[Musings]

Dramas of life and death

by Padma Edirisinghe

I once had a very elderly neighbour who got into the habit of visiting me every evening with a plethora of issues that bothered him. These were not personal issues but very abstruse ones that were however pretty unanswerable. The fact that he himself knew that nobody can answer them made the situation more static.

The main difference between the Graeco Roman philosophers of the pre-Xtian era and he, was that the latter never sat by the roads but made himself comfy on my parlour chair two days after I moved in.

One however has to begin the session somewhere as the philosophers in the calibre of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle did , and he began by asking me a query about polygamy, after sensing via my newspaper articles that I worry about everything under the sun and the moon and forget all about myself. He probably classed himself along with me. Here was his maiden query. "Madam, how is it that the high and mighty could maintain about 500 wives without facing legal and other wrangles, while the poor man, takes one woman more and is caught by the scruff of his neck?"

It was, as said before, the first interview of the kind and I could not fail him or myself.

So I hinged on one obvious fact.

"I think it is all economics. The high and the mighty, including royalty can afford about 500 wives, or more or less, while the poor man finds it difficult to maintain even one of the species"

But, what about the legal aspect, it is what bothers me, the aspiring Aristotle persisted.

Luckily for me his wife appeared now from nowhere and very tactlessly I made use of her to get out of the tricky situation by telling her that her hubby wishes to know why people like you and me cannot have more than one partner, legally. The rest of the dialogue monopolized by the wife you can imagine.

It more or less rotated round her argument or stand, "Huh! So that is what is bothering him. I thought as much". After that you cannot blame the poor woman trailing behind him, whenever he wanted to ask his 1,000 and one unanswearable questions. Poor man! He should have been born into a more renowned country than Sri Lanka and then in the style of Arabi Nisollasaya that flutters wings of glory even now, his queries would have codified into a famous book named, "The 1,000 and one tales that bothered Perera".

Despite his wife trekking behind him whenever Perera wished to emit his queries he simply went on about diverse issues that touched him least. But yet, he revelled in just asking or discussing them.

I forgot to mention that he is now among the dear departed. But, while he lived he was very worried about this debacle of death the discussion of which his wife worried the least.

Some of the queries were:

1 .Why cannot some wizardly physician concoct a mixture that ensures an everlasting life?

2. Contradicting himself, if given such an everlasting life, what the h..l are men and women to do with such a long span?

3. Death is indeed a spectacular phenomenon. Hence it needs some wondrous signals that it is approaching, but very rarely does it happen.

What provoked me to write this? The fact that, the signals Perera spoke of as rare, have really started appearing in the life of my journalistic career.

The last two items in my Musings series that has gone on for a year plus, have been mercilessly massacred and I do not blame the editor or sub editor.

Maybe they found the stuff thoroughly insignificant and lacking in vitality.

Overcome with self pity I spent three days going through all my published articles even trying to decipher the better ones.

Then to my astonishment I found the piece about Elaris Appuhamy the best. Who is this character? Details are given in the next piece, if editors permit, but he is the progenitor of making English language the most popular linguistic communicator in the world.

A hotch potch of issues? That is what assailed my neighbour Perera who for generations was burdened with a name concocted in the Iberian Peninsula centuries ago. Now, he has taken upon himself the task of making English the easiest medium among nations.

As to how, read the next instalment...