Chiranthi Rajapakse's Blog

My aunts say “Modara shok maalu thiyenawa” when I say that I’m going to Modera.

I say no, fish is nowhere on my list of priorities. Heaven forbid. This is to listen to a talk. Part of a festival. Oh, a literary festival. One of those funny Colombo things they say, but in kindly tones.

I am going but I don’t know where to go. The festival is at Whist Bungalow in Modera. On the website I click on the link marked ‘Whist Bungalow’. The link leads to Google Maps.  But there is no Whist Bungalow marked on Google maps. Where the bungalow should be is the name –‘Pradeepa Hall’. Such an unexciting, boring sounding name. Where is Whist Bungalow?  I give up on Google and figure I’ll get there somehow. And I do.

Bungalow from the Bengali the speaker says. ‘Bungalow’ means a single storey house. A Bengali word. He says the Dutch built it, this ‘bungalow’ that we’re seated in; this large, graceful white washed house next to the sea. But other accounts say it was built by the British. Its name came from an early owner; an English gentleman who met here with his friends to play whist on Sunday evenings. Later the house was added on to by the English lawyer and judge, Richard Morgan, and many years later Solomon Dias Bandaranaike would live here. A bungalow built maybe by the Dutch, maybe not, added onto by the Englishman Morgan, and the home later of Solomon Dias Bandaranaike who, years after his family lived here, would introduce this country to Sinhala only and all its ensuing problems. From Dutch to English to Sinhala to confusion. Bungalow from the Bengali.

So Whist Bungalow does exist. But don’t forget your confusion with Google Maps. All Google maps know is Pradeepa Hall.

My father who grew up in Colombo remembers street names from his childhood. I who didn’t grow up in Colombo, remember names by reading sign boards. As a result our journeys around Colombo are marked by confusion and contradiction. We have arguments when we can’t decide where we are in place or in history.  Are we on Dickman’s road or Lester James Pieris Mawatha? Duplication road or R. A. de Silva Mawatha?  Green Path or Nelum Pokuna Mawatha? Havelock road or Sambuddhathva Jayanthi Mawatha? I say my father is getting old. He says Sri Lankans are mad.

So that’s the solution to the little mystery. Forget Whist Bungalow. It was taken over by the authorities and renamed. Now the ‘official’ name is Pradeepa Hall. Google Maps will never know what once was.  The English gentlemen who met to play whist and avoid their church no longer exist. All is well.

But as you exit the house (no longer a bungalow), and turn onto the road outside and pass the Tamil video shops and the churches, there before you is a narrow lane marked ‘Whist Passage’. How was this missed? Quick, bring the translator, the sign board painter, the giver of new names.

But there are things you cannot rename. You go for a job interview and the first thing you face is an English test. You leave ‘Sinhala only’ behind when you cross the threshold of the air conditioned office. History comes back at you in strange ways, it twists back and slaps you on the face, however hard you try, whatever glib politicians say, however you write and rewrite you cannot wish away those uncomfortable ghosts. The twelve English gentlemen will not be left behind so easily. Bungalow from the Bengali.

Helsinki

You go to put out the garbage. It’s late because you have to wait until the fish is cut. She pulls the knife along the skin of the salmon and it slides off smoothly like a sock. This is a country of fish. Smoked fish, raw fish, fish eggs. You take the bags. Three bags. One for bottles, one for plastic bags and one for papers. You put on your coat (the black one which is warm but not too warm), unlock the apartment door, and let yourself out. Walk down the stairs and go out of the apartment building through the back door. It’s eight pm in the night but there is still daylight. If this was Sri Lanka you would think it’s about five in the evening. Everywhere around you are the silent apartments. A woman is walking her dog. You pass her without looking at her and come to the garbage shed. It’s locked. You use the apartment key to unlock it. Inside are several huge garbage cans. Each one has a label in Finnish. You open one and peer in. There’s a pile of plastic bags. Okay. Plastics. You dump all the plastic bags. As you close the lid your fingernail grazes the lid and black stuff gets under your nail. Urgh! Even in Finland, dirt is dirt. You open two other cans and dump the paper and bottles. The bottle lands with a ‘clink’ – you hope it hasn’t broken. You go out of the garbage shed and lock it behind you. You walk back through the bright, light night back to the apartment. In a few months these pavements will be covered in snow. The flowers will be gone. But people will still be walking through the snow to the garbage shed. Kandy

