Superstition superseded

by George Eddie

Standing half asleep in a Colombo-bound office train and leaning against the end wall of the coach, I was aroused from my drowsiness by a conversation between two saree-clad women who were standing in front of me.

Ten years ago they had been working in the same concern. Kusum had left shortly after her marriage. During their conversation it transpired that Kusum had got a son, then seven years old, but separated from his parents because of dire warnings.

Kusum went on to say that she was the eldest child in her family and that her husband Kumara, was also the eldest in his family.

They had been warned by many elders that they may not live amicably; that their association may be severed by either of their early deaths due to the bad influence of the first child if it lived with them.

Adoption

Therefore the child was given to a relative for adoption but they were longing to have the child with them. Yet the dreadful feeling the elders have instilled into them was like a pall over their minds. They were living in a zone of doubt and fear.

Kusum's companion Nelum did not react but remained in a pensive mood. Her eyes were cast down in thoughtful reverie while she moved one foot like an automaton on the axis of the heel.

"What is the matter"? Kusum asked Nelum. Still she did not speak. At length she looked at Kusum intensely.

"What is the matter?" Kusum asked her again.

Nelum said, "I'm wondering whether I should divulge a secret or not."

"Tell me what is it?" Kusum said. "I can keep a secret".

"It's a story like yours that ended tragically.

"There was a young man and a woman. They were the first born of two sisters. They too were fed with this superstitious idea. Yet they got married.

Midwife

"Their first born was a male child. The midwife was a aware that this couple were primogenial. She wove a strong influence over them about the evil the first born brings to the primogenitary parents.

"This couple had grown up in ignorance and superstition. They were frightened and were coaxed in to ridding themselves of the child. What the midwife gained by this I do not know.

"By what means the child died I'm unaware", said Nelum. "It was buried in their kitchen I was told. How birth and death records were made, I don't know either.

"Before that child's father died, he told me that he had baptised the infant and then left him to its fate. With a deep sigh of regret he said that the child was a splitting image of himself.

"If that child lived he would be sixty-five years old. I was born fifteen years after him.

"He was my brother!".