Down by the River K

by Aditha Dissanayake

Everyone who grew up reading Madol Duwa or The Famous Five is sure to feel a sense of deja vu when they come in contact with the shrub lands of Kitulgala. Groves of Gandapana hum with bees, hemlocks echo with the songs of Green-billed Coucals while the rays of the sun draw cartoons on a golden canvas of jack-fruit leaves.

Everyone who has a mission to accomplish, here in Kitulgala, (like me) and everyone who is just passing through on their way to some place else should stop and stare.

Stare from the top of the mountain near the Belilena with the wind trying to pry your ears apart and leeches trying to drain your blood out. What would you see? Open sky, tree covered land, the mist rising from the ground like steam hovering around a cup of tea.

How would you describe this land? Would you quote Walt Whitman and call it "lonesome and limitless? Or would you think of just one word? NOTHING. A glorious nothing...

Walking across the entire length of the Kitulgala town along the Colombo Hatton road, at ten in the morning last Tuesday it's hard not to think of the ghost towns one sees in old Western movies. (And believe me I have not had a drop of beer yet, or rather, a coconut cup full of Kitul toddy) Any minute now, I am bound to hear the sound of whistling and see a lone horseman come galloping towards me.

I turn my head for I do hear a tuk-tuk sound. Yes, there is a lone young man with short cropped hair and strong arms on the deserted road. Not seated on a horse though, but driving a three-wheeler.

He stops next to me and wonders if I would like to go somewhere? "Yes, I tell him. Take me to the residence of Kithsiri Teligama. Does he know this guy? Yes he nods and indicates with a toss of his head for me to jump inside his contraption. Thus begins my journey into a world of stress-melting simplicity.

His name is Amal and he is twenty-one. "No" he corrects himself. "I'm twenty-one and a half". "Do you like living in Kitulgala?" he turns his neck ninety degrees to look at me. I am glad the road in front of us is deserted.

'Of course I like Kitulgala" he says vehemently. "I was born here and this is a good place to live., certainly better than Colombo". I agree. So, what plans has he got for the future? "I might sell this three wheeler and buy a piece of land and start a business" says Amal.

"What kind of business?" He shrugs his shoulders. He might start a nursery for tea plants. He might grow rubber. He might settle down and start a family? "No. The weather here might be better than in the city but the girls here are worst than those in Colombo." he says and adds "Last year I broke up with my girl friend and now I can't stand the sight of girls (jeevithetama epa vela)".

I make sympathetic sounds and remind him there are other fish in the ocean. "Yes" he agrees. "But the problem is you can never trust any of the fish". So, what does he do in his spare time? "I am a member of the Sri Lanka Kung Fushu Kick Boxing Society" he says with a certain sense of pride in his voice. "Learning Kick Boxing has given me self confidence and disciplined me. I am a teetotaller and non smoker and all my spare time is spent honing my fighting skills".

We reach our destination. Amal departs giving me his mobile phone number and saying on my next trip I must come visit him too. I turn to Kithsiri Teligama, my informant on this quest of documenting rural life.

A tea small holder, the son of the village headman, and the father of a little girl, Kithsiri begins the conversation by asking me to write about the two most urgent requirements of the two most important institutes in Kitulgala - an ambulance for the hospital and a jeep for the police station. "The district hospital has no ambulance and the police have no vehicle. It will be a great help if you can write about this and draw the attention of the authorities so that they would provide us with these two requirements".

Like Amal, Kithsiri too says he is happy living in his home town and will never dream of living any where else in the world. He explains that the main livelihood of the villagers is tapping rubber in the rubber plantations, making kitul treacle and jaggery and growing tea or coffee on a small scale.

Growing vegetables is impossible due to the destructive invasions by wild boar and porcupines. "It has come to a stage when we have to buy even manioc from the town". Explains Kithsiri and adds "The villagers here don't have the luxuries enjoyed by those living in the big cities.

They wake up at five in the morning, prepare a meal of rotty, lunu miris, and a bottle of plain tea and go off to toil in the rubber estates. But they are healthier, (and probably happier) than their contemporaries who live in the towns. These villagers don't have cholesterol problems. They don't have diabetes".

Even though this is the dry season the recent bouts of rain had destroyed the flowers on the Kitul trees says Kithsiri. This means no Kitul treacle? "Yes. Those in the shops for sale are sugar syrup". But of more importance is the fact that there is no Kitul toddy to serve an occasional visitor.

No problem. I am under the influence of something stronger. Pure fresh air, panoramic views, a glimpse of heart-warming simplicity...in a crowded world it is good to find a niche where the modern has blended with the traditional, where life hovers between the old and the new, accepting both and judging neither.

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