You can’t do without me
by Tissa Hewavitarane
It was in Scotland a small
village in Fife called Kincardine where my father came from Scots have a
long line of distinguished ancestry and their intellectuals’ involvement
into two groups, those who work only in a limited field and those who
like to be active in the exploration of several spheres of service. As
such my father tended to make a reputation in the academic field.
Physics was his forte. He became a physicist and chemist.
At the ripe age he got married to a Scot woman of a middle-class
family. My birth to this world was delayed long due to my mother’s
health problems. I was born in 1892. I lost my mother at birth. However
an astrologer had said that my father will win international reputation
for his contribution to society and even the State will honour him.
Father worked very hard to bring me up to make me a useful person to
society. Due to the loss of my mother I underwent a hard life from my
infant age. There was not much love, proper care, and protection. My
father sensed what I lacked and was helpless. He tried to give his best
to make me happy and secure.
 Most of the time he was not at home. His home was his laboratory. So
I was brought up not in a home but in a laboratory. In his lab all kinds
of experiments were done on me, to make my body strong and make it a
storage vessel. I was subject to various operations. It was horrifying
to face this sort of treatment - I was still in my teens.
I was turned into a shape of a bottle using a thin metal sheet with
hollow walls. The narrow region between the inner and outer wall is
evacuated.It is considered to be two thin-walled bottles nested one
inside the other and sealed together at my neck. This storage vessel (as
I am still known), contents reach thermal equilibrium (a state of
balance with the inner wall), the wall is thin, with low thermal
capacity so does not exchange much heat with the contents, affecting
their temperature only a little.
As time passed many changes took place to make my body sturdy and
strong. In practice, I have an opening for contents to be added and
removed. A vacuum cannot be maintained at the opening, therefore, a
stopper made of insulating material must be used originally cork, later
plastics inevitably, most heat loss take place through this stopper.
By now I have reached woomhood and considered a fashionable figure.
My father baptized me as thermos flask. I was in high demand and
prospects of marriage remained certain. The West is quite advanced in
the art of romance. Here we use a word ‘dating’. On a fixed appointment
the boy and the girl meet at isolated spots.
In the Western world the social context of love and marriage is
almost completely lost and these are treated as purely personal affairs.
My father knew the beat of my pulse best. He new romance is now breaking
the bonds that kept it in chains for millenniums. He never interfered
though it caused him enormous heart-burning. My father did not know that
I had a steady relationship for sometime with a foreigner.
He was of Asian origin. My lover’s wife had died long ago and he was
looking for a new love. I was very young and there was a vast age-gap
between us, that made it senseless to the on lookers. But romance has
always been like this. It does not thrive on sense. We declared our love
for each other and got married.
My husband loved me so much he always kept me in embrace. I felt warm
and had entered into his life. He needed me always when he felt thirsty
and his mouth became dry. He sips the liquid poured to a small cup which
contained an aromatic flavour called coffee. We wanted to be away from
our kith and kin, so we decided to go to a far away country.
I gave up my job in a shop and we took a boat to my husband’s
country, Sri Lanka. Proud of his island’s history, cultural heritage and
its splendid beauty was briefed to me many times. There is beauty every
where of mountain and valley, flowers radiant trees with lovely flaming
flowers on them that illuminate the scene. I felt proud and fortunate to
spend the rest of my life in this beautiful country. More over with warm
and friendly people. We entered through a narrow lane to a huge mansion,
a Walauwa. It was my husband’s ancestral home.
As we entered a tail-wagging puppy greeted us. There was also a woman
unmistakably Tamil, with a flat face and a pug nose. She spoke excellent
Sinhalese. Sported a cloth and jacket that revealed more of her shapely
body.
The mansion was furnished with oak, satinwood, palu, and sandun
furniture with oriental designs, creaking wooden floors huge oil
paintings. My husband could afford all this luxury as he was a reputed
and successful businessman. He had a chain of shops in the town.
Once I met some of my counterparts when I visited his shop. They
displayed their beauty sitting on wooden shelves. Shop was packed with
many people. As I went around, I overheard a salesman promoting my brand
to a customer.
He explained that vacuum flasks are used to maintain their contents
(often but not always liquid) at a temperature higher or lower than
ambient temperature, while retaining the ambient pressure of
approximately 1 Atmosphere (14.7 PS).
A typical domestic vacuum flask will keep liquid cool for about 24
hours and warm for upto 8 hours.
The astrologer’s prediction came true when my father was knighted as
Sir James Devar and at times I was referred to as Devar flask after its
inventor, and there is a street named after him.
The first vacuum flask for commercial use were made in 1904 when a
German company, Thermos Gmbtl was formed. Thermos, became their trade
name for their flasks and remains a registered trade mark as it is
colloquially synonymous with vacuum flask in general.
I owe a great deal to my father bringing me up as a single parent.
Today, when I turn around, I gain the greatest satisfaction as they
recognise me by serving the young and old rich and the poor and for
every season. |
