Itipahan (Burly Lamp) Chapter - 7

By Sumithra RAHUBADDE

(Translated by Ranga Chandrarathne and edited by Indeewara Thilakarathne)

"I am a lamp burning on both ends

Known well that I cannot pass the night

Yet

See my friends

Foes

How powerful light

Burnt

To dispel the darkness"

Somawathi stepped out of skirting around the bathing well and squeezed her Diyaredda. She turned back, hearing the sound of footsteps. She heard the footsteps stopped and somebody watching her. Soome was aware that Sugathapala who worked at Nanawathi Hamine's Rubber Maduwa had secretly been watching her movements for the last couple of days. `Naki Manamalaya' she murmured to herself. She had no intention either of having an affair with a person like Sugathapala or of marrying such a person. Soome thought that Sugathapala was staring at her in silence as the bathing cloth was almost stuck to her body. She could not change. Sugathapala's big eyes were glued on her.

"Soome, I was waiting to meet you," Sugathapala said when Soome turned around. He thought that he should now reveal the story that he kept for a long time in his heart. Before long, the able bodied man in the village would seduce her. Sugathapala thought he should speak to her before it was too late.

"Why do you want to have a meeting with me? " Soome inquired. An angry feeling reached his mind instantly.

"I also can destroy you. But I have a feeling for you. I do not like to do that. Remember that villagers would one day bite off you like a cashew fruit," said Sugathapala as he was cleaning his teeth with a cinnamon stick.

Soome's gaze at Sugathapala was capable of burning not only him but also the entire village.

"Oh, that won't do! If you have such an idea, give it up now! You had better choose a woman suitable for you," said Soome. She picked up the pail and was getting ready to leave. She was still in her bathing cloth. An intense sense of pathos overwhelmed her. Why should a person like Sugathapala come after a girl like her, she thought. It was she who had to build up her world. She had the strength to create her own world. Every action was aimed at creating a world for her one day. Sugathapala or any other person in the village would not be allowed to munch her like a cashew fruit.

"Then you hope to hang on to the shoulders of Sirinatha Punchi Mahattaya? Or to go to the council? ", Sugathapala inquired from Soome who was passing him behind as he was laughing at her hysterically. Though Soome was enraged she ran home without waiting to look back.

She thought of the villagers who judged her life based on her mother's character. Then she wondered whether she loved Sirinatha. He had pleasant manners. He is handsome and wholesome as never before. Soome thought that it would be better to marry Sirinatha with whom she had played since they were children. Almost every morning Sirinatha would come into the hut lifting the bamboo curtain. From a distance, he would throw a pebble onto the roof to make sure that Duleena had gone to tap rubber. Already woken up, Soome would smile and open the window. Sirinatha would enter the hut with a smile, lifting the curtain made out reed. Then, Sirinatha would chat with her continuously. Soome doubted whether Sirinatha wanted only to chat with her. Rarely, he would kiss on the back of her neck. She remained as if she had come under the influence of a magnet. Then he would leave her with his eyes closed. She had never asked Sirinatha whether he would marry her one day. But she realised that she had entertained that idea. Sirinatha was a soft person. It was interesting to listen to what he would tell. She thought that he was not a salacious person as the rest of the men in the village. Above all, she thought that she had a kind of desire for him; a desire that she had not developed for any other person. Sugathapala also expressed his desire for her. She still carried a nauseate feeling having heard of his words near the bathing well.

"Soome, you have a delicate scent even in the morning" murmurs Sirinatha on some occasions. She thought that how nice it would be to spend the whole day with Sirinatha. But Sirinatha would behave as if he was scared. She knew that Sirinatha wanted to stay in the hut and to get out in complete secrecy.

She could not ask Sirinatha whether he would marry her or not.

Scene from the teledrama

Soome understood that her mother's and her lives were engulfed in the darkness surrounded by the rubber estate. Mother toiled throughout the day only to make ends meet. They had just three simple meals. She had never complained about it. The poverty and the helplessness had devoured her young life. John Paxton would not have been Soome's father just because of her mother's beauty.

Mother who worked throughout the day, would weave a mat till two o'clock in the morning. She did not allow Soome to be awake while she was working.

