1956 - 1959

1956 had been a good year. Father had a job at Carrington Estate, Dankotuwa. The estate also had a dairy and a piggery. The bungalow was about a kilometer from the road, on top of a hill. My brother Roy and I attended Ave Maria Convent in Negombo, and we travelled by bus. Jane (Chandra’s mother), who must have been about 13 at that time, accompanied us. When we returned in the afternoon, two laborers would be waiting at the gate. They would hoist Roy and me on their shoulders and carry us all the way to the bungalow. I still remember that one laborer was named Dharmadasa. I was 6 and Roy was 5 years old.

We traveled in a bus like this. Getting in and off from the back. No glass shutters, but canvas cloth which was rolled down when it rained.  These were war-time trucks that had been converted later to buses.

Father was kind and the laborers liked him. Mother was a field midwife and stayed at Kirimetiyana, her area of work, and came home only on weekends. But we had enough help, both in the kitchen and the garden. The most memorable incident that year was a hail storm, rare in tropical Ceylon.

Jane would exchange story books with schoolgirls who traveled in the bus. All the stories were scary, about rakshayas (demons) and gamaralas (farmers) being their victims. Every night, when Roy and I went to bed, Jane would relate these horror stories to us, and we were terrified. In the afternoons, we would hear deep, gurgling calls coming from various parts of the estate, and Jane told us the calls were from demons, which we called “bukabu”. Only later did I learn that the calls were from atti-kukula, a large bird found in gardens.

Ati-Kukula

Carrington Estate was owned by the Carron brothers, a judge who lived in Dehiwela and his brother, a lawyer and acting magistrate, who lived near the beach in Negombo. Father would go every two or three weeks to visit the elder Carron, and he always brought back games like Snakes and Ladders or jigsaw puzzles for us.

The two Carron brothers didn’t get along, and, caught between them, father lost his job. So, we moved to Negombo, to a rented house off Hunupitiya Road (since renamed Ave Maria Road), which was separated from Ave Maria Convent by a high parapet wall. Our landlady was Mrs. Moraes, whose house was just a few yards from ours. There was no electricity or water service, and the toilet was primitive. The house had a tiny verandah, a hall (sitting room), and two bedrooms, and a kitchen which faced the parapet wall on Ave Maria side.

Mother got a transfer to Negombo Hospital. Roy still went to Ave Maria, but, from Grade 2, I attended Maris Stella College which had classes from Grade 2. So all Catholic boys attended kindergarten and Grade 1 at Ave Maria Convent, along with the girls. Both Negombo Hospital and Maris Stella were on Colombo Road, about a mile from where we lived. I would cross the railway track and walk along main street to Copra Junction, where the college was. A couple of classmates lived along the way. One went to school by car but never gave me a ride. Hundreds of students, and most teachers, rode bicycles to school. Some came by bullock cart.

Father had two sisters, Amy Chelvaratnam and Bridget Wambeck, living in Negombo at that time. Aunty Amy lived at “Stanlodge”, which had been built by grandfather, whose second name was Stanley. It was a large house and Aunty Amy, who was a hospital matron, had persuaded grandmother to give it to her saying she had a large family. But her husband Shelley was a heavy drinker and could become abusive, so Aunty’s siblings stayed clear of “Stanlodge”. I don’t recall visiting it even once with my father.

Aunty Bee lived only 300 meters from us, at Fiscal Junction opposite the house where Hector Fernando, The MP for Negombo lived. (That house is now Ave Maria Hospital.) Roy and I were in and out of her home. Uncle Eddy was a public health inspector (PHI) and had to approve the beef that was sold in town. As a result, he got beef as “gifts” from the butchers every day, which meant that the Wambeck home served beef, parippu, and white rice, which I disliked, daily. The household was large and money was short.

Aunty Amy had seven children, and Aunty Bee at least six at that time. So, there would have been about 15 cousins growing up in Negombo. (How we have scattered since then!) At Ave Maria, I don’t remember the Chelvaratnam girls and boys, but Edmund Wambeck, whose nickname was “Baguru”, stands out. He often beat up other boys, and once made a teacher cry.

