The carpetter and the boy

by Padma Edirisinghe

Racial conflict is not a strange phenomenon to us Sri Lankans. So when I heard that KASHMIR was being ‘galvanised’ by a good dose of it during my short stay in India,

it did not behead my plans of visiting this beautiful land of a 1,000 lakes. In fact, there were about 6 foreigners seated in the luxury bus enroute to Kashmir, all unaffected by the circulating news.

In fact, it only made things merrier for the German who sat by me quipping, “Everybody here is trying to sell me something. I hope the disease does not spread to the North.”

He was only visualizing stray vendors by the roadside and not murderers about to guillotine a mischievous little boy for stoning a mosque. Many hours later I was witness to the grisly scenario that took place in a simple Moslem household on the outskirts of the land of a 1,000 lakes.

Sequences

To provide clarity to the readers tracing the sequences is necessary. I was getting bored in the houseboat that straddled the not so blue waters, to which I was directed by a tour guide .To the details about the houseboats themselves, a relic of past Indian history we will come later. Suffice it to mention I was yawning in the passage of the houseboat when the floating warehouse passed me by.

“Carpets, Carpets for sale,” cried the town seller and then, “Madam, from where are you?”

“From Sri Lanka, where the waters are more blue.”

He chose to omit the colourful part and promised to pack and send a huge carpet for me in a matter of half an hour.But I am yet here, I laughed. The fellow seemed a social guy anyway and soon I was in the floating warehouse that was enroute to the abode of a fez capped carpet maker, probably a Moslem.

A lovely family, adorable too, I saw there. The head of the household sat weaving the fabulous colourful carpets while the wife wandered about with all sorts of eats and drinks. Soon I too was full while the man of the house like the former promised to send a carpet to Sri Lanka within half an hour.

“Communication is so modern now, madam,” he announced while his brats ran all round the carpets. In fact, I noticed that one had crept into a carpet roll and was now grinning at me.

Crying

As I was watching his fascinating grimace staged under a large red pottu, a horde of military men just bombarded the place crying, “Where is the rascal?”

“Which one?” asked the master adding, “I have so many of them, about six”.
“No.We are looking for the one who stoned the mosque”.

“Terrible!”exclaimed the master. “Do such rascals exist? We should hang them immediately.”

“To hang them we have to first catch them”.

“That is true,” agreed the master while closely watching a particular carpet roll. I too had kept my eyes on it. The face peeping through it had disappeared.

I now perused my thoughts. Here was the racial conflict in Kashmir in the form of a miniscule melodrama. A little boy was involved.

Militia

A familiar refrain occurred to me.

“This land belongs to us, the Sinhalas!” versus , “This land belongs to us, the Tamils”.

The situation here was an echo of it.

Soon, the ferocious militia left, their receding buttocks providing a merry sight. Needless to say, the red pottued boy about 12 years came out of the carpet roll and stood grinning.

The fez capped master threw a hand round him in brotherhood and asked him why he stoned the Jumna mosque in Kashmere.

The boy in all innocence replied that a gang provoked him to do it.

“Are you sorry you did it?”
“Yes. Master. I will never do it, again”

The master patted the boy while his wife served him a plateful of food that the boy gobbled greedily.

You are lucky that you came here, she told the boy.

“Little boy. Remember. It took years and years to build that venerable mosque and now a single bomb can destroy it all. I am glad that you only used a stone”.

Upheaval

Now I too threw in my lot.

“Many many years ago, stone throwing at a mosque in Gampola in my country led to a vast upheaval in which many were killed,” I informed patting the little boy’s head.

“If you have the time I like to hear that story,” said the master promising to sell the carpet at half the price.

“Never mind the carpet,” I said. “It would only be a bother to me. But the story I may relate”. I did relate to them the story later.