You go to put out the garbage. The efficient Alice nona hands you the sili bags with the garbage. It’s morning. You open the door and go outside. You wear slippers and your legs are bare. You don’t check the weather and you don’t wear a coat. You walk down the lane. Only a barbed wire fence separates the lane from the houses on either side. In the garden next door, a man is washing his three wheeler. He whistles noisily, his radio his on and the whole neighbourhood (whether they want to or not), can hear the song he’s listening to. On the other side a house is being built. Two men are working on the construction in a leisurely fashion. At the rate they move it looks like the house will take at least ten years to be built. They stare at you with frank curiosity. Girl Emptying Garbage. At the top of the lane is a cement pole. The pole is hammered into the ground and hammered in to the pole is a rusty nail. You hang the bags higgly piggly on the nail. You peer down the road. There is no sign of the garbage truck yet. You hope it comes today. You hope the money you gave them last month is enough to make them come. You turn back and walk down the lane. You don’t bother looking at the sky. Why should you? Next month. And the month after. And the month after that. It will still be like this. Blue and hot and sunny. And you will never need your coat.

Random thoughts and work in progress…

Miscellaneous writings from here and there….

The day after the war ends I go driving in Colombo.

It’s maybe not the wisest thing to do but I’m curious. I’ve been at home all day and it’s been strangely quiet. I haven’t heard many vehicles on the road outside, which is unusual. Once or twice I hear the sound of a jeep driving by and the sound of men shouting slogans.

In the morning I speak to my parents on the phone. I want to find out what’s happening in their area and what they think about it. My father is in an irascible mood. “We Sri Lankans are mad, no?” he tells me. “Everyone running around on the roads shouting and eating kiribath. Madness!”

I am amused by his take on things. I know he is relieved that it is over – he has mourned for years over the atrocities committed by the LTTE and waited a long time for their defeat. What disturbs him is not the events but the reaction to it.

“Is everything all right over there?” I ask him. And as I ask, I am reminded of the many instances, in so many different times which we have had to ask each other that question. ‘All right’ has come to imply many things over the past years, it has become a way of asking- ‘have there been any bombs, curfew, riots, any pressing reason to stay indoors, keep your head down and hope that whatever crisis is occurring will pass, at least for now.’

Everything’s good, I’m told. Just maybe better be a bit careful today, no? Keep out of sight. Best not to go out.

After which advice, of course I have to go out.

I’m not sure where I’m going so I take the most familiar route. I turn into Kirullapone town and have to slow down because there is a crowd of men waving flags, standing around the bus stand. The mood seems festive, everyone’s smiling. Even the motorists stopping to make way for the crowds don’t seem too irritable (and considering the usual patience threshold of Colombo motorists, this is nothing short of a miracle) Most of the vehicles carry a Sri Lankan flag- I’ve never seen so many flags before. Several enterprising mudalalis who know a good thing when they see it are doing brisk business selling flags.

A convoy of three wheelers passes. Men waving flags and shouting ‘Jaya wewa!’ lean out of the three wheelers. Large posters of the President have been pasted on the back of several of the vehicles. The three wheelers are followed by an open jeep crowded with people, including, I am interested to see, several women. They wave at the bystanders, some of whom wave back while some just stare with frank curiosity. It feels a bit like Vesak. A holiday atmosphere. Or an election campaign. People on the road. Posters. Slogans. Shouting.

I turn onto Galle road. It’s quieter now. Everything is closed, every shop, every business, every doorway is shut. The only other time I can remember everything shutting down like this is for New Year. There are far less vehicles than usual, no traffic jams. Colombo is not itself today.

In Wellawatte things get lively again. The three lanes of traffic suddenly merge into one. There’s some impromptu traffic directing going on. A crowd of men are lighting firecrackers in the middle of Galle road. Some of the men are directing all the vehicles in single file along the side of the road, to avoid the fire crackers (I am glad my father is not here to see this, I can almost him muttering ‘madness’ under his breath) I inch forward slowly, hoping that a stray fire cracker doesn’t blow up my tires and am relieved when I’m past them.

I’m thinking of heading for home, when I’m flagged down at a checkpoint. Today, of all days. I pull over by the barrier. A couple of armed soldiers are manning the checkpoint. I give my identity card to one of the soldiers, who looks frankly bored. He flips it over, looks at the address. Not from here? He asks. I shake my head. Kandy. I assume he’s going to ask me where I’m going but instead he says his sister is getting married in Kandy. At a hotel- Do I know where it is? Yes, I say. It seems a very strange sort of conversation to have a checkpoint but then, this is a very strange sort of day and it has been an even stranger war. He doesn’t look older than twenty five- the same age perhaps, as the war whose end we are celebrating. It strikes me that he is just bored, perhaps he is as tired of stopping people as I am tired of being stopped. He hands back my identity card and as I drive away I can see him stopping the next vehicle. And I wonder whether the thought going through the driver’s mind is the same as mine. The war ended yesterday soldier. How long will you be there?