In February 1957, Beaula was born at home. I think a midwife was in attendance, and Aunty Bee was present. Father, Roy, and I sat in the sitting room. We heard Beula crying and Aunty brought the baby out soon after. She was red. She was baptized perhaps a week later at Tammita church. Father’s classmate Dr. Alwis (a registered medical practitioner, called an apothecary those days) was her godfather, and Marie akka the godmother. We had a small party to which the Wambecks were invited. The house was full of children, and I remember how Rosita, the adopted daughter of Aunty B, attacked the plate of fish cutlets.

Father being unemployed and mother’s salary only being about Rs. 100 per month, we were poor. Both Ave Maria and Maris Stella were government assisted schools, so the monthly school fees were only about Rs. 2 for each of us. But clothes were not ready-made those days and had to be tailored, shoes and books had to be bought. Mother stitched all the clothes we wore at home. How my parents managed to feed us while buying the milk food and other requirements for Beaula remains a mystery to me.

Grandfather Braine had been helpful to Dionys aiya, who had started a boutique on land owned by grandfather opposite “Stanlodge”, and had become quite successful. He had even started a biscuit factory under the brand name “LIONROAR”, and built a large, beautiful home. I recall a delivery bicycle coming to our house from Dionys aiya’s shop, with two large cardboard boxes at the front and back packed with groceries. I am not sure how often the delivery was made, and whether they were a gift or we paid for it. Dionys aiyya may have been sorry to see grandpa’s son in poverty.

Father tried to make money by breeding Alsatian dogs. They are called German Shepherds now. He had Rani, our dog, mated with a male pure bread, and about 6 puppies were born, which he hoped to sell. But, a rabid dog was supposed to have bitten Rani, and the PHI wanted her destroyed, along with the puppies. Father owned a shotgun but didn’t have the heart to shoot Rani, so he asked the police and a constable was sent. I can’t remember how the puppies were put down. Father also bred turkeys hoping to sell them at Christmas but one night they were all stolen. He must have been heartbroken.

Roy and I spent a lot of time at the Aserappa home, a large house where Tilak and his sister Savithri lived. Tilak was about one year older to me, and Savithri about two/three years younger. Mr. Aserappa had been to Cambridge and was a top civil servant. Mrs. Aserappa was a gracious lady, and knew that we were poor. She welcomed us and allowed us to play with Tilak’s toys. He had expensive train sets, “Hornsby”, made in England, the Rolls Royce of train sets. Tilak was more interested in books. We had the run of the house, and played in the large garden, catching butterflies. Mrs. Aserappa was a piano teacher, so the house was full of music. She served Roy and me delicious treats.

Sixty years later, I met Tilak and Savithri again. Their mother had died in 2008. Savithri was living in a charitable home, lonely but well looked after. But Tilak, who had qualified as a lawyer, leads a pathetic life, more like a beggar, without electricity or water service.  I visited him with books, New Yorker magazines, and short eats. I cleaned-up his filthy house, but he’ll go on like that till he passes away.

In 1958, we moved to a rented house on Colombo Road, opposite the hospital and Maris Stella college. I think the address was 120 Colombo Road, Negombo. Roy, too, was attending Maris Stella now, so the new place was quite convenient for mother and us.

In 1950, when mother was in labor expecting me, she had been brought to the maternity ward of Negombo hospital. Seeing the nurses and attendants scolding the expectant women loudly and in bad language, she had refused to stay there, so they turned back. (I was born at Sandalankawa hospital while they were driving back home to Pannala.) Ironically, mother was now working at the same maternity ward which she had refused to be admitted. Being short tempered by nature, I am sure she scolded the expectant women.

