Of Kandewatte Road

It was 1994. I remember asking the well-known literary figure, Dr. K. Jayatileka for his address. After giving the main directions, he said humbly, "Anyway as you come to the area don't ask for my house. They will be clueless. Ask for Romiel aiya's house. Everybody knows him for he is very generous dishing out some beverarge. My house is next to his. Very few know me as I dole out only books".

The remembrance of this raked memories, of Kandewatte road needs a prologue. About 15 years back when pipe repairers were a rare breed, I had a crisis at home when a tap refused to close up which ever way you try to close it. It went on delivering goods like Romiel Aiya. just zooming my water bill and perhaps may end in inundating the backwoods of the Parliament complex. A Nugegoda hardware gave me the telephone number of a tap repairer. Preserving it like a sacred document, I phoned him. He gave only one hour to wait for him, after notifying a place to pick him up in town. But poor man, he had bad news.

"Nona. I have left behind the tool box".

Genuine

A child of his had fallen ill and in the hullabaloo he had forgotten it. He sounded genuine and so I drove off with him along his road, the Kandewatte Road, to pick up the all important tool box. I was certainly, not bored in his company.He was determined to indicate to me the habitats of some very important people in today's society and improve my general knowledge..

"Can you remember the teledrama, 'Valakulu yata"(Under the clouds) ?

It sounded bad to reply in the negative as I had to keep him on friendly terms thinking of my gushing tap and the bill. So I answered, "I may have. There are so many things happening under the Valakulu that I could not have missed it".

"Then look at that house there. The one who goes about with a tray when the bridegroom enters, lives there. Her name is Kumudumalee"

"Beautiful name." Encouraged, he went on.

"Remember the film, Para Chakraya?"

"No"

"Cha! You should not miss it. It is indeed a real Para Chakraya circling non-stop as the Sansara that my wife keeps talking about .... Peter malli and Sugath put a fine show of Cheena gusthi in it. Sugath is now married. His house is that with a tin roof. Of course, he has a fine house in his village of Hataraliyadde but prefers to live here as it is convenient for shows."

Why should I be dumb? He would think that I am an ignoramus.

"This migration to Colombo started a long time ago ever since our own mini-industrial revolution began in the outskirts as Panchikawatte. Panchika could have been the female who owned the estate or Watte just as Mariakade was owned by Maria. Many of our women were proprietors".

"Really our women have been in the forefront. Siripinawatte was owned by Siripina. Then these Jathika minded fellows changed the names to Keerthi or Aloka".

"Now Kaffir Mawatha is no more for they thought the name is racist." I informed in my turn. "There, there, just jabbering, we missed a very important place, the house of Tambapanni, the main actresss in Lankagamana".

Interesting

That was interesting. And it was parallel to the egg and the chicken dilemma. Did the female get the name Tambapanni after opting to act in this drama or was she chosen because of the name?" I posed the question to him.

"Fine question. Next time I will bring you here and you ask, her, nona. House is locked now. Tambapanni is out shooting. Works on many films after coming here from Polgasyata Mookalana, earns lakhs. Not like you and me." Somehow or other we are now on the same plane. And what a mass of internal migration in the name of show business! And all roads leading, no, not to Rome, but to Colombo, a city described by some foreign writers as a dull city minus any entertainment.

Even Dr. Brohier in his valuable book on Changing Face of Colombo that I had the audacity to translate on his daughter Deloraine's invitation, mentions only a Hobson-Jobson contraption cum Jausang dancers on Galle Face Green that have entertained the city crowd. Jausang was a word that only my Seeya (grandfather) who lived in the bowels of Heena Korale used.

As we cruelly played around him seated, his eyes blinded, he would shout, "Don't do your jausang here."

To come back to the tap expert, he has been showing me the houses of all his acquaintances and not to be outdone as we come to the end of the road Kandewatte Road I ask , "Do you know the house of Prof. G.........He lives along this road".

"No".

"International literary figure he is. He has written many a heavy book".

"How to know all these people, nona" he says with a depreciating gesture." I am always battling with the taps. Have to feed four children. One crippled with polio. Wife an asthma patient. I am suffering from diabetes."

No doubt the constant viewing of teledramas and films when not battling with taps provides much therapy to his embattled life. The many devices that humans employ to preserve their balance and not let them totter further into an abyss!

So I mused, as I came to the end of Kandewatte Road which served me as a good teacher.