Tales from the Walauwa

by Cat O'Logge

Pala the gardener the other day declared rather wearily that anea hamu the whole watta was overgrown with grass upto here (and indicated his brown neck, a most ridiculous lie). The watta is beyond the immaculately kept gardens of the walauwa.

I suppose the father of the house didn't want to inflict the whole watta with grass "upto here" upon Pala because a few days later Nandasena descended upon the walauwa in all his white glory. White glory because he wears only white, except for the black belt holding up his sarong which he doubles up, with a white vest in place of the white shirt, when he's working.

Nandasena is quite a jolly fellow, always willing to part with a bit of fish or meat from his plate when he sees me. Altogether, he's much better than Pala because he doesn't seem to derive any perverted pleasure by kicking innocent cats around the place.

Nandasena is also terribly good at catching snakes, which is certainly fine by me. At the end of the day he'd say that if only lokuhamu had seen it, here's the length (indicating the length from the tips of his fingers to his elbow). The funny thing is that apparently the walauwa premise breeds nothing but snakes that length. As far as I remember, he has never caught a snake of any other measurement. "This thick", he'd say indicating the fattest bamboo holding up the clothes lines.

No one ever supervises Nandasena's work. He'd be paid a visit by mother of the house who'd tell him that he had better not uproot those fruit trees over there which were only planted recently. But after the customary session everything would progress smoothly.

It is quite a privilege to see Nandasena in action, I myself do it quite often stretched out in the shade. So, various members of the family will come to observe his handiwork at times and they'd all be obliged to tales of "who had stolen what recently and who had eloped with whom".

Pala is up for a lot of competition, what with everyone saying goodness knows what to do if Nandasena wasn't there.

Lazy as he is, I don't suppose it thrills him very much to hear them going on, about Nandasena, as if he were the next best thing after sliced bread (a term I have heard daughter of the house using once).

That is probably why he appears in the kitchen frequently to say that if only it wasn't for this bad leg of his he'd have finished clearing up the whole watta in just one day.

Magilin complimented him with her famous and uttered with all the scorn she can muster (and being Magilin that is a lot, I can tell you). But a lazy fellow that Pala is and he got away with the whole thing by simply raking up all the grass Nandasena cut and setting fire to it. Now he is always good at setting fire to things.

I do believe that this is what takes his fancy after his talent for kicking innocent cats. But ah, those cats that the Egyptians worshipped must have been looking down on me because Nandasena and Pala were taking a break when a dry coconut branch hanging down from its tree caught fire and with a terribly exciting sound the fire travelled all the way up.

Ooh, the whole walauwa household came to watch it and father of the house let Pala have it for ruining a perfectly good coconut tree. Nandasena of course chuckled loudly. Funny fellow he is and I decided to stick close to him for a while because I heard Leela asking whether Pala ayya would have his lunch now.

Pala came in to lunch looking rather morose and depressed and I finally felt there was some justice in the world. Egyptian cat gods to the rescue!!!