Our home was down a lane which began near a huge mara tree on Colombo Road. A funeral home (actually a coffin shop) was at the turn-off. On the way home, we had to walk past the coffin shop and a workshop which turned out various electroplated items for coffins, such as handles and decorations. The workshop was noisy and dirty. Our home was in the middle of a large garden, with a well and a primitive toilet at the back. As usual, no electricity or water service. Because the well water was brackish, we couldn’t drink it, so a water cart (a bullock cart which had a huge wooden barrel mounted on it) came around every morning. The carter carried two large cans of water (about 5 gallons in each can) and filled kalagediys in the kitchen. Each can of water cost 5 cents.

Maris Stella College was only a 5-minute walk from home, so we came home for lunch. George Wambeck ate at our place. On Fridays, being from a good Catholic home, he would be fasting, but sit with us at the table. I found it odd. I saw Roy and Lloyd also at college, but we rarely met because they were in the Tamil stream.

School was over at 2.30 in the afternoon, and my brother and I would come home, change, and rush out to play. We were in and out of neighbors’ houses. One neighbor had two sons, the older boy was Quintin, and we played football and cricket with them. The large property ours was owned by a teacher and her mother, and we played in their garden. We also gathered to play marbles, for flattened cigarette packets. The brands I recall are Three Roses, Navy Cut, Capstan, and the rarer Ardath and Du Maurier, which were expensive. We traded these packs, 5 Three Roses for one Ardath. We were always on the lookout for empty cigarette packets casually thrown on the roadside.

After playing, we would not go home till Jane began to call “Baba, Baba” loudly, or came looking for us. We would be sweaty and filthy. She would drag us to the well and give us a body wash before taking us into the house.

Father still didn’t have a job. So mother, despite all the work she had (she had night duty, too) was the sole breadwinner. A delivery bicycle still brought groceries from Dionys aiya, mother still stitched our clothes, and she also bought food from the hospital. Under a scheme called the “diet”, hospital employees could buy the food from the kitchen, the same food given to patients. It wasn’t of high quality, but was cheap. Every day, Jane took a large aluminum container to the hospital for the food. We bought bread, sugar, kerosene oil and other sundry needs from a small thatched boutique nearby, on credit. Each day’s purchases were written on a small notebook, and the bill was settled at the end of the month. Every evening, I walked to the boutique to buy a quarter bottle of kerosene oil. At one time, we had a boarder, Weerasinghe, who was a senior student at Maris Stella.

We would sometimes go to the hospital to visit mother at work. On the way back, we had to pass the mortuary, which was located in an isolated area. We didn’t walk but ran past the mortuary. One time, I was ill and had been prescribed a penicillin injection. Mother took the prescription to a friendly nurse, who gave me a quick injection. I thought it was over, but a few minutes later saw her walking towards me with a bigger syringe. (The first one had been to test for penicillin allergy.)  I was so scared that I took off and ran all the way home. Poor mother would have been very embarrassed.

Aunty Bee was pregnant and she came to stay with us when her delivery day was near, not wanting to stay at the maternity ward. One day, when mother was at work, Aunty went into labor. Jane rushed to the hospital and brought mother home, and Jerry Wambeck was born.

1958 was a critical year for Ceylon because the first Sinhala- Tamil riots broke out. A whole day curfew was declared, and it continued for weeks. Negombo did not see any violence (I think), but army trucks patrolled the road, and the soldiers chased us off when we went up to the road to watch.

Mother of Perpetual Succor

Father had a Phillips bicycle. Every Wednesday afternoon, he would cycle to Bolawalana church, with me on the crossbar, to attend the novena for the Mother of Perpetual Succor. The church was packed, so we always stayed under some young coconut palms. The Sinhala hymn “Ma Mauni” was always sung, along with some Latin hymns. I felt a sadness in my father, who prayed and sang with fervor. He must have felt so helpless without a job. I Googled Bolawalana church and came up with the attached photo. We stood under these coconut trees, when they were young, 60 years ago.

Bolawalana church, from Google

The prayers must have worked, because father got a job at Dicklanda West Estate, Badalgama, in 1959. But we kept the house in Negombo. That year was notable because the Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike was assassinated.