I recognise no one.
‘First must serve the ladies,’ says one of the witches, giving us a sideways glance. We continue to act docile and they continue to stir their cauldron.
‘Now daughter will get bakery.’
‘Aiyo, quality is bad now. That day I bought some patties. Hopeless.’
‘The breudher was superb when Muhundan was alive.’
‘The son was at Muhundan’s funeral I remember. With some pretty girl.’
‘I remember. Here. Isn’t that the same girl?’
‘That one? Are you mad? Actually might be. Looks similar.’
‘She is some size, no?’
‘That is not her, men.’
‘Why not. Look at the face.’
We follow the direction of their attention and see Danila Guneratne with Charith Silva and a few minor cricketers whom we recognise. They surge as a unit towards the entrance that we avoided. Danila’s walk is bow-legged and duck-like and utterly captivating. Greeting them is Sabi Amirthalingam and a tall thickset man who is probably her husband. We hide our faces behind our drinks as she does a head-count of the room.
The women’s gossip turns to Sivali Sivanathan’s eldest brother and some child he fathered.
‘My hearing aid is picking up interesting things on that side,’ says Ari, getting up to leave. ‘And maybe you should talk to your girlfriend in private.’
‘Go, men. Here. Don’t let that sister see you,’ I whisper. One of the quieter ladies notices Ari’s departure.
The cricket party exit past the lamp and take seats around the middle of the garden. The enclosure is packed to capacity and noisy. The house is as small as my cottage in Mount; the balcony over our heads and the staircase leading to it look like recent additions. Danila spies me, smiles and walks over. The ladies in white fall silent.
The lamp is usually lit as soon as the body enters the house. In the distance I see only three of the eight wicks flickering.
‘Hello, Uncle,’ she says. ‘I thought I might see you here.’
‘You know the family?’
‘I’ve met them, but I was never introduced.’
Danila wears jeans and a white blouse and has her hair in a bun. She spies the aunties staring at her and gives them an icy smile.
‘How’s the writing?’
‘Very good. Do you think he’ll turn up?’
‘Isn’t that why we’re here?’
‘Did you know a man called Kuga?’
‘Is there something I can do for you?’
The question is not directed at me, but at the quiet old lady who has been staring at us for some time. It is not quite loud enough to cause a scene, but it is loud.
‘Aunty, if you want to eavesdrop, why don’t you sit here?’ she says, motioning to Ari’s vacant chair.
‘Who wants to eavesdrop on you?’ says the fattest of the lot.
‘I don’t know. Jobless gossips …’
‘Has no one taught you how to talk?’ asks the greyest.
‘I wasn’t speaking to you, Aunty. Unlike you I have manners.’
The aunties get up and leave muttering. I am offended and delighted by this disrespect to elders. Their seats are filled immediately by a family of seven.
‘Sorry, Uncle. I hate these hags who stare at my clothes. Just because they don’t know how to dress. You think we can smoke here?’
I shake my head and watch the aunties cast angry glances at us as they take seats at the corner of the garden. Danila ignores my advice and lights a smoke. Everyone nearby pretends not to notice. Then one by one they begin lighting up. Including the father of the family.
‘They said you came for the father’s funeral?’
‘That wasn’t me. He took that other bitch.’
‘Shirali?’
‘No. Michelle. That Burgher model slut. He was having something with her. We broke up the day his father died. He came back, of course. As usual.’
She tells me that Muhundan Sivanathan’s stroke drained the family of its finances. The mother was too proud to accept money from the son-in-law she had shunned, so she pestered Pradeep.
‘He didn’t make much money. Used to go on and on about it. He said the only way to make money in this country is to cheat.’
She had never heard of a Lucky or a Newton or a Gokul. Though she had heard enough about Shirali.
‘High Commissioner’s daughter,’ she says, not without bitterness. ‘Men are such bloody class whores. She used to buy him clothes, let him drive her jeep. He wanted to get back with her. Even when we were together, he made that clear.’
