The issue of the White Cloth

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

The writer does not claim to be the unique recipient of an E-mail presumed to be sent by Sri Lanka Guardian at 6.54 p.m. on December 29, 2009. It has to be one of hundreds posted to a calibre who can be generally described as "interested in all other businesses except their own". To such humans, topics as war are just ambrosia.

Penned out of all people by a writer named Gam vasiya (dweller in a village), it begins with a telling apolitical piece. Pardon me for quoting that in toto in my article that has nothing to do with politics but with the phenomenon of the White Cloth tossed about by the Game Redi Nanda (Washer woman) on wedding nights. I feel safer on such primitive ground. Man they say is a political animal. That could exclude the woman.

Anyway here is the piece inserted right at the start probably to arrest interest. (December 30, Ontario, Canada) Probably the most important outcome of Sarath Fonseka's misadventure into the political arena has been his opening a post-mortem of the Tiger leadership. Although Fonseka may reduce the "walk-over" majority commanded by Rajapaksa, the final outcome of the election is fairly evident to everyone except those who have become mesmerised by the mis-matched Mangala-Ranil-Tilvin Kaleidoscope".

Much more than the political content I in turn was mesmerised by the writer's peculiar jugglery with words. Imagine elevating or plummeting the trio combination of Mangala Samaraweera, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Tilvin Silva, the main players of the opposition, into a "kaleidoscope" out of all things. The dictionary defines a kaleidoscope as a mixture of bright coloured objects! The simile is muddled enough.

Despite my meanderings into irrelevant paths as this I could grasp the points the writer was trying to focus on his main presentation theme, I gleaned was that "the proposal to surrender with white flags seems to be a mostly a romantic picture evolved by various parties in Colombo".

How ironically romantic! It is the festive season and most parties in the metropolis (not the actual parties but groups of people) are indulging in various celebrations with plenty to eat and drink. So conjuring up visions of men walking in processions with white flags to escape death, seems to be an inevitable follow-up. In the long extract, these white flags change to white clothes and even to White Vertis.

That is welcome for it reflects a pleasant symbiosis between the Sinhala culture and the Tamil culture. I myself have come to my ancestral village in Siyane Korale for the vacation and my favourite Redi Nanda now grown very much wizened and bent is visiting me. It was she who retrieved my maiden piece to the Silumina titled Lenage Lokaya from a shirt pocket of my brother. I had given it to be posted but it had ended up with this dear character. It was never posted again. That is another story.

From my dwelling in the Victorious City I have inserted into my handbag a print out of that E-mail and keep on perusing it while the Redi Nanda squats before me munching on the betel.

"What are you reading, Menike?".

"It is a story about a white cloth", I answer.

"Ah! The white cloth!" "She exclaims jubilantly. I look at her with interest. Then it dawns on me that half her fortunes were made on that white cloth. Women decked in gold jewellery would be in and out of the houses where wedding functions were held but Redi Nanda was the queen. She was the one who decided the all important questions whether the bride was a virgin or not through the Mantra of the White Cloth. If the bride was a virgin the white cloth would be red, and vice versa.

"So, Menike, what is it about the white cloth? Is the Anduwa (Govt) bringing it back?"

I am sorry to disappoint her. Already the white cloth has receded to the background except in the remote and traditional villages. Many enlightened men and women have come to the rescue of young damsels whose signs of virginity could be dismantled by many other factors other than male contact. The Redi Nanda's fortunes have dwindled on that score.

"No. This is another kind of white cloth that has become a headache to the Anduwa".

"How?".

At 90 she is just too inquisitive. How can I explain to her all those issues cropped up in the island on the White Cloth said to have been carried by a group of men before surrender? How am I to explain the different versions as to whether the surrendees were shot and on whose orders they were shot and whether such a drama really took place or whether it is just a romantic picture conjured in fanciful minds?

With the Redi Nanda looking over my shoulder I browse through pieces like this.

"There never were any examples of deployment of white cloth, either by our own Army or by the LTTE. During the Premadasa era some 600 policemen surrendered to the LTTE of course without white clothes and they had all been killed in cold blood".

"Is it about blood?".

"Yes. Blood of a different kind"

"White cloth and blood. I knew it to be so", she enunciates dreamily and spreads herself on the cement floor chewing her cud.

Memories of her as a young buxom woman swaying her hips and coming across the paddy fields float into my mind. How peaceful those days were. One saw war only in bioscopes (not in kaleidoscopes) and that too rarely.

Eternal Love, Sadhathanika premaya, was the dominant theme. Young men and women just cavorted around trees and sang and danced. Almost everybody was happy and carefree despite requests from monks to shorten this trouble torn Samsara chakra. Actually the Sansaric woes would eventually demonstrate in the island to the optimum as the last century dragged on to its end. Whoever imagined this paradise island to be nettled in the world's most bloody war? Most young men of the village have in the intervening period lost their lives to insurrections as the JVP insurrection or to the ethnic strife. Many a woman has become a widow.

The Redi Nanda rattles on about her fortune building white cloth. Not much manage caused, she says laughing. Any bloody or non-bloody issue that arises was settled peacefully.

I go through the extract on the Issue of the White Cloth, another white cloth cropped up in different circumstances.

And I hope that in similar fashion no harm would come out of it. If the procession of those surrendees carrying a white cloth is fantasy hatched in romantic minds as that writer would have us believe let us believe so. All is well that ends well, even bloody issues.