The God King, White Man and two cities

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

[Part 1]

The White Man entered the town again subsequent to the talk on him. Actually it was his spirit that entered it for he was long dead. In fact, he himself had never entered it for it was so far away, seen almost as a speck from the dizzy mountains he was forced to live on for a score or so, of years.

Even the other city, that is, the Lion City (LC), though more proximate, he abhorred for entering it would mean decapitation.

That was the experience he had gained. So he avoided it but went round and round it with his saleable goods.

Very intriguing for no body had taught him the art of making them, nor even his mother who taught him only the Bible. Poor woman, she never guessed how much it was going to help him not only by way of mentally stabilising him but teaching him to avoid sinning.

In his young mind, sinning had become synonymous with women, those traps laid by Satan or the Mara if we are to mix up the Western and Eastern metaphors.

His trade also provided him a chute out of all the intricate flora of the highlands and the treacherous gorges and ravines and camouflaged him as an innocent trader though, his white skin had bronzed under the merciless tropical sun.When he had successfully reached the port on the North West coast with his friend, the few men there, probably the guards got very curious. 'On our shores have appeared' they reported to the greater ones, 'two strange men. They speak fluently in Sinhala, yet know some English and chew betel always. Their dresses are the native dresses. From the LC they have come, they say and wish to go home to the West".

God figures

But before we go on, to make some sense we must talk on the God King. Like most god kings or god figures he was utterly unpredictable. He had all the power for that. But one steady point he had, he hated the LCC or the Low Country city that began to be called by a name reminiscent of a Western historical figure who went about performing magic which was discovering land already discovered and inhabited by humans.

They were regarded as half human for they were not white and some were taken for display to the West where they wilted and died. But the cities they had built outdid the gorgeous nature of the White cities.

"Raze that accursed city to the ground" the capricious God king ordered the party in power on the coast and described it, as the source of all the evil.

His frenzy of hatred against the city was that his brother had paraded its streets against him with troops from the inland.

But the order went unheeded and instead of destroying the LCC, decreased its size for miserly as they were they wished to reduce maintenance costs. Back to the White Man.

He became very popular after his book was out. Popularity is honey to a writer. The book became popular internationally and nationally.

Some big bosses of the Lion race kept it by their bed side and according to their autobiographies read it when their spirits had plummeted rock bottom subsequent to a great calamity.

Then they rose like the proverbial Phoenix. Or the ashes of the dead, whatever it is. Such a tale of courage the white man had related and never fantasy, but pure fact.

At one time Jah-Mahing the cattle while harvesting the fields of the village elders his own home and hearth, a 1,000 miles away.

No sign of escape either from the massive rock boulders or the gnarled giants of trees or the rivers that dashed pell-mell with the ferocity. Of political speakers on the threshold of elections.

To be continued