I spy two bodybuilders in white shirts worn tails out who stand out in this sea of elderly. I fancy that they might be Sudu and Chooti, but when they sit down it is clear from their faces that they are not.
‘Thing is, he was sweet. Kind, treated me with respect. Didn’t just try and get me into bed. We didn’t even sleep together at first, just talked.’
‘About what?’
‘He was worried about letting down his family. He felt he didn’t have a future in cricket. He was worried that he was losing his talent.’
‘What did the other cricketers say about him?’
‘How should I know?’
‘You know other cricketers, no?’
‘I’m not as fast as you think, Uncle.’
‘I am a reformed drunk. I don’t judge.’
‘Just after school, when I first joined advertising, I used to take the bus home. All sorts of freaks would rub themselves on me. Can’t walk on the road without some pervert saying stuff. Then I got myself a boyfriend in office and made him drive me home. Might as well choose which man rubs against you, that’s what I think.’
If only the aunties could hear her now. A few more families from the neighbourhood straggle inside.
‘I am not like those Burgher sluts. They just cling to ministers’ sons. I don’t go with anyone. There are too many psychos in this town. I know a girl who had acid thrown on her breasts. Another was stabbed in a salon.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘I don’t know if we were ever together. He assumed I had other lovers. I did till I met him. Then I stopped.’
‘Why?’
‘Hoping he might notice.’
‘Did he?’
‘He basically just did what he liked.’
Pradeep told Danila that to win back Shirali, he would even give up cricket.
‘Shirali was fat, she had a boru accent, she couldn’t even dance. Apparently, she was a virgin. Most rich girls are as shallow as baby pools. This one was shallower than the foot tray.’
The crowd thins out and I spy Ari pretending to be asleep next to the herd of old ladies. Or perhaps he is actually sleeping.
‘Pradeep said she believed in him. Encouraged him. Said that I never did. What was I to do? I hate watching cricket. It’s so boring.’
‘So you didn’t believe in him.’
‘Maybe I didn’t. But I helped him.’
She says he was a gentleman who never gossiped about other players, even though everyone slandered him. That he never sucked up to anyone, even though it cost him his place. That he was honest, even though he knew the truth hurt.
‘He said that everyone should choose their life partner. And not settle for someone. He said he was a chooser and I was a settler. It was the nastiest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’
As the funeral crowd thins, Danila tells me how Pradeep was terrified of being a failure, how he could sulk for weeks on end and how she once found a girl’s panties and a sackful of money in his cricket bag.
‘Where was the money from?’
‘He never said.’
‘Did he practise a lot? Play for different leagues?’
She shakes her head.
‘Only when he felt like it. When I knew him, he was out of the side. I think he had given up on cricket and was just doing it because he had nothing else. He thought only Shirali could show him wha
t to do with his life.’
‘Did he mention someone called Kugarajah?’
She scratches at her painted nails and eyes me.
‘How do you know him?’
‘Read about him in the papers.’
‘Never met him.’
‘Did they fall out?’
‘I don’t think they were ever friends.’
A second wave of visitors descends upon the garden, mainly men and women in office garb. Some faces are familiar, though having lived in Colombo over thirty years, I find most faces are familiar. We may be a capital city, but our circles of association and our attitudes are very much small-town.
‘Oh my God. What the hell is he doing here?’
I think Danila is talking about Ari, who has now woken up and is adjusting his hearing aid. But then I see an Elvis-haired man in suit and sunglasses. It is Jayantha Punchipala, former fiancé of the lovely lady at my side.
‘If he makes a scene, I’m leaving.’
I put my hand on her shoulder and give it a squeeze. ‘Don’t worry.’
The MD goes over to the big men in white and has a word. Then he heads towards Sabi Amirthalingam with a smile on his face. The new lady of the house does not return his grin.
‘Why did you put up with a man who was obsessed with someone else?’
‘Jayantha?’
