Musings

Memories of bygone places

by Padma Edirisinghe

In my long life (touch wood) I have been subject to many a debacle including humiliation but none surpass what happened the day that initially revolved round a Valavva. Where was it sited? No. I did not deal with a specific one but touched on a few of them when I did a large piece, “Where have all the Valavvas gone?” to a Sunday newspaper 33 years back. Much water has gushed under the bridges since then.

Anyway, the circumstances in which this published article was subject to ignominy may need some narration, as I feel that the aftermath events capsule a message, which is that even in these ultra democratic days one needs aristocratic wings to fly. No lowly human can write such stuff or even if she or he does, better to take the cue and hush up the rest.

Frontiers

To begin from the beginning, it was at the Sri Lanka embassy in Pakistan that I read my published article carrying the above caption. Year 1982. Why did I have to go all the way to Pakistan to read it? The circumstances that led me to peruse it, so far away in an area where even the frontiers of trouble ridden Afghanistan could be seen need a brief narration. I along with another female, a GA (Only female one at the time) had been selected for a Women & Development Seminar at Chandigarh and just before its closure were given a trip to the famous Golden Temple at Amritsar in the Punjab. To be frank, at this time my knowledge of the Golden Temple was rather parochial and I was yet to know that it was once a hotbed of Indian freedom fighters in arms against imperialism. That was way back in the past century.

To come back to the main story, while admiring all that human handiwork in the religious citadel some busybody gave the news that the Waga border across which Pakistan lay was just about the corner, so why not try that too in our sightseeing trip.

Soon the party was away in this great Moslem country after having witnessed the famous closing of borders between the two countries at eve time. It was a very grand ceremonial and such a novel sight to us, the two islanders who had no borders to open and close at morn and eve as the national flags play their own game. The ocean did it all for us.

So happily we wandered there and even proceeded to Lahore Museum too to have a look at the Bodhisattva in his Dushkarakriya or Sath sathi stage, to attain his prime goal. Saadhu Saadhu. Didn’t he look emaciated. Manike, the GA and I felt so sorry for him, as the only Buddhists in the group. The rest represented almost all other religions .The world was getting very mixed up even then but the English language bound us like sisters.

So everything went smooth till we reached the Waga border to return to India. But the gates were locked against the two Lankans who had only a single entry visa. No amount of cajoling could change their minds. We were asked to proceed to Islamabad and get fresh visas. It was far into the night by now.

That was how I ended up at that embassy the next day after hours long drive to the Pakistan capital, with my friend when the then ambassador had been just reading my great piece, titled “Where have all the Valavvas gone?” Year was 1982 and the month, towards the tail end of that year. Though I had written that piece almost on impulse it had gone on to earn a middle page spread in a Sunday newspaper that was now circulating all over the world.

I am no professional researcher and I had done that piece after a casual visit indulged years back with my parents to a Valavva or Manor House in the upcountry. (I would have been 8 or 9 years of age). Though we had given up living among the lofty mountains years back certain memories just gushed into me in a vivid kaleidoscope as I wrote it.

The courtyard or sprawling Meda Midula … the peacocks strolling about spreading their glorious plumage as proud as the abode of an aristocratic family whose roots were sunk in the abyss of history ….. the queer little windows through which many a damsel peeped coyly. …….nooks and corners of the edifice which probably were laced with their own tales……I had put all that in one pickle and the acting ambassador who had just succeeded the former, who has had a sudden mortal exit had read it all.

He himself was a literary man (I wonder whether he, a Silva by name is still living) and was the author of “Footprints of the sands of Time”, hence his admiration of my own piece that veered towards the fleeting wonder of Time.

We had arrived in Islamabad during its National holiday period, a phase of 3 days where nothing official could be done. So no visa could be issued to us, for our luck or ill luck.

Anyway HE, bless him, declared that my piece deserved a trip to the Afghan frontier and there we were. Of course it was the pre-Taliban days and the Bamian Buddha statues were there, a glorious feast to our Buddhist eyes.

To make a long story short to embark on another story, we were back in India after a few days and then back in our own blessed island.

The curtain would not have opened on the other story had I not seen in the newspaper a news item on an event that was to take place. That was to embark on a programme that would perpetuate memories of bygone things and places.

The ambassador, one Silva if I remember right who had just begun acting for the deceased envoy, a Livera, bless him, was rapturous over the piece and asked me what motivated me to write it. That was after he got over the shock of seeing two of his country women at 10 o’clock on a national holiday. He himself was a man of letters himself and had authored the book, Footprints on the sands of Time.

Needed visas

I remember answering that the general catalyst was the Valavvas in the island, now getting turned into holiday bungalows and what not, that involved much defacement.

Another story follows. Silva having got us the needed visas we returned to India and then back to the country. A few weeks later browsing through the newspapers I noted a seminar that was to be held to help resuscitate buildings that need uplift and are also entwined with the country’s history. They are like ghosts of the past, the news item read. Almost maniacal about such matters I walked in and listened.

The speaker, went on very eloquently on his topic and just before he gave the last gasp, sorry, the last words, stretched out a newspaper cutting that seemed to me to be very familiar. Yes. It was the article I had written, titled, “Where have all the Valavvas gone?” Year 1982.

Move

“This is the article that made me launch this move!” he bawled. But he was tight-lipped about the author of the piece that had earned a trip to the sacred cliffs of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Got an impulse to bawl, “I wrote that”! No. Better to disappear from there rather than enact such a buffoon act or so it seemed to my modest self.

“Over modesty your bugbear,” my friend Hema once remarked. But as I got out of the meeting I edged towards the speaker, and made my worthy “Confession”. I was after work and dressed in a cotton sari and blouse and looked perhaps like any other woman on the street. How else to look? You don’t develop eerie pen like wings after writing stuff, that sounded impressive to certain literati. The “great man” gave me a withering look and that was that. Best part is that he was not completely unknown to me and had met me in administrative circles. But he pretended ignorance in this instance.

Further, so I rationalized to cover up the grand slight, had I been dressed in a scintillating dress he would have taken more notice. I remembered the noble man Silva, who during our short stay in Pakistan’s capital to obtain the visas who took us on rounds as far as the Afghan frontier and the Bamiyan Buddhas, and this he said, is in exchange for “Padma’s……. article”. I put in the dots for I hate self propagation.

Now nearing the end I look back. The Trust that day or subsequently was established in the Great Island of Ceylon while the writer of that piece was completely neglected. I never ever even got an invitation for its meetings which I know are going on. The topics have expanded from buildings to noteworthy humans and in fact I myself attended one on Robert Knox, which invitation I presume was sent to me by the speaker himself, Brandon Gooneratne, never by the mother organization. This is grateful, no, ungrateful Sri Lanka.