Musings

Unforgettable people and places

[Part 1]

In the modern world many things are going out of fashion. One such is the concept of friendship. It is almost old fashioned to say, “Ah, she is a good friend of mine.”

I remember being taken on rounds to see the prisoners at Welikade, the island’s major prison. My escort was no less a person than J.B. Bulumulla, the then Commissioner of Prisons.

He divulged to me that he was putting into book form the last words of prisoners condemned to death. Later I invited him to address the teacher trainees of the upcountry Teachers’ College on his unique collection, a rare exposure to them of a cauldron of strange and troubled happenings and our connection grew after that.

That day he introduced to me Father Matthew Peiris who was in a brown uniform. I noticed that the other prisoners were showing respect to him, though he was convicted of murder. He volunteered to relate his life story to me. However, his story included many dubious points.

He had lived in the South, but he claimed that he didn't understand a word of Sinhala. He said once a beggar cursed him saying the he would be condemned to death by his own kith and kin as a punishment. I asked him in what language the beggar had cursed him. He said he couldn't remember. He overcame this lapse by asking me to write something down. When I scrawled the sentence, “The cat jumped over the fence,” he said I was very ambitious for my handwriting slanted upwards. After this prophesy he joined the row heading for lunch and here again I saw a priority meted to him as a group leader. He holding tight to his Belek pingana was pushed forward and out of line by an officer.

Women

That day I was also introduced to a group of women jailed for murder or attempted murder. One had murdered her husband, the other had killed her husband’s paramour and the third was really the accomplice of the above friar.

Three of the convicts refused to speak to me. They were residents of the area between Colombo and Panadura and one was a chain smoker while another went about in a flimsy night gown. I was told that even their meals were ordered from outside as they were 'star class prisoners.’ This was in the '80s. I don’t know what is happening there now.

Bulumulla escorted me around Welikade, but sometime later he met with a tragic death. Once an ex-Prison Commissioner was feeding a beggar woman in a rather posh hotel. He was seated at a table and ordered a grand buriyani lunch for a beggar woman much to the chagrin of the hotel staff. She had just bulldozed her way in and pleaded for lunch money from him. Later he said even the beggar woman’s money is legal tender.

The city of fools

“I am an ex-Prison's Commissioner but I am from Thumpane, the 'City of Fools,’ yet I occasionally come to the lowlands to perform such benevolent acts.” He promised to send me some material as to how Thumpane more famous for Velivita Saranankara Sangharaja Thera got its fame or ill-fame but he did not send it. Those were pre-mobile days and hence it would have necessitated me writing down my name and address and giving it to him much to the amusement of the diners of that crowded hotel. In Asian countries a female has to be very particular about the public image she creates.

Now all this is an introduction as to how I met Hema Goonetileka, a famous name now.

I feel obliged to relate our first meeting which I feel was ordained by certain supernatural forces. It was the late 1950s and I had got my first appointment in a convent in Gampaha. They selected me as my forte was European history. Daily I took train from Veyangoda and back. Hema and I were both book lovers, and it is rather coincidental that we met before the Sarasavi Bookshop in Gampaha. Something drew us together or more specifically something drew me to her. We exchanged addresses and we have continued being friends since then. Our friendship was cemented when we were joint delegates to the Women and Media seminar held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I have to thank Dr. Uvais Ahamed for his initiation in my representation but Hema, was already by then a seasoned globe trotter.

On the first day I gazed at her in admiration because she was attractive in the Kandyan Osari. I felt that she would go a long way. Today she runs the Buddhist Times. But it is not the performances that matter but the thread of friendship that runs between us. It is something that can be called divine or sublime. Very few are entwined in such bonds today that are just laughed at or ridiculed. They have gone beyond the belief that such concepts or sentiments exist.

I remember the funeral of Dr. A.V. Suraweera, where I met Dr. K. D. Paranavithana, archivist, historian and writer, after many years. As he gripped my hands in a spurt of affection it brought tears to my eyes already wet as the flames engulfed the great man’s body. That was again dormant friendship come to life. Such memories come rushing, just refreshing the humdrum existence.