‘No. Pradeep.’
‘Oh. Who knows? When you’re young, you do dumb things.’
‘You could have had any man you wanted.’
She looks at me squarely and speaks without irony. ‘I have. Except one.’
The MD and Sabi are in deep discussion. The mood appears to be cordial.
Ari is glaring at me with a look I cannot read.
‘He was a nice guy. Good guys are rare. Didn’t matter that he was moody, immature and foolish. I promised myself I’d marry for love. Never for money or to be respectable. It’s one promise I intend to keep.’
He left for the 1995 New Zealand tour saying that he was retiring from cricket and that he was going to try and find Shirali in Australia and see if they had a chance.
‘We had a huge fight. He said that no one can choose who they love. If he could choose me he would. Crap like that. He said if he ever returned he’d marry me, but he didn’t plan on returning. Bastard.’
The discussion between the sister and the former MD grows more animated and appears anything but cordial. Voices are raised.
‘Will you kindly leave my mother’s house?’ says Sabi, limbs flailing. Her husband and a few able-bodied Tamil men arrive on the scene and look ready for action. The former MD says something inaudible.
‘I told you once. Kindly leave or I will call the police. Indrajith! Call the minister.’
The two men in white T-shirts rise along with another man who I recognise as the finance director of the SLBCC. They have a word in the ear with the former MD who nods at Sabi and says something else that is inaudible. They rise to leave. Sabi then spies Ari with his hearing aid.
‘This one. He’s also with that Kugarajah. All of you get out! Leave us in peace.’
Ari fumbles his hearing aid into his satchel and stumbles out of the gate mouthing the words ‘Let’s go’. Sabi Amirthalingam née Sivanathan follows Ari’s line of sight and lets her glare fall on me.
‘There’s another one.’
I leave before she unleashes her fury on me, forgetting to say goodbye to Danila.
Shades of Brown
I am watching football with Jonny. This is a long time before allegations and excreta in pools. He is cursing people from Manchester, a city just a few hours’ drive from his own. I ask him what the difference between a Geordie and a Manc is and he starts explaining the accents, both of which I find equally incomprehensible.
I ask him how many accents his little island has and he demonstrates through famous sportsmen. He begins in Scotland with Kenny Dalglish, takes me through the North East, via Messrs Boycott, Trueman and Clough. Then we visit Atherton’s Manchester, the Midlands courtesy of Mansell, and end up in the east of London with Phil Tufnell.
By the time he takes me to Wales via the great Gareth Edwards, my stomach aches from laughter. But I am also amazed. One island, three nations, countless accents, but one united race. The race of Britons, united long enough to rule the world, at least for a while.
As much as Keegan hates Ferguson, he doesn’t refer to him as belonging to a different species. But sadly in Sri Lanka, that is exactly what we do. It is race and religion first, country last.
‘OK then. Explain the differences between Sinhalese and Tamils,’ asks Jonny.
I am stumped.
I could start with the stereotypes. Sinhalese are lazy, gullible bullies. Tamils are shrewd, organised brown-nosers. Tamils have moustaches and chalk on their foreheads. Sinhalese are less dark, though not as fair as Muslims or Burghers.
The Sinhala language is sing-songy, Tamil is more guttural. Tamil names end in consonants, Sinhalese in vowels. Tamils are Hindu, Sinhalese are Buddhist. Tamils mispronounce the word baaldiya. Sinhalese eat kavum and don’t like people getting ahead unless it is them.
All this tells you nothing. I can introduce you to a fair-skinned Tamil who speaks perfect Sinhala and follows the teachings of Christ and his Mother. Or take you to Tamil places that end in vowels where you may visit a Sinhalese doctor named Kariyawasam.
