Sunburnt Home - an Australian-Sri Lankan novel

Chapter 21: 'You come from a sick country!'

By Sunil GOVINNAGE

Jayadeva was keen to attend his mother's funeral in Sri Lanka with Asela. His first reaction had nothing to do with missing the last three days of school, but inability to play his favourite computer games during school holidays. The death of a grand-mother was a non event for Asela as a rain falling onto a rock. Jayadeva thought that this journey meant to pay the last respect to his mother would provide Asela an opportunity of meeting some of the relatives that he had never met before. In addition, he thought the funeral and associated rituals like mathaka bana and the week-after alms giving would give his son, a good doze of Sri Lankan culture in one visit.

Jayadeva finally managed to convince Asela to accompany his son to the grandmother's funeral after several requests. The agreement was not a voluntary gesture to pay the last respects for his grandmother with whom he could not communicate due to language barrier. In the case of Sunitha, it was different. She always attempted to communicate with achchci amma by learning Sinhala phrases each time when there was a planned telephone conversation with grandparents.

Jayadeva managed to lure Asela by offering him a bribe.

"Putha, if you come with me, I'll buy you a new gameboy set, on our way back home."

"Dad, are you joking?" You are the one who always stop me playing games on the computer."

"No, I really mean it. We could buy something for you in Singapore!"

"Please don't lie to me!"

"No, this is a bonus for coming with me, but you have to share it with akka!"

"Sue is not interested in computer games anymore! She only watches X-files. She is crazy about that TV program."

"Yes, I have watched a few episodes of X files. I never knew she is crazy about that TV program. I'll ask her why."

"Oh Dad, please don't ask her! Sue will get angry with me for telling all these. She wants to keep things away from you. She told me that you are too Sri Lankan, and bit mad!"

"Yes, I am the mad one and it's all you mother's talk that she is learning."

The journey back home brought a lot of hard feelings due to realising that he has no living linkages to his ancestral home any more. Asela had different problems for staying at grandmother's home. Every day he complained about 'Sri Lankan mozzies' and 'nasty cockroaches'. Asela's inability to communicate in Sinhala with relatives created further problems.

One day Jayadeva heard one of the relatives calling his son, 'podi sudda'. He instantly realised that he was responsible for the language barrier and creating an image of a foreigner of his son in the eyes of his relatives. He felt sad thinking that he had turned his son into a foreigner in the country where he was born. Asela was not happy throughout his stay, and reminded father every day that he wanted to go back home.

"Putha, this is my home and it's your home too!"

"No Dad, this is not my home! It is your home, not mine!"

"Putha, this is where you were born!"

"No Dad, my home is Perth. All my friends are in Perth. Mum and Sue are in Perth."

"Look what you got here! Mossies and cockroaches all over the place. These people don't do anything and spray stuff to kill them! You know that I'm scared of those dirty insects."

Jayadeva felt as if he was inside a freezing cold room, and as a result he couldn't open up his lips.

Jayadeva controlled his feelings and said:

"Putha, we don't kill karapottho in Sri Lanka, like in Australia. We are Buddhist people and it's not a good thing. They also have life like human beings. It's not good to kill even insects!"

"Then how come Mum kills cockroaches and leave spray cans in our rooms."

"That's your mother, Putha. She has become an Australian, and I'm not!"

* * *

Having not seen Buddhist funeral rituals previously, Asela was surprised to see grandmother's body inside an open coffin at home, and the funeral possession, and above all the matahaka bana and the alms giving on the following day.

"Dad, don't you think that these bit odd? When Damien's grandma died, the body was kept in a funeral parlour. Why all these funny things in Sri Lanka? Don't you have funeral parlours in Sri Lanka?"

At the end of the seventh day, Jayadeva felt as if Asela's questions were like sharp arrows wounding his body, especially the heart and spirit.

-- I thought putha attending Amma's funeral will give him a good idea of our culture, but he sees everything differently now. It is not his fault, but mine for taking him to Australia for a good education and life. And he has become an Australian. What will he do when he reaches twenty? He just turned twelve last May!

Though Malini's parents wanted Jayadeva and Asela to visit them to their home in Mathugama, Jayadeva lied, saying that he had to go back to work in two days time.

Looking at Asela, Malini's father who was an owner of a rubber estate and a processing factory said in Sinhala:

"Ape me podi sudu mahattaya tika dawasakata hari awanam, apitath ingirisi padam tikak igena ganna thibuna!"

[We could have learnt at least a few English lessons, if this small white man visited us, even for a few days!]

