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.