Soome thought that she had the same kind of feeling towards the person called father and her mother. Soome would not sacrifice her youth as her mother did embracing the wretchedness with both hands. She could not become a slave like her mother who would be chued as a cashew nut.

Though she thought that she who passed Ordinary Level Examination, could find an appointment as a teacher or any other job, it was only an unrealised dream. Until realising that dream, she could attend her Advanced Level class. Sirinatha would leave the village in a couple of days to take up a job in Colombo. Soome felt that she was no longer happy going to school after Sirinatha had left it. But she could not stay at home without going to school. She should learn well in order to realise her objective of becoming a learned person in the village and to earn the respect of village folk.

Niyathapala would join the army as a soldier in a couple of days. Recalling him Soome smiled. She thought that Niyathapala Weerarathne, a six footer, as a character similar to a Negro in a book she had read. She thought of his black complexion and his pleasant smile. He also had a well built body. When he smiled, his white teeth would give a glow to his thick dark body. Black Niyathapala's feeling of intimacy towards her who had a pleasant white complexion was the joke of the school. But in her heart, she had no feeling of affection for him. Her heart preferred to be closer only to Sirinatha.

One day when Niyathapala's brother cracked a joke at her expense on her way to school, Niyathapala became angry and quarrelled with him. During the fight Niyathapala's brother referred to her as the daughter of the village whore.

She recalled how she addressed a political meeting like a parrot without knowing anything about politics. She thought that she and her mother who caught up in poverty, social injustice and unemployment, are the issues she unknowingly covered during her speech at the meeting. Duleena had visited the Village Headman for more than twenty times to request a Pin Padiya. But the Village Headman had asked something else in return as a favour. Though Nanawathi Hamine was a good woman compared with other women in the village, Mother (Duleena) had to pocket insults hurled upon her. Nanawathi Hamine was never reluctant to insult mother as well as Soome. She recalled how Nanawathi Hamine spoke to them following her address at the MP's meeting.

Nanawathi Hamine having insulted her mother also started insulting herself for no reason.

"Soome, did you tell that the Madam's Government did not care for the poor at the meeting? " Thus Nanawathi Hamine initiated a discussion with her about the meeting.

"Hamine, I could not remember telling it for sure, but I would have mentioned it," said Soome, recalling what she mentioned at the meeting.

"No Government would treat you well. We ourselves provide all your meals.

What could Governments deliver? It could increase the price of kerosene.

That's it", Nanawathi Hamine raised another issue.

"Now, there is a new government in power of the same party you supported. I think they would treat you well. You said Madam's Government was not good enough. Who are you to talk about the Madam?"

She addressed the meeting not knowing anything about Dudley Senanayake or Madam. It was Mother and Kumatheris uncle who frequented the hut. They only knew that she would paste a beautiful picture of the Madam or Dudley Senanayake with a pipe in his mouth or a picture of John Kennedy on the wall which she used as a calendar. Soome reflected how she felt sad when John Kennedy was killed though she did not recall the exact date of his death. She even remembers reciting a poem dedicated to John Kennedy that appeared in a weekend newspaper. She remembered reciting it as an act of grief. Even today, she could remember the last line of the poem. "Aiyyo Kennedy Aiyyo Rattharan Kanda". But she could not remember who wrote the poem. She addressed Dudley Senanayaka's meeting because, prior to the supporters of Madam approached her, Senanayake's supporters not only recognised her oratorical skills but gave her the necessary training and escorted her to the meeting.

"Your aunty is passing hints at me because I addressed the meeting. I am very angry because your aunty thinks that we get meals from you free of charge." She remembered sharing her emotions with Sirinatha. For a moment, Sirinatha looked at Soome's angry face. When she is angry, her face turns red and eyes shrink. She also shivers a bit.

"Your action was uncalled for"

"How could that be? Your aunty is the person who got fever. All because we have been born poor," said Soome with a tone mixed with sadness and anger.

"You were not born poor. If you spoke at the meeting on your own accord, you do not want to worry about any other remarks and do not be angry with me," Sirinatha said with a high pitched voice. Soome thought that villagers would have welcome her back to the village had she gone to that country with her father John Jackson. She could have gone with him without being poor and suffering as a consequence. Nanawathi Hamine asked who she was to talk about Madam.