Though Asela couldn't understand the meaning of the elder's remark, he knew that the words "podi sudu" had a negative connotation.

"Putha, please kneel down and pay respect to granddad and grandma." Jayadeva requested politely.

"What for? Why should I kneel down and worship these people?" Asela growled.

Malini's parents looked with amazement at Jayadeva who stood in front of them like a concrete statue gazing at Asela's angry and unfriendly face.

As a school principal blaming a student for doing wrong, the father-in-law advised Jayadeva:

"Putha, me podi sudu mahaththayata tika tikawath lankawe hoda sirith kiyala denna! Mewa thaththlage uthukam. Evunath mama Malini duwatath telephone karapu welawakata kiyannam ko!"

[Son, you must teach this small white gentleman some good Sri Lanka values and manners, at least one at a time! These are the duties of a father. Anyway, I'll tell Malini duwa also to teach him a few good manners!]

"Yes, father, they are all my faults! Malini is a great mother and teach them all good values to survive in Australia. Yes, it is my fault!" Jayadeva replied in Sinhala to his father-in-law who didn't have a clue about his continuous struggle to teach both his children Sri Lankan ways.

Just before, they left Jayadeva received an advice from in-laws:

"Before you leave make a vow to Kalutara Bodiya requesting gods to look after you and Putha, and for him to have the ability to learn good Sri Lankan habits soon!"

"Yes, father, yes mother. I also have been thinking the same! "said Jayadeva, and he knelt down and worshipped them, and he saw his son gazing at the father as he was engaged in a strange activity in an alien country.

After this incident, Jayadeva gave up asking Asela to kneel down and pay respect to elders, and Jayadeva's reluctance to teach his only son 'Sri Lankan ways' and respecting elders became the topic of the family after the funeral.

* * *

Jayadeva was relieved when he got into the car to leave for airport a few hours earlier. Asela was ecstatic and behaved as a bird flying away from a bush fire area to a secured place.

Jayadeva told the driver not to go via Kalutara city as he was not keen to stop by the Kalutara bodhiya to offer coins and ask for blessings.

The driver was amazed, and Jayadeva said, "we may get late as we have no time to wait on the way".

Jayadeva knew Asela's ecstatic feeling, when they got off the Air-Lanka plane to take the link flight to Perth with Qantas.

Asela knew exactly what he wanted to buy, and Jayadeva paid the bill as if he was paying a bonus deserved by a good employee for good work done.

* * *

The Qantas plane encircled the city to find its bearings like a bird descending from sky to its habitation. The Mute sea was sending waves to the foreshore continuously. Asela who occupied the window seat left his new toy-gadget on his lap, ignored the sea and looked at the city that he called home.

Jayadeva, reflected the journey and thought whether he would ever go back home with his son who has found his sense of place in Perth; the world's most isolated city in the world. Unlike his father who could never find his bearings in Australia, it was Asela's home, and home of his sister mother whom he thought were waiting for him at the arrival lounge.

A soon as they came out Asela ran to his mother and gave her a hug, and they embraced each other as Jayadeva gazed at them with a sad look. There was no sign of Sunitha.

"Where is Duwa? "

"She didn't want to come! She said she had home work, but when I left she was watching a TV program."

As Jayadeva pushed the trolley with heavy travelling bags toward the car park, he felt that warm hot weather piercing through his dark brown skin, like sharp steel arrows. Asela and Malini walked ahead of him as they were celebrating their reunion.

"Putha, how's the trip? Did you enjoy Kalutara?"

"No Mum! Dad's home is full of cockroaches and mosquitoes. They don't spray them because it is no good to kill insects!."

"Is that all you learnt?"

"No Mum. It's looked like a sick and strange place! They bring dead people home. I won't go there again. That's Dad's country!"

As Jayadeva heard the mother-son conversation, he felt as if he was inside a furnace. When Malini opened the doors of her new Mercedes Benz, Jayadeva saw it as similar to the funeral hearse, which carried his mother's coffin to the cemetery for cremation.

Glossary:

Achchi amma- Sinhala word for Grandmother

Mathaka bana -The Buddhist preaching on the sixth day of a dead person usually take place at the home of the deceased.

Akka - Sinhala word for elder sister

Karapoththa - Sinhala word for cockroaches

Podi sudda-A small white man

Kalutara Bodiya - This is one of the religious places venerated by all Buddhists Sri Lankans. Anyone who passes Kalutara pays their respects by way of worshipping and offerings at the sacred shrine and the Bo-tree on the bank of Kalu Ganaga (Black River).

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.