SUNIL: Oh?
Pause.
NIHINSA: කියන්න එපා බේබි (Podi nona, don’t tell him.)
Beat.
YOUNG RADHA: My husband is dead.
Beat.
SUNIL: Oh. I am sorry to hear that, Radha. Truly.
Beat.
Shall I talk to your parents?
YOUNG RADHA: They’re not in Sri Lanka.
SUNIL: I see.
Beat.
And when do you leave?
Beat.
YOUNG RADHA: My visa offer will expire at the end of the week.
SUNIL: I could give you cash. [Beat.] This afternoon, if you like.
Long pause. Radha shakes her head.
YOUNG RADHA: Okay.
SUNIL: Sorry, madam?
NIHINSA: [in shock] Radha bebi?
YOUNG RADHA: Take it. I need to sell it.
SUNIL: Very good. I will give you a fair price. I promise.
A number of people enter and take everything off the stage. It is empty now save for the actors.
YOung Radha gives her jewellery to a distraught nihinsa and pushes her away. Nihinsa exits.
If you don’t mind me asking, where are you going?
Beat.
YOUNG RADHA: Australia.
SUNIL: All the way over there?
SCENE FOUR
Radha sits on a train.
Young Radha, still holding the Tupperware container with Apah’s ashes, sits on a plane.
Silence.
The routine, background sounds of travel.
YOung Radha exits as siddhartha and lily enter.
SIDDHARTHA: I said we’d meet her on the last carriage of the train …
LILY: There.
Siddhartha and lily sit beside radha.
SIDDHARTHA: Hello, Amma.
LILY: Hi Radha Amma.
Silence. Then radha speaks.
RADHA: We lived on Milagiriya Avenue. In Colombo. In a house your great-grandfather built. Our neighbours were Arif Mama and Salwa Mami. During Ramadan, every night, they would bring over food and your great-grandmother and Nihinsa would serve a small feast in their honour. Everyone gathered on our porch: not just Arif and Salwa, but also our dear friends the Goonetillekes, the Van Landenbergs and Kunthavi Mami from the down the road. Even Bala: the fruit seller from Jaffna. [Beat] That was Sri Lanka. That was my Ceylon.
Your great-grandparents built a home … a whole world around us. They protected us within its walls. Growing up, I thought we were—and that it was—indestructible.
But it wasn’t. What we had built was fragile—so fragile, and it was being worn down, brick by brick, until one day people were turning around and killing the person on their left, or their right … the person in front or behind you …
Then Hasa told me your father too was dead and I … It was like the air itself had became poison. How could Sri Lanka do this to me? The country had broken my heart.
When I got on that plane to Australia, I promised myself that I would protect you. That I would build walls so high around you that we would be indestructible again.
Beat.
But I can’t. I can’t protect you.
Pause. Radha gives siddhartha the article print out.
Siddhartha. This article was published in the Leader newspaper today in Sri Lanka. Read it. / And for God’s sake don’t—
SIDDHARTHA: / But why?
RADHA: / —ask me why. Listen. This article, from the main independent paper in Sri Lanka, was written by the man who freed your father.
SIDDHARTHA: Thirru was freed by a journalist?
RADHA: Read the article.
SIDDHARTHA: It’s by a man called … [He struggles with the name] ‘Hasanga.’
Hasa enters.
Over the next few minutes, each of the other cast members also enter, one by one, and stand around radha, siddhartha and lily. Only thirru does not.
RADHA: [pronouncing it properly] Hasanga.
SIDDHARTHA: Hasanga.
RADHA: We used to call him Hasa.
SIDDHARTHA: Hasa. I spoke to him. On the phone.
RADHA: … yes.
SIDDHARTHA: Amma?
RADHA: Read it, Siddhartha.
Siddhartha reads.
HASA: ‘No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. Our stories serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself without make-up or styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation.’
Siddhartha stops and looks up at radha.
RADHA: Go on.
HASA: ‘In the course of the past few years, countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.’
SIDDHARTHA: Is he saying—
RADHA: Two nights ago Hasa was hit many times in a drive-by shooting. I’ve called his family and sent our condolences.
SIDDHARTHA: Today?
RADHA: You know Siddhartha, I do all sorts of things before you even wake up. Keep reading.
HASA: ‘Why do we do it? After all, I have friends. I have family. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not.
LILY: Villawood Station.
They stand and walk.
HASA: ‘But there is a calling that is above high office, fame, money or security. It is the call of conscience.’
RADHA: This is where Hasa and I differ. One of Apah’s batch mates was Hasa’s father, Vinsanda. As they grew older, Apah started calling Vinsanda his PF/PE—‘personal friend, political enemy.’
Beat.
It is possible to give too much to your country. I saw it happen to your Apah. Now it’s happened to Hasa too.
SIDDHARTHA: You mean what happened to Hasa, happened to Apah as well?
Beat.
RADHA: Siddhartha. Apah’s ashes have been sitting under my bed for twenty-one years. I want you to come to Sri Lanka to help me finish the funeral rites for him. After that, perhaps I will tell you the story of your great-grandfather.
LILY: Villawood Detention Centre.
They stop. All actors are on stage except thirru.
Radha doesn’t move.
RADHA: I was one of the lucky ones.
Beat.
I loved Sri Lanka. I still do. Not just the people, but the land itself. I miss it. Every day.
Beat.
You know, if I had stayed for just one more week—I might never have left. Most probably I would not have left …
SIDDHARTHA: What?
RADHA: [she reaches out to touch her son’s face] If not for you.
Pause.
Come.
They step forward.
They scan the faces for thirru.
Way up the back …
LILY: Amma. Siddhartha.
Radha looks straight across at thirru.
RADHA: That’s your father, Siddhartha.
Thirru walks over to his family.
They embrace.
The entire cast stand together. They walk to the front of the stage and bow to the audience.
THE END
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CURRENCY PLAYS
First published in 2019 by Company B, Pty Ltd
This revised edition first published in 2020
by Currency Press Pty Ltd,
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Copyright: Writer’s note © S. Shakthidharan, 2020; Director’s note © Eamon Flack, 2020; Introduction © Radhika Coomaraswamy, 2020; Counting and Cracking © S. Shakthidharan, 2020.
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