Sri Lanka is filled with many shades of brown. Not unlike the stuff that ended up in Jonny’s pool. It is not so much the colours as the ideas that these colours spawn that I find objectionable. The united super-race of Britons may have started it when they, among other things, segregated our cricket clubs. Though it is perhaps unfair and inaccurate to lay the blame for our racial problems on the streets of Downing or the palaces of Buckingham. Despite the existence of a Sinhalese Sports Club, a Tamil Union, a Moors SC, a Burgher Recreation Club and a perversely christened Nondescripts Cricket Club, cricket as a sport refuses to be segregated. Clubs grab talent regardless of vowels or consonants or moustaches or chalk. So much for divide and conquer.
By the 1950s, we begin to develop our own dangerous ideas without any foreign assistance. The idea that the nation belongs to the Sinhala. Or that the Tamil deserves a separate state. Ideas that have clashed and exploded for the last thirty years. Perhaps one day they will be replaced by an idea of Sri Lankan-ness that welcomes all shades of brown. Though I suspect that my generation will have to die to give birth to it.
India got independence a year before us. They are larger, more diverse and more excitable than us Ceylonese, but still embrace the idea of India above the idea of being Bengali or Sikh or Muslim, something we have been incapable of doing. We are smaller in every way, including being smaller minded.
If I had to explain it, I would adopt the approach of a famous divide and conquer man, Mr Rudyard Kipling. Sinhalese are sloth bears. Lethargic, cuddly creatures of modest brains who break things if riled. Tamils are carrion crows. Resourceful creatures, resilient and peaceful unless provoked. Forget this nonsense of lions and tigers, neither of which have lived in Sri Lanka for over a millennium.
But then I look closely at the shades of brown and I see interlocking patterns. The Tamil Zion is called Eelam which derives from the same Sanskrit word as Hela, the Sinhala word for sovereignty. Men from both races gobble rice and acquire bellies at middle age. Women of both races oil their hair and spread malicious gossip. Both races can be equally feudal, equally cruel and equally capable of turning on their own. Both can be proud to the point of stupidity.
Explain the differences between Sinhalese and Tamils? I cannot. The truth is, whatever differences there may be, they are not large enough to burn down libraries, blow up banks, or send children onto minefields. They are not significant enough to waste hundreds of months firing millions of bullets into thousands of bodies.
Fort Station
At 8 o’clock on a Monday, Fort Station is not a place to be in, though I struggle to think of any time
of any day of any week when this is not the case. The corners of each weekend clutter it with tired people and their sweaty suitcases, travelling to and from the outstations. Each night it becomes a homeless shelter where beggars come to lie down and dogs come to urinate.
I have black-and-white pictures of Colombo’s Fort and its railway station taken circa 1890, after the British took down the cannons and lined the Dutch buildings with trees. Horse carriages and bullock carts trot the sepia streets. It could easily have been the gardens of Kensington or the boulevards of Sunset.
Today buildings built from the coffers of the Dutch East India Company are splattered with moss and have signs advertising pirated CDs hanging from them like millstones. The nearby Pettah market is clustered like a ghetto and emanates loud heat and baked noise.
I stand at the station entrance, beneath the statue of Henry Olcott, dodging the waves of commuters and ignoring the flies and the dirty children with their palms out. The walls of the station are in need of paint, and aside from a yawning ticket guard and a newspaper-reading security guard, I spy no staff.
‘Let’s go.’
It is neither Sudu nor Chooti, but Kalu Daniel. He is well dressed in cheap clothing. Like an office peon whose wife works in a laundry. His wavy hair is parted and combed. He is clean-shaven.
‘Why so dressed up?’
‘Come. Come,’ says Daniel, pushing me into the streams of people.
Today the blindfold is tighter. It is not an airline sleeping mask, but a black cotton rag that feels cool against my skin. I do not recognise the driver. The van moves a few hundred metres and stops.
‘Is Daniel your real name?’ I ask after ten minutes of silence.
‘Shut up.’
‘In the papers it says your name is Daniel Fonseka.’
‘I’m not going to ask you again.’
‘Because that’s a Sinhala name and I don’t think you’re Sinhala.’
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew Page 30