Rise and fall of mamalian glands

Payodara, is the most apt term for breasts. Broken up the word it goes as Payo Dara, store of milk. The word probably is of Sanskrit origin, Payo meaning milk and Dara to hold. Today, however, this most benign purpose is marginalised by more irrelevant factors as "Enhancement of female beauty" and surging eroticism. Not that these motives did not exist earlier. Just read Kavsilumina to be informed on that point.

Again I reiterate that supplying milk to the infant is what Payodara are meant for. As I do not wish to barge into the domain of Health, I will refrain from enumerating the myriad values of breast milk among which is that this milk is said to contribute to the brain development of the infant. What else could be a mother's duty? Producing a moron or even one with a very low IQ could be a mother's tragedy.

I wonder whether anyone, in the East or West has attempted to write a book or even a long essay on these glands. In erotic literature they assume a large role and in pornographic literature even a bigger role so much so that many conservative readers are already aghast that I, a female, chose this topic.

Social milieu

But read on. What motivated me to write this piece is a teledrama staged on the magic box. My first encounter with it was casual. Though the plot is rotten and enmeshed in a thousand and one distractions in addition to the advertisements the drama is, placed against the social milieu of some places in the North Colombo region, namely Santha Bastiama (built around the Portuguese bastion of St. Sebastian) and Kotahena (a forest reduced to stumps by a wild fire).

If anyone wishes to have a peep into how depraved society had become in the early 20th century one has to view this teledrama. Gambling dominates and religious, especially Buddhist values are completely on the wane. In fact, Buddhism just does not enter the dramatic sequences and one is in a quandary as to what faith the inhabitants belong. Now you must be wondering what all this has got to do with the rise and fall of mammalian glands. Has she forgotten the topic?

Well. My eyes, too observant for my age for better or for worse, noticed the fall of mammalian glands in this set up. To fall they have to rise before and that they have done for years, even for centuries due to under garments that helped raise them. Once in a medical journal, perhaps in 'Laugh and grow fat' page I came across this quiz, "What makes mountains out of molehills?". The answer referred to this undergarment of women seeped here from the West. Of course, it helped to prevent muscles sagging down to one's tummy.

Authentic

That is exactly what I noticed in that teledrama. Though this is not an uninvited review of a film or teledrama, I must say that the background presentation is very authentic. There are the fallow fields where starved beasts of burden roam about. The area is all water-sodden by inflows from the Kelani River. The chief preoccupation of males is gambling or idling by boutiques and gossiping and they out do the women in this. It was the wife of the main boutique keeper who first drew my attention to this historical event of the fall of breasts.

As all the women in the area carry names of the empresses of Europe perhaps to compensate for the poverty-ridden lives spawned out of colonialism, lets us call her Catherina.

Well, poor Catherina's mouth goes yap-yap most of the time on trivia while her breasts sag right on to her stomach. Very authentic. Piqued I began to be more careful in my observations.

All the women, even the younger ones are minus this particular undergarment. But this is a make-believe play, not a real human drama. That set me musing further. Did the producers ask the actresses not to wear it to enhance the realistic aspect of the drama and depict women dressed as they were at that time, minus the imprisoning garment? Such a conjecture could be crude. Maybe the women themselves got together and opted for it.

It is almost certain that this piece of garment 'Voyaged' from the West to the East.

None of our native women were familiar with it. The Bostorokke that some attribute to influence of the Portuguese styles too cannot be identified with a brassiere. The habit of flaunting breasts as a sex attraction via "upraising" garments had never entered their innocent heads. I am not trying to build up saints or sexless zombies out of our females. But that was more or less the actual situation.

Topless women

Adjacent to this issue is the issue of the topless women adorning the Mirror Wall on Sigiri Rock or the topless women caricatured in Knox's Historical Relations. Both parties are minus what is now called the 'bra'. Can they be accused of immodesty? No. That was no ruse to attract the male eye. It was the natural mode of dress at the time.

Yet, according to texts like the Kavu Silumina, a very erotic attitude towards these glands is manifest. Perfumes are applied on them and flowers strewn in various designs. It is evident that those women went about exposing their upper anatomy at carnivals and other festivals. That too could be attributed to contemporary trends.

There definitely was no vulgarity. No shameless exhibitionism was intended. What law officer will ever think of dragging our rural women bathing in wayside brooks clad in only the flimsy Diya Redda, their curves exposed, to courts on charges of indecent exposure? For centuries they have been doing it. The same thing applies to shanty women bathing by the roadside and to the women of yore.

The women impersonating the Kotahena and Santha Basthiama women of the early 20th century are helping in a good cause, by producing realistic characters on the stage not only in the way of speaking, swearing (Santhanam Maaniyane!), but in these less noticeable variants in dress. We need this kind of drama to retain memories of a forgotten past phase in our social history. Instead of a surfeit of boy meets girl tales.

The drama woven around Sokari too builds up an island meshed in the rather queer aesthetic traditions of the past. Here Sokari herself is dressed 'incorrectly'.

According to the story the barren Sokari comes to Lanka from South India to consult a one-eyed elderly physician. Purpose is obvious. Sokari does soon delivers a child with the aid of the one-eyed man though in a rather naughty way that does not befit an honourable physician.

At least that is what I gathered in the dramatic chaos staged, with drums beating galore and Pandam Perlikarayas flashing their magic wands to bless the new born baby, really of doubtful fatherhood, but actually a bond between South India and Sri Lanka,much needed phenomena today.

The lights flash. Namo Viththiyen, the Pothegura of the drama oozing with sex, intones as the curtain draws aside.

That is tongue in cheek. But what is relevant to our topic is that Sokari is not only wearing a tight brassiere in those early days when ships of the West were pirating our shores, but a Kandyan Osaree replete with Padakkam and the Konde Coora.

There are many other aspects to these glands, that are tinged with a touch of historicity that I have in store and may deliver later.