She thought whoever she was, and it was nothing wrong talking of Madam. She had hung up above her camp bed a picture of smiling Madam in a blue sari and carrying a hand-bag. Dudley Mahattaya's smiling picture with a pipe on his mouth was also hung close by. There was no difference between them. She had never talked to either of them and had no association with them. Both of them were heroes that she could never reach. Such personalities are born to govern the country.

Soome recalled that after selecting Political Science as a subject for Advanced Level, teacher Ratnayake's teachings on politics had motivated her to do politics.

"Daisy Suzan, look at the adverse consequences of Colonialism. Still people embrace those names borrowed from the White. Daisy was born in a rustic village, but you have no Sinhalese name? Where is our identity? ", one day, teacher Ratnayaka said quoting her name. If he had known her genealogy he would have been more forceful. Everyone turned their attention on her.

"It is not Daisy's name alone. How many Wiliyons, James and John Appus are there in the villages? By the way, let us take our Prime Ministers' names; Dudley Shelton Senanayake, West Ridgeway Bandaranaike, John Kotalawala and then Madam's name is also an English name in the marriage certificate."

Teacher Ratnayake was highly critical of adverse socio-cultural setback which is an outcome of Colonialism. Her name was from her father, an Englishman. Her mother who was a village woman brought forth an illegitimate child as a result of an affair with an Englishman. Mother who used to pocket any insult, was trying to live with the stigma of bearing an illegitimate child. Soome thought that mother would not consider it a disgrace because her father was a white man.

Unlike other men, Soome tried to consider John Jackson as a good man. If not, he would not have tried to take her to England. He would not fondle her when she was a little one. Soome was able to recollect faintly, the attempts made by John Jackson to bring up her not as a child of a servant but as a princess. She thought why John Jackson had not given her his surname but only put the name 'Daisy Suzan'. Though she is Daisy Suzan, she is Rathuvithanalage Daisy Suzan. Mother is Liyanage Duleena. According to the information she had found out, mother's legal husband was Rathu Vithanalage Heen Appu.

The man who did not know her had been registered as her father in the birth certificate. Soome tried hard to picture Heen Appu's multiple images.

On one occasion, Soome imagined Heen Appu as a person with a weak personality and on another as an innocent but a person with a strong personality. At another time she reminiscent a blurred vision of Podi Atha of Rambutan watte.

The summer of Podi Atha's life was rambutan season. Podi Atha, who lived alone in a hut in the rambutan watta, had only changed his clothes once a year. He bought sarongs, vests and handkerchiefs during the rambutan season and he would buy another set of clothes in the following season. He gave out an strange odour throughout the year. He had no contact with others and had no relatives.

But he was a Podi Atha for everyone in the village. Soome did not really know why she tried to compare such a person with mother's husband Heen Appu. However, Soome did not like the manner that John Jackson had dealt with her surname. Cheating her mother was another deed but she thought that the Englishman had done a dirty thing by associating that innocent man's name with a child born to him.

"What is this surname that the Englishman had registered for me? Soome inquired, though she knew everything with the intention of hurting mother's feelings. Duleena looked at her daughter by taking her hands off the mat she was weaving for a moment. Having confronted the ferocious face of her daughter, she got back to her weaving again.

"That man had done a dirty thing by putting someone else's surname for me.

Luckily, by the time we arrived in the village that innocent man had died."

Duleena understood that now her daughter fiercely unravels her life. She thought that Englishman had done so on purpose. She did not imagine that the Englishman had asked her name and her legal husband's name in order to fill the column for father's name in the birth certificate. However, she did not find fault with registering her legal husband's surname to her child.

Footnotes:

Diyaredda - bathing cloth

Rabber Maduwa - The hut where rubber is processed.

Mahattaya - Sinhala word for mister

Naki Manamalaya - An aged man who is fond of women

Pin Padiya- A welfare payment provided to the poor in Sri Lanka.

Aiyyo Kennedy Aiyyo Rattharan Kanda - Oh, Kennedy you are a great person with a body of gold! (A line of stanza from a Sinhala poem written after the death of John F. Kennedy)

Podi Atha of Rambutan Watte - An old man who lived in a Rambutan orchard.

'Atha' is the Sinhala word for grandpa .