Parents who have sinned in their past lives

Drinking copious cups of tea on this rainy day, I work on my thesis. A little earlier in the day, our “domestic” (charming colonial leftover) told me a sad story – she asked me to watch news today at 7pm, on ITN. Every year, she said, they cover the bomb blast in Nugegoda that killed her second son, then in his early 20s. He was a shop assistant at the No Limit in Nugegoda -- now refurbished, with hardly a trace of the devastation that was wreaked – when a parcel bomb exploded near the store. Her son suffered only minor injuries from the blast, and rushed out to see what was happening. At this point, the fuselage of a bike nearby blew up, killing him. She’s quite matter-of-fact about it now; she thought a bit and told me that seven years ago, by around 5.45pm he had already died. She wants to give a dane to the temple near her house, but will only do so in January because of some problems at home.

“Mata dane lang weddi hamadaama heeneng penawa puthawa”, she says, with some incredulity. “Mang diha hangila wage baling innawa. Mang hema raema dakinawa.” So, I rationalized it as probably being because she’s thinking about him as the dane draws closer. She agreed immediately, adding that no matter what she does, whether it’s cooking or sweeping at our house, or travelling by bus, or going to sleep, “mohothakata mohothak mata mathak wenawa”, she’s always thinking of him. She’s a good, hard-working woman, who spoils her two remaining sons a little, but has brought them up to be honest men. What did she ever do to deserve that? As they say, “Paw karapu demawapiyo”, but that seems a pretty tame excuse.