Nuggets of wisdom in gossip

This incident happened years ago. I longed to write about it but put it off for some reason or other, procrastination, the theif of time, included. It was a Poya day, a dismal one with rains pouring down. However, a tryst with friends had to be kept and there we were right at the junction where we had to take a detour to a shrine about half a mile away. The dagoba loomed so near, so far in pristine white glory.

Surveying the muddy road from the comfort of the vehicle, very sinfully I concluded that it was better to suffer in hell by foregoing the visit to the temple rather than risk a walk jumping over all the potholes, for no vehicle was allowed to go along that path.

Just a momentary sinful thought that God or gods may forgive. The others in the crowd telescoping into my frame of mind decided to leave me in the tea kiosk just close by, rather than venture with me into the holy place.

There I sat on a wooden-planked chair while the tea woman owner of the café attended to her business. Her man and probably her son busied themselves attending to the few customers. The customers and sellers were all known to one another, I observed.

Appearance

Suddenly the tea maker, as we will call her, hollered that Lizzie Nona has made her appearance in the area. There she was taking a cool walk in that rain now its vigour lessened. Yet, she wore a sort of glistening cap to shield her head.

That was her usual attire. I heard the gossip inform each other, a way of dressing she had begun while in the higher plains.

“She has come back to watch son Danny’s antics,” said a man gulping down his tea.

“Fully mad, the putha is, talking to things that don’t talk back to him”.

“Why abuse him for that?” asked the tea maker’s son, "He is an intelligent fellow. We were classmates and he used to argue with the master all sorts of topics as to why the North pole and the South pole are where they are and never vice versa and why cats have tails and fish have fins”.

“He is so intelligent that he hates all things beautiful and young and loves all things ugly and old”, mother put in her slice of gossip.

Humans

“Really are there humans like that?” the father wanted to know.

“There are, but not often. Danny actually had an affair with Verona, daughter of the groceries merchant at the junction. Good pair they made, he's tall and handsome and she short and pretty”.

“What happened despite this discrepancy in height?”

“She, Verona tired of the funny ways of her lover that included talking to himself or to inanimate things, started going round with other men”, the son answered.

“Bitch! “exclaimed the tea making mummy. “She should die in return for her unfaithfulness and then be forced to climb the Katu ambul tree in Yama's kingdom.’

“Never mind the katu ambul tree but die”, she did. She developed an affair with that Fathim Arnolis ignoring race too and they were riding in a bullock cart when it toppled and she was instantly killed along with Fathim Arnolis. There is even a case going on now in the international police station”, waxed the son. The mother got up and almost embraced her son, congratulating him on his collection of gossip.

Gossip

Lizzi Nona who had been ambling along the road now had turned back, some errand of hers completed and she entered the kiosk. How much I knew about her since I saw her last due to gossip just galore.

These facts I had learnt. She wore the shining headdress just to differentiate her from others in the pastoral and long named village of Pahala Pahimbigodalle where the temple was sited.

She had a lunatic son who had married a very flirtatious young woman who died in a bullock cart accident. Not conscious that I was going through all this gossip about her and her family, Lizzie Nona sat opposite me at the table I was seated.

Weather

“Very bad weather,” she opined.

“You are telling me”, I rejoined. How handy are weather topics when it comes to making friends. I remembered a scene from Nari Baena, the foxy son-in-law, that brilliant folk drama produced by Dayananda Goonewardena (popularly known as Jubal and now no more, genius flushed young).

In this drama the parents of the bridegroom who come seeking for a lass’s hands sing, Eheth hari wessa (It is raining in torrents there) and answered by this line, Meheth hari wessa (Even here it is raining cats and dogs). Why it should rain cats and dogs is an unsolved problem of its own.

Coming back from this unwarranted rambling to the goings on in the kade or tea kiosk, “I have never seen you before” Lizzie informed me.

“Nor have I seen you before”, I said, adding that there are millions and millions in this crowded world who have never seen each other.

Wisdom

She seemed to ruminate on this point and as though I had dished out to her a universal piece of wisdom, commented, "Come to think of it, I have never given a thought to that”. Lizzie Nona seemed an intelligent woman despite her son’s antics and daughter-in-law’s infidelity. Poor woman. What can she do about all that?

“What are you thinking of?” she asked me, but I did not tell all for fear of starting the third world war.

What is the moral of this story?

Just as there are millions of people in the world who have never seen one another, there are millions who share the same life story, be they royalty or the proletariat. Just try to decipher the similarities cloaked in this piece.