to following his foot-steps by choosing Maths stream for her A/Ls. But, that doesn’t lessen the weight of the reality that I can love them both and take anyone’s side when I feel like it. In return, they can do the same with me.
After reading this, I won’t be surprised to hear Amma saying in one of her complaining tones, “This is not the first time, Thaththa, dûla teamed up against me,” when Thaththa is enjoying the praises of his staffers with the paper in his hand!

Invaders spice-attacked

My line-up of exams had turned me out to an insensitive creature, that until a little while ago I didn’t realize how our Poor Aunty Manel had felt when I was turning a deaf-ear at her continuous mumblings about the recipe for ‘Kurakkan Kenda’ which she never got.
Pasting a mental sticky note at a reachable corner of my mind, I started to think of my mother’s territory, which has been guarded by a number of regiments and battalions of vessels and some countless number of kitchen utensils.
Since food was not on top of my lists, kitchen was not my most favourite haunting place in the house. But it always has a mystic sense of fascination which often draws me there when Amma prepares her ‘thuna paha’ and other spices at home. It is not the food, but the colour and different shades of spices that make me put down my book and run to the kitchen.
Cooking with Amma always keeps me on toes. She doesn’t like anyone messing up with her jars of spices. She wants them to go back to the shelves immediately after spoonfuls of them being put into the curry. This is something I never could follow. I always wanted to have me surrounded by these talking jars even though Amma kept on insisting that first they should go back and then I could flirt with the curry. One day, by the time I finished parking them in their original places, the hearth had cooked a curry on its own! So much for cooking with the Queen, I felt like the knave who stole the tarts.
But, this does not stop me from breaking into the kitchen especially when she needs a brave knight to scrape her coconutty-fellows every night.
I love the feel of cute cutlet balls on my palm, but I hate the smell of sardine that survives all the scrubbings afterwards. It is a treat to see them dancing in the pool of hot oil. Once they are out from the pan, the sight of Malli and Thaththa devouring them when they are still in their fiery state, fill my tummy. Amma made a great fuss about my becoming a plant-eater, but now she praises me outright for eating every part of the plant she cooks without letting out a word.
But mostly, it is my chocolate cake that lures people to fall in love with me. I have always prided myself of not celebrating a single birthday without serving my friends with a piece of Daw-special messy chocolate cake. As some one I overheard uttering, “I prepare the world’s best fried chicken,” I don’t want to crown myself as the maker of the world’s tastiest chocolate cake. But I have seen Nangi living a couple of days on my cake and my cake alone! So, I guess there’s certainly some tummy-filling charm in it.
Apart from the culinary work, kitchen is the place where Amma and I have our conspirations on how to surprise Thaththa on his Birthday or what to buy for Malli when he is appointed a prefect in the primary section.
It’s surprising why Nangi can never cope up with the smell of frying chillies or I guess it is her wrong timing when she is suddenly thrown out of the place with a heavy cough on every rare occasion she volunteers to help Amma. We made a good laugh of it the other day saying that even the kitchen hates her.
After all, it would be a good idea to work on self-activating spice launchers in view of vicious foreign invasions, specially at a time like this when we expect so many!

Bookworm: Modern term for ardent booklover

If anyone happens to see me in the morning, taking my usual bus ride to work, there are two possible conclusions he or she might jump into. If someone who knows of my peculiar habits sees me lost in a world of my own with a book or a Reader’s Digest in my hand, when heaps of passengers are overflowing from both the entrances of the bus, the reaction would be, “Oh! that’s typical her.” But, to a stranger’s eye, my eye-locking with a book at that time of the day would be an act of a ‘super nerd’ or ‘creepy bookworm.’ Whatever the titles I am honoured with, my flirtation with books knows no bottom.
It is rather surprising how reading had crept into my busy school-day schedule which was tied up with sports practices, music, literary association work and of course studies. I guess, once you get so used to do something, it ceases to be a habit and becomes an addiction. Such was my love for reading.
Amidst my editorial bee-work, when Aunty Manel demanded a piece on ‘Reading habits of my generation’ I knew it was not going to be as easy as reading Jeffrey Archer. She may be true when she said there was a love-lost between my generation and books. When Thaththa said the only few young avid readers who are existing in the world today are either journalists or undergraduates, I nodded at his words. But, the fact that most of them raiding bookstores and library shelves out of sheer necessity than out of their love for books escaped his notice.
Do the folks in my generation read at all? I think they do. It is not fair by them if you expect them to read ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare’ when they are caught up with the rat-race to find jobs or move higher in their studies. They may run their eyes through the front-page headlines of a newspaper, maybe a little bit of sports and fashion; that is their portion of reading for the day.
The mushrooming blogs in the cyber space also do some work in keeping their reading habits away from the extinction lists; but the question as to how good the material these blogs provide is a point worth pursuing. Unlike in printed material such as books, magazines etc., most of these blogs carry raw-writing. So, the regular readers of these blogs (mostly the techno-loving youth) cannot help themselves from catching up wrong language expressions and bad grammar. The common complaint heard from newspaper offices about the scarcity of good writers shows the acuteness of the matter. Leave alone breeding writers, most of the CVs and bio-datas get rejected in the job process because they contain grammar or vocabulary errors.
Interestingly, a boy who turns out to be an extensive reader gets teased by his peers more than a girl who is found out to be a bookworm by her friends. This maybe another reason why my generation tries to pretend that books don’t exist. Apparently, the e-books that are quietly getting into the Sri Lankan scene are a relief to those who love to read but no time to hold a book in hand.
Like table manners, values and health habits, reading too should be planted from home and nurtured at school. Parents can monitor what their children read, but never pull off a book from a child’s hand and try to give the wrong message that you are against reading. As for me, my grandmother read me out stories from so many books and I was so enchanted by them that I knew every story by heart even before I learnt to read.
That is how I got into trouble! Today, anything which comes between me and my book gets the ‘trouble’ label straight.
After all, there’s nothing like curling up in my bed at the end of the day, hugging ‘The Road from the Elephant Pass’ for the sixteenth time and falling in love with Captain Wasantha over and over again.