Short Story

Samanmalie’s sacrifice

by Davidson Goonetilake

In spite of all my attempts to get my teaching appointment to a school close to Colombo to enable me to follow a postgraduate course, I was given a school in Udawalawe, an arid area frequented by wild elephants. So, I had no other alternative but to accept it. At that time, about sixty three years ago, the area was not developed as today. The Udawalawe bazaar had only a few boutiques and two small hotels.

As there were no boarding houses there, I had to rent out a room in the upstairs of a hotel building. The people there were of a friendly type and paid special respect for teachers. All the by-roads there were gravelled and running mostly through a jungle frequented by wild elephants. The road leading to the school was also a gravelled one running through jungles, over paddy fields and bunds of reservoirs mostly neglected and covered with water plants such as water lilies and lotus. Elephants were in the habit of visiting these reservoirs for their drinking and bathing purposes. Wild elephant attacks on humans were very frequent. In this school there were only six teachers including the head master.

Girl

As there were no means of transport to this school, walking to and fro was a must. The distance from the main road to the school was about three kilometres. I, in time, got used to walking up and down without getting tired.

One morning when I was going to the school I noticed a girl coming with a pot on her head. She was wearing a plain jacket and a multi coloured cloth.

As she approached me I noticed that she was a charming girl with very beautiful features. Seeing me she got on to the edge of the road and passed me smilingly stealing a glance at me while I turned back and looked at her with her hair braided into two plaits swinging from side to side. She with her natural beauty and calmness was charming like a flower that blossomed in the jungle. I was drawn to her like a bee to a flower.

By and by, we became friends and our friendship gradually blossomed into love. I learned from Samanmalie that her father was killed by a wild elephant, when she was studying for the senior examination.

She, being the elder child of the family had to look after her school-going younger brother and also her sickly mother. So she had started to play the part of her late father after leaving school. In short, she was compelled to shoulder the whole family responsibilities. Samanmalie proved to be intelligent and hard working. I wished to marry her, thinking that she would be a good housewife and look after my widowed mother and me. When I told my mother of my intention she wanted to see her.

Vacation

So, one day during a vacation I, together with my mother visited her place. My mother seeing her and her activities was happy to have Samanmalie as her daughter-in law.

One morning when I was going to school I saw Samanmalie waiting to meet me very anxiously and when I asked her the reason she told me that she had a dreadful dream the previous night. She with tearful eyes requested me to be on the alert as elephants were crossing the road very often.

She handed me some home-made sweetmeats for my morning tea and planting a motherly kiss on my forehead waited on the road to see me off. After I proceeded a short distance, a huge elephant confronted me on the road and began to chase me. I started running without looking back and hearing Samanmalie’s screaming voice turned back to look at her. I understood that she had run behind the elephant to stop its chase.

Chase

The elephant hearing her screaming voice gave up its chase and turning back began to chase her. Though she ran hard gaining distance her clothes got in the way of her speed. She slowed, kept on running, but was losing speed. The elephant gained distance and reached her. It caught her with its trunk and dashed her on the ground and ran into the jungle. By the time, I ran to the spot she had breathed her last.

On the following day her body was buried in the presence of hundreds of mourners.

As she sacrificed her life to save mine I got a tomb built over her grave with the following inscription.

“Herein lies maiden
Samanmalie, a heroine
who sacrificed her life
to save the life of the man
she loved.”
I named my first child as Samanmalie in memory of my maiden love.